#If there was a way to get dnd experience without actually playing I feel like I would have beaten it to death myself

[stardustedknuckles]

Dad just sidled into my room looking shifty and mumble-asked if there were apps to learn how to play dnd without having to play with six strangers etc and I hated to tell him all I had was a player's handbook but also lol he's on episode 29. He started at 24. Pretty quick turnaround time to fall down the slope of wanting to play. He's been coming home and making new skyrim ESO characters to scratch the itch.

#Six year old me is pissed #My parents were fundies who told me dnd was Satan's game #how the turns have tabled #Dad watches VM #If there was a way to get dnd experience without actually playing I feel like I would have beaten it to death myself #I wanted to play so bad and I got so lucky with my group

[the-knight-of-destiny]

Okay, so long long ramble under the cut about the nature of Ratgrinder Discourse™, I'll preface by saying that I don't want any of this to get hostile with anyone, because I think that's frankly silly to do over a webshow. That said I am also open to critical discussion so if anything I say doesn't make sense, or doesn't track I'm open to critique on it! Obviously spoilers up to Episode 19 of Fantasy High Junior Year underneath. Also it is a VERY long post, several pages, so don't click read more if that'll be overwhelming/too much at once. I just had to get my thoughts into words.

So, this will be long but I'll try to break it up. For clarity I want to establish my main point and give a quick TL;DR here, so here's the short version, long version even further below. My main points are as follows: 1: It is okay to not be happy with how a narrative is going in a show/story you enjoy. Critique is not hate, if anything it's a form of praise in a way. People wouldn't be having such long and frequent discourse about D20 and it's current season if they didn't feel strongly. 2: Similarly, we as an audience have a very different perspective of the entire story unfolding compared to the Intrepid Heroes/Cast. I think a lot of people jump to assumptions about the cast's thought process when that really isn't something we can gauge beyond what they say in episode and on Adventuring Party. 3: For me at least, even if I am left unsatisfied by an ending it doesn't ruin the fun I had in a work. Now if you just wanted my bullet point thoughts without elaboration, there they are! The rest of this is going to be an insanely long ramble (seriously, exit now if you aren't up for that, it's pages long) that I don't expect anyone to read, but I like to get my thoughts outta my brain. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, in regards to the Ratgrinders dying in the fashion they have, there's been a lot of discussion on literally every place there is to discuss Dimension 20, Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit, I'm sure other places as well. Really it all comes back to one thing, Dungeons and Dragons is a game, but Dimension 20 is a show. We as viewers have some level of narrative expectation, now for everyone that's different. Some folks have specific hopes for plot and character arcs. Others just want a general vibe, but the cast are players. Sure they are performers, but they are players in a game in equal measure. I've alluded to this before but a lot of the sincere vitriol to antagonists thus far (and especially the Ratgrinders) comes from the fact that the players have been fully immersed in a world and as characters where the Ratgrinders have been a constant thorn in their side for tens of hours of play time. Obviously one can still not like how they've engaged with them (I'm still not sure how exactly I feel about it,) but a lot of it is coming from that distinct perspective. When Fig took Ruben out, she specifically was frustrated because she 'wasted her season' on him. There's a meta level of Fig being angry with Ruben as a character who shares a world with him, versus Emily being frustrated as a player that a lot of her in-game actions did not hash out. That's actually totally natural, by the way. The interesting way that DnD serves both as a narrative of the characters in the setting, but also of the players rolling dice is part of what makes actual play like Dimension 20 so interesting. It's why I think SOME of the disappointment with Brennan and the Intrepid Heroes comes from a strange place, we literally cannot experience the story the same way the cast have. We get a week between chunks of story, they film the episodes in batches. We can think for as long as we want about our critical thoughts, they have to improv on the fly. We get to watch the Ratgrinders as antagonists in a story, the IH are actively hindered in their gameplay by the Ratgrinders as enemies.

That said I would be lying if I said I wasn't worried about some aspects of Protagonist Centric Morality™ in this. Oisin having a mildly flirty conversation with Adaine once when he had ulterior motives is a deeply awful manipulation, but Fig catfishing Ruben the better part of an entire year is her trying to reach out and understand him (?). Kipperlilly threatening to desecrate Eugenia's grave is deeply fucked up, but Riz openly advocating mutilating Oisin's body for tactical reasons, and Fabian loudly declaring he intends to do the same to Ivy for literally just his own self-satisfaction are 'fun unhinged moments'.

Before I go on, obviously the Ratgrinders are the bad guys. They're taking part in an evil plan, they've done villainous things throughout the season, especially very recently, etc. This isn't some argument that the Bad Kids are secretly the real monsters or something, obviously not. I just think it's odd that people read into the Bad Kids' actions in the best possible light at all times and the inverse for the Ratgrinders. This protagonist centric morality also comes down to the true reason behind any and all of Fantasy High's villain redemption. Ragh gets redeemed because the player characters think he's possibly useful and/or endearing. Aelwyn gets redeemed because she personally helps Adaine. The only one that Brennan really pushed forward on his own was Zayn, who they barely engaged with. People compare the Ratgrinders to Penelope and Dayne a lot, and understandably so. However I think this is sort of the complication and in my opinion, the silver bullet to understanding what's actually happening with the Ratgrinder's narrative place, Dayne more specifically. He does very little evil on screen. I mean, he injures Fabian and is most likely the one who killed Zayn, but comparatively to Aelwyn, he does almost nothing. He gets killed without so much as a thought, and in a fun (?) parallel to current Ratgrinder discourse, does actually have his body desecrated after death by Fabian. Because he hurt Fabian personally. Aelwyn gets forgiven of doing a lot of terrible shit (and this isn't Aelwyn hate, she's like my favorite NPC.) because it didn't directly affect any of the Bad Kids besides Adaine, and even the bad stuff that did affect Adaine can be sort of off-loaded onto their parents. So it's why I say this discourse is tough, people inevitably say "Well, the Ratgrinders are villains, of course they'll get killed." And this isn't inherently a wrong statement, they look at the bad things the group is doing and understand they must be stopped, why are people upset clearly bad guys get beat and/or killed in DnD games? Because they aren't actually getting killed in such brutal ways because they're bad guys, it's because they personally annoyed or hurt the Bad Kids. This is also why Ratgrinder fans often feel both frustrated and vindicated at once (I speculate, but I feel it's a safe assumption,) because on a meta level Kipperlilly is literally right. Her friends and likely herself are getting ripped to shreds because they crossed the special protagonists, because they started to really frustrate the Intrepid Heroes. The Bad Kids have forgiven atrocities before, but the Intrepid Heroes are really quick to dismiss and kill people they find annoying.

The ultimate example I feel of this, is Mary Ann. Ruben gets blasted into hell because his actions personally annoyed the players, Ivy gets stabbed to death while being repeatedly insulted and threatened with mutilation because her actions personally annoyed the players.

But Mary Ann is the one they all think they can redeem or save, because her personality is more cute and endearing to the players. That kind of says it all better than I ever could.

#fhjy #fantasy high #dimension 20 #rat grinders #ratgrinder discourse #gosh this is super fucking long and i apologize if it floods any of your dashes #i just have a lot of thoughts on the difference between players and characters in dnd actual play #look i am ok with the rat grinders dying and i love the bad kids and intrepid heroes #but i think a lot of people don't engage with the critique in a fair light #there is a clear dissonance of when the players feel the need to off an antagonist vs how evil the antagonist actually is #and it's mostly fueled by just how annoying they as players happen to find that specific antagonist #also brennan is doing his best to make the ratgrinders somewhat complex imo but is also pitching the intrepid heroes softballs #he doesn't want to make his friends feel bad as players for doing things they find fun in a game #so he's not going to push back too hard even if it might make sense for him to do so

[capillaryspice]

Unpopular opinion rant incoming:

I did not enjoy Baldurs Gate 3

Before anything else I will admit I am biased, as strategy turn based games aren't something I'm usually into to begin with. I mostly ended up playing it because my partners and a friend are SUPER into the game and wanted to do a 4 player run. I do have 30 hours on a solo run I tried to get used to the game with, so I have a decent bit of experience with how it's supposed to run as a single player but I'm not judging companion stories or anything because I haven't completed them.

I do understand why people like BG3, and I don't wanna rain on anyone's parade for a very critically acclaimed game, but I do have some thoughts that I just need to get out of my head, so if you like the game and don't wanna hear me complain about it just scroll on ahead. If you do want to hear me complain, I'd love to hear if anyone else has had the same thoughts, because genuinely I've not really had anyone to talk to that hasn't been head-over-heels for it. (Actual thoughts under the cut)

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With that out of the way, for starters BG3 is a very impressive game. From a technical perspective, from a voice acting quality perspective, the sheer amount of tiny tiny details, etc... it is IMPRESSIVE. Too impressive, I'd almost have to say. Because, despite being impressed by it, I did not have FUN playing the game. For all its details it doesn't draw me in. For all the technical marvel, it's just too janky. It's all of the rules of DND and none of the immersion or fun

I would love to have had a functioning camera position that didn't give me whiplash whenever a new character in the combat of 20+ NPCs decides to do so much as shuffle to the left. It feels like pulling teeth when trying to select/interact with anything, god forbid a reaction happens while you're trying to attack and you just completely lose the action bc the interruption to movement pauses everything and screws u up. I'd love to be able to jump without going through two menu screens and a map to just hop over a gap(I'm never complaining about the Dark Souls jump being too complicated ever again). Also everything moves so slow, I would kill for a fucking Sprint button.

I would have liked anything approaching a streamlined combat system that didn't take a long ass time to set up a move that takes six seconds to play out, and then wait for ten minutes literally doing nothing while the rest of the NPCs in initiative whip the viewpoint around and get it stuck in walls and corpses so I can't even see what's happening while I can't do anything for the rest of the round

A lesser gripe, but just a bizarre choice to not do: Id like to hear the character voice I chose in character creation for cutscenes, instead of just background ambient lines. Like, if the last dragon age game (from 2014 mind you) can have a voiced main character with multiple voice options, this new game that has unique voice lines for every goddamn squirrel on the map and ALREADY PAID VOICE ACTORS TO VOICE THE MAIN CHARACTER TO BEGIN WITH can probably afford to do so. Hell, I'd like some background music that isn't just the tenth rendition of Down By The River in a different key. The bard music is all gorgeous, why couldn't they have reused some of those compositions as ambient music for different locations?

This is a MASSIVE game, and what they've put into it is definitely admirable, but like. Not in the ways that make a game breathable or immersive? The choices in where they've decided to dedicate the anal level of detail seems misguided from a just general player standpoint; There's some gorgeous settings in the game, but I was distracted every time by getting frustrated that I couldn't even get a more-than-vague look at any of the scenery I actually enjoyed because the camera is so limited in its angles. So I can't take a good look around what should be a beautiful temple that I'd love to see closer, but I can individually inspect every moldy apple and tax form on a random dinner table instead. It's a vast open world, but the character models have very clearly defined paths they have to stay within. The amount of unique NPCs is insane, but the mechanics themselves TREAT them as NPCs(i.e., resurrection rules), and they don't react to PCs unless ur doing Violence or Crimes (even og skyrim had NPCs have comments on if u weren't like wearing clothes, for instance). Every shelf and bag and nook and cranny are searchable, but that gets overwhelming very quickly as you have to choose between taking like an hour of real time to clear a cluttered area and possibly find something important but more likely just end up with a bajillion rotten carrots, or move on but have the anxiety of knowing you've possibly missed something vital. There's a million options you can take at any moment with any object or character, but there's rarely anything indicating what will be vital later for general world stuff. But then with the main plot (the Emperor, Raphael, the crèche) it felt very railroaded in the sense that TECHNICALLY you could try and choose between outcomes, but your choices don't actually matter because you die if you choose The Wrong Option (or end up in effectively death sentence combat) and will end up where they want you to go regardless.

BG3 isn't a game I want to spend time playing; it's not a world I can wander around and appreciate the beauty of and get lost in the soundtrack or the environments. The whole combat system is incredibly frustrating to manage, and just feels like Hurry Up And Wait. I'm not gonna knock the romance parts of the game, I've heard good things and haven't gotten far enough in any of em to have an educated opinion on, so really the only thing the game has to offer in spades OTHER than romance is replayability. Which normally I would say is a good thing, but for how long of a game it is and how non immersive the gameplay and world feel, it really just ends up being a game of fucking around and seeing how many things you can get an alternate dialogue for or create new stats around. Like, this is great for completionist folks who love collecting achievements and making the most busted crunchy math-based builds possible, but Baldurs Gate 3 to me just isn't a game I can sit down and have Fun(TM) relaxing and playing.

It's a game that I feel absolutely missed the forest for the trees.

So anyways, essay complete. I've only slept like 6 hours total in the last three days so a lot of this may or may not even make sense. But on so much sleep deprivation finishing this game and realizing I was just frustrated with it instead of actually feeling accomplished for having finished it, it was the final straw and I just needed to get the thoughts down somewhere

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk

#it's 6am I still haven't slept (thanks work and insomnia) and I may delete this tomorrow #I'm probably being unreasonable with my frustrations but they have frustrated me nonetheless #and it's my blog so no one can stop me from going on a silly little videogame rant #anyway thanks for listening yall

[astraltadpole]

Oblodra remnant: Tav x Emp origin fic idea

House Oblodra origin https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/House_Oblodra

Your Tav could be a drow or half-drow originally from House Oblodra, most likely a lesser-connected noble, retainer, or slave. House Oblodra is an extinct drow house that was known for its strange experiments in psionic powers and disturbing links to illithids. Approximately 130 years before the start of BG3, House Oblodra launched a coup against the other ruling houses in Menzoberranzan, the drow capital. Because weave-based magic was unreliable then, during the "Time of Troubles," House Oblodra's terrifying psionic powers left them nearly unopposed in their conquest. Lolth herself intervened to destroy Oblodra and their unnatural ways.

YOUR TAV could be a survivor of this incident, either a shock trooper (psi warrior), assassin (soulknife assassin), or perhaps a noble or noble bastard that was able to escape. How do they feel about what happened? Where did they go when they escaped?

Did they stay in the Underdark, or did they flee to the surface, and what have they been doing for the last 130 years? Did they stay connected to their psionic powers, or did they cut themselves off from it? Did they turn to other gods, or turn away from them at all? Did they try to seek out a mind flayer colony? What do they think of illithids? Bonus: What do you want to do with the in-game example of a last survivor of House Oblodra, Araj Oblodra, aka the creepy blood lady at Moonrise Towers? (Did you figure out that she wants True Soul blood for weird, illithid purposes?)

For Lae'zel: this kind of Tav and Lae'zel may actually have very similar backgrounds on how they were raised. What does Tav think of her, and how do they get along? Is Tav naturally wary of Lae'zel while wanting to be her friend? Tav has a lot to lose in this situation because even before the tadpole they were already "ghaik trash."

And, how do they react to Omeluum and the Emperor? Is a friendly illithid all they wanted, or are they more paranoid than usual? Do they commune with the astral tadpole? What do they think about all this?

Vibe ideas: Think of the post-order 66 jedi children who ran away to escape destruction, and how they attempted to blend into society and hide their powers. Some of them cut themselves off from the Force. Did you know that the psionics in dnd were influenced by Star Wars, and the "Psi Warrior" class takes direct inspiration from Darth Vader? Don't you love how nerd ideas all flow together? Or, for a love letter back to Stranger Things, which loves dnd itself, why not play with a character who could have been like Eleven?

You see it now, don't you, the fic potential for this background? Isn't this fun??

Don't worry about trying to figure out how psionics work in dnd if you don't want to mess with that. Have them class into something else, or give them a few BG3 illithid powers activated at the start. For fun, you could have the "Telepathic" feat from dnd, which is not in the game, but it allows a character to cast a free slot of Detect Thoughts without anyone knowing they did that, and they can constantly speak in the minds of others they can see within 60ft.

Anyway, have fun with that if you want it. I always enjoy making custom characters in RPGs with backgrounds that connect to the most drama when I go in to write a fic. This is the background I've chosen for my Emp-romancing Tav-- a misfit half-drow/wood-elf with murky illithid connections who was a psi warrior back in the day. He escaped to the surface and fell into the life of an adventurer, a Swords Bard who became a follower of Eilistraee. A bombastic and loving party animal whose mind-reading powers have made him very understanding of other people's bullshit, and very suited to solving all these weirdos' personal problems.

Like all good ideas, I find they are best when shared, and there are infinite permutations to how they can play out. So I lovingly offer this up for you, to see what you do with it, just as people all have a different Durge. I hope you consider this and feel free to ping me if you do. Go have fun out there.

Here's your lore link again:

#tav x emperor #bg3 the emperor #the emperor bg3 #the emperor #the emperor week #oblodra oc

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 7/11/23, timezone change edition

the last time i wrote one of these things, i was not quite fully packed up in ma. now, i am technically temporarily homeless in houston, bc the apartment i originally signed on was completely unlivable. crashing in an acquaintance's guest room for a bit while i have a very bad time with apartment hunting round 2

i have lived in south florida, staten island, and various shithole student housing. i understand seasonal bugs in hot places and things such as different kinds of roaches and palmetto bugs. when i say that apartment had the worst roach infestation i've ever seen i fucking mean it. in theory i will get my full deposits back, but they're taking their sweet fucking time about it.

but having that full yes-i-know-about-seasonal-roaches conversation with new acquaintances and leasing agents takes too long so i've resorted to saying it had a horrific bedbug problem, which everyone seems to go Oh Okay Yeah Reasonable For You To Leave much more quickly.

listening

a lot of early aughts dance pop standards, to chase away the agonies as i drive to and from apartments only to get ghosted, find they were rented a week ago, or find that they look absolutely nothing like the pictures. i was really torn on which britney song to pick for this week until my sister sent me Twin Flame by Maude Latour, which i can only describe as "douchebag get the girl back song but for lesbians". spotify

also how do we like the "featured link from bandcamp or soundcloud with additional spotify link" format? in an ideal world i would buy all my music directly from the artists but realistically i use spotify 90% of the time. i don't know what your life is like, tell me if this is helpful or not.

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reading

my best friend made sad faces at me until i read The Flatshare by Beth O'Leary, and it was a little nice to see someone else's dire housing situation get resolved neatly and with thematic consistence in several hundred pages. it was also nice to text her snippets with "WHAT?????" every so often. this is a reading experience i don't have very often bc our current reading tastes don't overlap even a little bit.

i don't have much to say about it bc i didn't have particularly strong feelings and don't really read mainstream straight romance, so i can't point out what this did differently or well compared to its peers. if nothing else, it was a fluffy bit of distraction, and i think that's kind of the point?

(image from Tor) also read Saad Z. Hossein's Kundo Wakes Up novella in a waffle house while eating some of the best scrambled eggs i've ever had in my life.

this novella was the closest thing i've ever read to "aging English professor has an affair" without actually containing any of those elements. generally i enjoy his work, but this was sort of a way to check up and tie off many characters from previous works with a sort of light frosting of "my wife left me and i don't know why [ rot13:v pna znxr fbzr thrffrf ohg gurer vf ab zbzrag bs frys-ernyvmngvba, bapr ur svaqf uvf jvsr ur whfg perrcf ba ure sebz nsne naq nsgre qrgrezvavat fur'f abg jvgu nalbar arj znxrf gur gerzraqbhf fnpevsvpvny qrpvfvba gb yrnir ure nybar op fur'f zhpu unccvre jvgubhg uvz. gurer vf ab zbzrag bs frys-ernyvmngvba nobhg jul fur zvtug unir yrsg uvz. xhaqb arire trgf bhg bs uvf bja shpxvat urnq bapr.]"

while The Gurkha and the Lord of Thursday novella (TREMENDOUS) and Cyber Mage book (fun but with some dire pacing issues) are fairly standalone, i cannot imagine you'd get much out of Kundo Wakes Up if you haven't read the other two. for some reason none of the libraries i have access to have his other book Djinn City, so we'll have to procure that elsewhere.

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watching

the dnd movie, the day after i broke my lease on the roach apartment. i don't remember a ton about this movie. do generally like a heist. michelle rodriguez was hot

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playing

genshin. listen. it is a free and familiar way to turn my brain off by doing open world exploration and puzzles but CRUCIALLY! most of it is completely new to me. i have not played this game in a year and a half. i have not played this game since right before enkanomiya. there was no chasm. there was no Sumeru. i have absolutely no idea what’s happening lore-wise.

i pulled for the fancy ice claymore lady and got a catboy archer (at least i think it is a catboy? the ears do give a pharaoh hound vibe... he is distinct from the extant dogboy archer). not terrible but not my vibe.

i have been enjoying the shit out of the temporary summer event carnival space. they really did pull out several stops by introducing a ton of genuinely interesting and innovating little new mechanics and mini games. delightful!

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making

altering the worst shorts ive ever seeeeeeeeen with a demure little two-inch side slit on both legs bc my thighs simply will not quit. mens shorts are so much better than womens shorts in nearly every way except for the catastrophic physical fit issues.

when i got ghosted by two different apartments on saturday i bought myself a spoon ring so chunky it makes my other chunky rings look positively delicate by comparison. not very comfy to drive in but fine to wear while tippy tappying on the spreadsheets

a girl i saw for one singular awful date in 2016 called my hands "coarse but honest" and i think about that every time my hands are in a photo. what did that even fucking MEAN, [REDACTED]?

#tuesday again #tuesday again no problem

[equalseleventhirds]

Hey, do you have any recs for long form, more serious ttrpg systems for fantasy settings? I feel like I hear a lot about short/definitively-lengthed systems, but I've been yearning for a DnD-esque system without all the baggage of equip loads and complicated Challenge Ratings and other rules-y baggage I don't super care about.

do i! do i ever!

serious & long-form systems do on the whole tend to be crunchier than shorter systems (not always, but generally); nevertheless, i've picked out a........ handful......... ok there's Several, i did try to control and limit myself but u kno.......... games......... anyway, here are some that are considerably less crunchy than d&d but still lend themselves to long fantasy campaigns.

uh. under the cut for. oh god it's so long. it's so long. tried my best to explain them, u see. (which is also why it took me so long to reply lol, sry abt that)

godeater (& godeater 2.0): play in a broken, post-apocalyptic fantasy world, where dead and dying gods warp the land, and you raid their bodies for divine magic to help support humanity. 2d10-based, get weird & funky with it! i admit a small preference for version 1.0, which gave u some loose examples but left much of the worldbuilding and even character building up to u to create; 2.0 has some extra books that go with it that i haven't much looked into yet, but seem to give more solid lore to work with, if u would like that.

when the guilds pay in copper, crime pays in gold: alchemical guilds pay shit wages to use people for magical experiments. go do crimes on 'em with your own magic. d6 base, assign dice to stats to make ur own dice pool; fairly light rules and in fact very little in the way of instruction or hard lore on the gm's side, so better played with an experienced gm who's good at making their own stuff, but certainly campaign material for the right gm!

third empire - violence + beauty: the world sucks, and has sucked for a while, through two oppressive empires and into a third one. you play adventurers who are trying to carve out a little goodness, a little justice, a little vengeance, in the world. y'know. lasers & feelings based, but expanded beyond the original (which also comes with it if u get it!) into more lore, more character choices, very collaborative worldbuilding, downtime mechanics, etc etc.

ruby radiance 6e: streamlined dungeoneering built to let ppl play the way actual play podcasts sound, essentially. d20 pool system, based on trophy mechanics but v much adjusted. lots of choices to make during character creation & leveling, but much much less to keep track of during the playing part. u get it.

wizard pals: all of you are wizards, going on adventures and trying to accomplish your goals in a fantasy world. d12-based, fairly lighthearted (can lean silly but u could use it for more serious if not super grimdark adventures), much worldbuilding left up to the gm, but very simple rules, so.

grimblade rpg: (speaking of grim lol,) action & adventure in a grim fantasy world; things like character creation and rewards (and magic) fully imply a fantasy world, but worldbuilding is left up to the gm, altho there are many tables to roll on to give some help. uses d4, 6, 8, and 10; all rolls are contested rolls, with dice picked based on how serious the gm feels this roll is.

shattered aether: post-apocalyptic science fantasy, you roam around a fucked up magic world and protect ppl from various dangers. 2d6 based, based on the lumen system so fairly combat-forward in a very high-action very cool asskicking way. for some reason the font chosen for this book is murder on my eyes, but if u can get past that (or just zoom in lots and read a bit at a time) it's straightforward, simple, and fun!

familiars of terra: this one may be a little too crunchy, but i love it a lot and rly the most crunch is in character creation and tracking experience, actual gameplay is (imo) pretty easy. post-post-apocalyptic fantasy world, some science fantasy elements depending on where you choose to focus, bcos there are absolute PAGES of lore on this extremely cool and enormous world; you and your party go around with your soul-bonded animal friends to spread hope and healing and also do cool shit. y'know. card-based, again it is probably more crunchy than ur looking for but less abt tracking what you can do during things and more abt tracking experience in order to level up stats, so.

1400 quest: ok that last one was crunchy, this one's very uncrunchy. pick a handful of things and get going! clearly inspired by d&d, but very very streamlined, so things that were pages of mechanics are like, one or two sentences. gm's side of it is like, a handful of rollable tables and then do whatever, so prolly for the more experienced gm. d6 based, but you may have occasion to use other dice. also if you like this one there's others by the same author focusing on other things (1400 mage, sneak, etc), or you can check out others in the 24XX type of games, which started out sci fi but has since been expanded to a bunch of other stuff. u kno.

beast dream: pokemon-inspired game where you make friends with magical beasts and go on magical adventures! d6-based, forged in the dark, so there is a little crunch wrt deciding on position etc and stuff like stress, but the author rly wanted to focus in on letting u adventure and have fun without getting bogged down in numbers and i think that shows, stuff like load and reputation aren't so much a thing.

cognatons: play as sentient, magic-filled automatons doing whatever fantasy adventures your robot heart desires. d4-based, caltrop core, so you get a fairly simple & defined set of actions; less to keep track of, easy to follow.

dethrone the divine: you're gonna overthrow the gods, and also take their places. you're already either divine, semi-divine, or magically powerful in other ways, and you adventure with the goal of gathering power and followers so you can take the place of the shitty gods in power. d6-based, pretty straightforward system, makes characters v cool and powerful, which is always fun.

perilous: do you love dungeon crawls bcos i love dungeon crawls... streamlined and easy to understand fantasy dungeoneer adventures in this one! d20-based, leans towards tags instead of complicated numerical skill stuff to keep track of. go to dungeons, fight monsters, get treasure. simple n good. (adds in some metaplot, like who sent you, how will this affect the people living here, whatever, but rly strong with the very old core of d&d-style 'go do a dungeon' kinda thing, if that's what u like.)

high magic lowlives: ok my latest obsession bcos i'm currently planning a big ol campaign for friends in this one. there are classic adventurers in this world, out there cleaning out monster nests or whatever, but they're usually in the employ of the immortal aristocracy. you? you make your money by stealing from and humiliating the immortal aristocracy, because you're a lowlife. it's a dangerous gig, but isn't it better than going into student debt at wizard school? melds high fantasy aesthetics with like, magical twitch streaming aesthetics. fun as hell. uses all the dice and also sometimes tarot cards (mostly just for character creation, u kno). easy to understand rules, i'm having a great time.

ellipses rpg: setting-agnostic system (make ur own setting!) with simple, streamlined rules and an emphasis on improvisation. d20 based, rly just some very basic foundation and then a lot of encouragement to make things up and do what's fun. so like, loosey goosey & not super structured if you want structure, but could be fun!

unbound: setting-agnostic system but with much more formal structure, got structure around how to collaboratively worldbuild your setting and everything. obvs this means some crunch, but it's still not super crunchy, nice and straightforward rly. lotta character options but not so complex and math-heavy, u kno. card-based system. designed actually for a series of short campaigns in a linked world, tho, so if ur not up for exploring new characters a lot, may not be for you.

#algie talks ttrpgs #i have HUNDREDS of games u don't UNDERSTAND #tried to limit myself. took off some rly more urban fantasy or cyberpunk fantasy or noir fantasy or horror-focused. #took off some more crunchy ones tried to stay with the less crunchy............. #even the ones i took off are STILL not as full of useless-ass rules than d&d but i tried to go for ones with much less to keep track of #took off some ones that are perhaps not as easy for someone moving from d&d eg. gmless ones non-combat ones rly meta ones etc #and still it's like. sixteen here??? which obvs u cannot play all of them lmao #but anyway here u go i hope this helps!! i lov games #long post #just in case the readmore fucks up bcos it's moved itself like three times since i started drafting this

[bijoumikhawal]

Thoughts on ds9 main cast as DnD classes

Sisko: Is it possible to be a warlock without being the initiating party? Actually scratch that, depending on how you interpret the whole thing with his mother and the prophets, he could be a sorcerer. I don't think he's a paladin because to me the defining feature of a paladin is the oath; Sisko is initally reluctant to being the Emissary and even tries to hand off the responsibility to someone else, partially out of genuine belief they might be better suited to the job. The fact that sorcerers don't chose their power is a defining characteristic, and not all sorcerers are from a bloodline. Some have a somewhat random awakening, like Sisko’s entering the wormhole. They don't learn new magic from books; they discover new abilities through the course of life, which reminds me of the episode with his visions.

Kira: Paladin. She becomes the person she is by dedicating herself to a cause wholly and completely, she never strays from it, and she's still devoted to it to this day, to the point where she gets chosen as a vessel for the prophets during the show down that wasn't. Alternatively: you could argue monk, and say her cloister was her terrorist cell, but I don't know it's as strong as the argument for paladin. That said, I am biased.

Dax: I struggled with her, not gonna lie. I feel like her massive jock energy is a known quantity, but she's also the science officer and clearly does a lot of research. I feel like you could most safely argue warlock- like I said for Sisko, sorcerers don't choose their path, and while joining could be similar to the outside influences in sorcerers, the process itself is a choice and ultimately similar to the mutually beneficial pacts warlocks carry out.

O'Brien: his face is next to the entry for "artificer". But if we were sticking to the core classes, I think his vibe is pretty close to those posts about Wizards as IT support technicians. You don't have to be a special guy to be a wizard, you just learn your trade.

Bashir: Sorcerer, but in a hypothetical DnD AU, not the usual way where your grandmother was a dragon fucker. More of in a horrible experiment way. However, he either intentionally multiclasses or pretends to be something else, and I think that's a ranger. From DnD beyond's single sentence summary: "(A ranger is) a warrior who combats threats on the edges of civilization". Now, the stuff in the rulebook isn't necessarily the best or only conceptualization of what a class is, but Julian does have that infamous line from the pilot. From a character analysis standpoint (though not an game mechanics one) you could argue disease is a favored enemy.

Worf: He's definitely a martial heavy class, not a primarily casting class. He doesn't fit as a barbarian at all, I don't think he's got a particular devotion that makes an oath for a paladin, and I don't believe he has a spiritual element to his character found with monks (admitting of course, that I'm not familiar with TNG). He does have the solitary style rangers are associated with in ds9, but not the nature association. You could argue that by serving in Starfleet, he, like Julian, is protecting a civilization from the outskirts as someone politically involved in the Klingon Empire. And even draw in his decision to live on the Defiant into this. You could also say he's a straightforward fighter.

Odo: I think you could make an argument for Odo as a paladin- his commitment to his idea of justice and fairness is very oath like, but I also find the read of paladins as cops kind of boring and not getting at the meat of what a paladin is. You could argue druid because of the shapeshifting and the idea of balance found in the class vs his idea of justice, but I feel like overall changelings focus more on a mastery over nature than being an extension of it, and that's pretty antithetical to druids when played as standard.

Quark: I do not think he is a rogue. To be fair, we see his failed schemes because those are the interesting ones, but Quark stans to my understanding like his middle aged fail babygirl vibe. I'm not sure what else he would be though... he's a decent negotiator and a good people person, so a high charisma class. That leads me towards bard, though Quark isn't much of an artist or speech maker.

Garak: hot take! Hot take alert from the known clown! Rogue/Paladin multiclass. Rogue is obvious- its a favorite for spy type characters. However- the third episode Garak is in, we learn about his sheer devotion to Cardassia, and how he classifies it as love. Paladins aren't the way they are because of religion (though that's often a big element), it's because of devotion. And that devotion can be deeply destructive. Plus- tell me, upon thinking about it, that afterimage isn't an oathbreaker level breakdown.

#cipher talk #ds9

[gonuclear]

i’m so mad i could bite the bark off a tree so humor me in my ranting. 

i saw this tiktok and while agreeing with it, almost just scrolled past it. but i decided to take a look at the comments to see if anyone agreed with my long held sentiment, and boy was that comment section like taking hit after hit of psychic damage. because everyone in there was right. the one that stood out to me the most was one of the first comments on the video: “they only like us in captivity, not in the wild.” 

especially on tiktok there is this massive trend of characters becoming trends, of people cherry picking aspects of said character in order to make them more palatable to the masses. i can’t speak on wednesday because i haven’t seen it, so i’ll be using the other most recent example of eddie from stranger things. (also seeing as he was one of the characters mentioned in the original video.) yes, i will admit i am not immune to my enjoyment of a character being influenced by their popularity. this works both ways; my enjoyment may increase or decrease depending on the content i see and how i feel about the character (you see someone enough and you kinda get tired of them, y’know?). but what happens, primarily on tiktok, is something so much worse than a character just becoming popular. 

it’s a wash of (typically) neurotypical, able bodied women (though men are not excluded from this) who don these characters they “love” as a costume without ever acknowledging why these characters actually behave the way they do. they venerate and romanticize traits that they’ll turn around and bully neurodivergent kids, teens, and adults for because to them it’s just a character. that’s not how people really act. 

they make behaviors and actions that are overtly, or sometimes even stereotypically, neurodivergent into a trend and for what? what’s the fucking point? what’s the point if when someone who is actually neurodivergent says they relate to a character because of that fact and all they get is told no? there’s such an obsession among neurotypical people and mainstream media with having a token “weirdo” and i can damn fucking near tell you with absolute certainty that whatever character it is will be noticeably neurodivergent to anyone who is neurodivergent as well. 

it seems like the fucking second anyone who’s neurodivergent claims a character as one of their own neurotypicals who act like they’re the final authority on characters vehemently tell them that they’re wrong. thank god i and many other neurodivergent folks have found circles in which this is accepted, and oftentimes a common occurrence, because our experience of fandom would be so much worse without it. 

the weirdos are made for us. characters like eddie are made for the kids who played dnd, who listened to music they said belonged to the devil, who never fit in and never really wanted to. do you know how gratifying it is to see a character that’s just as loud and dramatic as you are on tv when you’ve been made fun of for the same thing your whole life? how it feels to see them be loved and appreciated and valued by their friends? the hope it gives you to see them be included, and never pushed away or ignored? 

there is a camaraderie built between these types of characters and their fans. a kinship, a bond formed when you look at a character and think “hey, they’re just like me”. but something in that bond is damaged when the kinds of people who would make fun of you, or make fun of the character should they exist in real life, try to change the narrative and say that character belongs to only them. they use the characters’ actions as trends then when neurodivergent people act that way in real life they’re recorded in public or have their videos reposted with captions making fun of them for just being themselves. i’m not saying you can’t enjoy a character, but at a certain point you have to realize that sometimes you’re not the target audience, and when the target audience speaks up you damn well better listen. 

#arsene speaks #vent #rant #wednesday netflix #stranger things #eddie munson #wednesday addams #actuallyautistic #actually adhd #neurodiversity #neurodivergent #ableism #ableism tw

[shadowshrike]

Early morning thoughts because I can't sleep (apologies if they're a mess):

Setting aside the obvious boost that comes from being a classically attractive wicked vampire elf with a beautiful voice, tragic backstory that is executed in a very real way, and entertaining manner of speech, I believe one of the reasons Astarion's stories get such a strong reaction from so many people is because his narrative has several distinct threads beyond the obvious. Each possible path presents different problems and perks with satisfying but contradictory conclusions - a brilliant trick of CYOA writing - and that dissonance is part of what causes so much fandom fighting. We each value different things based on our life experiences or just what we enjoy in a story. It inspires visceral reactions from the player.

Value honesty in your friends, your own safety, and consent above all else? He's probably not going to spend long in your camp without a stake in him.

Value bodily autonomy, absolute freedom of choice, and the ability to speak freely without fear of repercussion? Ascension might make the most sense for you.

Value the emotional healing process, the hope of becoming a better person, and learning to accept and move on from a crappy life rather than doing 'whatever it takes' to get what you deserve? Him staying a spawn is likely the most satisfying choice.

Of course, we all exist on a sliding scale of values, especially when playing with fiction. People who value honesty or consent highly may let him stick around because they hope he can learn to be better. Someone who values absolute bodily autonomy and confident speech may choose to have him remain a spawn because they believe with time and some DnD magic to cure vampirism, he can reclaim those things eventually a healthier way. People who believe in the emotional healing process and becoming a better person might even go for ascension because they believe his ability to walk in the sun and speak his mind bluntly are essential for him to heal rather than be dependent on others in the long run.

This sliding scale is also part of why people fight. Throwing him out or killing him for attacking or biting you is seen as an overreaction from someone who has a higher tolerance for boundary pushing. Ascending him is equated with irrevocably dooming him for those who want to change his view of the world (and himself) for the better and believe ascension will inevitably lead to abuse of his paramour and whatever spawn he creates. And keeping him as a spawn can feel to some like you're like taking away his freedom so completely by refusing what he wants and forcing him back into shadow that you've trapped him in a new, 'nicer' but similarly insidious cycle of abuse with a "savior" figure that he isn't emotionally mature enough to recognize as controlling his life.

It's all very relative, and that's what makes it fun. Players reacting to Astarion's approvals/disapprovals, following a romance vs non-romance narrative, knowledge of 5e lore, and having a strong versus weak relationship with him can all drastically change the experience of his story. And with open endings, it's easy to tidy up any values that might be important to us but underrepresented in Astarion's fate. I think that's actually a huge strength to his story: we don't know if he gets better or worse when he survives to the end and you make that Good or Evil choice. We can guess based on contextual clues, our biases, and in-game lore. But ultimately, you get to choose for yourself whatever future you like best, even if that's him leaving the party.

So for those who can stomach all the paths and enjoy a bit of literary exploration of competing narratives, I highly recommend you try all the different options for Astarion (and the other companions, but especially him) rather than sticking with one. You'll need unique playthroughs for context, but it's so worth it. The writing and acting have phenomenal breadth with tons of subtle shifts that can happen depending on what you choose.

Just please don't harass your fellow players or Larian employees about whatever preferences you have in the end, okay?

#astarion #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #this isnt really an analysis or essay #random thoughts

[thrumugnyr]

WAIT ITS BEEN THAT LONG IN THE CAMPAIGN??

Patataj and Rahadin have been dating for 1.5 years??? O.O

Idk why am I surprised knowing how time can be in DnD lol but the fact its been a while gives me hope things won't end too bad for them babsba

Altho it's cute Rahadin showed up to support his boyfriend I'm kinda suspicious of his answer GAH

OMG, I should have clarified this better: we have been playing this campaign for 1.5 years - the time passed for Patataj is only about 2 months and that's about the time that they're dating, or, well, know each other at least.

Let me tell you chronologically how he ended up in a relationship with Rahadin (this is LONG and has spoilers for CoS so beware):

Rahadin was the first person Patataj met after he woke up in Barovia (he got dragged in through a dream by, as we would later learn, the Abbot, who was looking for sun god support in his endeavor to fix the curse (of Strahd) and accidentally grabbed Patataj over Senna).

Rahadin was there to check out the newcomers mostly (and because my GM was scared of combat balance haha) and they went through the death house experience together. For Rahadin this meant nothing much, but for Patataj that's an intense bonding experience (also they were holding hands for most of it, as Patataj was the only one without darkvision).

After they made it out of the death house, Rahadin disappeared, but Patataj took up the sending spell on his level up a few days later and thus was able to send Rahadin little messages. That's how he was able to secure a meeting with him as well. That meeting went rather poorly, but he managed to not get killed. You must also know that by this time, Rahadin just seemed like a sulky, shy dusk elf to Patataj. Someone who would be funny to make flustered and drag out of their shell a little. Not much else. He hasn't really seen him do damage or anything.

He does start to ask random people he meets about Rahadin though and then slowly realized that, well, he does not seem to be a terribly well liked guy. Kasimir (the leader of the few surviving dusk elves) tells him to stay away from him, but Patataj doesn't quite know why, because he gets along quite well with him.

So after a few days (and after the party killed the Aboleth in the lake) he asks Rahadin for a second date to make up for the first one and to his surprise, Rahadin agreed.

They have like a romantic little boat ride and Rahadin even brings a scroll for Pataj so he can walk on water (because he mentioned missing being able to run in the open desert and the lake is...pretty big and the next best option). Of course Patataj goes for a run but in the end he can't just let Rahadin sit all alone in the boat so he offers him a ride.

And that's how this picture happened ahaha. YES, IT WAS ACTUALLY A THING not a dream or anything - I know!! Wild!

Centaurs don't just offer someone to sit on them willy-nilly (if at all), so in the end Patataj confesses to Rahadin that he caught feelings. He's a bard after all and centaur hearts beat fast.

Of course for Rahadin it's way too soon to reciprocate such feelings the same way (I mean, they knew each other for....two weeks at this point, maybe one? And he's like 500 years old. Them centaur hearts be moving in hyperspeed to him). But he still admits a certain fondness and they actually do kiss when Patataj asks for one.

Some time passes, Patataj keeps sending those sending messages and they interact like that every day. Just small things, as sendings have a limit of 25 words ahaha.

Eventually, Strahd invites the party for dinner, as he does. Everyone is low key terrified, but Patataj is excited to meet Rahadin again....and it goes well. Our warlock pisses Strahd off majorly because he continuously keeps the appearance of the girl Strahd is into, but Patataj is having a great time, even winning a bard-off against Escher.

Patataj ends up spending some of the night with Strahd, ending in him offering Strahd his blood (and I do not think he was even charmed. We're all still confused as well. Strahd just was very good with words and made Patataj feel sad for him okay?). Rahadin ends up taking care of Patataj for the rest of the night and it all gets very emotional, they exchange gifts, they kiss more, Rahadin starts to open up a little about his past and other personal things.

No, nothing besides kissing happening - but hey, progress.

They are mostly back to sending messages and short meetings for most of the campaign then. This goes on for months in real time you know haha. It does sometimes skew with my perception how much time actually passes.

At some point Patataj manages to convince Rahadin to join a little party at the tavern in Vallaki and it's all very cute. They play like, throwing knives and never have I ever and it's really stupid but fun....thanks to probably the alcohol Rahadin does actually end up comfortable enough to do ....more than kissing that night, too. And that is actually also the last night they managed to spend together until now.

Meanwhile the campaign goes on, we go to Krezk like, twice, kill the Abbot, we do the Yester hill battle, defend Vallaki (where Rahadin was extremely worried). In Vallaki there was also one instance where Patataj almost died and sent some final words type of message to Rahadin and boy, Rahadin was UPSET about it. Mostly mad because the message did not include Patatajs whereabouts and such and it took him longer to find him. He was probably also upset that the whole thing made him so scared in the first place haha. Rahadin is not used to care about anything other than Strahd and maybe Anastrasia (and since they're both vampires, they die far less easy, so not much to worry there).

But yeah, this is how you manage to date Rahadin in Curse of Strahd: You need a GM who puts him in the campaign early enough and PERSISTENCE. It's not easy to make Rahadin care, but once he does, he's very loyal and your chances of survival become very good actually ('You wouldn't want to hurt Rahadins mate' worked very well with the werewolves for example lol) - but also it can be a little terrifying at times. Patataj is trying to come to terms with the fact that all the protection benefit he gets out of this also means that it is very likely that he will end up as a vampire in the end. Also there is no turning back. Rahadin is very unforgiving and I'm sure if Patataj would break his heart, Rahadin would slit his throat, because that's just how he deals with his problems. There is also still a chance Rahadin might follow Strahd's orders to kill Patataj despite his own feelings. It's 500 years vs a few weeks/months after all.

But I do think Rahadins feelings are genuine. He says the most romantic shit sometimes and he really was very supportive in the last session (at least as much as you could expect Rahadin to be). It was actually the first time he said 'I love you' in return! MORE PROGRESS!

And I also do think he doesn't just want to use Patataj for personal gain. He's not a very....scheming guy. Not that Patataj would care either way. He'd do almost anything for Rahadin at this point, aside of things that go against his morals of course. It's quite funny, really. Patataj knows of all the terrible things Rahadin has done by now, but he kind of shoves it aside under 'well he did it under Strahd's orders, he wouldn't have done it otherwise' because he just can't fathom Rahadin is THAT bad/uncaring, since to HIM he is extremely gentle and sweet, even if sometimes a little struggling with showing emotions. Love makes blind, I swear.

But I'm rambling. I hope they get a happy ending. At least Patataj would deserve one after everything (all the suffering and pain of people around him and his powerlessness to help are getting to him), but it IS Curse of Strahd and who knows what will happen. Even at the best outcome, he will have to kill some if not most of Rahadins 'family', in the worst outcome, Rahadin kills him. In the most likely, he ends up a vampire in Strahd's castle, never to see sunlight again.

So yeah, on that depressing note and for anyone who read this whole thing, I'll leave you with two songs from my Patadin playlist because who doesn't have songs for their OC?

Nessa Barrett - Die first

Amber Run - I found

#forgive me for this overly long post #but I have lot of feelings about this #I put a lot of my free time into it after all (if you calculate all the sessions and art) haha #so if people seem curious I will be like WELL YOU ASKED SO HERE WE GOOOO #hahaha #thrum rambles #DnD #Rahadin #Patataj #Curse of Strahd #centaur #would I recommend going for Rahadin? Hard to say #(depending of course whether or not your DM is willing to let you treat Curse of Strahd as a dating sim) #sometimes it feels like I accidentally cheated the game #sometimes I feel I'll pay a terrible price for it lol #WE WILL SEE

[imagineitdearies]

Hi Imogen,

Long time lurker, first time poster. I wanted to let you know how much I've been enjoying Perfect Slaughter. I think you do such an inspiring justice to with the sheer horror of abuse, comfort of connection, characterization and extension of the source material in your writing. I've never read a fanfic quite like what you have done and you deserve so much kudos for it!!

Since you have mentioned you're a D&D nerd (same!), I'm curious about your answers to 2 questions about mechanics:

1) Have you thought about the tool or material that could be used to create the inevitable back scars 😞 ? I've noticed in your writing how much you have highlighted how flawless the spawn are once they've fully healed. All I can think of is something relating to a silvered weapon or something made out of infernal iron. I also know you probably can't fully answer this without it being spoiler-y.

2) This is more a game question, but I've had a few back and forths with my "forever DM" partner on this. Does Cazador actually die in BG3? For all my experience playing, I have admittedly never fought a vamp lord on table top. But from what I understand, there are few ways to actually kill them (I know of breaking their resting place or trapping their mist form). If Astarion comes in with a knife during a vamp's healing phase, would that kill them for good? I feel like I'm missing something here.

Anyway thank you! Apologies if you already got this ask (I'm new to using Tumblr). I'm looking forward to Ch. 23!

-MafWaff

Hi MafWaff 🥰 Always glad to meet a fellow d&d nerd!

Haha I did get your previous ask and was actually sitting down to tackle my ask inbox after a crazy week (just moved to a different state), so you have impeccable timing! Thank you so so much for your kind words, I'm endlessly ecstatic to hear that the story is being enjoyed. To answer your questions:

Yes I have thought about this! In canon, Astarion says Cazador used 'his needle' to carve the runes. I indeed have my own fancanon as to how exactly Cazador got them to be permanent and it will come up in Perfect Slaughter!

From what I understand, what Astarion does in canon without any other explanation wouldn't, in fact, kill Cazador for good by dnd law 😂 but bg3 definitely plays hard and fast with the rules when it wants to, so we're left to justify why the vampire lord doesn't just mist form back into his coffin again! Breaking/destroying their resting place, trapping their mist form for two hours, or reducing them to 0 HP while they're in sunlight or running water--ie rivers/lakes/ocean, not a bucket, of course--so they can't go into mist form at all are all viable methods for dnd. If you stake them in their resting place, they're instead incapacitated/paralyzed for a millennia until the stake rots entirely away (or some idiot un-stakes them). Others are welcome to chime in if I've missed something!

Sometimes the gaps and discrepancies between dnd lore and bg3 can be a bit frustrating (and spark some tiresome debates online, lol) but these ones have honestly been fun for me to figure out! Sort of like a puzzle I get to shape the missing pieces into 😊

Anyways, I'm excited for you guys to see what I came up with in future chapters!

#fic: perfect slaughter #ask me anything #cazador szarr #bg3 headcanons

[sade-alicious]

summer reading list except byler edition (all AO3) - im still reading new fics btw so there’ll be updates on this post (updated 10/22)

——————

a dream always the same

Mike learns more about himself in four months than he has in fourteen years and comes to realise that he's fallen in love with his best friend.

A four part historically accurate coming of age story set between July and October 1985.

this one is my number one, its set between the battle of starcourt and when the byers move away, its from mikes pov and not short of amazingly written, it includes all of the canon events in the show towards the end of the s3 finale but manages to tie them in really well, absolutely read this

——————

over a bridge of time

Hawkins isn't the same without Will. So Mike goes to visit him in Chicago.

Set during Thanksgiving in November 1985.

this is a sequel to adats, same thing goes for this work, but be warned, this is the second (but not last) completed work in a series, so its gonna end on a cliffhanger/unresolved problems like the first fic

——————

the red envelope

Will writes a letter to Mike, confessing everything. Unknowingly and stupidly, he lets Mike take the envelope home, forgetting just the amount of secrets inside. At the end of the letter he tells Mike to meet him at Castle Byers Saturday at two, to tell him yes or no. Because of course Will had to ask for Mike to be his boyfriend at the end of the letter. So now Will has two choices, somehow get the letter back, or wait at Castle Byers praying for a miracle?

this one is good, it has an interesting concept and was “will they or wont they?” for me. u can read the sequel, but i really dont like because 1. smut (ew, but dont worry only the sequel has it) 2. it follows a will byers has powers trope, and i dont care for it

——————

touch like velvet

It was easy for Will Byers to fall in love with Mike Wheeler.

The trouble came when he had to pretend it wasn't real.

this one is an au of will and mike not meeting until they’re 17, there is no upside down and el isnt a lab experiment but instead a normal person. will still has the rest of the party, but its sort of split in two. will, lucas, and dustin are all bsfs, and el and max are gfs who are coworkers/friends with mike. this one i truly recommend so so much. its a lengthy slowburn, but it is unfinished and updates slow

——————

im tearing you asunder

The world ends, and then some. Mike and Will find each other again, amidst the debris and distance.

someone made AMAZING fanart based off of this which ill link here. but anyways this ones really nice, mike isnt an asshole and actually treats will like a friend. its a lead off of the s4 finale and ive been obsessed with those fanfics rn. (if you have any recs please comment them🙏)

——————

kiss it better

Mike and Will, through the years and in between the lines of friendship and something more.

i LOVE young mike and will and this one has plenty. it has byler scenarios over the course of their friendship from 5 to 18 which shows their relationship evolving the years. its a great concept in it of itself. but yeah, please read this one

——————

let me lead

this one just has a snippet of the fic so ill try to explain. basically this is a lead off of s4, so pretty much everyone thinks this is their last night alive, and to which mike says “screw it” and invites will over and confronts him about some things

so for my opinion, they wrote it in a scenario like, if i dont say what i think/feel now…when will i? which is great because it helps move things along quickly, so its not exactly a slowburn but they write everything in just under 6k words from el breaking up with mike, to an angsty fight, to byler confessing in a way that doesnt feel rushed

——————

pictures of you

Will is the last one left at Mike's house after a day playing DnD.

Mike brings out an old box, full of memories of their past.

ugh this one is short but its so good. it does a lot in under 3k words and is a great byler first kiss scenario

——————

a game of truths

Mike and Will play a game of truths.

this one is amazing, like the rest of the fanfics ive listed. its one of the more byler centric ones. most of it is just mike and will talking and having their moments. its really cute (esp with young mike and will) and does byler justice without writing two long paragraphs of them just making out. 

——————

8/14/22

——————

where is my mind?

On November 6th, 1985, Will Byers crashed his bicycle while riding home from the Wheeler household, damaging his head and waking up two days later with no recollection of who he was.

Plagued with the absence of his memories and a dark haired boy who refuses to tell Will his name, all Will Byers has to do is remember. That's the hard part.

this is by the same author that wrote “touch like velvet” and they’re a GENIUS. this one like the other fic, its an au aside from the upside down where will just suffers from memory loss instead of getting kidnapped and everything, but its really cute because its like no matter what will and mike still love each other

——————

static re-connection

A miles-apart, oblivious mutual pining, emotional summer vacation disaster-fest starring Mike, Will, and one incredibly unreliable radio connection.

miscommunication trope at its FINEST. once the angst started it hurt, the confession is great and we get plenty of mike and nancy sibling moments👍

——————

i never find out ‘til i’m head over heels

Wherein Mike believes he’s being obvious, Will doesn’t know what he believes, and the pair of them could use a lesson or two in effective communication. Somehow all of this has both nothing and everything to do with five years' worth of school dances.

this ones great but also kind of funny because will’s being the oblivious one instead of mike. its light angst btw so u dont have to worry abt your heart being ripped out of your chest.

——————

10/13/22

——————

head over heels

On their way to Hawkins, the group decides to stay at a motel for the night.

Mike and Will get a moment alone to talk.

i was praying for more byler scenes in volume 2 whether be at a gas station, motel, or literally anywhere else so this fanfic gave us what we deserved, but yea its really cute def recommend !!

——————

undertow

Will has never had his first kiss. Mike is happy to lend a hand

as you can tell its gonna be a mike teaching will how to kiss and those are always cute even tho ive only read two successful versions of this scenario. also madwheeler🫶🫶 its really fluffy and cute at the end so this was also a good 3am read

——————

force of gravity

Will loved ordinary things, an uneventful existence was something he craved. Sadly, when Mike Wheeler walks into his life, Will’s easy going path snaps right in half. A passion he could never imagine overtaking his whole being.

It was too bad their friend groups hated each other and his sister had a huge crush on the musician. Off limits.

Fantastic.

you already KNOW i had to include this one, its too good not too. and you probably already heard of this if not read it bc its like the most popular fanfic among the byler ship/fandom (it might as well be a fandom at this point) right now. but yea the amount of times when i thought they were gonna have a normal conversation but then start argueing is INSANE. hella angst. fluff if you look past the bucket loads of angst and just GO READ IT IF YOU HAVENT

——————

10/22/22

——————

to hell and back again

After Mike unwittingly stumbles into a series of interpersonal bombshells, he immediately sets out to find Will so he can find out what, exactly, that painting meant, and why Will lied about it. Unfortunately, Mike is obsessively obstinate and relentless to a fault, and he'll go to the literal ends of the earth to get the answers he needs.

Or: Mike and Will's Apocalypse Romcom Spectacular

this one is actually super underrated and i havent seen many people talking abt it, and the author has been updating the fic recently too. but ANYWAYS im on chapter 11 rn and its really giving apocalypse byler, what we’ve ALL been praying for for season 5🙏 but other than that its really good so far but OML MIKE NEEDS TO GET HIS PRIORITIES STRAIGHT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AND ALL THINGS GOOD HE IS SO DOWN BAD ITS LAUGHABLE

#byler fic #byler fic rec #byler

[sevilemar]

Do you remember my first post as a not-quite-yet GM? Someone recently gifted me a like on that post, and as I was reading it over again, I found myself smiling quite a bit. We are about a year and a half into our campaign now, so let me give you an update:

- The players will do what they like, but they actually need a bit of trust to get there.

At the beginning, they were all very respectful of what they thought was 'The GM's plot'. The thing is, I didn't really had a plot back then, still mostly don't, so there were a few situations where I just had to pretend I did, and yes, it was exactly what you thought it was, how did you guess?

These days, my players feel a lot more comfortable to just go where the story takes them, and sometimes make their own story. I want them to do even more of it, so my work here is not done yet.

In the meantime, I work out plot points from session to session. I have a general direction, but no idea how we'll get there. It stresses me out a lot, because I have to figure out a way to progress after every session, and I really am not good at that (or if I am, it takes a lot of work).

- Session zero is still important, as is regular feedback. The most important though is dealing with any conflicts that may arise openly, and before a session, not after.

- Building encounters got easier over time, both because my PCs are now level 4, and because I have more experience now. PC death is still scary as fuck to me (we had one to this day), and I have learned that it is best to leave it up to the player if they want to roll up a new character, or if we need to find a way of resurrecting their old one.

I still think I handled the death too leniently; there should have been more consequences than just a block on their abilities and spells for a few hours.

- The funny thing about not letting Forever-GMs taking over your game is that sometimes, you need to let Forever-GMs take over your game^^

I collaborated with two of my players to date, one taking over GMing for a side quest, and one with whom I co-GMed for a bit. It is fun, makes the players more invested, and it also takes some stress away from me.

- My track record with safety tools is not good, tbh. I did lines and veils at the beginning, and introduced the x card and signs, but nobody has used them yet. I also find myself straying very, very close to one of the players fears a few time, and I couldn't find a way around it. Still need to get better with safety tools.

- Since we started our campaign, I got involved in four more campaigns or extended oneshots, two of them as a direct result of the people at my table. I have played a few oneshots in DnD and other systems, and made characters for a few more. Suffice it to say, no DnD class is completely foreign to me anymore, and most of them I have played or planned already.

- Eberron is still a lot of work. So much so that any oneshot I run also takes place there, because I am not a world building person, and learning one world is quite enough for me. I still discover new things every session, and I am fortunate that one of my other campaigns where I am a player also takes place in Eberron. This way, I'm learning about the world without having to learn the world.

- I found good ressources, kobold fight club for encounters, wikidot, etc. If you are interested, PM me and I give you links privately.

- I have gone with drawing over printing, mostly because I do not own a printer, and the print shops are not open at 1 am at night, when I get my craziest ideas for the session tomorrow.

- We started out with paper minis, but as you know, I got into painting minis, and so I find myself increasingly either making encounters for specific minis, or reskinning monster stats to fit the minis I just finished. It's a lot of fun.

- I still don't have a list of names. I should really do something about that.

#dungeons & dragons #dungeons and dragons #dnd #dungeon master #game master #first time dm #first time gm

[clonememesfrikyeah]

Some clone oc concepts for y’all:

A clone with a fondness for botany is deployed on a jungle planet whey they come across a rare species of plant and they save it and present it to some sort of official because the plant contains the cure for some disease but the official was like mmmmm we gotta destroy that because if people have easy access to a cure then that won’t spend money on treatment and that will ruin my stocks, cue the clone running away with the plant and they tell their squad mates about it and they cover for him while he escapes off world with the plant and deserts and starts cultivating it until he has a ton of it and secretly distributes the plant to pharmacists that actually want to make a cure

A clone who is really good friends with this older guy that runs a theater on Coriscant that welcomes clones and they meet up and talk whenever they can because the clone is just glad to have a friend they can talk to about their favorite movies and interests with and the old man is glad to have someone to talk to because his kids don’t come around any more and the clone is like the grand kid he never got to have, near the end of the war the old man passed and he left the clone this old space drive in theater on some outer rim planet that he used to run in his youth but then he had kids and had to move because of all the conflicts and it was abandoned, he couldn’t leave the theater on Coriscant to the clone because he had already promised it to his eldest, but then the Order hit and the clone wanted out with a few of his squad mates so they went the only place they had and ended up fixing the place up and running it

Clones that sneak off to god knows where at unholy hours and their CO’s are suspicious that their doing nefarious activities and follow them only to find out their just playing DND with their friends

Clone who played space hockey at the local community center that was open to the gar and ends up making some friends and they form a team and there actually really good at playing and some corporate sports dude with money notices and he’s like hey you guys could make bank doing this with me, I can set you up with other teams for matches that people would pay money to see and you could make it big. And their like idk this team is made up of a republic clone, a middle aged IT guy with a lot of college debt, an elderly woman on parole for petty theft, a couple of Highschool brutes, a 10 year old with a thirst for blood, a bimbo, a non-binary with two toned dyed hair and a bag of crystals and Craig, but their like ehh we do need money let’s just try it and it goes alright for a while until the guy try’s to swindle, manipulate, divide and exploit them to which they respond by not working with him anymore and exposing him to his competitors and letting the 10yo bite the guys ankles, then they go on to win a big nationals game, get that bag, dip and go back to just playing for fun.

Clone that goes exploring and always has some sort of paranormal experience, every time without fail, it’s like a curse. In the woods? Their gonna see some weird shit up in the trees that ain’t normal. In an abandoned civi area in the middle of a war zone? Their gonna hear disembodied voices and see apparitions. Just chilling in the barracks? Shit moves on its own sometimes. They always wake up with dirt in their pockets even if they haven’t been in a planet in months and have really unsettling vivid dreams. Turns out they are little cursed in the way that ghosts are just attached to them and their actual the one who’s haunted.

Clone who has a dream of being the gar’s best electrician because they feel that the trades should be something that should be an option to learn on Kamino because they shouldn’t just rely on droids to fix those problems all the time, they can fail, get shut down with an EMP blast, and be generally unreliable. Besides, aren’t they supposed to be fighting droids? They should be putting their lives in the hands of droids every time they need to get a door open. Their very passionate about it.

Clone who is working on one of the galaxy’s hardest math problems as a pass time and actually solves it and the galactic sciences institute that I just made up is offering a reward to anyone who is smart enough to solve such equations and in their excitement they tell their brothers who tell other troopers who tell the occasional civi (because we all know gossip runs rampant in the gar) and soon the word is out someone solved an impossible equation and soon this clone has a bunch of bounty hunters on their tail who were hired by some math weirdo’s that have been trying to solve the equation for years and now want to steal their work and take credit for it and get the reward.

A clone who runs off to literally join the space circus and meets a lot of cool people and sees a lot of nice places and there’s a lot of shenanigans and adventures and they get to be the most extreme, freest version of themselves and they eat strictly fair food.

Clone who runs a mystery shack type of emporium in the barracks. Like their a first gen clone and they’ve seen a lot of stuff and been a lot of places and they like to collect weird stuff and they keep it all in their tack box and if you trade them something cool or useful they’ll let troopers look at all their weird stuff; like the picked space rat toes he found at the market and he thought that it sounded weird and they weren’t sure pickled feet of an animal no less a rat sounded particularly delicious to him but hey people eat it and it must good for the market to keep it in stock besides they’d only ever had frozen vegetables and nutrient paste all his life, the jar of chewed gum they’ve been filling since their shiny days, a keychain with half the writing scuffed off and it was left as a mystery as to what it says, a rare mislabeled munitions cartridge, some feathers, eggshells, leaves, dirt and other natural items they’d collected from planets they’d been to, a collection of cursed drawings they’d randomly had handed to them by other vod and his favorite one is the tooka with wings and a human face, a rare flavored nutrient packet that had been discontinued before the war started, a 24 sided rubix cube, a funny looking half melted space McDonald’s toy from the clone equivalent of the 90’s, a shard of a CD that is ancient technology from a time long passed, a bunch of zip ties that a couple of cloaked figures tried to give him by attacking them to his back armor but he couldn’t stick around and make friends because he had a meeting to get to, and a ton of other trinkets and treasures he’s found (and may or may not have accident or purposefully stole or gotten from many miscommunications)

Clone who is obsessed with art and color but is part of the Kamino guard and the bleak walls drive them crazy and they go out of their way to express themselves in every subtle rebellious way possible. It’s hardly ever noticeable except Nala Se absolutely notices but it’s so minute it would be petty to make a fuss about it but it pisses her off to me end.

A clone who is stationed on a remote outpost that functions as a lookout but nothing major ever happens and the planet is going through a drought and forest fires are starting to happen often and threaten the tower and the near by inhabitants and basically the clone becomes a fire tower look out for lack of anything better to do.

Clone who brews their own liquor by using a glass jug they found in a dumpster, a bunch of home made equipment, watching space YouTube videos and stolen yeast and fruit juice from the cafeteria. The brews are so strong that it’s like drinking straight Star fighter fuel and it’s related to how they got their name somehow.

Clone who was accidentally left behind on a temperate forest planet that’s not very populated and doesn’t use a lot of his tech and so they wandered miles to the nearest village to find supplies and maybe a communicator but there are no such long range devices within a 200 mile radius so they survive doing various jobs around the community in exchange for supplies and becomes a well liked, integrated part of the community and is known as the village handy person/muscle/problem solver and they take a likening to the arts and ends up setting down to become a local glass blowers apprentice.

Clone who invents and tinkers with things

Clones who write. They write fan fiction about their favorite holo films and radio shows, they write there own original works, they write comprehensive works about how life is in the gar, they right anonymous letters to senators in protest of the war, they get the vod who can draw to do illustrations for them, they start groups they talk about their writing with. Basically take what the creative part of the fandom is and and apply it to them.

Clones who find they have a natural talent for magic and mystic arts that aren’t of the force and in there search for what these powers are and what to do with them the fall down a rabbit hole in the archives covering lore, mythology, spells, and history all over the galaxy and start to notice something’s off and there’s something recurring or whatever you guys feel like but one thing leads to another and suddenly there caught up in a thousands of years old conflict between mystic forces that are invisible to the majority of the cosmos, and bonus plot twist it turns out there a rare kind of magic wielder, either the powerful kind or one that’s so rare there’s only ever been a couple other, or their capable of anti or reverse magic casting.

Clones who are mall rats, like when they get to Coriscant they break out the civi clothes they’ve salvaged from store dumpsters and just hang around stores, especially the ones that don’t allow clones inside out of spite, and they get cheap earrings from space Clare’s and get cinnamon sugar pretzels from the food court.

Clone who has died and their navigating the afterlife and this can be whatever anyone interprets the afterlife as, it can be like what mandalorians believe and everyone of mandalorian heritage goes to the same plane of existence to live in peace together, or it’s based on where they die and what deity’s control those areas that determines what afterlife they go to, or it’s universal and depending on if you were a good person or not determines where you end up, maybe the afterlife is like a never ending adventure that sometimes feels like a feared dream and it’s like a soul collective with everyone whose ever died there and it’s expanded across planets and reality’s and it’s very similar to how life was but also very different. Just do whatever you feel like for this one!

Alternatively to the prompt above, clone who dies and becomes the grim reapers apprentice.

Clone who makes there own clay by collecting it while deployed then processes it and using it to make air dried little figurines.

Clone who makes jewelry out of wiring and glass and scrap metal prices using the tiny mechanic tools out of the tool kit their bachmate has to fix fighters that they often don’t need.

Clone who accounts pulls a Narnia and falls into an alternate high fantasy like dimension and goes on a whole adventure to try and find a way back but ends up spending a whole lifetime there making friends and having a family and a whole alternate life and when their old they find the way back and when they get back it’s like nothing changed at all and their young again and in the middle of a war that has no meaning puppeteerd by an obviously corrupt government who is using them and their siblings as slaves and canon fodder and it took them living a whole alternate life of freedom in a different dimension to realize how absolutely FUCKED it all is so they stage a coup and fight for freedom with their new knowledge and skills while smuggling clones that would like to go to this alternate universe.

Clone who somehow ends up in a really weird town in the middle of nowhere. Like if you’ve ever listened to podcasts like Welcome to Night Vale, Death by Dying and Uncanny County or seen the tv shows Gravity Falls or Over the Garden Wall I’m talking that kind of weird. Paranormal weird, cryptide weird, Midwest gothic weird, weird core weird, small town weird and spooky weird all combine into the same type of weird weird. And they live a happy life there and suspect nothing is out of place there because they have no clue how to live a normal civilian life as a clone and just contribute to the weird as one does.

A 332nd trooper who is deployed to Mandalore to capture Maul and gets lost in the underground part of the city and encounters a mando who attacks them and they win the fight, but they have now unknowingly killed an old, outcasted mandalorian god that had been weakened from time and fading belief in them. And it’s a magical rule that if you kill a god you become that god and get their powers because I said so and yeah basically a clone that becomes a new mandalorian god and had to deal with the really crappy legacy the late god left them with because through a series of misadventures they find out that god wasn’t exactly well liked amongst most gods.

Clone who grows a secret moss walk in the barracks.

Clone who goes out for drinks while on leave and they get absolutely fucked up and they wake up the next day to find they accidentally got married to someone who was also at the bar and was equally wasted and they go out to talk about it because ummmm hey were married apparently but I don’t even know your name and they find out that their each nice people who have similar interests and actually might like each other but it’s not an ideal situation for a relationship but it’s beneficial to them because it might legally grant the clone citizenship if they took it to court and the other gets better taxes and benefits so they stay married for mutual friendship and legal benefits.

Clone who works at an antique shop on Coriscant when they have leave. Except the shop is filled with cursed, dangerous, mystical artifacts. (it’s a little like Warehouse 13 if you’ve ever seen that show)

Clone who raised a jar of space sea monkeys on a top bunk in the barracks.

Clone who becomes a line cook after the war is over and moves around to a lot of restaurant jobs and works their way up and eventually after many years of experience and hard work they become an executive chef and then go off to staff their own place.

Coriscant guard who has an above human average iq and works In investigations and specializes in forensics. (Their friends call them Sherlock but they’re more like Temperance Brendan from that show Bones).

Clone who has a pet ant farm but the aunts are space aunts and they spit acid.

Clones who are book/pdf file dealers and smugglers because the intel gar troops are allowed to have is highly regulated.

Clone who makes candles out of the wax they use to clean blasters with and puts them in space monster cans and they smell rancid when lit.

#clone ocs #tcw #the clone wars #star wars legends #Star Wars #the prequels #clone oc #Star Wars oc #original character #oc ideas #writing prompts #my post #clone wars 2003 #79’s #warehouse 13 #bones tv #Narnia #captain rex #commander cody #332nd company #anakin skywalker #ashoka tano #obi wan kenobi #commander fox #commander wolffe #Coriscant guard #wtnv #gravity falls #death by dying #uncanny county

[missveryvery]

Would you ever play bg3 as Trelle?

I keep thinking about it.

But you have unlocked something I want to vent/ramble about, anon. Forgive me.

Here's a TMI/depression dump that you can skip if you like to get to the pertinent answer at the bottom.

I, myself, am getting some, idk, ptsd shit from the game from how much trauma they dump on you and how you have to check in on everyone and do things for them and no one is taking care of you or asking about your own shit. I'm in too deep at this point to not finish at least one of my playthroughs but there's different places where characters are really fucking with you in painful ways.

So after I finish one (1) I will need to take a fucking breather before I start another. It can be good to go "ok, do you see the red flags you missed here? All the things that made you uncomfortable that you ignored for affection/attention/"the greater good"/being a team player/"being a good person" etc? Do you see how you could recognize it happening to other characters but not yourself?" in the safety of a game, but the feelings and sensations it brings up are real.

I get really bad nightmares, but the difference between a normal person with nightmares and me is that my brain doesn't "let go" of them the way it's supposed to so I get the trauma without the cleansing benefits of processing that stuff your brain is supposed to do when you sleep. This is why I avoid a lot of content with bad endings or that are just too fucked up or upsetting. I avoid a lot of media period now, I can't finish shows because I'm afraid of how they'll end, that they'll end badly (even just in some unsatisfying way like it's just badly written) and I'll be residually upset for too long.

I did not realize how upsetting this game would be, I thought it would be more "Honor Among Thieves" fun in tone but it's relentlessly heavy, and your "accomplishments" are all "realistic" in a "you can only do so much way". You save the Grove and...horrific things still happen. Some of the people there are still exclusionary pieces of shit. Even Halsin comes to the city and starts going "wow everyone is so shitty to refugees here, maybe the shadow druids were right, this city should be razed to the ground" like my GUY. Your Grove that you led did all the same fucking shit. What are you talking about. Shadow druids would just do all this harder. The fuck are you saying to me.

I don't think there's a way to slap him and point that out?!?

All that said, Trelle could not handle the shit happening in that game. It is Too Much. There were very fucked up things in CH but Rodrigo wouldn't go "there" and definitely wouldn't linger there if he did. She is not built for that. She has fucked up things in her past but there's ways of handling those things in the delivery and part of that is not making it Everything Is This and It is Constant. Like the ratio of Clown Business to Worst Thing You've Ever Heard is different.

That's a big difference between bg3 and an actual dnd game is that the DM can feel out what the players want and adjust. If your DM is good, they are constantly tweaking to make the experience as fun as possible for the group. Sometimes that means your players want more fucked up stuff and less clown, sometimes it's the opposite. Sometimes what they want differs from day to day. Like "ok everyone wants to go shopping, it's shopping day" and sometimes it's "everyone is going to go nuts if they don't fix what's happening".

This all sounds like it's a bad game. It's not. It's a masterpiece of game making and writing. But it's demanding.

NOT TMI ANSWER:

if I "stayed true to the character" trelle would fuck up so bad, she would not be able to beat the beegees, that girl would not survive that experience even if she did somehow complete the bigger goal. Obliterated. Done-zo.

#bg3 #bg3 spoilers #bg3 meta #Halsin #ptsd #depression #night terrors #trauma #mental health #dnd #trelle #trelle surestep #critical hit

[esperanta-dragon]

Hi, hope this question finds you well!

Read the whole series Memories of the Dawn and it's amazing! Hope, you will finish it. Your Darion is the best. I'm running a DnD campaign in warcraft setting, wotlk timeline, and soon he will show up. So, I wanted to ask you for some tips, or advices on writing his character and how to play him in an rpg.

Thanks!

Hello! Ok, this ask brightened my day as it's not every day that somebody writes me about my fanfics.

Memories of the Dawn is finished, it's only 3 chapters. Maybe you have Of Lucid Dreams and Nightmares in mind which comes after that and that will be ongoing for many chapters as it's a slice-of-life kind of fanfic.

About Darion well... It's been a long journey to develop him until this very moment because the only thing you have is the Ashbringer comic and then some bits and pieces in-game + We Ride Forth (which is a blessing and Darion has exactly the vibe he needs to give). I would say he is very complex and he shows only a little part of himself, he hides the majority of his thoughts = a quiet person with a loud mind.

What helped me the most when I was trying to figure him out was his MBTI. Just a disclaimer, I use this from time to time and everybody is different anyway depending on their trauma, experience, etc.

Darion is INFJ which means he is introverted spending most of his time learning stuff and thinking.

He is great with connecting dots and seeing the full picture, not only the surface. I would say he sees things hidden from others.

He is a perfectionist and if he is doing something, he wants to do it well, which means he spends a lot of time perfecting his skills and knowledge. If he doesn't know something, he goes and does research.

He has a strong moral compass and he puts the safety of his people before his own safety or needs. He actually does not care about himself too much as he has the safety of his people in the first place. This means that he does not hesitate to jump in or take a risk. According to Ashbringer he never cared about differences or different races. If he cares about something (the Ebon Blade in this case) he will do everything to keep it safe (second Light's Hope).

He sacrificed his own soul to save his father from damnation, so you get the idea how far he can go to keep his soldiers safe.

He is tough and shows very little emotion, but he cares and he is fair. But hurt his soldiers and he will erase you from existence.

This is probably my own thing in how I write him but he is trying to manage everything himself, otherwise, he feels he is failing in leadership, so his soldiers have to find a way how to help him without him knowing.

He does not share personal things and even those who know him for years and managed to befriend him don't know everything. So it does not happen easily he will go to somebody and say "hey I need to talk because I am losing it". It's his way to keep his soldiers away from worrying about stuff plus it's his problem and nobody else has to hear it.

The behavior above was built after Light's Hope and during the war in Northrend when the Ebon Blade still did not know each other and Darion was still building trust, so he couldn't afford to show that he is having doubts and he is struggling. No need to do it now but he kept it.

He is incredibly stubborn, if he chooses a goal, he will not stop until reaching it. You can't possibly make him change his mind if he thinks he is doing the right thing.

His soldiers believe in him because they know he has their back.

He is very reserved, and he rarely uses swear words. If he uses them, everything is going to hell. If he wants to offend somebody, he does it without swear words.

I use the Ashbriger version: a blond teenager. It sounds lame and I bet you want a grizzled veteran in his place. But after I found out how many situations you can make with Highlord of the Ebon Blade being a young teenager who doesn't seem like a threat... well have fun figuring it out! Because that means he had to try twice as hard to earn respect and his reputation.

It really depends if you want to show him on the surface as NPC. If yes then I would recommend keeping it on the surface because he is not sharing much but you can get some idea about him. I recommend reading We Ride Forth if you didn't. It's beautifully shown that he cares and if he chose a goal, he doesn't let it go.

Please feel free to use this as some guide but do not think you can't write him differently. Everybody has their own version of the character but I vibe with this one the most, especially after I saw that Brooks in We Ride Forth had the same vibe.

I apologize for the wall of text, he is more complex than that, this is just a surface but I hope it helps.

#ask me espe #Darion Mograine #WoW #death knight #Knights of the Ebon Blade