#drakhor

[darkcloud-kcalifornia]

I have now finished with Elantris. Overall? I’d say it’s a good book. Both Raoden and Sarene were enjoyable protagonists, and Hrathen was an interesting antagonist. The ending did seem a bit rushed, and I kinda have to roll my eyes that the grand solution to Elantris’ curse was… drag a stick in the ground over here for a bit. I mean it actually does make logical sense with the right context*, but still, superpowers obtained by drawing a line in the dirt. Still, I did like how they still don’t know nearly enough about the magic system for comfort, especially since the villains have figured out their own way to tap into it, and while the Elantrians’ magic seems more powerful, that’s only while on their home turf, while the “monks” of Drakhor don’t suffer that restriction. Plus apparently there’s magic martial arts out there too? Dunno what’s up with that, but then, neither do they.

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*And I imagine they’re going to want to make a more permanent mark of some kind there and not just a line in the dirt, like some impressive stone structure or a new road or something lest, you know, the fall happen all over again by accident. And come to think of it, would that mean that they have to keep the cities the same size as before lest one of them outgrow the Aon Rao rune and throw off the load bearing feng shui? Or is this a massive case of how the Aons created by an Elantrian can't be casually unmade by an non-Elantrian and so they don't have to worry about another city/species/magic-sub-system collapse due to erasure or growth? At least until another major quake. Or global warming changes the coastlines.

#book banter #the cosmere #elantris

[serveart-blog]

That Night (Jokamui)

Perhaps it was out of desperation that he came to her in her, maybe the culmination of loneliness and fear of the unknown brought this strange man in jester’s clothing from the depths of inky darkness to provide her with companionship—at the cost of her soul.

She was only six when they came: bandits who somehow discovered the fortress, clever enough to infiltrate it thinking it was abandoned. Were it not for the hasty urgings of one of her maids, she would have been another corpse added to the pile, yet part of her wished that she was dead as the scent of death flooded her systems and evoked upon her a true understanding of the word “fear.” Bile climbed up her throat but it refused to come out. Tears bubbled at the edge of her doe-like eyes in her search for survivors.

A fallen chalice hit her foot and she came tumbling through a carpet of blood. Blond hair became strawberry, and her hands dyed as if she killed them all herself—sometimes she did blame herself, for the servants were all hired to care for her; she led them to death with a smile on her face. Her eyes became hollow that night, a certain kind of despair nesting in the bosom of her tiny chest as nightmares-made-reality enveloped her with the tragedy of human nature.

First came the wings, cocooning her in a spotlight of dark for a conversation only she and he would be able to participate. Then came his body as silver encased in purple and black came to being before her eyes. She remembered her heart beating steadily even when she was eye-to-eye with sin incarnate. Part of Kamui accepted death that night as she reached forward to caress the devil’s face and witnessed him leaning against the touch. This great, terrible being answered her call when no one else would. He listened to the unintelligible sobs of a child with nothing but a dead kingdom to her name, and he would stand by her side until the end of days if only to devour her despair at the end of her life.

Kamui couldn’t care less that she would no longer pass into the afterlife. As far as she was concerned, she was already dead.

#( INK IN THE THROAT. ) #drakhor #(( I DID IT FAM )) #emetophobia cw #blood cw #death cw #(( it's a fucking shitty title but I'm rolling with it ))

[maidfaire-archive]

@drakhor

❄┊❝ MILADY, you requested me ? I didn't do anything wrong, did I ? ❞

#gkdwhna i'm sorry this is so short i didn't know what to write rip #but if you want anything changed let me now d<_0

[touchedbythegreenman]

When the Players were NPCs

So I ran a one shot where the whole point was that the players did NOT know who they were and would need to work it out as they went.

The players woke up in a ditch and set to figuring out their identities and what they had on them. I had a list of odd things. One person had a mummified finger, a necklace of teeth and a collection of seashells for instance. I'd given them the basics of their personality and while the Half-Orc helped the Elf and Human out to the ditch, the 'anally retentive and particular' Gnome worked his way through the things he'd found from waving his Rod of Destruction at things (which did nothing) to chewing on the magic herbs (which I don't even) to rubbing his Amulet of Knowledge which caused a random teleportation spell to get him out of the ditch.

The Gnome's player stepped away from the game for a second while zombies appeared and the Half-Orc (while the others rolled initiative) shouted 'I PICK UP THE GNOME AND RUN FOR IT'. So they fled the zombies. They were then attacked by some bandits out after the bounty on their heads (they had discovered their names at this point and that the Gnome (Drakhor the Vengeful) was being hunted by a warlord.

The gnome ran up to the lead bandit and hit him with the Rod of Destruction, destroying his pants. (Note that I was playing liberally with normal rules for this game)

The Half-Orc then seduced the lead bandit into just taking her to a bar and getting her something to drink while the Gnome gave up on the rest of the party as useful companions and instead intimidated the other bandits into becoming his followers (No 1, No 2 and No 3).

What followed was the most brilliant thing I have witnessed in a long time:

·         They got the lead bandit to regale them with stories about themselves so they figured out what they were like.

·         They found out that the bounty payer for the bounty was in a local brothel and so went to the brothel, made friends with everyone there and located the bounty-payer.

·         He had two rogues with him. There was some posturing between them all, but before anyone could roll for initiative the Half-Orc said 'Darling, let me explain something to you -' and threw her daggers at the two rogues, killing one of them.

·         Drakhor then intimidated the bounty-payer into telling him everything while the kleptomaniac human tried to steal the desk from the room very unsuccessfully.

·         The half-orc wandered off to have sex with some people, the human and elf (who had been told they were a great romance) went off to have sex themselves (so many people had sex) and Drakhor just headed off to sleep and plot. At this point the idea of 'sexy feather dusters' was introduced to the game and never quite left. Everyone always seemed to have feather dusters.

·         People did some recon in the morning until Drakhor got up and promptly intimidated the whole village into joining his army to take on the warlord.

·         He also sent his bandit minions to recruit all surrounding bandits to his cause.

·         Panicked by this turn of events, the others went around town making sure the un-trained villagers would have the right equipment. The Elf got weapons, potions and medical assistance (before venting to a nice old lady how stressed he was over the whole relationship with someone he doesn't know thing) while the Orc and Human had a spa day with the women from the village and helped start a women's rights movement.

·         The Orc then went off and seduced a bunch of lumberjacks into making siege weapons while the Human made herself bullets and the Elf got advice from some local women in the hopes of improving his relationship.

·         They also decided to capture a number of zombies from the marshes and put them in cages at the front lines of their war. I rolled for it and they captured SIXTY NINE.

·         So they take their 140 strong army, their 5 siege weapons, their zombies and they attacked the warlord's camp in a glorious 4-pronged attack that was incredibly epic. The human took the rogues and snuck around the right to bomb one side while the elf caused a distraction at the back with some of the better warriors. The orc set up the siege weapons with her big green kiss covered rocks before rushing into battle. Drakhor got directly challenged by the warlord and fought him with help from the Orc.

·         Just as they slaughtered the warlord a dragon appeared with the real Drakhor and his friends on it who explained that since the warlord had been tracking them they had planted their gear on these people and left them in a ditch to be captured and murdered so they could sneak up on him unsuspected.

·         At this point the memory spell was broken and the players remembered who they were - a barmaid, a sex worker, an undertaker and a very stressed farmer. The barmaid (who thought she was with the elf) really had a crush on the gnome due to being raised by dwarves.

·         Seeing as they had all heard stories of the violence and indiscriminate killing perpetrated by these 'heroes' our plucky NPCs stared at them and said 'Mate, you want your gear back? We have an army." And two of them instantly rolled nat 20s.

·         So they left the 'heroes' in the cages they'd kept the zombies in, took their army, the barmaid and farmer stayed together, and they went off to destroy evil in this world.

#dnd #dungeons and dragons #pathfinder #this was a fun game #I'm going to write a book sometime