#especially considering she isn’t even a hexblade | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

jakey-beefed-it · 3 years

Text

Had our second session of the new campaign w/ Goblin Squad’s DM (down two members who burned out on D&D, hence the new campaign rather than continuing which is understandable but still I’m very much not over my boy Altanin and will be looking to get him some resolution somehow) and it went well- two of the PCs (my 1/2 drow Hexblade/Rogue Arylla and my sister’s tiefling Bard Rose) are doing well bonding and caring about each other, and we’re gonna drag the other one (my fiancee’s human Paladin, actual name secret, referred to only as ‘The Dark Paladin’ or ‘Deep’ for short) along and annoy her into liking us.

We blundered into Plot early in the first session, when a badly injured aasimar guy literally collided with my rascal-with-a-heart-of-gold and she was like ‘Well, shit’. He was carrying some sort of Tome sealed through arcane means that a lot of people were after- at least one of the two major religions in the setting, as well as a really spooky one-eyed lady who explicitly warned us to turn it over or else make an enemy we’d come to regret. Like any good D&D party, we chose to make an enemy.

We got the aasimar guy to some help (mostly at the insistence of my character who has Issues with people dying on her) and took his book and left town, trying to get it to the guy who he was trying to get it to. Got some really vague lore about what it contains- ‘knowledge’ which is apparently sufficient to ‘reshape the world’. Not the sort of thing a trio of level one (two now!) characters can really take advantage of themselves, but two of us also have potential people we can turn it over to in order to fix some of our backstory ‘mistakes’ (which weren’t ethical mistakes, just ‘mistakes’ in the sense that they pissed off powerful people). So naturally we’re discussing the possibility of maybe giving it to the Bard’s ‘patron’ (her father; she’s a noble bastard) to get power and influence, especially since it turns out that the aasimar’s contact is apparently a priest for the other major religion in the setting and none of us is especially keen on empowering an institution we’re not a part of. None of us is religious; Rose was raised among a backstabby royal court and mistrusts everyone to have an Agenda, Arylla had a bunch of tragedy in her life and concluded ‘the gods don’t care about us so why should we care about them?’, and the Dark Paladin specifically is an ex-cultist who now hates every religion.

I think Ryl is the one most motivated by Ethical concerns right now which is kind of hilarious given that she’s also the one who agreed to make a Pact with a Dark and Terrible entity that she knows is Bad News based on the idea that it could at least help her get a Dark and Terrible Revenge on some very nasty people. Rose isn’t immoral, just very practical and keen on recovering her quasi-noble status, and Deep is kinda stuck in full-on Survival Mode at all times, like, not considering the morality of anything so much as ‘is this likely to help or hinder my survival’. She’d absolutely eat us if we died in the wilderness and there weren’t better or easier things to eat. That’s what living among lizardfolk does to ya I guess.

It’s fun playing a party of varying sorts of gremlin- tricksy fast-talk gremlin, sneaky urchin gremlin, and blunt survivalist gremlin. I’m having fun playing a character who is emotionally intense but in a different way from Altanin- she’s got like, alllll my rejection-sensitive dysphoria and is more likely to be the sort to grab the collar of a badly injured party member and yell that they’re not allowed to abandon her die just like her brother. She’s kinda the thematic opposite of Altanin- instead of a larger than life born hero who’s flagrantly soft-hearted and open and loving, she’s a sneaky little urchin who’s secretly soft-hearted and desperately lonely but covers that as best she can. Which isn’t especially well despite her high deception skill because I want her to bond with the other PCs :V

Anyhow I’ll probably post updates about how this campaign is going as it continues to go, even though that’s of interest to probably like negative three of you. As such, if you want to block it, the tag remains ‘Jake plays Dungeons and Dragons’.

#Jake plays Dungeons and Dragons #Jake's dumb characters #Arylla Darkmantle

11 notes · View notes

crystalelemental · 4 years

Text

Well that’s a banner. Dragons are back, I guess.

Grima. Female Grima. That’s...the last thing I ever would have expected. Ever. She’s stupid good, too. Green flying, DC weapon that heals 30% HP if her special goes off and if she’s near allies. Which is kinda cute, considering Grima. Noontime, so she’s clearly meant to heal up. Dragonscale bothers me, because it’s a straight upgrade to her Legendary form. Nullifies flying weakness, and -6 Attack/Res on foes if they initiate or are at full HP. Oh, and it also gives faster cooldown. Honestly, this should be inheritable to any Grima unit. This should be allowed. Dragon’s Ire is an inheritable skill, probably exclusive to all dragons, that guarantees your follow-up if your HP is over 50%, and foe initiates. This is really, stupidly good. I love that we’re on our way to the defensive dragon meta. First L!Corrin, now this. And Goad Dragons, which is fine. Honestly, Grima’s one weakness is that Falchions will tear through her like butter, but otherwise this is a really solid kit. With the new gen BST, the massively powercrept A-skill, and her breath weapon...Jesus Christ, when are legendary units getting refines? Because fuck, man, this is like the fourth one that’s been powercrept to utter irrelevance.

I can’t remember who it was, but shoutouts to whoever guessed Xane. Colorless tome, infantry. Unique tome, gives HP +5, and seems to make his stats the highest of stats for all allies within two spaces. So like. It’s unclear if he’ll have his own base stats and just copy anything higher or what. But basically he gets stats equal to the highest value in each category of every ally. Weird. His fodder kinda sucks. Form skills are useless, and Infantry Hexblade isn’t really all that good.

Then...Dheginsea. Red armor dragon. Idunn exists, get fucked. Also Spring Idunn. Also Halloween Myrrh, who is better than you because preferred weapon. What are you doing, guy? Anyway, new inheritable breath skill, inflicts -5 Attack/Res on foe during combat and negates their bonuses if he’s not near an ally. Sturdy Stance 3, so finally I don’t have to fodder Spring Idunn if I ever need that one. And Slick Fighter, which...eh. It neutralizes your penalties if foe initiates, and guarantees a follow-up. Honestly, Vengeful and...uh...the one that the new one on Gatrie...those are better enemy phase Fighter skills. Straight up.

Okay, I guess this is karma, and now I know how @alphakuriboh feels, because I am MASSIVELY SALTY that Ninian isn’t the frontrunner here. Of course it has to be Tiki. So mad. Like, it honestly almost ruins it for me. I don’t know if I even want this one. I might get it for Resonant Battles and because cuteness, but it’s kinda hard to justify trying all that hard. Anyway...

They’re ridiculous. What the fuck is this weapon? Strong against dragons. Attack +3. If there’s any bonus active on them, grants Attack/Speed +6, and also a buff to attack equal to 1.5x the total buffs to defense and resistance. Oh, and they have L!Tiki’s C-skill. You know, the one giving them +5 defense and res? So just with the weapon and signature skill, they hit +5 defense, +5 res, +6 speed, and a whopping goddamn +21 attack. Minimum. Because then you get Attack/Speed Push 4, for +28 attack and +13 speed as shown. And that skill is all the time. Oh, but we’re not done yet. They’re also a flying unit, that packs Aerobatics. And in the current meta, flying units hit 170BST, which means possible Arena threat. So yeah, have fun with that one. Panic is about the only way to deal with this thing. I mean aside from my Julia, who is about to have a GODDAMN FIELD DAY.

Their Harmonized skill is crazy good, too, especially for Resonant Battles. It does the same basic +4 attack/speed as Mia’s, but it also auto-dances the ally with the highest HP who has acted, and is from the same game. Oh, and this bypasses dance limitations. They showed it working on Nils. So you can refresh your refresher, and just dance all day. Thankfully, they limited this to once per map, but holy shit that’s strong enough as it is.

Oh, but we’re not done. 39 HP. 39 attack. 42 speed. 32 defense. 25 res. Put it together and what does that spell? 177BST. 180BST after a merge. They made this fucking thing Arena relevant. I have never been so glad to have a +10 L!Edelgard in my life.

Honestly, I’m torn. I have a ton of mixed feelings about this banner. I really do like the Ninian/Tiki, but I’m so upset that Ninian’s not the frontliner of the duo. It really, truly is almost ruinous for the unit. But Ninian being a good adoptive mom is precious and I love it regardless, so I might have to anyway. Grima’s really good too, though again, as much as I like her, it’s super transparent that she’s literally just a direct upgrade over her Legendary alt they’ve done fuckall for, and it’s starting to bother me a lot. L!Ike needs help. Fjorm just lost any unique niche she could’ve held when L!Corrin dropped. Gunnthra’s weapon is so underwhelming it’s an inheritable dagger and refine effect for common units now. And now, Grima lost any claim to potential fame by having a unit that does everything she does but infinitely better, existing on a banner with better odds. When the fuck are we getting Legendary unit refines?

I want to be more excited than I am. This should be great. But Grima comes with the lingering sense of failure to balance shit, and Ninian being relegated to backup means (1) she’s going to be there eternally and never as a frontliner for these alts, (2) this counts as her alt, and we won’t be seeing another for a long time, (3) still no Blazing Blade focus, and (4) there’s almost no possibility of Duo Eliwood/Ninian. So it’s really hard to be happy about any of this. I dunno.

#fire emblem heroes

9 notes · View notes

g00dberry · 4 years

Note

this is me asking about your campaign

Anon, I am so fucking glad that you asked. Alight kiddies strap yourselves in and get ready to hear the story of Fortune’s Favor cause this is the hyper-fixation to end all hyper-fixations for me right now. (BTW, all art for the party members was done by @Tallinier on Twitter! She’s amazing and you all should go check her out right now!). Anyways:

See that? That’s Ar’De. The main continent that our D&D campaign takes place on. You might have noticed that huge white sprawl right in the middle there. That’s called The Conflict Zone. That also happens to be the name of our campaign itself, The Conflict Zone.

The Conflict Zone is an area of the continent that has existed since the dawn of recorded history. It has always contained things that do not make sense and is home to creatures not of the material plane. The topography of it is constantly shifting, changing, re-arranging. It is impossible to map out. Portals to thousands of other realms are constantly opening and closing within its borders, and creatures from these other realms have recently begun to take notice of these portals in larger numbers. The Orcs, Humans, Elves, and Dwarves have all made a pact to do their best to contain this threat on their shared borders, but something is happening... While the shared governments are trying to keep it under wraps, The Conflict Zone is expanding. More and more things are coming through those portals, and those who live closest to it have been facing grave dangers and strange occurrences more and more lately.

However, our story doesn’t begin with The Conflict Zone. It actually begins with a man. A man known only as Gaust. 20 years before the events of this campaign, a powerful man known as Gaust led a violent uprising centered in the human country of Empiria that killed many people. Gaust himself supposedly had powers that were evil and astounding. On top of his own abilities, he had the power to give other people arcane abilities. It was said that his mere presence was enough to make those around him just as bad as he was. However, nobody really knows for sure, as nobody ever claimed to have truly met the man in person. That is, until the current king of Empiria, Ryborn Hauzer -

(That guy) - slayed Gaust himself, and put an end to his 5 year reign of terror. Things were pretty okay for 20 years after that, and that’s where our heroes meet each other.

Why don’t we get to know our heroes? They’ve recently started to garner a reputation for themselves, and have decided to call their little group Fortune’s Favor (It’s a miracle none of us are dead yet, so we’ve gotta be somewhat lucky, right? Right?). They weren’t always a recognizable group of heroes though. In fact, they started out sleeping in the haymow of some guy’s barn, just outside the human capital of Union. With only a few coins to their name and a shared goal of joining the legendary Pathfinder’s Guild for various reasons, they decided to team up to try and earn some coin together, attempting to get past the nasty 500 GP application fee to even try out for the Pathfinders.

But enough about that, why don’t we finally talk about these lovable losers?

First up is Sarrali Farseer, a Tiefling Hunter Ranger 5 / Wild Magic Sorcerer 2:

Sarrali found herself designated as the leader of the group rather quickly which was really concerning for her (especially considering that she’s the youngest at the ripe age of 21!). She’s never seen herself as much of a people person. She grew up on the rugged streets of Vandis, Empiria’s military capital in the harsh North. With her human mother in mental institutions, her father completely unknown, and a childhood full of horribly unfortunate mishaps and distrust from others due to her Tiefling blood, Sarrali grew used to the idea that her father might actually have somehow been the god of shadow, twilight, misfortune, and chaos - Vayn. After deciding to ditch civilization entirely at the ripe age of 16 with only a pewter charm of a bird in flight left by her mother to her name, Sarrali fled South to the Northern forests of Empiria with no idea how to survive on her own. She was found and taken in by an old human bounty hunter, Mordecai Swift, who taught her everything he could before he met his untimely demise at the hands of some slaver pirates when Sarrali was 18. Out for vengeance, Sarrali made the unwise decision to try and take on an entire camp of slavers on her own after finding her master’s decapitated head not too far outside the camp. She managed to take down 7 of them all on her own before she was captured. She spent a horrific month in a Port Des’Sali warehouse run by the cruel leader of the slaver pirates, a wretched dragonborn named Bodac the Blue. Sarrali survived many horrible things, including torture and receiving a mysterious brand on her right shoulder blade before she and all of the other slaves were freed when a mysterious man entered the warehouse one day, the right half of his body glowing with red flames. He proceeded to torch the place, ripping Bodac’s head clear off his body, and burning right through the cages holding the slaves. Sarrali ran away from the others and spent the next 3 years working for a morally decent smuggling ring in Port Des’Sali, recovering and steeling herself for the future. She had heard that some people believed the gods themselves might reside within The Conflict Zone, and she finally wanted to confront Vayn. Unfortunately for her, the only ones allowed within The Conflict Zone were high ranking Pathfinder guild members and other decorated soldiers. So, she had no choice but to arm herself with her master’s hunting knife, her trusty bow, and head out to Union to achieve her goals. 6 months down the line and things are going arguably well for Sarrali. She’s got people who care about whether she gets out alive at the end of the day, she’s started learning some ritual magic (including how to cast Find Familiar). She returned to her supposed birthplace, a mountain town named Overlook, in search of her mother and discovered that she has an older sister, a tiefling named Brandia.

She also discovered that she was apparently human when she was born, as was her older sister. She learned that her father apparently wasn’t Vayn, but instead a human man known as Jaxon Farseer. Someone who’s family line is millenia old. Full of heroes, legendary dragon riders, and masterful archers. Her father disappeared shortly after her birth, and her mother apparently made a deal with a tall dark man who appeared in her dreams, allowing him to give her and her children his “blessing” to ensure that Jaxon would one day be rescued. Her mother accepted, and was immediately cast into madness as her daughters were changed in ways she couldn’t imagine. Odd, Sarrali’s been seeing a tall dark man in her dreams as well recently. In fact, he keeps telling her she’ll be the one to end the world someday, and he gifted her the use of Wild Magic... Hm.

Next up is Teael of house Arren, a Half-Elf Grassland Druid 5 / Hexblade Warlock 2:

Teael is the bastard daughter of Chancellor Arren, a noble High Elf who lives down river from the Spring of Len. Teael Is an incredibly caring person, though her childhood was very lonely. Her step mother was kind, teaching her druidic magic like any of her other children, but her step sister was cruel to her and her father was rather indifferent, refusing to tell Teael anything about her birth mother. Tired of spending her life being ignored and mistreated in what was essentially a gilded cage, Teael fled her father’s estate and headed North with something to prove. Through fate or misfortune, she ended up at the same barn as Sarrali and decided to stick close to the rugged tiefling girl who seemed to know her way around a weapon a little better than she herself did.

6 months later and 24 year old Teael has sort of adopted Sarali as the little sister she never had. The two get along well and care for each other in ways they haven’t really had the chance to experience before. Teael finally has someone who will stand up for her, and Sarrali has someone who cares about how she’s really doing. Someone who wants to help her through the trauma she’s endured. Someone who cares. One of Teael’s main points of interest is that she somehow possesses the ability to summon 2 familiars at once. A grumpy large blue gecko named Nigel and a posh white Weasel named Eloise. On a rather.... improvised trip to the Shadowfell, Teael recovered the mangled body of a Drow servant who called her Lady Velodora (which also happens to be the name of the Goddess of Darkness, Death, Sleep, and the Moon... She’s also one of Vayn’s twin sisters!). After escaping the Shadowfell, Teael paid a good amount of money to have her new friend attended to by a revolutionary doctor and a high level cleric. The Drow has made a decent recovery, but is suffering from horrible amnesia. So, Teael gave him the name Vega.

He later proved himself to be a rather accomplished wizard. He lives on a plot of land owned by Teael now, and he restored a broken down wizard tower there. His favorite pastimes include listening to Teael sing for him, reading, and studying new arcane affects. He isn’t the only friend Teael’s made recently though. On a mission into Orc territory, Teael recovered a strange black rod. After a dream that the party still doesn’t really know all the details of, Teael’s got a wicked looking new quarterstaff, and seems to have made some sort of deal with a woman (entity?) named Ebony. Before we set off on our latest adventure, Teael wrote to her father for the first time since leaving his estate to boast about how fine she’s doing on her own, and is eagerly waiting to hear back from him. She’s also a complete bi-sexual disaster, but the party loves her anyways. Oh, and one last thing. She also learned that if people found out who her mother was, she’d supposedly be killed on the spot. So that’s fun!

Third up is Rhak, a Dragonborn Bear-Totem Barbarian 5 / Champion Fighter 2:

Teael and Sarrali met up with Rhak once they were already knee deep in a mission back in Union. They needed some extra muscle, and just happened to see a very stocky dragonborn writing something down in a book and petting a small kitten on their way into the sewers. His common wasn’t that good, but he seemed so happy that someone had offered him work without being mean that he decided to protect his new friends on the spot. He’s been with the group ever since. Rhak was the runt of his litter back in the Dragonborn territory of The Free Isles. Though he still exemplified the traits that the Platinum Dragon, Bahamut, tried to preach. Rhak had never really been one to turn to violence. He preferred to read and try talking through his issues with others. Unfortunately for him that meant that he was bullied mercilessly as a child. Though the kindness of a half elf woman named Lucia, a sorceress in the Free Isles seeking the wisdoms of the Platinum Dragon, inspired him to stick to his own ideals. One day, when he saw some bullies picking on a much younger runt, he accidentally let his anger get the better of him and ended up killing one of the bullies. Thus, he was exiled from his homeland at the age of 15. Forced to wander parts of the world that he was tragically unfamiliar with, places where he was seen as an oddity, and forced to live a cripplingly lonely life. Lucky for both him and us, we found each other though, and he’s finally got true friends that care deeply for him.

Though he had to leave his lovely kitten friend Steve at an orphanage in Union before we set out on a larger adventure, Rhak is going strong today. He has a bear spirit named Ursula that gives him the strength to protect his friends and keep pushing forward. After an untimely demise in the stomach of a Rhemorahz, Rahk was saved by a very close Revivify and brought back. Though, not before he got to have a nice chat with Bahamut himself. Bahamut explained to Rhak that he was Silver Prime, and that he needed to help usher in the era of The New King if the world was to be saved from calamity. We were already carrying a dragon egg with us (taken from a bunch of kobolds months ago in some old mine). But after breaking open an artifact from the Shadowfell, the egg was transformed. After reaching Sarrali’s hometown of Overlook, we learned that it was home to The Roost. The former breeding ground of Empiria’s human-allied dragons. However, The Roost had been destroyed years ago in Gaust’s uprising, and the only dragon left there now was a Silver Dragon named Orphyrah. She gave Rhak her blessing, explaining that she needed to sacrifice herself if he was supposed to reach his true potential as silver prime. She breathed all of her life essence into a single scale necklace, which Rhak now wears and can use to call upon her spirit in times of need. While at The Roost, we were able to hatch the new king of the dragons, a platinum hatchling named Justifax. Rhak has been tasked with protecting him and uniting the other primes, and he seems to be taking that duty very seriously. Only time will tell how Rhak’s destiny affects the fate of the world...

Last but certainly not least, we have Theren Greybend. A Human Knowledge Cleric 7:

Theren is the newest member of our group. We quite literally ran into him while fighting for our lives in the North recently, while on our way to Sarrali’s birthplace. Theren is a cleric of Magus, the God of Magic, Knowledge, and Secrets. The rest of the party doesn’t know too much about him yet, but we were in desperate need of a healer, and he got to witness the hatching of a new Dragon king with us, so he’s kind of stuck with us at the moment. Theren is a huge book nerd. He craves learning about any and all strange anomalies, and agreed to travel with the party on the pretense that we seem to run into stuff involving The Conflict Zone (his research specialty) a lot. We’ve basically become his latest research project, but that’s alright. He seems nice enough, and wants to help in any way that he can. Theren recently revealed that he possesses the odd ability to connect telepathically with a willing creature once a day, but who knows what else this guy can do? As far as we can tell, Theren is from one of the Western parts of Empiria, rather close to The Conflict Zone itself.

Now finally, you might be wondering: Alright, but how did all that crazy stuff start?

Well, the intro arc was far too long to append on to this post, but let’s just say that in an unfortunate mix up involving Dynamite, Sewer Zombies, and a Burning Lighthouse. Our rag tag group was pinned as prime suspects, and then later were offered a deal by this shady motherfucker -

Ekkard, the right hand man to the King of Empiria. If we could investigate those three issues for him on the down low, he wouldn’t just waive our Pathfinder application fee, he would ensure that we were accepted, and would become one of the King’s personally invested in teams. Of course, he didn’t give us much of a choice, since he told us we had a month to figure it out or face exile from Union as a cautionary action.

So, on the job to clear our names and earn our stripes, we faced down more zombies, a flesh golem, an assassin, terrorist threats, bandits, exploding zombies, a re-kindled uprising of Gaust, and finally a huge bone serpent to save the city of Union and earn our freedom.

Long story short - we succeed, and thus, Fortune’s Favor was born.

-I’m always down to talk about this campaign, so if anyone has any other questions, please don’t hesitate to send them.

@icarus-undying (Teael’s Player)

#dnd #d&d #DnD 5e #dungeons & dragons #Dungeons and Dragons

12 notes · View notes