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sexiestpodcastcharacter · 7 months

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Who is the Sexiest Fictional Podcast Character?

After receiving 219 submissions for 152 characters from 52 podcasts and a round of preliminaries, we have our brackets!*

*20 characters from the podcast Welcome to Night Vale will appear later in a Night Vale-only bracket.

Round 1:

Scripted Bracket

Isabel Lovelace (Wolf 359) vs Cyrille (5 Minuten Harry Podcast)

Krejjh (The Strange Case of Starship Iris) vs Lady Ethel Mallory (Hello From The Hallowoods)

Lord Arum (The Penumbra Podcast: Second Citadel) vs The Witch Queen A.K.A. Daughter Dooley (Old Gods of Appalachia

Warren Kepler (Wolf 359) vs Ashley "Ash" Ramis (Georgie Romero is Done For)

Brutus Feels (Kane and Feels) vs Shan (SPINES)

Sir Caroline (The Penumbra Podcast: Second Citadel) vs The Dragon Narrator (Unseen)

Alé (The Penumbra Podcast: Second Citadel) vs Hester/The Narrator (Within The Wires: Season 1)

Thistle/The Woman (Alice Isn't Dead) vs Sam Bailey (The Sheridan Tapes)

Peter Nureyev (The Penumbra Podcast: Juno Steel) vs Butt (Pounded In The Butt By My Own Podcast: Episode 1)

Alice (Alice Isn't Dead) vs Diggory Graves (Hello From the Hallowoods)

Antigone Funn (Wooden Overcoats) vs Ryan Dallas (EOS 10)

Martin Blackwood (The Magnus Archives) vs Galileo (Let's Make A Music)

Lucifer Kane (Kane and Feels) vs Gin (Story Break: Heaven Heist)

Amaryllis of Exile (The Penumbra Podcast: Second Citadel) vs Mabel Martin (Mabel)

Pilot Pereya (The Penumbra Podcast: Juno Steel) vs Hester Oleta (Within The Wires: Season 1)

Strelitzia (Additional Postage Required) vs Harold "HBD" Bastion Demetrius (The Soft-Boiled Detective)

Akmazian (EOS 10) vs Everyone from The Strange Case of Starship Iris

Damien (The Bright Sessions) vs Mari Datuin (Hi Nay)

Count Dracula (Re: Dracule) vs Static Man (Archive 81)

Dragana Vukovic (The White Vault) vs Elias Bouchard (The Magnus Archives)

Agnes Montague (The Magnus Archives) vs Vega Rex (Vega: A Sci-Fi Adventure Podcast!)

Mina Murray (Re: Dracula) vs Nicholas Waters (Archive 81)

Mark Bryant (The Bright Sessions) vs Laura (Hi Nay)

Georgie Crusoe (Wooden Overcoats) vs Kate Burnham (The Bridge)

Keisha (Alice Isn't Dead) vs SAYER (SAYER)

Chance Sequoyah (The Penumbra Podcast) vs Yaretzi (Hello From The Hallowoods)

Buddy Aurinko (The Penumbra Podcast: Juno Steel) vs Dane (Dreamboy)

Sadie Doyle (Thrilling Adventure Hour: Beyond Belief) vs Hera (Wolf 359)

Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives) vs The CryptoNaturalist (The CryptoNaturalist)

Rita (The Penumbra Podcast: Juno Steel) vs Lou (Archive 81)

Dr. Joan Bright (The Bright Sessions) vs Ashvin Beeharee (Hi Nay)

Renée Minkowski (Wolf 359) vs Clara Page (Who is Aldrich Kemp)

Unscripted Bracket

Pickman (Friends at the Table: Sangfielle) vs The Shadow Man ('Til Death Do Us Blart)

Beacon (The Adventure Zone: Amnesty vs Glenn Close (Dungeons and Daddies)

Oscar Wilde (Rusty Quill Gaming) vs Grand Magnificent (Friends at the Table: Twilight Mirage)

Taako (The Adventure Zone: Balance) vs Bathin (Stella Firma)

Lup (The Adventure Zone: Balance) vs Sago Glegg (Rotating Heroes: Arc 6)

Sans Undertale (Interstitial: Our Hearts Intertwined: Authority) vs M. Leopold Duvall (Friends at the Table: Sangfielle)

Duck Newton (The Adventure Zone: Amnesty) vs Chine (Friends at the Table: Sangfielle)

Tryst Valentine (Campaign: Star Wars) vs Mini Smithson (Chapter and Multiverse: Masks)

Gable (Campaign: Skyjacks) vs Hector Hu (Friends at the Table: Bluff City)

Michael (The Adventure Zone: Dust) vs Nicky Close (Dungeons and Daddies

Zolf Smith (Rusty Quill Gaming) vs Fourteen Fifteen (Friends at the Table: Twilight Mirage)

Coco Cashmere (Hey Riddle Riddle) vs Trexel Geistman (Stella Firma)

Killian Fangbattle (The Adventure Zone: Balance) vs Henrietta Salm (Pest Control: Fate)

Kalvin Brnine (Friends at the Table: PALISADE) vs Lye "Lyke" Lichen (Friends at the Table: Sangfielle)

Indrid Cold (The Adventure Zone: Amnesty) vs Rigour (Friends at the Table: COUNTER/Weight)

Chunt (Hello From The Magic Tavern) vs Suvirin Kedberiket (Worlds Beyond Number: The Wizard, The Witch, and the Wild One)

Tender Sky (Friends at the Table: Twilight Mirage) vs Pox (NeoScum)

The Firbolg (The Adventure Zone: Graduation) vs Ron Stampler (Dungeons and Daddies)

Azu (Rusty Quill Gaming) vs Hadrian (Friends at the Table: Seasons of Hieron)

Moonshine Cybin (Not Another D&D Podcast: Bahumia) vs Caspian (Just Roll With It: Riptide)

Amber Gris (The Adventure Zone: Ethersea) vs Jens Lyndelle (Not Another D&D Podcast: Trinvyvale)

Perennial (Friends at the Table: PARTIZAN and PALISADE) vs Throndir (Friends at the Table: Seasons of Hieron)

Nadiya Jones (The Adventure Zone: Commitment) vs Ibex (Friends at the Table: COUNTER/Weight)

Cassander Timaeus Berenice (Friends at the Table: COUNTER/Weight) vs Tech Wizard (NeoScum)

Vermillion "Milli" Blue (Friends at the Table: PARTIZAN) vs Dak Rambo (NeoScum)

Rainer (The Adventure Zone: Graduation) vs Mercedes Oak-Garcia (Dungeons and Daddies)

Thisbe (Friends at the Table: PARTIZAN and PALISADE) vs Echo Reverie (Friends at the Table: Twilight Mirage)

Kravitz (The Adventure Zone: Balance) vs Henry Hogfish (Not Another D&D Podcast)

Aubrey Little (The Adventure Zone: Amnesty) vs Glenfyr "Glen" Gladewyn (Not Another D&D Podcast

Cel Sidebottom (Rusty Quill Gaming) vs Adelaide Tristé (Friends at the Table: Seasons of Hieron)

Kardala (The Adventure Zone: Commitment) vs Jacqui Green (Friends at the Table: COUNTER/Weight)

Hella Varal (Friends at the Table: Seasons of Hieron) vs (Former) Confessor Bartholomew Lamentations (The Unexplored Places: Ruin's Gate)

#Round 1 #podcasts #Tumblr Bracket

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toadlett · 7 months

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A comic today for #repostober! this is a short comic about peat for an environmental-themed anthology that sadly never ended up happening.

ID/ comic script:

PAGE 1 (5 panels)

1. close on a mound of sphagnum

CAPTION: There it is again, that singing.

2. look up, see the expanse of the peat bog, the sky above, a mountainside.

CAPTION: Liquid, urgent, rising as it drops, a bright thread trembling, spun out of thin air.

3. close in on tiny bird flying and singing.

CAPTION: Ah, a there it is! A skylark.

4. back down to the sphagnum. Big panel, show a pool nearby maybe, asphodel and sundew and green stars of butterwort.

CAPTION: There is so much life here, tiny and bright.

5. series of small panels of newts, orchids, sundew plants, blue butterflies.

CAPTION: The air tastes sharp. All things struggle.

PAGE 2 (5 panels)

1. cross-section a sphagnum mound, if possible collage in real moss scanned in. fading down into thick dark peat.

CAPTION: The sphagnum lays down a history of everything that ever grew here. Pollen, tissue, documenting thousands of years. In a good year they might create half an inch of peat. Here, it is metres thick.

2. indistinct shape in the murk, humanoid.

CAPTION: Cold, acid and airless, tannin-cured, tea-stained. Sometimes, not just plants are offered to me.

3. blackness, maybe imprinted with leaf impressions – play around with ink and collage.

CAPTION: The smell of it is oak and smoke, whiskey, myrtle, bitter, icy and rich.

4. the blackness cut and segmented, stacked neatly, a person working on it with primitive tools.

CAPTION: They used to cut it, press the caramel-coloured water from it, and dry it to burn in their hearths, keep them warm through long winters.

5. see an empty, skeletal crofter’s cottage, a square scar on the hillside.

CAPTION: The scars they left in the moors are still there, centuries after they were driven from their homes. I watch bracken grow in their crofts. The glacial creep of lichen over hearthstones.

PAGE 3 (6 panels)

1. a modern garden centre, sacks of peat compost in rows.

CAPTION: They still cut it, though, faster than ever. Drain the land for farming or forest, more lucrative landscapes. Burn the peat or mix it into compost to grow prettier plants than my milkworts, sundews, orchids.

2. someone buying flowers at the supermarket, a bunch of tulips.

CAPTION: They used to stack it high to last through the winter. Something crueller and longer than any winter is coming, and every mile they drain or dig belches more carbon than can be replaced in centuries.

3. back to an asphodel flower, a bed of sphagnum.

CAPTION: It’s so difficult for them to see the consequences.

CAPTION (another voice): Yes, but they are realising.

4. open up, the whole red moorland hillside.

CAPTION: A third of the planet’s soil carbon held in peat. An archive they are just learning to read.

5. open up further, to the mountain.

CAPTION: They’re running out of time. I feel the change in my mosses, the seasons stretch and warp,.

6. the whole range of mountains.

CAPTION: One thing they have always been, these tiny, frantic creatures, is quick.

CAPTION: Quick to tear things apart,

CAPTION: But quick to learn as well.

CAPTION: I hope you’re right.

ENDNOTE CAPTION: You can help protect peat bogs by using peat-free compost in your garden, avoiding greenhouse-grown produce such as cut flowers unless they are peat-free, and choosing a renewable energy supplier!

#repostober #comic #peat bog #scottish wildlife #moorland #environmental #climate change

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lycomorpha · 1 year

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Every branch and twig was covered in script/scribble lichens (Graphis spp & similar) and comma lichens (Arthonia spp.) Ceunant Llenrych, N. Wales

#lichen #lichens #lichenology #mycology #botany #woods #woodland #woodland walk #tree #trees #forest #forests #north wales #celtic rainforest

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heychief · 9 months

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(odette and art belong to @ohnopeepo, used with permission!)

(nsfw, remy/odette - fem pc)

“Steady, flower.” Remy tells her with a peaceful smile that betrays none of the man’s hunger. It’s easy for him to lie to Odette; it’s easy for Remy to lie to all people, but the girl especially - she is too good, too beautiful, too important for the truth, he thinks. A doe scatters at the sight of a hunter’s gun or the glint of a wolf’s grin, even if those weapons are promises of safety, not danger. He lies to her with a steady hand sliding up her thigh and fingers that trace the contour of her stocking where it dents her pale skin - with the calmness of his stare, as if he does not yearn to brand his name into her skin and begin shaping her into a higher perfection.

Odette is more guarded than she seems, but even she can’t know the way he’s set the scene perfectly for her. The cologne he is wearing made from the pink lichen that grows deep within the lake makes her head just fogged enough to be pliant but not so much as to make her feel any loss of control. Like this is all her idea. The bed around them is massive, as ornate as an illustration from one of the fairy tales she used to read as a child - the ones with princes and princesses, with damsels locked in faraway towers and the knights who come to rescue them, the beasts who locked them away in gilded cages. She feels herself reaching across her own body before she recognizes she is doing it, loosening the tie in her blonde-pink hair to let it cascade down her shoulders at rest. Odette likes the way Remy’s mouth quirks into something more like a smirk when she does; she knows his expressions are rehearsed, practiced, and that there’s something more genuine about the way his face cracks around his own desire when he sees her on display. It’s a nice kind of attention - for a moment, despite the haze in her head and the laziness of Remy’s touches, it almost feels like power.

“I wore the stockings you like.” Odette is tentative when she teases Remy. It’s not like the script she tries with clients - she wonders if she’s playing into her own fantasy, not his, when she chooses something she thinks he’ll like, imagining the murmur of approval on his lips and the faint falter of control when he presses his groomed face to her inner thigh where they’re on the storybook bed. There’s a hitch in her own breath when he leans in and kisses her stocking, kissing up the white fabric to the seam of it - where it’s just tight enough that it dents her unblemished and pale skin, turning flustered and red where his breath splays hot against her and beads sweat against the fabric. His breathing sounds coarse but he still looks so put together - not a hair out of place, no trembling in his smooth hands where they trace up her skin but never move to peel her clothing off. The man’s pants are tight enough that she thinks she can see the outline of his cock; she wonders if he’s growing hard, if the man who can have anything - anyone - gets excited when she’s sitting on his bed, dressed up for him.

She hopes he is. It makes her wet, almost uncomfortably so with how close Remy is to her panties when he kisses up her leg - close enough that as he looms towards her on the bed he parts her thighs a little more, as if to look. The man presses a smile to the line of her stocking again, rubbing his face against her and sighing, deeply. Contentedly.

“Very good, Odette.” Remy inches up further, allowing his mouth to taste not the pale fabric of her stockings but the bareness of her gentle skin. “You must be tense from school. You should relax. You’re safe, here.”

Should, but there’s no choice in it - he tells her to and she does, letting her head roll back against too-many pillows and staring up at the ceiling with half-lidded eyes. She doesn’t know where to rest her hands; Remy's hair feels too forward, so she lets them fall to either side of her body, limply, like she’s a doll posed in front of the man. His splaying breath moves further up her thigh until his head is nearly inside her school skirt; he’s never gone this far before, usually massaging her and kissing her legs until she’s drifted off to sleep and woken up later tucked into bed. It’s different this time, something about the faintest hint of teeth in his kisses and the ragged edge to his breathing - a mewing gasp bubbles from her throat when he reaches to roll her skirt up and put her further on display, admiring the sight with the same calm gaze with which he surveys his meadows of apple trees of fields of livestock.

It’s the same sort of firm, judging hand that reaches forward and traces the clothed mound of her entrance - following the light stitching of her panties down to where her arousal has lightly soiled the fabric. When he looks at her he makes sure to lock their eyes in a prolonged gaze; he wants her to know that he knows, that he will remedy this for her, that beneath his hands and in his bed she is cared for by her master’s hand. Remy keeps himself from unraveling with practiced composure; he will dwell on those thoughts later, when something less perfect is chained to his bed, fucking the hole of one of his cattle in an act of masturbation while he thinks about what it will be like to one day plunge his length into Odette’s soft pussy and claim her over and over, wise this time not to let her slip away. In the moment he resists the desire; instead, he traces two fingers lightly over the bottom of her panties, feeling her wetness and pushing his fingers up just enough to slightly press them into her lips. Odette can’t help but murmur a little gasp at the slowness of his touch and the intensity of his eerie-calm stare, like some inhuman focus has suddenly fallen upon him.

She wants to know what’s beneath. Seir taught her something about stealing a long time ago; no one locks a door with nothing behind it, Detty.

He knows this, too; he kisses at the threshold of her panties but does not peel them away, not yet, because everything must be perfect when it comes time to open that door himself. This is more than he’d usually grant himself; her scent is intoxicating, the wavering sound of her small breaths, his mouth forming quiet, blasphemous prayers against the softness of her thigh when he kisses her skin. It doesn’t bother him to know other men have seen this, but there’s a bile in the back of his throat as he thinks upon other men have yet to see this - that when she leaves this place she’ll stumble into the brothel, into a stranger’s car, into an alley where she can debase herself for an easy wallet of sullied bills that don’t deserve to touch her hands. He’ll fix that, later, just like he’ll fix anything. It doesn’t matter that he won’t be the first, but he will be the last - and that’s why he can be patient, now, and stop himself short with a tongue lapping sweat up her leg instead of pushing into her sweet cunt. All things in time. His fingers stroke over her covered pussy and pluck at the fabric as if he picks the strings of an instrument; even through her panties she can feel his touch is soft and warm, tracing circles over the small nub of her clit and applying the faintest pressure.

Odette feels dizzy, almost. He doesn’t speak; part of her wonders if this is really happening at all, the silence in the room only broken by her own muted moans and stifled whimpers, and the rare murmur of Remy’s own low breath. There’s a heat that pools in her abdomen and makes her want to twitch her feet and kicks her legs, but she tries to keep herself from squirming in place in the great big bed, but the stiller she lies the closer to her slick entrance Remy’s kisses drift and the more insistent his touch becomes. It feels like he’s taunting her, almost, or trying to coax something out - she’s afraid she doesn’t know what, that she’ll give it all the more easily because his face is too gentle, his hands too practiced, his smile between her thighs too much of a promise for the girl not to melt. He pushes one finger up and presses the stretching fabric of her underwear deeper into her cunt, so wet and desperate that arousal seeps through the fabric and wets Remy’s eager finger. He pushes in again - a little deeper this time - enough that if she still had a hymen to break, he’d be standing at the threshold of it. An inch more and he’d be fucking her.

He holds his finger there, pushing her own panties into her cunt, face leaning against a thigh glistening with spit from his tongue. It shouldn’t feel good; he’s not really fucking her, he’s not even touching her now - just barely filling her, moving his finger forward at a snail’s pace, but never in enough to really penetrate. It’s not the time for that, yet. He can be patient, but he can’t be perfect.

Remy’s finger slips away and he stares at her with unflinching eye contact - she stares down the length of her now-disheveled uniform, Remy gazing up from between her legs and wrapping lips around his finger and sucking her arousal off of himself. His eyelashes - feminine and pretty on such a handsome, masculine face - flutter as he murmurs around the taste, lips curling into a wiry smile. His finger slides out his mouth, strands of sticky saliva joining it still. Odette swallows.

“Just as I like my tea.” Remy murmurs. “Sweet.”

Odette tries to hide the tremors that course through her body at the sight; she would clench her legs together were Remy not between them to try and hide her excitement, but he glances down to watch the way her body twitches so intimately and privately when orgasm grips her. She bites her lower lip already red with lipstick and feels her panties grow even wetter, even more uncomfortably ridden up inside of her as her pussy trembles and her toes curl so tight her feet start to turn white. Remy sits up but doesn’t remove a palm from one of her stockings, steadying her, or feeling her - she can’t tell if he’s holding her in place or trying to savour each unwilling spasm she makes, but he watches intently as she flushes red and brings an arm up to rest on her brow with an uncharacteristic shyness. When she opens her eyes and flops her hand back down he’s off the bed and perfectly composed, no wrinkles in his outfit, not a hair on his head out of place - and if not for the wetness seeping between her thighs she might have thought she’d imagined the whole thing in some heated daze.

He touches her brow, lightly, as if to check if she’s okay. She blinks in a vague attempt to bring the world back into focus.

“You can stay the night, Odette. I’ll have one of the ladies bring you a change of bedclothes and a glass of water.” Remy tells her, kindly but firmly, like this was her idea all along. Like it was Odette who had asked to stay the night, something she doesn’t recall at all - but she’s nodding before she can try and parse what’s happening, Remy turning on his heels to leave the room before Odette has finished clearing her throat.

#degrees of lewdity #dol #pc odette #remy the farmer #saskia told me to post more of my writing and there was a gun emoji involved #so this is a matter of health & safety #sorry to the innocent people who follow me who are like wtf is dol don't read this

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noosphe-re · 9 months

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Introduction to 'Figured Stones' by Paul Prudence

All over the world are scattered stones that contain tiny kingdoms of petrified forests and model mountains. These stones, with their imagined societies of people, their animals and mythical creatures, await to do trade and form alliances. In each rock you may find exotic gardens, encrusted cliffs and the wrecks of ruined palaces. And every space is overrun by lichens, vines and exotic herbs. That ‘figured stones’ have been prized for their mimicry of miniature topographies of Lilliputian beauty is well attested by the great collections as far back as the T’ang dynasty. But even before that era of great adoration, these rocks had already weathered their apparitions into the human imagination. The pre T’ang literature tells of strange rocks in wild places that took the form of dragons, saints and even monsters. And the metaphysics of the microcosm found an early apogee in the emperor’s magic monuments made entirely from these stones.

Erosion, whose secrets are occluded only by time itself, has been busy; slowly dissolving rough rock into miniature worlds. The flow of water – that fertile archetype of time itself – has worn tiny rivers and valleys into stone, copying those processes of the greater world. Time flows through water and time flows through rocks, transforming them into mirror-worlds by attrition. And with more time these tiny streams in stone are turned into caves and tunnels which burrow down into the foundations of our own subconscious worlds. These sunless chambers form the perfect refuges for the dreamt-up denizens of our inflamed imaginations.

Nature has summoned its blind forces to create a fractal dimension, for each rock is a replica that exposes all the processes by which the world fully reveals – and comprehends – itself. As diminished echoes of the earth’s own features, figured stones offer us foci for studying a sense of planetary introspection. In depicting the greater essences of its smaller self, nature’s trick becomes a form of self-awareness – nature’s ‘that I am’ is cast into solid conscious form as the geological recollections of a former world are made manifest. The ghosts of stratified histories cascade through time and leave their marks in rock as totems or as scripts, or as tiny worlds, complete.

—Paul Prudence, Figured Stones: Exploring the Lithic Imaginary

#quote #Paul Prudence #Prudence #Figured Stones #stones #geology #nature #natural philosophy #philosophy #vibrant materialism #deep time #time #archeology #archaeology #rocks #rock

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lichenaday · 2 months

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Lecanographa hypothallina

I hate when lichens look so soft and so squishable but actually are not. Doesn't L. hypothallina look so marshmallowy??? Well it's not. This crustose lichen has a variable thallus that can be thin and dissolving or thick and wart-like. It is typically white to gray in color, covered in a thick layer of chalky pruina and surrounded in a dark brown prothallus ring. Its apothecia also vary in shape and can appear round, lirellate (long and script-like), or substellate (almost star-shaped), and are typically black but appear blue-gray due to a thick layer of pruina covering their surface. L. hypothallina can only be found in western North America, where it inhabits shaded and sheltered volcanic and calcareous rock. And on second thought, I am glad that it isn't marshmallowy because than it probably wouldn't last as long, and the longer L. hypothallina can stick around the better.

images: source | source

info: source

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zoologica42 · 8 months

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I've been watching Pointy Hat on YouTube for a while now, and His videos inspired me to re-write a race for D&D that I think was done dirty- yes I'm talking about Kenku. tdlr: they have some Inca empire vibes, and are mutualists with dwarves

A wingless, often silent avian race of cliffs and mountains, Kenku are said to resemble ravens in their form and face.

Sans flight and voice, Kenku have adapted to alternate modes of life, and present a dauntless resilience unrivaled in other folk.

Strange speech:

The most striking thing about Kenku, other than their avian appearance, is their mode of communication. Kenku cannot communicate with their own voices beyond hisses of anger, squawks of surprise, whimpers of fear, and other, similar, animalistic vocalizations. Instead of trying to get by with such limited communicative means, Kenku have developed a sophisticated sign language that rivals spoken tongues with its elegant vocabulary. Almost all Kenku can sign and understand this language, and it is the dominant form of communication within the species. From marketplace haggling to governmental decrees, Kenku life is conducted in sign. Visitors to Kenku settlements who communicate orally are often struck by how alien their own form of communication is to that of their new avian neighbors. When communicating with other races and cultures that may not understand their language, Kenku often use simple spells that can communicate their ideas through written words or images. A Kenku in a foreign city might ask for the location of a tavern by conjuring up an arcane image of a mug of ale, or a simple written question such as “Where is tavern?”. Many Kenku can understand the spoken languages of other humanoids and are able to write in their scripts through physical or arcane means.

Alpine Adepts:

Kenku settlements are often built in alpine areas, since Kenku, being avians with gripping claws and strong lungs, are uniquely suited to life at high altitudes. These settlements are structured as an urban hub surrounded by agricultural and defensive rings. The second ring outside the city is usually made up of farms that grow crops such as mountain grapes, cliffbarely, terrace grains, and edible lichens. The next ring is also agricultural but is more focused on livestock such as alpacas, which are prized for wool production. Outside this is a final barrier of watchtowers and forts to defend against raiders, such as the greatly feared roving tribes of goliaths.

Kenku settlements are often built near those of dwarves, with Kenku living on top of a mountain, and Dwarves living underneath. The two societies often become mutualistic, and even codependent, with Dwarven populaces importing food, wood, and cloth from the above-ground Kenku, and the Kenku importing metals and other subterranean materials from the under-ground dwarves.

In some cases, a Kenku-Dwarf alliance can become so strong that the two societies merge into one. Kenku and Dwarven armies may fight together to protect a shared mountain range, or mixed Kenku-Dwarf parliaments may be a staple of government.

Kenku also trade with other above-ground societies for their unusual crops, and Kenku slopes are well-renowned for producing fine wool, and some of the best wines that money can buy.

Myths, culture, and religion:

According to legend, Kenku once had wings and the ability to speak, but after angering their patron god, their wings and voices were taken away. The verisimilitude of this legend is understood differently by different Kenku. Some believe it to be completely true, others an allegory, and others think it a total fabrication. No one seems to remember winged, speaking Kenku- or at least, no one mortal. Many Kenku worship the patron Deities of the mountains they live on, Gods and Goddesses of cycles of life, death, and the harvest, and the unique Kenku Deity Sha’ath, a patron spirit of creativity, clever thought, and art.

Kenku arts are composed highly of weaving, orchestral music, and silent theater. Kenku clothing is comprised of elaborately decorated warm woolen outer layers, often coats, cloaks and ponchos, and flax underlayers. Instead of shoes, Kenku wrap their feet in flaxen bandage-like cloth that allows them to both protect their feet and retain their ability to grip rocky slopes. They may also cap their talons in metal in order to increase the strength of their claws while climbing, and to reduce the likelihood of them breaking.

Kenku have developed their own musical instruments to suit their own uses. A Kenku shepherd might use a modified viola to call their flock in from the field, and a Kenku who is a professional musician might modify a flute to be played more easily with a beak.

In some cases, the arts of the Kenku are combined. One such example is “panel-plays”- theatrical productions with elaborate costumes and tapestry backdrops “narrated” by an orchestra.

Kenku families are often large, with parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and children all living together and caring for each other. A Kenku family may occupy a single large manor or complex of smaller houses, with all family members sharing duties and often resources.

Kenku names:

Kenku names are not gender specific and are usually signs for natural features or materials, modified to indicate they are a name, sometimes combined with another noun or adjective.

Example names: Shining Cloud, Cricket, Blue Creek, Mulberry, Great Violet, Howling Wind, Star Stone.

Kenku traits:

Ability score increases: Your wisdom score increases by 2, and your dexterity increases by 1

Age: Kenku pairs lay 1-2 eggs that hatch after careful tending in about two months. Hatchling Kenku are nearly featherless and unable to move much more than raising their head. After a month, the chick grows a fuzzy downy coat of feathers and can crawl, and after their first year, have a full set of feathers and are able to walk. Kenku become adults at about 17 years old, and usually live into their eighties

Size: Your size is medium. Kenku stand around 5 feet tall, but due to their hollow bones, only weigh 60-80 pounds.

Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet

Strong sight: Kenku are highly visual creatures, and have a nictitating membrane (clear second eyelid) that protects their eyes. Because of this, Kenku have advantage on all saving throws in which failure would mean blindness, and all attacks attempting to blind a Kenku have disadvantage. You also have advantage on all perception Checks. Climbing Claws: Due to your avian claws, you can climb rough or cracked vertical surfaces including rough stone walls and trees at a speed of 5 feet.

Cold resistance: The dense, warm feathers of a Kenku gives them resistance against cold damage.

Communicative spellcasting: You can instinctively cast minor illusion and silent image as cantrips to spell out words or create pictograms in order to communicate with other creatures.

Languages: The Kenku language is a complex sign language used by your own race as well as others who wish to communicate silently and or visually. Written Kenku is formed by loopy, delicate characters and often makes up musical scores and scripts for silent plays. Signs in the Kenku language can be used as the verbal components for spells. You can also read, understand, and write in one other language of your choice.

Roleplay and meta notes:

When “speaking” as a kenku, you might want to preface your words with “I sign this” or “I write this in the air using a spell”. If you wish to play a Kenku that can speak normally, use this outline, but remove the communicative spellcasting feature.

#pointy hat #pointy hat youtube #kenku #D&D races

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outofangband · 2 years

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Flora, Fauna, and Environment of Neldoreth (Updated and Added To)

,Flora, fauna, environment/geography of Arda

I did Region here!

Originally requested by @actuallyfingolfin

I did try to organize these more into sections of the forest (openings and glades, margins and edges, moist or shaded soil, etc) and I don’t know if it will be of interest to anyone else but if anyone is interested in sending me a section of a habitat or location for me to elaborate on I will. Or a season!

I put a lot of work into this!

Neldoreth is a forest of beech trees, part of Northern Doriath and contained within Melian’s Girdle. It was here that Lúthien was born and later imprisoned to prevent her from rescuing Beren. It was bordered by the River Esgalduin on the South towards the Northeast and and River Mindeb on the West, both tributaries to Sirion. The tallest beech tree in the forest was Hírilorn and it was here that Lúthien was imprisoned.

Doriath has three forests making up its kingdom; Neldoreth, Nivrim, a small forest of mostly oak trees West of Sirion and Region, in Southern Doriath, a forest of mostly holly where Menengroth was located.

I’ve been thinking a lot about potential biomes ecoregions for Beleriand and the other realms. Ecoregions are patterns of ecologically and geographically defined regions. A comparable biome are temperate broadleaf and mixed forests with English lowlands beech forests being a potential ecoregion.

I also have specific headcanons mentioned here about far Eastern Doriath closer to the river Celon which I will talk about when I do far Eastern Doriath and the lands North of Iant Iaur. These are closer to North Atlantic moist forests and even humid mixed forests.

Neldoreth is a lush, deciduous forest with moderate to heavy rainfall depending on the season. Snowfall is rare.

There are a number of genuses directly referenced in canon in relation to Neldoreth; beech, chestnuts, oak, elm, hemlock, species of fern, grasses, the flower Niphredel which was a creation of Tolkien himself but inspired by snowdrops (though having more petals creating a star like flower) and the white field rose.

The beech trees were likely a combination of European, Chinese and Japanese blue beech and dwarf beech with other trees dotting the boundaries and occasionally mixing with the beeches in groves throughout Neldoreth. These include common ash, common hornbeam, sycamore, sessile oak, common oak, fluttering elm and horse chestnuts.

The forest floor is covered in ferns such as alpine lady fern, bracken, hay scented fern, hard fern, hart tongue fern and mountain wood fern as well as common aloe moss, bog groove moss, red bog moss and more . There are also grassy groves and openings such as those mentioned in the Lay of Leithian. It is possible these were created through the magic of Melian. Woodland opening and transitional habitats are particularly interesting to me. Woodreeds are one possible example. Spindle, nettle leaved bellflower, bitter vetch, grow on the Western edges of the forest South of Mindeb

Bluebells,, wood anemone, primrose, dog’s mercury, yellow archangle, snow drops, yellow wood violet, wood sorrel, greater starwort, and enchanter’s nightshade are a small selection of flowering plants.

As I said, send a section of the forest or a season and I can go into more detail!

Large bitter cress, water aven, flag lilies, purple marshlocks, common stinging nettles wild parsnip, wild thyme, marsh ragwort and brooklime (among many others, see below) grow in abundance by the banks of Esgalduin and smaller tributary streams.

Barnacle and beard lichens, script lichen, beechwood sickener, earthstar, common bird’s nest fungus, inkcap, fly agaric, yellow brain and velvet shank are a selection of the fungi and lichens that can be found in Neldoreth.

As a number of butterflies feed upon beeches and the other trees common to Neldoreth, Neldoreth is home to a variety of butterflies and moths. Large and light emeralds, winter moths, purple shot copper, cherry bark moth, mourning cloak, wood white, large tortoiseshell, wall brown olive skipper, common blue as well as gothic, ghost, silver ground carpet, dot and poison hemlock moths

There are also a variety of beetles, bees, and praying mantis like insects. (Insect species are so numerous it’s hard to given even a small sample but I’m always happy to make specific posts about insects or any other category of a place)

Bumblebees including tree bumblebees, pollen beetles such as in the genus Meligethes, violet click beetles, oak and speckled bush crickets, rose chafer, hawthorn shieldbug, and biolumenescent fungus gnats (I talked in my post about Western Beleriand about this but while biolumenescnese is more common elsewhere in Beleriand, there are a few biolumenescent species in Menengroth and the woods of Doriath.

Lemon slugs and white lipped snail can also be found and I was talking with @tol-himling about the possibility of stranger species of gastropod being possibly brought over or arriving with Melian.

Birds live by the banks of Esgalduin and throughout the woods itself. White throated dipper, garden and willow warblers, song thrush, common nightingale, nuthatch, gray headed woodpecker, white backed woodpecker, black woodpecker, little bunting, indigo bunting, song sparrow, wood duck and shovelers being some examples.

I also headcanon that there are prehistoric (from today’s perspective) species of birds including small, brightly colored flightless birds that nest in the ferns and glades of the forest.

Palmate newts, great crested newts, agile frogs, moor frogs and small tree frogs are found in vernal streams branching from Esgalduin and Mindeb with agile frogs and dark gray and green toads living away from the water in undergrowth for much of the year.

Neldoreth doesn’t have many larger mammals but there are Chital, water deer and barking deer like species, stoats and lesser weasels, reed vole, water shrews, bush dogs, hedgehogs (mostly European but others too), and flying squirrels (among others)

Dormice especially hazel dormice and grass snake (obviously these are different kinds of animals but I grouped them together because of their habitat) on the margins and towards the river.

I do think in other places of Doriath there are giant elk that do occasionally travel through Neldoreth. There are other species that do not exist today, I mentioned tapir like creatures as well as saber toothed cats (though these are found mostly to the wild and dangerous North of Neldoreth, North of Iant Iaur) and other stranger creatures (I’d be happy to share some headcanons on non existent species or more speculative ecology if anyone wants!)

Esgalduin, the river that runs through Doriath dividing Neldoreth from Region, North to South, is an ecosystem and habitat in itself. If there’s interest I’d love to do a post specifically about it so I don’t over condense here? But there are a variety of aquatic plants, fish and other creatures there.

As always, requests and asks are open and welcome!

#Doriath #musing and meta #the silmarillion #beleriand

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wyldefungi · 2 years

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Graphis scripta

Common Script Lichen

#lichens #fungi #fantastic fungi #mycology #mushrooms #forest photography #fungus #fungiphotography #wild fungi #scriptwriting

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spicytunapotato · 2 years

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Queen's practice

Dearest creature in creation,

Studying English pronunciation.

I will teach you in my verse

Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.

I will keep you, Suzy, busy,

Make your head with heat grow dizzy.

Tear in eye, your dress will tear.

So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,

Dies and diet, lord and word,

Sword and sward, retain and Britain.

(Mind the latter, how it's written.)

Now I surely will not plague you

With such words as plaque and ague.

But be careful how you speak:

Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;

Cloven, oven, how and low,

Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,

Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,

Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,

Exiles, similes, and reviles;

Scholar, vicar, and cigar,

Solar, mica, war and far;

One, anemone, Balmoral,

Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;

Gertrude, German, wind and mind,

Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,

Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.

Blood and flood are not like food,

Nor is mould like should and would.

Viscous, viscount, load and broad,

Toward, to forward, to reward.

And your pronunciation's OK

When you correctly say croquet,

Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,

Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour

And enamour rhymes with hammer.

River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,

Doll and roll and some and home.

Stranger does not rhyme with anger,

Neither does devour with clangour.

Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,

Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,

Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,

And then singer, ginger, linger,

Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,

Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,

Nor does fury sound like bury.

Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.

Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.

Though the differences seem little,

We say actual but victual.

Refer does not rhyme with deafer.

Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.

Mint, pint, senate and sedate;

Dull, bull, and George ate late.

Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,

Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,

Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.

We say hallowed, but allowed,

People, leopard, towed, but vowed.

Mark the differences, moreover,

Between mover, cover, clover;

Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,

Chalice, but police and lice;

Camel, constable, unstable,

Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,

Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.

Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,

Senator, spectator, mayor.

Tour, but our and succour, four.

Gas, alas, and Arkansas.

Sea, idea, Korea, area,

Psalm, Maria, but malaria.

Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.

Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,

Dandelion with battalion.

Sally with ally, yea, ye,

Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.

Say aver, but ever, fever,

Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.

Heron, granary, canary.

Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.

Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.

Large, but target, gin, give, verging,

Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.

Ear, but earn and wear and tear

Do not rhyme with here but ere.

Seven is right, but so is even,

Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,

Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,

Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!

Is a paling stout and spikey?

Won't it make you lose your wits,

Writing groats and saying grits?

It's a dark abyss or tunnel:

Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,

Islington and Isle of Wight,

Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough?

Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?

Hiccough has the sound of cup.

My advice is give it up!

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