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starqueensthings · 4 months

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A very Crosshair Character Analysis

I posted a poll the other day looking for some opinions, and the prompt was: does Crosshair ever truly miss a shot? Meaning, of all the shots we’ve seen him aim and fire, how many of the few that didn’t land, were intended not to land? Does Crosshair have the skill and ability to land every shot he takes, and what of the ones that go astray (because there are some!)? The overarching, collective opinion (77% of votes) is that the sniper only misses a shot when he intends to, but let me explain why I was asking— the "methods behind my madness," if you will… (Fasten your seatbelts, and keep all extremities— and pitchforks— inside the ride!)

If Crosshair “doesn’t miss”, then there are some things that demand consideration and possible explanation. Please accept this weird internet essay as a deep dive into Crosshair’s character based solely on how I perceived his actions throught season one and two, and opinions I formed while watching his character develop. And while this could not be a Tech-approved analysis without touching on both his perceived good qualities and “flaws”, please know this is not a hate-on-Crosshair post.

Before I get into specifics, I think it’s imperative that we establish a basic understanding of his personality before the chip’s activation. While there is, sadly, not much “footage” we can use to form a true characterization of him, there are some instances we can touch on. The Skako/Anaxes arc from TCW and the earliest few moments of “Aftermath”, Crosshair is shown to be quite sarcastic, uninterested in trivial conversation, measurably combative toward those with differing opinions to his (seemingly all regs, including but not limited to Kix and Jesse), moderately argumentative toward leadership outside of his own Sergeant (mainly Rex, as Crosshair seems to have no qualms following Anakin’s or Cody’s orders), comforting to those who need it (Echo), and an overall good tactical team player.

So, let’s start this analysis by dialling things way back to their mission on Kaller and the complications that arose once Order-66 had been dropped. More specifically, hunting Caleb down in the forest. One of the things I noticed upon first watching that scene and every re-watch since, is how often Crosshair toggles back and forth between blaster bolt and stun cartridge on his rifle, as if constantly battling the indecision of exactly how he wanted to detain the Jedi. Now, if you remember, Tech com’s in and basically says [paraphrased obviously]: “Shit is starting to his the fan, we better get our butts outta here,” to which Hunter responds: “Can’t. Haven’t found the kid yet.” Crosshair then chimes in with, what I have long-deemed to be his catch phrase: “Wrong,” and proceeds to shoot the branch that Caleb is perched on. Not Caleb, who, in Crosshair's mind, should be the rightful recipient of a kill shot… the branch. Hmmmm.

If every one of Crosshair’s shots is so masterfully aimed that its deemed an automatic hit, and thus every miss is intentional (a notion of which I also believe, less one particular shot which I’ll touch on a little later), then there would’ve had to have been a portion of Crosshair’s cognition overriding that Order-66 command to eradicate all Jedi, even if it was only enough to fleetingly switch his gun to stun.

Not long afterward, we see his beloved Firepuncher saber-whacked from his hands, and Crosshair opts to then continue his attack with his backup DC17. Missed shot, missed shot, missed shot, missed shot. Were these blown shots intentional as well? And if so, why does he continue to assail the Padawan? Is Crosshair only able to fight off the command to kill Caleb while his finger is on the trigger, possibly knowing that’s when the fight against his own mind becomes most crucial? Is he clinging to some autonomy in the moments where he’s not posing an imminent threat to those around him, like during the flight back to Kamino? Or can he only resist the chip’s influence when the urge to do something terrible is paramount?

Let’s skip ahead, shall we, to when the Batch is attempting to flee Kamino with Omega. Crosshair sashays onto the landing platform in his new gothboy armour, fresh out of an undescribed chip “augmentation” procedure (whatever that eludes to), and proceeds to have a small stand off with Hunter— both of whom have their weapons directed pointedly away from each other (interesting). During the succeeding fire fight, we see Crosshair line up several well aimed shots, many of which appear to be only inches away from landing on their “intended target”. He eventually succeeds in shooting Wrecker in the shoulder, and I’d like to point out that this shot lands almost exactly where Wrecker was hit by the training droid some hours/days previously. Was the placement of this shot intentional? Did Crosshair pick that particular target area knowing Wrecker would survive the damage?

The shot I find most intriguing is the one near-perfectly aimed at Hunter’s head (lol— brothers). You know, the one where Omega saves the day by unexpectedly blasting Crosshair’s rifle out of his hands. If the chip's activation was the reason he was now hunting them and claiming their treason, why had that moment seen him hesitate? Perhaps he needed a second to line up his shot, you might argue to which I would say argue: we’ve seen him use the active recoil from that same rifle to line up his next shot many times in quick succession with a zero margin of error (see the Skako/Anaxes arc in TCW and the first few minutes of Kaller), including when each shot was aimed at targets both more dynamic in action and further away than Hunter was.

Crosshair then takes several shots at the ramp of the Marauder as they take off, all of which are well aimed… and simultaneously redundant; the passengers are taking cover in the ship already, the Marauder has begun its take off, the ramp is closing, Crosshair running whilst knowing he can’t reach them. I personally attribute those last few shots as tokens of both anger and resentment for being left behind, not ones made with the intention of killing. I think that he expected his brothers to know him better than to believe these actions were of sound mind— he thought they’d be able to deduce that he was fighting a losing battle inside his own head, yet they were quick to believe he would actually entertain such sudden and aggressive hostilities toward them.

At this point, you might be itching to argue that maybe Crosshair's accuracy is largely diminished when he opts for a pistol instead of his rifle, and while I can't dispell this theory, I can provide some statistics. We see Crosshair use a pistol only four times in the entirety of the show so far: 1. against Caleb on Kaller (objective miss), 2. against the Batch Batch as their leaving Kamino (objective miss), 3. against a soldier while he and his new elite soldier squad infiltrate Saw's camp (direct hit), and 4. against Leiutenant Nolan when that asshole he gets on Crosshair's last nerve at the Outpost (direct hit). I will leave it up to you to decide if the theory of whether his skill level changes based on the weapon he's firing holds any merit, or is worth further discussion.

Moving on— the 99-clan is reunited on Bracca. Let’s turn our attention to the shot Crosshair takes at Tech whilst the latter was emerging from the ion engine, and I’m going to include pics this time to support my assertion.

Crosshair has an undeniably clear shot— his line of sight is not impeded, there are no environmental or atmospheric disturbances to disrupt his composure, he was ready and waiting for them to appear. The shot that he fires lands a good distance in front of Tech. Though the unexpectedness of it was enough to startle the genius into nearly falling out of the engine, I believe it was intentionally aimed this way (see below). A warning shot if you will. A “Hello, I outsmarted you and am waiting at your point of attempted escape. Stop trying, and get down here because I don’t want my new imperial cohorts to take aim for me and kill you” shot.

The next arc (Ryloth) quickly demonstrates that any neurological augmentations he’s been subject to (at this point, I believe we've been shown two, but have been led to believe there were several), have had no effect on Crosshair’s infamous sniper skills. First, he fires a perfectly aimed tracking beacon onto the moving target of Gobi’s ship. Then, upon the ship’s return, uses a single shot to disable one of the engines; a shot taken from, what appears to be, several kilometres away and having the immediate desired affect of disabling the ship. Finally, he makes the astoungingly precise shot (and I’m using astoundingly very heavily here) of blasting Senator Taa in the head. This shot, more than the previously mentioned two, are a sign of his impeccable marksmanship. Let me remind you, he was an undisclosed albeit very far distance away, on the opposite ridge of an enshadowed canyon, and is still able to shoot the senator in a place in which HE WOULD SURVIVE the attack. And not just survive, “make a full recovery” as Rampart claims afterward. This is unrivalled accuracy, and while I do not support the assassination attempt in itself, I can not deny how much skill was required to have achieved it.

My next point is something I have always personally found quite compelling, and it occurs in an off-the-cuff, likely forgotten about piece of dialogue.

Brief context: Crosshair has scooped Hunter off of Daro, they’ve landed on Kamino, and the duo (and a third soldier) are on their way to the Command Center to await the rest of the squads arrival. One of Crosshair’s elite troopers waits until he departs the platform before approaching Rampart and saying: “I question the clone’s motives with his old squad. I don’t trust any of them.” I’m intrigued to know where such a potent mistrust began. Is it simply because he’s a clone? A person born and raised unnaturally in comparison to someone with a traditional gestation and upbringing? Or has this soldier previously identified possible cracks in Crosshair’s imperial facade? Has Crosshair failed to hide his distress in quiet moments where he possibly longs for the life he had with his brothers? What is it that triggers this soldier to suspect Crosshair has an ulterior motive in capturing his old squad, and one that they’re apparently worried would not coincide with Rampart’s ideals?

Ramparts reply, in my opinion, gives us a well disguised clue: “If his plan fails, none of them will be a problem any longer.” If his plan fails. Crosshair’s plan. Crosshair has a plan for mobilizing his old family into one place, and what is it? Is he concealing the hidden objective of a reunion with his brothers under the guise of squad assassination? Was it always his plan to eliminate his new elite squad members, hence the perfectly placed mirror pucks we see him utilize in the training room, to make room for his old squad?

Remember, Hunter asks him some time later: “So this was your grand plan? Bring us here and kill us?” Crosshair answers: “If I wanted you dead, you would be.” And this is a statement which I believe to be incontrovertibly true. He has never wanted his family dead, despite having both the resources and skill to ensure they would be if that’s what he desired, but no. He’s angry that he’d inherently felt more loyalty to them than they had shown to him; frustrated that their choices post-Kaller did not align with his expectations of their choices, disheartened that they hadn't initially recognized to his choices to be ones made outside his character, and Crosshair now eagerly rebuffs their every excuse. Reference the spoken: “They don’t leave their own behind… most of the time.” . . . “You tried to kill us, we didn’t have a choice.” . . . “And I did?”

And follows the: “We’re loyal to each other, not some empire.” . . . “You weren’t loyal to me. I was one of you. You may have forgotten, but I haven’t. And it’s why I’m going to give you what you never gave me: a chance…” conversation. (Just stab me in the heart and twist the knife around, Jennifer!!!! Ouch!!! I'm still not over this!)

Was this his plan? To lure his brothers back to their home, and indirectly beg them to join the empire? To offer them the chance to join the ranks of those who have relentlessly hunted them, in the hopes that there might be some semblance of safety in conformity? To reunite the elite squad that they were in the days of the Republic (the original elite squad of which Rampart is trying to replicate with tactically inferior recruited bodies), simply for the safety that joining the empire could potentially promise? Is this the first demonstration of Crosshair using hostility to shield those he cares about from the callous clutches of the empire that he’d become painfully familiar with?

Regardless of the still-unexplained motive, Crosshair’s plan fails. Hunter has either become, or has always been, as protective of his family as Crosshair is stubborn, and he would never willingly subject his brothers (and now sister) to a life of committing abhorrent war crimes in the name of an Emperor who rose, uninhibited, to extreme and unnatural levels of power whilst abolishing the Republic of which they'd previously served. That’s not what their squad was made to do, despite Crosshair trying to convince Hunter perhaps maybe it was.

Unsurprisingly, Crosshair’s pitch falls on deaf ears, even despite killing his elite squad as an offering of trust. Once the training droids have been taken care of and the fray had subsided, Crosshair stands to find Hunter now has a blaster pointed directly at him, as does Wrecker— (Echo and Tech, curiously, keep their weapons pointed away), and the tables have quickly turned. Hunter begins his own plea to his brother, and it leads to a very ambiguous admission. Hunter: “Crosshair, forget the empire. This isn’t you, it’s your inhibitor chip.” Crosshair: “Wrong. I had my chip removed a long time ago.”

What degree of this admission is true? All of it? Parts of it? None of it? Was Crosshair only told that his chip was removed during one of the apparently many augmentations he’d been subject to? Was it removed and replaced with an alternative? Or was it truly extracted, and his questionable actions have been entirely his own? If so, was it the fall of the Republic that spooked him enough to join the ranks of an unknown empire? Did the thought of disobeying orders bother him enough to sacrifice the family dynamic he’s always known, and replace it with a safe sense of conformity? And if this is the case, was missing all of the shots he’d aimed at his brothers, a veiled display of love?

Atop the water hours later, Tipoca City has fallen. Due to their imminent death, Crosshair and his squad have been forced to work together to survive. Tech makes a lingering comment about Crosshair’s unyielding personality being outside of his control, and it’s still ringing in our ears at this point because it implies that a lot of this misunderstanding may just be because of how strongly Crosshair forms opinions, and how only one of his brothers understands that about him. Omega is mid-drowning trying to save her droid friend, Hunter is .4 seconds away from leaping into Kamino’s frigid and turbulent waters to try and retrieve her… and we see Crosshair grab his rifle. This is a shot, of any, that I would expect him to miss— water both impedes and shifts the trajectory of a projectile and mathmatically accommodating for this would take some serious, well thought out calculation; the only usable light for aiming is from the burning remnants of their home, and the container in which Crosshair is perched heaves and tips with every wave.

But he doesn’t miss. He, again, demonstrates that he can make any and every shot he wants to. He lands his shot on AZI’s chest (not dissimilar to where he shot Wrecker, on an obviously smaller scale), and pulls Omega from the depths of the water. Upon turning to see his brothers poised and ready to shoot him if they deemed the need appropriate, I think Crosshair realizes how monumental the fracturing of their squad was. They have no trust left for him. His actions, powered by an inhibitor chip or not, quickly led them to believe he was not the person they knew him to be. As much as he desperately wanted to them understand how powerful the control of the chip was, they didn’t. And I think this moment robs Crosshair of some of his anger and resentment he harboured toward them, and reaffirms that his only option now is to follow the path he was first influenced to follow, regardless of if it’s what he wants now or not. He then chooses abandonment. He chooses to be left stranded on that platform, likely aware that the potential he’d perish there was high. His separation was now his choice.

Let’s move on to Season Two! Episode 3, appropriately named “the Solitary Clone”, indirectly shows us more about Crosshair than I believe any previous episode ever has. Crosshair’s marksmanship is, once again, on full display as he takes down an old separatist tank with one shot (I’m still reeling over it, ok? That shit made me horny). And I can’t move on from this episode without also mentioning how it ended— we know Crosshair has respect for Commander Cody, that was demonstrated by his willingness to follow Cody’s command while he rebuked others’ in the Skako/Anaxes arc. I think it’s also apparent by the return of his notorious sarcasm, that Crosshair is happy to see a familiar face, one of which he may have previously deemed a friend. Cody, in return, places tidbit of trust in Crosshair (I’m also going to link this post in case anyone is curious about my thoughts on Cody’s initial comments). Not only does the commander inch toward the precarious conversation about “going rogue” and the Order-66 debacle, but Cody lets Crosshair take the lead after their shuttle crashes on Desix. “Trust me,” Crosshair begs, and Cody accedes.

They gain access to the strong hold; Crosshair, Cody and Nova (RIP) struggle only mildly with the droid forces ("Droideka's."). Crosshair demonstrates more inhuman trigonometry abilities and immaculate skill by using those mirror pucks to shoot around corners. Cody saves Crosshair’s tushy when a Commando droid gets a little too close to the sniper. Crosshair lowers his weapon at Cody’s request while they negotiate with Tawny Ames, a motion he had otherwise refused earlier in the episode (the civillians they come across behind a closed door— Cody lowers his gun and reassures them, Crosshair does not.) And when the Empire shows its true colours by demanding that Cody renege on his promise of peace and assassinate the governor, Crosshair does not hesitate to answer the call.

Now superficially, this act would appear as nothing more than a repeat of his crimes on Onderon, or Crosshair simply “following orders” as he had previously developed into a sort of mantra. But I think it’s much more layered than that. I think Crosshair recognized that Cody would be subject punishment did he not comply, a notion reinforced by his extended time at Rampart’s elbow, where it was regularly displayed that clones were of little significane and use to this new military regime. What would happen to Cody as a result of his disobedience? Would he simply be demoted from Commander? Would he be court-martialed and questioned? Detained and imprisoned? Killed? Is this why Crosshair took action into his own hands, and “did what needed to be done”? To protect Cody from the repercussions of disobeying a direct order? Or, more harrowingly and something that I am more inclined to believe, was Crosshair protecting Cody from the poignant shame and self-hatred that he knew the Commander would feel if he DID comply? Was Crosshair unwilling to let the mind of another clone be tainted by the emotionless demands of the empire, so he took the action upon himself? Was his objectively unnecessary and cruel attack, an action of deep seated respect and appreciation? Is this why Cody's comment about living with the consequences of their decisions affects Crosshair so deeply as they separate at the end of the mission?

Let’s dial back to the debated intention of Crosshair’s shots— are his missed shots deliberately missed? Our next stop on this journey is The Outpost (my personal favourite, and not because of the dreamy, sardonic, bearded Commander Mayday), but because of the overt growth that we see Crosshair attain. (Here’s an analysis I posted a while back about some of the messages I think the writers were trying to convey via symbolism throughout Crosshair's episodes to this point). If you've read it and even partially subscribe to my theory, then we can agree Crosshair’s mentality has been shifting little by little since we saw him last, and his attachment to Mayday (and the adjacent benefit that Crosshair rediscovers in companionship and brotherhood) is proof of this. So here’s what happens— raiders make it inside the perimeter of the Outpost thanks to limited man-power and degrading equipment. Crosshair heads directly to where he knows he can play to his strengths: high ground. He’s taking quick and careful aim at the retreating insurgent when the nearby shuttle explodes, and something peculiar happens. Whether it be the blinding flash of the explosion magnified significantly by his riflescope that had caused him such immediate discomfort, or something more (chip alert? Maybe? Or residual effects of having it augmented so many times?), but Crosshair’s subsequent shot is not of his regular quality. He hits his target, so I am not deeming this as a shot missed, but Crosshair has a track record of “one-shots” or “kill shots” of which this is not.

I’m inclined to ramble on for centuries about this episode because there is simply so much development, growth, and symbolism that occurs in those 28 minutes— it’s truly a masterpiece in story telling, but I’ve deviated too far from the intention of this essay (novel) so let’s trek forward.

Let’s get to Tipping Point, and what I would deem to be his only failed shot (and the implications of what it might mean). Crosshair has been sedated, interrogated, injected, neglected, confused, and abused since arriving on Tantiss. (You guessed it, I also have an analysis of this episode, structured a little differently than my previous but still helps to break down what I deem to be the motives behind his actions). Hemlock first attempts to bribe Crosshair with his freedom in exchange for information on his brothers, and as such, divulges his true need for Omega. Crosshair, who has never really had the chance to bond with her like his brothers have, refuses to provide any information. And why? Having only a surface level relationship with Omega, and having rebuffed her advances for companionship several times, why would he protect her in the face of imminent chemical torture? Because it directly protects them, and they are no longer being hunted by a squad of recruited bodies lead by an angry brother... but by a twisted and cruel doctor who's methods were proven unorthodox and tortuous upon immediate introduction.

Upon awakening from another round of interrogation, Crosshair understands the time to act is diminishing quickly, as is his ability to refuse Hemlock the information he wants. Each interrogation leaves him physically and mentally weaker; the time is act is now. He shoots and kills the pair of troopers, as well as the interrogation droid, with no difficulty. He stuns Emerie the scientist (possibly recognizing her clone accent for what it is, thus opting not to kill her?), steals her access card, and stumbles from the room. His body is no where near recovered from whatever toxin that droid injected him with, and he staggers through the unknown halls. Quickly coming across a pair of troopers guarding a doorway, the next shot is the only one that I believe he truly missed, and understandably so. It lands on the wall between their heads, and Crosshair quickly realizing his failure, shoots them with the following two rounds.

While missing that shot is largely inconsequential to the overall story, I think it’s an important anecdote for his character growth. In that moment, Crosshair is both physically weakened and mentally desperate to get a message to his brothers, and it’s the combination of those that had his aim faulty. He’s found himself nothing more than a man broken… stripped of the celebrated titles he’d once possessed and mentally mined until simply raising and aiming a blaster, a motion he’d once found more innate as breathing, was a motion difficult for him. He's forsaken his family, lost his purpose, been rendered nothing but an experiment and a tool.

So to summarize this egregiously long essay of Crosshair’s character, I’d like to reiterate that he is human. As we all do, he has faults. A lot of his reasoning is arguably flawed. He makes poor decisions, often in haste without considering the ripple effect it may have. He is extremely stubborn, and he does not communicate well. And there are things he’s done and decisions he’s made that I can not personally elucidate and would love to openly discuss with other Crosshair enthusiasts (example, trying to incinerate his brothers in an ion engine— did he assume Hunter would double back again, and this is Crosshair’s attempt at forcing them into the open? Or is this one of the moments when he cannot fight off the chips control?). You don’t have to like him. You don’t have to agree with him or anything he says. You don’t have to like me or agree with anything I say, but as we head into the third and final Act of this remarkable story, it is worth determining which of his actions are superficially misunderstood, and which have a deeper meaning that a casual viewer might simply overlook.

Thank you for attending the Ted Talk that no one asked for.

Holly ♥️

**forewent the taglist as this is not my typical content

#Crosshair character analysis #character analysis #long post #starqueensrandomthoughts #the bad batch #tbb #bad batch #tbb crosshair #Crosshair tbb #batch batch Crosshair #Crosshair bad batch #please don’t attack me lol

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sunhowler-art · 5 months

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was inspired by this post to design some hlvrai warrior cats!! i'm honestly shocked it took me 2 years to make a warriors au for it, i love making warriors aus...

some basic info below the cut!

sooo my general idea (it's pretty hazy right now. forgive me) for this au is that songfoot (benrey), nectarbrook (darnold), goldenberry (tommy), galeheart (coomer), scorchtail (bubby), and snakestar (gman) are all from the same clan... i'm between plain ol' thunderclan or a custom clan called mesaclan. i'm probably gonna go with thunderclan because i don't wanna bother with making other clans and lore and stuff LOL. there's some kind of threat outside of the clans that's affecting the environment a la the beavers in arc 4. it's something that starclan definitely caused, whether deliberately or accidentally, i dunno. main point is that snakestar sends songfoot, nectarbrook, goldenberry, galeheart, and scorchtail off on a journey to track down the problem and take care of it. while they're gone, the external threat kills snakestar and he spends all his time being a textbook unhelpful and cryptic starclan cat who just kind of makes things worse. as per a snakestar prophecy, the gang picks up gordon along the way, a kittypet whose owners abandoned her and she's been mostly unsuccessfully fending for herself since. oh and frostpaw (forzen) is part of bloodclan. bloodclan tries and fails to kill the gang, despite frostpaw's best efforts (he kidnapped goldenberry's bird friend, sunny).

some lil character facts and such:

gordon is an ex kittypet. she had a very very cozy and spoiled life up until her twolegs got evicted or something and tossed her out onto the streets. she wasn't out there long before the clan cats found her, and thank god for that, because she sucks at being a survivalist. she is fairly smart though, bringing a fresh perspective and problem solving skills to the group. she is consistently freaked the fuck out by clan cat culture, and the clan cats have fun gaslighting her about it. the only cat who doesn't play along with that is goldenberry, mostly because he doesn't really think its that funny. gordon picks up survival skills from the clan cats fairly quickly, but they still call her soft all the time. classic clan cat anti-kittypet prejudice.

songfoot is the warrior code's biggest fan. not because he really fully believes in its utility, mostly because he loves bossing people around. you can find him stalking around thunderclan camp looking out for anyone doing minor infractions. god forbid you take too much fresh kill from the pile, you'll never hear the end of it. he can't really do much about it though, because snakestar finds him vaguely offputting. his signature stare doesn't help much. his fellow warriors generally like him despite all his strange quirks. songfoot has some kind of starclan-given power a la The Three... my thought is that his vocalizations have supernatural mind-altering properties. it's kinda like sweet voice, but a hiss can make others mad, a purr can make others calm, a screech can stun them, etc. without fail. he's vaguely aware of this power, and he doesn't really use it for things starclan would like him to. he kinda does his own thing.

he's a fairly competent hunter and fighter, but he's generally physically non-confrontational. during battle, he prefers to slink along in the shadows and wait to strike.

during the journey, he loves following gordon along. initially it's because of his deeply embedded distrust of kittypets, but he realizes pretty quickly that he's interested in her in a different sense, one that really frustrates and confuses him... a warrior shouldn't wanna be mates with a kittypet. that's so beyond wrong. he's gotta do everything he can to annoy gordon into leaving the group so he doesn't have to confront his feelings about her (one of these tactics involves him insisting on calling her "gordie," saying it sounds much more suitable for a kittypet). unfortunately for the both of them, that doesn't work. what's worse-- his powers don't seem to work on her for whatever reason. they continue to butt heads for far too long before either of them opens up about how they actually feel. (it takes gordon far longer to admit to herself that she's feeling that way than it does for songfoot, but eventually it clicks for her.)

("song" comes from sweet voice, and "foot" comes from... y'know. but i imagine the in-universe explanation is that he spends a lot of time padding around and watching people. the name from the post that inspired this one-- sweetsong-- is perfect but i didn't wanna copy it. i really like the name songfoot though, i think it's really cute.)

nectarbrook is thunderclan's beloved medicine cat. sweet and silly, she has an affinity for collecting and mixing herbs to create new tinctures. they don't always work exactly how she wants them to, but they never have strictly negative effects, so... not too bad! she spends most of her time on the journey trying and failing to be a mediator, and cowering in fear while everyone else does the scary (and often stupid) work. she's got an intelligence to rival gordon's, and she's one of the only cats gordon fully gets along with.

("nectar" is about the closest warrior cats prefix to "soda," and "brook" just kinda sounds nice as a suffix to nectar. it's another liquid-related word too.)

frostpaw is a bloodclan apprentice. he's well beyond apprentice age, but he's pretty incompetent at warrior duties and such, so it's taking him a while. he just wants to graduate.

i imagine he used to be a cushy kittypet with dreams of being one of those cool cat gang members he sees outside every now and again. he's way in over his head.

("frost" comes from forzen. obviously. i initially envisioned him as a warrior named frostjaw. i don't know why i chose that suffix other than it sounding nice. but then i remembered the "i just wanna graduate" thing, and thought it would be funny to make him an apprentice.)

goldenberry is a highly skilled warrior and one of snakestar's kits. he has a very unassuming demeanor, often appearing clumsy or head-in-the-clouds, but he's one of thunderclan's most precise and deadly fighters. his long windclan-like limbs allow for quick movement. like his father, he strikes like a snake. despite his prowess, he doesn't like fighting at all, and he would much rather hang around camp with his friend songfoot and take care of menial tasks like an apprentice or test out new herb tinctures for nectarbrook. he's very helpful and kind, if not a bit blunt. before snakestar died, he had goldenberry in mind as the next deputy as soon as galeheart finally kicked the bucket. he only didn't make him the deputy in the first place because he was an apprentice at the time.

("golden" comes from tommy's signature yellow, as well as his father's perception of him as highly important. "berry" comes from his general sillyness and his affinity for nectarbrook's various little treats.)

galeheart is a gregarious senior warrior and thunderclan's beloved deputy. despite his small stature, he's incredibly strong and overzealous. he loves his clan to death and he loves fighting even more, often dragging everyone into unnecessary squabbles just for the thrill of it. his loud, booming voice commands everyone's attention. he's quite old and really should be in the elders' den at this point, but his love for the warrior life keeps him going despite it all, and he's still in great shape. snakestar isn't quite so satisfied with galeheart's behavior, but there's not much he can do about that, given everyone else loves galeheart to bits. snakestar partially send him on that journey in hopes he would die already, but he has an unwavering spirit and he can and will outlive snakestar.

galeheart and gordon get along for the most part, but gordon is a little scared of him.

("gale" comes from coomer's general energy. he is a strong gust of wind to me. it also brings to mind the color white, which... is what galeheart is! "heart" also comes from his Vibes, mostly his fighting spirit.)

scorchtail is yet another old coot who should be getting ticks picked off of him by apprentices, but his stubbornness keeps him in his warrior position. he's not even particularly good at being a warrior-- he's cowardly and his battle strategy can best be described as the real life version of button-mashing. still, he's far too prideful to retire to the elders' den. he tends to follow galeheart around, since they grew up together and share similar positions in the clan. he's very antagonistic towards gordon, even moreso than songfoot. he has a special hatred of kittypets, seeing their lifestyle as an embarrassment.

("scorch" comes from bubby's association with fire as well as his sassy disposition, and "tail" comes from the tip of his tail looking burnt.)

snakestar is a starclan cat who was previously thunderclan's leader. he's generally cold and and analytical, and not much of a fighter, preferring to make others do his bidding. this behavior carried over very well to starclan, where he spends all his time being appropriately cryptic and unhelpful. he holds a lot of love for his one son, goldenberry, who he's always watching over. he doesn't care much for his other previous clanmates. he visits gordon in her dreams often to tell her vague things about her "part to play" and how important she is and all that. he arbitrarily decided that she was the subject of a prophecy, for the most part. i like to think starclan just makes shit up for fun. i think maybe one of his ancestors visited gordon when she was a kitten and made some kind of deal with her. i dunno. i'm in the very early stages of this au.

("snake" comes from gman's general vibes, but it's also an allusion to snakes in mythology [particularly abrahamic myth] being sleazy dealmakers with ill intent. before he was a leader, his suffix was "sight," alluding to his tendency to sit back and watch rather than run into battle.)

thanks for reading my long-ass ramblings, if you did! :-P idk if i'll actually do anything with any of this, but it's fun to think about...

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anjanahalo · 10 months

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Wayne vs Fenton 2

start of the madness

Here's the actual blurb I wrote. It's from Damian's POV, post him punching the seemingly stalking Daniel Fenton in the face while they stand in an alley. ~*~

Fenton made for, in many ways, an infuriating opponent. It became obvious quickly that any formal training he had involved only the bare basics. Everything else drew from a street brawler’s efficiency, tactics used to strike fast and hard but without finesse. Between the two, Damian was the superior fighter. His training allowed him to dodge most attacks and connect more hits, and Fenton appeared rather weak when it came to avoiding throws. Logically, the fight should have ended quickly and cleanly in Damian’s favor. It didn’t. Fenton’s clear advantage laid in being able to take Damian’s hits and continue advancing, often with a laugh and a genuine smile. Damian started the fight filled with irritation and rage. Fenton engaged with what appeared to be genuine delight. The way Damian literally almost threw Fenton off a rooftop once they somehow ended up ascending a fire escape and began combining their brawl with skyline parkour, for example, lead to Fenton only grinning and bounding back into the fray. It utterly confused Damian. The confusion changed to matching delight as he realized how fun this was. A no holds barred martial battle unlike anything he ever received from his family, and one that didn’t hold any of the pressure of his League training for perfection. Just an exchange of punches, hits, and laughter. Damian hadn’t felt so free in ages, nor so fulfilled, as though he’d quenched a long lasting thirst he didn’t realize plagued him. He didn’t even think about the state of himself or Fenton when Alfred opened the door to Wayne manor to see the two boys covered in scrapes, bruises, and school uniforms torn from their hours long tussle against each other. Alfred stared, most surprised by the matching smiles Damian and his apparent classmate shared. “Welcome home, Master Damian. You are a bit late for dinner, but I saved you a plate, and can easily provide something for your guest.” “Oh, it’s that late already?” Damian asked. “Sorry, Alfred. We, ah,” Damian faltered in coming up with a reasonable explanation for what just happened. Fenton pulled out his phone from his bag, checking the time. “Oh, shit, I have like a million missed calls from Vlad.” Alfred glared a bit at the foul language, but allowed it to slide considering the two looked as though they’d been tossed in a hurricane. “Do you require a ride home, Mister…” “Oh! It’s Danny. Sorry, sir. Um, maybe?” “Fenton, you must stay for Alfred’s cooking at least. You can explain you’re visiting your friend at the Wayne manor. I can’t imagine him being upset at your becoming familiar with me.” “Wait, you’re a Wayne? Like ‘Brucie Wayne’ Wayne?” “You didn’t realize this?” “I barely managed to figure out your first name! How would I know that? Wait, we’re friends?” “After that fight? Of course we are. Please, accept my invitation for a visit. I believe it is also Friday, so perhaps you could spend the night, as well?” “Like a sleepover?” “If you wish to call it that,” Damian acquiesced. Danny tilted his head in thought, then quickly sent a text before silencing his phone. “Vlad’s a fruitloop anyway."

#dpxdc #danny phantom #damian wayne #here i go writing again #wayne vs fenton

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phoenixyfriend · 2 months

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Will you share what makes you ship Anakin/Cody? It's a pairing I'd never have considered, so I'm really curious what makes you interested in it!

This is an interesting question for a few reasons, but I think I should link this post first.

One of the ship dynamics I gravitate towards, especially for Anakin, is 'incredibly powerful/skilled person who is desperate to please, and the person who is largely unimpressed with their baseline level of skill and power, but will genuinely and meaningfully praise/acknowledge the thing they put a real effort into.'

I think Cody is really, really unimpressed with Anakin's shenanigans, and he shows it. He's a walking raised eyebrow with "and?" hanging in the air. He knows Anakin is powerful and great with droids, but can he hold his temper? Can he remember and implement the battle plan that Rex drew up? Can he [redacted horny challenge]?

Anakin wants to impress Cody, and Cody wants Anakin to behave, but also Cody wants to see what makes Anakin tick. He's a very strange and emotional man, and that's a bit of a challenge to figure out and settle, and Cody imo likes a challenge.

In my mind, they didn't love or hate each other on first sight, they were just... wary. Cody had just spent a few weeks getting to know his new boss, and said new boss had mentioned his brother-son at least twice an hour. Cody goes in knowing that Anakin is reckless, but a genius, and lacking in common sense. He's emotional and forgets to sleep when he dedicates himself to a task, and is still getting used to his new arm because he tried to fight a Sith Lord 1v1.

Anakin comes into this situation knowing that Cody is competent, and that Obi-Wan describes him as a good man, and that the two seem to get along pretty well. Being Anakin, he's a little worried about getting replaced, but this is someone Obi-Wan has to work with, and it seems to be on the up and up, but they've had a few weeks to get to know each other without him there, so he's anxious, because in Anakin's mind he is the only person that should ever be Obi-Wan's SiC, but also, Obi-Wan likes this guy alright and the guy in question has managed to keep Obi-Wan and a bunch of soldiers alive so far, so he can't be that bad, so Anakin should try to get along with him, or Obi-Wan will be disappointed, or even upset, and Anakin can't deal with that right now.

So they meet and it's awkward and they try to settle into a working relationship of some kind, and it mostly is... okay. Anakin snaps and gets aggressive sometimes, but Cody is just a wall to it. This isn't great for Anakin, personally, who's used to 'not taking this shit, will wait silently for you to stop being a dick with obvious judgement' from people like Windu, but it works. Cody doesn't enjoy Anakin's behavior, nobody does, but he can deal with it and he's seen a couple brothers come through injury-and-prosthesis with a short temper, so like. Sure. Whatever.

But then Anakin starts coming to Cody for help with tactics and strategy, because Obi-Wan is busy, but Cody is basically Anakin's peer, right? And Cody was super trained in this? And that determination from Anakin to get good at war--whether it's for the sake of Anakin's own ego and need to excel at everything, or for the sake of keeping Cody's own brothers alive--sparks some interest from Cody. Anakin is trying. He's not good at it, not yet, but he's sharp and he asks good questions, and he doesn't doubt Cody's expertise... at least, not too often.

But Anakin does that to Obi-Wan, too, so Cody doesn't take it personally. This is just Anakin's personality. It's a flaw.

It helps that Anakin is pretty. Cody knows everyone can tell. He's not the only one that's noticed.

Then Anakin gets promoted, they split for a few months of Anakin leading his own legion across the galaxy, and the legions come back together for Christophsis or something, and Cody gets to see that Anakin is more confident now, rather than just bluster and arrogance, that it's in his walk, in how comfortable he is with the arm, in the fact that he grasps Rex's battle plans with an ease that takes even some brothers a while to learn.

And Anakin still, the second they are in proximity, wants approval. Some of it from Obi-Wan, obviously, but some of it from Cody, too.

Cody likes that. He likes that this incredibly powerful, widely respected Jedi (who happens to be very pretty and basically the same age as Cody himself) wants his approval. Wants his attention. Wants to know that he's doing a good job.

Wants a firm hand to tell him when he's wrong, and to praise him when he's right, and to force him to still and settle when he's about to jitter out of his skin.

I think Cody finds Anakin fascinating before he finds him charming or forms an emotional bond with him, but it's a solid place to start from.

(And Anakin just... latched onto a person that was Good At Thing that paid him attention and then gave him positive feedback.)

(That's like half my Anakin ships, though. It is very easy to make this boy fall in love. The real challenge is figuring out how the other person reacts to Anakin being... Intense.)

#absolutely-flabbergasted #star wars #the clone wars #codakin #codykin #commander cody #anakin skywalker #phoenix answers asks #shipping

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darkestprompts · 6 months

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Starting this off by saying i LOVE dd2, i think the gameplay is super fun and a major upgrade, but reynauld's shrines just made me give up in expecting a story rewrite that doesn't make me throw my hands up in confusion lol. i'm not expecting the most complex writing on religious conflict from dd, but i really wonder why they would make him spare the warlord? his original dd1 barks mostly center the ingame equivalent of christianity which tracks, he's a crusader. claimed this victory for the church and what not. If his shrines are supposed to be his regrets, why not have it demonstrate how far his faith took him so basically just have him kill the damn guy. it's very simple character writing to do with religious conflicts of course but it would be much more inline with everything we know of 1) the crusades, historically and 2) his own writing. I think it's all due to this big move away from having these characters just seem like absolute bastards, which is really curious to me. I thought that was the appeal of them, no? And in truth. i like reynauld better as a bloodthirsty man 🫡

I feel like I should start off by mentioning that while I am generally negative about DD2 in my posts, I recognize it's a perfectly enjoyable game and in many ways more accessible than the original. If you want to see your blorbos in gorgeous 3D and not think too hard about story implications there's no reason why you wouldn't like it even more than DD1.

However, as you say, it's like they missed the point of the character. Reynauld's shrines should be extremely simple to write. Show an ignorant fool going off to war in hope of glory and salvation, then give us a bit of the horrors by showing this nice family man killing blameless oponents. Instead we get his dark side painted in the lightest of strokes. Oh, he felt peace in the carnage of battle (I'm sure if you don't find a way to stay focused in a medieval melee you just die). Oh, he gave mercy an (extremely evil-looking) enemy to humiliate him (which still lets him keep the moral high ground if the worst he can do to an enemy is to spare his precious life).

These are meant to be the Crusades. Where is the religious intolerance, the brutal tactics, the massacre of civilians, the armies turning against those of their own faith to raid and plunder? You don't need to go all siege of Antioch, but going by the shrines you'd think Reynauld signed up to the honorable duty to protect the land from barbarians, not to a zealot army intent on military conquest. They not only completely defanged the character, with Reynauld in particular it's a solid 10 on the yikes scale because of the real life parallels he is meant to evoke.

Why are you writing a horror setting if you can't handle something as simple as "holy wars are an entirely fucked up concept"?

#darkest dungeon #darkest dungeon 2 spoilers #dd reynauld #dd crusader

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raeynbowboi · 1 month

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Translating the Teen Titans to Faerun

A long time ago I did a post translating the Gaang from Avatar: the Last Airbender to the world and lore of DnD, making Katara a Cleric of Selune, Toph a blind-fighting Ranger, etc. While that was a good first foray into the idea, I wanted to explore the idea again with my favorite team of heroes: the Teen Titans. I've built all of them before, Raven more than anyone else. But today, we're not building the Teen Titans based on their powers. We're building them based on how they would fit into DnD lore as if they were natives of Faerun, born and raised in the setting. How would this change their backstories, or would it simply change their powers? Let's find out.

With a well-crafted team like the Teen Titans, we want to be sure each character stays true to their general party role, and the group works well together in a campaign. An all monk party isn't going to fare as well as a party with diverse roles and classes. So, while we won't get too hung up on this, it's worth thinking about. Robin is the leader, and specializes in stealth, infiltration, and investigation. Cyborg is the meat shield, gadgeteer, and primary doctor. Starfire is the flying warrior princess with laser powers and super strength. Raven is the scholarly wizard with powerful psionic powers from a dark origin and minimal healing powers. Lastly, Beast Boy is the goofball comedic wildcard shapeshifter. These basic ideas we want to keep in tack as much as possible, while filtering the team through the lore of Faerun.

ROBIN

DICK GRAYSON

Before moving to Jump City, Robin mentored under Batman, a master detective and vigilante crimefighter in the crime-infested major city of Gotham. In some Teen Titans media, the Titans are firmly located in San Francisco, California, but even in the cartoon, Jump City appears to be located in southern California. Gotham has influences of major American cities like Detroit and Chicago. Meanwhile, Superman's Metropolis is more closely based on New York City. There are three major cities in Faerun: Waterdeep, Baldur's Gate, and Neverwinter. Of the three, Waterdeep seems the most like New York City as the biggest city in Faerun. Baldur's Gate started as a smuggler's den, mapping well onto Gotham. And that leaves Neverwinter to map onto Los Angeles/San Francisco. This would mean that Batman is a Baldurian nobleman, and that Robin moved from Baldur's Gate to Neverwinter to pursue his own career as an adventurer.

Robin is an ordinary human in every definition of the word. There's nothing special about his bloodline and his biology was not altered in any way. Robin is a Standard Human.

While Robin did begin his career as a performer in the Flying Grayson Circus Act, he's not really a performer anymore. Robin's true training came from being mentored by Bruce Wayne in Baldur's Gate, learning the tricks and tools of crime-fighting, investigation, martial arts, and stealth. We'll say his background is an Investigator for Insight and Investigation proficiency.

It really is worth pointing out that Robin became a villain twice while trying to chase Slade. When he lost to Kotaro, Robin disappeared to the other side of the world for weeks, possibly even a month or longer with little notice. When he broke his arm chasing Johnny Rancid, the entire team tackled him back into his chair thinking he was going to insist on hunting down Rancid in spite of his broken arm, and they were all surprised he was just grabbing the remote. Robin is textbook Chaotic Good.

CLASS

Battle Master Fighter: Fighters are trained warriors. They're soldiers, guards, knights, and faith militants. Battle Masters are experts in strategy and tactical combat. Their maneuvers allow them to command their party, crowd control enemies, or gain advantages in a fight. Robin is well-versed with a variety of tools and weapons, and puts tactics at the forefront of his fighting style. Way of Shadow Monk: while Robin is a skilled martial artist trained by the Grand Master and talking animals, monks possess a mystical, not quite magical power. Their ki is beyond human ability. And a major aspect of both Batman and Robin is the complete lack of supernatural powers. Shadow Monk is not a horrible way to build Robin. He is a martial artist who favors stealth and secrecy. But, it's not the most in-character option there is. Inquisitive Rogue: Rogues do not need to be ruthless cutpurses loyal to some lowly den of thieves. They are simply highly specialized experts in the areas of infiltration, stealth, espionage, forgery, and extraction. It just so happens many use these talents for criminal offenses. Inquisitive Rogues are skilled detectives and investigators. They can study an enemy for weaknesses to exploit, gaining advantage even in a 1v1 scenario and dealing extra damage. It's also worth remembering Robin was trained by Batman, a man often called the world's greatest detective.

Looking at Robin's abilities, backstory, and training, I would ultimately declare him to be an Inquisitive Rogue. They excel at sizing up enemies that are bigger and stronger than them, they're designed to be great detectives, and their littany of skills and talents sure sounds like our Boy Wonder. You could reasonably multiclass with Battle Master Fighter for the maneuvers. Or you could go straight Rogue and just take the Martial Adept feat to gain Maneuvers.

STARFIRE KORRIAND'R

Korriand'r is the princess of Tameran, a planet somewhere in the Vega system. Her race are proud warriors with emotion-heightened powers, including superstrength, flight, and starbolts. Tameraneans are similar to Kryptonians, except they aren't weak to Kryptonite, and they get their powers from emotion instead of the Earth's sun.

There are a few Alien species that Starfire could be:

Astral Elf: Space-faring elves that left the Feywild to explore the stars, Astral Elves have starlight in their eyes, and automatically know either Light, Dancing Lights, or Sacred Flame. Astral Elves can also teleport 30 ft as a bonus action a number of times equal to their proficiency bonus. Dragonborn: Contrary to popular belief, Dragonborn are not the result of a dragon and a bard doing the horizontal monster mash. Rather, they are aliens from the planet Abeir that crossed over to Toril during the Spellplague. Once the unpaid servants of Abeir's dragons, they overthrew their masters and made their own culture. They have a strong warrior culture, and value their clansmen and kin above all else, even faith. Dragonborn aren't always religious as the gods could not hear their prayers on Abeir, but Bahamut is a very popular god for worship in Dragonborn society, and other dragon deities do see worship in Dragonborn society. Githyanki: The Githyanki are the psionic warriors of the Gith race. Once the unpaid servants of the Illithid Empire, they freed themselves from servitude. However, in the aftermath, the Gith separated into two factions: the Githzarai and the Githyanki. The Githyanki serve the undying Lich Queen Vlaakith, hunt Mind Flayers, and ride Red Dragons. They also have a very "the strong eat the weak" mentality, and have extremely harsh policies on failture and usefulness.

While the Astral Elf looks the most like Starfire, I'm going with the race that seems the closest to Tameraneans. I'll be making Starfire a Gold Dragonborn. If the setting allows, you could absolutely make her a Crystal Dragonborn for Radiant energy, but not every setting is going to work for gem dragonborns, so I chose to stick to the classic varieties.

As for her background, Starfire is the Princess of Tameran which could make her work as a Noble. She is a highly skilled fighter which could make her a Soldier. She's also an alien from a far-away planet new to this earth and its strange customs, which could make her a Far Traveler. As being a princess is what shocks the Titans the most, it's what defines her more than the other two things. We'll call Starfire a Noble, but we'll swap out her History proficiency for Athletics, and keep her proficiency in Persuasion. She speaks Draconic as a Dragonborn, as well a language of her choice. We'll go with Gith for flavor, as it's another alien language. If you want a more core rulebook language, Deep Speech is the language of Aberrations. If both those languages feel too alien and you want a language she's more likely to encounter in a campaign, then the strong warrior cultures of Goliaths and Orcs could be nice choices for her, having her speak Giant or Orcish respectively. Because Tameraneans learn languages through lip contact, if you wanted to play up this aspect, you could have Starfire take the Linguist Feat once or twice to learn more languages, but this is entirely optional and mostly for flavor and roleplay.

Starfire always follows her heart. Even when told not to do something, she will do it if she believes it is right, which leans more Chaotic. However, Starfire can also usually be expected to keep her word, dislikes fighting unnecessarily, does not like lying, cheating or stealing. She was even willing to marry Glgrdsklechhh if it meant avoiding war, unaware it was a gambit for Blackfire to gain a powerful artifact in exchange for Starfire's hand in marriage. As such, I would say that Starfire is Neutral Good. She will always do whatever she feels is best in the moment. Whatever course of action she believes will do the most good for the most people.

CLASS

Like with her race, there are a few build options each of which translates Starfire to DnD's world and lore in different ways.

Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer: Being a dragonborn, the Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer translates nicely as her race's natural affinity for draconic magic, mirroring how all Tameraneans have starbolts. She gives up her melee warrior aspects to focus on her dragonborn magic, specializing in Fire magic. Light Domain Cleric: Cleric is a surprisingly good choice for what Starfire would be if raised in the world of DnD. Clerics aren't just healers, some join their faith militant, acting as the sword of their god's divine justice. Clerics can cast radiant spells like Guiding Bolt, Sunbeam, and Sunburst, they're decent frontline warriors, and they heal and support their friends. War is a better fit if she wishes to worship Bahamut, but Light lets Starfire make better use of radiant magic, and also gives her a few fire spells as a Cleric as well, letting her keep the heavy light and fire theme. She may worship Tamara, the Draconic Goddess of Light, Mercy, and Forgiveness. Oath of Devotion Paladin: She starts to really lose her Starbolts at this point, but she puts greater emphasis on her warrior spirit, and she still has radiant smites. Whereas the Cleric angle makes Starfire a better support for her friends and Sorcerer puts all the attention on her starbolts, the Paladin focuses on turning Starfire into a heavy-hitting tank that shakes off the hits her friends can't handle. She still gets some healing with her Healing Touch, and a few healing spells. Starfire fits the mold of fighting for beliefs, as her powers manifest through strong convictions such as righteous fury, boundless confidence, and the joy of flight.

While I was tempted to make Starfire a Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer as a good translation of her canon emotion-based powers native to her race, I had to remind myself that we are not just building Starfire. Dragonborn are not Tameraneans. While they have access to draconic magic and blood, draconic sorcery is not a universal thing across their race the way it is with Tameraneans. We are asking what would Starfire be if raised in Faerun? And I don't believe Starfire would be a Sorcerer. However, Cleric and Paladin is a much tighter race. Both gain their powers from convictions and beliefs, which reflects the way Tamaraneans like Starfire draw their power from strong emotions and beliefs. But which one you favor comes down to splitting hairs. Ultimately, I would chalk Starfire up as an Oath of Devotion Paladin. For starters, we are ignoring their canonical powers when picking a class. Paladins are great warriors, and the people of Tameran are a strong and proud warrior race. Dragonborn are not super religious with Dragonborn Clerics being rare, but Paladins are extremely common in Dragonborn society. Finally, their main stats of Strength and Charisma is very fitting and appropriate for Starfire. She is strong and very charming. While I favor Paladin, the divide between Paladins and Clerics is extremely narrow, and being a Light Domain Cleric is not a bad way to build Starfire. She'd have ample access to tons of radiant and fire spells, she'd be able to heal and support her friends, and nothing is stopping her from putting points into Strength as a Cleric and being a decent front-liner. If you want her to draw strength from her convictions, be effective in melee, and be a full spellcaster, then Cleric is an equally great choice. As I said, Paladin only barely squeaks past Cleric in my analysis, and in the first draft, I did originally settle on Cleric. Both work for Starfire, and thus, I'll leave a spell list for both. For her Paladin build, I had Starfire take Magic Initiate: Sorcerer to give her some ranged spell attack options. You could also do a dip into Sorcerer with a Paladin build as opposed to taking the Magic Initiate feat.

PALADIN SPELLS

Bold: Magic Initiate (Sorcerer) Orange: Oath Spells

C Firebolt, Light 1 Burning Hands, Cure Wounds, Protection from Evil & Good, Sanctuary, Searing Smite 2 Branding Smite, Lesser Restoration, Warding Bond, Zone of Truth 3 Blinding Smite, Beacon of Hope, Crusader's Mantle, Daylight, Dispel Magic, Revivify, Spirit Shroud 4 Death Ward, Freedom of Movement, Guardian of Faith, Staggering Smite 5 Banishing Smite, Circle of Power, Commune, Destructive Wave, Flame Strike

CLERIC SPELLS

Orange: Domain Spells

C Guidance, Light, Resistance, Sacred Flame, Spare the Dying, Thaumaturgy 1 Bless, Burning Hands, Guiding Bolt, Healing Word, Faerie Fire, Sanctuary, Shield of Faith 2 Aid, Flaming Sphere, Lesser Restoration, Prayer of Healing, Scorching Ray, Spiritual Weapon 3 Daylight, Fireball, Mass Healing Word, Remove Curse, Spirit Guardians, Spirit Shroud 4 Aura of Life, Banishment, Guardian of Faith, Wall of Fire 5 Commune, Dawn, Flame Strike, Greater Restoration, Holy Weapon, Scrying, Summon Celestial 6 Heal, Sunbeam 7 Divine Word, Fire Storm 8 Sunburst 9 Mass Heal

CYBORG VICTOR STONE

Victor "Vic" Stone is the son of famous cyberneticist Silas Stone that grew up in Detroit. Once a prolific high school athlete, Victor was horribly injured by an explosion at S.T.A.R. Labs caused by an invasion by Darkseid. With his cybernetics expertise, Silas saved Victor's life by infusing his son with the Mother Box.

Because Cyborg was born human but has since been infused with technology, we'll call Cyborg a Variant Human. Why is he not a Warforged? Becaues he was not built the way Grid was. Cyborg is not a robot, so he is not a warforged. He's also shown several times needing to eat and sleep in order to function, two things Warforged do not require. As a Variant Human, we'll give him +1 Strength and +1 Constitution. And we'll add on the Tough feat to increase his durability. Cyborg is the team meat shield, after all.

In terms of background, Cyborg was a high school athlete before the accident, so we'll call him an Athlete for Athletics and Acrobatics.

When Brother Blood steals Cyborg's blue prints, he becomes determined to stop Blood because it's his plans. His technology. He feels it is his responsibility. He similarly gets upset when any of his technology or gadgets is commandeered by villains. He puts his heart and soul into those inventions, and gets very upset when they're hurt or stolen. Cyborg is a lot more laid back than Robin as a leader, but still cares about getting the job done. I find it hard to really say whether he leans more Lawful or Chaotic. He has principles and sticks to them, but he's also left the team multiple times after a heated argument with Robin. I ultimately land on Neutral Good for Cyborg's alignment.

Now, how does his prosthetics come into it? Well, there's an item in DnD called the Prosthetic Limb, a common wondrous item that can replace lost limbs, doesn't require attunement, can be detached, but not against the user's will. But Cyborg's metal body clearly acts like armor, how do we incorporate this? We travel to Theros. Mythic Odysseys of Theros introduced an item called Molten Bronze Skin that comes in Breastplate, Half Plate, and Plate Armor variants. This item molds itself to the wearer's body, allowing them to easily wear clothes over the armor, and making it impossible for someone else to take off. This item does require attunement, but it accomplishes the same effect of giving Cyborg "built-in" armor, the way a Warforged would have.

CLASS

Artillerist Artificer: Artificers are gadgeteers and magical smiths that can defy logic with their inventions. Both Cyborg and his father are experts in cybernetics, metalworking, coding, and engineering. Cyborg built a car, a submarine, and then turned that submarine into a spaceship. The artillerist can make a tiny cannon they can carry with one hand that can fire a force ballista. Just try to say that's not Cyborg's sonic cannon. Champion Fighter: Cyborg is the tank of the party. It's his job to take the hits others wouldn't survive. In a low-tech fantasy world where Artificers don't belong, this version of Cyborg is a blacksmith who forged his own weapons and armor. The Champion is an athlete who prioritized physical strength over other aspects. When Cyborg isn't using his sonic cannon, he's throwing punches and lifting heavy weights, and he was a high school athlete until his accident. This is also a good multiclass option to get both sides of Cyborg: the tech and the muscle.

At minimum, Cyborg needs at least to be level 3 in Artificer to gain his Eldritch Cannon. After that, he can put as many levels into Artificer or Fighter as he wants. If he manages to become a level 11 Fighter, he'll get to make 3 weapon attacks then fire the Force Ballista as a bonus action, giving Cyborg 4 attacks at level 14. If you choose the Unarmed Fighting Style, Cyborg can wreck shop with his fists, making him an effective pugilist. Thanks to Action Surge, he can attack up to 6 times with just his action, and 7 times once you include his Eldritch Cannon. This makes him a pretty effective damage dealer, and the fighter levels would boost his Hit Points to make him a more effective tank. If you choose to take Artificer to level 9, his Force Ballista increases from 2d8 to 3d8. If you're okay with odd numbered levels and losing out on ASI, then Artificer 9/Fighter 11 could work. But for those who like getting ASI, then Artificer 4/Fighter 16 or Artificer 8/Fighter 12 may be more appealing. Just make sure to max out his Strength, and give him good Constitution and Intelligence, while dumping Dexterity. As an Artificer, we'll add Medicine and Perception to his skill list.

SPELLS

Blue: Artillerist Spells

C Light, Mending, Message, Shocking Grasp 1 Alarm, Cure Wounds, Identify, Shield, Thunderwave 2 Heat Metal, Scorching Ray, Shatter, Vortex Warp, Web 3 Fireball, Glyph of Warding, Haste, Tiny Servant, Wind Wall 4 Fabricate, Ice Storm, Mord's Private Sanctum, Summon Construct, Wall of Fire 5 Animate Objects, Cone of Cold, Creation, Greater Restoration, Wall of Force

This spell list was made for those who build Cyborg as a pure Artillerist Artificer, while those who build him as a Fighter multiclass will obviously have fewer spells.

RAVEN RAVEN ROTH

In her youth, Raven's mother Arella was lured into joining a cult that worshipped Trigon. She was chosen to be Trigon's bedmate, and afterwards, was approached by the Monks of Azar. They offered to shelter her and the child from Trigon, agreeing to raise the child in another dimension. A dimension named Azarath.

I believe the best translation of Raven's backstory is that Arella was lured into the cult of a powerful Fiend. Afterward, Arella was approached by Githzerai monks who offered to shelter both her and the unborn child with them in their home: the Chaotic Neutral Plane of Limbo. It would be here in the monasteries among stoic and scholarly Githzerai monks and wizards that Raven would learn to control her emotions, expand her mind, and hone her psionic powers. And one day, she would leave Limbo to return to the Prime Material Plane. This encompasses every part of Raven's backstory: being raised in another dimension, learning to control her emotions, honing her psychic powers.

As a half-demon, Raven translates nicely to Tiefling. Due to her empathy powers to manipulate other people's emotions, we'll go with a Fierna Tiefling. This will give her Friends, Charm Person, and Suggestion.

Having been raised in another plane, I would call Raven a Far Traveler. This grants her proficiency with Insight to get a reading for people's true feelings, and Perception to sense things around her, both of which can be flavored as her empathic powers and her extrasensory abilities. It also grants her proficiency with a Dragonchess Set, and she learns the Abyssal language.

When Robin becomes Slade's apprentice, Raven is the one to remind the team that he's a villain now, and they have to take him down. No matter how much the thought of it upsets her. When Cyborg leaves the team, Raven rationalizes that it's pointless to get upset and to focus on their duty as heroes. When Raven and Starfire switch bodies, Raven explains that she has to remain in control of herself to keep her powers from leaking out of her and destroying everything around her. When Trigon's prophecy comes to pass, Raven reveals that the reason she became a hero was that she wanted to do as much good as she could before the prophecy came to pass, hoping her good deeds would redeem her for the horrible destiny she knew she would one day fulfil. Raven is inarguably a perfect example of Lawful Good.

TRIGON

But what about Raven's father? After all, we're not importing Trigon into the setting, we're picking an existing DnD Fiend to be the stand-in for Trigon. Firstly, we have to settle whether Trigon is a Devil or a Demon, and I believe he is a Demon. He betrays Slade the first chance he gets once it's time to pay up on his side of the deal, and his very presence on Earth changes the entire planet. Demons in DnD are Chaotic Evil, untrustworthy to keep their word. They also have an impact on the world around them that corrupts everything to resemble the Abyss. And prolonged demonic presence only makes these changes worse. But which Demon Lord is her father?

Graz'zt: Graz'zt is an interesting choice because he's actually had a relationship with a human: the witch Tasha. He is the Demon Prince of Lust and Pleasure. Graz'zt will take any opportunity to turn any moment that is sweet, beautiful, and tender into something perverse, degrading, and carnal. If anyone was going to sleep with Arella just to use her to make a kid he can manipulate, it would be Graz'zt. He's not as big as Trigon, but his personality does support that he'd play the waiting game. After all, he used to be a devil before he realized he would never rise high enough to stand beside Asmodeus, and defected to the Demon side. So unlike other Demons, Graz'zt is more clever and patient. It also means Tasha could be a DnD counterpart to Arella, and also gives Raven a grandmother: Baba Yaga. This places Raven in a very prolific magic bloodline of powerful female spellcasters. Before Demogorgon showed up, Graz'zt was contending with Orcus, the Demon Lord of Necromancy for supreme rulership of the Abyss, so he's no slouch in terms of power. He is a Large CR 24 Demon. Baphomet: Baphomet's strongest argument is that he resembles Trigon the most, with his cloven hooves and antlered head. However, Baphomet is more of a king of beasts and brutes, and his general behavior does not support Trigon's plot to conceive Raven. However, Baphomet's sphere of influence is brutality, aggression, rage, and conquest. Red Raven or Dark Raven literally embodies Raven's rage, and anger causes Raven's demonic powers to rise to the surface. Which is on point for Baphomet. The biggest point against Baphomet however is that he favors those with natural weapons such as claws and horns, as his followers should want to rampage and gore with their natural weapons. So a magical daughter like Raven doesn't really fit the bill. This could be her rebelling against his physical aggression mindset, but that's stretching to make it work. Trigon also doesn't care about fighting the Titans, using magic to distract them while he gathers his strength. Baphomet would take glee in the fight, something Trigon does not do. He is a Huge CR 23 Demon. Demogorgon: The Prince of Demons, Demogorgon is the most powerful of all the Demons in the Abyss. He's enormous, and an absolute world-ending level threat. But is he clever enough to plot to conceive Raven? Yes, but only partially. Demogorgon's two heads are basically his left brain and his right brain. One calculating and clever, the other feral and impulsive. The clever head could plan to use Raven as a portal, but the other head might be too impulsive and ruin the plan. He is a Huge CR 26 Demon.

Ultimately, I have to go with Graz'zt as Raven's father. He's not as powerful or as huge as Demogorgon, but he's more manipulative and cunning. He has the patience to wait for his plan to come to fruition, he's manipulative enough to use false love and affection to coerce people into obedience, and he's depraved enough to get a sick pleasure out of using, debasing, and defiling any amount of love shown to him. More importantly, half his brain isn't impulsively trying to undermine every single one of his schemes. While Demogoron is more of a world-ending 'we are so f*cked' threat, Graz'zt is still a Demon Lord. Just because he's prettier does not mean he's not still an enemy that even high level adventurers would struggle with. Graz'zt, after all, is a CR 24 Fiend. Certainly nothing to scoff at. That's only 2 CR below Demogorgon.

CLASS

Raven is clearly a practitioner of arcane magic, but the source of her magic is so muddled that she could be any one of the three main arcane casters.

Aberrant Mind Sorcerer: Raised in Limbo amongst the Githzerai, the Aberrant Mind works well for Raven's backstory. For sorcerers, magic is infused into their very being. They don't need to study or make a deal, they just have a well of magical power innately. How they get this well varies. Usually, it passes along bloodlines. But it can also be like a mutation. One could go to the Shadowfell for Spring Break and return as a Shadow Magic Sorcerer. One can be given a spark of magic by a willing benefactor, they could touch an object that imparts magic to them, or awaken the power in a moment of dire circumstances. They could be born during an eclipse, travel to another plane, or be exposed to the weave itself. Their magic is constantly bubbling up inside of them, and leaking out if they don't contain it. Their magic can be explosive and hard to control. All of which sounds remarkably similar to Raven's powers and the constant struggle she undergoes to contain and control these powers. With Revelation in Flesh, Raven can fly for 10 minutes at a time at the cost of a single Sorcery Point. There's also no limit to how often she can reuse this power, other than her sorcery point pool. Granting Raven something akin to limitless flight, though not exactly. Fiend Warlock: While Raven herself did not make a deal with Trigon, Arella did. Arella was in Trigon's cult. According to Xanathar's Guide to Everything, one way a warlock might be joined to a patron is that their patron has been a benefactor to their family for generations, meaning it is possible to inherit one's otherworldly pact from their parents. There's also something I like to call the Sleeping Beauty Rule. The princess didn't choose to have fairy godmothers, but the king and queen did. The Player's Handbook also highlights that it is entirely possible to stumble into a pact without realizing it, or to become a warlock by simply reading an esoteric tome or touching a sentient blade. As such, it is entirely possible for Raven to be an unwilling warlock of her father. In the show, Trigon says that he gave Raven her powers, and Raven herself says in The End Part III that now that Trigon has no need of her, she no longer has her powers. But this is false, as Raven still has her powers, and uses them to fight back against Trigon. However, this is sort of fuzzy on how this works. Did Trigon really give her those powers, but could not take them away from her, or was Trigon mistaken and was never the source of her power to begin with? There's also the issue that in DnD canon lore, while a warlock Patron can bestow powers, they can't necessarily take them away. And Sorcerers can also have their powers bestowed upon them, further blurring the lines on whether Raven's gifts are more of a sorcerous origin or an otherworldly pact. The w Enchantment Wizard: I've built Raven several times, and every time, she's a Wizard. Raven is the brains of the party. She's a utility spellcaster with a vast knowledge of arcane lore and history. She's a polyglot who speaks several ancient languages, and has a library's worth of creepy esoteric books of arcane lore and eldrtich knowledge in her bedroom. Every spell that deals Psychic damage is under the School of Enchantment, and the school is full of spells that manipulate the mind, the senses, and emotions, all things Raven has displayed the ability to control. But we're not building Raven based on how she behaves in the comics or show. We're building Raven based on DnD lore, and Raven's powers were not cultivated through study. Yes, she learned new spells from Malchior. Yes, she is a highly intelligent person. But scholarly study is not the source of her powers. She does not have a connection to the Weave or any other sort of magical energy in the DC Universe. There are metaphysical forces in DC Comics, such as The Green, The Red, The Black, and other such forces, none of which Raven herself is linked to in any way. As such, I cannot confidently label Raven as a Wizard in accordance with DnD's lore.

Ultimately, I have to go with an Aberrant Mind Sorcerer. Her magic is innate. She works to control and maintain it. And a lack of restraint leads to her magic flooding out of her and impacting the world around her if left uncontrolled. Raven is a Sorcerer. However, she is a good candidate for multiclassing if you so choose. The main reason Raven is said to have left Azarath was due to Trigon finding her, forcing Raven to flee. However, in some versions, it is Raven herself --driven by curiosity -- that seeks her father out. In so doing, alerting him to her location, and dooming Azarath in the process. Either way, the moment of Trigon finding her could be the moment her pact is sealed, multiclassing Raven into a Fiend Warlock. Thus, Raven can start out as a Sorcerer, and possibly dip a level or two into Warlock to boot. This is also a large part of why I didn't make Starfire a Sorcerer. The party doesn't need two sorcerers, and Sorcerer works much better for Raven than it does for Starfire. For my spell recommendation, I will be assuming Raven has 2 levels in Warlock, and 18 levels in Sorcerer. For her Sorcerer skills, we'll give Raven Arcana and History.

SPELLS

*Racial Spells Bold: Aberrant Mind Origin Spells Italics: Warlock Spells Purple: Sorcerer Spells

C Blade Ward, Eldritch Blast, Friends*, Mage Hand, Mending, Message, Mind Sliver, Mold Earth, Prestidigitation, Toll the Dead 1 Arms of Hadar, Catapult, Cause Fear, Charm Person*, Command, Dissonant Whispers, Hex, Shield 2 Calm Emotions, Detect Thoughts, Mind Spike, Suggestion*, Tasha's Mind Whip 3 Counterspell, Hunger of Hadar, Fly, Sending 4 Dimension Door, Evard's Black Tentacles, Raulothim's Psychic Lance, Summon Aberration 5 Bigby's Hand, Rary's Telepathic Bond, Synaptic Static, Telekinesis 6 Globe of Invulnerability 7 Plane Shift, Teleport 8 Demiplane 9 Time Stop or Psychic Scream

ELDRTICH INVOCATIONS

Agonizing Blast

Eldritch Sight

BEAST BOY GARFIELD LOGAN

Garfield Logan was born an ordinary human, but when he became sick as a child, his father injected him with a serum using the DnA of a green monkey. The serum saved Beast Boy's life, but he turned completely green as a result, and unlocked his shapeshifting powers. Beast Boy can turn into more than just garden variety zoo animals. He has turned into alien lifeforms, microorganisms, dinosaurs, and dragons. The Werebeast Form he got in the 2003 cartoon episode "The Beast Within" later became Comic Cannon when Beast Boy was captured by Lupus, a minor werewolf villain. Beast Boy's best skill lies in his wild card shenanigans, as he can do things like turn into a whale to make use of how quickly whales think to artificially inflate his intelligence. When the Borneo Rainforest faced extinction, Beast Boy and Swamp Thing worked together to restore the ecosystem. Swamp Thing provided the seeds and flora, and then Beast Boy dispersed himself into a swarm of insects to help pollinate and stimulate the regrowth of the rainforest. Raven even tells Swamp Thing that when Beast Boy does this, he risks losing small parts of himself should anything happen to his many insect forms, but he takes on these risks willingly for the benefit of nature. While Beast Boy's green skin and shapeshifting are a result of the monkey serum he was injected with, Beast Boy's actual ability to shapeshift comes from a metaphysical energy field in the DC Universe called The Red. Think of it like the Force but specifically for all animal life forces in the universe. A similar force called The Green caters to all plant life in the universe, and this power is wielded by characters like Swamp Thing and Poison Ivy.

In terms of his race, because Beast Boy was a normal human until he turned green, I'd have to chalk him up as a Variant Human. Because he's short and green, there is a primal urge to make him a Goblin, and it would be cute, but inaccurate. There's also an urge to make him one of the partially bestial races like Leonin, Hadozee, Satyr, Minotaur, or Yuan-Ti. Even Simic Hybrid has a valid excuse to be in consideration. However, because Beast Boy was born human, I have to go with such. We'll give him +1 Wisdom, +1 Dexterity, and the Charger feat to dash into melee range and get a free attack out of it.

Beast Boy has pretty much always been a hero, first being adopted by the Doom Patrol, and later joining the Teen Titans. Momento ran the Doom Patrol like a military outfit, and Beast Boy grew up respecting rank and following orders. As such, I'd call him a Soldier making him proficient in Athletics, but we'll substitute in Performance to replace Intimidation.

Beast Boy wants to do good, but he's also the Lancer to Robin's stoic serious Leader. Beast Boy is a goofball knucklehead who often shows little regard for the rules. Upon running into the Doom Patrol again, Momento chastises Beast Boy for prioritizing his team's safety over completing the mission. He's usually also the first to suggest bizarre plans or spout off ridiculous theories. As such, I would say Beast Boy is Chaotic Good. He'll do what's right, just in a very unorthodox way.

CLASS

Moon Druid: the most obvious choice, Druid is the only class in the game with access to Wildshape, the ability to shapeshift into animals. Although Beast Boy's powers were originally from genetic experiments gone wrong, his current lore makes Beast Boy connected to The Red, a metaphysical energy that links all animal life in the universe under the Parliament of Limbs. The Red is closely connected to The Green, which characters like Swamp Thing and Poison Ivy are connected to. Due to his connection to the energy of all living animals, Druid is fitting for Beast Boy. The Circle of the Moon is the most fitting option, granting Beast Boy Combat Wildshape. Lycan Blood Hunter: Before he was connected to the Red, Beast Boy's powers were a form of genetic mutation. Blood Hunters are the class that deal with altered DnA. While Beast Boy can't turn into every animal, his Lycan form is suitably animalistic and primal. It can also be a good option if you want to specifically play into the WereBeast form from the episode "The Beast Within". Because Beast Boy lacks supernatural powers beyond his shapeshifting, this version of Beast Boy sacrifices the variety of his wildshaping to keep him a strictly martial character. The Path of the Beast Barbarian also works, but Beast Boy only really has rage issues in "The Beast Within", and it is not otherwise a core aspect of his character, to the point that I didn't feel Barbarian was a good fit for his character. Valour Bard: If we ignore his powers entirely, then Beast Boy's role in the group is comedic relief and unexpected wildcard, which sounds like a Bard. Polymorph is on the Bard spell list, giving Beast Boy a backdoor method of wild shaping without being a druid. Through magical secrets, Bards can also pick up spells from other spell lists, letting Beast Boy pick up Druid spells like Web, Insect Plague, Summon Beast, Conjure Animals, and Guardian of Nature for the Primal Beast form. None of the subclasses jumped out to me for Beast Boy, but Valour Bards are great cheerleaders and sidekicks. Beast Boy has a chronic people pleaser mentality, and uses humor to lift his friends' spirits. Beast Master Ranger: Much like the Bard, this class option doesn't really fit Beast Boy, but it works as a variant build option that rather than being a full caster druid, Beast Boy protects his animal brethren as a mighty hunter. Tigers, Cheetahs, Lions, Gorillas, Elephants, and Rhinos are among his favorite animals to turn into, and would work well as Beasts of the Land. He also favors turning into a Hawk, Falcon, or Pterodactyl for a Beast of the Air. If you want a Beast of the Sea, he tends to favor Crocodiles, Sharks, Octopi, Whales, Swordfish, and Turtles.

While each of these offers interesting character angles, I obviously have to chalk up Beast Boy as a Circle of the Moon Druid. The Lycan Blood Hunter is a very close second choice, but lacks the connection to nature that Beast Boy (especially his Comic counterpart) definitely has. The bard was mostly thrown in to consider his personality, and it wasn't a terrible idea. He is funny, and would absolutely spam Vicious Mockery. A Beast Boy native to Faerun becoming a funny bard feels very organic to his character. But Druid feels just as organic, if not more-so. Finally, the Beast Master was pretty much thrown out as an extra idea, but not one I was taking seriously. Thematically, the idea of Beast Boy as a Lorax but for P.E.T.A. is interesting. Using his bond with animals to protect other animals. But the Druid was the clear winner. For his Druid skills, we'll give Beast Boy Animal Handling and Perception.

SPELLS

Because Beast Boy does not really have magical powers beyond his wildshaping, I put together his spell list by trying to focus on shapeshifting, summoning animal companions, and any other bodily augmentation spell I could find. Spells that change some aspect of a person's body or enhances their senses in some way. I steered clear of any spell that felt too plant-themed or elemental, as Beast Boy is more connected to beasts than he is to storms or the elements.

C Druidcraft, Guidance, Infestation, Primal Savagery 1 Absorb Elements, Animal Friendship, Beast Bond, Speak With Animals 2 Animal Messenger, Beast Sense, Darkvision, Enhance Ability, Enlarge/Reduce, Locate Animals and Plants, Summon Beast 3 Conjure Animals, Protection from Energy, Water Breathing 4 Charm Monster, Dominate Beast, Giant Insect, Guardian of Nature, Polymorph 5 Commune with Nature, Insect Plague 6 Primordial Ward 7 Draconic Transformation 8 Animal Shapes 9 Shapechange

I will say, more than anyone else, his spell list really surprised me. I've always avoided building Beast Boy and hated the idea of him being a druid because it meant giving him spells. But I am surprisingly content with the spell list I have devised for him. It puts all the correct emphasis where it should be: on making Beast Boy the master of body modification, as well as allowing him to channel The Red as well through his animal spells. I used to think Beast Boy didn't work flavor-wise as a Druid, and now I can't believe I ever thought to build him any other way.

TERRA TARA MARKOV

Terra is yet another princess, this time the illegitimate daughter of King Viktor Markov of Markovia. In the Comics, she made her living as a mercenary and criminal, taking odd jobs to get by, while in the show, Terra is a wandering homeless teen. In the comics, Tara was already working for Deathstroke before she met the Titans, while in the show, Terra met the Titans before she met Slade. This is to say, Terra has two completely different personalities. Comics Tara is a villain through-and-through, while Show Terra is a misguided hero turned villain turned reformed villain. Because the other characters are mostly going by their show counterparts, I'll mostly be looking at the Comics version of Tara only to answer any questions about her backstory we don't have from the show. The most important detail from the comics is that Tara's half-brother, Geo-Force (Prince Brion Markov), also has geokinetic powers. However, these powers are not signs of a magical bloodline, as neither King Viktor nor King Gregor Markov had these same powers. Their powers came about from the experiments of Helga Jace, the royal scientist of Markovia. Later, Brion's wife, Denise Howard, exposed herself to the same energies, turning her into Geode. Both Denise and Tara suffered from mental instability after the experiment, suggesting that the source of their powers had a debilitating effect on their mental states. Tara hated pretty much everyone and everything, while Denise desired to kill her own husband. In the comics, Tara was at one point part of the Black Lantern Corp, which raise their members as zombies to harness the power of death and hatred. This zombie Tara then sought revenge on the Teen Titans. I won't be covering this, but thought it was neat trivia.

We're going to stick mainly to the show's lore, so we'll call Terra a Variant Human since her powers are a result of scientific experimentation. We'll give her +1 Dexterity, +1 Wisdom and the Actor feat so she can pretend to be somebody else.

For her background, Terra is a wandering homeless kid. We'll call her an Outlander for Athletics and Survival. However, if you want to play more into Tara's backstory, then Criminal, Spy, Urban Bounty Hunter, and Haunted One could also work.

Show Terra's alignment seems to me to be True Neutral. She joins the Titans because it's offered. She works with Slade because he's an option. It never feels like her betrayal is personal until after Beast Boy turns his back on her. Up until then, she's hesitant and guilty about it. Terra looks out for Terra. That to me says True Neutral. Terra never seems to care that much about helping people or stopping villains. It was always more about just wanting to belong and to have a home. No strong convictions to be a hero or a villain. Which explains why The Girl Who Might Be Terra in Things Change is just an ordinary school girl. Not some great hero or wicked villain. If you're going by Comics Tara, that's straight up Chaotic Evil. The girl hated everyone and everything, and wanted a horizontal relationship with a middle-aged man. Comics Tara was just really unstable. I mean, she saw a Jerricho-possessed Deathstroke freeing the Titans, and instead of talking to him or trying to figure out what was going on, she just pushed the Big Red Button and brought the building down on herself in an attempt to take everyone with her.

CLASS

Terra's class is tricky because unlike Starfire with her light and fire theme, or Raven's psionics and general magic, there's not really a clean and simple class for Earth-based spells. Druids are connected to nature, and Sorcerers and Wizards have pretty wide elemental coverage, but there's not a clear and clean answer like with the other titans. So, let's look at our options:

Wild Magic Sorcerer: While there was a Stone Sorcerer, this subclass never made it past Unearthed Arcana, so we can't really count it. In the show, Terra has poor control over her powers, often causing side effects accidentally. The possibility that the source of her powers also warped her mind in the comics also fits, as wild magic is the pure chaos of the feywild. Sorcerers sometimes get their powers from being exposed to a source of magical energy, visiting other planes, or being born during cosmic events. And the Wild Magic Sorcerer often causes chaos and problems at the table because of the random side effects of their magic, such that a lot of tables hate playing with the subclass because of just how detrimental it can be to have around. Which seems really fitting for Terra. Swarmkeeper Ranger: Like Toph, Terra in the show is an outdoorsy girl who prefers roughing it in the great outdoors. This rough and tumble lifestyle translates well to being a Ranger. The Swarmkeeper can be aided by a swarm of just about anything, and nowhere does it say it has to be sentient. So, Terra could be a ranger aided by a swarm of rocks or sand fighting alongside her. It's certainly an interesting and flavorful option. Rangers get a few earthy spells, but not a ton of them. However, you could always ask your DM to homebrew a rule that would let Ranger Terra pick up some more earthen-based spells from the Druid spell list. Mutant Blood Hunter: If we ignore Terra's powers completely to focus more on where they come from, Terra makes for an interesting Blood Hunter. Her powers are a result of scientific experimentation. Mutants literally alter themselves to fight, fitting that genetic experiment angle nicely. The only difference is that this version of Terra has learned to do it herself. It's not a bad choice. Assassin Rogue: Like the Blood Hunter, the Rogue is being considered without her geokinetic powers in mind. Rather, I'm looking at the Rogue because of how rogues are often infiltrators, spies, and thieves. I chose the Assassin as they have the ability to create a false identity, which is very fitting for Terra and the Judas Contract. Whispers Bard: This one is being suggested mostly for the worldbuilding implications. Bards from the College of Whispers work as spies and saboteurs, infiltrating parties and guilds disguised as other kinds of bards, then selling their cohort's secrets back to whatever spy network they serve. They literally pull off a Judas Contract as a Subclass. And with their Magical Secrets, a Whispers Bard Terra can pick up the few spells that actually let her throw rocks.

If we were just building Terra based on her powers, Wild Magic could have been a decent fit thematically. However, the purpose of this post is to ask ourselves 'what would the Teen Titans be if they were born and raised in Faerun?' And being exposed to the crazy magic of the Feywild just doesn't feel right for Terra. Whispers Bard creates an interesting angle for roleplay, but it caters more to players wanting to play more into her Comic Book Tara counterpart. The willing traitor. Whispers works great for a villainous version of Terra, but not for Show Terra. Blood Hunter and Assassin Rogue are decent ideas, but Terra isn't much of a scientist, and again, Assassin caters much more to Comics Tara than Show Terra. Ultimately, I have to go with the Swarmkeeper Ranger for Terra. As a girl roughing it in the great outdoors, sleeping in caves, and taking care of herself, becoming a ranger seems like a natural extension of the lifestyle she was already leading by the time she met the Titans. And if we're asking what the characters would become if raised in Faerun, that's a pretty cut and dry answer. Terra would have naturally gravitated toward the life of a roaming Ranger, aided by swarms of rocks and sand. Terra Markov is a Swarmkeeper Ranger. For her Ranger skills, we'll give Terra Perception and Stealth. If you want to give her Deception, swap one of the background skills she gets from Outlander, then pick up the dropped skill from the Ranger skill list.

SPELLS

While we decided to make Terra a Swarmkeeper Ranger, it does sacrifice a lot of her Earth-based abilties. However, if you have an open-minded DM, Terra does get a few spells from both Primal Awareness and the Swarmkeeper Subclass that don't quite fit the theme, and a cool DM might be okay with letting you make a few substitutions for Terra's spell list, pulling more Earth-based spells from the Druid and Wizard spell list as an exchange for the excess spells than the base Ranger class gives her. But even without homebrewing in more Earth magic, Terra still gets a few stone-based spells, and Wrath of Nature can let Terra chuck rocks at enemies every turn as a bonus action so long as she maintains concentration on the spell. So even a pure Swarmkeeper Ranger will still get some earthen flavor as Terra. And you could also reflavor spells, such as treating Web like quicksand to keep Terra's earthen flavor.

Italics: Primal Awareness Spells Bold: Swarmkeeper Spells Pink: DM Approved Earth Spells (Homebrew)

C Mage Hand (Mold Earth) 1 Ensnaring Strike, Faerie Fire, Hunter's Mark, Speak With Animals (Catapult, Earth Tremor) 2 Barkskin, Beast Sense, Pass Without Trace, Web (Earthbind, Max's Earthen Grasp) 3 Conjure Barrage, Gaseous Form, Meld Into Stone, Speak With Plants (Erupting Earth, Wall of Sand) 4 Arcane Eye, Locate Creature, Stoneskin, Summon Elemental (Stone Shape) 5 Commune With Nature, Conjure Volley, Insect Plague, Swift Quiver, Wrath of Nature (Transmute Rock, Wall of Stone)

Conclusion

I felt this was an interesting thought experiment. Some characters like Robin and Cyborg changed very little from the last time I built them, while Raven and Beast Boy stayed what I expected but offered new insights into how they fit into the lore of the world. Starfire and Terra had the biggest changes, but those changes I feel are for the better, at least for this post. At least now, you could play a campaign with the Teen Titans while also being completely faithful to DnD lore.

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star-anise · 2 years

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i see you have discovered history professor bret deveraux, my beloved. i highly recommend his battle of helm's deep and pelennor fields series if you want to learn about historical battlefield tactics (and operations and strategies) and his fremen mirage series if you want to learn about the facist view of history and why it's complete and utter bullshit. his series on sparta is also phenomenal

I'm having such a good time working through his back catalogue. AGreatDivorce on Youtube has recorded audio versions of many of his posts, which is a godsend for me.

The Fremen Mirage series was a balm to my soul after having to deal with SO many "military history buffs" and SFF reply guys who think that violence is the pinnacle of human achievement, and therefore acknowledging the personhood of anyone but the apex warriors is like, taking resources away from the war effort or something.

For the uninitiated, the "Fremen Mirage" is what Devereaux calls a "pop theory of history" that believes:

that a lack of wealth and sophistication leads to moral purity, which in turn leads to military prowess, which consequently produces a cycle of history wherein rich and decadent societies are forever being overthrown by poor, but hardy ‘Fremen’ who then become rich and decadent in their turn. Or, as the meme, originally coined by G. Michael Hopf puts it, “Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And weak men create hard times.”

And then in his series he applies rigorous historical analysis to this idea, and takes it apart like Christmas wrapping. It's almost as fun as the Sparta series, where he demonstrates that Spartans would hate their modern fanboys, and also aren't actually as special or amazing as they're made out to be.

After a while, though, I got tired of the military side of things, and gone wandering. What I've found most refreshing this week were posts that take a step back from direct pop culture criticism and just simply lay out the material realities of life in the past. The really basic building blocks that help us get in tune with the daily life of the past. Stuff like the Lonely City series.

Or the clothing series! I said that I've been trying to figure out just how rare or common looms were, and while I've been looking at archeological evidence of loom types, he's just found the numbers that let me calculate it.

I'm using a base unit of 5 yards of cloth, which is, with a generous hand wiggle, enough to make one person's outfit, maybe two.

According to these estimates:

In the early middle ages, using a hand spindle and warp-weighted loom, that might take about 70 hours of weaving and, at a low estimate, 500 hours of spinning. If someone devoted eight hours a day to nothing but spinning yarn, it would take them over two months to have enough to weave with.

In the Late Middle Ages, with the invention of the spinning wheel and horizontal loom, that figure would go down to 180 hours of spinning and 30 hours of weaving. The change in technology reduces the time down to almost a third of what it was before!

This really settles for me the question I had about my early-medieval fantasy setting, which is that there would be a lot of looms, a loom in every household, and that it would not at all be out of place for even aristocratic women to spin and weave on a regular basis.

Which like, to be cranky about fantasy heroines who hate sewing: In that kind of world, embroidery is a luxury. Weavers and spinners have to bust their butts just to put clothes on everybody's backs. Spinning and weaving that much is gruelling work that I would absolutely understand hating. However, it is not stupid, silly, or useless. Being able to embroider—to do something primarily decorative and artistic, just because it looks good and feels nice—is likely to be more of an escape from drudgery than the drudgery itself.

It really can't be overstated, how much the Industrial Revolution was a textile revolution. Our relationship to cloth and clothing has transformed out of all recognition over the last 300 years. There are undeniable advantages to this, because it frees us to do so many other things with our time. But it also makes it tough to look back into the past clearly, because it's so easy to forget that the burdens we've shed still existed back then.

#medievalism #staranise original

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aufi-creative-mind · 1 year

Text

LU: Sparring Session with Time

SYNOPSIS: The group of misfit incarnations of the Hero's Spirit arrived in another version of Hyrule and recruited their latest member, the Hero of the Wild. The newest Link was slowly warming up to the rest of the group and has shown to be a capable fighter like the rest of them. Though Time does noticed that their newest member has some hidden abilities.

Every incarnation of the Hero had their own unique set of fighting styles and special abilities.

Time, as the oldest and most experienced of the group, had a keen eye of predicting the opponent's actions to compensate for his aging slowness. He had years of battle experiences and the odd fight duels under his belt. He could tell a person's level of fighting capability just by observing how they maintain their stance and the way they handle their weapons.

Twilight was the strongest in the group and relied primarily on his strength when engaged in fights. Whether it be during a real battle or in practice. One swing of his arm could easily knock his opponents back without breaking a sweat. Though his level of experience was only just below their senior.

Wind, as the youngest, was the most active and adaptable fighter in the group. He was very jumpy and could reach incredible heights despite his short height. He also had a surprisingly strong grip for his age and was able to swing a sword twice his weight without relying too much on his own stamina.

Warriors was a professional knight with the stance and had the posture of a military leader. He was able to stand his ground as easily as Twilight and had a preference to go onto the offensive against his foes. He was especially deadly when he was paired with one of his brothers-in-arms. With his tactical mind, the Captain was able to plan out a strategy on his feet with precision.

Sky on the other hand, had the refinement and reflexes of a dancer. He had a level of deadly elegance when wielding the Master Sword in his hands. His feet and arms moved so swiftly and yet his eyes, when focused, flared qqqwith controlled fury. Warning his opponents of his hidden capabilities with the sacred blade as an extension of himself.

Four took advantage of his short height when he was up against any opponent that towered over him. He was one of the quickest amongst the others, able to dodge and ran around his enemies that were slower to react or recover. He may not have the same strength like Warrior or Twilight but he definitely had the ability to quickly stagger his enemies when they least expected it.

Legend was the most resourceful and arguably, the most prepared with the amount of items he tended to carry on his person. He was ready at any given moment and can flawlessly switch between his equipment. Sword, shield, bow and arrow and magic rods. When he teams up with another person, he is always ready to assist the others in whatever way he could assist.

Hyrule on the other hand, often stuck to a basic set of equipment. His boomerang was often his first choice when in need of a distraction or long range attacks. His style of fighting was described as being 'unorthodox' based on his street smarts and experience as a wandering adventurer. But he took advantage of his unique style against his opponents who may not be used to his kind of movement.

And then there was Wild. The newest addition to the group.

It had been two weeks since the Hero of the Wild had joined their group. It had taken him some time to adjust into a group setting after being a solo adventurer for a long time. But from what the others - especially Time and Twilight - had observed, Wild was a very capable all-rounder fighter.

He was a survivalist and reacted quickly to any changes, especially when considering the post apocalyptic state of his Hyrule where monsters and enemies could ambush anyone at any corner. Like Legend and Hyrule, he was resourceful and well-rounded with almost any weapon - sword and shield, bow and arrow, claymores, rods and spears - you name it. He had a similar knightly posture like Warriors but preferred to be on the defensive. His shield arm was stronger than his sword arm. Being able to stagger a Lynel or deflect Guardian laser back without too much strain.

Though there was one thing that Time did observe from Wild during a recent fight.

During a rain-soaked fight, the group had the misfortune of disturbing a nearby camp of Bokoblins, Lizalfos and Moblins while travelling through the East Necluda region towards Wild's home in Hateno Village.

Nine Heroes against a couple of monsters? Not a problem! They were still working on their battle dynamics as a whole but a monster camp would be a good exercise for them.

Wild led the fight. They were on his homeground and this survivalist Hero was no stranger to this kind of monster encounter. With Hyrule and Twilight as his support. the trio fought up along the treehouse-like camp that the monsters had built to take down any archers while the rest dealt with the monsters on the ground.

At some point towards the end of that fight, Time had put down a Lizalfos with his favoured Biggoron Sword when he noticed in the distance that Wind was about to be overwhelmed by a Moblin after it knocked off the youngest Hero's weapon with its giant wooden club. Wind was too far for him or anyone else to assist him in time. Wild must have spotted Wind's situation as well because Time spotted the latest Hero suddenly jump off from the highest platform of the tree camp.

Then in a blink of an eye, the sword and shield in Wild's hands were suddenly bow and arrows. And before the Hero of Time could process through his mind what he saw, the Moblin was immediately shot and electrocuted. It immediately dropped its club onto the ground which gave Wind the opportunity to take it and knocked the towering monster with one spinning swing. Once the monster was down, Wild deployed his Paraglider to slow down his fall and landed next to Wind on ground level. First checking on the youngest Hero if he was okay before the two Heroes high-five one another.

All this happened in under 10 seconds or less, Time reckoned. He could have sworn that Wild had fired more than one arrow when he made that staggering shot at the Moblin. While some of the other Links — primarily Four, Sky and Wind — were fast and had quick reflexes. What he witnessed from Wild earlier was closer to superhuman-like speed.

It reminded him of Sheik during his first Hero journey. One moment, you were alone. Next, they appeared in front of you without a sound. And then, a dagger at your throat. Warning him of his slowness .

He wondered...

"Hey, old man!" Time's train of thought was interrupted by Twilight who approached him from behind with a bowl of warm meal.

"Oh thank you," the older Hero said as he accepted the food offering.

Both Time and Twilight stood outside of Wild's house in Hateno Village, just by the front entrance. The survivalist Hero had offered up his home as place for respite after a long journey the group endured through this post-apocalyptic version of Hyrule. The village, its residents and liveliness was in contrast to the empty and ruined settlements that the Heroes had passed by. It was a nice change of pace though. The feeling of being in the company of friendly people instead of the possibility of monsters ambushing them.

Inside, Wild was serving lunch and was passing around bowls of his latest meal - Creamy Meat Soup with deer meat and milk he purchased from a passing merchant. To have a cook like him around was a blessing from the Goddesses for the group.

"So...what's in your mind?" Twilight asked the older man.

Time raised his eyebrows as he ate through his bowl. It was starting to make him miss Malon's homemade meals .

"Nothing too bothersome. I was thinking back to the fight we had earlier."

"Oh? I'll admit that our team dynamic still needs work but I thought that we did rather well."

"I was thinking more about our host."

"The Champion?" Twilight looked up to his mentor before he settled down his wooden spoon into the bowl, "...What about him?"

Time settled down his bowl by the stone leap before taking a deep breath as he recalled his thoughts. "...When I saw him jump off the platform to assist Wind on the ground, in just a blink of an eye...I saw his sword and shield were suddenly changed into bow and arrows. And...I think he may have fired more than one arrow too."

"Oh! You mean his slowdown time perception?"

Time blinked for a moment before he turned his attention back to Twilight, "... What?"

Twilight chomped down the last of the soup into his mouth before holding the now empty bowl in his hand. He let out a sigh of satisfaction before replying back to his senior. "Yeah. The Champion... Wild... has this slowdown perception of time ability whenever he focuses. Especially when he's firing arrows mid air."

Time raised an eyebrow to his protégé, "...And how long have you known about this?"

"Don't you remember what I told you, old man? I've visited Wild and this version of Hyrule multiple times in the past in my Beast form. Long before I joined our group of misfit Heroes."

Time had a skewered frown with his arms crossed as he leaned against the stone wall foundations behind them. "...And you did not consider informing me about the Champion's hidden abilities?"

"That's because I did not know if I was going to see the kid again. My last appearance here was about...three months ago...for me at least," Twilight sighed. Just as his thumb pointed back inside the house. "...Six months for the kid."

The older Link frowned more deeply. Ah, the asynchronous nature of time .

The two Heroes then looked back inside the house. They saw that the rest of the group were also enjoying their meals. Sky was complimenting the Champion that his Creamy Meat Soup was delicious while Legend was declaring out loud that they will definitely never let go of him and his cooking. Their compliments were causing their newest member to blush pink in the cheeks. Very flattered that they all liked his food. Twilight could see that Wild was still adjusting to having so many people giving him this much attention and praise.

"If you want..." Twilight turned his attention back to his mentor, "...You can ask the cub to spar with you."

"Oh? What made you suggest this?" Time raised his brows.

"I sparred with the kid a couple of times in the past. He's a strong fighter. Though, I'll tell you now, he can be full of surprises. If he's not intimidated by you that is," Twilight smirked, rather knowingly.

Time chuckled a bit with his arms crossed, "...Well then, perhaps next time when I have the chance."

"Just be careful with him, ah? I hate to see Wild get himself hurt again..." The wolf Hero added, rather casually. Even though his eyes suggested otherwise.

. . .

It was a cool afternoon when the Heroes of misfits settled into the newest member’s home. After spending days traversing through this version of Hyrule that was larger and wider than any previous version of their homeland the group had visited so far. Just being able to relax and laze around was a blessing itself.

While the Champion cleaned up after their lunch, the rest of the group settled down a bit and spreaded themselves throughout their host’s home to relax. It was nice, Wild admitted, to have other people around but under the condition that they do not break anything. Legend jokingly mentioned that they could say the same thing about Wild's tendency of breaking almost anything in his hands. Which to the latter's annoyance.

Sky quickly found Wild's bed in the loft area upstairs and immediately fell asleep on top of the soft bed. Wild was still a bit baffled that the most refined and arguably strongest swordsman that he ever had the honour to fight alongside with was such a deep sleeper.

As Sky snored away, Four and Wind had also made their way up to the loft area. Their eyes were immediately caught by the large framed photograph - 'pictograph' as Wind called them - on the wall above the dresser. A younger Wild with shorter hair. Alongside his Zelda and four other individuals. One from the four other races of Hyrule. The Hero of the Wild had already explained to them a bit about himself as one of the 'Champions' of this Hyrule. Himself as the 'Hylian Champion' while the others were Champions of their respective raise. He did not explain any further than that though. With his memory problems and guilt that still clawed through him from inside.

Both Four and Wind wisely decided not to ask Wild about the photograph for now. Wind did notice a small framed photograph of Wild and what looked like his Zelda. Smiling. And it looked to have been recently taken. Next to a small vase of a bouquet of Silent Princess flowers.

In the main area of the house, Legend and Warriors were browsing through Wild's mounted collection of weapons and shields displayed on the wall. Hyrule was looking through the bookshelves around the house. Even though he could not read this world's version of the Hylian script he admired the illustrations drawn on the pages.

Legend noted that Wild had mounted his own Hylian Shield as a display rather than utilising it in his adventures.

Warrior had taken an interest towards a pair of Gerudo weaponry. "Hey Wild, where did you get these?"

Wild turned around after storing away the dishes and pots into the cabinets, "...Oh, they were given to me. The sword's called the 'Scimitar of the Seven'. And the shield's 'Daybreaker'. They're Urbosa's signature weapons."

"Who's Urbosa?"

"She's the Gerudo Champion from one hundred years ago. The Gerudo gave them to me in gratitude. After I stopped the rogue Divine Beast, Vah Naboris."

Warriors, Legend and Hyrule flinched with all unspoken enquiries in regards to the other mounted weapons’ significance were immediately set aside for now. Though Wild did not seem to notice as he finished wiping away the last of the mess.

Meanwhile outside, Twilight was checking on Epona who was grazing on the tall grass in front of the small horse stable alongside Wild's own horse. Or at least, one of his own horses. The wolf Hero was a little disappointed that the Champion did not have his giant horse with its long orange mane

Would that be a sight to behold for the others to see?

He chuckled to himself as he guided Epona around to the nearby drinking pond.

Once Wild had finished storing away his kitchen utensils, it was only then that Time decided to approach him when he entered back inside the house.

"Champion."

The Hero of Wild flinched. Almost jumping up in surprise when he heard Time calling out his title name. "Um, yes?" His voice stuttered when he turned around to face the older Link.

"Do you have a moment with me outside?" Time asked him. Nodding his head towards the door.

Wild was unsure at first. Even though it had been only two weeks, he was still not used to being around the Hero of Time. The leader of the group who he still found to be rather intimidating to be in the presence of. Especially with his look of disappointment that Twilight kept telling him about ever since he decided to join the group. Time saw his hesitation and gave him a warmer smile to hopefully ease Wild's awkwardness around him.

"Don't worry, I’m just wondering if you have the time to spar with me?”

Wild’s eyes widened with his eyebrows raised in surprise.

Everyone else inside the house immediately turned their attention towards the two. With the exception of Sky who was still asleep.

“Oh, I um-“ Wild stuttered, flattered by the offer when his arm was suddenly tackle-hugged by Wind after rushing down from the loft area.

“YOU GOTTA DO IT, WILD!” Wind shouted out loud, practically screaming in excitement. Causing Wild to wince a bit. “...Do you have any idea what an honour it is to be spar with Time!”

Wild stiffened a little but when he looked down, he could see the glimmer of sheer happiness in Wind’s eyes.

“Okay Sailor, you’re making him more nervous.” Warrior laughed as he pulled the young Hero away. He then winked to Wild though, “...But seriously though, you should take his offer. It’s not very often that the Old Man spars with any of us young lads during practice.”

Time rolled his eyes with an amused smile .

Hyrule then patted Wild on the shoulder, Though the latter flinched by the sudden touch. "...The Hero of Time’s not only the best fighter amongst us. He is also a really good teacher! Most of us have sparred with him at least once,” the Traveller Hero smiled to him with reassurance.

“That is if he doesn’t knock your sword off first,” Legend added with a nod.

Wild tensed up by the sudden attention towards himself. Though when he did look back up to Time, the elder Link simply gave him a smile of encouragement.

Time then raised his hands and signed to him, ”Ready?”

Wild was a little surprised before a smile silently appeared and nodded to him.

Time chuckled, “Let’s go then.”

Both Heroes soon headed out through the front door with the remaining Links following them behind. Wild then pointed towards the back of his property where there was a large empty space they could use as a practice ground.

“I say 50 rupees that Time knocks down Wild,” Legend nudged his elbow onto Warrior.

Warrior rolled his eyes, “...That’s too easy to predict.”

“Hey, you never know.” Four chirped in with a shrug, “...If Wild is anything like this version of Hyrule, there could be a surprise in store.”

“Are you talking about me?” Hyrule turned around to the three behind him.

”No." Warriors, Legend and Four replied in unison.

“Ah, okay,” Hyrule pouted.

Nearby Twilight continued to tend after his trusted steed by the pond. The ranch hand gave a simple nod of acknowledgement as the group passed by.

So the Old Man extended his offer then, ah?

Twilight thought to himself with a knowing smirk while patting Epona’s long white mane.

"Oh, this gonna be good."

Warriors, Four, Legend, Wind and Hyrule sat on a long tree log that was placed there some time ago by Wild. All five just relaxed as they watched their newest member fiddled with his Sheikah Slate - a strange but fascinating magical item in their eyes. Though Wild kept insisting that it was more of 'science' than magic. With nigh functions and almost infinite amount of storage space, essentially making it a portable storage unit. Legend once commented that he would kill to get his hands on something like that for his items . Especially for its automatic storing system.

"Do you need a shield?"

"No, no. We'll just be using swords for now,"

Wild stiffened a little but obliged to the elder Hero's requests. With one press on the screen, a flash of blue light appeared around his hand as he summoned a Knight's Broadsword.

"Here you go," He then handed it over to Time for him to borrow.

Time raised both of his eyebrows as he accepted the weapon. He was very impressed by what the Slate could do. Wild summoned another Broadsword from his inventory into his hand before putting the Slate back on his belt.

After a few warm up swings, Time smirked to his student-for the day.

"Are you ready?"

Wild with a firm look, nodded.

With a breathtaking view of the East Necluda valley as their backdrop as the sun was slowly turned towards the afternoon horizon. The light of Hateno Tower glimmering blue in the distance. Time and Wild raised up their blades together with a metal cling as they crossed one another. Both Heroes went into their battle stance for today's sparring session.

"Show me what you got," Time instructed Wild as he positioned himself into a defensive stance.

Wild nodded silently as his grip onto his Broadsword tightened. His posture quickly changed into offensive and launched himself towards the older Link with his sword swinging upwards.

Time blocked the swing with ease. Just by the first strike, he already got a feeling of Wild's strengths. It was not as powerful as Twilight's, but it had the sharpness like Warrior's but was not as refined as Sky's . He pushed Wild back who was able to keep his balance and his grip onto the Broadsword and quickly recovered for another round of swings. Time took notes of Wild's other capabilities as he continued to either block or dodge each of his student-of-the-day's attacks.

Wild was light on his feet, always ready to hop or change his stance when it needed to be. Similar to Four's and Wind's quick movements . But his arms were a little loose but his grip onto his sword remained firm as he went for a strike. Time felt the vibration of his power travelling through his blade when he raised it to block Wild's attempted attack.

And in that split second, Time saw a glimpse of Wild's focus. His face hardened with that same fierceness of a knight. A soldier. His bright blue eyes darkened with controlled yet silent fury. It was a stark contrast to the Wild that he had known so far. A young man, scarred by past burdens and was still learning how to open with others.

It was almost like Time was meeting a different person.

And within that moment, Wild's blade suddenly broke into a shard of light. Much to the younger Hero's frustration. That fierceness he had within was suddenly replaced with embarrassment.

They could just hear a soft snicker from Legend on the sidelines about Wild's breaking tendencies towards Warrior. Hyrule had a deadpanning frown towards his predecessor before nudging him rather hard to stop.

"Sorry..." Wild apologised quietly. Turning his face away from his teacher-for-the-day. The scars on his face glowing a little by the afternoon sun.

"You don't have to apologise. We can work around this," Time told him as he rested the Broadsword on one hand. The other on Wild's shoulder with a firm grip of encouragement. "...Do you still want to continue?"

Wild looked up to him. At first with doubts but they quickly went away when the younger Hero gave his full attention. He then took a deep breath and gave him a serious nod.

"Yes."

Time could not help but laugh a bit. "No need to be so serious. This is just practice after all."

"Um, right." Wild then tapped his right hand onto his Slate, hooked onto his belt when in a flash of blue light, he summoned another Knight's Broadsword into his hand.

Once Wild readied himself, he raised his Broadsword up once more. With a smile, Time raised his own. The two blades crossed each other to resume their practice session. This time, Time put himself into the offensive stance. Wild read his cue and quickly went into defence.

The older Hero could see that his student was more comfortable in this position. Time then lunged forward with his blade. Wild immediately dodges the blade as he bends his upper body away before countering back and deflecting Time’s blade away from him. Wild stepping back away from Time. His blade was still up in his hands. Time raised an eyebrow before returning back to his battle stance. He made a mental note that Wild was more than comfortable when dealing with attacks up close and personal. No wonder Twilight often got stressed over Wild whenever they fought against enemies .

Time went for another mock strike towards his student. Wild immediately raised his blade in time to block his attack. The sounds of metal clashing against one another. The older Hero noted that Wild was struggling a bit in defending himself with only a sword in his hand. Especially when blocking Time’s heavy hits. The younger one preferred to either dodge or deflect Time’s attacks. As if he was looking for an opening to counter back.

From the sidelines, Four, Legend and Hyrule watched their de-facto leader and newest member’s spar with anticipation while Warriors studied Wild’s movements.

“Hey Champion!” Warriors called out to the younger Hero.

Wild briefly glanced over to the knightly Hero after stepping away from Time’s swing.

“Raise your elbows up but keep them a bit loose when you’re blocking the old man’s strikes!”

"I thought Time’s the one who was teaching him.” Legend nudged at the proud Hero.

Warrior pouted, “The kid’s a knight like me. Besides, the old man’s just getting a feel of Wild’s sword fighting abilities.”

Wild seemed to have taken Warrior’s advice instantly and refocused back to Time who paused when he saw that his student was distracted for a moment. When the older Hero went in for another strike, Wild raised his blade to block with perfect timing before forcing his teacher back. It did not break Time’s stance though. The older Hero looked back to see that his student was beginning to concentrate his mind and fighting spirit. His bright blue eyes sharpened a little. Like his blade.

By then, Twilight had wandered over and joined the rest of the spectating Heroes on the sideline after he returned Epona back to the grazing fields in front of Wild’s home.

“Glad to see that you finally join us,” Four acknowledged the wolf Hero’s presence.

Twilight simply nodded with his arms crossed.

Warrior glanced up towards him, “...Hey Twi’, you’ve sparred with the kid before. What can you tell about him?”

There was a smirk that looked very knowing from Twilight. “...Wild? He’s a strong fighter. Quick on his feet...and fighting spirit.”

“What do you mean?” Wind asked.

“You’ll see,” Twilight nodded back to the sparring practice. “... Watch.”

Time continued to send his swings and strikes towards Wild who was getting better in defending himself with his sword. There was a firmer grip in the way he held up his weapon and his arms were just as quick to change positions. The older Hero decided to put a bit more power in his blade than he normally used during sparring practice. One hard swing that caused Wild to be pushed back across the grassy field by a few inches when he attempted to block his attack.

It did not break Wild’s form. Though when he looked up, the two Links made eye contact. Communicating in silence.

Ready?

Wild looked back to Time's gaze. His eyebrows narrowed as his focus sharpened more.

Ready.

With a nod and smirk, Time threw himself forward and swung his sword downwards. Wild immediately had to move his whole body away and went for an attempted strike which Time dodged. The older Hero then swung his sword upwards towards his student. Wild bent his upper body away to dodge his teacher’s attack before hopping away.

Everyone on the sideline were now on the edge of their seats, now that Time and Wild’s sparring practice had turned into a mock sword duel. With Twilight the only one smirking.

Wild was definitely the faster swordsman out of the two. Responding more quickly with his deflects and dodges. And always moving, looking for any openings for him to strike back. Time however put up a stronger defence and produced more powerful attacks with the swing of his Broadsword. Enough force to knock his opponent down if he wanted to.

His student however was able to dodge them quickly. Even by inches from cutting off strains of his long blonde hair. The teacher gave his student no opportunities to strike back, even as his sword was deflected away. Time quickly found a way to guide his blade back towards Wild. Causing the younger one to be pushed back.

And then it happened.

When Time made one final swing across — right-to-left — Wild jumped back into a backflip dodge.

Something triggered within the younger Hero when he backflipped into the air.

The next few seconds became a blur.

In one blink of an eye, Wild landed on his feet on the tall grass. The next blink, Wild suddenly appeared in front of Time.

Pierced blue eyes.

His blade pointed at his throat.

And Wild grabbing hold of Time’s sword arm before his mind could react.

Time was visibly very startled. Everyone else was just as startled by what they had just witnessed. That happened far too quickly. Only Twilight smirked, rather proudly.

“Did...did anyone else see that?!” Hyrule suddenly said out loud, breaking their silent moment of confusion as they tried to comprehend what they just saw.

For the teacher and student, there was a tense pause between them. Wild broke away from his hyper-focus and let go of Time’s sword arm as he stepped away. Removing his blade away from Time’s throat. The deathly look that Wild briefly had, just moments away from making a final bow, was replaced with a more awkward smile.

“I didn’t surprise you too much, right?” Wild asked with a soft laugh.

Time blinked before relaxing with a smile once he saw Wild’s friendly face.

"Where did you learn to do that?" He then asked his student.

"Oh! Um..." Wild thought for a moment and was about to explain when Wind suddenly grabbed him by the arm.

"WILD! I didn't know that you could do that!!" Wind shouted out loud with a big grin.

Wild winced a little, his body wanting to instinctively cringe in reaction to the sudden loudness.

"Um- Sailor, you're holding my arm too tightly."

"Oh sorry!"

Legend then spoke up with a shrug, "...Okay, I'll be the first to admit, you surprised us."

Four smirked with an 'I told you so' whisper as he nudged the deadpanning Hero.

"Ah, for a second there. I thought you just teleported to surprise the Old Man!" Warrior laughed as he patted Wild's shoulders with a grin. Though the wild Hero flinched.

Hyrule grinned with a nod, "...Yeah! You moved faster than Sky for a moment then!"

Wind then let out a very loud and sharp gasp. "WE GOT TO WAKE UP SKY! HE NEEDS TO SEE THIS!" The youngest Hero declared before grabbing Hyrule's arm to rush him along with him back to Wild's home to wake up and drag Sky back here.

Time chuckled softly before he looked over to Twilight who still had that knowing smirk. It was starting to look a bit too smug though.

Twilight simply looked back to his mentor. Eyebrows raised. Though his eyes were also smiling, "...I told you that the kid's quick~"

"Well, you didn't exactly say how quick."

"I would have. But I didn't want to ruin the surprise for you, old man."

"Oh, I'm definitely going to give you one the next time we spar!"

Twilight laughed wholeheartedly.

After a few moments, Sky was still yawning when Wind and Hyrule dragged his sleepy self out to the backyard where everyone else was. After a brief explanation to the drowsy Hero about what happened during Time's time sparring with Wild, Sky immediately took interest in Wild's 'hidden ability' and wanted to see it for himself. Time leaned over his borrowed broadsword for the Skyward Hero to spar with. Wild had also wanted to do some practice with Sky for some time after seeing his style of swordsmanship.

After a few warm ups to fully awaken himself, both Sky and Wild took their positions for a practice sword duel. Sky took the offensive role while Wild stayed comfortably in defence.

If Time was about power. Sky was about swiftness. Wild heard from the others about how quick and smooth Sky was with a sword. And he had caught glimpses of Sky's capabilities from the past few fights they had together as a group. Wild had to rely more on his own quick reflexes to deflect or dodge Sky's swings.

It did not take too long for the Hero of the Wild to trigger his 'special hidden ability'.

In a snap, he side-hopped when he saw Sky thrusting the broadsword front towards him.

Everything around him just slowed down.

And as soon as his feet touched the grass, Wild moved forward and swung his blade across, just in front of Sky's chest.

It startled the Skyward Hero that he snapped out of his own focus to stop his body’s forward momentum. He stumbled back and almost lost his balance.

From Sky's perspective, Wild was standing in front of him. And then in one blink, he was standing to his left with the blade out.

Had he not reacted in time, he could have gotten himself impaled by the other’s blade.

"Oh Hylia..." Sky just said to Wild with a breathless gasp. His surprise slowly turned into fascination once his mind processed through what Wild just pulled off.

Wild was satisfied with himself after that sparring session. After he put away the two broadswords back into his Slate, the eight other Heroes crowded around him. Normally Wild would find himself feeling so closed in, with so many people coming into his personal space and attention staring down at him. But for today, he felt… good! He was proud about himself and what he just demonstrated with his unique ability. And with Twilight standing by him and an encouraging nudge. Wild found the voice to speak up and talk about this special aspect of himself.

"It's my own personal Champion Ability. Impa back in Kakariko Village named it as my ‘Hero’s Chronos' ability. It's when my perception of time around me just slows down." The Hero of the Wild continued to explain how he uses his slowdown time ability and how it was triggered by instinct whenever he jumped up into the air for an archery shot or after he made a last minute dodge like what he pulled off against Time and Sky.

"Who taught you how to do that?" Hyrule then asked.

"Well... No one really. I think I was born with it," Wild shrugged. "...And from what I've been told, my Champion ability is more aligned with Sheikah warriors but it takes them years to perfect what I can do."

Time nodded with intrigue. From his own personal journeys, the Sheikah were best known for their legendary swiftness that it was almost like teleportation. Though he will admit, it seemed that Wild was giving them a run of their own money with his natural-born ability.

"So... You're part Sheikah?" Warrior then asked him with a raised eyebrow.

"No. Or...at least... I don't think...so?" Wild then let out a sigh as he rubbed his neck, "...I still don't know...remember much about my own family history. Memory loss and all. But it is possible. It's not uncommon for Hyruleans to have some Sheikah ancestry in their bloodlines. At least here in my Hyrule. So who knows, I guess."

Everyone nodded, satisfied by Wild's answer. But overall, they were all very impressed.

"I think that it's a really awesome ability, Wild! You could easily be a ninja!" Wind grinned towards the wild Hero.

"Oh yeah, I actually learnt a few things from the Sheikah. I even got my own set of Sheikah stealth armour!"

"Huh, that will definitely make some of our stealth missions much easier in the future." Four pointed out with a lighthearted chuckle.

Wild laughed a bit. Just as Twilight wrapped his arm over Wild's shoulders. "...Well, stealth or not. I just wish you use your Chronos ability more wisely when you're dealing with close calls, you reckless lil' cub!" He added with a grin and ruffled Wild's long blonde hair.

"Hey! I did not give you my permission to call me that, Twi!"

"I don't need to. You earned it, cub!"

Twilight then grabbed Wild and pulled him into a headlock to ruffle up his protégé’s hair. Like an older brother to his younger sibling. Wild laughing out loud. Louder than he normally was. Much to the joy and amusement of everyone else in the field.

By then, the sun was beginning to set over the mountains of the East Necluda valley. Everyone slowly made their way back around into the Champion’s home. It was already decided that they will be spending the night here in Hateno Village. They just needed to move some of the furniture inside the house to make enough space for eight guests.

As they walked back, Wild felt a hand on his back. He did not flinch this time when he looked over his shoulder to see Time.

"You did well today," The older Hero told him with a warm tone. "So be proud..."

Be proud of what you have accomplished today, son.

Wild blanked out for a moment as Time passed by him, not realising that Wild had suddenly stopped in his tracks. The Champion thought for a moment that he heard someone else through Time's voice. A forgotten memory flashed by his eyes but it was too blurry to identify who it was.

"Hey Wild?"

Wild snapped out of his trance to see Twilight looking back to him when he noticed that he was lagging behind.

"Huh? Oh nothing!" The wild Hero shook his head before smiling. He did not want to ruin today's mood as he caught up with his fellow Heroes.

"So what will we be having for dinner tonight?"

"Well... I was thinking about trying out this seafood paella recipe that I got from Lurelin Village."

"OH! I heard ‘seafood’!"

"Ha ha, yes Sailor. My treat! Though I'll have to quickly stop by the general store to grab a few more errands for tonight."

"Hey Champion, do you want me to help you out with the cooking?"

"No Traveller... After that last disaster you and the others almost did to my pot, you are permanently banned from my kitchen."

"Aww..."

"He he."

#legend of zelda #storytime!#linkeduniverse #linked universe #lu au #lu fictions #lu family #lu wild #lu time #lu twilight #lu warriors #lu sky #lu legends #lu wind #lu four #lu hyrule #originally posted on AO3 back in 2019 - now revisied and polished #this was a writing exercise for me and how to write out fight scenes.

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ro-botany · 1 year

Text

On the Characteristics of the Risen, and the Character of their King

The Risen King... Finally, a concept which once only existed in whispers and a single cipher 0 card, has made it into a Fire Emblem video game! Just the mobile game, sure, but it counts. And the Fell Exalt Chrom unit is so fascinating to me that I have not only this, but at least two other meta posts in the pipeline about it. I am so normal about him.

To kick things off... let’s talk about exactly what Risen King Chrom is, and also how he’s doing mentally. (Badly. He’s doing very badly.)

---

Real quick, we have to get one snag out of the way: the mechanism by which a Risen is made.

Shadows of Valentia introduced us to a prototypical version of the Risen created by Forneus, known as Death Masks. They’re made by fitting a dead body with a mask containing insects known as thanatophages. The thanatophages prevent the body’s decay and assert physical control over them in a manner not unlike certain real world parasites that control the muscular movements of their hosts.

I’ve seen a handful of my colleagues (lol) assume there are modern Risen made the same way. BUT. The Risen which exist during the events of Awakening are explicitly NOT Death Masks. During the xenologue Death’s Embrace, Brady states that “In the future, our wounded often turned to Risen just as we were tryin' to heal 'em.” This has to mean that Grima is transforming the dead and dying remotely, using some kind of magic; and at the height of their power, they may be either passively creating or deliberately casting an area of effect that turns dead bodies automatically. There’s nothing to suggest any Risen are manually created with thanatophages, or that Grima is manifesting thanatophages for that purpose.

Alas, we cannot do insect body horror with RK Chrom while also staying true to canon. But moving on...

---

Fell Chrom is, to make an understatement, very unique among the Risen. And to discuss why he’s unique, we first have to define what’s typical.

Behaviourally, typical Risen don’t appear to have sentience outside of their competency in wielding weapons and their tendency to form loose hierarchies based on individual strength. They’re incredibly aggressive by nature; it’s like their only innate drive is to fight and kill humans. Most of them are not capable of speech, though the stronger Risen Chiefs can grind out single words or even short phrases, which are usually just related to wanting to kill things. When being actively controlled through dark magic, they appear capable of basic tactics, though whether that comes from them or the person controlling them is unclear.

There’s no doubt that Fell Chrom is a Risen. He’s certainly got the appearance, the purple miasma, and the vocal distortion for it. Not to mention the giant glowing fatal wound in his side. Man certainly isn't alive.

He’s evidently still subject to control via dark magic too, if the fact that he was forced to war against his own country is anything to go by.

Fell Chrom also has the strong aggressive drive typical of Risen. Nearly all of his dialogue in battle situations suggests this. In order of increasing intensity: There’s the turn action quote “Find me an enemy”, which depending on your mood can read as either resignation or as chomping at the bit. There’s hostile level up quotes like “You shall count yourself...among the dead” and “You would...block my path”. His special trigger quotes are yet worse. He yells “This is your fate”, “No resistance”, and “Useless effort” with a fury you don’t expect from Chrom—and for the fourth one, he just shouts “DEATH”. And his voice clips for attacking aren’t words or even anywhere in the realm of a regular human noise, they're just distorted, monstrous growling.

But unlike with typical Risen, aggression is not all RK Chrom is. He can walk around the Askran castle and be around others without constantly trying to attack people. And in fact, he’s aware of and bothered by how violent being Risen makes him. One of his status page quotes is begging someone to “back away!” in a panic, as though he’s afraid of hurting them. It’s possible the violent instincts Risen have mainly only come into play for him in battle situations, or possibly when he’s in a state of heightened emotion.

And while RK Chrom displays the kind of difficulty with speech you would expect of a Risen, with his slow halting pace and gravelly tone, he speaks in complete, coherent sentences and displays remarkable clarity about who he is and what’s happening around him. He’s no husk. Chrom's mind is intact.

That is massive. That is completely unique among Risen, and deeply, deeply horrifying. Because even though he can think, he is by no means in control.

---

If the Forging Bonds supports are anything to go by, Chrom did try to resist Grima, at least in the beginning. From C through to A he moves from disbelief to outright despair at the very prospect of warring against Ylisse. But by the S support—which necessarily takes place years after the others due to how far Grima’s campaign has progressed—he’s given up. So much of his dialogue is mourning the past, or repeating Grima's belief that everyone is doomed and nothing can change. He’s not fighting it anymore. He's resigned to his fate as Grima’s executioner.

And why wouldn’t he be? After the initial confusion from being resurrected passed, he was lucid. He was fully mentally present when he was murdering his allies and slaughtering his own people. And between the deep, fundamental drive to kill and the direct influence of Grima on his actions... There wasn’t a damn thing he could do to stop himself. He couldn’t protect a thing.

Even now that he’s free of Grima’s influence in Askr, he doesn’t exactly do anything to avoid being an instrument of violence. Otherwise he wouldn’t be a playable unit. Everyone he’s ever cared about is dead, and he’s been nothing more than a monster and an instrument of violence for years. Why not fight. It’s the only thing he has left.

This Chrom is a deeply broken man. Angry and utterly hopeless. It’s no wonder after all he’s been through.

And yet... there’s still a spark there. For all his rigid insistence that Grima’s bleak outlook is the truth, his ally growth quote speaks volumes: “If this power were mine...back then...”

If fate is so immutable and hope is so pointless, why deal in what-ifs? Why wonder about what could have changed? And he’s still trying to protect people he cares about from himself; why else would he yell for others to “back away” when he feels he might attack them?

Through all the years of horror and the terrible curse of undeath... he’s still Chrom.

#fire emblem #chrom #risen king chrom #meta #not ME dropping depressing character analysis of the most traumatized version of chrom on his birthday. oops.#i've converted the big grima skull in plegia into a lecture hall and we're in there giving RKC blankets and talking about feelings #actually putting read mores on long posts? on this blog? its more likely than you think

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indierpgnewsletter · 5 months

Text

Narrative Combos!

(This was first posted on the Indie RPG Newsletter.)

I’ve got a neat story and game mechanic for you. Everyone likes the idea of teamwork in games. It’s really satisfying to work together and pull off something cool. You know, “I line ’em up, you knock ’em down”. In sport or more tactical games, these often are explicit roles or moves – someone might explicitly be playing “the person who sets other people”.

But when playing Bite Marks last year, I got to see my favourite version of this so far. This is a werewolf game that focuses on werewolves as a pack. This focus on being a pack comes up in many ways (like coming up with specific pack traditions and inside lingo) but as far as teamwork goes, the main mechanic is the pack pool. This is a pool of points that you can spend to help other characters. Like in Masks, you can spend pack pool to get a +1 to moves. But, you can also do cool stuff like this:

Overwhelm Them: Pay [12] Pack Pool and no matter the odds, no matter your differences, the Pack comes together and fights as one. Nothing can withstand you, and this battle is yours. Everyone describes one awesome thing they did; and the Packmate who chose to make this move describes the overall, glorious victory.

Which is neat. But that’s not the best part. The best part is how you get pack pool, which including turning into a werewolf (good) and spilling your emotions (better).

Basically, every time you reveal your feelings of love, anger or fear, you can add stuff to the pack pool. This led to one of my favourite gaming moments of last year.

We’re in the middle of a fight. It’s not going well. We’re getting absolutely messed up by what are essentially Super Werewolves. They’re just better than us at everything. I take a look at the pack pool and we’re at 10. So my character turned to another character and brought up something that was decided during character creation but has not come up since – mainly because both characters are too sore to do so. In the middle of the fight, as we’re giving battered, I turned to them and basically blurt out “I’m so angry with you!”, and then explained that I felt betrayed and let down about their decision to leave. Then, they spill back, revealing some feelings of their own. Now with these feelings out in the open, we’re at 12 pack pool. We trigger Overwhelm Them, narrate how we’re finally working together and turn the tide of the fight.

It was pretty close to a perfect moment.

Now I’m partial to this kind of stuff. If this was a game about fighting, an end-the-fight button like this might not be a good idea. But in a game that’s mostly interested in fighting as a vehicle for feelings, it’s fantastic. Building up pack pool with character drama and then spending it to succeed at other things is a neat game loop. It leads to situations where the better the pack communicates with each other, the stronger they are.

Neat, right?

#indie rpg #ttrpg #ttrpg design #rpg #game design #ttrpg community

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mcytscienceside · 6 months

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did tubbo and bbh ever spar together before tubbo became king or where they at odds like in canon?

this is a little specific but on day 2 of purgatory etoiles hung out with blue (tubbo, tina, and bbh specifically i think) bc ggn wasn't online till he was driven away by psychological warfare/ran out of time. in your au does he ever get close of the soulfire kingdom?

also how do the egg and flag events work in your au? or is it different to canon in that way because the characters are no longer in a game?

is the watcher/feds a part of your world?

hows pac doing? does he still have a history with cell in your au?

what does mariana think of bolas's angel? is juana still dead/a code? how would that work with slime?

do charlie and bbh still have whatever the fuck it was they had in canon?

sorry for the many many questions i just really enjoy your writing!

Sorry for the late reply!! I finished up an essay so now I can write about cubitos >:) I'll put this behind a read more only because I know it's gonna get away from me- More purgatory royalty content here we gooo!

Tubbo and Bad had a similar relationship to canon, kinda antagonistic, but slowly growing to care. This whole arc of learning to care and become closer happened far sooner than in canon because the two basically lived together. But I do think on most days they would spar! Tubbo is stubborn, he wants to get stronger, and training with the knight of soulfire is one way to get ever stronger. I think Etoiles is very well liked by both kingdoms, despite the constant war, his laidback attitude endeared him quickly when Aypierre was king and later on to most of soulfire's council. He couldn't just up and visit but diplomatic missions where much easier...of course they never expected for Etoiles to...do what he did in order to escape his duties as king... Different in this as the eggs do exist in this au! I'll try and make a post about how they work here hehe! But basically those events would translate more into traditional battles than anything game-like. I have to work on how all the wins will affect the characters and what that specifically means for the egg game with bolas winning against GGN. WATCHER...IS IN PROGRESS I SWEAR- I think he'd be some kinda driving force of nature more than anything. Some myth on why their land is plagued by storms and toxic gas and other ailments. The feds meanwhile I've been starting to see as the, ironic, newcomers to the island. Sailed here on many boats and attempted to settle down not knowing the three kingdoms. Whether they make their own kingdom or split off to join others is still up in the air hehe. PAC MY BELOVEDDD yes he does indeed have history here with Cell. Pac was almost one of the angels sacrifices despite his generally solid past with Cell. He was part of soulfire, he was no better than the blood he could spill, nothing else mattered to Cell. Pac was resourceful enough to escape but has now become sure that his friend Cell is no longer in that monster of a man. Now pac also has his prosthetic leg which actually has different attachments depending on what territory he's going in! I would have to think on this more anon, very good question, mostly I think that Juana indeed has been lost. With the codes maybe being another 'disaster' that specifically attacks children. Kinda like the birthday curse in made in abyss! Mariana views the angel of death with much more neutrality than most, he's worship, that's all angels can hope for in this plane of existence. Mariana wouldn't mind such a devoted cult either but he's not exactly looking for more trouble by stepping on the toes of the angel of death. and of COURSE slime and bbh are still weird, I love writing insane people, They have such a strong pull to each other in the worst way. Bad loves torment people and in turn slime gets better tactics to combat bad. There is a constant arms race of tactics and weapons and magic in order to one up the other. Bad used to try and kill slime but now he seems to let the guy go...just to do it again and again. You know! for fun!! :D This got long and sorry for any answers that weren't very set in stone yet this is just constantly spinning in my brain VGHGKJLHB.

#mcyt #qsmp #purgatory royalty au #qsmp purgatory #qsmp bbh #qsmp slimecicle #qsmp mariana #qsmp philza #qsmp tubbo #qsmp etoiles #qsmp pactw

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butterflydm · 11 months

Text

structural overhaul for TGS-AMoL

spoilers through a memory of light (all the way to the ending)

Instead of doing the same sort of evaluation that I did with the Jordan books, I am going to propose a different structure for the final three books, one that I've been working on as I've been going through my reread.

There are a couple of big changes to fix things that felt like plot holes/character issues but I tried to keep all the major milestone points. The bulk of the changes that I would suggest are in ToM but there are a handful of significant elements for both TGS & AMoL. This post is only covering the Sanderson books, taking off from the end of KoD.

The Gathering Storm

Rand's storyline in TGS stops after the aftermath of Natrin's Barrow, holding the rest for ToM.

Parts of Perrin's plotline from ToM get moved to here, including some of his wolf-dream training so that it feels a bit more spread out. Maybe end his storyline here with him going into the 'fear dreams' of other sleepers for the first time. Cut out all the Whitecloak infighting and etc. that we had at the beginning of ToM, though. Begin Galad's part of the story with him running into Basel Gill.

Cut out Hinderstap entirely, starting Mat's storyline with him searching out the mystery woman who ends up being Verin (this will save us a tiny bit of page space in AMoL as well).

Include Mat's ToM chapter where he encounters the gholam again in Caemlyn and then have Mat and Elayne reunite in this book, holding the rest for ToM.

Pretty much all of Egwene's TGS plotline stays intact, except for not having her epilogue where she sees the light from Dragonmount.

Everything else basically as written.

Towers of Midnight

Start with ruthless!Rand meeting with Egwene, as opposed to zen!Rand. Ruthless!Rand still has all the same motivations about wanting to succeed at the Last Battle, and this means that they can have more genuine friction, because Rand really will be Not Doing Well.

The remaining parts of Perrin's storyline stay in ToM (though the bit where he and the wolves watch Rand on Dragonmount is either cut or placed as part of the epilogue to the book), so that would be the results of the trial, making his new weapon, facing Slayer, accidentally helping Egwene.

Have Mat give into his curiosity and open the letter from Verin. Mat leading the charge to prevent Caemlyn from being invaded would be an excellent reason for everyone to trust him with the armies in AMoL and not having Caemlyn be invaded would save us some page time in AMoL, leaving room for more character moments. And it can still be turned into a frantic series of events that requires tactical knowledge, since there would still be a Darkfriend betrayal of the guards, etc.

Egwene is gathering forces to potentially face either the Last Battle or ruthless!Rand. Because Rand is Not Doing Well, she isn't having everyone and their cousin reassure her about Rand's state of mind.

If Rand isn't involved in cleaning up the Black Tower anyway, then it's fine for it to happen while he's still ruthless!Rand, so give this storyline to Nynaeve. Suggestion: the trigger is Nynaeve going to Myrelle to get Lan's bond, since Myrelle is literally right outside the Black Tower. This way Nynaeve gets to be involved in the Black Tower clean-up, and is one of the primary PoVs about the events there, which would help it feel more connected to the rest of the story.

Then we move into the Rand & Tam scene, Rand nearly kills his dad and then runs away.

Mat goes to the Tower of Ghenjei and saves Moiraine, placed in-between Rand's lowest moment and his epiphany.

Rand on Dragonmount. The original "Apples" chapter from the start of this book is the epilogue, maybe also including Egwene looking out and seeing the light on the mountain.

Everything else basically as written.

A Memory of Light

The important zen!Rand scenes (telling the Aiel he's ready to meet his toh, weeding out the Darkfriends, apologizing to his dad; saving Ituralde; meeting with the Borderlanders) take place early on in AMoL. This is mostly a single chapter in ToM, so it won't take up too much page time, lol. I would also strongly suggest some or most of these scenes being in Rand's PoV rather than Min's. It was a huge mistake to have the readers shut out of post-epiphany Rand's thoughts.

Mat goes with Moiraine to Merrilor; Moiraine is the key to getting Egwene to believe that Rand has really changed from ruthless!Rand to zen!Rand, because of how Rand reacts to seeing that she's alive. It's hard to believe that Rand is hard as a stone when he's weeping all over Moiraine's shoulder.

Mat finds out how worried everyone is about the Seanchan attacking them from behind while they go after the Dark One and volunteers to go to Fortuona to bring her another potential peace treaty (this is when he tells them about the marriage). This is the biggest actual 'plot' change. Reasoning as follows:

While I understand that Sanderson needed an excuse to get Mat to Ebou Dar to impregnate Tuon as per the Jordan-written epilogue, I am not impressed by the way he chose to handle it. And my way solves the problem of: when would the Emond's Field Five get to reunite. Because 'never' is actually a terrible answer.

This also means that when Mat goes back to Ebou Dar, he's not being a deserter from the Last Battle (which is completely counter to Mat's characterization! His main heroic character trait is "grumbles about it but does the right thing anyway" -- abandoning your friends and the fate of the world to go hang out with the slavers who have invaded your continent isn't 'the right thing' in any circumstances). He'll genuinely be trying to help both sides in a good way and not a slaver-apologist way. It doesn't fix Mat's face-heel turn in CoT & KoD but it helps it make a bit more sense, I think, especially if Mat actually tries to stand up against Tuon demanding everything and bargains her down to the terms the Westlands have agreed they're willing to live with. Just... giving their marriage an actual narrative purpose would be nice and make their subplot feel like more than just a distraction from the main storyline.

It also would actually make logistical sense and Mat wouldn't magically teleport down to Ebou Dar while managing to magically summon his horse from Merrilor. Two things that he cannot actually do.

And then we continue on with AMoL mostly as written. Because of earlier cuts, we can cut the Hinterstap & Caemlyn assault sections, which should free up some time to find in the Rand stuff as suggested above, as well as accommodating Mat being at Merrilor. In general, I would say cutting down on some of the battle portions of the Last Battle would be fine; like @markantonys mentioned to me in my reread posts -- do we really need three separate duels between Demandred and A Great Swordsman?

Minor characterization fixes that I would also suggest:

Fortuona: the main suggestion that I have about her isn't actually 'for' her but for Mat (and Min) -- maintain the complicated way that Mat was thinking about her in ToM rather than cutting Mat off from his past loyalties at the start of the book. This would be easier once he's going there as a negotiator rather than a defector, as per the suggested changes above. For Fortuona herself, I do think that it's too late to try to shoehorn any significant character development in (it needed to begin in CoT & KoD, when she was away from her powerbase, if it was going to happen), so I think Sanderson made the right call there, but not taking Mat backwards at the start of AMoL would be good, as would not having Min just instantly give Fortuona the same exact kind of special treatment that she gives to the savior of the world and the man she says that she loves (Rand). It is, frankly, just weird how quickly Min folds herself into the Seanchan hierarchy and even when Mat starts questioning the slavery system again (finally), we never see Min doing that in her own PoV -- she has unspecific criticisms about the Seanchan Empire but never thinks about them clearly even in her own thoughts.

Nynaeve: Beside the big Black Tower plotline shift, she should not find out that Elayne is pregnant in ToM. It adds nothing to the story except bafflement when she proceeds to say goodbye to Rand very soon after and not only doesn't say anything to him but doesn't even think about it. After her thoughts of horror about how Min and Rand are shacking up without being married, she should have SOME big feelings about how Rand is having kids with Elayne without being married to her.

Tam: should already know about Elayne when he reunites with Rand and meets Min, since Perrin talked about how Elayne was planning to marry Rand while Tam was still with his people, so Tam should mention her to Rand and/or Min. Minor comedy element to serve as a moment of breaking the tension of prepping for the Last Battle! Explaining Min's viewings and/or Aiel relationship customs to the dad! Also, have Tam get 'introduced' to Elayne & Aviendha as well. It's so weird in AMoL when Tam and Elayne treat each other incredibly formally even though Elayne has announced that she's pregnant with Rand's kids. Basically, actually deal with people finding out that Rand has multiple girlfriends, rather than everyone acting like a memo was sent out that read: "Dragon Reborn dating three women: be cool about it and please don't have any emotional scenes".

Aviendha: have her leave for Rhuidean BEFORE the Semirhage attack in TGS. Her distance before that is explainable, if frustrating, but having her still stay away from Rand after that happens just feels bizarre and infuriating. This also means that her Rhuidean chapters can happen earlier in continuity, and she can come back to the main storyline sooner.

Unfortunately, the issues with both Perrin and Mat's characters are deeply embedded by this time, since they were focused on so much in CoT & KoD, but I would suggest, as mentioned above, that having Mat personally take an active role in protecting Caemlyn from invasion and then leveraging his marriage to actually be useful in AMoL would both work wonders, because as it is, the only person who gets anything useful out of the Mat-Tuon marriage is Fortuona, while Mat just gets weighed down with liabilities.

Though a lot of that goes back to one of my core issues with the Seanchan, which is at play in both the Jordan and Sanderson eras -- the only reason they are as effective as they are is because the narrative and our protagonists keep helping them (ex. the Wondergirls not telling all their allies the sul'dam secret and not making it public knowledge -- especially egregious with Elayne, who knows what she wants to do to undermine the Seanchan and has plenty of motivation to do it but just... doesn't bother???; Mat just aimlessly bumbling around with Tuon for two books; Perrin choosing to reach out to the Seanchan for help when Faile is kidnapped instead of sending one of the Asha'man back to Rand to see if he can help, since at that point Perrin has actually completed his secret mission for Rand and technically has Masema with him, etc). So when the narrative then goes "ah Our Heroes have no choice but to ally with the slavers", I immediately go, "yes, you did have choices, you just inexplicably chose not to do those things". The narrative never successfully sold me on the lack of choice for our protagonists, because it was just too easy to see the Hand of the Author(s) protecting and shielding the Seanchan from the natural narrative consequences of their actions.

So, that would help with Mat. IDK how to help with Perrin's characterization. That's a mess. It's possible that it might feel less like Perrin did a pay-to-play instant upgrade of his wolf abilities if it's spread out over both TGS and ToM, though. With the Whitecloak stuff... it's just so hard for me to care about Perrin getting ~closure~ for killing two Whitecloaks knowing that he gets away with selling two hundred women into slavery. Perrin and Mat are the two characters who were most broken by the Slog, but Mat is much easier to rehabilitate than Perrin (and tbh Sanderson was mostly doing a good job with it until Mat's off-the-page face-heel turn in AMoL) because the puzzle pieces are all there for Mat to have a good story; while Perrin was basically just an empty frame that had to be filled in from scratch. I do think (again agreeing with @markantonys) that instead of him napping for a large portion of the Last Battle, that he should have had Elyas's place in rallying the wolves for the fighting (and maybe delegate some of the TAR stuff to the Wise One Dreamwalkers, who get pretty underused here).

Egwene should be fine once we've adjusted Rand's structure to have ruthless!Rand last longer. There's nothing wrong with the majority of her plotline in these books; it's just that her behavior would make more sense if we were still dealing with ruthless!Rand.

Min: having her and Mat be instantly familiar with each other was definitely a shortcut to shift her into the Seanchan plotline but it is such a glaring plothole. They barely know each other! They have maybe met once, back at the very end of book 2, when Mat was desperately sick from the dagger. Her memories about him should be the same as Uno's ("always snapping at people, eyes sunken in his head. Half-dead, half-spoiled"). The only things they would really know about each other are the things that Rand has told them about each other. Yet Min is able to instantly 'recognize' Mat's 'signature hat' despite him not getting it until book 4 (I guess Rand must have really been obsessed with Mat's fashion and explained it to Min in detail!).

Basically, Mat and Min treat each other with the familiarity that Min and Perrin should have with each other (from the winter they spent together between 2 & 3). Fixing Mat's storyline would definitely help this, as he and Min would get to 'reunite'/meet with all Mat's friends present to vouch for him.

Min also immediately being all about Fortuona is a story beat that feels like it dismisses Min's personal experiences with the Seanchan, having helped rescue Egwene from slavery back in Falme. So… write that differently, lol.

Otherwise, I would put some of the skipped reunions and emotional moments actually on the page: Mat's reunion with the rest of the EF5 I covered above (aka, it should have happened), but Sanderson should also have kept the cut scene about Aviendha, Elayne, & Min making bridal wreaths for Rand or another scene where we actually get to see them (or ideally them plus Rand) all together; we should have actually seen Elayne & Gawyn reunite (they have not seen each other since... book 3? I'm pretty sure not since book 3); we should have had Rand's ACTUAL reaction to finding out that Elayne is pregnant and not having it happen off-screen and just referenced in his narration (we see both Nynaeve's and Mat's reactions to Elayne's pregnancy but not Rand's? wtf!); seeing Egwene & Gawyn's marriage seems like it would have been more relevant than seeing Morgase & Tallanvor's, etc.

Overall, fewer battles, more character moments.

Yes, it's the Last Battle but it's also the last book with these characters and they deserve their emotional send-off as much as just a narrative/plot one. That's my general feeling. There's a lot in the last three books that I like, but there are also some very strange choices and while "we were trying to preserve Jordan's bits of completed writing as much as possible" can probably explain some of the odd beats, I doubt it explains all of them.

#wot #wheel of time #wot book spoilers #wot spoilers #the gathering storm #towers of midnight #a memory of light #mat cauthon #rand al'thor #egwene al'vere #nynaeve al'meara #perrin aybara #wot reread #because it all came out of thoughts as I did my reread #i was originally going to post this wednesday #but then we got the news that the trailer will be coming out #so that's where my brain will be tomorrow

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gacha-incels · 2 months

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Hi, sorry for sending this, I'm trying to gather information on Shift UP's ideological verification of its employees, and the CEO's stance on feminism. would you happen to have sources and articles on the subject?

Thank you in advance.

sorry this is a bit late, I’ve been ill recently so I’ve had to spend my free time sleeping lol 😭

article regarding SHIFT-UP removing an artist’s work from their gacha game “Destiny Child” after she said there shouldn’t be a problem being a feminist and voiced support for the VA, Kim Jayeon, that Nexon fired for taking a photo of herself wearing a shirt that said “Girls Do Not Need A Prince”. The shirt was part of a fundraiser to help victims of domestic violence (see the npr article linked below) , the rates of which are especially high for women living in South Korea. You can note here that literally anything vaguely feminist is met with “are you megal?” (referring to the defunct website megalia) and it doesn’t even matter how she responds. This woman made some simple statements and is smeared as some feminist terrorist. tbh sometimes it’s an uphill battle trying to explain to anyone, especially on the western internet, that these women aren’t making some evil dogwhistle to the feminist illuminati when they make basic feminist statements. I’ve gotten called “terf/terf sympathizer” (???) for trying to explain that the artist Vellmori was being smeared on the western web with the term “terf” as a targeted campaign by Korean incels who know that term puts a target on your back and nothing else about it. I am of course not saying megalia was a totally unproblematic site with no ideological problems but none of these women being smeared are saying anything like “yeah the homophobia was great” they’re literally advocating for basic women’s rights. I’m also not saying “basic” in a condescending way, on the contrary I think these women are brave for speaking out and have created complex feminist ideologies and movements. “Basic” and “simple” are meant to show the absurdity in the reaction (extreme male anger, firing, censorship, etc) in relation to the original statement (molka is bad, it’s fine to be a feminist, etc).

this is an article in English regarding the VA who wore the shirt:

SHIFT-UP’s gacha game “Nikke” recently engaging in 🤏 male freakouts

article in Korean regarding this, I’ll add it but idk how “peripheral” you want to get since i don’t think it’s directly SHIFT-UP (?)

as far as more opinion pieces go, there’s this article written by an artist who was a victim of feminist ideological verification that talks about SHIFT-UP’s gacha “Nikke”

Edit- the actual post seems to have been deleted, I screenshotted and pasted the entire thing on the linked post above but idk how using this would come across since the original post is gone.

I posted some images and MTL on this post

this is a paper that goes over just some of the basics of megalia’s mirroring tactics and how it got started

If anyone has anything else specific lmk and I’ll update this post too, I hope what I’ve posted so far can be helpful

#shift up #megalia #stellar blade

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sourcetwo · 1 year

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I am pleading with you so nicely and holding out my hand

Post the combine hierarchy?

BEHOLD. here is my interpretation of the combine hierarchy. top row is the general promotion order. second row is the different soldier variants, which are split into two parts. prison guards are pretty much just normal soldiers, the other three are higher ranked soldiers!

(worth noting, some people consider the hla combine units as being merged or phased out due to them not being in hl2, i personally like to think that they do continue to be used up until then because i like the variety they add to fighting dynamics and their overall coolness)

lengthy info about the features of each subclass below the cut!

welcome to below the cut! you've entered the brainrot zone...

in this section i will outline the role, weapons and uniform as well as battle tactics of each subclass. they each have different insignia on their shoulders but i haven't included the images here but you can check them out on the combine overwiki yay

METROCOP

Voluntary, no major modifications

Law enforcement in the streets, keep citizens in line

Kept in line via threats due to them being unmodified humans

Features:

Stun baton, 9mm pistol, potentially SMG in intense circumstances

Gas mask

Bulletproof vest

Utility belt, includes radio and can hold weapons

Black, grey and white uniform

Tend to work in groups, utilise basic tactics in fights

Communicate with and report to Overwatch. Reports utilise different codes and abbreviations (e.g. 647e means a citizen is loitering around)

(if you want to know more about the different codes the units use, i highly recommend this youtube video that has all the meanings in the description)

COMBINE GRUNT

Promoted from Metrocop

Transhuman, undergo modifications to the body, but retain more humanity than the combine soldier as they are often seen joking around. probably not as brainwashed yet but theyre kept in line by the higher ranked soldiers which are really damn intimidating

Features:

SMG

Gas mask

White uniform

Utility pouch containing health pens and magazine holders

Grunts in the QZ have gas tanks strapped to their backs, grenades, as well as filters on the side of their masks.

Lenses are blue in light and yellow in the dark

Flashlight

Often work in small squads, supported by an Ordinal, Charger (Wallhammer) and maybe a Supressor

COMBINE SOLDIER

Promoted from Metrocop or Grunt

Transhuman, undergo modifications and programming for military purposes

Includes surgery to brain, head and chest, as well as vocal chords (replaced with a voice modulator) and abdomen (likely the stomach and intestines. They probably do not need to eat, more efficient). Genitals are removed too

Also still have punishments for failure - “off-world assignment”, indicates that any sort of human connections or memories to family and friends are removed during brain modification

Features:

SMG, shotguns, pulse rifle, grenades, Overwatch sniper rifle (for snipers)

Much more bulky flak vest

Utility pouch

Black and dark blue camo uniform

Blue lenses

Hardplate-reinforced personal armour

Radio is built-in to mask

Work in squad, different roles for each member, use more complex tactics to support the squad. Can cover, flank and use grenades. Exception is snipers, who generally work solo in designated nests.

NOVA PROSPEKT PRISON GUARD

Variant of the soldier

Two variants, shotgun and pulse rifle

Features:

Shotgun variant has red lenses

Pulse rifle variant has yellow lenses

Blue uniform, with NOVA PROSPEKT emblazoned on the back of their armour and shoulder

Utility pouch

Radio is built-in to mask

COMBINE SHOTGUN SOLDIER

Insignia suggests they are higher ranked elite soldiers?

Features:

Shotgun

Grey red uniform and armour

Red/orange lenses

Radio is built-in to mask

COMBINE CHARGER

Tank variant of the soldier

Also known as Wallhammer in Combine terminology

Features:

Heavy shotgun

Device on shoulder that can generate a shield

Large plates of armour on their chest, shoulder and thighs

Gorget to protect throat/neck

Blue lenses

Radio built-in to mask

Health pens

Specialise in pushing attack by putting pressure on with the shotgun, which once charged dishes large amounts of damage despite slow firing and reloading

Can be depolyed in squads or solo

LARGE AND INTIMIDATING....

COMBINE SUPPRESSOR

Also known as APF or Antibody Protection Force... hooray for combine medical terminology!

Features:

Heavy machine gun

Large armoured vest

Elongated mask

Radio built-in to mask

Health pens

Rarely do close combat, tend to stay ranged, finding elevated positions

Good at ambushing

Can be deployed in squads or solo

Utilise high pressure tactics due to heavy firepower they supply

COMBINE ORDINAL

Promoted from Combine soldier

Captain or officer, leads squads and give directions to squads

Probably undergone more modifications

Features:

Pulse rifle variant?

Dark blue outfit

Blue armour plates on torso and shoulders, striped with yellow

Backpack with radio

If Ordinal is killed in a squad, squad will report the Ordinal being down to Overwatch and continue but more disorganised

Can deploy manhacks

Pretty all-around, have good accuracy, can do long range

COMBINE ELITE

Promoted from Ordinal

Likely undergone massive anatomical modifications due to helmet appearance

Features:

Pulse rifle with energy ball secondary fire

Helmet has red cyclops lens, perhaps indicates they only have one eye

Sensors at the sides near the back, to enhance senses. probably wired into the brain ooo

White body armour and uniform

Very efficient and accurate. They don't hesitate

i really like the hla additions because theres so much.. variety and also it gives more development to how certain units may be deployed in different environments, like to deal with infestations or rebel activity geheheh. once again gonna say if you're interested more in like. the fight dynamics, theparrygod's s2fms are so damn cool!!! also they cover like. scenarios that fill in the time between hla and hl2 which is awesome !! also its in s2fm so it looks fucking amazing

phew that was a lot of information if you made it down this far i really appreciate it!! hope this was interesting? uh. yeag. my favourite is probably the wallhammer theyre so scary and large and very destructive like imagine this massive guy coming after you and he BLAM oh no theres a massive hole in the wall??? so terrifying

#hooray! so much infodump here #i know you just asked for the hierarchy but i gave you the entire rundown oopsies!#god. would love to see the hierarchy depicted in fics. most of the time i just see regular soldiers i wanna see some love for WALLHAMMER #so normal. anyways #brighton.txt #inbox (1)#hl #half life #sure ill tag that why not

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calextheneko · 7 months

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Mario RPG Post Game Bosses Quick and Dirty Guide

Okay, so I can't promise the tactics I'm going to suggest here are the best effective tactics in the game for defeating each of the bosses in the post game. But I will say they let me roll through all of them pretty fast. Also bosses are pretty much in the order I encountered them. If at any point you're unsure if what boss you should be fighting you can go talk to Frog Sage at tadpole pond to be hinted at where to go.

Before Any Fights

Make sure you've fought and defeated Jinx three times and beaten Culex in Montro town and got the Jinx Belt and Quartz Charm accessories.

Level up as much as possible. You can buy the EXP Booster from the frog coin merchant in Seaside Town which doubles the XP of the person who has it equipped even if they're not in battle. The Lucky Egg bought from the Treasure Hunter in the Moeville Item Shop can be used to double your XP earned a lot for the party if you're good at the shuffle game.

Buy the Earlier Times item from the Frog Coin Merchant in Seaside Time. When RNG just goes bad or you mess up this will let you restart the fight right away rather than having to slowly die and resume from the last save point.

Make sure you have a Feather. If you didn't get won from beating Dodo in the statue mini game you can buy one, or if you want a second buy a second one from the Treasure Hunter in the Moeville Item Shop.

Make sure yo have the Lazy Shell (Weapon and armor) and Safety Ring.

Get as many Kercolas, Red Essences and Rock Candies that you can.

Practice timed hits and perfect blocks because both are required for multiple boss fights and will be the difference between life and death.

Consider getting the Star Egg from Grate Guy's Casino if you can stand the torture that is winning 100 Games of Look the Other Way. It deals a flat 100 damage to all enemies so isn't the best damage but it's reliable and reusable so comes in handy when you need something to damage everyone.

Now to the bosses.

Belome

Fought in Belome temple. Don't be an idiot like me and immediately run through all of Kero Sewer and then have to do Midas River because he's not there. Frog Sage told me he was up to his old tricks. So old tricks made me think the sewers. It was the temple. Travel to Monstro Town and enter the temple from there to get to him instantly.

Belome is frustrating but easy. But you can get rid of most of the frustrating part. Take any party members you want but I recommend including Peach for healing like I will for every fight. You don't need any special preparations to beat him but immunizing your entire party to sleep will save you a lot of grief. I did not, I only had Peach immune to sleep. She had the Safety Ring. Belome spams Sleep attacks so Mario and Geno went to sleep A LOT.

Belome's main gimmick this time is that he can't be injured by any attack as long as he has a clone out. He'll basically bounce back and forth between creating a clone, attacking and attempting to put the party to sleep. If you're prepared (unlike me) and immune to sleep 90% of this fight is solved. Just need two characters who hit hard to rip through the clone as soon as it comes out and beat down Belome. He doesn't really have anything dangerous and aside from not taking damage and so much sleep spam is really not that different from previous fights.

Jinx

Since I was already in Monstro Town decided to go visit Jinx yet since based on the wishes I read on the Pink Stars (You'll see them when you start the post game and follow the story leading to the boss rematches) that he was one of them.

Preparation

Jinx is going to spam mortal blows on your party. Accessories like the Safety Ring and the Quartz Charm are absolutely mandatory unless you have flawless mastery of timed hits to the point you never miss, even so good to have them for safety on the occasion you mess up and they're both really good accessories. Party members, someone, anyone that you're really good with their timed hits and Peach for healing.

Jinx is a bit different in that you're not looking to deplete his HP. All you have to do is use a Team Attack and you instantly win. But before you try to be a smarty pants and go in with a 100% gauge prepped he will set your gauge to 0 when the fight starts. It doesn't matter if the team attack actually deals damage, Jinx wants to duel you to see how to get in synergy with your partners to do a team attack and so you will instantly win as soon as you use any attack. Recommend Lazy Shell and Safety Pin go specifically on Peach.

Jinx hits fast and hard as usual. Anytime you miss a timed hit rather it be attacking or healing Jinx will counter with an instant death attack. This is why you want protection from Mortal Blows. Basically, this entire fight is just a practice of your timed hits and defenses. His attacks can deal massive damage and sometimes one shot characters but all of them can be negated to 0 damage with a properly timed block. There's really no trick to it beyond that. Just used timed hits and blocks to build up your gauge and fire it of as soon as its full. Make sure all party members are up and able to perform the attack. Summoning Toad is not what he needs, you need all three party members. Peach with the Lazy Shell and Safety pin will survive anything he throws at her, so just use her to heal up and revive anyone that goes down while you build up that gauge. Don't lose your cool and keep that timing up and victory will be yours.

Punchinello

Preparation: Not a whole lot you can prepare to do on this fight. Like Jinx this fight is going to revolve entirely around getting your Timed Hits right. And you'll mostly be dealing with attacks that can kill you instantly if you fail to block. But they're not guaranteed 9999 damage like some later bosses they're just really strong attacks, might be survivable with something like Lazy Shell + Ghost Medal. Speed is probably the most important factor here though so the Lazy Shell armor can be a liability. Since Speed is important Geno is naturally one of the best fits for the party. And again I make Peach the third for reviving and healing others.

The Fight Itself

So like I said this game revolves around timed hits. You can't damage Punchinello directly. You can only attack the bombs he throws out. If you do a perfectly timed hit, the bomb will change the direction its facing and face him. Then when the bomb goes off it will explode on Punchinello and damage him instead of you. Be careful to watch the bombs before you attack them some of them will already be pointing at him leave those untouched. This is why speed is important. You only have four party members and he'll drop four bombs. And of course only perfectly timed time attacks will turn them around so if you screw it well hope you can go again before that bomb goes off. The bombs can be killed if enough damage is done but this is kind of a last resort sort of thing and you're more likely to kill one on accident from it taking damage when you damage all enemies with your perfect hits. Mastering the timing for a perfect block against the bombs is mandatory to survival. If you have a hard time feel free to use Earlier Times if you have it to restart the fight until you get it down. Basically hit A right before the bomb hits you. But if a bomb hits you and takes you down you either have to swap that party member out or waste a turn reviving them and lose up to two attacks possibly resulting in more bombs going off on you. Because your timing has to be perfect you they won't spin around loses happen sometimes. Just, best of luck with the perfect blocks and perfect timed hits.

Boster

Preparation

I hate this fight, with all of my hate. This is the first fight to kill me in the entire game. You must bring Geno for this fight, and equip him with a Feather to boost his speed. This fight is just... not a good fight, and is absolutely terrible design in an otherwise wonderful game because there is a very specific solution to the fight and it's just, screw you if you don't know it. Super fast Geno is that solution. Bring Peach for healing, and give Mario the Quartz Charm for damage.

The Fight

So at the start of every round Booster will start building his train. If it gets to his turn he will finish building the train and crash it into your party for 9999 damage. Coincidentally, every turn one of his Sniffets will cast Morale Boost that increases his speed every single turn. See why I hate this fight? The trick is Booster must be attacked before his turn each round to interrupt his building. Which is why you need Geno because the fight will quickly get to the point where no one can out speed him but a speed boosted Geno. Make sure he gets interrupted each round. Then I murdered the Sniffets next, in hind sight it might have been easier to go straight for Booster. Either way just deal as much damage as fast as you can. Rock Candies are useful to deal significant damage to everyone, Geno Flash, Psych Bomb (but only if Peach doesn't have the lazy shell) and of course if you're good at it Super Jump is always amazing. If you're not, kick a lazy shell into them. Just kill the Sniffets or Booster as fast as possible and be aware you might have to restart. If your backline party tags in I recommend immediately restarting the battle with an Earlier Times (You can buy it with Frog Coins in Seaside Town) because Mallow and Bowser will not be fast enough to really do anything unless Booster is low on health and they can finish him off right there. I don't know his HP but you can always have Mallow use Thought Peak once to see his HP if you go for killing Booster first to track the damage on him and know how close you are to killing him. Also, can charge a team attack before coming to the fight and swap Peach out for a turn to Mallow or Bowser to do a damage dealing team attack. I do not reccomend swapping out Geno because you want him there to interrupt Booster from building when the next attack starts. Roselina freaking Luma this fight is easily the hardest in the game for me and just so obnoxious. Best of luck.

Now then whose next... I honestly forget so I had to go google the post game fights. And it turns out it's the freaking cake again in Marrymore. Make your Portal references now.

Bundt Cake

Preparations: Not a ton of prep work here, Quartz Charm and Black Belt are recommended. Peach will put this fight into easy mode so should be included for something other than her healing. Other than her big your favorite damage dealer. Probably put Safety Ring on Peach as usual. She won't be focusing on damage.

The Fight

So the goal is to put out the candles just like last time. The catch this time, the chefs are there and will keep lighting the candles and if they light all the candles bad things happen. Which I never found out what would happen because I never let them get that far. So, you need Peach or as many sleep bombs as you can carry. Peach is better, because you're going to cast Sleepy Time to put both chefs to sleep. I believe if you spin the stick enough to max it out it's 100% chance of putting both of them to sleep but I'm not 100% sure. All I know is I never saw it fail when maxed out in the fight. I also never failed to max it out.

After you put the chefs to sleep, it's just a matter of dealing damage to the cake and healing up as needed. Chefs will wake up every now and then and need to be put back to sleep but as long as you keep them under control this fight is easier than the original fight with the cake. No wonder I forgot this one. I don't know when I actually did it. Just make sure to play it safe and keep yourself healed up and those chefs asleep and you'll be good.

Johnny Jonathan Jones

Preparation

This is going to be a one on one fight between Mario and Jones. Prepare accordingly and equip Mario with your best accessory. Quartz Charm is my preference. Can also do Lazy Shell Armor and Safety Ring if you want to try to turtle your way through the fight. Just a quick warning, there's no way to heal in the fight at all. You can't use items, and only Mario can fight. I guess Jones is a Melee player. Anyway before the fight you'll be asked to choose which party members you want cheering you on. You won't get anyone to fight but you will get buffs from the party. Best way to beat Jones is to take him down as fast as possible so I took Geno and Bowser for damage up and I guess defense up but mostly damage go up.

The Fight

This fight was the second one to kill me. It can be rough. It's going to test your ability to do perfect blocks. Jones will attack with both spells and physical attacks so you need to be ready to block them... And that's really all there is to this fight. Be able to block his attacks and strike back till he's dead. He doesn't have a lot of HP thankfully since the fight is 1 v 1. If you're a master of Super Jump you can probably kill him in one turn. I don't know I'm not good at Super Jump. Though I finally found out it was because unlike what Toad told me it's not hit the button right before the attack lands but actually when it lands. So with that new knowledge I will have to go back and try super jumping things again and get to 100. Right back to Johnny. So, again it might take you a few tries but you just keep practicing his fight until you can block all his attacks with the correct timing and then take him out. There's not really any shortcut or trick to this fight (Besides Super Jump) just gotta learn the timing.

Culex

Preparation: Here's the one we've all been waiting for. Let's get down to it. Culex is the main course and all the other bosses were just an appetizer before him. So first off, Lazy Shell and Safety Ring on Peach. Second, Geno with Quartz Charm and Mario with Black Belt or Safety Badge. Might want to also consider Zoom Shoes or Feather on Geno and give the Quartz Charm to Mario instead depending on how you want to play it. Finally, go into the fight with your Team Gauge already charged to 100%. We're going to be using Mario, Geno and Peach's Team Attack A LOT this fight. Savs-Us-All blocks the next attack each party member takes and will work on anything.

The Fight

Culex is as expected a beast. And the third and final character I have met my end by. Oh wait, no I didn't because every time I was in danger of dying I used Earlier Times. HA! Take that Culex! You technically never sent me to the game over screen, and I technically beat you on my first try. Anyway, his newest jerk move is to use an HP that deals your max HP -1 in damage. This is important. His new spell Meteor is not HP to 1, it is your max HP -1. If you have even a single point of damage on you the spell will kill you. Now, after he opens the fight with that he'll use it every five turns and give you a counter, and responding to that is going to be a large part of our strategy for how to beat him. Finally, make sure you are maxed out in your inventory on Red Essences, Rock Candies, Kercolas, and Pick-Me-Ups.

First off, surviving the first round is the most important and hardest part of the fight. Once you make it past the first round the fight becomes a lot easier. The largest problem is that depending on your set up there is a high chance that Culex will open the fight dropping your party's HP to 1 and then the Wind Crystal will go off and use an AoE killing your entire party. It's that kind of fight. So, you have two choices here, can keep using the Earlier Times item to restart the battle till you have at least two characters alive or can give Geno the Feather pre-fight so he can move faster and have him use a Kercola. Regardless of which method you use Geno will go first and use a Kercola to get the two or if if you're really lucky your entire party up to max health. Peach on her turn if anyone is dead use Come Back unless the living characters are in need of healing because they will get KOed if you don't keep yourself healed up. Basically priority is as follows

Negate or Survive Culex's Meteor Attack > Heal HP > Revive Down Allies > Deal Damage.

Now, on negating Culex's attack. There are a couple ways to do it. Peach should be going last each round while Culex goes first meaning she'll always go off before him. When the first Cooldown hits 1, have Peach use the Team Attack Save-Us-All on her turn and you'll just straight up negate Meteor when Culex uses it on 0. Other options is once you have someone guaranteed to go after Culex is to use Kercolas, but remember you only have three. Another is to throw a Red Essence on Peach and then have her heal everyone and the two others use Max Mushrooms as needed. Try to save Pick Me Ups for reviving Peach if she dies and use Comeback to revive your other allies, but if you need to get everyone up fast use it. Anytime you have your team gauge fully charged use Save-Us-All with Peach right before Culex casts Meteor. Obviously it won't be charged every turn and that's why you'll need to make do with Kercolas and Red Essences. Save the Red Essences for Peach you don't have enough of them to use on your entire party and last till the end of the fight.

Now... As for actually defeating the enemies. I recommend starting with the Wind Crystal it's weak to special attacks, all special attacks so Geno Flash or even just Geno Beam will make quick work of it. If you're good at Super Jump you can probably take out the Wind Crystal right away.

From there I took out the Water Crystal but I think it may have been a better choice to go after the Earth Crystal. One of them can summon Bowyer's button locks and seal one of your commands. I think it's the Earth Crystal that does it but not 100% sure. Fire Crystal felt like the least threatening of them so saved it for last.

While this is going on always be aware of when Meteor is coming and prepare accordingly. Remember that if Meteor goes off any character with damage on them will die unless Save-Us-All is active. Mario and Geno should focus on damage and killing as much as possible. In the rare event the party doesn't need healing on Peach's turn she should use a Rock Candy to damage everyone, or if you run out of those the Star Egg. You can also use the Fire and Ice bombs just be aware the naturally a the fire crystal resists fire and the water crystal resists water.

Once all the Crystals are down the fight becomes much easier to deal with. Culex will replace Meteor with Final Claw, an attack that deals 9999 damage, but it only targets one person, and it can be blocked with a perfect block. Timing is a bit tricky but it can be done. But either way losing one person is a lot better than the entire team and you have a countdown till he uses it just like Meteor so whenever Team Attack is charged can just use Save-Us-All and bam no Final Claw. So like the previous fight when Team Attack is charged always pop it with Peach when Culex's counter is on 1 to just negate his ultimate instant kill attack. At this point it's just a matter of keeping yourself healed and beating Culex down. Keep persisting and use that Team Attack anytime its charged to negate Final Claw and victory is finally yours.

And with that, you get a completely useless key item per Final Fantasy Superboss tradition that just says you beat the hardest boss. Huzzah! Hope that helps. Not a perfect guide by any means but this is what worked for me.

#Mario RPG #Super Mario RPG #SMRPG #MarioRPG #Boss Fights #Game Guide #Mario #Geno #Peach #Belome #Jinx #Booster #Punchinello #Bundt #Johnny Jonathan Jones #Culex #super mario rpg remake

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