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nerdythebard · 3 years

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#3: Ah Muzen Cab, God of Bees

Hello again, gods and goddesses!

This time, we focus on a very unusual figure. I'll be(e) honest, I had no idea there was a separate function as the God of Bees, but apparently, several ancient religions do have somebody for that specific task. Plus, there is surprisingly very little information on Ah Muzen Cab, who holds that position in the Maya pantheon, but when you think about it, it actually makes sense: honey was believed to have medicinal properties, it has an almost infinite shelf life, and is used as the main ingredient for mead... no wonder people would think of bees as divine creatures and honey as a sacred food. Sure, why not. Let's see what all the buzz is about!

Next time: When there's no more room in hell...

Now, let's set up some goals for this build. What do we need to make Ah Muzen Cab sting:

Bees: Goes without saying, what's a god without his minions? We gotta get those lil' buzzers somehow;

High Movement Speed: Pretty obvious, you're a bee god, you gotta zoom around;

High Attack Speed: Your sting stings and many stings sting even better. Let's make sure we can get a few extra hits on our turn;

Honey: Bees are cute and their puke is delicious. We have to include it somehow.

When it comes to Ah Muzen Cab's race, there were several options. I could've made him a Simic Hybrid for the nice carapace feature; or maybe a Gith, to reference his mysterious origins; at some point, I believe I even considered a winged Tiefling... but luckily, Wizards of the Coast came to my rescue with their latest Unearthed Arcana 2021: Folk of the Feywild.

Ah Muzen Cab is a Fairy. He's not the largest of gods in SMITE, so making him a size Small shouldn't be an issue. Fairies get a ground speed AND flying speed of 30 feet each, and a +2 and +1 to two stats of your choice; let's go with +2 Wisdom and +1 Dexterity. Instead of humanoid, we're now considered Fey creature type, and we have innate, unlimited flight ability (with hovering). We know Common language and one more of our choice (I suggest Sylvan) and we get the Fairy Magic feature, which gives us two spells from the start: Druidcraft, a cantrip that lets us interact with nature in one way or another (by for example opening flower pods, making them bloom, creating harmless sensory effects, etc.), and Faerie Fire, which marks everything in a 20-foot cube range with a bright aura, essentially preventing invisibility if a creature fails the saving throw (it's normally Dexterity, but we can pick Wisdom here, and so we shall). Another curious ability is Fey Passage, which allows us to squeeze through an opening even 1 inch wide.

For Ah Muzen Cab's background, to reflect his solitude and mystery around his very being, we're gonna pick the Hermit. We get proficiency in Medicine and Religion skills, proficiency in Herbalism Kit and we get to learn one language of our choice. We're now prepared to gather pollen and make our own honey. We also get the Discovery feature, which means we possess a particularly important piece of information. It honestly can be anything, from a crucial part of the campaign's plot to something more personal (for example 1001 recipes involving honey).

ABILITY SCORES

For the quick and nimble Ah Muzen Cab, Dexterity will be our first stat. We will be a caster in some degree, and our casting ability is going to be Wisdom. Follow that up with Constitution, for some Hit Points, then Strength and Charisma, and finally we'll dump Intelligence.

CLASS

We have yet another no-multiclass build. Ah Muzen Cab is going to be(e) nature-themed, quick, and ready to deal a plethora of ranged damage. He's a Ranger (Revised) start-to-finish.

As a Ranger, our Hit Dice is a d10. We start with Hit Points of 10 + our CON modifier, proficiency with light armour, medium armour and shields, as well as simple weapons and martial weapons. For Ah Muzen Cab, I think we should go with studded leather armour and a hand crossbow to mimic his carapace and stinger. We don't get proficiencies with any tools, and our saving throws are Strength and Dexterity. We get to choose three class skills, I'd say Animal Handling, Perception, and Survival fit Ah Muzen Cab's personality best.

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Level 1: We start this build by choosing our Favoured Enemy. That's right, using the power of fantasy racism we can select a type of creature we are most effective against. We have an option of being the natural enemy of beasts, fey, humanoids, monstrosities, or undead. I'd say to choose either humanoids or fey, but this is to be adjusted to the campaign played. What's important is that we gain +2 damage against the chosen enemy type, we have an advantage on Survival checks related to tracking an enemy of said type, and Intelligence checks to recall any information about that type. We also get another language of our choice.

Another 1st-level feature we get is called Natural Explorer. As a master of the wilderness, we receive various benefits:

We can ignore any difficult terrain;

We have an advantage on initiative rolls;

On our first turn of combat, we have an advantage against enemies that hadn't acted yet.

Additionally, we grant the following benefits if we travel for an hour or more:

Difficult terrain doesn't slow our group's travel;

The group cannot be lost (unless by magic);

Even if we're engaged in some activity while travelling (foraging, tracking, etc.), we cannot be surprised by enemies;

If we're travelling alone, we can move stealthily at a regular pace;

We find twice as much food while foraging;

While tracking creatures, we learn their exact size, numbers, and how long ago they were at our current location.

Level 2: At this level, we get to learn some spells. Although we don't get any cantrips, nor can we cast ritual spells, there are a few tricks that will enhance our build. Wisdom is our spellcasting ability and we begin with two 1st-level spell slots and we learn two 1st-level spells: Alarm lets us put a 20-foot cube under magical surveillance for 8 hours. If any undesignated creature enters the cube, we are notified of the intrusion. We can flavour this spell by creating a small hive with bees buzzing around the perimeter. Hunter's Mark puts a target on one enemy for 1 hour (or until our concentration is broken); until the spell ends, the marked enemy receives extra 1d6 damage and we get an advantage on any Perception or Survival checks we roll in order to find it. If the enemy dies while marked, we can spend a bonus action to mark another creature.

At this level, we also get to pick our Fighting Style and Close Quarters Shooter lets us eliminate the disadvantage while shooting at a target that's within our melee range. We also ignore half-covers and three-quarters covers within 30 feet, and we get +1 to our ranged attack rolls.

Level 3: Our bond with nature deepens at this level. We get the Primeval Awareness feature; we can establish some basic-level communication with a non-hostile beast - we can learn of its emotional state, or if it's under any magical influence. Additionally, we can spend a minute of concentration to detect our Favoured Enemy within 5 miles of our current position.

This is also the level at which we pick our subclass and the Swarmkeeper Conclave finally lets us get our bees!

Our Gathered Swarm is a buzzing bundle of bees, which stays with us until we die. On each of our turns in combat, the Swarm can assist us in various ways. After we successfully hit the enemy:

The enemy receives additional 1d6 piercing damage;

The enemy has to succeed on a Strength saving throw, or be moved by our Swarm up to 15 feet horizontally in any direction;

We can be moved by our Swarm up to 5 feet horizontally in any direction.

We also gain access to Swarmkeeper's Magic feature, which grants us extra spells when reaching specific levels. At the 3rd level, we'd get Faerie Fire but we already know it because of our racial features. So we either forget about it or ask our DM if we could replace it with an extra 1st-level Ranger spell.

We also get another spell: Ensnaring Strike is applied to our ranged attack. On a successful hit, the enemy has to make a Strength saving throw or be restrained up to 1 minute (or until the concentration is broken) by magical thorny vines sprouting from the ground... or perhaps a puddle of extra-sticky honey? While restrained by the spell, suffers 1d6 piercing damage at the beginning of their turn (perhaps some bees hide within the honey and sting them).

Level 4: We get our first Ability Score Improvement! Let's raise our Constitution by 2 points, to get some more Hit Points later on. Survivability is important for the quick and nimble ones.

Level 5: At this level, we get our first subclass upgrade and it's... Extra Attack. We can now attack twice instead of once during a single action. It helps with our target goals, so it's good.

We also gain access to 2nd-level spell slots. Animal Messenger lets you select a critter and charm it to act as your courier for the next 24 hours. You speak a short message (up to 25 words) and describe a target and the creature does its best to deliver your words. I don't need to tell you what kind of creature to use, right?

Your Swarmkeeper's Magic feature also gives you an extra spell: Web fills a 20-foot cube space with sticky webbing. Creatures caught in the web must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or be restrained. Once again, we flavour web as honey and we're good to go.

Level 6: Our power of Fantasy Racism grows even stronger with Greater Favoured Enemy. We can pick another type of creatures to gain advantages against. This time, we get to choose from aberrations, celestials, constructs, dragons, elementals, fiends, or giants. We once again learn another language, and our bonus damage against both types of Favoured Enemies changes to a +4. Once again, choose whatever suits the campaign best.

Level 7: Time for another subclass upgrade. Writhing Tide lets our Swarm form a pair of wings around us, giving us flying speed of 10 feet for 1 minute. This ability seems a bit pointless, since we have a much better one from our racial background, so I would consider asking the DM if we can apply this for our party members and give them some slow flight instead.

For this level's spell, I think we should get Healing Spirit - we call upon a nature spirit (gee, I wonder what form it would take) to reside in a 5-foot space. If we or our allies movie into that space, or start our turn there, we get 1d6 points of healing. The spirit can heal only 1 + [our spellcasting modifier] number of times and disappears after the final healing. As a bonus action, we can move the spirit up to 30 feet to a space we can see.

Level 8: Another ASI! Let's put one point in Constitution and one in Wisdom.

At this level we also get Fleet of Foot, which lets us use the Dash action as a bonus action.

Level 9: We get access to 3rd-level spells: Conjure Barrage lets us magically multiply a projectile we shot. Each creature in a 60-foot cone must make a Dexterity saving throw or take 3d8 points of damage (half on a successful save), the type of which is the same as the projectile used.

We get another spell from our Swarmkeeper's Magic feature: Gaseous Form transforms us or whoever we touch into a cloud of smoke (or perhaps pollen). While in cloud form:

We have flying speed of 10 feet;

We can occupy another creature's space;

We have advantage on non-magical damage;

We have advantage on Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution saving throws;

We can slip through cracks and narrow openings;

If we're stunned or incapacitated mid-air, we don't fall.

While in this form, we cannot speak, use items, attack, or cast spells.

Level 10: At the midway point we get Hide in Plain Sight, which helps us hide so well we reach Drax levels of invisibility

When we choose to Hide, we can decide to not use any movement on our turn. If we do so, any creature that attempts to detect us receives a -10 to their Perception check until the end of our next turn. As long as we do not move, we can use this feature indefinitely.

Level 11: Another subclass feature! The Mighty Swarm feature gives us more bees than before. The damage dealt by our Swarm increases from d6 to d8; if a target fails their saving throw against being moved by our Swarm, they are also knocked prone; when we are moved by our Swarm, we get the benefit of half-cover until the start of our next turn.

We also get another 3rd-level spell: Protection from Energy gives us, or any creature we touch, resistance to one damage type of choice - acid, cold, fire, lightning, or thunder - for up to 1 hour (or until our concentration is broken).

Level 12: Time for another ASI! Let's raise our Dexterity by two points.

Level 13: We don't get new class features, but we do unlock 4th-level spells; Grasping Vine creates a wiggly plant tendril in a point within 30 feet from you, which can be directed to lash at a target within 30 feet from it. The target has to make a Dexterity saving throw or be pulled 20 feet towards the vine.

We also get another Swarmkeeper spell: Arcane Eye creates an invisible magical beacon that we can use to scout our surroundings for up to 1 hour (or until our concentration is broken). As an action we can move the Eye up to 30 feet without any distance limit; although it cannot enter other planes of existence, or pass through solid barriers, it can enter through an opening even 1 inch wide.

Level 14: We get to put a little extra sneaky to our build with Vanish. This allows us to take the Hide action as a bonus action (which pairs really well with our Hide in Plain Sight).

Level 15: For our final subclass upgrade, we get Swarming Dispersal. When we take damage, we can use a reaction to transform our body into a swarm of bees for the best representation of Naruto's Substitution Jutsu.

We gain resistance to the damage dealt to us and we teleport into an unoccupied space within 30 feet of where we started. We can use this ability the number of times equal to our proficiency bonus and we regain all uses when finishing a long rest.

We get to pick another 4th-level spell: we use Locate Creature to name a creature familiar to us and learn their location as long as they're within 1.000 feet from us. If the creature is moving, we will detect that as long as they don't live that range.

Level 16: We get another ASI! Let's cap our Dexterity with those two extra points.

Level 17: Here we unlock our spellcasting limit - 5th-level spells: Swift Quiver is a bonus action spell that turns our ammo supply into the infinite quiver of Legolas. For 1 minute (or until concentration is broken) on each of our turns, we can take a bonus action to make two additional attacks with ammo from our quiver. Combined with our Extra Attack, this lets us attack one target four times during our turn for 1d6+5 piercing damage.

Level 18: We get a feature called Feral Senses, which helps when fighting invisible enemies; when we attack something we cannot see we no longer get disadvantage on attack rolls. We are also aware of any invisible creatures within 30 feet of us, provided we're not blinded or deafened and the creature isn't using its Hide action.

Level 19: Final ASI of the build. Let's round-up our Wisdom into 18, and with one point to spare we can't do much so allocate it wherever.

We also learn our final spell for the build: Steel Wind Strike lets us do a flourish with our melee weapon, and turn it into an invisible blade of slashiness. Up to five creatures within 30 feet of us have to make a Dexterity saving throw or take 6d10 force damage. Additionally, we can choose to teleport within 5 feet of one of the targets that we hit or miss.

Level 20: For our capstone we get Foe Slayer: once on each of our turns, we can add our Wisdom modifier to the attack roll or the damage roll of an attack we make.

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Now, let's see what came out from this build for Ah Muzen Cab.

I think we've reached all of our goals. We got our bees, we've got honey-flavour in some abilities, we get extra Movement Speed with Dash as a bonus action... we even get a good Attack Speed with Extra Attack and Swift Quiver.

Our Spell Save DC is 18, AC is 17 if paired with the studded leather armour, and we've on average 164 Hit Points.

Unfortunately, our Intelligence and Charisma scores are pretty low so any checks and saving throws involving those might give us trouble. We are also pretty much range-oriented, with just +1 in Strength.

But that's it! Hopefully you guys enjoyed this ride, and I'll see you for the next one!

Nerdy out!

#ah muzen cab #SMITE #ranger #d&d 5e #dungeons and dragons #fairy #dnd 5e

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grailfinders · 4 years

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Fate and Phantasms #33: Hans Christian Andersen

Welcome back to Fate and Phantasms, where today we are making Budget Waver, a.k.a. the Author of Legend, Hans Christian Andersen! Hans is a College of Creation Bard from Unearthed Arcana, specializing in reshaping the world however he sees fit and having some extra goodies in his inspiration. As always, there’s a spreadsheet for the build here and a level-by-level breakdown below the cut!

Race and Background

Hans is a human if you want to be totally accurate (or a simic hybrid if you want to be fancy), but because of his stature, we're making him a Lightfoot Halfling. This gives Hans +2 Dexterity and +1 Charisma; Lucky, which lets you reroll nat ones; Brave, giving him advantage on saves against being frightened; Halfling Nimbleness, letting him move through the spaces of larger creatures; and Naturally Stealthy, letting him hide behind medium or larger creatures. Hans would probably argue against his luck, but he’s definitely unflappable in the face of danger.

There’s no better background for Hans than Guild Artisan, which gives Hans proficiency in Insight and Persuasion as well as constant deadlines. Sorry buddy, you don’t get a break even in the Forgotten Realms.

Stats

Put your highest score into Charisma; Hans isn’t easy to get along with, but he can verbally eviscerate a man within five minutes of meeting him. Next is Intelligence; Hans is a bookworm, and one of the few servants who visibly updates himself to the modern era. Third is Wisdom; his greatest strength is reading people faster than they can read his books. After that is Dexterity, followed by Constitution and Strength. Hans isn’t athletic at the best of times, and he’s in the body of a child, so he’s not going to win any Olympic sports any time soon.

Class Levels

1. As stated, you are a bard, giving you proficiency in three skills of your choice, here Intimidation, Arcana, and Performance. You are living proof as to why intimidation is a charisma skill, and the latter two will help with your writing. You also have proficiency in Dexterity and Charisma saving throws.

As a first level bard, you gain Spellcasting using charisma as your spell ability, and Bardic Inspiration, d6s you can hand out to other party members to help them on any d20 roll they might make. These are regained after long rests.

At first level, bards gain two cantrips and four first level spells. Grab Vicious Mockery (duh), Message, Bane to give enemies more dramatically appropriate aiming skills, Cure Wounds because you’re a support caster, Illusory Script to ward of plagiarizers, and Dissonant Whispers as another aspect of your general attitude.

2. At second level, you become a Jack of All Trades, adding half your proficiency bonus to non-proficient skill checks. You also learn a Song (story) of Rest, letting you perform during short rests to add a d6 to any healing your party is already doing.

For your spell this level, grab Heroism and start making your party members true protagonists.

3. Third level bards graduate from their college, and yours is the College of Creation. Creation bards learn to make Motes (pages) of Potential, and all bards gain expertise in two skills. Now, whenever you give inspiration to other party members, an intangible page will follow them around until the inspiration is spent. When the inspiration is used, the page can also be used to add an extra effect, depending on what the inspiration is used for. If it is added to an attack roll, the page explodes, forcing all other creatures within 5′ to make a constitution save or take the roll in thunder damage. If it is added to a save, the page becomes a small piece of armor, granting the user the roll plus your charisma modifier in temporary HP. If it is added to an ability check, they can roll the inspiration die again, and use either roll.

For this round of expertise, we’re focusing on your wit, doubling your proficiency bonus with Insight and Intimidation.

For this level’s spell, grab the ever-useful Enhance Ability for more hero enhancing.

You also can make a Performance of Creation as an action. You can create a nonmagical item within 10 feet of you, as long as that item is worth less than 20 times your level in GP, and is medium or smaller. It lasts a number of hours equal to your proficiency bonus. You can do this once per long rest, or by spending a second level slot or higher. At sixth level you can make Large items, and at 14th level you can make Huge ones.

4. For your first ASI, improve your Charisma for better spells, more inspiration, and more destructive insults. You also learn Mending, to prevent any torn pages, and Skywrite, because that’s another writing-based spell.

5. At fifth level, your Inspiration increases to d8s, and you become a Font of Inspiration, regaining used dice on short rests. For your spell this level, grab Major Image; bringing fictional characters to life is more Shakespeare’s thing, but there aren’t that many third level spells that fit Hans.

6. At sixth level, you become so good at insulting people it acts as a Countercharm, giving them advantage against being charmed if you spend an action doing so. As a creation bard, you can also put on an Animating Performance, turning one large or smaller object into a Dancing Item, whose stat block can be found on the spreadsheet. This object has the same initiative as you, and goes immediately after you in turn order. It can move and react on its own, but it needs you to use a bonus action to command it if your want it to do anything other than dodge. If you’re incapacitated, the item can take actions of its own accord. You can also give someone inspiration using the same bonus action you use to command it. The object remains animate for one hour, or until reduced to zero HP. You can use this ability once per long rest, or more often by burning a third level spell slot. Only one object can be animated this way at a time.

For your spell, grab Sending to help you connect with your critics, as it lets you communicate with creatures who have intelligence scores less than three.

7. Seventh level bards gain fourth level spells, and yours is Greater Invisibility, granting invisibility to a creature that doesn’t depend on them not attacking. You could also just target their clothes, if you’re feeling a bit empirical.

8. Use your next ASI to maximize your Charisma, and learn Freedom of Movement for dramatic escapes.

9. At ninth level, your Song of Rest joins your inspiration as a d8, and you inch closer to your Noble Phantasm when you learn Mass Cure Wounds.

10. Now your Inspiration becomes d10s, you gain another round of Expertise, and your normal spell learning is interrupted by Magical Secrets, two spells from any class. Use this round of expertise to improve your writing with Arcana and Performance. You learn the Light cantrip, as well as Conjure Animals and Enlarge/Reduce. The former will allow you to summon dogs like in The Tinderbox, and the latter will let you play a convincing Thumbelina.

11. There aren’t that many sixth level spells we want, so lets head back and pick up one we missed before. Polymorph is a classic faerie tale spell, and it just wouldn’t be right if we didn’t have it. Princesses into frogs, mermaids into humans, you name it, this spell can do it.

12. Now that charisma is maxed out, use this next ASI to pick up the Observant feat. This adds one to your wisdom, read lips, and gain a +5 bonus to your passive perception and investigation checks.

13. Your Song of Rest once again catches up to your inspiration, becoming a d10 as well. At this level, you gain another classic faerie tale spell, Resurrection. Although not dying may be more Disney’s take than Hans’...

14. At 14th level, all bards get another set of Magical Secrets, and creation bards reach their Creative Crescendo. When you make a Performance of Creation, you can make multiple items, up to your charisma modifier. Only one item can be larger than Small at a time. You’re also no longer limited in value.

For your magical secrets this level, grab Circle of Power to give everyone around you plot armor and Magic Missile for those ever-present caster balls.

15. Your Inspiration increases one last time, becoming d12s. You also gain an eighth level spell, Power Word Stun. Finally, your insults are so devastating they can cause status effects.

16. Use this ASI to increase your Wisdom to better read those you meet. There’s not much else happening at this level, sorry.

17. Your Song of Rest reaches its final stage and becomes a d12 as well. You also learn your ninth level spell, True Polymorph. You can turn a creature into another creature, an object into a creature, or even a creature into an object. If you keep your concentration for a full hour, this effect lasts until it is dispelled. Why not turn a princess into a frog?

18. With your last round of Magical Secrets, pick up Wind Walk and Animal Shapes. The former will allow you and your friends to reenact the ending of The Little Mermaid, while the latter allows you and up to 120 others (though they really have to pack in) become any number of classic faerie tale creatures, effectively giving them all a druid’s beastform for the duration.

19. Use your last ASI for just a bit more Wisdom.

20. For your capstone level, you gain Superior Inspiration. This gives you one more inspiration die if you start initiative without any.

Pros: You have a variety of ways to support your party, from healing, to empowering their abilities to even turning them into situationally appropriate creatures. Being able to literally pull whatever you need to out of thin air also gives you a lot of utility, and having one of the few summon abilities that doesn’t require concentration gives you versatility on the battlefield as well.

Cons: Speaking of concentration, a lot of your spells require it! You’ll have to be careful picking your targets to maximize your effectiveness. Also, your spells can be used on yourself, but more often than not you’ll want to empower and rely on others to do the heavy lifting for you. So play it smart and make sure there’s a Mash around to take the hits for you.

#fgo #Fate Grand Order #Hans Christian Andersen #D&D 5e #Fate and Phantasms

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tigerkirby215 · 4 years

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5e Pyke the Bloodharbor Ripper build (League of Legends)

(Artwork by Riot Games)

You look familiar... You. You were on my blog, looking at my builds.

Well here’s yet another League build, and yet another edgelord champion. I don’t know if it’s a problem with me or a problem with League but I seem to be drawn to characters with edgy personas... at least lore-wise. In game I spam Sona and Yuumi like an eGirl thot.

And Kayn. And Warwick. Alright I might just be an edgelord.

Regardless Pyke is always a character I’ve enjoyed more for his lore than his actual gameplay. Back in my DOTA days I used to main Bounty Hunter (and I might branch out to DOTA builds someday; who knows?) and while Pyke captures that gameplay to some extent he’s never really been my cup of tea. Gondar was considerably more light-hearted than Pyke and focused a lot more on information gathering than the raw killing that Pyke does. Even so I think Pyke was a great addition to the lore of Bilgewater with the rest of the region seemingly existing only as an excuse to put pirates into League of Legends. (Ironically enough I actually think the other character that displays Bilgewater’s lore the best is Tahm Kench, and considering that most people see him as a meme that’s really saying something.)

But regardless: you’re here for the build, not to read me ramble about why I made it. I can definitely say that if you genuinely want to play Pyke you’re certainly one for the roleplay, though try not to be overly edgy.

GOALS

Harpooner - Armed with an iconic Bone Skewer it’ll find its way stabbed into the stomachs or thrown into the backs of many victims.

Until it all sinks... - Pyke swims in the shadows before surfacing to pounce his prey. He did also swim in the water once.

Did I “support” right? - While we won’t have any healing Pyke has plenty of utility in his own right.

RACE

Officially Pyke is some sort of drowned revenant, and while I know there is a Revenant race in the Gothic Heroes UA it’s rather unbalanced and unfortunately doesn’t really work for what we’re trying to do here. The Gothic Heroes Revenant has a goal, but Pyke’s mind is warped so he thinks his goal is never done. While the health regen is in character for Pyke’s Gift of the Drowned Ones the other features don’t really help us or retain the aquatic theme of Pyke.

With that in mind I had a few ideas: Water Genasi was my first idea to have a character infused with the strength of the sea but unfortunately it’s focused far too much on magic as well as Constitution, both of which Pyke doesn’t have. My next thought was for a Kalashtar to have the spirit of the drowned one infused into you, but they’re tied deeply into their dream lore and less-so into the two-minds aspect.

But then I realized there’s a race that gets infused with parts from the ocean, and even starts out human just like Pyke! This is going to sound mad but you’re going to want a Simic Hybrid from Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica. While in-lore they receive their gifts from the deep from science we can reflavor it as gifts from the ocean itself. Anyways Simic Hybrids see their Constitution increase by 2 and a stat of their choice increase by 1: choose Dexterity for a better chance fighting the beasts below before your line is cut. You also get Darkvision up to 60 feet and Animal Enhancements. Since Animal Enhancement is tied to level I’ll be addressing it in the build instead of in the race section because this is getting long enough as is. And for your language of choice I’d opt for Elvish, mainly because it’s unlikely you’ll meet any Vedalken this side of the sea.

ABILITY SCORES

15; DEXTERITY - Fighting the monsters of Bilgewater in their own territory takes a great degree of nimbleness to avoid getting your line cut.

14; CHARISMA - All sea captains fear the Bloodharbor Ripper, and Charisma is a requirement to multiclass.

13; INTELLIGENCE - You need to be smart to hunt any prey, be it a monstrous fish or... more dangerous game...

12; CONSTITUTION - While not in-character for Pyke to be tanky we sadly can’t convert our health into damage in this build.

10; WISDOM - Even if you have to do it to survive jumping into monster-infested waters is not the best lifestyle choice.

8; STRENGTH - While perhaps in-character to drop Wisdom instead we simply don’t need Strength in this build.

BACKGROUND

There are several backgrounds for a man lost at sea but Pirate is the best for one who came back with a vengeance. You get the Athletics and Perception skills to scout out your prey and wrestle with it in deep tide, as well as proficiency with Water Vehicles and Navigator’s Tools to command your own ship someday. But the main feature we’re here for is Bad Reputation so everyone knows that you’re the Bloodharbor Ripper. If you’re in a civilized settlement people will be afraid of being put on your list, and will let you get away with minor crimes. Murder isn’t a minor crime though, so pull someone into an alley if they do end up showing up on your list.

(Artwork by Riot Games)

THE BUILD

LEVEL 1 - ROGUE 1

Starting off as a Rogue for the extra proficiencies: take Intimidation, Stealth, Investigation, and Acrobatics as your skills of choice. You also get Expertise in two of those skills and you’re going to want Investigation to find your quarry and Stealth to sneak up on them.

But of course the main reason for the expertise in Stealth is so we can Sneak Attack. Once per turn you can do an extra d6 damage with an attack if an enemy is within 5 feet of your ADC or if you have Advantage on the attack by jumping out of water. You must be using a finesse weapon such as your Bone Skewer, which for now would likely just be a Short Sword since you haven’t received your gifts from the deep yet.

But your time in Bilgewater did allow you to learn Thieves’ Cant, a mix of words and phrases that are actually a code among criminals. They may be speaking about the latest big catch but you know what they’re really talking about is cutting your line.

But while you were under the undertow you did receive some Animal Enhancement. As a Simic Hybrid you can choose between three Enhancement options at level 1: Manta Glide lets you fall slowly and glide as you do so, Nimble Climber gives you a climbing speed equal to your walking speed, but Underwater Adaptation is the obvious choice for the drowned man. You gain a swimming speed equal to your walking speed and can breath underwater. You drowned once but it won’t happen again.

NOTE: If you’re playing outside of an aquatic campaign Nimble Climber would be your next best bet to remaining in character. You can also opt to just play a Variant Human instead of a Simic Hybrid if you don’t mind the lack of swimming speed however, since Simic Hybrid was mainly picked for the aquatic implications.

LEVEL 2 - ROGUE 2

Second level Rogues get Cunning Action, allowing you to use your quick wit to Dash, Disengage, or Hide as a bonus action. A Bilgewater Harpooner needs to be quick on their feat and always trust their crew. But when that trust is lost...

LEVEL 3 - WARLOCK 1

As you’re lost to The Drowned Ones you receive their blessing to become a Warlock. The Drowned Ones could be seen as The Undying in many senses, as they keep you from death to serve them.

WHY NOT LURKER IN THE DEEP? - Lurker in the deep focuses a lot more on using the strength of those below more directly. Pike meanwhile merely serves them as an assassin. Not only that but Lurker in the Deep has far more of a focus on tentacles than knives, which is more of Illaoi’s thing.

Undying Warlocks are considered Among the Dead. They get the Spare the Dying cantrip and have Advantage against diseases, and undead enemies may not attack you as they see you as one of their own. If an undead attacks you they have to make a Wisdom save against your Warlock spell DC or choose a new target, losing the attack if there is no one else to hit. If you succeed on the save or you hit them they’re immune to this effect for 24 hours, so perhaps don’t pick fights with Sion.

But along with Spare the Dying you also get access to more Spellcasting. You learn 2 cantrips from the Warlock spell list: Lighting Lure will let you throw your Bone Skewer out at an enemy within 15 feet. They must make a Strength saving throw or be pulled 10 feet towards you, taking a d8 of Lightning damage if they’re pulled into melee range. Eldritch Blast lets you throw your Bone Skewer further down range - make a ranged spell attack against a target you can see and on a hit they take a d10 force damage.

You also learn 2 first level spells from the Warlock list: False Life comes from The Undying patron list and lets you “regenerate” some health in the darkness. You gain a d4 + 4 temporary hitpoints when you cast this spell. That temp HP lasts for an hour or until it’s cut off of you.

Illusory Script meanwhile is the perfect spell to write your list. You can cast this spell while writing with lead-based ink worth at least 10 gold to imbue the words with powerful illusion magic for 10 days. Creatures you designate can read the message normally but any other creature won’t be able to read it, or will see a completely different message as long as it’s written in a language you know. If the spell is dispelled the message is dispelled, so no one will know that your list is truly unending... unless they have truesight, as they’ll be able to read it under the light of a pink ward.

LEVEL 4 - WARLOCK 2

2nd level Warlocks get Eldritch Invocations and the only one we really need is Grasp of Hadar. Every time you hit an enemy with your Eldritch Blast you can pull them 10 feet closer, so you can drag ‘em under and get your hands dirty. You other choice of invocation really doesn’t matter: Armor of Shadows can be a good boost to your AC but I personally like Mask of Many Faces to hide behind your facemask before finding your prey.

You also get another spell and Hex will let you mark your prey as a gift to the Drowned Ones. Whenever you hit a target that’s Hexed you do an extra d6 Necrotic damage, and the target has disadvantage on a type of ability check of your choosing. I’d personally choose Strength so that they can’t swim up when you pull them down to drown.

LEVEL 5 - ROGUE 3

3rd level Rogues get access to their Roguish Archetype and the Soul Knife subclass from the Psionics UA will make sure you always have a Bone Skewer. The Soul Knife gets a Psionic Enhancement: you can either have a 30 foot Telepathy, some extra health and Toughness equal to your Intelligence modifier plus your Rogue level, or 5 feet of extra Walking Speed. These all have their uses but while it’s perhaps not in-flavor Toughness is probably your most consistently useful enhancement.

WHY NOT REVIVED? - Revived focuses far more on the manipulation of death, and has a heavier skill focus than the Soul Knife. But put in simple terms Soul Knife has nearly all the abilities I’d want from Pyke without having to multiclass too much. Undying Warlock is already more than enough undeath for Pyke, and it also helps give him some Deep One patrons.

I should also mention I made this build before the latest Psionics Options Revisited UA. This build uses old features so discuss with your DM if you want to use the newer version.

But of course the main reason to go for the Soul Knife is your Psychic Blade. You can create a bone skewer in your hand, or two bone skewers if you’re feeling particularly vicious. You can’t hold anything in the hand you hold the blade but you can choose to dispel them without using an action.

The blade has the finesse and light properties so you can dual wield them and use your Dexterity as your attack modifier. It deals 1d6 psychic damage on a hit and you can throw it 30 feet normally or 60 feet with disadvantage. Regardless of if you throw your knife or stab with it you can proc your Sneak Attack, which now deals 2d6 damage. If you throw the blade as part of an attack it vanishes immediately after it hits or misses, and the blade(s) disappear the instant it leaves your hand or if you’re incapacitated.

You also get another Animal Enhancement as a Simic Hybrid so you may as well get more AC from the Carapace enhancement, which increases your AC by 1 as long as you’re not wearing Heavy Armor. The only other enhancement I’d maybe suggest is Nimble Climber, which you could’ve taken at level 1. But simply put more AC is more useful, and was limited to us for a reason. You can consider the extra AC as the salt soaked into your skin, and your lust for vengeance allowing you to shrug off attacks.

(Artwork by FMM CAT)

LEVEL 6 - ROGUE 4

4th level Rogues get an Ability Score Improvement: increase your Dexterity for deadlier strikes with your Bone Skewer.

LEVEL 7 - ROGUE 5

At 5th level Rogues get Uncanny Dodge, letting them reduce the damage of an attack by half as a reaction. Is a female bounty hunter shooting you? Dive in the ghostly waters and set yourself up for the kill, especially since your Sneak Attack is also increased to 3d6 at this level.

LEVEL 8 - ROGUE 6

6th level Rogues get Expertise in two more skills: I’d choose Intimidation and Athletics. A frightened target won’t be able to lie to you, and Athletics Expertise will compensate for your low Strength score.

LEVEL 9 - ROGUE 7

7th level Rogues get Evasion: if you’re targeted with a Dexterity-based skill shot you can dash out of the way and take no damage on a successful saving throw, or only half damage if you fail. Pyke is far more evasive than the average support, and can get up and personal to do 4d6 with Sneak Attack.

LEVEL 10 - ROGUE 8

8th level Rogues get another Ability Score Improvement and we’ll max out our Dexterity for even deadlier strikes with your Bone Skewer.

LEVEL 11 - ROGUE 9

At 9th level you get the Terrifying Blade Soul Knife feature. When you damage a creature with your Psychic Blade you can force them to make a Wisdom saving throw based on your Intelligence modifier. If they fail the creature is frightened of you until the start of your next turn, but on a successful save they become immune to this feature for 24 hours. Traitors run from their past, or face them head on. Regardless you’ll kill them all, especially with a 5d6 Sneak Attack.

LEVEL 12 - ROGUE 10

10th level Rogues get another Ability Score Improvement, and you may have noticed our uneven Intelligence score? The Observant Feat will let us see when traitors talk about their coin. You can increase one of your mental stats by 1 (we’ll improve Intelligence) and you can read a creature’s lips to understand what they’re saying as long as you share a language. Your passive Perception and Investigation also increase by 5, so you can be aware of any backstabbers trying to slip away.

LEVEL 13 - ROGUE 11

11th level Rogues get Reliable Talent, meaning that any roll below a 10 in a skill you’re proficient in is treated as a 10. This means that your lowest possible roll with the skills your proficient in is:

25 on Stealth

22 on Intimidation or Investigation

20 on Acrobatics

19 on Athletics

15 on Perception

Your Sneak Attack also increases to 6d6.

LEVEL 14 - ROGUE 12

12th level Rogues get another Ability Score Improvement and we’ll want more Intelligence to know how to truly terrify our foes.

LEVEL 15 - ROGUE 13

13th level Soul Knife Rogues can dive into spectral waters with Psychic Veil. As an action you become invisible for 10 minutes. This invisibility ends if you make an attack or if you force a creature to make a saving throw. You can become invisible a number of times equal to your Intelligence modifier and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest. Your Sneak Attack also increases to 7d6 now, and just so you know attacking out of Invisibility counts as a Sneak Attack.

(Pyke concept art by Riot Games)

LEVEL 16 - ROGUE 14

14th level Rogues borrow some techniques from the monk in the jungle and get a 10 foot radius Blindsense to chase your prey.

LEVEL 17 - ROGUE 15

15th level Rogues get Slippery Mind for proficiency in Wisdom saving throws. It’s not much but considering that you have a +0 to Wisdom it certainly helps. Your Sneak Attack also increases to 8d6 now.

LEVEL 18 - ROGUE 16

16th level Rogues get another Ability Score Improvement and more Intelligence will lead to more Ghostwater Dives and better Terrifying Blades.

LEVEL 19 - ROGUE 17

17th level Soul Knife Rogues can Rend Mind for a powerful Phantom Undertow. If you have a Psychic Blade manifested you can force a creature you can see within 30 feet of you to make an Intelligence saving throw. The target takes 12d6 psychic damage and is stunned until the start of your next turn on a failed save, but only takes half as much on a successful save and isn’t stunned. If you are hidden from the target it has disadvantage on the save, and one of your Psychic Blades vanishes after using this feature.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Intelligence modifier and regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest. Pro tip: attacks against Stunned enemies automatically have Advantage so you can use your 9d6 Sneak Attack damage.

LEVEL 20 - ROGUE 18

Our final level is the 18th level in Rogue for Elusive so that no attack can have Advantage against you. "Death keeps spitting me right back out."

FINAL BUILD

PROS

I smell panic - Soul Knife on its own is a very powerful subclass. Having an unlimited supply of weapons that are viable at both melee and range, the ability to turn invisible, and tons of crowd control with both fears and stuns makes for an incredible damage dealer who can provide a lot of utility to the party.

Big Beast - It wasn’t my intention when making this build but for a Rogue you’re remarkably tanky. You have an above-average constitution and Psionic Enhancement buffing your health to a respectable level, and the Carapace Animal Enhancement turns what would be a +5 to AC (from your Dexterity) to a +6. This means that you have 17 AC with Leather Armor, 18 with Studded, and a 19 AC with Armor of Shadows! As a Rogue, meaning you have Uncanny Dodge and Evasion to further increase your survivability! Not to mention you have two Warlock slots to cast False Life is the fight starts to go south.

Crews share the wealth - Expertise in Intimidation and Investigation are helpful, and having Spare the Dying means that your Cleric can focus on stronger cantrips instead. But having 10 minutes of invisibility is insanely helpful for infiltration.

CONS

Every kill makes the voices louder - The two levels in Warlock are done almost entirely for flavor, and while we do get some useful features it does still mean you lose out on Stroke of Luck. If you have a DM who likes roleplay you can take the Magic Initiate feat for Wizards to get Lightning Lure along with potentially Ray of Frost to simulate a long-ranged “pull” and be a Warlock without actually being a Warlock. But the honest truth is that Soul Knife on its own is strong enough and the ability to pull people closer to you is largely redundant.

My list just got longer - Soul Knife uses their Bonus Action a lot more than other Rogues, meaning that you can’t use your Cunning Action to hide as often. Yes you can make two knives at a time but this still means that you’ll have to spend another bonus action to “reload” after throwing two hooks. And if both your hands are full you can’t hold your list!

Swim or Sink - Unfortunately you don’t get to max out your Intelligence modifier, which is needed for a lot of your class features. However the far bigger issue is your saving throws: proficiency in Wisdom saves help but your Charisma and Constitution are stuck at +2 and your Strength is forever at a pitiful -1. While you can compensate for strength checks with Expertise in Athletics your saving throws are less than desirable.

But problems only come for those without a plan. Make your list, check it twice, find out who’s naughty or nice before gutting them. Make sure your crew’s got your back and that they aren’t going to cut your line too. You’ve died before, but it doesn’t hurt not to do it again.

(Artwork by Riot Games)

#DnD 5e #dnd build #dnd guide #dnd #dnd rogue #League of Legends #League of Legends Pyke

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kaiju-z · 4 years

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Seon Adventures Episode 27: "Poison & Polymorph”

Last time on Seon Adventures, the Cultbusters entered the Colliseum, known as the Echosmith Hall. There, they met their rivals in the 7 other teams participating to win the hearts of the populace and the prizes that would go to the victor: 20,000 gold pieces and a mansion to their name.

Amongst friends and acquaintances, our heroes came face to face for the first (for most of them) time with the re-established “Traveling Gentlefolk”. Landis, the Paladin of Fornas, the Roguish Griffin Tallywork, the Bard Dink Jawbone, the crotchety archer Jeffrey Ramsey... and new member, Sabrina, sister of Amelia.

Wordless, Luctan would bear witness to his wings, held together by a strange contraption. And fueled by a strange liquid. His tail, sold or ground down for spell components.

After a panic attack and encouragement from his more familiar party members, the party would reconvene and wait for their turn to take on the 1st, the Elemental, challenge and ultimately succeed.

As half the teams would pass on... The Cultbusters, The Darksbane’s Elite, The Foresthearted and The Traveling Gentlefolk, day one of the tournament draws closer to it’s end... And we resume with our story, as our heroes would return to the Shadowspire Mansion, under their ally and client, Nelatha Shadowspire.

While the rest of the party join up with their host for a few hearty games of her choosing, the duo of Mournimar and Belli, Belli and Mournimar, would take to a room to plot their vowed plot to make life harder for the people, who ruined their friend’s life.

Calling over Ficus as their accomplice, they would formulate a clever, if tricky to time plan, involving knock out poison and theft, not just of Landis’ stolen wings, but also of items of their own, which they’d keep obvious to their person for easier access and alibi.

After about an hour of planning, they would take to the Tabernax Tavern, the common watering hole for either party and wait for Landis’ arrival. 10 minutes into their wait, they would see two figures come, one after the other, at seperate times, but common locations. One, appearing Half-Orcish and with a familiar pink band on his wrist, while the other, seemingly an Half-Elf of some sort, his face covered.

Soon enough, Landis would come as well. And enter the tavern he would, an awkward pace to him as he’d carry the wings along, not necessarily on his back, but on his person. With a nod and a half salute, he would join the tiefling and Half-Orc at the table, where they’d have drinks and hold their talk as Belli prepared herself to take notes.

He would begin the tale. And wouldn’t sugar coat it, like Griffin had mentioned, he wasn’t very good at describing this sort of thing:

“ We found this guy and we thought he was a tiefling, because he looked like one, we invited him to drink with us, because we are reasonable guys and he revealed he was from Potencia’s realm. It was fucked up, you know, because we thought he was a tiefling, but he admitted he was a devil of Potencia’s.”

He would admit and repeat that they took his wings that day. “It was fucked up, you know?” He hated Potencia, after all. And anyone, who was under her had to be stopped, right?

Though skeptic of the story, Mournimar would believe it, while Belli would question the rationale that they just up and chopped a drunk guy’s wings off, over something he said in a sloshed state.

“Dink figured out how to work the wings and we ground the tail into a gel to make the wings fly.“ They had been using them since. And given the state of those wings, it must have taken a while.

As the conversation would carry on, Belli demanding details, a bit of a flourish for the song to be written here, the Elf/Orc hybrid would feel something small stab into her neck. A clear sign that the moment had come.

Feeling the effects of the knock out juice, she’d let it take her to the floor and Mournimar would soon come down as well from a dart to the neck as well. And then Landis would join them as well, failing to steel himself to the effects of the darts.

As they rumage through the trio for their items of choice, Kit taking a wristlet that Ficus had given to Belli and Mournimar “losing” a sword in the process, she’d wink and whisper to her musically inclined “mark”: “ Hope you missed me.” and they’d quickly exit with the equipment, wings in tow.

It would take them about 20 minutes, before they’d regain their footing, with Landis having dashed out to search for the thieves, in spite of not catching a hide, nor hair of them in sight.

After talking their way out of having to call the guards, because of the thieves, they’d go look for Landis, but sadly fail to find him and opt to return to the mannor for RnR, in hopes to reunite with their roguish friends.

All the while this had been happening, Nel would be cleaning house against the three heroes in the games of Strip Poker and Monopoly.

Never bet against the house. ‘cause the house is hustlin’.

Those games would continue on, well into the night, when Mournimar and Belli would return home. Excittedly they’d proclaim that they were mugged.

“Well, you should have stayed home and played strip monopoly!” a very sassy and satisfied lady would answer them in turn.

As Belli gets the ok from Ficus that they made it safe, she tries to use her acting skills before her friends to play it off like she was tired. And while Luck didn’t notice it, Amelia noticed the off phrasing the girl would use.

“I don’t know what you guys’re up to, but be careful, I don’t fucking know, I guess?” Don’t mess with the sharp eye of a sailor. “ You order your dildo in the morning, you get your dildo! “

“What’s a dildo?” Luck would ask, without skipping a beat.

(While we laugh our asses out of character) Belli and Mournimar would head upstairs, where they’d be joined by their animal friends, one way or another, before Belli would check her door.

Opening it.... she’d see Gorruck from Victrum?! ON HER BED?!!! WITH A ROSE IN HIS MOUTH?!!!!!! Nanithefuck?!

“What are YOU doing here?!” she’d demand to know from the thick half-orc. Only late in the question noticing that he had Kit’s wristband. And as he turned into Kit, her mood would flip in an instant as Kit would howl with laughter at the reaction of her dear musician.

She would reveal that Ficus was currently selling off the wristlet. Whether that was the original goal for the item or not, was uncertain. Still, there she was and she would point to the wings beside the bed as proof of their success.

The overconfident duo would cheer for their success. They did it! They did something that used brains! And in their excitement they would call for Luck to come join them over something. Spiders or whatever?!

“Okay, let me just put my trousers on!” - Luck would say, before climbing the stairs to the others. He would see Kit. He would then look to where the other twou would point with their hands, smiling and easing him into the sight.

They expected him to be happy and excited to see those again.

He wasn’t.

Luck would stand there.

Quiet. Stupified. Mouth agape for a few short moments, eyes on the bastardized limbs he had been seperated from. And then and only then would he look to the others again. Purpose and an ever rising anxiety on his face.

In a mix of fury, fear and shell shock he would point to the nearest exit and would demand Kit to take them and bring them out of town. As fast and as far as she could. Burn them if she had to! He didn’t care. In that moment that he had been quiet Luck had seen and thought of something that horrified him to this point of outburst, mixed with the pain of what he had been put through.

An aggreived Kit would do so, holding her own in the face of Luck’s reaction, held raised high as she made her leave with the contraption.

On her way down, Amelia would see the wings and put things together over what could have happened.

As Kit goes and is gone from sight, Luck explains his reasoning to the confused and yet, concerned Ranger and Bard. The Traveling Gentlefolk had spellcasters between them. Enough to where at least one of them would have the “Locate Object” spell. In the state the wings were, by this point, they were an Object. They would be concidered objects and thus, easily trackable.

They had to be destroyed. Be it so TTG wouldn’t find them or so that Luck wouldn’t have to see them as they were. Either worked in Luck’s mind. In the state he was in, he began to lament ever revealing himself to them. Involving them in his own damn drama as he did.

They would, in turn, beg him not to think that way. They wanted to help him with however they could and didn’t consider these consequences. They wanted to make things right, damn it!

Luck would, before leaving to get back to the game with the rest of the party, ask them to keep him informed of Kit’s condition, if they’d want to make things right.

And Belli would try to do so. At first, every hour on the hour she’d try to message the changeling to make sure she was ok.

At first it’d seem like she would be ok.

But her last message, before sleep, would get an answer that Kit was being approached by multiple people.

In the morning, as she’d try to call her again with her magic re-filled, Belli would cast Sending again, to make sure Kit was ok.

But there was no answer.

That could mean one of few things.

And only a handful were positive.

She’d message Ficus and ask him to check on Kit, wherever she may be. To track her if possible, because she didn’t reply to her specific message.

A level of worry would arise as she would have these thoughts stuck at the front of her mind. No answers, only questions. Even informing Luck didn’t seem to help as he only wound up feeling responsible for whatever fate was befalling her.

Still. The group would gather and have their meal, before heading out.

On the way to the Echosmith Hall, they would plan a course of action.

Through some plotting between the five of them, they would come up with an initial gameplan, in the situation they faced one single, large target.

Belli would turn it into a small and fragile creature. Luck would cast a spell on Amelia, through his sword. Which he would reveal had “Flight” as one of it’s slotted abilities.

Amelia would fly as high as she could in the air and spike the polymorphed creature to the Colliseum grounds and, while she flew back down, the others would finish it off, if gravity’s crunch didn’t take it out first.

That was the initial plan, if it was a single target. If multiples, they would improvise, of course.

At the Hall, they would be approached by Sabrina, concerned over what had transpired the day before, the whole “theft” thing. Mournimar had luckily not brought the “stolen” short sword with him to make things authentic.

Landis had told her what happened and she wanted to be sure they were ok. They played it off as best they could, given the circumstances and took note that the lads of Sabrina’s team did not have the wings with them.

There was hope!

Ficus would then message Belli. He had gotten to her trail, somewhere outside of town. There was blood near a river and signs of struggle. But there didn’t appear to be a sign of her form anywhere, yet.

That was a worriesome thing to learn. But at the same time, as the others would point out, it was also a good sign. It meant that Kit wasn’t necessarily in the worst possible situation she could be. It’s possible that she was in prison.

After further Sending messaging, the first horn would be blown. Luck would approach Belli and promise her that they would find Kit after this was done and they would do what they could to help her in the situation she was in.

With the encouragement given, Belli decided to conserve spells for the tournament and have Orion, in a chunky Robin form, fly over to Ficus with a message to check the dungeons, in case she was brought to prison...

The Horn would blow again.

Deep breaths were had by the five, as they would be the first to go out and fight today.

And they’d step out through the opening doors, to the center of the arena, to the cheers of a crowd that had shrunken some. It would appear that, with some of the teams having lost and/or left the grounds, their respective fans had made their exit as well. Their mistake.

The Cultbusters were gonna put on a show.

And so here they were, the Five, with all eyes on them in Round 2 of the tournament. The Spring Welcoming Festival. The Trial of the Beast.

A challenge involving combat with a mighty beast that establishes victors as a cut above the rest of the competitors. Whichever team in their respective brackets takes down their beast faster or stays in tact the longest will advance to the final round. The Trial Of The Betrayed. As long as the party don’t lose 3 people in the fight, they are still in the trial.

As we stand and wait, the flagman lowers his namesake, signifying the release of the creature.

A large pair of monstrous gates get opened to the East of the VIP seats and our attention gets drawn to the aftershocks of thick legs moving, stomping onto the ground.

His figure is big and lengthy. Scales can be seen on the massive body on any area that isn’t covered in intricate feathers. As the party, and public, can only stare in awe, the monstrous carnivore shoots it’s head back and releases a roar from it’s toothy maw...

As The Cultbusters’ fight begins... versus the T-Rex.

Initiative is taken and Belli attempts to go for the pre-planned strategy.

She tries to polymorph the giant into something small and weak, but the starving theropod fights through the spell with his instinct. Regaining what control he can.

Amelia charges in, regardless and begins striking. Left. Right. A flurry of blows against the powerful legs of this Apex-Predator from a land unknown to the lot of them. And it still stands. The enraged, wounded beast, would look down to the woman, who tried to back away and with a quick dive of the head would snatch Zephyrine between his jaws, putting the piercing squeeze of his knife like teeth onto her.

Mournimar takes to the back and uses his long-distance arrows to strike the creature as best he can as Malak casts Beacon of Hope for Maximum healing. Because the lot of them sure would need it against a thing like that.

As Luck charged in, the scaly golliath would try to render Amelia in half with his jaws. But she managed to avoid most of the damage, positioning herself some at an angle, where only one of it’s chomps would affect her.

Luck would swing with his sword, trying to get the Rex to drop her. To get the attention onto himself. He’d chop and slash and cut into the pheasant colored dinosaur’s left leg, after casting Bane onto him as he and Malak had advanced close.

The aching giant would swing it’s tail, smashing Luctan in the face with his thick tail as it failed to get any further damage in on the Air Genasi, who struggled and punched and pounded to free herself...

But therein came the surprise of it all.

Because before Luck had ran in to personally aid in her rescue, he had given Belli instructions to Polymorph Amelia in the mirror image of her lizardy predator.

Consent to the transformation given by the blue brawler, the magical musician would cast. And within a bright light, Amelia’s body would grow. And shift and change. The force damage repelling the T-Rex back a bit from the sudden change of proportions and perspective.

As he’d stare into the infuriated eyes of a storming blue lady Rex.

As lightning flickered off her cloud like head feathering, Amelia would charge on the carnivore and, with Luck making way, she’d snap her jaws onto the male theropod’s neck. Biting and chomping violently and angrily.

The battle would change completely, with one simple use of Polymorph. Amelia had the upper hand, or, well, upper bite strength in the conflict and she would physically wreck the real dinosaur with all the power and fury of her being, giving Mournimar the change to finish the captured beast off.

With the pre-placed Hunter’s Mark and with a good angle, he stealthily fired his Sparrow Arrows into the ancient creature’s mouth and through the back of it’s head, ending the suffering it had been put through...

With it’s lifeless body going down for the count, the crowd would go wild and explode in cheers as Amelia roared in intoxicating power as the absolute beast that she was, Luctan climbing on her back and hanging from the side of her neck as her own personal hypeman.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, AMELIA ZEPHYRINE!”

What happened then? After Amelia was released from the Polymorph, Malak and Luctan would apply a maximum of healing on her wounds from being bitten. And check to make sure she was ok as they stepped in the unoccupied waiting area.

While not in as much pain as she initially was, she was riding on the high of being a T-Rex. She felt so powerful. Never felt anything like it before, she admitted to the others, Belli specifically. The two now had something fascinating to talk about later on..

Next the horn would blare for The Darksbane Elite.

Their group would ocme out and face a large threat of their own. A Giant Ape of some sort.

And that would cause them some trouble. In the while it took them to bring the simmian to it’s knees, the orcishly inclined party members got to feel the sensation of meeting minds against their will. Getting manhandled by the creature of unusual size.

The Silverback Ape would hold it’s own in the fight, up until a Hasted Layla Duststone would swing her blade and decapitate the creature, once it’s attention was fully off her and on the orcish ones, who would restrain it’s arms.

Sadly for them, they took much longer than the fast Cultbusters and thus, they were the ones, who’d have to fall back home.

On the Foresthearted ones’ turn it was even harder. They fought TWO large beasts. Two Giant Crocodiles!!!

Though the changeling on the team did turn into a giant crocodile to combat one, she didn’t have the experience of being such a creature, quite like the real, genuine article and the scene would get pretty grizzly,

Through wounds and time the five would manage to take out the crocodiles... But with 3 of them down for the count, the chances of them advancing were slim pickings.

On the Traveling Gentlefolk’s turn, the five would face two Mammoths.

The supports focused their casting on buffering their Tank, in Landis, and DPS, in Griffin. They did this and they worked on it from a safe distance as the two would work over the large creatures, eventually felling the furry herbivores.

And so, a fated result would happen.

The Cultbusters.

vs.

The Traveling Gentlefolk.

Tomorrow, within the Echosmith Hall’s grounds. One team to stand. One to fall. One to take the riches, the other to be returned to consciousness....

Fate was a funny thing like that.

The ‘busters make their exit and are quickly met by Orion, in Robin form. A letter attached to his leg.

Belli would check the letter and stare in confusion as it appeared to be a strange shopping list. Showing it to Mournimar, however, he’d get a totally different result from it.

Quirking a brow, he’d be able to read the Thieves’ Cant as a message.

“Found her. She’s alive, but not great. Follow the instructions below to get to our safe house”

From here, the party would make a split again. The Three more-related to her condition going to the location... and the others heading back to the mannor, where they’d game with Nel.

The tieflings and half-orc would follow them dutifully, each and every instructed movement, keeping to themselves until they reached a place that would remind them of Ficus’ place in Sa-Doma’s outskirts. A small puddle of crimson was half-congealed on the ground, before the entrance, which unnerved Belli enough to go for the door first.

Unlocked, she’d go in after seeing a certain horrible sight through her familiar’s eyes, followed by Mournimar and then Luck.

Whenst inside, they would see Ficus, washing a rag off from blood as he was tending to a badly bleeding Kit.

Without wasting a moment, the talkers of the group cast their Healing Word, while Mournimar approached and finished things off with a higher level of Cure Wounds.

No longer having to worry about conking out, while bleeding out, with her cuts magically closing, Kit was out like a light, her breathing the only sign she was alive.

With the worry for her well being lowered from a code red to a much easier hue, Luck would take a stand and apologize for what had occured. Taking the full blame for Kit’s condition. He would stand there and apologize for involving the two in his own personal “bullshit”.

The two at his sides would protest and stand their ground with their own involvement in the situation. And Ficus? Ficus would ask Luck not to apologize. As friends are supposed to help friends, referring to their involvement in the winged plot. And he warns him not to give monetary compensation for what hapened, lest Kit scream his head off for the audacity.

Luctan would note that this is something that happens to them. And to their loved ones, when they don’t talk. When they keep these knds of important things to themselves. He would go off into talking about how the three of them tended to absorb themselves into their own little thing, leaving the others out. Amelia specifically. Malak was still new and there were growing pains there, after Burk made his exit almost 3 weeks ago. But Amelia? Amelia had been there from the start. The smartest amongst them.

Luctan would reveal to the others the conversation he had with Amelia, two weeks prior, when the party didn’t join her for what was originally planned to be the dinner with Sabrina. The hurt and disappointment... the personal realization and shame of it all.

He asked them to try and open up to Amelia. Not because he asked them to, however, but out of their own will to genuinely interact with her. Spend the time to know her, like in the few occasions she and he had, when on the road and the first couple of nights in the capitol.

That was what he said to them in this outburst of emotion. And then, still feeling responsible, rightfullly so, he felt, as he was the one, who told Kit to run with the wings, Luctan would demand that there had to be something he could do, for all this effort. The blood, sweat and tears that went up in crimson and flames.

Belli would make a suggestion that the two, Ficus and Luck, go out on a date, as recompence. Whether in spite or because of the Narah siblings’ energy and behavior, Luctan would approach Ficus and offer him a deal.

Tomorrow, whether or not the Cultbusters won their fight and tournament, the rogues would join them for a party at the tavern. And whenever that post-tournament festivity would occur... Luctan would ask for a dance with Ficus.

Evidently something agreed upon, Luctan would take to giving Ficus a kiss on the cheek, before asking him to tell Kit to meet with him for a personal apology later on..

And then? After that?

Luck would check with the others, see how they were handling themselves after the hard day’s fight.

Malak had been praying to his deity, Keemis, for good luck in tomorrow’s finale. For a swift victory by the Cultbusters.

Amelia was doing much better, compared to where she was at the end of the fight. Though, she admitted something tragic to her red friend:

“I fear I may never experience the high of being a T-Rex again.”

“I assure you, the opportunity will come again.” Luck would answer her, encouraging her to believe! To hold onto that dream! Where there was a will, there was a way, after all, as that new saying went.

Luck thanked her. For being herself. For everything they had been through and for being the person she was. He was glad, thankful for knowing her. Someone, whom he could admire.

Amelia was thankful as well, Luck’s sincerety being only slightly surprising in how he had phrased himself.

The two would hype each other some, for the next couple of minutes, for tomorrow’s battle, win or lose. To have a hell of a bash afterwards. But totally and preferrably to win, you know?!

As Amelia helped Luck with cleaning his face from dry blood from the Rex’ tail attack, she would ask him, with his wings now completely gone, what he was going to do.

He admitted that he didn’t know. Those don’t grow back, nor does the tail. So he guessed he’d have to carry on from this point forward without them. As less than a typical tiefling.

Then she said something. Pointed out a random fact that he, as a tourist to this land, did not know about. “Well, Druids had that ability to regenerate limbs, right?”

An awkward silence would follow as Luck tried to piece things together. Honestly baffled by that. “What?”

“Th-that’s why you went up to talk with Savon, right? If you could get your wings back?!”

While Luck did go and did reveal his condition to Savon.... the way a response was phrased by the centaur wasn’t exactly pointing that he could do that?!

But the notion that that was possible made Luctan’s brain work in overdrive. Bringing him to a realization that drove him to lie down on the ground, stupified.

And as the two had an awkward friends moment, with Amelia suggesting the two go see the druids later, whenever, we end this episode.

One more sleep, before the Tournament Finale.

Previous Episode / Next Episode

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ackleyz · 4 years

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7, 18, 36, 65, 79, and 85 for both!

7. Describe your character’s current appearance: clothes, armor, scars they’ve picked up along the journey, etc.

Eden

He’s a simic hybrid with the underwater breath addition! so he’s got gills and more fish-like webbing between his fingers. he wears a pretty stereotypical bard garment type thing. puffy shirt covered by i guess its a short ponco? he has ye olde booty shorts though and fishnet tights because i cnt take dnd seriously apparently. he doesnt have armor cause hes a spellcaster and he has not gotten into any scruffles yet so no scars!

Roman

Roman’s just got a very basic outfit. Like, dress shirt, dress pants, suspenders. He’s an artificer though, so he has some studded leather armor iirc? also he has a cane and thats not really clothes but. you know. he needs it

18. What would your character’s Zodiac sign be, following stereotypical astrology?

Eden

cant help being a gemini

Roman

hed be a scorpio for sure

36. What would be your character’s theme song/favorite band/favorite genre of music?

Eden

Honestly the song i associate most with him is musical genius by dorian electra? i think if he was into a modern band itd probably be the mountain goats. i feel like his music he makes though is probably more like upbeat folk? basically im saying he likes folk music. in a modern setting hed probably also like electronic dance stuff too.

Roman

Id say “here i dreamt i was an architect” is the best song i can think of off the top of my head for Roman to have as a theme song? He just gives me decemberist vibes in general so thatd be his favorite band. his favorite genre of music would be like classical cause hes just like that.

65. What is your character’s favorite food? Beverage?

Eden

SO LIKE i dont know when it was created so i dont know if hed have it but i think hed like lemonade? his favorite food is probably pears? that seems right

Roman

hes a wine person. also his favorite food is probably duck

79. What unusual talents does your character possess?

Eden

i think hed be really good at mimicking sounds and like other people. i know like basically everyone can do that in dnd but i would like to think hes like genuinely good at it

Roman

I think he can write upside down but like really well. like too well. he probably spent way too long trying to perfect it

85. What would be your character’s major in college?

Eden

Well hes a bard/sorcerer and they both give me theater kid vibes so theatre.

Roman

He’d probably be a history major

#long post #THANK YOU CRING EMOJI #SORRY FOR BEING SO LONG #asks #nobilianimo #alcohol tw #dnd #also if this looks bad on mobile ill start crying

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365daysofsasuhina · 5 years

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[ 365 Days of SasuHina || Day One Hundred Ninety-Three: Far Back in Time ] [ Uchiha Sasuke, Hyūga Hinata, Uchiha Itachi, Uchiha Shisui, Uchiha Madara ] [ SasuHina ] [ Verse: Of Monsters and Men ] [ AO3 Link ]

The room sits in an awkward silence. Behind a desk to the right hand side sits Madara, hands calmly folded atop the surface and clearly ignoring the awkwardness. Nearby, Shisui stands beside the so-called ‘guest of honor’: that being one Hyūga Hinata. Opposite her, side by side, are the brothers Sasuke and Itachi.

The tale behind this seemingly fated meeting is long...which makes Sasuke wonder how it really has only been a handful of weeks. Barely a few months since he saved what he thought was a helpless human from a rogue of his kind...only to learn she carried blood of the old miko of Japan.

And the path from their meeting as strangers to...whatever one would call them now has had its share of twists and turns. But now, the Uchiha coven’s patriarch, Madara, has his hands on the magic-wielding woman.

Sasuke is torn between fury and terror.

Fury because their leader is already long compromised, in his (and few others’) opinion. For far too long his flaunted his power and position, enslaved other Nightwalkers under the premise of debt, and now he seeks to do the same to Hinata.

Terror because this man is one of the most powerful in Japan, if not their world. Acting against him is almost certainly suicide. But nor can Sasuke just sit here and do nothing in her defense. After all...it was his own actions that brought her into this little drama. And despite his best attempts to keep her from it, and ensure her safety...here she sits in what is nearly literally the lion’s den.

“So…” Madara offers after a lengthy silence. “I’m sure everyone here is a bit perplexed at this meeting’s purpose.”

Sasuke’s jaw grits. He knows damn well what Madara is after…

“I’m here to ensure several things. First and foremost...the safety of my people.” A hand gestures to Hinata, who gives him a careful glance. “As Sasuke has likely told you...your kind, once upon a time, were quite the threat to ours in various parts of the world. Japan’s own history of Nightwalker and witch interactions are not as...bloody as many others. But I still cannot turn a blind eye to the potential threat you - and others like you - may pose to my people.”

“...please sir,” Hinata offers quietly. “I...I have no intention to harm anyone. I’m just...trying to live a normal life as best I - as best I can. I’m just a college student who can see things others can’t.”

“Easy enough to claim,” Madara counters. “I cannot know your true intentions. Words are shallow things in our world. Promises are easily broken, vows tossed aside. Few things are guaranteed between Nightwalkers. Except the concept of debt.”

“D...debt?”

Considering her a moment, Madara then sighs. “...perhaps a moment to recount the history between the members of this room. Allow me to take you far back in time, to when even I was a young lad. Back in our land’s more...primitive days, miko - those you have descended from - were considered shamans. Priestesses. They were said to be possessed by spirits of the dead, or even gods. Many were even said to marry said gods. Shintō, the old ways of Japan, is riddled with mythology many are unaware is based more in truth than they can ever realize.

“While I cannot say for certain gods do not exist...what is likely the basis for such mythos was the existence and proximity of those like us.” Madara gestures to his underlings. “Nightwalkers, as we’re called in most lands. Those inhuman, ‘cursed’ to walk the night as humans claim the day. Many of us can change our shapes: animals, monsters, a blend of human and beast. Humans have, in many places, regarded us as demons, as gods, as spirits...monsters…” Shoulders shrug. “Our supposed roles and titles span as many names as we do lands...but we exist everywhere, and many of us have inspired myths, stories, legends. And while miko and witches in most lands - true practitioners of magic: manipulation of elements, energy - have even to us been turned to myth...we are learning this is not quite the case.”

Hands weaving fingers, Madara leans forward upon his elbows, considering her. “...had you lived a millennium and a half ago, you would be considered a powerful voice between gods and humans. You would undergo training, serve a god, and perhaps even wed one. Of course...after the mandates put into place to protect Daywalkers and Nightwalkers from one another...such unions are no longer allowed. But once upon a time...you would not be our enemy. You were, in fact, the closest thing we had to bridges between us and humans. Ironic...given that humans thought you the same between mortals and gods.”

A moment is taken in silence to let his history lesson sink in. “...so, now the question remains...what are you now, Hyūga-san?”

Still looking confused, she replies, “I...I’m just a person. I’ve been trying to h-hide from...from Nightwalkers all my life. I never wanted to be...whatever I am. I tried to ignore it as my father told me to, but...it never faded. If it weren’t for Sasuke-san intervening...I’m sure that vampire would have killed me. I only barely escaped his attempt to make me forget the encounter. A bit...useless, since I knew about your kinds long before then.”

Hinata’s expression then turns a bit desperate. “...please, he - he never did anything wrong! I know humans aren’t allowed to know about you, but...it wasn’t him who exposed your world to me. I’ve always seen it, as my mother did. He’s been teaching me about how to be safe! How to...to navigate my odd path between the two worlds. Please, I…” She wilts. “...I don’t want to hurt anyone. I would never do so on purpose! I don’t even know how to control, or...or train what I can do. Even if I wanted to...I doubt I could. Please...please just let me go…”

“You know I can’t do that,” Madara murmurs.

“She’s been around me for months now,” Sasuke cuts in, tone biting. “We’ve been alone more than once. If she’d wanted to hurt me, or try to manipulate me...she’s had her chance. Instead, she saved my life. There’s no longer a debt between us. She repaid it. You have nothing to hold her on except unfounded bias!”

“You said yourself, miko were once bridges between us and the humans,” Itachi murmurs in his brother’s defense. “Never in any of my research have I encountered evidence of miko misusing their power. Only in defense did they ever turn it against our kinds. Rogue ‘kami’ or ‘yōkai’ would be battled...but so long as we do nothing to beget harm, she has no reason to act.”

“And she had none until you kidnapped her,” Sasuke spits.

Madara, looking unimpressed, simply retorts, “Your lack of civility is getting old, Sasuke. Must I remind you to whom you are speaking…?”

“This human is my responsibility,” the youngest growls, eyes threatening to redden as his temper sparks. “I have been approaching her. Never has she attacked me, threatened me, coerced me. She’s been nothing but kind and patient. Hinata is no more a threat to us than a moth to a lamp. And I’ll be damned before I let you ruin her life she’s tried so hard to keep normal just because you’ve suddenly decided miko are of interest. If you knew they existed before...why only act now? Why act surprised there’s still some of their bloodline left? Admit it: you’re not scared of her...you just want to use her. Turn her into another plaything like the hybrid, or a tool for your schemes like the rest of us! I won’t allow it!”

Both his brother and cousin tense in preparation for a confrontation at the bold words...but it never comes.

Instead, Madara stares at his underling, blinking owlishly. “...you won’t allow it?”

“...no. I won’t. I don’t care what you do to me. I won’t let you sink your claws into an innocent. Not again.”

Madara’s eyes flicker over Sasuke’s face. “...so, you’ve fallen for manipulation of another kind.”

A hint of confusion tinges Sasuke’s furious stare.

“...in many cultures, so-called witches are said to have familiars. Creatures, beasts, beings that are loyal and obedient. In truth? They are enslaved Nightwalkers. Most are forced into the position with their magic...but a very rare few go willingly. Often because they mistake another feeling for that of loyalty or a need to protect. Hinata-san has not used her spells or wiles on you. You’ve done this to yourself.”

“...the hell are you talking about?”

“This defensiveness you feel is born out of love.”

The proclamation staggers him back half a step. “...excuse me?”

Across the room, Hinata stares, eyes wide.

“Oh come now, Sasuke...surely you’re not that dense,” Madara drawls. “Or perhaps it’s more your stubbornness than anything else. You saved this human because it was your job. She saved you because she cared. And you’re seeking to save her again because this little journey between the two of you has given rise to feelings beyond the platonic. You’re no longer acting out of responsibility, my boy...you are enamored.” He gives a smirk. “...just as dangerous as if she’d spellcast you. But now...what to make of this…”

Breath heaving slightly, Sasuke glances to Hinata, locking eyes. He...he loves…? But…? Rationally, he realizes it makes sense. After all, the mere notion of her being hurt had hurled him into a frenzied state. Something he’d fought tooth and nail against when nearly dying as not to hurt her. But hearing it aloud, having it spoken, and made real…

“...I believe I must think on this matter,” Madara muses. “Perhaps...such ties may solve our little dilemma. If there is a mutual interest in your safety, it may be enough to ensure nothing goes wrong. At least...so long as the attachment remains. But how to navigate the mandates…” Leaning back and looking thoughtful, he offers, “...she will remain here for tonight. Itachi, you will come with me. We have much to discuss. Sasuke...I expect you won’t go far. For now, consider our little meeting adjourned until I can puzzle the matter further.”

Barely daring to breathe, Sasuke watches as the senator rises, and then takes his leave. Itachi makes to tail him, giving his brother a warning look.

With that, all that remain are himself, Shisui, and Hinata.

“...holy shit,” Shisui offers, breaking his silence since their arrival.

Wasting no time, Hinata stands, crossing the room and looking to Sasuke worriedly. “...are you all right?”

“I should be asking you that.”

“I’m fine. A little tired after...whatever they knocked me out with, but I’m not hurt. They just...brought me in here. Even fed me.”

“Well...you’ll have a room here overnight,” Shisui then offers, stepping up. “Best to roll with things for now, Hinata-san. And I’m sure Sasuke’s going to make sure no one’ll bother you.”

Still reeling, Sasuke just vaguely nods. If anyone even hints at trouble...he just might kill them, in all honesty. He’s still far too worked up about her safety.

“...okay. I think that’s best for now,” Hinata agrees softly.

She’s taken to a remote room of the manor, and Sasuke just...stands outside. He knows he won’t be sleeping any time soon, too keyed up and paranoid.

And with far too much on his mind.

But...at least it’s looking unlikely Madara has plans to harm her...and certainly not kill her. For now, he has to trust Itachi can convince him to keep his reach to a minimum. If anything happens to her...he’ll never forgive himself.

Drawing up a chair from another room, he simply plants himself atop it before her door, elbows atop his knees, and lips pressed to woven fingers. His aura alone, surely, is enough to keep anyone out of this wing until Madara returns.

And until he does...Sasuke’s got some reflecting to do.

.oOo.

Ahhh more Nightwalkers crossover! And thankfully not TOO long after the last part xD (day 188, for anyone wondering - someday I'll get the mini series within this series organized, I just...haven't had the time OTL) ANWAY! Here we make a little progress! Madara explains some his reasoning, Sasuke calls him out on his bullhonkey, and Madara in turn calls Sasuke out for what's REALLY going on between him and his witchy woman x3 ngl I wasn't sure how this was going to go, but...they just kinda took the reins and made this, haha~ ...I feel like I wanna say more, but my brain is fried after no sleep and a day-long headache (I just barely got this done and now it's SUPER late OTL), so...I'll leave it there for now. If you have any questions cuz I'm making no sense, you can comment and I'll explain after I (hopefully) get some sleep, lmao But yeah, for now, that's all! Thanks for reading~

#sasuhina #uchiha sasuke #hyūga hinata #uchiha itachi #uchiha shisui #uchiha madara #of monsters and men [ au ]#365daysofsasuhina

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thesleepiestspiny · 5 years

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Late Night Panic

Colleen had been on their way back to their mail carrier's union after a delivery, pedaling away on their bike. They were a bit cautious, looking back and forth every so often, as they never did like staying out too long after sunset.

Especially since the path they were taking went through a gathering of trees that was too small to be a forest but too large to be a wood. Every time they passed through there during the day it was heavily shaded, and during the night, the one other time they'd passed through, they'd lost the path for a couple minutes. This time they had a lantern, but they weren't confident enough to press their luck in there for too much longer. They tried to focus on the sound of their bike's wheels clicking as they moved down the path, keeping their gaze forward enough to see the path, but lowered enough to react to any bumps and roots coming up. It was then that they heard something, just barely over the sound of the chain clicking.

"...ut UP you hag...!"

...Collie kept pedaling for a moment. Part of them wanted to keep on moving to simply report the incident and let that be the end of it. But they had a dagger on them and a nagging feeling that ensured them moving on was ONLY for a moment. Just long enough to make whatever that was assume they had rode past as they put a cover on their lantern and laid everything to the ground. They heard a muffled grunt followed by an angered growl and the sound of something cutting into wood.

"You nearly gave me away." the voice muttered. It was just behind a few of the trees. Collie kept a hand on the dagger in their coat as they very slowly moved in its direction. They stopped just short of a small light flickering in the wind as their eyes adjusted. A wirey fellow with unkept hair and a leather vest had someone in a robe and wide-brimmed hat pinned to the ground, sitting on their hands and having tied up their legs, a double-sided hand axe resting by their neck like a paper-cutter primed to slice down as he rifled through a bag they were carrying.

Collie sneered silently as they grabbed a rock and threw it over the man's head, drawing his attention away from the bag as they stood up, unsheathing their dagger to surprise him.

"You gave yourself away." they quipped as they kept their distance.

The man whipped around, leaving his hostage precious moments to quickly move their hand out from under him, though they remained still.

"Run along now. Come any closer and I take 'er head off an' deal with you next!"

"I'm comfortable where I am for the moment, don't you worry."

"I said LEAVE!" he barked, leaning in as he leveled the axe at Collie. That's when his hostage pushed him, knocking him off balance and onto a stone as they rolled away from him. The mail carrier hesitated for only a moment before moving in to try and cut the ropes while the man was dazed. Just as they finished cutting the victim loose, they had felt a presence behind them.

They only had enough time to let out a hybrid of a gasp and a choking noise and catch a glimpse behind them at a gleaming crescent lit by the moon before it came down.

It cleaved into their shoulder, straight through the collar bone and practically made its home in their shoulderblade. It... barely hurt for a moment. Their vision grow blurry as they felt the blood stain their sky-blue and pink coat. THe only energy they had right now was to grab the axe handle, refusing to let it go as they fell over.

Within a few seconds, the mercy of the shock wore off, and they were in agony, but their muscles had tensed up so bad they could barely let out any sort of noise.

They saw the robed figure stand and advance upon the assailant. They saw a blinding light. They heard him scream as he ran off. They heard the figure beg them to keep calm. But their mind was running a mile a minute as they wordlessly mouthed to the person who stood before them.

please.

help.

i don't want to die.

They felt their thoughts scattering and slowing like the blood forming under them as the person leaned over them, placing a hand on their dagger. The last thing they saw was a single eye, full of panic, gleaming against the moonlight before falling unconscious. And they were sure they wouldn't wake up.

And yet. They did wake up. Laying beneath the shade of one of the trees nearby, the sun shining down as they winced from the sudden exposure to the light. A telltale loud snore let them know that someone was here, possibly the person from last night. They moved their arm to block the light, and to their surprise the worst they felt was a slight pinch. They noticed the sleeve of their coat wasn't around their arm, however.

Must've taken it off to patch me up, they thought as they sat up.

Their vision stayed firmly where it was, even as they felt the slight wind resistance of movement against their bare arms. They stood up, seeing... what looked like someone wearing most of their clothes. Minus a head. What was in its place was a blue fog that emanated from halfway up the neck.

That was when they started to audibly panic.

"A-aaAAA, AAAAHWHAT?!"

"nm, ha? Oh! Oh dear, you're awake!"

"COOOULD'VE FOOLED ME," they said, less yelling and more unable to control their volume. They frantically felt at the space above their shoulders, noticing the body did exactly the same and only starting to freak out more as they realized yes, that was theirs. "HELP, PLEASE HELP."

The figure moved up to them, gently holding their unbandaged shoulder while staring towards them... their head, rather to try and calm them down. They were an old woman, with noticeable wrinkles to her face, faded red hair and a patch over one eye.

"Oh, im so sorry dear! I meant to stay awake to ease you into this!"

Though still very much hyperventilating, they calmed down and kept their trembling hand at their sides as the woman walked them back over to their head. She leaned down beside their head and motioned for them to join her. Collie warily sat down, hand hovering over their head trembling as if an earthquake was happening.

"...Well it's not as if I'm the one who owns it, dear," she said, partially joking, but mostly encouraging. "Go on." With that, Collie quickly scooped up their head. though the quick movement made them a bit dizzy. They pressed the two ends of their neck together tight and held a hand atop their head to keep themselves in place, still shivering a bit from the shock of the whole ordeal.

"S-so... who are you?" they asked the lady. She seemed surprised that was the first question.

"Oh! Well, my name is Maeve. Maeve Callaghan." She attempted to tip the brim of her hat before remembering she never got around to putting it back on.

Collie was starting to calm down a tiny bit, thankfully. "Um... what happened last night? All I remember was-... nmh."

Maeve bowed her head. "A bandit had attacked me in the dead of night for my wares. Thanks to you, I at least made it out alive. I... couldn't get you to town in time, so I did what I could to return the favor."

"S-so I'm not dead?" they said, finally somewhat confident enough to take their hand off their head, if only to stare at both hands.

"You're alive, is how i'd say it. I'm a spellcaster by trade, you see, and I... I didn't know any spells that could raise the dead, but I did know some that'd keep people from dying. The quickest one I could muster was... more of a hex."

"A... what?!" they said. They noticed a brief blue fog emerge from their mouth before clamping a hand over it. This caused a chain reaction of trying to straighten their head up before letting it land in their lap and beginning to hyperventilate again

"Oh, dear," she muttered. "Do you need a moment to recover?"

"ys. Y-yes." they squeaked. The two sat there for a while longer, Collie sitting with their knees to their chest, head balanced between. It felt weirdly comforting.

'This is why I don't stay out at night' they thought to themselves.

#violence/../#injury/..#death//../#decapitation/../#spiny's story time #OC

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dailycharacteroption · 3 years

Text

Wild Caller (Summoner Archetype)

Not to be confused with the half-elf racial summoner archetype of the same name, today we’re looking at a different sort of summoner.

While it’s namesake from Advanced Race Guide focused on more animal-like eidolons and summoning natural allies to fight for them, today we are focusing on a summoner that favors eidolons that resemble plant creatures.

This archetype is actually very similar to the leshy caller archetype, and may very well have been built from the same bones. There are subtle differences though, such as this archetype providing a way to smooth relations with the fey, and each one having a slightly different list of base forms.

It’s safe to say that these two archetypes are probably best described as being slight variations of each other, with today’s subject perhaps drawing upon the same spirits, or different ones that nevertheless have a tie to the natural world.

As suggested, the eidolon of these summoners has a body of plant matter, which grants many resistances and immunities, save for the immunity to mental and polymorphic effects, which they lack.

Their base forms are based on broad categories of plants as well, which have their own starting evolutions. The cactus is agile, the conifer is tough and cold resistance, the mushroom has a poisonous bite, and the tree is the slowest, but the strongest and toughest. However, despite those names, these base forms can easily be reflavored into almost any plant monster you can think of.

What’s more, if the caller is in a foreign environment, they can expend a bit more energy to change the base form of the eidolon, causing them to become composed of local flora.

Similar to other natural summoner archetypes, these mystics use their innate summoning power to call upon creatures of nature instead of those from other dimensions, though the most powerful among them can open true gates still.

Finally, wild callers seem to have a connection to the First World, giving them better insight into how to deal with the fey.

If you’re looking for a tough customizable plant pet, and prefer this archetype to the leshy caller, this might be right up your alley. The ability to change the base form of your eidolon, practically speaking, will see it’s most use when needing a bit of cold resistance on a mountainside or extra AC in a forest, but is otherwise not all that important. Beyond that, the blanket immunities of plant creatures can serve a tough and durable eidolon that can ignore a lot that is thrown at it, and is usable with both flanking builds and tank and support builds alike.

There isn’t a lot of base evolution variety with this archetype, everything has the equivalent of arms, legs, and some combination of natural attacks and add-ons. That being said, they’re simple enough that you could easily reflavor them however you wish, gaining tentacles and large swallowing maws. Definitely look through the plant creature type for inspiration.

The spirit known as Red Blossom Queen is mentioned regularly in various texts as a guardian being that occasionally allows devotees to bond with a flowering aspect of herself that they can summon. However, the region that supposedly reveres her suddenly has never heard of her, the people having become victims of a conspiracy of hyakume seeking to erase all knowledge of the spirit from existence.

A passionate horticulturalist and feysworn, Miri Branchcutter is a devotee of the Green Mother, and delights in the deadly beauty of nature. Nowhere is this more clear than in her eidolon, which resembles a beautiful and sensual alraune.

Far from civilization, an intimidating figure lurks in the deep jungle, a drider mystic and his pet eidolon, which resembles a juvenile tarantula tree. Exactly how the hybrid spellcaster came to be there is uncertain, but it clear that he wishes to be left alone.

#pathfinder #archetype #summoner #wild caller #hyakume #alraune #tarantula tree #drider #Heroes of the Wild

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ncfan-1 · 6 years

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I just want to say I adore all of the meta you've done on Eclipsa! And I loved your headcanon and fanfic on Skywynne being Eclipsa's first daughter too! Do you have any other headcanons about them or other past Mewni Queens?

Thankyou! I’m glad you liked the fic and the meta!

As forhead canons, well, I’m keeping some of my Eclipsa head canons under wraps untilwe find out more about her on the show, but there are some I can talk about.She had Skywynne (or whoever her older daughter turns out to be, if theyaddress this on the show and it turns out to be someone else) at a relativelyyoung age, nineteen. She married her Mewman husband when she was seventeen. Hewas only a year older than her; this wasn’t some ‘old man marrying a child’deal. They were friendly with one another (they liked to talk shit aboutmembers of the court they didn’t like together, and both trusted to the other’sdiscretion), and her feelings for him were… complex. So complex that Eclipsaherself can’t really define them.

Whydid she marry him? The Butterfly family sort of goes through cycles of having alot of branches or relatively few; in present-day, it’s pretty extensive, butin Eclipsa’s time, it was relatively small. Eclipsa didn’t have a lot of alliesat court, and her future husband was from a powerful family. When thingsdeteriorated, the fact that he was from a powerful family wound up workingagainst her. Badly.

Skywynne?Once her mother was crystallized, Skywynne did much the same as Elizabeth Iregarding Anne Boleyn and never spoke of her again. She wore some of hermother’s old jewelry from time to time, but otherwise, avoided any connectionto her. Skywynne had to work hard to rehabilitate the reputation of the crownin the eyes of the Mewman people after everything that went down with Eclipsa.She had to work equally hard to avoid falling under suspicion of sharing hermother’s “unconventional” beliefs, both regarding dark magic and the place ofmonsters in Mewni society. (Her natural position towards both was already inline with Mewman society as a whole. She was predisposed to fear and distrustdark magic, and was inculcated with the institutionalized racism of her people,which unlike her mother, she never shook off, nor even questioned. This didn’tmatter to the royal court.)

Skywynne’spersonal feelings for her mother were complicated, to put it mildly. Sheregarded her mother’s fleeing Mewni as a personal betrayal, and even beforethen, their relationship wasn’t untroubled. I talked about it in thispost, but basically, Eclipsa, though she loved Skywynne and she did try, wasn’t an ideal mother. AsQueen, she already didn’t have much time for her kid, but she was also, uh,consumed with other things (Research into dark magic. Trying to make strides inintroducing reforms into how monsters are treated. Stuff like that). Also,performing the constant emotional labor that comes with being an involvedparent didn’t come naturally to her. They didlove each other; they just didn’t have a perfectly untroubled relationship.Eclipsa was a bit absent, and Skywynne more than a little needy. They bondedover a shared love of spellcasting and research.

On topof regarding her mother’s fleeing Mewni as a personal betrayal, she wasrepelled by Eclipsa’s experimenting with dark magic (though like the rest ofthe MHC, she didn’t know exactly what Eclipsa did, and never cared to find out)and repelled by the notion that monsters should be regarded as equal toMewmans. Her feelings towards Meteora were resentment that this was the childher mother had “replaced” her with mixed with quiet revulsion of theabomination she and society both regarded a Mewman-monster hybrid as being.

Butlike Eclipsa, Skywynne had a fascination with incredibly dangerous magic, though unlike her mother she had thegood fortune to be drawn to magic that wasn’t regarded as “dark.” Unfortunatelyfor her, time magic happens to be even more inherently dangerous than most ofthe dark magic her mother came up with. She died a rather gruesome death whenone of her experiments went wrong.

Otherhead canons?

-Skywynne had a twin girl and boy at the age of thirty-five, and no otherchildren.

-Celena the Shy, like Star, read Eclipsa’s chapter, and like Star, made use ofthe All-Seeing Eye, though she did so much more than Star did. A bit too much,in fact. Her insatiable curiosity led her towards “things men were not meant toknow”-type knowledge, and as tends to happen when someone stumbles on “thingsmen were not meant to know”-type knowledge, Celena did not come away from thatmentally unscathed. Many of her contemporaries thought she held her fan up toher mouth as some sort of nervous tic. It was in fact because of a curse thatwas laid upon her; I’ll leave that one to your imagination. The fact that shewears gloves over her hands may be significant.

-Celena favored plant creation magic. She wasn’t much of a fighter.

- Eclipsamet her monster lover/possible second husband shortly after she became Queen.She had a number of monster friends that she made when she snuck out of thecastle while she was still just the princess.

-Someone, I think it was @nomidot, head canons (or head canoned; I don’t know ifthey still do) Eclipsa’s mother as being blind. I like that head canon, so ifthey don’t mind, I think I’m going to use it, too. My version of Eclipsa’smother was named Persephone. She went blind as a young child due to illness.She could be rather distant with the court, fierce with her own child, but shestill loved Eclipsa very much, and Eclipsa spent much of her childhoodpractically attached to her mother’s hip. Eclipsa didn’t like to worryPersephone, though she spent plenty of time worrying about Persephone. Persephone had an ebony cane with a silver handlethat she used to walk with.

-Eclipsa’s father died when she was a little girl; she has no clear memories ofhim. Her mother died when she was fifteen.

-Eclipsa’s first foray into dark magic involved trying to bring her mother backto life. It ended badly. Really badly. The results were… Well, imagine theresults of human transmutation in FMA: Brotherhood if the result was actuallythe person the alchemist was trying to bring back to life, and you get thepicture. What was brought back didn’t survive very long.

-Already reeling from the loss of her mother, Eclipsa sank into a deep, numbdepression after her attempt to bring her mother back to life failed so spectacularly.Her first husband supported her through it (though he didn’t know about theresurrection attempt; no one in the royal court did), hence Eclipsa’s verycomplex feelings for him. No one else had been willing to do that; just him.She sort of fell in love with him during this period. It wasn’t an enduringlove; what it was was lingering.

-Solena died by committing suicide.

- I’mwavering on whether the “a castle stormed” in Solaria’s tapestry poem refers toher castle being stormed, or her storming someone else’s castle, namely acastle belonging to the monsters. Right now, I kinda want to believe that whatwe know as the Butterfly family’s castle was originally a castle belonging tothe monsters that Solaria sacked and conquered. After she conquered the castleand established it as the home of her court, any references to it having oncebeen the monsters’ castle were thoroughly effaced. Whether or not I stick withthis head canon, I’m head canoning her as one of the earlier Queens of Mewni,rather than being one of Eclipsa’s descendants.

-Bubipsa the Barbarian Baby-Eater… oh boy. Right now, I’m head canoning the‘barbarian’ part of her epithet as coming from her having a Johansen father. Asfor the ‘Baby-Eater’ part… She got away with it because the babies in question weremonsters. Yes, really. Even the ultra-racist Mewman royal court regarded thisas being beyond the pale of acceptable behavior, because, you know, babies. Since they were monster babies, though, the MHC didn’tregard this as a crystallizing offense (Though Rhombulus was still appalled.Hence why he cites his mistaken recollection of Eclipsa as being a baby-eateras justification for crystallizing her). Bubipsa was eventually killed when herdaughters staged a coup against her; eating babies wasn’t the only unsavorything she was doing, as it turns out. Oh, and no matter how evil you thinkEclipsa might turn out to be, Bubipsa was worse. Much worse.

- Thetreaty Comet intended to sign with the Monster King… Well, monsters would havebeen better off if the treaty had been signed, but that’s more because therearen’t too many ways they could be worse offthan because it was a fair, equitable document that was going to signal thebeginning of a new age of peace and friendship between Mewmans and monsters.Comet’s particular brand of racism was the (not really) “benevolent” kind. Thekind of benevolent racism that believes in noble savages and ExceptionalMonsters and “separate, but equal.” Which is to say, still hella racist. (I don’t have a hard head canon for why Toffeekilled her, not yet. I’m still hoping the show will address that directly.)

- Star (is not a past Queen of Mewni, but she’s on here anyways)was originally left-handed, but when she was about seven years old, she brokeher arm while playing (Let’s be real, given the stuff we know she got up topre-S1, she probably wound up with broken bones at least a couple of times).Her mother let the break heal naturally rather than heal it with magic to tryto teach Star a lesson about being reckless (And because healing magic can bekind of dicey and Moon isn’t an expert, but she told Star it was to teach her alesson about recklessness). One of the consequences was that Star had to learnto write with her right hand while she had the cast on, and couldn’t reallywrite with her left hand anymore even after the cast came off. She still usesher left hand for plenty of stuff, and is still left-side dominant, but shewrites with her right hand nowadays.

(Theissue muddling this is that pretty much anyone who’s left-handed has to learnhow to do certain things with their weak hand. I’m left-handed, and I can tellyou that the average left-hander uses their right hand for more things than theaverage right-hander uses their left hand for.)

#Svtfoe #Head canon #TW racism #TW xenophobia #TW suicide #TW cannibalism #(is it still cannibalism if they're both sapient but are of different species?)#Go Seeking Knowledge #Eclipsa Butterfly #Skywynne Butterfly #Star Butterfly #Comet Butterfly #Bubpisa the Barbarian Baby-Eater #Solaria Butterfly #Solena Butterfly #Celena Butterfly #Anonymous

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the-master-cylinder · 4 years

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The rise of Empire as a low budget producer with their “Beyond Infinity” video line resembles the start-up of AIP during the drive-in boom of the late ’50s, when a definite market existed for a certain product: films for the teenage audience, the wilder and more outrageous the better. The drive-ins “made” American-International Pictures, and like AIP, the VCR spurred Empire and other companies to produce films for a new market. But-having seen most of Empire’s Beyond Infinity offerings to date-one thing is obvious: unlike AIP, Empire lacks the creative genius of a low-budget auteur like Roger Corman. Imagination is not necessarily related to a film’s budget; low-budget films could be original, entertaining, and thought-provoking. But, Beyond Infinity’s releases thus far have proved to be inane, routine, and boring.

The Empire films follow a standard pattern: an exploitative, campy title; garish ad art; scripts which slavishly follow tried-and true formulas; varying amounts of nudity, gore effects, and juvenile humor. Of course, these traits apply equally well to the offerings of Empire’s competitors, particularly Troma Pictures, although Beyond Infinity product has a California pastel plasticity as opposed to Troma’s sleazy New York sheen. The fact that there is little of real interest to be found in any Beyond Infinity film certainly contributed to the commercial downfall of Empire and its video arm. Though the films themselves may not be completely devoid of entertainment value, most of the creativity seems to have gone into dreaming up the exploitable titles.

Dave DeCoteau, director of several projects released by Empire’s “Beyond Infinity” video label, pegged the fall of Band’s Empire to “the market place. It’s changed,” said DeCoteau. “There was a time that horror and fantasy fans saw just about anything that was made available on video. These days, quality prevails among genre movies, including films that are squarely made for direct-to-video release. You have to make the best movie you can and spend the money to do it right. If someone tries to pawn off a piece of shit, they’re shown the door.”

Reflecting on his three picture stint at Empire, DeCoteau said, “Charlie Band’s company was the young filmmaker’s first stop after college. There was a lot of experimentation as young people learned to work with low budgets. As a result, Empire wound up with a lot of product that was not all that wonderful. The company has been called the Sausage Factory of the Cinema. But you can’t keep making sausages, one after the other, sometimes a steak falls off the conveyor belt. Sometimes that steak is a picture like Stuart Gordon’s RE-ANIMATOR. There’s also a lot of sausages. Creepozoids is one of those sausages … but I’m learning.”

DeCoteau tied Empire’s loss of revenue to an aborted video output deal with New World Pictures, announced in August 1987, as the event which triggered Empire’s collapse. Over a two-year period, New World Video was to release five Empire titles, including Prison (1987), Cellar Dweller (1988), Buy & Cell (1988), Pulse Pounders (1988), and APPARATUS. “Empire made four of the pictures back to back,” said DeCoteau. “But because of the 1987 stock market crash, the deal between Empire and New World seemed to change; New World refused to pick up all of the Empire films as quickly as planned. They eventually released two of the films: PRISON, which had a limited theatrical run, and also CELLAR DWELLER, but the others are still being worked on.” Empire was purchased last May by Epic Pictures, a European financial consortium supervised by Eduard Sarlui, owner of Transworld Entertainment. “Basically, Empire and Transworld are owned by the same company,” said DeCoteau of the Epic umbrella. “Epic Pictures is finishing all the movies that Charlie [Band] started, which is a good dozen … ARENA, CATACOMBS, DOWN UNDER, SPELLCASTER, ROBOJOX.

DeCoteau, trained as a production assistant on films as diverse as ANGEL and Ken Russell’s CRIMES OF PASSION, made his debut as a producer-director with Empire on DREAMANIAC (1986), released on the company’s Wizard video label, distributed by Vestron. “I started pre-producing it as a picture called SUCCUBUS,” said DeCoteau. “Helen Robinson, who wrote the script knew the head of creative development at Empire Pictures, Debra Dion. Helen mentioned to Debi that she’d like to write a movie for Empire. Debi asked for a sample of her work and Helen gave her the SUCCUBUS script.” Empire, impressed with Robinson’s work, offered to purchase the screenplay; Robinson declined, insisting that De Coteau already owned it.

“Empire reacted by wanting to get involved in the production,” said DeCoteau. “Only four days before we were scheduled to start principal photography, I met Charlie Band, president of Empire Pictures.” Band not only doubled the movie’s original budget to $60,000, but vowed to reimburse DeCoteau for his personal investment “upon completion of principal photography.”

Wrapped in 15 days, the $70,000 movie was filmed in the abandoned studio of Hustler photographer Suze Randall. The film a blend of critters, slime and skin reunited DeCoteau with Kim McKamy, who made her film debut in DREAMANIAC. “Ironically,” remembers the director, “Kim refused to do any nudity. She was very shy and an all around sweet person.” McKamy later transformed herself into X-rated starlet Ashlyn Gere (aka Kim Patton), whose films-SORORITY SEX KITTENS, BUSH PILOTS, LAID IN HEAVEN—were about as demure as their titles.

“During a screening of the dailies,” recalls DeCoteau, “Charlie Band looked at me and held up ten fingers. I asked what it meant and he said, ‘Ten picture deal.’ I nearly fell out of my chair. We went upstairs, he drew up a contract and opened a $100 bottle of Dom Perignon champagne and we drank it out of Dixie cups. The next day, the cover of Daily Variety read in big bold letters, ‘CHV 10 PIC PACK DEAL WITH EMPIRE.’ [Cinema Home Video partner] John Schouweiler and I went crazy. I was only 25 years-old!

“Whenever Charles had big picture deals, I would be the slave to the market and make the smaller horror, erotic, high concept T&A movies…whatever was hot. I rarely did an ‘A’ movie for him, but I was constantly working.”

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DeCoteau’s subsequent project for Empire was CREEPOZOIDS, produced as a Beyond Infinity release for $169,000. “We wanted to do our own version of ALIENS,” said DeCoteau. “So we put together a picture called MUTANT SPAWN 2000 and I was developing a picture called CREEPOZOIDS, which was actually a hybrid of GREMLINS and GHOULIES. We just flip flopped the titles, referring to the ALIENS rip-off as CREEPOZOIDS.”

“I first met David when he worked as a caterer on a short film called THE CAYTONSVILLE ELEVEN,” says Linnea Quigley. “I was excited to work with him. There’s no huge ‘I’m a director’ ego. He’s not into himself. He’s a good businessman and he talks about stuff besides movies. He even had vegetarian food for me every day, and warm Sparklett’s water for my lusty shower scene in CREEPOZOIDS.”

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DeCoteau not only directed, but also functioned as the movie’s co producer and co writer. In spite of its diminutive budget, CREEPOZOIDS was theatrically released on a double-bill with SLAVE GIRLS FROM BEYOND INFINITY. The twin bill was released by Urban Classics, the theatrical arm of Empire’s Beyond Infinity video line. CREEPOZOIDS made the transition to video a few months later in January ’88, selling 15,000 tapes for Empire, according to DeCoteau.

DeCoteau’s next film for Empire, THE IMP, was limited to a shooting schedule of two weeks. Budgeted at $190,000, with ten per cent in above the line costs for DeCoteau’s expenses as director and co-producer, locations were selected outside of Los Angeles to conserve funds. “Los Angeles is the most expensive city in the world to make a movie,” said DeCoteau, “because of the permits, location costs, and everything like that. It’s hard to rent a basic middle-class tract house in the Valley for less than a grand a day. You have to go to places like San Marcos two hours south of Los Angeles–and you can get those same locations for $100 or $200. We found all of the cooperation there we really wanted.”

A moral (“be careful what you wish for, you may get it”) is extrapolated from the film’s title character, a mean-spirited genie. Since DeCoteau was not budgeted for elaborate special effects, he settled for a cable operated puppet to play the imp, preferring Grimm’s Fairy Tale simplicity to a “realistic” interpretation. Nevertheless, the movie proved to be so ambitious that the production exceeded its budget; extra expenses came out of DeCoteau’s own pocket.

“If we went over budget, our salaries were on the line,” said DeCoteau of Empire’s modus operandi. “So I walked away from THE IMP with very little money because I ended up spending some of my own salary on pick-up shots and things like that. Charlie (Band) isn’t the type to write you a check if you go over budget; you decide on a budget, you shake his hand, and either bring it in on budget or you don’t work anymore. I didn’t make much on that film, but such is life.”

In the film. Michelle Bauer, acquitted herself not only as a B-movie sex kitten but as a thoroughly credible actress and sterling comedienne. “David has a keen sense for people,” says Bauer. “There’s a side of him which is completely understanding. He’s more relaxed than most directors, and likes to have fun. When he was under pressure, it didn’t seem to affect the cast. He kept it under control. We were having fun as friends. It never seemed like we were working at all.”

Nevertheless, production of SORORITY BABES shot during evenings in a San Diego mall and adjacent bowling alley-was sometimes grueling. “There were personal conflicts among, some of the cast,” recalls Stevens. “The late Robin Rochelle Stille drank way too much on the set, and was always beating the crap out of Linnea in their fight scenes. Poor Linnea was constantly applying muscle rub to her many livid bruises. And she had to deal with the teenage angst of young co-star Andras Jones in the room next door. He even dumped his mattress over the hotel balcony, irrationally screaming, ‘I’m in my sexual prime!’ Andras went on to become a rather famous folk singer.”

Stevens experienced her own trauma, “dealing with another actress who clearly felt threatened by me and spared no punches while shooting our fight scenes. She pushed me down so hard, I dislocated my knee, which I had to pop back into place myself.” DeCoteau recounts, “It wasn’t pretty. She had to take four days off, but was a trouper…did her job without complaint.”

Flying furniture and torn ligaments notwithstanding, the set was infused with a party panache. “It’s the only film I’ve directed where I was continuously drunk,” chuckles DeCoteau, “— many people were! It had an open bar that we put to good use.”

“It’s one of my favorite films,” says Quigley, “because I played a tough girl and kept my clothes on. It’s fun to be mean.”

Charlie’s father, Albert Band, head of production at Empire, startled DeCoteau by insisting that nudity, playfully performed for slapstick scenes, “must” be trimmed from the director’s cut of the movie. DeCoteau, realizing nudity is a commercial exponent of the exploitation formula, appealed to Charles Band. Band inquired about the running time that was assembled for the movie’s rough cut. “I told him we were well under 80 minutes,” said DeCoteau, “When I shoot a picture, rarely does the final footage pass the 80-minute length. So they can’t do much editing because a feature-length film shouldn’t run that short. As a result, Charlie told me to put the nude scenes back in.”

Band retitled the picture SORORITY BABES IN THE SLIMEBALL BOWL-A-RAMA (according to DeCoteau, Band had wanted to make it BITCHIN’ SORORITY BABES … ) and released it theatrically through Urban Classics on a double bill with GALACTIC GIGOLO (originally titled CLUB EARTH), directed by Gorman Bechard.

Like DeCoteau, Bechard was another Band discovery whose independently financed feature PSYCHOS IN LOVE was picked up by Empire for release. Unlike DeCoteau, Bechard had nothing good to say about his stint at Band’s company. “I know what it’s like to be raped, “said Bechard about producing and directing two other features for Empire.

For his next feature, PSYCHOS IN LOVE, a black comedy (a “working woman” addresses the camera with “I guess I thought me being both a manicurist and a psychotic killer would, well, turn a guy off”), Bechard chose to ally himself with Empire.

“They offered me what I thought at the time was a good advance for PSYCHOS IN LOVE,” said Bechard. “I didn’t know better. And they offered me a four-picture deal with it, as an enticement to give them PSYCHOS IN LOVE. When you’re an independent filmmaker, finding the money is the worst thing in the world, and here I was able to do four pictures and pretty much have control. Charlie Band gave me tons of wonderful promises, saying, “Well, you can come up here, assist in the editing …,’ and all these other lines of bullshit. Being basically a fellow who wanted this very badly, I believed everything he said.”

CLUB EARTH, the first of Bechard’s four-picture deal with Empire, was an omen of the discord and mistrust that would sour the relationship. Bechard conceived the movie as a social satire involving an intergalactic tourist. Empire preferred to push CLUB EARTH as GALACTIC GIGOLO, and re-edited Bechard’s original cut into their concept of a more exploitable product.

“When I gave them PSYCHOS IN LOVE, I had it in writing that they wouldn’t change it at all,” said Bechard. “If I had not done that, they probably would have raped that film and it would have never been a film that I’m proud of. I am proud of PSYCHOS IN LOVE. But I think GALACTIC GIGOLO was sodomized by Charlie Band. We filmed it as a non-animated adult cartoon. That was my concept. We used the brightest colors … I mean, every different set looked like a color cartoon frame from the Sunday paper. In [color] timing the film, [Empire] took out all of the colors and left it really flat and ugly. Their editing and pacing is nothing short of pathetic; they left out some wonderfully funny stuff, and they left in all of the shit. Their motto is ‘when in doubt, cut to a pair of tits.’ I found out that CLUB EARTH was retitled GALACTIC GIGOLO through a brochure from Empire’s Urban Classics; they never had the decency to tell me they were changing the name of my movie.”

Bechard’s next film for Empire, a black comedy titled TEENAGE SLASHER SLUTS, was presold by the company in foreign markets as Assault of the Killer Bimbos (1988). “They found the word ‘sluts’ to be offensive,” said Bechard of Empire’s logic behind the title change. “And then they go and propose two other movies with the word ‘sluts’ in the title!” Empire eventually completed Bechard’s movie under the title HACK ‘EM HIGH, turning over the ASSAULT OF THE KILLER BIMBOS title to DeCoteau.

“That title presold so well, at [1987’s] American Film Market, it actually scored better than the movies in Empire’s bigger budgeted, non-Infinity division,” said DeCoteau. “Gorman Bechard completed the movie and set up a screening for Empire. It turned out to be a disappointment. Let’s just say that Gorman’s movie did not justify all of the enthusiasm. ASSAULT OF THE KILLER BIMBOS had to be brilliant, or close to it, considering the enormous presales money that was attracted from its title.”

Bechard said he deserves some of the credit for the title’s fabulous presales at the AFM, having instigated an eye-catching spread on the film in People magazine which featured Ruth Collins and Debi Thibeault, the actresses in his version. Bechard laid the blame for Empire’s dissatisfaction with the final film to the manner in which Band ran his company.

Charlie [Band] never read the script,” said Bechard. “I had the script approved by David Ross, who used to be in Empire’s development department, and by Debra Dion, who is now Charlie’s wife. I have a written letter from David Ross which says, ‘Yeh, we like the script. Just make a couple of little changes here and there.’ Basically, we agreed that it was good. Afterwards, I started filming and almost two or three weeks after we wrapped, Charlie calls me up and said he finally read the script. He said he didn’t like it. I don’t know how you run a company and allow someone to use your money to make a film without ever having read the script. That, to me, is not really the way to do business but, again, Empire is not the way to do business. When it became HACK EM HIGH, I said, ‘Wait a minute, there’s no hacking and there’s no high school.’ Of course, they came up with some new scenes that we had to reshoot which were along the lines of the usual Empire quality.”

While Empire fobbed off Bechard’s film as HACK ‘EM HIGH to foreign buyers at Milan’s Mifed Film Market, ASSAULT OF THE KILLER BIMBOS, scheduled for imminent release and eagerly awaited by distributors, existed as nothing more than a concept. Empire frantically searched for an existing script that would qualify as an adaptation of their most exploitable title.

Charles Band gave up WIZARD VIDEO after he ended his deal with VESTRON. WIZARD was distributed by LIGHTENING which was owned by VESTRON and when he left that deal and went over to NEW WORLD VIDEO which then he only released one movie with them, he started a new label called URBAN CLASSICS which he would handle the physical distribution eternally. He wouldn’t do a label deal and the first released was SLAVEGIRLS and that was doing pretty well and CREEPZOIDS was doing pretty well. And they were doing okay and then they started to make these movies back in Connecticut and they were making them cheaper in Connecticut than they were here in LA. They even had a guy out in New York, Tim Kincaid, who was making movies and those weren’t that bad. But there was a guy in Connecticut named Gorman Bechard who I guess was not only producing, writing, and directing, he was the cameraman and he did lights. And he was making these 35mm movies for only $30,000. Charlie was going wow, I got this great deal. And I was saying, Charlie if you want to give me $30,000 I’ll give you $30,000 but it’s going to look like $30,000. But give me $75,000 – $90,000 and you’ll get better movies. But anyway. Gorman did his first movie and what happened was this major snafu with ASSAULT OF THE KILLER BIMBOS. It was pre-sold with huge amounts of numbers and the URBAN CLASSICS films were presented to foreign buyers as pictures made between $1-2 million. He was showing these films to people overseas after he made them to the movie here and I brought in another director, Anita Rosenberg, who at the time didn’t think she knew what she was doing. But it ended up being the best of the URBAN CLASSICS movies. – Director Dave DeCoteau on the start of URBAN CLASSICS

A serviceable script, described by DeCoteau as a “generic but cute girls-on-the run” adventure, was considered from screenwriter Anita Rosenberg, who had previously written MODERN GIRLS for Atlantic Pictures. DeCoteau postponed his preparation of Beyond Infinity’s SPACE SLUTS IN THE SLAMMER to direct the movie. Rosenberg, however, demanded complete autonomy.

Anita Rosenberg

According to DeCoteau, “Rosenberg told Empire, ‘Sure, I’ll sell you the script for 100 grand.’ I said, ‘What do you mean, 100 grand? We pay five grand per script!’ She said, “I’ll sell it to you for five grand if you let me direct it.’ I said, “What other films have you done?’ She said, ‘Nothing, though I have done a short film.’ Empire looked at her short film, thought it was adequate enough, and agreed to let Rosenberg direct it.” DeCoteau was hired as producer for “double the usual budget and triple his customary salary.

Though he was reimbursed for services rendered on GALACTIC GIGOLO and HACK ‘EM HIGH, Bechard claims he was shortchanged on the proceeds from PSYCHOS IN LOVE. “We were promised wonderful percentages of the gross, not of the net, on the film,” said Bechard. “I made sure they couldn’t pull any accounting tricks. But they did pull a great accounting trick; they just never bothered reporting to us. We were supposed to be getting quarterly statements and checks. We never got anything. My letters to Charlie Band, complaining about this situation, and the shabby treatment of my films, were ignored.”

A forthcoming documentary by Kathy Milani, B-MOVIE, traces the production of HACK ‘EM HIGH from the film’s preproduction phase to Band’s phone call alerting Bechard of Empire’s resistance to his adaptation of “a script that Band, up to that point, had not read.” Bechard promises B-MOVIE will enlighten prospective filmmakers to the hazards of low-budget filmmaking. (Milani is currently seeking completion funds and or grants.)

Meanwhile, Bechard is also exorcising his frustrations with Empire through a manual titled “Assault of the Independent Filmmaker;” as the book’s author, Bechard vowed to “paint a no holds-barred picture of the making of each of my films, from the detailed budgets to the whole filming process, to dealing with not-always reputable distributors and investors. Filmmaking is, unfortunately, the sleaziest business in the world, and it bothers me that I can’t picture myself doing anything else.”

When Empire hit the financial skids last year, some theatrical projects like GHOULIES II and CELLAR DWELLER went straight to home video while others were shelved as incomplete. For a company that in the past boasted production agendas cluttered with a dozen titles pegged as either in production “or” in preparation,” in 1988 Empire launched only one-Dave DeCoteau’s Dr. Alien (1989) (I Was a Teenage Sex Mutant), started on a budget of $400.000. The company folded before production was finished.

But Band opened up shop again late last year, calling his new operation the Bandcompany, like Empire specializing in international sales, with a video line dubbed Phantom Home Video, and a production arm called Full Moon Productions. Band’s first announced project was Edgar Allan Poe’s THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM, to be directed by Stuart Gordon. “He’s back into making pictures,” said DeCoteau. “He won’t be making as many and they won’t be as cheap.”

When Band jumped ship from Empire, his deal to sell the company gave him ownership of a trio of productions, according to DeCoteau. Band used the films, including DeCoteau’s I WAS A TEENAGE SEX MUTANT, THE INTRUDER (formerly NIGHT CREW), and JUNGLE HEAT (formerly PIRANHA WOMEN) to form his new company and subsequently negotiated a contract with Paramount Home Video for their release. I WAS A TEENAGE SEX MUTANT, now retitled DR. ALIEN!, was scheduled to be released in November.

Interview with Dave DeCoteau

Looking back on the beginning of your career, how would you appraise Dreamaniac? Dave DeCoteau: Dreamaniac was an experiment; it was my little film school project, wrapped up in ten days. It was like learning how to do it, and learning how do it quickly, because I only had ten days to learn a career’s worth of information and make a decent movie. It was made on a $60,000 budget.

The ending of Dreamaniac-with the abrupt disclosure of a succubus as a mental patient-seems like a postproduction afterthought. Who was responsible for the cop-out compromise? Dave DeCoteau: Me. I decided to go with kind of a triple-twist ending, just for the hell of it, since the film had nothing else to offer.

Your films have gotten even more exposure on cable TV, what with broadcasts on USA, Pay-Per-View… Dave DeCoteau: But, you know, Creepozoids and Sorority Babes In The Slimeball Bowl A-Rama did better, during their original release, in foreign territories than domestically. We were well received in Britain. Creepozoids was number seven on the Top Ten Selling-Rental charts during the month of its release; The Untouchables was number eight! Sorority Babes, released in the United Kingdom as The Imp, did almost as good business as Creepozoids.

What’s the background of Sorority Babes In The Slimeball Bowl-A-Rama, your most unique movie? Dave DeCoteau: Charlie (Band) wanted, a “little genie” movie to be called The Imp. I came in the next day, and read off five story lines. The fifth one was a joke, never intended to be taken seriously, about a little genie that was squished inside a bowling trophy back in the 50s and unleashed upon some sorority babes and fraternity initiates on Hell Night. Charlie liked that concept more than any of the other ones, and we decided to go with it.

There’s a frantic chase scene, near the conclusion of Sorority Babes, without music on the soundtrack. Was this intentional or an accidental omission? Dave DeCoteau: The music channel of the entire Reel Seven did not make it to the one inch video master. When you do a final mix on a picture, you mix sound on three stripes-the dialogue, the music, and a (sound) effects track. You do the video mastering by taking your film, and your three channels of sound, and putting them onto broadcast-quality one-inch video tape for half-inch duplication. When they transferred the entire show, they accidentally forgot to drop the music channel from Reel Seven; they only transferred two channels, the dialogue and effects. The music’s omission marred the film. Fifteen or twenty-thousand copies of the tape went out without the musical channel on Reel Seven, which is the climax of the film and (originally) had an incredible musical score. I was very upset because Empire, at the time, did not let me quality control the one-inch masters. First-time viewers of Sorority Babes may prefer to hum their own theme.

Tell me where did you come up with the title SORORITY BABES IN THE SLIME BOWL-O-RAMA? Dave DeCoteau: I didn’t come up with the title. It was shot as THE IMP and Charlie Band came up with the title. He had a little I fun to watch. The experience was a lot of fun, Making movies is never really been that much fun. The two best days of making a movie is the day you get the financing and the rap party. And everything between is a pain in the fucking ass. You always have to compromise, you can’t do exactly what you want to do. Because the budgets are so low the schedules are tight and you can’t always get the actors you want and you get the actor, you could only use him for a couple days and you can’t use him for any overtime. The process is real tough. And I think PUPPETMASTER III as being my best film in most people’s eyes but just had a horrendous time making that film.

Which of your pre-Doctor Alien (1989) films is your favorite? Dave DeCoteau: I have to admit I have this bizarre affection for Creepozoids, I don’t know what it is, but when I was making that film I really took it deadly serious and expected it to be a lot better than it was. The reviews have been horrible, but-God!-every time I show it to somebody, they kind of, like, smile. It’s actually a serious attempt, whereas all the other films we’ve been doing seem to be a little campy or silly.

Didn’t Creepozoids get positive reviews in Europe? Dave DeCoteau: Excellent reviews! The United Kingdom is asking for a sequel and they’re ready to cut a check to finance it. Unfortunately, I don’t have the sequel rights to that film, so I probably won’t do it.

You made some of your past films for under $200,000. What was the budget on Doctor Alien? Dave DeCoteau: About $400,000. It’s a home video, a damn good example of direct-to-video product. I love it. It’s a very entertain. ing film for me, and everyone seems to enjoy it. The only problem about not releasing it theatrically is that it is a comedy, and comedies work very well with large audiences. I’m going to screen it for the Science Fiction Academy here, and for a few other people.

Why did you choose a more mainstream celebrity-Judy Landers-for Doctor Alien and Ghost Writer? Dave DeCoteau: When we were casting for the Doctor Alien role of Ms. Xenobia, we wanted to go with a Mary Woronov type. Well, we auditioned hundreds of Mary Woronov, Barbara Steele and Caroline Munroe types, and we realized it just didn’t work the way it was written… it wasn’t funny. So I said, “Let’s bring Judy in for a hoot.” I just wanted to meet the girl. She came in with the scenes memorized and gave us a reading, and we were falling on the floor laughing our heads off. She played it so wonderful, and so funny, that she was perfect for the part.

With the exception of your first film, Dreamaniac, your movies have avoided the “sex begets violence” syndrome. Did you consciously reject this routine premise? Dave DeCoteau: Yeah… women are not victims in my films. A female victim in my films is very, very rare. Women are the aggressors in my movies, they’re the ones who save the day. Look at Linnea Quigley in Sorority Babes: she never showed a nipple and she kicked ass, and she saved the day…

The History of Empire Films Part Five The rise of Empire as a low budget producer with their “Beyond Infinity” video line resembles the start-up of AIP during the drive-in boom of the late '50s, when a definite market existed for a certain product: films for the teenage audience, the wilder and more outrageous the better.

#BAND #EMPIRE

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dunamanticarchivist · 5 years

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The Munchkin Nein - Jester Jay

I’ve been sitting on this one for-fucking-ever (like half a year a full year). Everytime I try doing this I somehow end up not procrastinating on the thing I was trying to to avoid by doing this. Idk its weird, but now I have somewhat a free moment and am looking to finally polish off this piece on cleric abilities - specifically one leetle blue tiefling. Will do Caduceus in another post since despite similarities, Laura and Taliesin play very differently. For those unfamiliar with this series, it is one where I ramble on the M9′s abilities, hoping to inform about the mechanics and let Critters indulge in the metagaming pigeon and optimize combat and damage numbers. You can find the rest of the series (now very outdated) here

Ok clerics have so many spells I can’t cover them all, especially now they are level 8 and have access to Lvl 1-4 cleric spells. So I’ll mostly go over the ones she uses and maybe explore some I think are pretty cool. But first, an overview.

Jester has the mechanics of a hybrid melee/caster character due to her above-average stats across the board. Her AC stands at a respectable 18, 2nd highest of the group by default (beat out by Caleb’s 19 if he has Mage Armor and casts Shield). Sadly her HP is relatively low at 67, 3rd last (though Nott, Cad, Jester and Beau) all fall within 65-69 (nice) HP.

Next her WIS mod is maxed at +5 and her STR and DEX are at +3 and +4 respectively. Which is somewhat a shame she is limited to simple weapons, since a finesse weapon such as a shortsword/scimitar or rapier would be a straight up mechanical improvement in both to hit chances and the actual damage (although her handaxe is +1, evening it out but a +1 finesse weapon would be better yadda yadda whatifs and maybes)

Aiding her in melee damage is her Trickery Domain Divine Strike that adds 1d8 poison damage once per turn on hit in melee. Sadly many things are also resistant to poison, such as the demon they faced in C2E55.

Ok first things up: Spell slots and spells prepped. Clerics recover their spell slots on a long rest and at Level 8 have the following: 4 L1s, 3 L2s, 3L3s, 2 L4s. 12 spells, seems adequate right? NOPE as the last fight in c2e55 proves. You never have enough spells to keep your squishy party alive.

Next, clerics theoretically know a lot of spells. Like 70 over spells they could know how to cast. However, at the start of the adventuring day, their god gives them X number to work with. For Jester at Level 8, this is 13 and increases by 1 every level in cleric. Additionally, she has 8 spells that don’t have to be prepared every day (as listed in the Trickery subclass spells). So a large part of cleric (and druid and wizards who have this spell prep mechanic) is choosing the “right” spells for the day. As we know, CR is not exactly combat optimized, so suffice to say not all the following spells will be available in any given scenario. But still, here are some of the options.

Her much beloved and iconic spiritual weapon the lollipop is a level 2 spell that is cast on a bonus action (good for action economy). It does 1d8 + 5 damage on a hit and 2d8 + 5 instead if she uses her Lvl 4 spell slots (with +d8 every 2 level spell slot increase). And best of all, it is NOT a concentration spell, so she is then free to whirl it about in all directions whilst opening other cans of whoop-ass.

Like Spirit Guardians, a 3rd level AoE 15ft radius centered on self of 3d8 radiant damage. Enemies can make a WIS save to halve the damage, but are still subject to halved speed while in the area regardless if they make the save or not. Casting at higher levels scales the damage by 1d8. This however, is concentration, so she cannot maintain other spell effects such as Blink and Pass without a Trace.

She has 2 nuke spells: Guiding Bolt and Inflict Wounds. Both are single target level 1 spells, and casting with higher level slots give better damage. Guiding bolt starts with 4d6 radiant damage and has a comfortable range of 120 ft while Inflict Wounds does a horrendous 3d10 necrotic, but requires melee range. Inflict Wounds scale better with level +1d10 vs +1d6, but Guiding Bolt (if hit) gives advantage to the next attack from the party. Due to initiative order fuckery and flanking stuff the advantage may be redundant sometimes, but I believe the best combo is Nott (the best detective agency) using the advantage for sneak attack in the absence of other sneak attack conditions. For inflict Wounds, if Jester has her duplicate in melee she can cast it from the duplicate.

This presents an interesting conundrum for Invoke Duplicity, one of her Channel Divinity options (2 uses per short rest). Invoke Duplicity is a concentration action (bad), but can be cast 120 ft out. I think it isnt optimal to invoke duplicity to Inflict Wounds from a distance since it takes 2 full turns to do so + a bonus action to move the duplicate if when the enemy repositions. Instead, the duplicate can be used to double team an enemy in melee range, giving advantage to any attack rolls. 1. Inflict Wounds is an attack roll. 2. Spiritual Weapon is an attack roll. So perhaps Invoke Duplicity at 30 ft out as a first turn distraction as well as Spiritual Weapon, then move in for the kill. The positioning of both will be key, since she can only move one of them with her bonus action (30 and 20 ft respectively)

I forget how Matt rules with regard to distracting with duplicates (i.e will intelligent enemies attack the duplicate instead?) A parallel situation occurs with the Mirror Image spell. Not concentration (excellent) and is automatically prepared (also very good). When an enemy rolls to attack her if she has cast it, she rolls a d20 and above certain numbers (based on the number of duplicates remaining) the enemy attacks the duplicate. For Mirror Image, the duplicates are destroyed on hit (AC 14 for Jester’s dupes). But I believe Invoke Duplicity ones cannot be destroyed. Either cases could take the heat off Jester (which she has been on the receiving end of TOO MANY times).

Control Water I think I’ll go update Fjordy after all this; its more his spell than Jester’s now they are out of the water.

She also has a lot of other utility spells that can be clutch outside of healing and hurting (ok I have yet to mention her heals but that seems fitting we’ll get to that in a bit). Polymorph and Banishment can take enemies out of the fight temporarily (both concentration), with polymorph being easier to break if anyone accidentally hits them too hard. But polymorph can also be used on allies to turn them into a bag of hitpoints and melee prowess (generally speaking). But maybe not the most appropriate use (Polymorph Nugget/Sprinkle into the BBEG XD)

Dimension Door helps reposition Jester as well as an ally in melee range completely, enough to flee a fight or make a huge chase or get help. Dispel Magic is to nullify some of the magic thrown at the party and can be extremely useful, especially if enemies are limited in their spellcasting.

And finally when she runs out of leveled spells to throw, she has cantrips. Toll the Dead is an above average damage cantrip (2d12 necrotic at her level unless enemies are at full health, then 2d8) WIS save. Sacred Flame is 2d8 radiant damage and enemies dont get cover bonuses to their DEX save for this. Sadly Matt seems to be very good at saving versus these, and saves mean no damage at all. But still, they are useful when she casts bonus action spells such as Healing Word, Spiritual Weapon and Sanctuary

And finally the healing stuff. Cure Wounds and Healing Word. They are a parallel to the Inflict Wounds and Guiding Bolt conundrum. Cure Wounds heals for 1d8 + 5 (average of 9.5 HP) at level 1, while Healing Word heals for 1d4 + 5 (7.5 HP). Cure Wounds needs touch, Healing Word has 60ft range. Cure Wounds scales better with level (1d8 vs 1d4). Honestly in D&D 5e, thats not much healing. And the variance can screw you over. So prioritizing damage dealing is a pretty good strategy. In fact, with the presence of Caduceus, Jester has a comparative advantage in dealing damage (her opportunity costs of attacking are actually lower than Caduceus’, situationally).

However, as we see, Revivify is a very, very good tool to keep in one’s back pocket since you never know when an ally might accidentally blow up another. That part of healing, yeah no its a quintessential cleric role that Laura has played completely true to. And everyone needs to thank her for it.

All in all, the hybrid nature of Jester as a Trickery Cleric has some growing pains, but I think she is a very very dangerous character (Matt acknowledges the value of clerics and is rather fond of focusing them). If she went full beast mode her damage output could probably match Beau’s, so really no one should hold her back with silly things like healing and worrying about her squishy friends. Dr Clay will be with you in a moment (after you’ve gone unconscious that is)

If anyone wants to debate the risk/return profiles of various spells, attacks, damage rolls and dice gods, feel free to drop me an ask!

Edit: her racial features are as follows for completeness sake: Cold resistance, Hellish Rebuke once per day, reaction when taking damage. 3d10 cold damage with DEX save for half damage. DC 12. Darkness once per day. Thaumaturgy as cantrip. Darkvision 60ft

#critical role #the munchkin nein #d&d #jester lavorre #cleric #the mighty nein #this is my way of coping with the stress of my emotional investment #cr spoilers i guess

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athyrabunlord · 7 years

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A/N: (⊃◜⌓◝⊂) finished more concept doodles for [Animus/JobSet AU]

[Law Enforcement] [Fuurin Shrine] [Ohara Apothecary]

Ramblings Info/Background below cut:

[Fuurin Shrine]

Kurosawa Dia

The shrine maiden at the Fuurin shrine (the kanji for Fuurin literally means 'wind bell'). As the eldest of the ancient Kurosawa family, she upholds her family teachings and does her best to preserve traditions. Hence, she often gets into arguments with Ruby, who has a more open view on the spiritual matters and welcomes unconventional concepts and foreign ideas. Deep down, she is proud of her little sister all grown up and independent, though that does make her feel a bit lonely sometimes. She finds solace in the cats that often surround Kanan and Chika, and greatly appreciates it whenever Chika comes by with a few cats that are left in her care.

During the time Ruby was away traveling abroad, she grew close to her student Hanamaru. In a way, the young calligrapher filled the void that her little sister left behind, but she certainly didn’t consider her a mere replacement. Hanamaru has become a true friend and Dia values her opinions. As per her family's instructions, Dia was to give the blessed katana, the Kochou, to someone worthy of wielding it as well as using it to its greatest potential. She was told that she would know who the right person was when the time was right. Eventually, Dia determined Kanan was the one, though she didn’t explain to Kanan why she chose her. Dia considers You to be a good assistant in tasks like locating mischievous spirits that play harmless pranks on civilians, and since Kanan has complete trust in You, Dia also does the same.

The Kurosawa Family specializes in cleansing vengeful spirits or vanquishing youkais, and there haven't been any prolonged supernatural cases for generations. Therefore, Dia takes the recent events seriously and vows to get to the bottom of this. She is highly suspicious of the foreigners, especially the airy self-proclaimed blonde chemist, even more so after finding out her precious little sister's closeness to Mari. Yohane’s tricks confuses Dia to no end and even rather irritating sometimes. At least, Riko seems like a reasonable person, seemingly aloof but actually warm-hearted.

For most of the supernatural cases, her direct intervention wasn’t needed. The ofuda/talisman imbued with her powers is more than enough. She would dress in her ceremonial robes to perform miko dance; there has yet to be any youkai that could defy this purifying power. Additionally, the winds would answer her call and heed her commands. However, this also causes great strain on the spellcaster’s body, so Dia would only resort to this if necessary.

Matsuura Hanamaru

A calligrapher learning the Art of Sealing - using the fudepen, she is able to create wards to keep off the lesser malevolent spirits, or confine the stronger ones on parchments until those with spiritual powers (such as Dia and Ruby) can purify them. She is proud to be Dia's student and both Kurosawa sisters' friends. She tries to be understanding and supportive of each sister's viewpoints, and thus encouraged Ruby's desire to travel abroad while remaining by Dia's side to provide companionship. When Ruby left on her trip, she missed her dearly and worried for her constantly, and most of that worry was transferred to her adopted sister Kanan. Kanan sometimes (fondly) remarks that she nags like Dia does. The similarity makes her happy, as she's always admired Dia and wanted to be like her. Even then, she continued to wear her hair in a ponytail like Kanan does.

She grew up with her grandparents in a secluded temple, but they passed away when she was just a little girl. Lost and scared, she remained in the temple and lived off of what remaining food the pantry had. Before things became dire, an older girl came by the temple in hopes of finding food and water. Kanan had lived off of the streets as long as she remembered, and she wanted to settle down at a place close to the sea. After Kanan invited Hanamaru to come along with her, the little girl decided to leave the temple behind and they traveled to many places until they reached Uchiura. It was by luck that they inadvertently helped out the aging Chief Inspector Matsuura in one of his errands, and he decided to adopt them after hearing their story. Kanan underwent intensive training to succeed him, while Hanamaru decided to learn more of the spiritual world at the Fuurin Shrine. A part of her still feels guilt for leaving the temple, but she does not regret her decision.

Since she is petite, her unusual strength always surprises people who don’t know her. Perhaps it’s due to being Kanan’s adopted sister or something, but she is able to carry her giant fudepen and utilize it fluidly, no problem (sometimes even uses it like a club…). She is quite protective of her family-like friends, so she is also skeptical of the trio from Ohara Apothecary. Riko seems an okay person, and Ruby always talks highly of Mari, so that just leaves the incomprehensible errand girl Yohane. At least, her magic tricks are entertaining zura.

Kurosawa Ruby

Apprentice alchemist. As a Kurosawa, she is naturally intuitive to spiritual matters, and she does take great pride in her family name. However, she also worries for her older sister Dia, who abides by rules and traditions and is practically confined to the family shrine. The heiress has to remain on shrine grounds and its perimeter in order to conserve the shrine’s full power. Ruby doesn’t believe in sacrificing one’s happiness, least of all not her sister’s, just because tradition demands it. She wants to learn and see more of the world, and surely there is a way for mikos to retain and utilize their powers regardless of location. In spite of Dia’s disapproval, Ruby left Uchiura and traveled abroad.

The journey was exciting albeit a little frightening. She grew to be so much more independent and confident throughout her trip, but she truly found her calling when she met a quirky scholar named Mari. Mari, however, is actually an alchemist searching for an item that can make the impossible the possible, a concept that enticed Ruby. Mari was intrigued by the spiritual ways, which acted like a catalyst for many chemical reactions, and so she took Ruby under her wing for a while as an apprentice. Before they parted ways, Mari promised to come by Uchiura one day and they could reconvene.

After Ruby returned to her hometown, she continues to study alchemy and attempts to hybridize the two very different disciplines, much to Dia’s displeasure. She sometimes shares her discoveries with Hanamaru, as well as You, Chika and Kanan whenever they visit. When Mari finally comes to Uchiura as promised, Ruby is happy but also conflicted by Riko and Yohane’s involvement in Mari’s quest. While it is good to have more members to their cause, it also presents the issue of fairly distributing their discovery, whenever that may be. Ruby doesn’t like such thoughts and hopes that she never has to choose between her sister or her teacher-friend. Sometimes she has the urge to exorcise Yohane even though she’s pretty sure Yohane is a human...

#athyra doodles #Animus JobSetAU #kurosawa sisters #azalea #minor diamaru mariruby #I had fun with maru XD #orca what did u do to her #very smart wooby #still cinnamon roll tho #both sisters are #maru so ain't lmao #prankster brat #orca mikan yosoro are bad influence lmfao #they close #guilty kiss concept doodles when X'D

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