#what a garbage necromancer

[landonkirbyappreciation]

So apparently they filmed two different endings for Jed and Ben in case the show got cancelled, but they couldn’t have filmed another ending for Landon, their male lead, with him getting out of limbo in case the show got cancelled? It really just shows even more what their priorities were and how little they cared about Landon or making sure he had any sort of happiness in the end. They literally took away his ability to even feel happiness and didn’t even care to change that or have another ending for him in case they didn’t get the chance to continue his story. And they did know there was a possibility that the show could be cancelled and knew that for months, and apparently felt that a cancellation was likely and were told to write the finale like a series finale, and they still made no efforts for Landon. The way they handled Landon’s character was so unbelievably careless and cruel. They truly didn’t deserve to write Landon or have him in their show. Imagine having a character like Landon and an actor like Aria and deciding to do what they did. Who in their right mind... I’ll never understand.

#text #my posts #4x20 #i guess i shouldn't be surprised that they'd make those efforts for jed and ben #but not landon #they treated the necromancer and aurora better than landon #they treated their guest stars better than aria #and gave them more of a storyline #and more screen time #they gave literally everyone a better ending than landon #still so glad they lost the chance to continue writing the show #i don't even wanna know what they would've done #but they for sure would've kept treating landon like garbage #even just the fact that they planned on doing a time jump #they would've kept landon trapped alone and numb for years #makes me sick just to think about #the cancellation really spared us

[probablybadrpgideas]

#Halloween #not an idea #poll

[bedtimestoriesforbrokengirls]

It's cute seeing dudes blog gorgeous girls with the intent of making other girls here feel like garbage.

It's like the guys that do this are stuck emotionally in junior high by some sad little wound that Little Suzy liked the other guy much more.

Fishing for beat down broken emotionally dead girls to meet you in that place where you're still beat down and broken. Cute.

It’s… wow. I mean, I’m obviously not surprised, because I’ve talked about it a number of times, but still. It’s just… I don’t feel like “pathological” is an overstatement at this point.

Notice that along with the Emo-kid-from-2003 tone and masterful deployment of sarcasm, Trolly McTrollpants here absolutely can not resist going after the girls. They get all the way through the exposition of their indignation, they’re ready to sign off with some clever bon mot… but they can’t walk away without calling the girls emotionally dead.

Which, seriously, way to fail to read the room… if there’s one thing these bitches ain’t, it’s “emotionally dead”. I’m told that many of them were such before they met me, but I figure either (a) that’s just girlish hyperbole, or (b) I’m a fucking necromancer. The point is… my days would be less fulfilling but more relaxing if any of them were simply “emotionally chilled”, much less psychosexually pining for the fjords.

RE: meet you in that place

So far, they’ve all met me at the airport. Or an Airbnb. I guess Puddles met me in an apartment. I wouldn’t say any of the places were beat down and/or broken. Oh, except the screen door on that one place! Fucker ripped my Guns N’ Roses shirt, which, okay, was already a little bloodstained from when I fell in 2022, but still… I loved it. Pinky has it now, because the ripped screen had to exact its toll, and…

Wait a minute… are we back to talking about trolls? What a co-inky-dink.

RE: Cute.

Baby, I’m hideous. Also a giant asshole. A wholly unimpressive specimen.

And yet better than you on every conceivable level.

So… yikes.

#asks

[mdhwrites]

From your previous ask, about Hunter: "It especially is good for kid's media because while the clone can struggle with the anxiety of it, their friends never have to actually be bad or discriminatory against them because the point is loving yourself for who you are and not who you were made to be."

Personally I think a story in which the clone's friends become mad/discriminatory after the reveal CAN work, on a condition.

If the clone's original is, in fact, their friend's friend, said friends have all the reasons to be mad/shocked at the clone for essentially taking their place***. The friends would not only have to confront an 'impostor', but also deal with the loss of their 'real' friend, meanwhile also needing to reassure the clone they're still valid as their own person (if they also weren't aware obviously).

All of these conflicting emotions can create some compelling narratives imho, and there's not a 'standard' resolution that makes it all go back to normal.

(Btw it's one of those 'what if' post-story aspects that fascinate me about a certain other animated show's finale)

*** Now that I mention it, there's Vee in TOH. Whose potential is thrown in the garbage in the same episode she gets revealed, since neither Camila nor Luz delve into how messed up it is that someone just took Luz's place, and nobody was too concerned about it

It is absolutely a compelling narrative! It's actually theoretically part of the anxiety that Fallout 4 specifically tries to address with its Synths plot. Robots and automatons who are made to be as close to perfect replicas to the original that only the functions specific to them being robots reveals what they are. Otherwise, they appear to entirely be the person you once knew and even cares about you the same way.

Evil clones or even hypnosis are also one episode concepts that plenty of kid's shows might do to shake things up and mess with the character's heads as suddenly one of them isn't acting in their best interest. Just as a fun fact: I actually did a short lived possession thing where Boscha was consumed by a helpful voice in her head. They pushed her to be nicer, make good even with those who treat her poorly and to also let Luz touch her because she specifically only let Amity do that. She was found out once she consumed Boscha entirely because she doesn't say the F word and in the story she was the only one allowed to say it.

Even the death of one you care about isn't new, either in what you described or in other variants. Many a fantasy villain, especially necromancers, have promised the return of loved ones to them in one way or another, with usually the heroes saying that the version they would create or bring back wouldn't be them or that they wouldn't accept them anymore because accepting the offer is inherently a betrayal of the deceased loved one's morals. Or hell, they DO take it and become a pawn until someone else makes them see reason.

Clones, replacement, etc. like that of characters just has a lot of possibility space which is why they're such a beloved trope that's been work shopped in so many ways. Those who consume more speculative fiction than me have probably WAY more angles and the like than I'm even bringing up here.

Now just to address each: I think Anne being a clone isn't as bad for many because it was effectively a revival. It's still Anne through and through after all so while sure, it's a cloned body, it's kind of implied to still have Anne's soul which makes sense with the Guardian's desire to have her take his position. Can that still have angst in and of itself? ABSOLUTELY. Just dealing with the existential crises of having died at all, or the terror that those around you might of ever having to see that again, is absolutely a thing and its own set of anxieties that would be true without the claim of Anne being a clone.

Meanwhile, Vee doesn't technically lose her potential in Yesterday's Lie. Luz finding her convenient is a good excuse for even the most cynical as to why she doesn't get mad at Vee. I of all people don't even consider it a mark against Luz because she had worried about her mom in the past in this regard so her being relieved that her mom hadn't spent months thinking she was dead is honestly just reasonable. Camila is... More complicated. For the fact that Vee and Camila are both side characters more than anything, I think keeping their relationship was honestly for the best. There's no reason to spend an entire episode making us sympathize with Vee only for her then to be tossed to the side or no longer have a home. Honestly, her potential was likely mostly kneecapped indeed by the shortening but also like... Her having to deal with Luz just stepping back into her place would have probably just been one episode anyways and end with everyone happy and okay with it, or claiming they need time but then being immediately fine anyways, because that's just how this show deals with the vast majority of its more complex issues. Anne holds a grudge against Hop Pop about the musical box longer than anyone holds a grudge in TOH. Well, except maybe Luz against herself.

But yeah, clones, bodysnatchers, etc. like that are just really neat because they deal with some really primordial fears we have as a species which makes their potential close to unlimited so long as you're willing to actually do something with them.

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

#the owl house criticism #toh critical #Clones

[gallusrostromegalus]

As a Brit I'm Deeply Unsurprised by the Blackwood family's shitty everything but also interested to hear of their existence as Hereditary Magic-Users By Appointment To The Crown. Do other present-day countries in this 'verse have a similar position-Court Wizards, whether to actual monarchs or to governments or heads thereof appointed by other means? If so, does Japanifornia have someone in that position?

After a certain level of wealth, power and/or celebrity status, it's a matter of course to contract a professional mage, like hiring a PR Manager or a Finance manager. Pretty much every Head of State, Billionaire, and Movie Star has used the services of a Mage.

New Zealand was the first state to make "Offical Wizard" an elected position, but other states consider the Wizard part of the head of state's cabinet, and others have lifetime appointments. The extant Monarchies of the world all have royal wizards, but England is unique in having a hereditary family of wizards (most monarchs appoint a new, unrelated related wizard at coronation), and this is because every monarch since Queen Elizabeth the 1st is in Major Hock to the Blackwoods.

It's also worth noting that when Seto Kaiba says he "doesn't believe in magic", that's not because he doesn't think it's real. He just thinks it's weird to "Believe" in, because that's like Believing in the post office or JavaScript. It exists, it's a tool, and he has people to handle it. Lots of people. Way more people than most comapnies employ because kaibacorp used to be a military weapons company and is the target of SO MANY curses. So he's got a small army of cursebreakers under contract to get those removed, often by tracking down the original caster and making repairations for whatever Gozaboro did, because that's the most cost-effective way to handle them. And the right thing to do. Even if Seto will never say that part aloud. He's also got tech wizards to keep the server farms and other machinery from developing thaumaturgic properties and appease the machine-sprits that inevitably arise with any computing operation of that scale. And Illusionists working in the art department to make his monsters that much more convincing. And of course, a full staff of White Mages and other necromancers on staff to act as emergency services at Kaibaland. Like IRL Disney, nobody dies at Kaibaland. Unlike IRL Disney, he doesn't accomplish this by playing silly buggers with the coroner's office. When he says Nobody Dies At Kaibaland, He Means Nobody Dies, No Matter What.

Maximillion Pegasus is an oddity for not employing more wizards than the usual Corporate Cursebreakers, but that's hardly surprising considering how territorial mages are.

Lots of celebrities employ illusionists to cast anti-paparazzi and stalker wards, and the really rich ones pay for top-notch illusionists and even chronomancers to try to preserve thier youth.

There's also a lot of mundane and municipal wizards- Bakura has a part-time job hunting for magically charged or cursed objects at the city flea market to prevent the sale of dangerous magical items. There are also tech wizards that maintain the city sewage treatment center or the machines that sort recyclables from garbage. You'd think there would be wizards to cast "Zone of Truth" at courtrooms, but that turned out to be functionally useless- witnesses STILL gave wildly conflicting versions of events, people who definitely commited the crime pleaded still their innocence, and Lawyers still made completely unhinged arguments, because everyone was absolutely sure they were being honest.

There's also magic-adjacent jobs done by people who aren't mages, but who have a sense for the stuff, like Tristan's family, which would be monster hunters/dungeoneers in other settings, but in TPOFATGIF, they're just Advanced Pest Control. Or Solomon's old job as an archeological tomb-crawler, where he used his sixth sense to sniff out undiscovered (and very cursed) archelogical sites and work out what the curses are backwards from how the tombs and temples are built.

#TPOFATGIF #The Power Of Friendship (And This Gun I Found!) #Yugi does have slight precognition but so do 1 in 20 other people #Yugioh #Yugioh fanfic

[talesofourworlds]

Belongs in the Trash

"Hey! The hell are you doing in here?"

"What do you mean 'the hell are you doin' here'? I belong here! What about you, kid? What're you doin' here?"

"What does it look like? I'm the one that belongs in the trash. Go find your own trash can!"

"Can't tell if I should think it's a compliment or not that you don't think I belong here. 'Sides, what business has a kid got belongin' in the trash?"

"Because that's what I am."

"Yeah, I'm not even gonna begin tryin' ta unpack that one, kid. I'm the one that belongs in here. Not you."

"You're shady, old man. Just because something stinks about you doesn't mean-"

"Hey!"

"Oh, not you too, Jade! Get the hell out of here! Get your own trash can!"

"No, I don't think I will."

"Dammit, Necromancer, this trash can is only so big! Both of you need to get out!"

"You of all people should know why I can qualify as 'trash,' Sync."

"This is gettin' stupid. Let's all just agree we're garbage and get outta here. The trash can's gonna-"

CRASH.

"Fall."

"Great. I told you you both you should've gotten out."

"Perhaps next time we ought to find a bigger trash can."

#ic #Fury Like a Tempest (Sync) #A Weed Tryin' to Bloom (Raven) #Always One Step Ahead (Jade) #Chat It Up (Skits) #This is so stupid xD

[curls101]

oi oi bitch so for the ask thing, you know i saw and need to know ALL of them about Ralxire, but particularly 3, 4, 6, 17 and 21 pls (and for the duolingo one - obvs i was gonna ask - what language??) bisous xoxo

Okay, special Ralxire Only edition for his partner in crime lol

This is Ralxire for reference, he's my garbage man Necromancer:

3 - how lactose intolerant are they and if they were lactose intolerant would this stop them from consuming lactose products?

There is no world in which Ralxire is not a guy who is 100% lactose intolerant and still regularly consumes lactose. Like...there's no way that isn't what he does.

4 - If they went to a modern day university what would they get their bachelor's in and do they enjoy it

OH MAN I think biology or pathology? Definately concerned with the human body (also I was today years old when I found out you need a Law degree not a Biology degree to be a coroner in the UK??? wild)

It would be the love of his life. He is a Wizard at the end of the day. He'd be going for that PhD

6 - hobby or interest they are most embarrassed about

He's been crossbreeding succulents for like 8 years now and will not tell a soul.

Either that or he bakes because "it's basically modern alchemy, it's not like cooking" or some other bullshit

17 - pick a random mild injury illness or miscellaneous ailment for them to consistently or periodically struggle with (e.g. bad knee, hay fever, bad acne). or don't

Acne for sure. All of Ralxire's personality is "Man Who Struggled A Lot With Their Skin as A Teen and Became Extremely Self Concious About The Fact They Do Skincare as an Adult"

21 - do they use duolingo and what's their longest streak

He's been consistently trying to learn Japanese on Duolingo for years now and has never had a streak longer than 3 days.

#I LOVE him he's so PATHETIC #This man I stg he really is just Like This #I have a clearer image of modern au ralxire than in universe ralxire like he's such a specific character lol #.

[sinclairmaxwellao3]

A sneak peak from my original novel, Thaumaturgy! :)

This is the prologue of my novel Thaumaturgy featuring a young necromancer named Sascha Pripyat, a snarky smart-assing technomancer named Eliann, and a gender-swapping demon, Paimon, who must all band together to discover the answers behind a sudden and mysterious wasting disease tearing through their people, a cruel punishment from their Mother Goddess. <3

'            There's this funny thing about destiny. It always sneaks up on you in the most unexpected places at the most unexpected times and in the strangest ways. Ways that leave you scratching your head and wrinkling your nose in disgust. And it's never something you consent to. Destiny is invasive and destructive, the breaking down of everything you knew and loved. It was a root, twisting and pulling apart the foundation of your life inch by bleeding, sobbing, violent inch.

Destiny is tragedy.

            All of those silly Hollywood movies that make fate look glamorous and romantic? Tripe. Garbage. Festering, stinking refuse dredged up from the bottom of someone's trash bin at the height of summer. I'm fairly certain most people subjected to such a cruelty as fate's whims would agree. But this isn't about them. It's about me. Remember what I said about unexpected places, inconvenient times, and strange ways?

My destiny began with my hands tied behind my back, kneeling on the floor with a biker at my back.

I told you. Strange ways.' Find Thaumaturgy under my pseudo 'C.L. McReynolds' on Amazon and Kindle! <3

#novel writing #original writing #kindle books #amazon #necromancer #technomancer #demon oc #creative writing #novelist #c.l. mcreynolds #modern fantasy #urban fantasy #disease #goddess

[raiasintended]

full moon: the big bad wolf, and when I say “the big bad wolf” I mean THE, as in the pinnacle, the baddest, the template for bigness. John Oliver’s paeans to Adam Driver are one hundred percent applicable here. With but a look, capable of making your entire army horny or horrified or hornified. Territhirsty? Anyway, their ideal bondmate is someone just as pants-browningly frightening or, the opposite: a kitten made of spun sugar and latte foam that would disintegrate as soon as rolling Join Battle were it not for Den Warden Method. Venus thinks that shit’s fucking hilarious.

changing moon: bugs bunny, but like if bugs ever ate human hearts, which I’m pretty sure he never did but maybe that’s in one of the Censored Eleven idk I was sidetracked by all the racism, anyway, the point is try to picture Bugs Bunny as one of the nastier yaoguai and this is a changing moon. You know how some straight guys joke about Bugs dressing like a sexy woman as a way to distract from their discomfort at the fluid nature of sexual attraction? changing moon lunars hunt them for sport. Their ideal bondmate is CHAOS but they are known to settle for anyone with high enough Integrity to acquire an immunity to their bullshit.

no moon: Baba Yaga is your weed man, and your weed man is a no moon. In the solemn tradition of all witches and wildmen, 40% of what they say is straight bullshit, 50% comes to them in an ecstatic haze, and the other 30% is posting about catgirls. This is fine and Luna glorifies it. Mortals are always like, “the No Moon is our fiercest protector. The No Moon eats our children for no reason. The No Moon is as venerable as the land. The No Moon rolls in our garbage when they think we aren’t looking.” This is also fine. Ideal bondmate: someone who is just as gross and self-aware of it, like a necromancer maybe or a lawyer.

casteless: the anarchist other anarchists are a little embarrassed by. like, can you even picture Sun Wukong cringing? a casteless lunar could accomplish this feat. I’m loathe to even continue this because to categorize them would be to commit an atrocious sin against that which bares teeth at division and description. a true vers. we should all be so lucky. there is no possible ideal bondmate for this creature, another exalt would only hold them back, Tula the Reaver, Please Return My Calls

#exalted #raiposting

[ninthprime]

list of players who should fall onto the houston spies during fall ball (according to me)

rigby friedrich: i'm very amused by this "sporgias phenomenon" we're seeing, where two of our three falls so far have been former georgias. so i'd like to propose rigby, a player whose primary espionage skill is "oh fuck he's approaching me, oh god, oh fuck"

kaz fiasco: during the late expansion era some of the spies joked that it was inevitable we would someday receive kaz, as his pgr is "spying." perhaps now is the time.

sexton wheeler and/or mcdowell mason: look, i love sad horse man and the sasquatch captain as much as anyone, but can you imagine them learning spy skills? hysterical. i would like to see at least one of them, preferably both, in trenchcoats

phineas wormthrice: i need to see phinny interacting with nanci grackle's muppets. more importantly, it would be funny.

peanut bong: it would be funny.

lowe forbes: this might be even funnier

sutton bishop: also extremely funny

jessica telephone: though somewhat controversial, here's my reasoning: it would be, in the end, pretty funny

niq nyong'o: this one's just inevitable- now that nanci's on the team the sim is obviously going to curse niq with having to put up with hir again. the sporgias phenomenon continues. also, i like her.

mohammed picklestein: this one's cheating because mohammed was already a spies player, but 1. they're one of my favorites and 2. can you imagine noted blaseball safety expert mohammed picklestein on the same team as notoriously unethical nanci grackle?

at least one other blaseball scientist: niq and mo are the scientists i'd like the most, but really i just need at least 3 or 4 scientists/inventors/etc on this team. unfortunately the sim has already taken haruta byrd and mooney doctor from me as options but we've got a lot more. how about zion aliciakeyes? pedro davids? felix garbage? mint shupe? mullen peterson? maybe jomgy rolsenthal moves back to houston? maybe eve mcblase moves back?? whatever makes the vibes a little funky around here.

knight triumphant: last time knight was a spy they saw multiple people die and seemingly got cursed to wander the league. this time, they're going to have to put up with nanci grackle. and frankly: it's what they deserve

harriet gildehaus: i rest my case

isaac johnson: spies unionize! that's my argument. that and we need someone with defense on this team please i'm begging

tad seeth: i believe the spies always need a "spynosaurus" present somewhere on our roster

axel cardenas: imagine you were one of the worst blaseball players ever. and you've been jumping between the shadows of various teams. and you decide the best way to get a fresh start is to get onto the same team as your daughter and your younger siblings. and then you get to houston, and none of them are there, and the stadium is filled with necromanced muppets, and now you gotta learn how to read ciphers. hideous. anyway i love this guy and i'd like to see him

richmond harrison: i think richmond should be on every team, to improve the vibes of the league as a whole

commissioner vapor: this is a spy we just had again but one of the very first things i saw someone say when fall ball was announced was "it's just gonna wimdy us CV again." and frankly? yeah, probably

various other players i don't really have an argument for but it would be fun: ok here's a shortlist: miguel james. wyatt pothos. rafael davids. guy gulp. jaxon buckley. jayden wright. ronan jaylee. gerund pantheocide. mindy salad. coolname galvanic. nagomi nava. beck whitney. thomas dracaena. sandford garner. literally any crab. "crop, are you just listing random players you like now?" look if i keep listing them i'll predict at least one correctly, that's how blaseball works,

#blaseball #long post warning i guess #blaseball personal tag #georgias i don't mean for us to get all your players it's just that you have really good lore

[kathrynalicemc]

Next Gen/HPMA Connections

So everyone is doing this so I figured i would make a new one myself. I did do one recently but it wasnt super in depth and I also made some new kids since. So once again, hmu if you want friends/rivals/dormmates/ships, etc. Im not gonna order by house and instead will order by years. NOTE: Did not include Renee & Rhys Mcclarnon or Lennox Arcano-Thorne as they are shared kids with @thatravenpuffwitch and @endlessly-cursed. Let me know or msg them if you are interested in them!

Dayamanti Arcano - 1994

Gryffindor

Child: Mckenzie Foy Adult: Anne Hathaway

She/her

Sexuality is tbd, offer anyone

Loner, burdened older sister who has to raise her sisters vibes

Just wants to be alone from her sisters for once

Conflicting feelings of secretly wanting to protect them all the time

Blacksmith later in life

Talented at dueling (magical and greatsword), plays quidditch as a chaser

Nessi Lucerne - October 20th, 1996 (hpma)

Slytherin

FC: Cara Delevingne

Half kelpie

She/they

Pansexual

ADHD vibes

Doesn't understand human culture and can seem niave or dumb

Very loud, energetic, friendly. Will make you be her friend

Doesn't really understand people making fun of her

Dafne Arcano - January 5th, 1997 (hpma)

Ravenclaw

Young: Milly Alcock Adult: Julia Almendra(?)

She/her

Lesbian (Shes Taken maybe??)

Depression vibes

Necromancer

Loves dead things and the history lost to time

Bullied for being a freak as a kid so she purposely drives people away by being cold

Secretly loves her friends and is just a nerd

Kiri Amaryllis - July 14th, 1997 (hpma)

Hufflepuff

FC: Elle Fanning

She/her

Asexual (Still feels romantic, but shes Taken already)

Huge Anxiety vibes

Half house elf (4' tall ish)

She was abused by her aunt for her entire childhood so she is very sensitive and has anxiety. Very hard to befriend

Loves plants and uses them for healing later in life

Might steal any misc trinket or garbage you have (buttons, paperclips, etc)

Siv Arcano-Thorne - December 2nd, 2000

Slytherin

FC: Hailee Steinfeld

She/her

Lesbian

Takes after her dad Kaari in being reckless and bold. Not gryffindor because she will do anything she wants to get what she wants. Including breaking rules and crime. Doesn't take shit from anyone

Loves dragons. Has an antipodean opaleye named Zepheline

Plays quidditch as a chaser

Loves pizza, rock and roll 80's music, old trucks

Dragonologist later in life. Also becomes a vigilante to stop dragon fighting rings and egg black markets

Mikael Arcano-Thorne - 2002

Ravenclaw

FC: Ethan Peck

He/him

Sexuality tbd; offer any

Huge nerd like his cousin Dafne. Except he loves ancient languages, runes included

Talented linguist

Plays quidditch as a seeker or keeper most likely?

Least of the Arcano cousins to want to fight but is trained with a sword

Soft spoken, quiet, kind

Dielle Arcano - 2002

Hufflepuff

Child: Freya Allen Adult: Morfyyd Clark

She/her

Sexuality tbh; offer any

The baby of the 3 Arcano sisters, was young when their parents died

Pure heart and takes care of others first

Healer and her gift gives her forcefield shields to protect

Trained with a bow

Secretly wants to prove herself to her sisters that she isnt a little girl anymore and can be badass and a leader

#hpma #magic awakened #arcano next gen #arcano family #dayamanti arcano #dafne arcano #nessi lucerne #kiri amaryllis #siv arcano thorne #mikael arcano thorne #dielle arcano

[utilitycaster]

I've been toying with the idea of a wizard with the solider background, and I was caught between War Magic and Abjuration. I feel like I saw a post where you weren't keen on War Magic as a subclass. Can I ask why? Also I'm assuming you'd recommend Abjuration over it lol

Ok short answer first, longer answer with general thoughts on D&D mechanics that goes far beyond the scope of this question below:

The features of War Magic are not very good. Any wizard class outside of the 8 main schools has a significant hit to spell copying (the lack of <school of magic savant>) that really should be made up for by the class being very good or having abilities that other wizards do not. Not only does War Magic not exceed other wizard classes; I think it is way worse. Arcane deflection is free but it limits you to cantrips; the bonus to initiative is fine but honestly as a wizard it's often to your advantage to go a bit later in the round anyway and also chronurgy gets this and like, good other features; and power surge is fucking terrible. Power surge only works if you're battling other magic users. If you're wandering around the wilderness fighting owlbears? you aren't dispelling or counterspelling, your power surge is 1, and you are doing literally 10 or fewer extra force damage like once a day. At L6 transmutation wizards get a whole magic rock granting all kinds of great benefits; evokers can overcome the usual "saves mean no damage" on cantrips; abjurers have a magical ward of probably 15-17 HP for themselves and others; and you get to do like 5 points force damage once a day unless you happen to run across something that needs dispelling and you succeed in dispelling it, a thing that abjuration wizards get a bonus to but you do not. This is a garbage feature and whoever made it should feel bad. Durable magic is like, fine, and deflecting shroud is like, well, I guess you're getting something out of only casting cantrips, but most campaigns end before L10 let alone 14. Abjuration meanwhile lets you legitimately be a tank AND it's cheaper to cast counterspell AND your tanking capabilities do not cost you the chance to cast real-ass spells, the thing that you presumably became a wizard for. (This is also why I think bladesinging is stupid. If you are playing a wizard you are here to have the biggest spell list in the book, the ability to learn as many of those spells as you can get your hands on; and to be full of hubris. If you are here for any other reason, leave.)

More tangential answer

First I want to repeat what I said above: most campaigns don't make it past L7 or 8, if you start at 2 or 3. Plan accordingly. That does not mean you can't strive for cool L10 or 14 or 18 features or whatever, but those lower level features are probably the only payoff you're getting. (If you're playing a high-level one shot or starting at L10 or something, then you can disregard obviously, but war magic still sucks).

You don't need to limit yourself to abjurer or war magic simply because of the soldier background. The quick builds in the PHB are nice for beginners but they can also serve to round out a character in interesting ways. If you're a soldier who became a wizard...might you have been an evoker who could do major damage while sparing your troops? might you have been a transmutation wizard, casting haste on your allies? A necromancer, summoning undead armies? An illusion wizard, tricking the enemy? A divination wizard, guaranteeing your success in battle? A graviturgist or chronurgist, rending time and space themselves to shape the battlefield and outcomes?

I've said this before: I usually pick class first and I make the character around that. I feel a lot of the mechanics questions I get are because people made an OC and then decided to play them in D&D. And to be clear that is fine, but that means that you started with the open-ended question that you now need to shove into a pre-determined box, instead of starting with the set list of options and some vague flexible ideas and then getting creative from a starting point. So anyway: I think picking a subclass you genuinely want to play first and then constructing the character around it is often the superior option to coming up with a character and then looking for subclasses that might support that.

And then, finally: the reason war magic sucks is that it isn't very good at doing what it's trying to do. A lot of subclasses people say aren't very good are actually very good, but they aren't good at pure damage. This is why people have long said bards and rangers are weaker classes despite them both being very high utility; it's because a bard doing a great job might not deal a single point of damage in the fight, and people don't respect the value of heals and buffs. War magic though, is not very good at actually doing extra damage (power surge is, as discussed, meager at best) and the shielding you can do to yourself comes at the cost of you being able to deal damage effectively. It nerfs itself. You'd be better served by like...playing a dwarf so you have armor proficiency, or taking a level in cleric to cast shield of faith, or taking lightly armored or elemental adept or tough/durable or metamagic adept and playing another wizard subclass, and you'd achieve either the higher AC or higher damage output without constantly having to balance the risks and benefits.

#d&d mechanics

[wikifido]

Prologue (Seven Months Ago)

Special Thanks to @gullethead for the work on the Cholitan Language used here and throughout the story. Mwaxanare feels the encroaching claustrophobia of the heavily modified walls of the underground pathways of the once grand Choiltan palace; aside from the occasional glimpse of a Quetzalcoatl carving or words written in the near-extinct Choiltan script, the palace was unrecognizable as a relic of her family's past. 

She had seen these sights through the waters of the Llōcpenhampōzpōapintop, an ancient urn shaped divination tool, as Duvanith and her Adventuring Company had worked their way down to the source of the Curse. The destruction, the wonton violation of the palace, felt all the more real standing in its halls than viewing it through the visions provided through the urn’s illusory waters. 

“Your Majesty,” a small voice cuts through her visual search for more secrets paneled over by the Magus behind the Curse, one she assumed to be Anghagros, known to many by the name he foisted upon himself during the destruction of Choilt’s one time Capital ‘The Great Destroyer’. 

It was her new Court Necromancer, a green-skinned goblin in an elaborate purple coat, Doctor Archibald Clokz. “We can’t spend an eternity on every floor, the protection charm only has four hours on it, and it’s strongest at the start.”

Mwaxanare knew that he was right, and that the halls of the palace weren’t as welcoming to her as they may have once been; she knew she was stalling though there was so much unknown below them, knowing the things that had come after she brushed away the illusory images of Duvanith in the palaces deepest depths, she was pretty sure she knew what she would find. 

A week afterward, she had seen a Bauhinia bush begin to bud; it was the first sign she had seen that Duvanith and her Company had succeeded, and a month and a half later, the first Choiltan child to be born alive since the curse began. Upon reaching the third month, it became evident that Duvanith wouldn’t come stumbling out of the jungle with the Chalice in her hand like the ending to every one of the garbage romance paperbacks written about this sort of thing. 

That’s because this was real life, and even if it was fantasy, the happy ending was the end of the Curse, as opposed to her Champion’s return. 

She walks on, subconsciously moving her hand as though to clear her long hair from an obstacle, once again forgetting she had cut it months ago just after she and her army had driven the Imperials from Port Currington’s shore, or now as it was known correctly as Neparāticue once again. 

If there was one thing that she could be sure of, the Curse had bolstered her ability to take back the Port; between a terrible local harvest and what she assumed was a bad harvest in the Empire, she almost felt bad for the sheer violence her army was able to muster on the Imperial Regiment. 

Almost. 

The sound of bones clattering together echoes off the walls around her; she turns to look at Clokz again, but before she can say anything, he answers her question. 

“Strong readings for Crone Magic.” He removes a small trinket from the inside of his coat, four small bones linked together with a cord. They writhe and wriggle as a snake would, generating a much softer bone-clattering sound, suggesting the first was likely magically amplified; the Necromancer drops the token to the floor. It clatters into a pile and then moves along the floor like an inchworm, away from them.

“Do we follow it?” Mwaxanare says, assuming that it was making its way toward the source of its detection. Clokz puts on a skeptical look and waves his hand in the direction of its travel. 

“Ladies first, your majesty.”  

Mwaxanare rolls her eyes, places her hand on the grip of her macuahuitl, and follows the eerie clatter of bones. 

Clokz, from the moment she had met him, was a bit put off by Crone Magic. He says it doesn’t follow the understood rules of Magic, that there’s something innate, twisted, about the Crones that wield it that make them capable of things that normal learned Magus simply aren’t. She wasn’t sure if Clokz was merely superstitious or just frustrated that the Crones likely kept whatever rules their magic ran on very secret. Though given that Memāxaxīm had attempted to curse them ‘never to step foot in Choilt again’ and they simply worked around it by enchanting their feet away, perhaps they were some unique Magic at play. 

The clattering stops, and a fetid stench hits Mwaxanare’s nose. 

In front of her was a chamber, the very chamber she had brushed away from the Llōcpenhampōzpōapintop’s enchanted waters during Duvanith’s struggle with the Crones. 

“I gotta assume this is how a Coven lair always smells,” Clokz announces, making his way around the edges of the chamber and peering into vials and opening containers curiously. 

Mwaxanare’s eyes scan around the room, lingering on each of the bodies of the Crones and finding a flash of pink on the figure in the middle. Mwaxanare feels her heart skip, and she moves to the slumped mess draped in dirty cloaks.

A pressed pink orchid, the flower Mwaxanare had given Duvanith on the morning she had set out to Tēntāmtāxi to dive the Tombs below the Palace. The day after, Duvanith stole a kiss from her, as impossible as it was to steal something that she was desperately trying to give anyways. 

As she begins to lean over to pick up the flower, her foot meets something hard underneath the Crones cloak, letting out the unmistakable sound of metal scraping on stone. After plucking the orchid off the Crones cloak, she flips the section concealing the metal object over.

There, staring back at her with its masterfully worked vacuous eye sockets, was the Skull Chalice of Ichillhez. She picks it up by its jewel-encrusted stem and rises; from the corner of her eye, she sees a flat-soled set of adventuring boots with rounded heel and toe areas—her heart craters. 

‘Only one adventurer stubborn enough to wear those thirty days through the jungle.’ She thinks to herself, stepping towards Duvaniths body. As it comes into view, she lets out a surprised yelp, Chalice crashes to the floor, and her hand shoots up to cover her mouth. 

Clokz’s footsteps quickly draw him to her side, likely concerned about a trap the Crones had laid or a temporary failure of his protection charm.  

“Do you think we’ll be able to bring her back?” Mwaxanare asks quietly through her hand

“Your Majesty, I’m a Necromancer, not a fucking brain surgeon,” Clokz says, motioning at Duvaniths body, his hand lingering over the crushed mess that had once been her head. 

Mwaxanare exhales, fighting tears back for a moment. 

“Well, we’re going to try,” she says, emotions riding in her voice. She feels her hand enveloped by both of Clokz’s.

“I’ll try, but there are no promises.” 

Mwaxanare takes a sharp breath. Clokz pats her hand a few times before releasing it and says. 

“I’ll,” he pauses. “Give you some time.” 

Mwaxanare watches him walk to the corner of the room and begin levitating things out from in front of a seemingly barricaded door. She watches him for far too long, not wanting to turn her head back to face the body of her Champion. 

Anghagros was a Magus; most Magus didn’t kill like this. 

This was personal.

This was a vendetta. 

He didn’t want Duvanith to come back, which was why Mwaxanare needed to ensure she got her back. 

She picks up the Chalice as the door Clokz had been working to free creaks open. 

“Mwaxanare, you’re not gonna fucking believe this.” a level of bewilderment in his voice. 

She wipes a few latent tears away.

“Coming.”

#fiction writing #original character #fiction #fantasy #dieselpunk #dungeons and dragons #short story #ttrpg stuff #ttrpg community #worldbuilding #writeblr

[starstuffandalotofcoffee]

I am so glad that the notes on that post are "this is transparently about The Locked Tomb and you're correct, lesbian necromancers in space is a garbage description but the books go hard."

What's funniest though is that while the first book, Gideon the Ninth, does technically have more than one necromancer; at least one necromancer is a lesbian and several others are ambiguously either lesbian or bi women; and they do all spend some time in space; the main lesbian character isn't a necromancer and most of the book occurs planetside. Like, it's not just a terrible blurb for a good book... it's also not even correct.

[iviarellereads]

Harrow the Ninth, Chapter 44

(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For detail on The Locked Tomb coverage and the index, read this one!)

(Herald icon) In which an old friend is back... sort of.(1)

THAT SAME NIGHT BEFORE THE EMPEROR'S MURDER

There's some description, in second-person, of the stabbing inflicted upon her in the prologue.

You'd been stabbed from behind, and you'd collapsed backward onto the rapier's hilt. Its foible(2) pointed upward where it protruded from your torso. And you'd gone and left me behind.

Our unnamed but obviously identified(3) body-animation algorithm pushes the rapier back out of Harrow's body, and she plans to make whoever stabbed Harrow sorry for the act. Her hands can't quite grip the rapier the way she wants to, because her hands aren't her hands, they're Harrow's. Gideon swears vengeance on whoever stabbed her Harrow, in the corridor so hot the air is shimmering.

Pool of blood: check. Air so hot: check. Surrounded by big and illicit bones: check. Looking at your hand to keep this tally--what hand there was, beneath the blood, and your fingers, and your small palms, and their absolute lack of thenar(4) muscle--reality went through me. Kind of like a big iron railing, now that I think about it.(5) You were gone. You'd left me behind.(6) Inside you. "Fuck," I said. It wasn't my voice. "Fuck. Oh, shit. Oh, fucking hell. Help. Yuck. Aaaargh."

Gideon encounters a herald in the corridor, and several paragraphs are spent describing its horror.

I lined up your front foot with your back ankle, thumb wrapped low around the hilt of your sword, which proves that you can put the swordfighter into the necromancer but you can't, wait, hang on.(7) And I said, "Goddamn it, I told you to lift weights."

After an encounter that goes badly for Gideon and Harrow's body, she manages to squeeze past it and into Harrow's bedroom.

I burst into the nearest room. The bedroom. I kind of knew the layout, but I'd never really been able to use your eyes. Living inside you--if I start I'll never stop,(8) so we have to move on--was like living in a well, and every time I bobbed to the surface I kind of got clotheslined(9) back down to the bottom. I'm not complaining, I just want you to know.

There, she retrieves her old two-hander. Looking at it, she gets cranky at Harrow for not understanding how to care for a sword.(10) Then she gets cranky at Harrow for doing her own brain surgery rather than be beholden to anyone, for taking Gideon's sacrifice and throwing it away. Then she gets cranky at Harrow AGAIN for not doing a single fucking squat or star jump(11) in ten months.

As I stood with that sword grasped between your hands, the hilt of the two-hander bit our(12) skin, but not fatally. There were a couple of callouses now on those soft necromancer's palms, and I was proud of you.(13)

Gideon engages the Herald, and some sort of healing process is definitely happening for her in a way it never did for Harrow, "probably because [Gideon is] a good girl and [Harrow is] an evil nun".(14)

She takes out the Herald, and catches a glance at herself in the mirror, seeing Harrow's face, with her own golden eyes so foreign to it. She tries different facial expressions, but they don't feel right in Harrow's musculature. It's Harrow's body, "but it was all filled up with me."

I said hoarsely: "Get back here. Get back here right now, or I'll make you say the worst shit I can think of. Just mean and gross. Beneath even me, is what I'm saying." No response. "Oooooh, Palamedes. I am measurably less intelligent than you. Put your tongue in my mouth, and I'll flop my tongue against it." Nothing. "I think bones are mediocre." Maybe you were dead. "Ohhhhhrr, Gideon, I was so dumb to think a tub of ancient freezer meat was my girlfriend. Please show me how to do a press-up. Also, I'm very obviously attracted to y--no, damn it, this is just sad.(15) This is garbage." My temper was going. Maybe your temper was going. "Come back. I hate this. Eat me, and let's go full Lyctor. I didn't fall on a fence for this, Nonagesimus."

More Heralds start to show up. Gideon realizes that she now has access to Harrow's memories, though she has to actively look for something to know it, as she realizes more were always going to come. She hopes and wants and practically prays for Harrow to return, but no luck.

"Whenever you're ready," I said. "Don't worry, honey. I'll keep the home fires burning."(16)

=====

(1) In this, the first chapter in Harrow the Ninth in which Harrow does not appear! I keep my tags for the book in a pinned entry in my Windows clipboard and it was so strange to have to delete #Harrowhark Nonagesimus from the tags after pasting, and then type #Gideon Nav (2) Foible - in fencing, the part of the sword between the middle of the blade and the tip, one of the weakest points in the sword. (3) Gideon! (4) The thenar muscles are the ones that make up the meat below your thumb, on your palm. (5) Gideon, you cheeky lass. You remembered! (6) Somehow Gideon has been witness to everything that's happened to Harrow, and still believes that Harrow doesn't want her. She can't read Harrow's thoughts, she can only see through her senses, just like Harrow couldn't read Gideon's thoughts in the Lyctor chamber at Canaan House. She can't see the motivation, and she has eighteen years, a lifetime's worth, of memories that say Harrow opposite-of-cares about her. The last few weeks of connection doesn't quite overpower the things Gideon still believes about herself, thanks to a lifetime of traumatic conditioning. (7) Ah, a classic phrase. For real though, I don't think there's a single origin, but more or less, you can take the thing out of its element but you can't make it change its nature. See examples like "you can take the mathematician out of the classroom but you can't make them stop calculating the golden ratio in the garden flowers" (not a thing I've ever heard before but given how many videos and essays there are about the golden ratio in nature, it felt appropriate). Not to be mistaken for "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink", which is more about not being able to force someone to do something they're uncomfortable with even when it would be good for them. (8) Laughing, crying, making jokes? All of the above? (9) It's kind of a wrestling move. Someone's running at you, you stick out an arm, run toward them, catch them in the neck, and bowl them backward with your and their combined momentum. Do not attempt at home without professional wrestling trainer supervision! (10) You never actually told her, and even if someone tried to teach her, she'd just have started throwing up and bleeding from her brain at the thought of caring for the sword that she thought hated her. (11) Jumping jacks, for those of us in the sort of North American region. (12) The jump back and forth between "your" and "our", between Harrow as an individual and Gideon as a part of her… My heart can't take it. (13) And this. Gideon believes that Harrow has abandoned her intentionally, but she's still proud of her. I just. MY EMOTIONS! (14) Or perhaps Gideon's return means that the Lyctoral process continues, making Harrow a full Lyctor, and the healing factor is what she was supposed to have had all along but had to actively fake. (See: when Ianthe stabbed herself and then Harrow at the beginning of the book.) (15) Gideon can't even let herself believe that Harrow cared about her. Never mind that Harrow put Gideon on what she thought was the easy mission (walking the Fourth kids through the facility) so that Harrow took the dangerous one (possibly confronting Palamedes and "Dulcinea" about being the killers) at Canaan House. Never mind all the other things. Again, a lifetime of conditioning compared to a few weeks of honesty and connection. (16) And even believing that Harrow has abandoned her, has wasted her gift and sacrifice, and outright doesn't care about her wellbeing... Gideon still does this. She still makes flirty, too-emotionally-revealing statements like this. She still loves Harrow so much.

#the locked tomb #tlt #harrow the ninth #htn #harrow the ninth spoilers #htn spoilers #gideon nav

[sevilemar]

I've just come back from another DnD session I co-GMed with a player and friend. We have been co-GMing for a few sessions now, ever since our party arrived at this refugee city.

We talked about our ideas for the city twice, and created a rough plot outline and who-does-what, as well as the idea of a GM PC that is played by whoever is not narrating at the time. I went home and made a character sheet for him, prepared my encounters, and then we just went for it.

It is awesome! The first session, we changed after the break and stuck to it, but the next session in the city proper, we started switching back and forth more seemlessly, adding little details to each other's narration, taking over NPCs the other made on the spot, surprising each other with backstory facts for our GM PC (which he named Orange because I completely forgot to put a name on the sheet), etc.

Today, for example, I described three teenagers who went through the tent city outside the city wall and disappeared the garbage that was left there with a wand (it's Eberron). A player was interested and started a conversation, and then my co-GM came up with two other kids who searched the garbage for salvable scraps of metal because they were working at Master Bremford's forge, and thus, the New Cyre Garbage Wars were born.

My co-GM added a third party to it because it fit with an idea he had a few months back for a little sideplot. The players took the hook, he improvised the fuck out of it, and now our party apparently wants to create a scrap vendor imperium in New Cyre. Or a drug cartel. Or both.

I love developing the city with him like this, and I love the little surprises we gift each other. I also love his creative ideas. I had a new idea for the overarching story yesterday evening (which he doesn't know because he'll probably go back to being a player when we leave the city), and I needed him to include a few key information in his parts of the story. I tried to describe what I needed in an email, but it's a very limited way of communication, and also really short notice.

He came up with a way to let me as Orange describe it instead, in a way that fit the lore we already established, and also the villain they are currently collecting information on. And he didn't make it cheap for the players either, letting them choose how many valuable ressources they would spent on it. I had no idea, and I tried to make it as big and significant as I could, which was a lot of fun*.

After the session, one of the players implied that we must have really good communication going on behind the scenes, which baffled both of us. Because like I said, we talked twice about general ideas, and send maybe two emails with a short request or clarification. He didn't even know what kind of subclass or specialisation I chose for Orange, until I handed him the character sheet and the spell cards at the table. I didn't know his name or how he looked until he introduced himself to the other players. I'm glad we're on the same page about it, though, because it suddenly makes GMing a lot more fun for me^^

*If you're curious about the specifics: The villain is a Necromancer who visited the camp our heroes are in atm three years ago. After a desastrous expedition into the Mournland, the residents of the camp back then took some of her research and asked her to leave. My co-GM told the party that Orange had read her research back then, promptly forgot it, and the writing also vanished after he read it. Then he told them that a charge from their Salve of Greater Restoration would make Orange remember one piece of research. The salve has ten charges, and it was given to them as a ressource to use when they travel to the Mournlands, a cursed land where flesh beings cannot survive for long. They decided to use two charges, and I made a list and let them roll what they would get. And because it was a steep price, I took great care to make it good, helpful information, too. Also, I gave my best 'possessed writing' act at the table, because it's fun^^

#dungeons and dragons #dungeons & dragons #dnd #gming #co-gming #first time gm