the-french-belphegor

[the-french-belphegor]

I don't know why I tend to draw Percy the least than the rest of Vox Machina? He's fun to draw, even if figuring out collars and coats is hard. One of these days I'll try to take a leaf out of Hugo Pratt's book, he strikes me as a face who'd do well with Corto Maltese's nose and jaw.

(GLASSES, though. They're hard to draw 😭)

#critical role #the legend of vox machina #vox machina #percival de rolo #fanart #percival frederickstein von musel klossowski de rolo iii #pencils then markers

[the-french-belphegor]

Just because I draw a LOT of the big and his smalls (especially Scanlan) doesn't mean I don't love team half-elf and human, especially Vex. Every now and then I get the itch to draw her, hence this little doodle sketched during my lunch break and posted hurriedly before I go back to work!

She's probably heard something (and she doesn't trust it one bit, but what else is new. God I love her so much though 💖)

#vex'ahlia #critical role #vox machina #the legend of vox machina #fanart #pencils then markers

[the-french-belphegor]

Has it really been two months since I last posted art here!? Wow. Well, good news, I'm still here! (and still COMPLETELY overwhelmed by the response to my last drawing. I mean, good LORD O.o) I'm just throwing my whole self (almost :D) into DMing a solo campaign for me and the Best Beloved, only next session is going to have three PCs instead of one for possibly a one-shot, so I gotta step up! Homebrewing a world and planning sessions is taking up a lot of my free time. That, plus writing fic (or trying to). BUT. Don't go imagining that I don't have these three on my brain at all times 💜💜💜 And since I really like faking watercolours, there you go! My favourite family 🥰

(small friends, big love ^^)

#critical role #vox machina #pike trickfoot #grog strongjaw #scanlan shorthalt #the legend of vox machina #(sorta) #GIMP #fanart

[the-french-belphegor]

Making my way (makinmawaayy) through my @critter-genfic-events bingo card, and this one's filling the "fights" slot! Or rather, "post-fight", which they told me works as well. Also it's set way before the start of the stream, when they're all more acquaintances and travelling companions than the friends and family we see later. They're already buds, though, for the most part.

Posting it on AO3 ASAP Now on AO3! Hope Tumblr doesn't hide the post from the tags! 🤞

(oh yeah, side note: I do know that concentration-based spells get dropped when you either don’t roll high enough to maintain it or when you take too much damage – like both invisibility spells do in DnD. But I liked the idea of being so concussed you don’t remember how to drop a spell :3)

—

Scrambled

Scanlan is pretty sure someone’s calling his name in the distance with a certain amount of worry. It’s okay, he thinks but doesn’t say. He’s gonna get back up any time now. He’s fine.

(Scanlan is more than fine, Scanlan is a godsdamn snack, thank you very much.)

In fact, he might even go as far as to let the word drag, let some notes slide a little: fiiiine. Four ‘i’s should about do it.

(Heh, four ‘i’s. Four eyes. That’s Percy. Where’s Percy?)

So, to recap, Scanlan is fine as hell, and he’s okay because he’s always okay, even with a headache so bad he’s pretty sure his brain is leaking out of his ears. Won’t check, though, that might be gross and his stomach isn’t doing too well either at the moment. Barfing while lying on your back? Yeah, no, bad idea. Of all the ways to die, drowning in his own puke is probably around number… sixty-eight.

Sixty-nine would be, of course, a particularly ill-advised tumble with someone with an ungodly number of teeth and a taste for blood, preferably that of a gnome with more curiosity than sense. As always with sex stuff with consenting adults, though, Scanlan isn’t willing to completely dismiss the idea.

Might be fun to try someday, who knows.

When he’s less tired.

Why’s everything swimming?

Actually asking out loud is out of the question, since for some reason his voice can’t even make it out of his throat, let alone his mouth –

(oh fuck no, if I can’t sing I’m toast, if I can’t play I’m dead, if I can’t talk we’re done)

– so at the price of an effort so bad he almost upchucks everything since the invention of breakfast Scanlan pivots his head juuuust a little to the left.

And sees nothing.

Well, no, not exactly. He sees yellowing grass, some dirt, a bit of sky. But nothing where his shoulder should be, or the rest of him.

…Oh yeah. He made himself invisible a while back. Somewhere between Tiberius’ Fireball, Vex’s arrows, and Percy’s pepperbox and its more-or-less controlled explosions. (Or maybe Percy went before him. Right before the world got very loud, very fast, and then very quiet. Somehow there’s a connection between this and that.) Dropping the invisibility looks like a really good idea, if only Scanlan could remember how. As things stand, he can barely remember to breathe. Oh, and also that the warm stickiness soaking up the back of his head and seeping into his collar is Not A Good Thing – not that there’s a lot he can do about that.

Things are rather quiet now. He must’ve missed the end of the fight.

Seriously, though, where’s Percy? Scanlan can’t hear the usual blasts and somewhere in the shattered mess that is his brain there’s a nagging inkling that it’s a bad sign. Or maybe there’s something else poking at the edges of his mind, he doesn’t know. He’s not exactly up to turning stuff over in his head at the moment. Turning his head was hard enough.

He’s just gonna… chill there for a while. Rest his eyes a little bit.

Which is why he doesn’t spot Vex running over until she drops to a crouch next to him and squashes his hand with her knee for five seconds.

Vex’ahlia is sharp eyes, sharp aim, sharp words, sharp everything. Her knees are no exception. Ow.

“Shit shit shit, fucking shitballs,” Scanlan hears her mutter under her breath as her hands find his head with uncanny precision considering she can’t see him. Her ‘t’s are beautifully defined, her vowels clear and precise. It’s a pity she sings so rarely; most performers would kill to have her diction.

“PIKE!” she yells over her shoulder. “OVER HERE!”

Pike, echoes the part of Scanlan’s mind that’s still functional. It would have been a small, pitiful yearning sound if he’d been able to speak. Thank goodness the word doesn’t pass his lips as is. It’s frankly a little scary just how the thought of her – the first in a while that doesn’t feel fractured in some way – quietens the part of him that’s not watching the proceedings with a detached interest. Pike is fun to flirt with and try to charm; she’s beautiful and radiant and strong, anyone with an appreciation for the female form can see that, so it’s not so surprising that Scanlan always feels drawn to her like a sunflower to sunshine. It’s so easy to let himself get starry-eyed over her, even if she’s so completely out of his league it bypasses sad and goes straight into funny. Scanlan probably is in love with her, a little bit, like he’s a little bit in love with everyone. Just… sometimes… sometimes when he calls her the love of his life he’s not sure he’s joking.

The nausea and the waves of blinding pain relent a little.

Pike?

No, Scanlan corrects himself, Vex, who when he manages to focus for more than a second finds his gaze and holds it. Unerringly.

Which must mean… the hour is up. The spell must be wearing off.

Huh.

“There you are,” says Vex, residual magic still shimmering in her fingers after her low-level Cure Wounds. She must really be tapped out.

There is blood in her hair and one of her feathers is bent at the stem, but the most telling cue that the fight went wrong is the brittle quality of her smile. She’s good at putting up a front, almost as good as Scanlan; insight isn’t Scanlan’s forte, let alone when his head feels like it’s just been cracked open like an egg, but sometimes seeing Vex’ahlia slice her way through life like a knife, just as sharp and just as shiny, is like staring into a warped mirror.

She’s good.

He’s better.

(Usually.)

“How’d you find me?” he croaks.

Vex draws back the hand she was using to prop herself with a couple of inches from his head. Her palm is coated with red.

“Head wounds, darling. They tend to bleed rather a lot.” She cocks her head to the side. “How did you even end up all the way here in the first place?”

Scanlan’s memories still feel like a scattered jigsaw, but at least now the pieces are right side up. What he puts together isn’t very glorious. Getting punted into a rock by a giant who only heard you and who was supposed to go down easily isn’t anything to brag about. At least he can always quip about it.

“Well,” he wheezes out with a grin that might work better without the blood in his teeth, “I got got.”

Then he remembers why the giant whirled round blindly and whacked him with his club. He’d been out of any useful magic, trying to sneak up on it with a fucking sword, of all things, because the big dumb fucknut had somehow gotten hold of—

“Shit, Percy – where’s Percy?”

Vex’s own smile gets wry and just a little shaky at the corner.

“He got got,” she says. There’s a story there, but at least Vex doesn’t look like it ended in tragedy. Instinctively Scanlan relaxes into his headache. “Don’t worry, though. Pike reached him in time and Grog and Keyleth got the giant.”

Oh. Good. Percival Freakystein von Mussels Colossal de Rolo III is one scary motherfucker with his pepperbox and his glasses and his devastating one-liners, but he’s still squishy as hell. Plus, well, he’s so young – Scanlan is fairly sure he’s twice, maybe three times older. The kid must be, what, mid-twenties tops? That’s way too young to die, especially having experienced so little of what the world has to offer. Scanlan would bet anything the stuck-up nerd has never taken anyone to bed, for the gods’ sake.

They’re all assholes, in the SHITs, sort of (except Pike, of course, and probably Keyleth too) but Scanlan likes them. If the universe suddenly decides that an asshole has to get killed today, he’d rather it be him rather than one of the others.

Still, nobody needs to know that.

“Worry, me? Please, I never worry.”

“I know you don’t, darling. I’m just updating you on what you missed while you were having a kip.”

Vex’s tone is even, her words light, and yet when Scanlan meets her gaze it’s like crossing blades. Somehow it also feels like grasping hands in reassurance and honestly it unnerves him a little. He prefers to know where they stand, and usually he does: he’ll downplay close calls and tell lewd jokes to alleviate the tension, while she’ll be sarcastic and magnificent and not call him out on his lies on the occasion she sees through them. But sometimes she reminds him that both twins are like blades, swift and sharp in more than one way, and in some of them she’s the sharpest. Gods, she’s terrifying.

He’s saved from having to retort something by the metallic rustle of ring mail over heavy cotton as Pike rushes up to him. Perspiration left traces in the dirt smudged across her face and her dark hair is mussed, whole locks coming out of her braided bun. She smells like sweat and leather and a little like wild strawberries, and she’s the most beautiful thing Scanlan’s ever seen.

Pike doesn’t lose a second with platitudes; she just gives him a very professional once-over, almost clinical in its efficiency, then cups his face with her hands with a look of intense concentration, eyes closed. The healing spell she pours into him feels so potent it’s practically an out-of-body experience. For a couple of seconds all Scanlan feels is warmth, clean and bright and fierce, and when he opens eyes he doesn’t remember closing his ears are still ringing.

Although that might be the blood loss.

Which would also neatly explain how weak he still is, especially when Pike’s face goes soft.

“You okay?” she asks quietly.

There are so many answers he could give her.

I am now – with a wink and a nod.

I want to have your babies – with a theatrical gesture that will make her laugh.

I am if you are – with his heart in a smile. (NOPE.)

“I’m always okay,” Scanlan finally says with a grin, hoping for an echo.

Which he gets, so points to him for being awesome. Pike Trickfoot should always have a reason to smile.

Vex snorts and somehow still manages to make it sound classy as hell.

“Sure. Which is why the only reason I found you at all was the random pool of blood on the ground thirty feet from where we thought you were. You’re lucky I’m a good tracker.”

“Fair, fair,” he says with a careful nod. “Although that could’ve been from some forest critter that met a grisly end.”

“Please, this much blood, and this fresh? How dumb do you think I am?”

Scanlan sits up on his elbows and counts off on his fingers. “One, that’s gross – two, ‘dumb’ is the last of things that you are and you know it all too well – three, thank you for saving my life – four, that’s still so gross, oh my gods. What’d you do, sniff out my lifeblood?!”

“It was me or Trinket,” says Vex, looking way more smug than she has any right to. “It just so happens I beat him at the game of ‘spot the invisible gnome’. You know, before he dies on us.”

“Oh no. What a loss that would be. Such a young, useful bear, too.”

“How scrambled did your brains get? I meant you, you dick.”

Her peeved expression eases just as quickly as the smugness hardened into a glare, and she smiles at Pike before straightening up and striding off toward the others. Her perfect hips swing subtly as she walks, in an unassuming way Scanlan knows from experience requires a lot of work. He’d find her so hot if she wasn’t so scary.

(Well, he does find her extremely hot, if only because she could break him with either a gesture or a word, but despite popular belief Scanlan Shorthalt isn’t that reckless. Even he can weigh the pros and cons occasionally before deciding that diving in headfirst isn’t a good idea.)

There’s a snort on his right, and his whole world is Pike again.

“I really don’t get your little war on Trinket,” she says, but there’s a twinkle in her eyes.

“When he starts landing actual hits on whatever we’re fighting or even just holding his own more than two minutes, I might reconsider. Right now he’s just a glorified pack mule.”

“He’s plenty useful. He gives the best massages, for one thing. And he’s a good boy.”

I can be a good boy, Scanlan almost retorts, but refrains at the last minute. The lie is too big to work, even as a joke, and he doesn’t like the sliver of truth behind it, like the glint of a blade. So he settles for a fake disgruntled huff and a grin.

Nothing falls off as he picks himself up with Pike’s help, so that’s good news. He just has to suppress a shiver at the congealed blood, now gone cold, that makes the top of his shirt stick to his back. His ponytail is a mess, a clump of matted hair half glued to his neck. Ugh, he hates having to wash blood out of his hair.

His usual armour is back on, though. Pike doesn’t seem to notice the shiver; the look of slight worry she gives him has a general fight-almost-gone-very-bad flavour of ‘are you okay’ to it.

“I am glad you didn’t get scrambled,” she says in a rare mix of bluntness and thoughtfulness that’s uniquely Pike. “You know, for good. I mean, you looked pretty bad there for a moment.”

“Aw, Pikey-pants,” Scanlan says in a singsong voice, “don’t tell me you were worried.”

Pike gives a half shrug, which he feels because she’s thrown one of his arms over her shoulders and is supporting some of his weight.

“Oh well, you know,” she says in an offhand voice, a little high-pitched, “a little? You’re never silent this long, and then Grog and I couldn’t find you, and then Keyleth said she heard the giant hit something with his club, and then—”

“Well, you don’t need to worry about me, okay? Never worry about me.” He smiles, big and toothy, to counter the frown she gets sometimes when he says things like that. “I mean, there’s really no need. I’m awesome! I’m Burt Reynolds!”

This at least gets a smile with the hint of a smirk. Still sweet, though, because Pike could make (and has made) even the bluntest blow feel sweet.

“Esquire.”

Scanlan nods carefully, mock-serious. “Right, right, ‘Esquire’.”

“Shouldn’t forget that bit.”

“No, I should not.”

She smiles at him, sharp but warm, and there it is again – the sudden urge to say something stupid, make a joke, deflect, like raised hackles, because what if she gets the true measure of him? (‘And doesn’t like what she sees’ goes without saying. There’s a reason Scanlan spent the last couple of decades carefully building himself up.)

Being a charismatic bastard means sometimes you can afford to coast on charm alone. He grins and changes the subject, as swift and dextrous as a knife in Vax’s hand, and that’s it. Matters closed.

Honestly, he’d have to be a lot more scrambled than that for it not to work.

“No, Grog, there’s already a troll dick in the bag of holding, we’re not keeping a giant dick as well!”

…Plus there’s always the next distraction. That works, too.

—

(until it doesn’t, but he doesn’t know that yet!)

I started writing this on a whim and then couldn’t decide who I wanted to find Scanlan between Vex, Vax and Pike – so I decided to sort it out with a d20, set the DC at 20 (“hard”, because he’s invisible) and roll a perception check for each member of VM using their proficiencies at level 10 (the earliest character sheets of theirs Critrolestats have). Both Pike and Grog rolled a natural 1 :’( Keyleth and Percy got a 9, and even with +10 and +7 respectively for perception they failed the check; Vax got 26 (rolled a 16 with +10 perception) and then Vex got the same number but by rolling a nat 20! Plus her passive perception is 22, so that makes sense. And she was top of my list anyway, so ^^

(I spun the whump wheel a couple of times, thinking I’d get a good handful of prompts for some short snippets (like <1k words) and then happened on “concussion” and. Well. Someone clearly had a lot of thoughts about that one...)

#critical role #vox machina #scanlan shorthalt #vex'ahlia #pike trickfoot #pikelan #(sorta) #critter genfic bingo #fanfiction

[the-french-belphegor]

I finished my rewatch/relisten of the Vox Machina campaign in mid-December (although I recently re-embarked on the second half of the Chroma Conclave arc hoping season 3 of TLVOM will be announced (released?? 🤞) by the time I reach "A Bard's Lament"). Predictably, I bawled, AGAIN, but by then I'd already been scribbling and sketching ideas for this for... a couple of weeks? Hence the little WIP preview last month.

I'll never shut up about this moment. It's just as beautiful as it's heartbreaking, in- and off-game, especially taking into account all the context of characters/people involved.

Also, bonus, because after I finished sketching that 6th frame I thought a hug was needed.

"You broke my heart." and all of ours as well 💔

#critical role #vox machina #tlovm spoilers #vax'ildan #scanlan shorthalt #liam o'brien #sam riegel #matthew mercer #GIMP #fanart

[the-french-belphegor]

Psst. Hey. You know that very specific trope of slowly and lovingly helping someone remove armour, piece by piece? Generally it's a knights and a page, or just knights (being knights), but you know, something about intimacy, respect, devotion, trust - "I will worship you on my knees and also help you with the twisty fiddly thing you often struggle to get open" and "You are mine (to command) in very specific ways and also I put my trust and my self in your hands". I don't know, it's the first time I get the itch to draw that particular (and probably very niche) thing but it applies to Pikelan particularly well, imo.

Also, well. There are more metaphorical armours and ways to (let oneself/help someone) take it off. removing_armour.xcf goes both ways ;o)

#critical role #scanlan shorthalt #pike trickfoot #pikelan #vox machina #fanart #GIMP

[the-french-belphegor]

Well, 2023 was... busy, mostly. I started a new job in late 2022 and it's taking a looot of my time, which sucks because I've had a looot of ideas for art and fic and not nearly enough time to do them all justice! As you can see by the monthly samples, fandomly speaking my life (and brain and heart) was just taken over by one fandom (especially one ship, and especially one character), which... actually I won't apologise for! Vox Machina and Critical Role gave me so many emotions and fuel for creating stuff (and even playing TTRPG for the first time in my life!!), it's been great. Here's to another year of being unabashedly ridiculous 💜

Links to the drawings:

January | February | March | April

May | June | July | August

September | October | November | December

See you next year! :o)

#retrospective #miscellaneous drawings

[the-french-belphegor]

Don't you love secret Santas? I love a secret Santa! And this year I was assigned one of my favourite people on the internets, @laurelindebear :o) I sent her the drawing on the day (well, eve, but still) and now I'm posting it here!

In major arcana, the Magician symbolises "meetings of the physical and spiritual worlds ("as above, so below"), with one hand pointing towards the sky and the other towards the earth, the divine motive in man". I thought it was the card that might fit Ardeth Bay best: as a Medjai, he is the guardian of lore and the right order of things physical and spiritual. Thought I might add his scimitar, and I struggled with the closed hand around the handle for a while until it occurred to me that I could draw an open hand behind the handle to symbolise the fact that the reason he draws a weapon is always protection, never agression.

Happy Christmas, Laurelinde 💜 And much love to you all!

#the mummy #the mummy films #Ardeth Bay #fanart #GIMP

[the-french-belphegor]

One thing I fully expected episode 115 to do: make me cry. (which it did, despite the fact that I can never manage to cry properly at sad fictional things, goddammit. The absolute exception to it being of course Grave of the Fireflies, which I had to pause because I was sobbing too hard to focus.)

One thing I fully did not expect episode 115 to do: give me so many Keyleth and Scanlan feels.

"I do a potato sack hold on Scanlan. Make sure he's all right."

"I can draw [Ioun's third eye] on you with the remaining remnants. That way you have it there, always." "I love it." "Okay. (I try to draw the outline of the remaining glyph on his head.)"

"Oh Scanlan –" "Did you have a drink?" "Scanlan." "What can we do?" "We can do little arcane cantrips when no one's looking and break the rules a little bit. Of Vasselheim. Just cantrips, though." "You're such a rebel." "I know!"

And of course when Kaylie pulls her father into a hug and "rests her head on [his] shoulder and doesn't say anything."

...I mean, thank goodness for The Search for Grog/Bob and Dalen's Closet because I am Not Ready to say goodbye ;____;

#critical role #vox machina #keyleth #scanlan shorthalt #fanart #doodle #graphite pencils

[the-french-belphegor]

Juuust started ep. 112 (SOON 😭) and wanted a lil' throwback Tuesday (ish) to the aftermath of the pit fiend fight in the City of Brass and Vax planting a big one on Scanlan, upside down Spider-man kiss style 💜 ...Except 1) I cheerfully ignored the fact that they're all in disguise at that point and 2) I could. not. for the life of me figure out volumes and anatomy for an actual "Vax holding Scanlan upside down and then kissing him" drawing ;___; (can you hear the imposter syndrome sing? I sure can!)

And look, Pikelan will always be my first and foremost CR ship for so many reasons (Scanlan and Pike own my heart so bad). But these two... oh, these two. They are the epitome for me of "I love them as friends/I love them as friends and occasional hookups/I love them as lovers/I love them as queerplatonic partners/I love them JUST TOGETHER IN ANY WAY OKAY" 💖

#critical role #vox machina #scanlan shorthalt #vax'ildan #vaxlan #fanart #GIMP

[the-french-belphegor]

Your art is so wonderful! I was wondering if you'd ever do your version of either the Scanlan Resurrection (Where pike gets her true love nat 20) or the Pre Live Stream Pike Resurrection?

Oh goodness, thank you so much!! 💜💜💜

The drawing bug didn't bite around episodes 83 to 85, though that may change anytime - I'm on #110 but I'm working on something from the City of Brass episode. But! I did draw something for Pike's resurrection for my little post-campaign comic Scar Tissue (which I even posted on AO3, that's how proud I am that I managed to do something so ambitious ^^') in which Pike and Scanlan talk scars and (the trauma of) death and resurrection. It's just one frame, here:

(Tumblr is making it blurry whyyyy)

And here's what it looks like without the speech bubbles!

Sometimes you just gotta draw the sad because 1) it drains some out of your system on bad days and 2) it hurts so good on good days.

Those resurrections, man ❤️‍🩹 (also I love that Pike's is in my top three and a half despite the fact that we never even saw it!)

#critical role #vox machina #pikelan #pike trickfoot #scanlan shorthalt #ask reply #fanart #GIMP

[the-french-belphegor]

"I'm playing a young character named Scanlan Shorthalt, who is a gnome bard. Let's say that he's wearing purple. He's wearing tight purple pants and a white shirt, but the shirt is buttoned all... let's say it's buttoned all the way up. He's got long hair down to his shoulders, but he's a little bit uncomfortable in his skin. He doesn't have the swagger of some other performers or folks that we might meet later in the world."

Yeah, I have a feeling that big little dude there is going places ^^

Young (late teens human equivalent) Scanlan was adorable in the 2023 Red Nose Day one-shot and gave me so many feels, so naturally I had to draw about it 💜

(also, fun fact: the pattern down his trouser legs are supposed to evoke juniper leaves and cones, which look like this:)

#critical role #vox machina #scanlan shorthalt #fanart #GIMP

[the-french-belphegor]

I'm still not done watching the 2023 Red Nose Day one-shot and I'm still surprised at how much I love this tiny, unsure, earnest version of Scanlan. I should have known! It makes so much sense! But he's so painfully young and still has so much to learn - I never thought I'd say this about my favourite terrible gnome bard in the world but instant nibling 💜 Seriously, he activated my auntie sense instantly.

So here's a WIP before I go to bed!

#critical role #scanlan shorthalt #vox machina #GIMP

[the-french-belphegor]

I'm actually up to "Scaldseat" on my Vox Machina rewatch/listen and working on several drawings at once (sinon c'est pas drôle), but I really love the moment in "Elysium" a couple of episodes before that where Pike gets to meet her goddess in all of her (winged) (I goofed) glory and introduce her to her family for real! I wish the Everlight was available in 5e ✨

(and I mean. Sarenrae 🤝 Grog 🤝 me re. "Gnomes!! Don't you love gnomes? Gnomes are awesome!" ^^)

#critical role #vox machina #pike trickfoot #sarenrae #everlight #fanart #GIMP

[the-french-belphegor]

The reason I posted so little art here in November was because I've been writing (and since I work full time now I have to choose between art and fic. Rude), but the reason I posted so little art here in October is because I was working on this! There was a fantasy event recently in my little town with a drawing contest, and I participated. (I didn't win anything - wasn't even in the top 3 - because turns out the other contestants were teenagers and their mothers shared the contest polls on Facebook and got their friends and families to vote. Eh, it happens.)

Anyway, here's my very first session of DnD :D Antinua the half-elven mage, Malva the middle-aged halfling bard (that's me ^^), Trygon the tiefling rogue and Grumpf the half-orc monk were beset by kobolds! ...and almost TPKed because we are level 2s and not a cohesive group yet XD So yeah, the encounter wasn't nearly as epic as this drawing makes it look. But isn't my job as a bard to tell our tale well, even if it gets a little embellished along the way? ;o)

#original characters #dungeons and dragons #d&d #original art #malva the bard #artists on tumblr #GIMP

[the-french-belphegor]

I finished another fic for the @critter-genfic-events's bingo card! "Beach day", this time. I swear I did mean it to be funny and only funny, but then it was also Vox Machina post-campaign, so "Missing someone" ended up being A Thing. Plus "Found family" because that's unavoidable when Grog and his gnomes are concerned 💜

I'll be posting this on AO3 shortly here if you prefer to read on AO3!

—

Grog wiggles sand between his toes and squints at the Marquet sun shining through a passing cloud.

“Oh man,” he hears Scanlan sigh from the chaise lounge thing next to him, “this is the life.”

Meh, Grog thinks, just a little.

Sure, it’s a nice day out, and it’s great that they finally got everyone for a little vacation weekend in the Bay of Gifts – even Keyleth, who’s very busy being leaderly, and even Vex and Percy, who have their hands full with Whitestone but mostly with little Vesper. (Grog still calls her ‘Whisper’, because it became A Thing, and to be fair she’s a fairly quiet kid, in his meagre experience.) Now the girl is napping with her dad under the shade of the parasol after burying Grog into the sand (with helpful pointers from her mum, her uncle Grog and her auntie Keyleth) and playing in the shallows with her auntie Pike and her uncle Scanlan. That’s a lot of things to do, and the little mite is all tuckered out. So’s mostly everyone, it seems, except for Trinket, who is having fun chasing seagulls in the distance.

And Grog is slowly but surely getting bored.

Of course, that’s the moment his insides choose to give a twinge at the lack of Vax shenanigans. One of the many things Grog misses about the guy is that you’d never get bored when he was around. Sometimes not getting bored meant getting half your beard shaved off or various belongings stolen for a prank, but… well.

Pike, Wilhand and Scanlan all say that it’s normal to still be sad about Vax even now. Privately, Grog wonders if it’s stupid to miss some of the truly infuriating things Vax did, like the beard thing. He has a feeling the answer would be “no”, but there’s no way in hell he’ll ask.

“Hey Pike!” he calls out, mostly to distract himself from the oncoming boredom but also from being sad on what’s supposed to be a fun day out. “Wanna go fight the sea?”

Pike is in the process of gathering Vesper’s discarded beach toys and eyeing Percy – who is currently fast asleep near his daughter – with Vesper’s shovel in her hand and a gleam in her eye. Just as Grog is starting to think pranking Percy might be a good distraction as well, she turns to him and grins.

“Sure, buddies. How d’you wanna do that?”

“I was thinkin’ I could walk into the waves and just, like, not budge. Or put you on my shoulder and then see how far we can go till you get splashed.”

“Okay, yeah, that sounds nice,” she says, nodding. “Scanlan? Wanna come with?”

“Eh,” says Scanlan from under the hat covering his face, “I had my share of the ocean earlier. Might work on my tan for a little bit.”

“Come on,” says Grog, because the first time they took a beach holiday Scanlan wasn’t there and their second trip to Dalen’s Closet was, well, A Lot – way too much to just let loose and have fun afterwards, “I have two shoulders. That’s one for Pike, and one for you. It’s huh. Balance.”

(He’s really proud to be able to say a number and not hesitate even a bit. Long sentences with lots of letters still elude him, but he’s starting to know numbers well.)

One of Scanlan’s eyes peeks out from under the hat, along with a smile.

“Aw, big guy. Okay, for balance then, but on one condition.”

“What’s that?” asks Pike with something sharp in her grin, like she really wants to laugh but she’s saving that for a better moment.

“My hair stays dry.”

“That’s it?” says Grog, eyebrows raised. He was expecting something a lot less simple.

“Yeah, that’s it.”

That sounds pretty fair, so Grog agrees.

So maybe walking into the surf isn’t quite fighting an entire ocean, but the three of them manage to make it fun, just like Grog thought they would. Pike stands on his left shoulder, hanging on to his head, and shouts at every wave just as loud as he does; meanwhile, Scanlan sits on his right shoulder, beating a rhythm on his chest with his toes and humming a vaguely familiar tune. There may be something magical at work there, because Grog is feeling a tingling warmth along his spine and into his ribcage, like they’re in the middle of a battle and Scanlan is singing to give him inspiration. That’s nice of him to do that. Maybe it’ll give Grog and Pike an edge.

(Even wearing no armour at all and with waves rolling up to his chest, Grog always feels just a little invincible with those two on his shoulders.)

“You know what, Grog?” says Pike after a while, settling down on his shoulder and grinning at him, her cheeks red and her chest heaving. “That was really fun. I think we could all do with some screaming at the ocean once in a while.”

“Seconded,” says Scanlan, who didn’t do any shouting and mostly either chilled with his eyes closed or looked at Pike like he does sometimes, all soft eyes and slight smile.

Pike gets the same sort of look every now and then. It’s this kind of little details that tells Grog that one of these days the guest bedroom in Wilhand’s attic might become a real guest bedroom again (that and the fact that dawn often finds Pike and Scanlan tiptoeing out of each other’s room). As long as they keep most of the lovey dovey stuff out of sight Grog is fine with it.

“Well, I’m smart like that,” says Grog with a grin, like a joke where only he knows the punchline. Which is kinda the case, actually, if the joke is The little bits are dating and Grog did notice. “I got lots of good ideas.”

Scanlan leans his back against Grog’s head and nods.

“You sure do, buddy. And you guys definitely win in my book. Eat your heart out, ocean!”

“Hey guys!” They all turn – which means the gnomes have to turn a second time because they’re facing the wrong way now – to the beach, where Vex is standing with her hands cupped around her mouth. “Keyleth says there might be some jellyfish in the water by now, have you seen any yet?”

“Some what?” asks Grog, and promptly steps on something squishy.

It’s like walking into a bramble bush. The sole of his foot is fine, but tendrils sneak up his ankle and fire up a prickling pain that instantly runs up his whole leg. The surprise, more than the actual sting, makes him bark a shout and instinctively jump back, but this is uncomfortable as hell.

His shoulders suddenly feel somewhat lighter. Oh shit, he thinks with a flash of fear, old habits taking over, Scanlan should float but Pike’s in heavy armour, she’ll go straight down—

But they’re on vacation, not adventuring – no weapons, no plate armour, just sun hats and bathing suits. When he whirls around he spots Pike easily treading water not far from his elbow. The waves rolling in towards the beach make her go up and down, but she’s completely unfazed.

“You okay, Grog?” she asks, looking a little startled, and Grog isn’t even sure if that’s from being thrown off her perch or on his account.

“Sure,” says Grog, not that sure. “Except, uh, question. Can people die from jellyfish?”

“Well,” says Pike reasonably, “that depends on the jellyfish. I saw some really big ones on the Broken Howl, like big big. But the ones around here just burn a little.” Then her eyes zero in on something ahead of her and her nose crunches. “Yikes. Yeah, you can tell Vex Keyleth was right, look.”

The first and last time Grog saw a jellyfish, it was in Vesrah. Two kids were poking a small blob with a stick until their father told them to stop. What’s floating close to the surface five feet from them is still a blob, but it’s got long thin tentacly things that look like a bunch of transparent seaweed. They’re trailing underneath like it doesn’t know what to do with them. It’s creepy, and it’s weird to think these are why his ankle and calf are stinging like he kicked through embers without a boot on.

Grog scoops Pike up, holds her up out of the water, and makes his way to the beach, trusting Scanlan to meet them there.

When he’s close enough to talk without shouting, he tells Vex, who’s been watching them curiously, “Yeah, maybe don’t let lil’ Whisper into the water just now. There’s at least a couple of the suckers out there. I even got bit, look.”

“Stung, Grog,” Pike corrects, hanging on tight to his arm to avoid toppling over when he lifts his foot. Oops. “Jellyfish don’t bite.”

Vex throws him a look, complicated and quick – worried-sharp-relieved – then grins.

“You know, I’ve heard you can treat a jellyfish burn by having someone pee on it. Not that I’m volunteering, but perhaps if you ask—”

It’s the way she says it. Something flashes in Grog’s mind, like he’s realised something isn’t right but his brain is taking a while to catch up on what, exactly. (It happens.) It’s not that it’s wrong for her to say that – although in the old days Grog wouldn’t have put it past Vax to bring it up instead – so much as she shouldn’t have been the first to say it.

Fortunately, Pike’s brain works much better and faster than his. Her eyes go wide real quick and she exclaims, “Wait – where’s Scanlan?”

A small sliver of cold creeps its way up Grog’s spine. Oh. Shit.

“Didn’t he swim to shore?”

“He didn’t,” says Vex, tense and sharp once more, but worse, like she used to just before a fight. “I would’ve seen him.”

“Well, he has to be somewhere, he can’t just – oh gods no.”

Pike’s voice goes sideways on the last word like someone tripping and falling down a flight of stairs. Grog looks into the same direction and goes cold all over.

There is a shape bobbing along in the water a little ways behind the waves crashing onto the beach.

Grog runs.

He does kind of end up fighting the sea for real today after all.

When he reaches Scanlan, what feels like the next second but also so much time later, the gnome is floating belly down just under the surface of the water. His arms and legs drift a little in the current, like the jellyfish’s tentacle things did. It looks so much creepier. But not as creepy as the way Scanlan lies completely still when Grog picks him up, arms and legs at odd angles like his limbs and joints are missing strings. Both his eyelids and his lips are a little bit blue.

At least there’s no blood. It would bring back real bad memories if there was blood. Well, it does, because this is not the first time Grog’s carried his second best little buddy cold and lifeless like that, but the absence of blood makes it a bit easier to push those memories away.

Pike takes charge as Grog limps out of the water, white seafoam frothing around his calves. Her face is nearly as pale.

“Lay him down,” she says, her voice steel under the usual warmth, and Grog does. He watches her press her ear to Scanlan’s chest, tip his head back, open his mouth, and blow into it. And look, Grog usually doesn’t like it much when they start getting kissy and too wrapped up in each other, but it’s the last thing he’d mind right now. This is the worst kiss he’s ever seen. He’s not even sure it counts as one.

Pike lays her hands flat on Scanlan’s chest and her arms find a steady rhythm – “…three four five six come on eight nine ten—” and Grog winces when he hears something crack. Pike with her gauntlets and her mace and the Blessing of the Everlight is strong, second only to Grog in strength in Vox Machina, but even without she’s a force to be reckoned with. Scanlan’s going to feel that when he wakes up. If he wakes up.

They can’t lose somebody else that’s theirs. They can’t.

Sometimes people go and you never get them back, Grog remembers Kerrek say to Keyleth once, that time Scanlan was dead and Grog spent a very complicated few hours grappling with the fact that all those powerful spellcasters couldn’t bring him back right now. Kerrek had looked surprised way before that when Grog had told him that when someone died, they just brought them back. Like that was usually not the way of things. Like sometimes even people you knew and loved a whole lot just died, and that was it, no Revivify spell, no resurrection.

Grog hadn’t really understood that before Vax died and then became feathers.

If Scanlan dies now, for real, is he going to become feathers, too?

Just as the terror starts to give way into rage – that’s always been Grog’s default way of handling things like that, mostly – Scanlan’s body gives a lurch and he upchucks more liquid than Grog’s ever seen him down in one go in all their years of tavern hopping.

The next second he hears Keyleth yell, “Turn him on his side!”

She’s motioning the water out of Scanlan’s lungs with her hands even as she’s full-on running towards them, spraying sand where her feet hit the beach. In the distance, Vex talks urgently to Percy sitting up next to Vesper before following her, almost as fast.

By the time she’s standing nearby, Keyleth is drawing out the last of the water and replacing it with air with complex arm gestures, long fingers flexing fluidly. The second she’s done, Pike flips Scanlan on his back again and smacks her hands flat on his chest with a flash of intense light that makes Grog see bright spots for a while. A heartbeat later, Scanlan is coughing and retching as if it would make more sense for his insides to be outside. Between dry heaves he takes big gulps of air that sound painful.

But at least he’s breathing.

Grog’s knees suddenly feel like jellyfish tentacles. Sea salt burns in his eyes, and wiping them doesn’t really help. He spares one furious thought towards the ocean – I still won, motherfucker, you don’t get to keep him, just a fleeting remnant of rage – before sitting down on the sand a lot more abruptly than he means to.

From there he catches some soft whispers, some in Gnomish he doesn’t understand, some in Common he does – “It’s okay, you’re okay”, “Slow down, deeper breaths”, and “I know, sorry about your ribs, babe, hold on a sec” – as well as the faint glow from Pike’s fingers as she runs her hand gently along Scanlan’s back. Scanlan’s breaths do come easier after that. (So do Grog’s, incidentally.) He still looks a wreck, though, his soaked curls all over the place, ashen-faced under his tan and half covered in a fine layer of sand. So much for keeping his hair dry. Oops.

“Are you gonna be okay?” asks Keyleth, her voice trembling just a little.

“What the hell happened?” Vex’s voice sounds clipped and almost angry, so sharp it could cut through diamonds but also kinda like it could break if she wasn’t careful. It only does that when things get bad.

Scanlan blinks up at her; he looks at Pike, at Keyleth, and at Grog, and blinks again.

“Good… question?”

It’s because of the jellyfish, Grog realises, and only notices he’s said that aloud when everyone turns their eyes to him. He concentrates hard on not voicing the niggling doubt that it’s his fault more than the jellyfish’s. The squish and the burn might have startled him, but letting both gnomes fall was on him alone. And that… that sucks. A lot.

Pike helps Scanlan sit up, one hand in his and the other still on his back.

“We were just messing around. Grog stepped on a jellyfish – by the way, you okay, buddy?”

“Yeah,” says Grog, even though his ankle still burns a lot, kinda, because he’s – they’ve all – gone through way worse during battles. Fortunately they’re not battling anyone, so Pike still has plenty of magic, and he almost immediately feels the familiar warmth of a Heal spell down to his toes. The next second the red welts on his skin are gone. “Thanks, Pike. And, uh… sorry for getting your hair wet, Scanlan.”

“That’s… a way of putting it, I guess,” mutters Vex.

Scanlan stops brushing wet sand off his face, still looking a little dazed. He looks up (and up, and up) at Grog and waves off the apology with a slightly shaking hand.

“Eh, it’s fine. I probably should’ve told you I can’t swim in the first place.”

Everyone stares at him in a stunned silence that Keyleth finally breaks.

“Wait,” she exclaims, “you can’t swim?”

Scanlan gives half a shrug. “Just never learned, I guess. And I learned Polymorph years ago, so I can just turn into something that swims better than I ever would anyway.”

That does nothing to placate Keyleth, whose voice climbs straight up.

“But – how did we not know that?!”

“It never came up!” protests Scanlan, eyes wide, almost defensive.

“How the hell did that never come up?”

“Guys.” Pike’s voice is clear and sharp; it’s not brittle like Vex’s was, but it’s a fine edge that slices easily through the rising tension before it turns back into her usual soothing tones. “Thank you,” she says to the two women. She opens her mouth, closes it again, and finally just says, “You know. Just… thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Vex says in her normal voice, but her face is pretty pale for all that she just ran a bunch of yards to go get Keyleth. “And Scanlan?”

Grog almost expects him to look up and go “Oi?” with a small smile that could mean pretty much anything. But he just looks up at Vex and doesn’t smile. His eyebrows go up a bit.

“A soon as we can find a body of water that doesn’t have waves in it –”

“Or jellyfish,” adds Grog, whose takeaway of the misadventure is that those things are more dangerous than ocean waves. One corner of Vex’s mouth twitches.

“– or jellyfish, we are teaching you how to swim, darling. And that is non-negotiable.”

Scanlan’s face is still a bit white, his voice still a bit raw when he nods and says, “Understood.”

“I mean it. I hope you can handle a crash course.”

“Well,” says Scanlan, sounding a little more normal, “you know what they say about old dogs and new tricks, but I—” Vex’s eyes glint, “—yep, okay, swimming lesson, no prob.”

Vex flashes a satisfied smirk, but it only stays up for a second. The next moment she’s hugging Scanlan, and it’s over just as quickly before she mutters, “I’d better go and inform Percy that nobody died, thank the gods…”

And it’s like Grog can hear the ‘nobody else’ hidden in that sentence, clear as day.

After she leaves, Scanlan looks at Keyleth with one of those smiles that mean he’s being serious.

“Thanks, Kiki. You know, you’re pretty awesome.”

Keyleth looks less spooked now. She gives a short snort of a laugh and unfolds her long lean body from where she’s sitting on the sand.

“Yeah, well. I spent a long time learning these spells, so. I’m glad you’re okay, Scanlan,” she adds in a softer voice before following Vex.

It’s when her back is turned and she’s a few feet away that Pike – who’s been so still Grog almost expected her to start vibrating – grabs Scanlan by the shoulders and then throws her arms around him. Doesn’t kiss him, just goes straight for a tackling hug that seems to drive the air from his lungs (again).

“I thought you’d Dimension Doored to the beach,” Grog hears her say in his hair, a little muffled, because after a second of surprise Scanlan is hugging back, just as tight. “I thought you’d swum back. You should’ve said you couldn’t, you… I should’ve checked… Holy shit, Scanlan. That was so fucking dumb.”

But she’s trembling a little as she says this, so maybe it’s not really dumb to be scared still, even though everything is okay now.

…Well, kind of okay. No matter what happens, Vax will stay dead. Which means Vex, and Keyleth, and Scanlan, and Pike, and Percy, and Tary won’t really be okay okay for a long time. They’ll still have those moments where they go quiet and still and kind of fragile, like they’re made of glass you can’t quite see through. Like Grog, when his memory betrays him and he thinks I gotta show this to Vax, or Vax will go nuts when he hears that – and then he remembers that Vax is gone and they’ll never get him back.

Maybe that’s part of why Pike is holding Scanlan so tight, and why Scanlan is murmuring to her in Gnomish looking like he just smacked his head into a wall.

And since there’s no kissing involved, just ‘holy crap you’re alive I love you you’re alive’ hugging, Grog picks up his gnomes for some hugging of his own.

The thing is… well. It’s like this. It’s Wilhand and Grog and Pike and Scanlan, living in Wilhand’s house. It’s Grog and Scanlan and Pike, going to taverns and sometimes – less often than they used to, but still sometimes – going home so smashed they can’t walk straight. It’s Pike and Grog and Scanlan going to Vasselheim via teleportation circles; Grog and Scanlan check in at the Slayer’s Take headquarters while Pike drops by the Temple of Sarenrae first, Pike and Grog fight at the Crucible while Scanlan sneaks them some inspiration from the stands, and Grog and Pike and sometimes Scanlan take a contract from the Take to kill some big beast that doesn’t hold a candle to a dragon or a god but is still fun to fight.

The thing is… Grog knows gnomes live a long time. The particulars are unclear and not really interesting to be honest. He just knows that one day, he’ll be too old to fight anything – which sucks, so he hopes it won’t last a long time – and he’ll die for good, and Pike and Scanlan will still be young compared to him. That’s not scary in itself. Grog Strongjaw has never been afraid of dying (especially not since the two halves of Kevdak’s corpse hit the cobblestones of the Westruun town square). But Grog Strongjaw has learned to fear death like he used to before he learned about resurrection spells, whether it comes from the fingertips of a snarling god or the whisper of raven wings. Revivify doesn’t always work, and it gets harder if you died and got brought back more than once. And then sometimes they’re just. Gone. (They could have lost Vex for good as well at the not-wedding a couple of years ago. Sometimes Grog looks at her playing with Vesper, or slumped against Percy with her head on his shoulder, and the thought goes through his brain and leave ice in its wake for a while.)

The thing is… They’re not always out of harm’s way, but they are safe now.

They killed dragons. They thwarted a god. They lost family. They’re entitled to safe, now, right?

None of them are allowed to die before Grog. Not for real. That would just be unfair.

(Especially because of a stupid misstep and a stupid jellyfish.)

So yeah. The gnomes hug each other, and Grog hugs his gnomes.

“Hey, Scanlan,” he says when the two break apart – slightly – and make themselves comfortable against his chest without even thinking about it, out of habit.

“Yeah?”

“Are you mad we didn’t know you can’t swim?”

Something complicated flashes across Scanlan’s face for a second, but then he shakes his head.

“I’d be mad if I’d told you and you’d forgotten,” he says, and Grog believes him.

“I wouldn’t forget a thing like that.”

“I know, bud.”

“We’re gonna teach you, anyway,” Pike points out as the three of them make their way up the beach towards the others, the towels and the parasols. “And no Polymorph allowed. You’re not cheating your way out of this one.”

“That’s not cheating, that’s just… creative thinking! Swimming is boring – why would I want to swim when I can turn into a porpoise instead?”

“Why didn’t you do that earlier, then, instead of giving us all a heart attack?”

“I was taken by surprise, obviously!”

“Wait,” says Grog, “how the hell do you turn into a purpose?”

“P-o-r-p-o-i-s-e, buddies. It’s an animal. Kinda looks like a dolphin.”

“Dolphins are usually purposeful, so that tracks.”

“You’re not helping, Scanlan.”

“Yeah, you’re not helping me cultivate my litter-a-see, Scanlan.”

Grog isn’t sure (yet) how to spell ‘literacy’ and he mostly means it as a joke anyway, but Scanlan’s whole face lights up with delight, so maybe it means he stuck the landing.

Of course this is where Vesper’s little voice pipes up to ask what ‘literacy’ means, and what’s a porpoise, and then what does a jellyfish look like, because she’s a curious little one and she loves to know things and figure things out. Scanlan spins a tale on the spot for her that only looks like what actually happened if you tilt your head and squint really hard; at some point a giant whale is involved and Pike, Vex and Keyleth swing down from an airship to save the day. Percy’s eyebrows shoot up from behind his glasses at that, Keyleth laughs, and Vex grins and takes a mock bow before returning to scratch the spot behind Trinket’s ear.

Vesper listens to Scanlan with increasing awareness that this is A Story – firmly in the land of make-believe, where no one dies, nobody is ever in real danger, and all’s well that always ends well – and gives dramatic gasps and laughs at the right places.

Pike plops Scanlan’s hat on her head and settles behind him to comb the sand and the knots out of his hair with her fingers as he talks. Sometimes she smiles the same soft little smile Scanlan had earlier, while she and Grog were screaming at the ocean.

And Grog?

Grog settles on the ground, wiggling sand between his toes, and watches his family being alive.

��

Raise your hand if you love Grog Strongjaw and his gnomes 🥰

Me a couple of months ago seeing this post:

"Ooh, that's great! Great potential for comedy!" So I jotted down these lines -

“Wait, you can’t swim!? How did we not know that?” “It never came up!” “How the hell did it never come up??

- and then a couple of months later came up with the fic above 😅

Hope you liked!

#critter genfic bingo #critical role #vox machina #pikelan #grog strongjaw #pike trickfoot #scanlan shorthalt #vex'ahlia #keyleth #percival de rolo #fanfiction #tlovm spoilers

[the-french-belphegor]

Me and Pike, she could be on my shoulders and we could share one cloak. (I almost feel like it should be the other way around.) Oh, it absolutely should. To make it look like our arms can reach the ends of the cloak (…), I'm going to hold a flute and my sword. Mythcarver! You used Mythcarver to pull a Little Rascals!

I took a little break from listening to/(re)watching Vox Machina because I was working on a bunch of stuff, including fic (and I'm 10 episodes from "The Chapter Closes" and I'm not ready to see the end of the campaign 😭) and I had several drawing ideas I needed to see through. And here's one of them! With probably too bright colours because my new laptop is just Like That. I need to figure out how to tweak the colours...

Sometimes a fellow Vecna cultist is actually two gnomes in a trenchcoat cloak and a sword and flute to hold up the sleeves. Nothing to see, move along!

#critical role #vox machina #scanlan shorthalt #pike trickfoot #pikelan #pencils then gimp #fanart