#grodderick

[meanbossart]

Oh no, there's a leak in the ceiling and it's raining indoors! Quick, tiny dark elf, get underneath your beefy orc husband before the water ruins your perm!

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How to correctly introduce wife:

-At ground level crawling amongst the plebs❌ -Propped on your shoulder like a parrot so her height may finally match her attitude ✅

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AU where Izzantar makes 40k a month streaming on DnD's version of twitch after he finds out about Sword Coast's most lucrative niche: snide drow femboys.

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😴.

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I'VE BEEN SITTING ON THIS JOKE FOR LIKE 3 MONTHS

(convo from UNHhhh Ep. 119)

[meanbossart]

Do you ever draw your OCs from ANE? I’m sort of new so there’s a chance you’ve done this and I’ve managed to miss it, I’m just super curious how you picture Izzantar because I love that little freak lol

I haven't drawn Izzy in ages 😭admittedly I got sidetracked by my billion DU drow centered WIPs. But I'm really hoping I can change that eventually!

Here's the latest art I've made of him that I could find, this is pre-broken nose and pre-fox attack, mind you.

I've also played a whole campaign with him and managed to recreate him fairly accurately! Minus the puppy eyes, he doesn't have those so much in canon.

And here's Grodderick and Nathanya! Both of their designs are a little dated, especially in style. I'd drawn Nathanya's face a little differently nowadays and emphasize Grodderick's ruggedness more (though he is and will always be stupidly handsome).

[meanbossart]

Weird question but I'm a little stupid. Are Grod and Izzy really married or is the word "wife" not meant to be taken literally?..

99% of the time when I use the word wife, I'm just being facetious. In their case, however, they do actually get married later in life, though more so as a symbolic gesture and without any huge event or anything of the sort, since that's a) dangerous considering Izzantar's situation and race and b) just not something they would prioritize. Grodderick just wants to put a ring on it because he's that sort of guy (also for the bragging rights).

While marriage isn't part of his culture, Izzantar thinks it's a sweet gesture so he's pretty happy about it.

[meanbossart]

Can we learn more about Izzy and Grod? What’s their signs and love language(s)?

Izzantar is a major character in ANE! Because of that, mind you that pretty much everything I'm about to say next is a spoiler for the fic.

He was raised a mercenary alongside his older brother, his parents are alive but don't have much of a relationship with them aside from getting reports of their progress and achievements from the institution they live in and "work" for (it's not like he gets paid as much as just provided for) essentially, him and his sibling belongs to the institution itself. At the "present" time (during ANE) he is 32 years old and his brother is freshly dead.

Izzantar does not excel particularly in combat or magic, but he has a knack for getting his way regardless. He is the type of person who understands the system he is in and has chosen to play it to his benefit instead of making any efforts to escape or improve his situation by honest means. This works fairly well for him. He's a favorite of the head matron and has transactional relationships with several people around his area, including the slaves. He's "friends" with a hobgoblin who provides him with recreational drugs and spreads the word that he's a little more laxed than the other drow, basically. When he's not being a secret rebel, he is flawlessly sucking up to his superiors; however, he's been on edge since the death of his brother, which according to drow culture should have elevated him to first-born status and allowed him a smidge more respect from his peers, parents and superios - except that hasn't happened, and Izzantar is now starting to crumble under the stress of his situation.

Through a series of... Events, Izzantar will eventually end up on the surface and without the option of ever returning home.

He meets Grodderick through a common acquaintance of Astarion's. The half-orc is huge people's person and he's immediately amused by Izzantar's fish-out-of-water situation. Izzantar actually feels more comfortable with him than he does to any of the other people around for complicated reasons, so they become buddies of sorts. Later friends with benefits. And sometime after that they enter a romantic partnership.

Grodderick is somewhere in his late-twenties/early-thirties. He was raised by a single, half-elf mother who was ostracized for having a half-orc child. He was a difficult, angry kid who left home when he was 14 years old and made a living through any means - seedy or otherwise - traveling a great deal through Faerun in the process and always making money just as quickly as he burned through it with booze and gambling. He eventually gets back in touch with his mother through correspondence and starts sending some of the gold he made to her instead - when she passes away, he returns home to find out she had just kept it for him instead of using it for herself. From that point forward, Grodderick decides to try and settle down instead of continuing with his criminal career.

He uses his mother's savings to get by while he jumps from town to town and works small, manual labor jobs. Eventually, he gets something more permanent with a wealthy real estate investor in a city called Pran - an eccentric lady called Nathanya Shaltiel who hires him to maintain her estate and accompany her through/act out financial dealings in her stead.

Overall, Grodderick has just done a lot of growth over the course of his life and turned out to be a really chill and smart guy. He's a big reader, he can make friends with almost anybody, he's extremely laid back. He smokes (🌿), he doesn't drink alcohol anymore, but he still likes to hang out at an inn or pub for the company. He keeps in touch with a couple of his old friends who are still living a very different life.

Despite coming from very different backgrounds, Izzantar kind of reaches the same conclusion eventually WRT what he wants - to just settle down and try to live as stress-free as possible. He proves to be a very loving person in his weird way and Grodderick is fine with that - he thinks that his drow temperament is hysterical most of the time - the rest of the time, he's telling him that whatever he just said/did doesn't fly on the surface, and it especially won't fly with him, lol.

Their relationship revolves a lot around cultural exchange, I guess, and relies heavily on Grodderick's ability to understand, without judgement, why someone may feel attached to aspects of their homes/upbringing that others may consider cruel or barbaric. It also helps him reflect on his own, complicated relationship with his orc-ish roots, since he now has someone around who doesn't find the inherit violence of that history particularly shocking or strange.

At some point he gets Izzantar a cat. Izzantar gives it a really traditional drow name that translates to like "Champion of Death" or something but any time anyone casts Speak With Animals on the thing it's just going "love mommy :3 oooohhh want pets from mommy :3 love mommy so much". Izzy spends years trying to turn it into a killing machine but all it does is bring him socks and underwear.

I don't know what their love language/signs are, but they like to take turns talking about each other's days and Izzantar gets mad when Grodderick doesn't wake him up when he comes home from a late shift. Grodderick's secret guilty pleasure is boasting to his friends that he's got a hot drow wife who won't get off his dick, LOL.

[meanbossart]

Some more asks about Izzantar and Grodderick!

Some general Insight about their relationship can be found here, the two paragraphs below concerning their dynamic specifically:

Grodderick and Izzantar are, in a lot of ways I suppose, the opposite of DU Drow and Astarion; bedroom habits included. While the protagonists of this blog have no particular dynamic that they stick to, the latter have roles that they feel most comfortable in and rarely abandon them, which is also perfectly okay.

Izzantar likes to be taken care of in bed. He prefers a partner who takes responsibility into their own hands and do what they want, when they want it. If he's unhappy with something, he will voice that discontentment; but he will be the unhappiest if you constantly seek his approval or guidance to do everything. As a male drow who was popular with the matrons, this is probably a dynamic he grew used to and feels at home with. If he's bedding with you, his body is already yours and you can do with it what you will. He also bottoms 100% of the time and is pretty indifferent to the involvement of his own genitalia in the endeavor, and the more time he spends away from drow and the Underdark, the more he settles on taking care of that part of the exchange himself.

Grodderick as a man is pretty malleable, but he fits into Izzantar's preferences fairly well as someone who is very confident in bed, and will happily take the wheel. Ironically, while Izzantar perceives himself as being extremely easy to please, Grodderick thinks otherwise - the drow expects a lot of particular behaviors out of the half-orc without actually voicing those preferences beforehand, like the taking of absolute control, apparent disregard for his own pleasure and overly rough play. Like I said, Grodderick is confident - but he's not an arrogant asshole or somehow unaware that he has at least 200 pounds on the drow.

But through communication everything is possible and the two do reach a kind of middle ground. By the time they're married, Izzantar is a much softer, less demanding person, and Grodderick has grown to understand that his requests for egoism are very much still for his pleasure and comfort.

Game Izzantar came after the creation of the character, and by then I did already have a voice-claim in mind (Thomas Brodie-Sangster! After puberty, obviously.) I picked BG3's Voice 1 for him which honestly I find quite similar LOL so either one works!

He does! VERY rarely, however. He usually looks either completely stoic or a little pissed off, but a little 😏 isn't so rare. He also laughs, believe it or not. That said, big ol' earnest smiles are indeed rare, and probably something he reserves for private moments. It's not really a response to his negative life experiences as much as just a personal quirk - he has a minor facial tick and I think being overly aware of his facial expressions became a habit because of it.

I might change this in the future, but at least as of right now he never takes any steps to change his physicality nor does he ever see what he is doing as "changing" anything in the first place, if that makes sense. He presents female, his husband calls him wife, people assume that he's a woman and are never told otherwise. In regards to his voice, he speaks a little softer in public but mostly I just like to think that voice pitch wouldn't be particularly demonstrative of sex or gender in Faerun.

[meanbossart]

Grod.

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wanted to experiment with some different lines/coloring plus got something cute out of the real

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i take my characters and stories very seriously

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more playing around with new brushes, i call this one "guy who keeps pretending he isnt hogging your blunt"

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Anyways, enjoy this Grodderick I made real quick for the bhole chart

[meanbossart]

merry jesus day i got you elf kissing

[meanbossart]

I have been thinking about Grodderick so much lately. he's so wonderful. thank you for making him.

Girl... Me too