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anddreadful · 20 days

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Now that we’re multiple years into Unearthed Remnants I have additional thoughts that nobody asked for:

Aster IS an omega and on extremely expensive suppressants; do NOT bring up her designation to her. clay once gently suggested that her omega genes are why she’s so short (relative to her beta parents) and she didn’t talk to him for three days. In the Tower, all mages go though magical treatments at puberty to prevent them ever manifesting a designation (even beta)— the official rationale for this being that mages are “above” such unnecessary complications, but the actual reason is just mage dehumanization/ ease of controlling them as a population. so only rogue mages like aster have both magic and a secondary gender (and I like the idea that the designation interacts with their magic in some ways). I also like the idea that *lots* of magical power (like, ‘MAYBE one person will achieve this per century’ levels of legendary wizardry) will nullify/overpower your designation naturally, and this idea appeals to aster.

Clay WAS a beta until about three months ago, but in kind of a dark mirror to what the tower does, the Sightless Seekers put graduating recruits through some kind of ritual that forces alpha traits to manifest (or heighten). something something alphas as hunters and protectors (enforcers) of the natural order. the new designation is permanent but unnatural, so it can be janky. clay was pretty ambivalent about the idea beyond accepting it as an additional tool to be a better hunter/ fighter, but he’s not coping terribly well with his slightly broken second puberty. in this AU his internal conflict upon meeting aster that made him delay killing her and eventually abandon the idea are influenced by her being the first omega he’s ever spent time around as an “alpha”. those protective instincts are a doozy and not in the way the sightless seekers were going for, whoops!

this transformation ritual is one of the seeker secrets of the trade aster stumbles on in his head and is like “THATS REALLY FUCKED UP?? WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU’VE ONLY BEEN AN ALPHA FOR THREE WEEKS” and clay is like “🤷🏻‍♂️ its fine i’m just hungry all the time and I wanna bite things now.” Aster proceeds to treat him like a child about it, which clay loathes. (he’s delusionally convinced it really is fine and he can cope, but aster is right that he is NOT mentally prepared for what a rut entails)

Sev is still a robot and still doesn’t have a designation. eon smells like whatever designation will get him what he wants in the moment (because he’s manipulating your thoughts to make you think he is) so what his real designation is is anyone’s guess. trollack is in the same boat as clay since she was also a seeker.

Some self-indulgent barely-coherent OC A/B/O AU thoughts from 1:30am last night, yes sorry I am nominally into this horny garbage, if you don’t know what A/B/O is don’t google it on a work computer:

Storm kings: I got attached to the idea of Theseus as an alpha who for some reason was incapable of going into rut (and lacked “normal” instinctual alpha aggression) long before we found out what his canon deal was, and the way that tracks with him being not a true alpha but an imperfect clone of one fuckin hits. (Theseus is perpetually SUPER relieved he doesn't turn meathead when he's angry or horny like some alphas tend to.) I always loved the idea of Theseus helping Marin (and eventually an extremely peeved Rekhein) through their breakthrough heats not sexually, but just by being a soothing presence— in my A/B/O lore I really like the idea that the scent/ close attention/ nonsexual physical touch of an alpha helps with a heat as much as sex with one. Rekhien would find cuddling with Theseus while miserably horny almost more mortifying than just fucking him, but Marin insists it isn’t weird, and none of them have boundaries with each other anymore anyway, and it DOES help, so whatever. The stormchasers give off huge polycule energy despite none of them sleeping together (canon).

Speaking of Rekhien, he’s an omega who disguises his scent and passes for Beta for most of the campaign, because male omegas sometimes get dunked on/ disrespected for it. It’s Marin who ferrets him out and eventually convinces him not to hide it anymore— and she’s correct that they’re powerful enough by that point for it not to matter. Marin is an omega who magically becomes an alpha when she becomes Voc Rocsha— designations work a little differently for the people of the purple rocks, given that they’re not bound by the same biological rules as most species; I sort of imagine that the current Voc Rocsha is the only alpha of her tribe at any point. (I don’t ascribe to reproductive organs/ designation correlation, FWIW/ this is a non-mpreg-focused set of worldbuilding choices, sorry. But we do have mating/ claiming bites because those are hot.)

She’s worried Kitro (alpha) won’t be as interested in her now that she’s not an omega, but he doesn’t care what she is and doesn’t understand why she thinks he would. Drow, it turns out, tend to be very designation-pairing agnostic compared to some surface cultures that lionize alpha/omega couplings.

And Phyn is a beta. The most beta beta to ever normie alongside his hormone-riddled friends.

COS: if your strahd is an omega, you are so correct and valid, but in our game, strahd is an extremely typical alpha, and as I would write a full AU, Barovia has what could be considered some regressive collective beliefs about designations. (Tatyana as an omega and her choosing beta Sergei over alpha Strahd would have made him sooooooooo mad, it's too juicy not to do.) I have always loved the idea of Ismark (omega! which is obviously one of the reasons people don’t respect him) pulling teddy aside in the manor like, ‘hey, just so you know, I know what we are isn’t a big deal where you come from, but here you need to be careful. It’s good that you’re traveling with two alphas so people won't mess with you.’

Hot take! One of those alphas is Nim. Nim has a strong presence and a huge streak of stoic self-sufficiency that screams alpha to me. more importantly, it makes her abandoning her human family that much more fucked up, and is another layer to the maternal abandonment baggage that Borakov takes SUPER personally, as he buys in hard to the alpha-as-protector cultural messaging (which is probably a Barovian thing much more than an elf thing, to be fair to Nim)

Rahadin is a beta, but has some very weird and yikes ideas about designation and social hierarchy— as far as he’s concerned, part of Strahd’s absolute right to rule is simply that he’s The Strongest Alpha. Rahadin isn’t sexuaally interested in omegas because they “need” alphas, which he’s very matter of fact about not being, and Betas are fine, but what he really gets off on is putting “undeserving” alphas in their place. Hence his initial thing for being mean in a horny way to Nim, world’s least trad alpha. And if he's developing bigger feelings, well, maybe Rahadin can have a little unresolved cognitive dissonance about nim's alpha qualities (better than initially assessed, possibly leadership material) vs how much he likes domming her, as a treat.

Teddy and Borakov are, regrettably, the most obvious m/f alpha/omega trad-gender-shit-on-steroids heterosexual nonsense pairing ever committed to fiction. Just extremely classic territorial scenting protective horny bullshit. Sorry to everyone in Barovia.

Teddy goes into heat halfway through the campaign, in vallaki (she’s about four months out from her last dose of military-grade suppressants and hasn’t had a heat since she presented as a teenager, so it’s not pretty). Ismark kicks Borakov out of the entire building when it becomes obvious what’s happening. Strahd can’t get to her for some contrived reason but is sending her dreams telling her to leave the inn where she’s holed up to come find her alpha— unfortunately for Strahd, as far as her addled little brain is concerned, Borakov is her alpha. She sneaks out and finds Bork at the burgomaster’s manor and moves the Bork/ teddy sexual timeline up significantly. Everyone else is baffled that heat!teddy managed to secretly engineer her way out of the upper floor window of the inn while barely able to stand upright, but getting laid is a powerful motivator. For convoluted emotional reasons, Borakov refuses to claiming-bite her ~for her own good, which teddy takes very personally and becomes one of the reasons she later agrees to marry strahd, who is clear that he DEFINITELY wants to bite her for MULTIPLE reasons (and does).

Denethor is a beta. The consorts are a random assortment of designations. Doru is an omega and Miranda is a beta. Ez is a beta, Ireena an alpha, Kasimir an alpha but In An Elf Way. Van richten is drenched in suppressants and scent blockers, so good luck figuring that one out. The soulless inhabitants of Barovia don’t have designations— not even beta. They have no scents at all, which is unnerving.

Inspired by a Six of Crows ABO fic with really great worldbuilding, I was at one point brainstorming world-specific terms for "alpha" and "omega"-- I had loosely settled on "Volk" and "Ovechka" which translate to wolf and lamb in "old barovian". who doesn't love a hunting/ consumption motif for relationships in vampireland!

World torn: safiya is an alpha. Bo is a beta. Faraday is an omega and on some very strong magical suppressants. I go back and forth on tailor but I think I’d go with beta (but attracts so many omegas to his orbit you’d be forgiven for thinking otherwise). Chess is an omega and slutty about it but extremely proficient in designation-fuckery magic— ever wanted to try being an alpha? They have something for that behind the bar at Cerise.

Brin is an omega. Most of the jacks officers are alphas. Nera Thorn was a beta who wore the most ghastly fake alpha scent you can imagine. Designations can affect how you get treated in some planes— fae tend to favor omegas and are more prone to tricking alphas, for example.

Unearthed remnants: Sev is a robot, so he does not have a designation. Clay is a beta (though depending on how his deal shakes out, I might make him an alpha who's disguising himself as a beta to support his 'bland' persona. I am not entirely convinced 'clay' is even his real name in actual canon) Aster is an omega and thinks the whole thing is stupid. Eon is a beta and Trollack is an alpha.

the end, if you read all this, wow, I am really impressed and sorry

#written on gym brain so bear with me #dndposting #unearthed remnants #abo

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