lutethebodies

[lutethebodies]

Oh we’re doing face reveal posts? Well yeah here’s me

When you choose "I'm bald" on a poll this is what you're saying

[lutethebodies]

You know what, I’m taking myself out of comments because not only Keene but also Liara Portyr

Why couldn’t they have given her the earrings and coat in the game?

Every cool rogue needs a cool coat and some neat piercings.

Image from: Forgotten Realms

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One of these days there will be a spectacles mod for Macs and some decent baldness and/or ab-less options too, and I’ll do a true “self insert that looks like myself” BG3 run and it’ll be all over for everyone everywhere, surely

[lutethebodies]

I’m the kind of person who gets annoyed when the cool kids smugly disparage “D&D nerds” but I’m also the kind of person who gets annoyed when nerds of any stripe get snobbily dismissive about “sportsball fans.” Miss me with the knee-jerk normie-hating and nerd-baiting, I guess?

Also, one might think this makes me the perfect match for fantasy baseball, but verily I must assure you it does not.

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The brain worm today is drow opera.

Yeah. Yeah, you read that right. Drow opera. [is this a thing already? If not it should be]

I've talked about Coranzan being musically inclined thanks to his mother's instruction and that he was an actor doing propaganda pieces for a while.

So naturally... My brain went to opera as a cross section of those things and now I'm obsessed with the idea. I am putting Coran in there for his pre-Surface days.

It's the perfect venue for entertainment, propaganda, political showmanship and positioning, grandeur, and not to mention the absolute sadism possible as a part of it. For the audience and the singers.

I might yap about this little by little over the day as I find pockets of time.

But. TLDR Wagner. Absolutely Wagner.

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[lutethebodies]

Surround yourself with brilliant women and you'll never go wrong.

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A close second for fave of her on this entire site.

Minthara by Esther Schrader

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The best one of her on the whole site.

Minthara Baenre ❤️

Oh, I just adore this woman...

[lutethebodies]

The Plates Are Spinning Faster Again

Brief note that in addition to the blood-hunter Durge run I'm also doing a sorta-simultaneous Bladesinger run: a grove-raiding romp by a degenerate gambler (with a guardian who looks like his mom), and his trusty glamour-bard frenemy (who once gave this blog its name before Cannor stole it).

Soran most recently accomplished a now-rote feat all my allegedly-innocent grove raiders do: inadvertently precipitating the civil war by getting his rogue to steal the idol, magic-pockets-trading it to Mol (and then buying it back) for the Ring of Protection—without exposing Kagha's treachery beforehand.

There's simply nothing for it but to recruit our favorite Vengeance Paladin to exact righteous retribution upon the Hippie Xenophobes. (I always enjoy her mildly scandalized "You started the slaughter without me? How selfish!" bit. Look at that pout.) All while Karlach is under the tender care of Withers. She'll be revived none the wiser, of course—but Wyll may not. (He got to be Grand Duke in Zaf's run, though, so he's fine. Surely.)

Anyway, more about Soran when I've got more images to work with. LTB's Tav Tuesdays shall return at some point, given all the folks I need to catch up on now.

[lutethebodies]

fandom approaches male characters from a watsonian perspective and female characters from a doylist perspective

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Haven't done the full Shadowheart romance in a while, and I figured for Wade's Complete Durge Experience one of the Big Six should get the nod. Minthara doesn't have the "resist killing your lover instead of Isobel" scene if I recall correctly, so Shady Lady it is. What can I say; I like brunettes with green eyes and pointy ears.

Seriously though, I do enjoy the idea of a Resist Urge ending up with the Farm/Pets/Family epilogue. It's not unlike the one I had for Farago, the combat vet with PTSD. He really needed that and I expect after Wade's run is all over the Wounded Fool will too.

[lutethebodies]

Maybe other straights are afraid of her but personally I love drow women, especially Minthara

im conviced that only gay women like minthara, cuz straights are too afraid

[lutethebodies]

The Dryad's Love Test with Your OC

I was tagged by @mogruith some time ago (thanks for the ask and your patience!). I liked what she did for Coranzan here—seemingly taking him a few steps away from bardic clichés—and tried to take Cannor a few steps further. 

I don’t have great images of him during the love test, and I didn’t do so well with his banter ask so ideally this one is better. I've been digging into the Daggerheart "hope vs. fear" mechanic and tried doing that here. Zethino also quotes some of Cannor's songs.

Rules: Think of three answers with approval, disapproval and explanation. Tag yourself if you want in on this—but be warned, this one’s tougher than it seems. Cannor’s answers below the cut:

Zethino: “Doesn't everyone sweeten life with lies? Doesn't everyone self-mythologize?” What does Cannor desire—what is his greatest hope?

To be a rich and famous, world-renowned entertainer. (-1)

"What—to have everyone believe they know me? To never have a moment of peace? To suffer the melted brain and rotten heart of someone eaten alive by the fear of losing their own wealth? No thank you."

It's wild enough to earn fame from saving the city, but to fall into celebrity via strumming lutes for a living? That’s a trap for the superficial and the suckers. 

To be remembered for his creativity—to have his work live beyond his life. (0)

"I won't deny I used to want that very badly. But if I'm not around to enjoy it, what's the point?"

For some bards it's all about accolades. And honestly it's nice to be understood and appreciated. But that's not always worth being envied or misinterpreted. He accepted anonymity long ago.

To feel secure and safe; to share devotion, loyalty, and love with someone special. (+1)

“Drifting from gig to gig and place to place may sound romantic, but it's a relentless, dehumanizing slog. Give me the same warm bed and loving arms every night instead. Is that clichéd? So what? Only fools disdain the mundane.”

He aspires to one day transcend the need for esteem and approval, to find the stability of a home and purpose.

Zethino: "Given time, any passion gets so easy to hate." What harms the heart of the one you love most—what is Cannor's greatest fear?

Having his art stolen, or not getting the credit he deserves for his creativity. (-1)

"A childish concern. If I'm a true artist, then I'll be able to create again where a thief will not. When it comes to inspiration, 'originality' and 'authenticity' are phantoms anyway."

Creativity becomes next-to-impossible when one is mired in a scarcity- or zero-sum mindset. Once you start worrying about how your art will be received, you're doomed.

Becoming his father—wasting his life obsessing over his failures, hung up on regret and resentment, and taking that out on his children. (0)

"Perhaps when I was younger. But I've long since accepted that obsessing over what I don't want to be is not much different from obsessing over what's gone and won't be back."

Broke: guys with daddy issues. Woke: guys with mommy issues. Bespoke: guys with no kids (and no desire for kids) to project their failures upon.

Disappointing his partner—failing to live up to his own standards or failing to meet their needs in any way. (+1)

"When someone trusts you to not be stupid—trusts you with their life, their heart, or even their shopping list—it's insanely galling to fuck that up with intentional or oblivious stupidity."

Because freeze-outs and silent treatments are infinitely worse than unhinged rage. Surely.

Zethino: "Hindsight blinds all hearts and minds, sensitive and sound." What is Cannor's greatest regret?

Being booed by an audience. (-2)

[Eyeroll] "Which time? Hatred doesn't bother me. If I got hurt by every heckler I’ve ever had I’d have died long ago. Apathy from a crowd is much, much worse."

Bards who play their own stuff instead of popular hits soon learn how to get over apathy too, though.

Being estranged from his family. (0)

[Shrug] “It is what it is. If my mother wanted me, she'd have stayed. If my father tried harder, maybe she would have.” 

He doesn't actually know why his mother left, but the void she left isn't exactly full of regret. He resents his father's emotional ineptitude, but he doesn't regret bailing on that self-pitying drunk either.

Being exiled from the city. (+2)

“I honestly don't miss the superficial silliness of lordly courts, and even the thrill of subterfuge or power plays eventually faded. I do miss my friends in the city, however. New friends are good. Old friends are gold.”

The exile itself isn't the problem; the reasons that led to it—envy and jealousy curdling into sloppiness, betrayal by and of those he cared about—are what really rankles.

[lutethebodies]

reblog game put in the tags how you found prev

[lutethebodies]

Creativity is also much more fulfilling if you allow yourself to release middling stuff. It validates your great stuff and makes it that much greater by contrast.

I've written/recorded about 50 original songs in about 30 years. Not a lot compared to "real" musicians. And maybe about 1/4 to 1/3 of those 50 are good-to-great, in my admittedly-biased opinion. But the good ones are really damn good and I'm proud of what I've made.

And yes, absolutely to "The world is awful in so many ways. Give yourself permission to make your own joy."

Man, life is just so much brighter and more vivacious when you give yourself permission to have batshit insane OCs if it makes you happy. Mary Sue is supposed to be an insult? Mary Sue is my best friend, she's my pal, she's my homegirl, my rotten soldier. My sweet cheese.

I'm gonna write spirits falling in love with mortals and Jedi winning the hearts of imperial princes and demigods kicking the shit out of other gods for their boyfriend and fat girls being the heroes and I'm gonna have so much fun doing it

The world is awful in so many ways. Give yourself permission to make your own joy

[lutethebodies]

Tav Tuesday Redux: Wade LeSangre, the Wounded Fool

Reviving LTB Tav Tuesdays on, uh, a Thursday, because this week has been a fun one for character generation. I haven’t experienced the "wow this character just clicks perfectly" feeling in quite some time, but that’s what happens when you toss ideas back and forth between 5e and BG3. This is Wade LeSangre (not his real name), the Wounded Fool: blood hunter in 5e and "blood mage" in BG3. He's made with the building blocks of other bloody-minded BG3 characters, and wouldn't exist without mods, but the sum has proven to be greater than the parts—literally and figuratively. None of his lore is super-coherent yet, though, so how about I make a bloody mess of it below the cut:

5E NPC (V1 & V2)

Wade (not his real name either) first appeared as (what else?) a random NPC in my homebrew 5e game. He was a weird, creepy-looking elf (his HeroForge model is above) that my players met on a lonely night road into the woods. However, he earned their trust and relieved them of certain unenviable burdens (two dangerous children they’d saved from a werewolf, with one already beginning to turn), returning to the city they’d just left. And that was the last anyone ever saw of him.

Wade’s next role will likely be whenever I can get it together to revive my 5e campaign, which in turn is one of the ways I’m trying to goose myself into completing a second fantasy atlas. However, this Wade will be a different person; he’s the human mentee of the first Wade, trained in the ways of their blood-hunting order (Ghost Slayers, one of the subclasses for Matt Mercer’s Blood Hunter class). My second campaign is shaping up to have vampires and other bloodsuckers as Big Bads, so he’ll fit in there well as NPC help for my players. These Wades have a kind of Dread-Pirate-Roberts thing going on; “None of us were actually given the name Wade. My mentor’s name wasn’t Wade either; he was called Ryan. His mentor was Cummerbund, and so on.”

BG3 PC (Lore)

Here’s where I began to have some real fun when folding those two Wades into each other and merging them with my BG3 Wade who is (as previously mentioned) my first real Dark Urge run (after an aborted Cannor Durge run and umpteen dozen Tav playthroughs). For Durgey-lore purposes, this Wade’s gotta fit into that backstory, so he will (Bhaal, Orin, Gortash and all—unfortunately for me, who enjoys precisely none of those characters), but he’s gonna do so sideways. For this is no ordinary Chosen of Bhaal. This is Willis Greenie, the identical evil twin brother of celebrated entertainer Norris Greenie (aka Dribbles the Clown).

I’m sure there are many inconsistencies I’d have to iron out to make this truly fit. Most of the Durge lore, like the hell-raid with Gortash, would be fine. But other stuff might be difficult: How would the pure-Bhaal-blood thing work with identical twins? How would Willis get so evil before understanding who he really was? (it’s probably pathological envy.) What’s the real reason Dribbles ended up murdered and dismembered? (maybe Orin sent some inept doppelganger lackeys to do her own envious dirty work instead of it being tryhard cult applicants.) I do know one thing: with his sole imaginative impulse, Willis renames himself Wade (in blood!) LeSangre (of blood!). But he still ends up mortally wounded by his half-sister, and is in the end just as foolish as his poor doomed clown of a brother. Moonrise should be an interesting time!

One final but important lore thing: the key to me unlocking this character was bringing him (very very loosely of course) into the personal realm. I myself have a minor but weird pro-thrombin blood mutation; my blood coagulates really well. It's not inherently serious but it did make for a perfect storm 8 years ago when I suffered a wildly dangerous, seemingly-spontaneous blood clot in my upper arm (the cause was a thoracic outlet issue). I was on thinners for much longer than I should have been, I felt weirdly nerfed—I was advised to be extremely careful when re-starting cycling for exercise, and I still had two minor wipeouts—and it took a surge of willpower and brief but intense physical therapy to convince my hematologist I didn't need thinners anymore and instead needed PT to alleviate (but not fix) my problems. So all that got filtered into ol' Wade a bit too.

BG3 PC (Gameplay)

Or, you know, I could ignore all that stuff for the moment and just play the game—which is what I’d rather do, because that in itself might yield better RP angles based on what I choose to do with him. Three in-game days later, that looks like: playing him as a chaotic-good Urge-resister. Well, eventually. He ripped Gale’s arm off and staked Astarion (let’s bring in his 5e fear and loathing of vampires, shall we?) before mostly getting himself under control. He recruited Shadowheart and Lae’zel and Withers and made it to the Grove. He had a grand time with Alfira, reconnecting with his entertainer-envying impulses, finally being creative, and learning to play her instrument.

And then Alfira showed up at camp (after, of course, I meta-gamed to get Quil to show up, because I had to see that one for myself even if the dragonborn won’t be part of Wade’s story). And then Wade’s urge liquidated Alfira. I think that’s the fulcrum on which I’ll rest his Urge-resistance. He went with radical disclosure, admitting to the deed and probably destabilizing his budding relationship with Shadowheart (I’m still gonna have him go for her instead of, say, Minthara—because my degenerate-gambler bladesinger’s doing that at the moment too). And so here we are, one repentant Wade and one modded-Alfira-homunculus later, because I want her in my party as a glamour bard (which has been fun!):

I haven’t said much about the Blood Mage mod because I’m using it mostly for flavor and mechanics; its “Blood Knight” subclass gives Wade all the martial/melee abilities he’d need to approximate the Ranger-like Blood Hunter 5e class. It feels relatively weak and underdeveloped as spellcasting goes, but I do respect it making CON the main/spellcasting stat (he’s gonna need tons of HP if blood magic drains him with each casting). I usually prefer to keep to one class, but I may multiclass him at some point. Or I may not; a nerfy Durge feels appropriate, especially for a BG3 vet like me at Tactician level.

That’s all for now! Stay tuned for ask-answers later this weekend.