royalsea-art - Tumblr blog

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Nemesis, Retribution Incarnate

HOW ARE WE FEELING BISEXUALS????

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iulia post iulia post

Like the stars chase the sun, over the glowing hill i will conquer -

Meet iulia, one of my dnd characters, formerly an Oath of Conquest paladin. Like Leondras, the founding mother of her former order, she decided to break her oath and raise her sword towards the very institution that instructed her.

She's my character in @royalsea-art's grand scheme of things

First image is how she started on the campaign. Recently turned 19, fresh in a different city, trying to be lawful and impose peace (yes, she was a cop, bear with me)

Second image is from the customary masquerade session.

Aaaand then the incident* happened *we got bamboozled (she trusted her order and an old friend against the party's advice and all she got was treason)

I did not choose the song so do not perceive me, Iulia's song is Queen of peace by florence + the machine but they made me use ed sheeran against my will

So! Long story short, she sacrified so the rest of the party could escape, dying in the process. This is the moment when i think she definitely broke her oath and cut ties with her order.

Eeeexcept she did not die, and was saved from the fire and rubble by Nirilde (the eyepatch one) (gay behaviour enemies to lovers shit if you ask me) (i may have some homoerotic swordfighting sketches) a member of the cult the party has been fighting against from the beggining. (the party members still think she died)

She was held hostage for some time but in the end managed to escape and partially recover from her burns. she looks like this right now:

She now marches for The Sun, ready to defend the people she loves from the same people that managed to corrupt Leondras' legacy, the same ones she fought all those years ago.

Sunlight brings warmth, but it can also start a fire.

The night she died, iulia was a spark.

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girl activities 🏳️‍🌈

Iulia (left) belongs to @inkeyjay

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doodle of corvo, who is the most tired any man has ever been

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Godwyn, Prince of Death

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I'm opening commissions this month to pay for rent, if you're interested in grabbing a slot, you can do so here!

Be sure to read my ToS first

(reblogs are appreciated 💖)

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does this to you

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so I picked up again the old campaign I used to DM for! Currently having adventures in a weird eldritch demiplane yayy

Val (tiefling wizard) belongs to my friend Ezra, and Iulia (Big human girl) belongs to @inkeyjay . Stath (human guy) is a dmpc they dragged along against his will

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hey to the people who fill out my commission form. and then don't reply to my emails

wtf is up with you

[royalsea-art]

I'm opening commissions this month to pay for rent, if you're interested in grabbing a slot, you can do so here!

Be sure to read my ToS first

(reblogs are appreciated 💖)

[royalsea-art]

there is no turning back from the path he's chosen.

daud by @ferretrix commissioned for the contract

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current mood

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I'm still doing monthly commissions!

Reblogs are very much appreciated ⭐

Portrait commissions from January ✨

You can request a slot here

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How Bethesda fixed Vampires without realizing it

So there's a LOT of takes on vampires across media, and most of them are radically different from each other. The Elder Scrolls series has an interesting version that I haven't seen anywhere else, that incidentally fixes a bunch of lore issues with vampires, and yet Bethesda hasn't ever really leaned into any of that.

So, the issue with vampires in large RPGs like Elder Scrolls games, D&D, etc, is that a world where various elements of character building are supposed to be balanced, vampires are heavy on the upside and light on meaningful drawbacks. So in Oblivion, Bethesda completely reworked their vampires, coming at it with a blank slate:

Vampirism is a 4-stage affliction, with each stage increasing the numerous benefits of being a vampire as well as the middling drawbacks. Stage 4 brings with it all humanoid NPCs recognizing you as a ravenous monster and attacking you, basically wrecking the game. And, this is the unique part, you reduce stages by drinking blood. Being a vampire is LESSENED by doing the most vampiric thing out there, it actively makes you weaker.

And this is great. From a gameplay perspective, you vanish below ground to kill zombies/robots/whatever, and you grow stronger as the dungeon goes on. But if you don't rush through it, or if it's large, you surface having ignored your hunger for several days and have to do a whole second quest to sneak into town at night and drink blood, where the only reward is to engage with the game again. It's a drawback in the gameplay sense rather than the stats sense. And it lets game designers throw the player against weak vampires in town early on, and face dungeons full of max-bloodlust monsters later once the player knows how things work.

Meanwhile, from a lore perspective this is also great. Suddenly, it's not that vampires have to be evil, it's that they have a choice. A good person who flees their family to hide in a cave is going to starve, turning into a ravenous, uncontrolled, extremely strong monster. Someone who's comfortable sneaking around town drinking blood, meanwhile? They never lose control. They walk in the sun. They're perfectly human. Or as human as anyone can be while the blood of their neighbors flows in their veins.

And Bethesda doesn't DO ANYTHING with this. People you talk to in-game just treat it as "all vampires are evil, why would you expect anything else", when they've created a world where vampire morality is so much more interesting. The few vampires who exist in civilization that you're not supposed to kill don't really discuss their condition at all. And there's plenty of evil vampires choosing to live in caves running societies of vampires, when that makes no sense compared to basically any other way of life they could set up.

Bethesda games are a masterful disaster, in this as in everything else.

[royalsea-art]

current mood

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Portrait commissions from January ✨

You can request a slot here

[royalsea-art]

I'm opening commissions this month to pay for rent, if you're interested in grabbing a slot, you can do so here!

Be sure to read my ToS first

(reblogs are appreciated 💖)