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theamberwriter · 4 years

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Always Be My Hero [Pro! Eijiro Kirishima]

A/N: I read THIS by @dreamy-writings and was inspired to write this, lol

Warning: Angst, cursing

Pair: Pro Hero! Eijiro Kirishima x gn! Reader

Word Count: 1.6k+

*~*~*~

"Oi, you need to talk to shitty hair," Katsuki snapped, throwing a bunch of flowers on your bed.

Mina sat on the edge of the mattress, took your shoulders in her hands, and gently shook you. "Please, [Name], Eijiro has gone off the deep end."

"I'm sure just Ei is just a little stressed," you tried to sound soothing. "He's been working a lot -"

"We wouldn't be here if we didn't think it was serious," Denki urged.

"He's going to hurt himself," Katsuki growled. "Don't need both you idiots out of commission."

"We know, after everything, we shouldn't be bothering your healing time. But…. Eijiro needs you." Mina hung her head in defeat.

Just what was going on? When your fiance was home, he was as cheery and bright as you'd always known him. Was he different at work? With his friends?

"Shitty Hair thinks this -" Katsuki gestured to your broken arm and leg, the bandages around your head, your sprained ankle and broken ribs, the numerous bumps and bruises, the multiple hairline fractures and surgery incisions, and the antibiotic drip the hospital sent you home with. "Is some how all his fucking fault. That damn idiot won't listen to us! He's been working the hell out of himself. Spends hours beating himself up."

You felt like you cracked in half. Like a bit of you shattered. Not the ones from being thrown into buildings and trampled on by a giant villain. But deep down in an untouchable place. You felt like you broke apart.

Knowing you caused your beloved so much anxiety and stress had boiled up in him. Maybe you should've seen it. But he was just so happy. Glued to your side, helping you bathe, helping you get to the bathroom, changing the bandages on your head - assuring that he still thought you extremely attractive, even though you were going to have a hell of a scar going from the middle of your hairline down under your left ear. He was always smiling and joking when he was with you.

"The wheelchair they gave me is in the closet," you muttered, eyes on where your hands were balled around the blankets. You had to be strong. Normally, Eijiro was your rock. Now the tables had turned.

Mina pulled out the wheelchair while Denki and Katsuki helped get you out of bed. Luckily you'd asked Eijiro to help you into sweatpants and a decent t-shirt before he left for work. You asked for one of your shoes to put on your uncasted foot (which was wrapped in an ace bandage instead). Then unhooked the IV and pinched the line. The bag was nearly done anyway.

"I'm ready when you all are," you muttered. A silent tremor passed through the room. Then you all were out the door.

In his agency training facility, Eijiro was giving all he had to a punching bag. Sweat poured from the hardened ridges in his skin. He felt the solid bag meet his fists, but none of it was satisfying. None of the hits eased the guilt.

No amount of punching had shaken away the image plaguing his mind. You lying in bed, barely seeming to hold on. The doctors said you had internal bleeding, a concussion, then listed off all the broken parts. A bit of himself broke with each word.

Eijiro had bawled hysterically when the doctors left and he was alone with your unconscious body. He gripped your hand, begging to anyone who would hear him. Asking them to let you pull through. That, in exchange, he'd get stronger. No matter the cost.

Eijiro was determined to keep your spirits up. To not let you know how much he'd been suffering. You couldn't imagine the wells that wanted to overflow the first time your eyes opened. The first kiss you gave him after waking up. He felt like bursting, you'd been returned to him.

In exchange, he'd train himself raw. He'd push himself past his limit. It didn't matter what Katsuki, or Tamaki, or even Fat Gum had to say. Eijiro was going to protect you next time. For now he'd train. Then go back to you at the end of the day with a smile, no matter how much he hurt or how tired he was. Coming home to you, hooked to an IV and barely able to move around the house - that image drove him.

Eijiro had been so excited to have you home. But every time he looked too long at your casted arm, or uncovered the puckered gouge on your head. Everything reminded him he hadn't been there to help. To save you. Deku had been, he lifted that gargantuan off you like a pillow. Eijiro didn't think he'd ever have been able to do that. So he was going to train until he could.

You hadn't complained once since you'd been home. Only grateful when you'd gone out a few days after to greet your fans. There were so many who thanked you for saving them. Each felt like a bit of a hit to him. You'd saved all those people and he didn't even manage to save you. Was he truly a hero if he couldn't protect those he cared about?

It didn't matter to him that he was a five hour plane ride away when it all happened. Eijiro had gone to do some publicity stuff with other heroes. He had to hear it from an insensitive reporter who asked how he felt knowing his fiance was in the hospital. But he hadn't. He didn't know. His fellow heroes outraged at the question and Eijiro was on a plane back to you within the hour.

He swore he'd be there next time. That he'd never let anything like this happen again. Eijiro had gone in the plane bathroom and had a good deep cry a few times. When he saw the videos, read the articles, saw all the people asking Where was Red Riot? He hadn't been there. He'd let down the one person he never wanted to. It broke his heart into a million bits. He didn't think he'd ever be able to repair himself.

Eijiro cried as he punched. No one would be able to tell through the sweat. But each and every punch got harder, and so too did his tears.

Pitying looks were passed your way as Katsuki pushed you through Eijiro's agency. You stopped in briefly to talk to Fat Gum. He looked so put out and desperate. He said he'd tried everything. But everyday, Eijiro had been in the facility's gym. Working himself until he bled or passed out.

Katsuki pushed you, Mina and Denki in tow, down the halls to the gym. You heard the blunt hits long before you saw the doors. Each one grating into your mind. You were never going to forget the hot guilt that bit at you with each thud.

Katsuki pushed you to the gym door way. It was empty, except where your beloved stood hardened to the max, shirtless. You saw a bit of blood dripping from his back. The punching bag was losing sand and stuffing. A defeated one laid in a lump on the floor already. You watched a long minute. Then you realized each grunt turned more into a cry or a wail.

You turned to Denki, and held out your hand. He gave you the crunch he'd been carrying. Luckily the arm and the leg you'd broken were on the opposite sides of your body. You hauled yourself up, your friends helped steady you. Then you limped your way across the gym. Finally, you came into view in the mirror in front of him.

A few spots on Eijiro's face were bleeding. His eyes were blown out. His features scrunched up in….there wasn't a word strong enough to explain the pain. The anguish. The despair. His eyes met yours and, all at once, he broke down.

Eijiro collapsed to his knees. His quirk finally releasing him. Sobs still wracked his shoulders, they shook violently. But his sobs were silent now. Though you didn't miss the tears that dripped onto the floor.

"Eiji," you cooed and lowered yourself to the floor.

He shook his head. "You….sh-should be-e….hom-m-me. He-healing."

"You need me more." You put a hand on his shoulder. Eijiro latched on to you. You didn't care about the blood, sweat, or tears, or how much sitting that way hurt. You just needed to get him to breathe now.

"I -" he hacked. "I'm not strong enough. I'm not….I'm not manly enough. Even now. What if you get hurt again - or worse? Because I couldn't….I can't…."

You shook your head and kissed his damp hair. "Eijiro - honey, listen to me, it wasn't your fault. Really. This was me being overconfident. It was my own fault. You're an amazing hero. Thousands of people look up to you. You have to stop beating yourself up. You're being the best hero you can be. And I love you for every bit of who you are. No matter what happens to me, you'll always be my number one hero."

Eijiro sobbed harder, gripping you closer. You didn't complain at the protesting throbs of pain screaming all over your body. You sat a while longer. When he was finally feeling better, he carried you back to your chair. Then he took a quick rinse in the shower before pushing you home. Your friends had prepared everything for a movie night when you got back; movies, drinks, takeout.

You could see the relief in their faces.

You still caught him giving you long, guilty glances. You would only lean over and kiss the look away. But you could never know the weight of what you said. He wanted to eat, sleep, live, and breathe by that creed.

You'll always be my hero.

#bnha x reader #mha x reader #bnha #mha #bnha imagines #mha imagines #bnha headcanons #bnha fanfiction #mha fanfiction #mha kirishima #kirishima #bnha kirishima #kirishima eijirou #bnha eijiro x reader #bnha angst #mha angst #angst to fluff #kirishima angst #theamberwriter

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utilitycaster · 4 years

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Skill Proficiencies are the Bedrock on Which the Success of a D&D Party Rests, Monks are a Utility Class, and Other Correct Opinions

This came up when I was thinking about the Cobalt Soul subclass and the discussion thereof, especially the dismissive way in which people sometimes treat the mystical erudition feature. I am also a bard player, in my longest-running game, and I prefer utility classes in general, so I decided to write a whole essay that maybe like 5 people will appreciate, two of whom are in my inbox (thanks for the encouragement, @ayzenigma and @agigabyte and one of whom is me.

In D&D, on a fundamental level, this is what happens:

A DM describes the world

You decide to interact with the world in some way

The DM decides if you automatically can do what you want, if you automatically can’t do what you want, or if there are a range of possible outcomes. If the last option, roll a d20.

The DM narrates what happens when you act or fail to act, ie, describes the new state of the world; the cycle begins anew.

The vast majority of those d20 rolls will be skill checks. Some will be combat rolls, which are a whole other thing, but most will be skill checks. Some will be incredibly important skill checks. Some will be relatively minor. Sometimes you’ll be aware of how important the roll is; sometimes you will not. Spells can sometimes guarantee or improve the chances of a success, as can some class abilities; but those are finite resources, and in the end a lot of D&D is resource management, and many of the choices you make in interaction are going to be influenced by what resources you have left.

Consider: the party comes upon a door with a single lock. The party is D&D four-person-party classic: a mage archetype, a thief archetype, a healer archetype, and a strength-based battler archetype.

The mage can cast knock to open the door. This does guarantee success, but it’s extremely loud and will not only alert anyone nearby but also uses a second level spell slot. They may be able to get around this if they or the healer also casts silence, depending on how you play it*, but that’s either another spell slot gone, or ten minutes wasted.

The battler can, for free, either kick down the door or attack it. This is also going to be very loud unless silence is employed, they might choose to use a finite resource (a once a day weapon ability, a rage) and even if this itself doesn’t alert anyone on its own, the big hole where a door should have been, or even the smashed keyhole, probably will.

The thief can, for free, pick the lock. Assuming they are specifically a rogue, because of their class build there is a very high chance of success, and specifically a high chance of quick, quiet, secret success even without additional help. And if they fail, well, the other options still exist and only a small amount of time has been lost.

Things like a single rage, or a second level spell slot, don’t seem like much on their own, but that is the other thing about D&D: usually you go to bed with some things left in the tank, but occasionally you do not, and as the resources get into the red line it is not terribly difficult to get into a death spiral of throwing your limited resources at a problem too large to be solved by them. When you’re in a game where, mechanically, there is no difference between having 100 hit points left and having 1 hit point left, but there is a vast chasm between having 1 left and having none, that extra second level slot worth of healing or damage can mean everything.

Or: at levels 5 through 8, with a cleric, the difference between an ally’s life and potentially permanent death is whether the cleric is left standing with one third level spell slot at the end of a battle.

This isn’t to say you shouldn’t use spell slots to achieve things, especially if they’re important; just that there’s a balance, and sometimes a single good thieves’ tools check, investigation check, or persuasion check makes just as much of a difference in terms of the party’s success as a high level spell, even though it’s far less flashy.

The game designers realize this. Older versions had the idea of taking ten: if time is not of the essence and there is no significant penalty for failure, you could take ten and guarantee an average job (which does still require some skill proficiency to take that assumed roll of ten to “pretty good”). This still remains in 5e in the form of passive checks. It’s a core element of the rogue and bard classes that they are people who are highly skilled - both have more skills than most classes and access to expertise, which significantly increases their proficiency bonuses and therefore reduces the chance of failure - and both have additional class features that either improve the breadth (jack of all trades for bards granting them partial proficiency in everything) or depth (reliable talent for rogues granting them a guaranteed average job) of those skills. Frequently, and especially for bards, this is not seen as a significant help, possibly because it rarely comes up in combat. This is wrong.

Here’s the thing: combat takes a long time at the table but in terms of what the party is doing, two minutes of combat a day (20 rounds, total) would be considered an incredibly difficult day. The rest of the time, you’re not in combat.

Here’s the other thing: how did that combat happen? Did it happen because someone failed a check - that a better stealth roll or deception check, perhaps made by someone with expertise in one of those two areas, could have prevented? Or if this conflict was inevitable or necessary, was the party able to use that stealth or deception to get a surprise round? Investigation, nature, arcana, or history to know a little bit more in advance about what they’re about to face? Perception or survival to even find the enemy they need to stop? Persuasion to gain an ally? All of these can make the difference between a success and a failure.

When you come to the end of a long-running D&D game, you will probably think back a lot to combat moments and RP moments, and unless it was one of those few clutch ability checks where you knew how momentous it was at the time you probably won’t think back to the dozens of locks picked without issue, or social encounters navigated with relative ease, but they’re going to be there, and you would have felt the strain without them.

This isn’t limited to skill checks, honestly; it’s a problem with almost all so-called fluff/flavor abilities. It’s interesting, in that the words we use to describe a well-built character are themselves quite neutral in terms of the specific build (min-maxed, optimized) but in practice many people assume these fit into one of two categories: the tank, or the glass cannon. Of course, those are combat-specific abilities, and see above with regards to combat. And maybe you are in a D&D game that is very much about combat and combat only, but if you’re not, that so-called fluff is far too dismissive of utility.

And monks, in particular, are more of a utility class than one would expect. Sure, they get a lot of attacks and they’re sort of tanks of the ‘too fast to hit’ variety and they can stun, but monks are utility in a negative-space sort of way.They don’t need your buffs, and a monk in your party, like a rogue who can pick locks or a bard who can talk their way out of trouble, saves your resources. They are incredibly fast, and don’t need longstrider or jump cast on them. They don’t need feather fall or fly because they run up walls and avoid falling damage. They don’t need to be healed, if they just catch the arrows that were shot and evade the area of effect spell; they don’t need a magic weapon (or any weapon); they don’t need a restoration to end effects, they don’t need protection from poison or disease, they save you the need to cast comprehend languages or tongues, they’re less likely to need a buff to help them save against other effects, eventually they don’t even need food or water. A monk, like a skill check, helps the party by saving finite resources. The Cobalt Soul build merely makes it a little more literal by granting the monk themselves the ability to make those skill checks.

In conclusion: skill checks are cantrips that everyone gets, and if a class got 8 cantrips when most others got 4, and they had an extra bonus to hit, you’d absolutely notice.

*per a quick search it’s up for debate based on the ranges of the respective spells and whether the lock needs to ‘hear’ the spell or not and anyway if this is what you choose to fixate on in this essay I cannot stress this enough: you have the reading comprehension of a slime mold and the sense of relevance of a Republican congressperson.

#i play a character with 11 skill proficiencies/expertises and yes it's as great as that sounds.#d&d #dungeons & dragons #way of the cobalt soul #no readmore we die like a party that doesn't utilize skill checks effectively

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therewithall · 3 years

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Roswell, New Mexico custom Magic: The Gathering cards

For RNM D&D Weekend Warriors, I branched out to another tabletop format and made a handful of custom Magic: The Gathering cards based on the core cast of Roswell, NM. Here’s the break-down of how I chose each character’s color(s) and abilities as well as highlight some of the neat ways they interact. None of the cards have been playtested so there is still room for them to be further developed and balanced. For anyone who isn’t very familiar with Magic: The Gathering, every card fits into various types that can be played for the cost printed in the top right-hand corner. There are 5 colors of Mana- White, Blue, Black, Red, Green- I’ll be using the letters W, U (blue), B (black), R, and G to represent the mana colors in my discussion. Each card can also have different traits and abilities, and a set of numbers that represents how strong its attack and defense are (represented as attack/defense). There’s a lot of amazingly nerdy discussion of Magic Lore that delves into how the Mana colors relate to personality traits and behaviors of the characters on the cards-- more on that here- but just know that I’ll be discussing some of those qualities as I go into why I chose the attributes for each card/character.So here we go!

Max Evans, Smalltown Hero 2WR Legendary Creature – Human Alien Vigilance, Haste (This creature doesn’t tap to attack and may attack or use tap abilities the turn it enters the battlefield.) T, Sacrifice a nonland permanent: Another target creature gains indestructible until end of turn. Max is a deputy with the sheriff’s department and a natural leader who has kept his powers and identity a secret for years. 3/1

Max is kind hearted and wants to protect his community and friends. On the other hand, he’s impulsive and will make rash decisions without thinking about the consequences of his actions. These two beliefs place him firmly in red/white for Magic colors; a combination that often plays small aggressive creatures and engages in frequent combat. I gave Max vigilance to represent him being a defender as well as an aggressor in a lot of circumstances. His ability to sacrifice something to protect someone else exemplifies his ability to both heal and destroy. Lastly he has haste and a fragile body (1 toughness) making a game with Max play out with an early attack followed by him protecting someone else and only getting in when the coast is clear.

Michael Guerin, Tech Genius 1WU Legendary Creature – Human Alien Artificer When Michael Guerin, Tech Genius enters the battlefield, search your library and/or graveyard for a noncreature artifact or enchantment card and exile it with a research counter on it. If you searched your library this way, shuffle. X, T: Create a token that’s a copy of a card exiled with a research counter. X is that card’s mana value. 2/3

Michael cares about the team differently than Max does. He is often tinkering with things in order to heal or protect others if possible and is a genius when it comes to inventions involving alien technology. His intelligence and need for knowing more fits in blue (alongside a few other science oriented characters). Whereas Max is a straightforward attacker, I chose an ability that is much more complex to understand for Michael. He makes copies of trinkets after taking the time to examine them which lends itself to more combo and control oriented play patterns instead of just blindly turning stuff sideways. I didn’t capture Michael’s temper, but I didn’t want all aliens to be red. Maybe I’ll make another version some time that incorporates different facets of their personalities.

Isobel Evans, Influencer UBR Legendary Creature – Human Alien Your opponents play with the top card of their library revealed. 3R, T: Gain control of target creature an opponent controls until end of turn. Untap that creature. It gains haste until end of turn. 6BB, T: You control target player’s next turn. Activate only once. 1/4

Isobel has fewer words than Michael, but oh my is she complex as well. If Max leans toward aggro and Michael is combo, Isobel is the control card of the siblings. Isobel is often guided by her emotions, but channels that into careful thought in how to execute a plan and always looks out for herself and her people. Her abilities represent her powers spread across the three colors: Blue – Reading your opponent’s mind, Red – Controlling someone’s impulses for a short period, Black – Forcing your opponent’s actions, once.

Liz Ortecho, Savvy Scientist 1UB Legendary Creature – Human Rebel Liz Ortecho, Savvy Scientist can’t be blocked as long as defending player controls an artifact. Whenever Liz Ortecho deals combat damage to a player, gain control of target artifact that player controls with mana value less than or equal to the damage dealt. 2/1

Liz is smart, cunning, and will protect her own. Her science background lends itself to Blue, but this card plays up some of her devious nature of stealing hospital equipment, doing illegal research, and general sneaking around, so there’s Black in her mana cost as well. She often draws on the abilities of those around her, which means that her connections make her stronger. Amusingly, she’s unblockable against some of our other characters including her own dad!

Alex Manes, Tech Specialist 1WUB Whenever you draw a card, target creature you control gains deathtouch (Any amount of damage it deals to a creature is enough to destroy it.), lifelink (Damage dealt by that creature also causes you to gain that much life.), or vigilance (Attacking doesn’t cause it to tap.) until end of turn. Whenever Alex Manes, Tech Specialist deals combat damage to a player, create a clue token. (It’s an artifact with “2, Sacrifice this artifact: Draw a card.”) Kyle: “What’s the worst thing we could find?“ Alex: “Literal skeletons.” 2/3

Alex also sneaks around, but I wanted to play up his investigation skills a little more. Instead of just drawing a card when he does damage, he makes a clue “token”. That clue token represents information (drawing a card) that can be held onto or acted on later. He’s a character who’s able to do plenty of damage in his own right, but his big advantage is being able to help other characters do their jobs and get combat abilities they wouldn’t otherwise have. He protects his friends.

Maria DeLuca, Entrepreneur 2RG Legendary Creature – Human Alien Haste (This creature may attack and use tap abilities the turn it enters the battlefield.) Each other creature you control enters the battlefield with an additional +1/+1 counter on it. “Maria DeLuca is her own savior.” 3/2

Maria cares about her friends and her business. Her ability helps everyone and represents your other creatures being able to stop in for a drink at the bar. She gets haste to show how hard she works and has aggressive stats so she can get her hands dirty in a fight. Like Michael, I could see another version playing into her psychic powers.

Dr. Kyle Valenti 1WW Legendary Creature – Human Lifelink (Damage dealt by that creature also causes you to gain that much life.) When Dr. Kyle Valenti enters the battlefield, put a +1/+1 counter on each other creature you control. "In a hospital it doesn't matter what someone did before they came through the doors." 2/2

Kyle is a healer and instead of showing that with damage prevention, I chose a simpler buff to the whole team. Now you’re less worried about losing fights!

Rosa Ortecho, Troubled Artist 1BR Legendary Creature – Human Alien At the beginning of your upkeep, choose one — • Draw a card and lose 2 life. • Exile the top card of your library. Until end of turn, you may play that card. Red is armor. 3/2

Rosa was a fun one to design. She is black red which is a color combo notoriously bad at impulse control. She has aggressive stats and an ability that makes the controller make a hard choice every turn. Do I take the guaranteed draw at the cost of a couple life or do I risk not being able to cast whatever I exile? Among other things, this represents her struggle with addiction-- taking the most directly expedient option comes with some harm to her life totals- but it’s the damage you know. The second option requires you to risk the unknown, but be able to participate in the fight without automatically being harmed-- it requires you to trust your deck and your support network...but be prepared for potential setbacks.

Arturo Ortecho GG Legendary Creature – Human Defender (This creature can’t attack.) Whenever a nontoken creature enters the battlefield under your control, create a Food token. (It’s an artifact with “{2}, {T}, Sacrifice this artifact: You gain 3 life.”) G, T, Sacrifice a Food: Target creature gets +2/+2 until end of turn. “I already have my miracle.” 2/4

Arturo cares about his community as do many of our characters, but if there’s any color that cares about bringing everyone in for dinner, it’s green. He delivers food whenever a new creature enters and can use them as buffs instead of just life gain! His kindness and compassion sustain everyone.

Deputy Jenna Cameron 1RR Legendary Creature – Human First Strike (This creature deals combat damage before creatures without first strike.) Whenever Jenna blocks or becomes blocked by a creature, she deals 1 damage to that creature. “Who you callin’ a girl?” 2/3

In case you can’t tell, a lot of our characters act on impulse and emotion, which is a Red trait. Cam is tough (A 3/4 is needed to best her in combat!) and efficiently deals with enemies. The faster-than-first strike damage represents her sharp shooting skill. And because of her skills, anyone going up against her is going to feel it right away.

Sergeant Jesse Manes 2BB Legendary Creature – Human Soldier Menace (This creature must be blocked by two or more creatures.) When Sergeant Jesse Manes enters the battlefield or attacks, exile the top card of each opponent’s library face down. You may cast noncreature cards exiled this way and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any type to cast that spell. Jesse's inhumane methods leave only pain in his wake. 3/2

Jesse is a character who has his own twisted view of how his actions will better society. His card here plays up how he tends to believe the ends justify any means-- for him, at least. He steals information and uses it against those he took it from, to represent his involvement in Project Shepherd and the threat he represents not just to the safety and security of the aliens, but to anyone helping them. I chose to exclude creatures in order to make the ability a little more efficient and make it feel more like controlling the chess board and less like mind control (Which a Noah card would someday probably do).

Whew! I hope you enjoyed reading these as much as I enjoyed making them!

#rnmweekendwarriors2021 #magic the gathering #roswell new mexico

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nerdythebard · 3 years

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#5: Amaterasu, The Shining Light

Gods and Goddesses!

We step into a brand new pantheon, opening it with Amaterasu! She is a central figure in Shinto, the firstborn and the only daughter of the primordial creator deities (Izanami and Izanagi), and to this day believed to be the direct ancestor of Japanese emperors. Let's see what can this great leader bring to the D&D table!

Next time: NANTS INGONYAMA BAGITHI BABA!

As always, let's see what we need to make the Sun rise again for us:

High Mobility: Amaterasu has an Aura which increases Movement Speed (and gives additional healing and power) and she has a Dash which silences enemies

High Area Damage: Amaterasu's Passive aura weakens foes, her Mirror charges up a long-range blast, and her Ultimate is three quick and powerful slices slowing and stunning enemies on top of dealing damage

The Imperial Regalia of Japan: It's only fitting to incorporate Amaterasu's symbols of power: the Yasaka-no-Magatama jewel, the Yata-no-Kagami mirror, and the Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi sword.

---

Starting with Amaterasu's race, I cannot think of anything else than Protector Aasimar. With the spark of divinity inside us, we get a +2 Charisma and +1 Wisdom, 60 feet of Darkvision, and resistance to radiant and necrotic damage. We get the Healing Hands feature, which lets us restore s number of Hit Points equal to our level (for a creature we touch, or for ourselves), and the Light Bearer feature gives us the Light cantrip (fitting, since Amaterasu is the Sun Goddess). We can speak, read, and write Common and Celestial, and starting at 3rd level we get the Radiant Soul feature; for 1 minute we transform into a celestial form that gives us flying speed of 30 feet and, once per turn, we can deal extra radiant damage when attacking or casting a spell (the amount of damage is equal to our overall level).

Amaterasu is the chief kami (god-like spirit) of Shinto, so making her a Noble sounds like a solid choice. We gain proficiency in History and Persuasion skills, and with one type of gaming set (plus we can pick another language). This background gives us the Position of Privilege feature, which could be used to infiltrate the upper-class layers of society. Ensuring a meeting with the local higher-ups due to our status is always a good option to keep in our back pocket.

ABILITY SCORES

We'll start with Dexterity on this one - Amaterasu's mobility and quick strikes make her a more nimble type of fighter. Follow that up with Charisma, which is going to be our spellcasting ability (and as a measure of Amaterasu's leadership). Constitution is next, we might be wearing what appears to be at least a half-plate in the artwork, but we cannot ignore the Hit Points.

We go with Wisdom next, Amaterasu's tactics and benevolence comes from millennia of good leadership. Intelligence is a little lower than I wish it was, but we just need other abilities more. Finally, we'll dump Strength – we weren't able to stop a horse being thrown at us by our brother (your time will come, Susano'o).

CLASS

This will be another pure build. I've tried a few options with Amaterasu, but the only one that seems to be working best for what we want to achieve is going Paladin start-to-finish.

As a Paladin, our Hit Dice is a d10 and we begin with 10 + our CON mod amount of Hit Points. We gain proficiency in light armour, medium armour, heavy armour, shields, simple weapons, and martial weapons. As stated before, I would suggest to go for the half-plate and longsword combo, with a shield to represent both the Kusanagi sword and the Yata mirror. Paladins also get a holy symbol, so that takes care of the Yasaka jewel, as well. We don't get any tool proficiencies, our saving throws are Wisdom and Charisma, and we get to pick two class skills; let's get Insight and Religion.

Level 1: Starting our Paladin journey, we get Divine Sense. This special kind of perception informs us of any celestials, fiends, or undead within 60 feet from us. We can also detect consecrated or desecrated places and objects.

We also get Lay on Hands, which is another useful quick-healing ability. We have a pool of [our Paladin level x5] healing points, which we can distribute how we see fit; alternatively, we can spend 5 points to remove one disease or poison from the target's body. This feature doesn't work on constructs and the undead, and we replenish all lost points after finishing a long rest.

Level 2: Beginning at this level, we expand our divine capabilities with Divine Smite, one of the many flavours of SMITE (heh heh) we get as a Paladin. Whenever we hit a target with our melee weapon, we can burn a spell slot to deal extra 2d8 radiant damage for a 1st-level spell slot, with the damage increasing by 1d8 for each slot level (to a maximum of 5d8). Fiends and the undead get extra 1d8 damage (to a maximum of 6d8).

Here, we also get to pick our Fighting Style that defines our warrior. For Amaterasu I feel like Interception from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything works great here. When a target within 5 feet from us gets attacked by a creature we can see, we can use our reaction to reduce the damage by 1d10 + our proficiency bonus (to a minimum of 0 damage). We have to have a shield or a simple/martial weapon equipped for this to work.

Level 2 is also where we get our Paladin Spellcasting, with Charisma as our casting ability. Paladins don't get any cantrips, and can prepare a [Charisma modifier + half of Paladin level] number of spells; in our case, it means four spells with two 1st-level spell slots:

Divine Favour is a bonus action spell that empowers your weapon with an additional 1d4 radiant damage on a hit for 1 minute (concentration).

Protection from Evil and Good is a fantastic defence buff. A willing creature we touch is protected against aberrations, celestials, elementals, fey, fiends, and undead for 10 minutes (concentration). All creature types mentioned above have disadvantage on attacks against the target, and the target cannot be charmed, frightened, or possessed by them.

Searing Smite channels the power of the Sun to our weapon strikes. As a bonus action, for the next minute (concentration) each successful melee attack deals additional 1d6 fire damage and lights the target on fire (Constitution saving throw at the beginning of each turn or another 1d6 fire damage).

Shield of Faith is a useful AC boost, especially when joined by a half-plate and a shield. The spell lasts for 10 minutes (concentration) and gives us +2 AC.

Level 3: Our brand new Divine Health feature makes us completely immune to disease.

It's also at this level that we pick our subclass – the Sacred Oath – and I'll be honest, I had a dilemma here. Flavour-wise, Oath of the Crown would've worked great here; it represents a protector of their people, somebody who carries the spirit of the nation on their shoulders. Unfortunately, there is another Oath that has more things that we need. Oath of Glory is usually taken by Paladins who believe they are destined for greatness and therefore they train diligently every day waiting for fate to call them to adventure. At this

When we take this Oath, we gain access to some more spells. We always have them prepared and they don't count against the max. number of spells we can have. Guiding Bolt deals 4d6 radiant damage on a successful hit, and the next attack against the target before our next turn has an advantage. Heroism makes one willing creature we touch immune to being frightened for 1 minute (concentration) and grants it Temporary Hit Points equal to our spellcasting ability modifier.

We also gain access to the Channel Divinity feature. We get only one CD per short or long rest, but we have two options right from the start:

Peerless Athlete enhances our physical abilities, giving us advantage on Athletics and Acrobatics checks and enhancing our capacity to carry, push, lift, and drag objects. Our jump distance also increases by 10 feet.

Inspiring Smite can be used immediately after we deal extra damage with the Divine Smite feature. As a bonus action, we can pick a number of creatures within 30 feet from us and distribute [2d8 + our Paladin level] Temporary Hit Points between them.

Level 4: We get our first Ability Score Improvement! If our DM allows to take feats instead of raising abilities, that's good news for us; the Resilient feat gives us a +1 to an ability of our choice (let's go for Constitution for better Hit Point) and lets us become proficient in one saving throw. One again, let's select Constitution for better chance of keeping our concentration.

At this level, we can also get a new 1st-level spell: Command forces one target to make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, we can issue a simple one-word command that the target must execute on its next turn. If the target is an undead, cannot understand our language, or we order them to harm themselves, the spell fails.

Level 5: We unlock 2nd-level spell slots here. We also get two more spells, thanks to our subclass: Enhance Ability lets us touch one willing creature and enhance one of its ability scores for 1 hour (concentration). Magic Weapon gives a weapon we touch a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls for 1 hour (concentration) and also makes the weapon magical for the purpose of overcoming resistances.

Here, we also get Extra Attack feature, which lets us attack twice during one Action.

Level 6: At this level, we gain our first Aura ability. Aura of Protection extends 10 feet from us (30 feet when we hit level 18) and gives an automatic bonus of [our Charisma modifier] to us or any friendly creature within range that has to make a saving throw.

We can also pick our first 2nd-level spell. Aid gives up to three creatures within 30 feet of us extra 5 Hit Points, and also increases Maximum Hit Points by 5 for 8 hours.

Level 7: From our subclass we get another Aura ability. Aura of Alacrity increases our walking speed by 10 feet. Additionally, if we're not incapacitated, all allies that stand within 5 feet of us at the beginning of their turn gain +10 feet of walking speed until the end of their turn.

Level 8: We get another ASI. For this one, let's raise our Dexterity and Constitution by 1.

We also get another 2nd-level spell: Warding Bond links us with another willing creature via two matching rings for 1 hour. While our target is within 60 feet of us, they gain +1 to AC and saving throws, as well as resistance to all forms of damage. However, each time the target takes damage, we take the same amount of damage.

Level 9: At this level we get no class features, but we do unlock 3rd-level spell slots and get two new spells from our subclass:

Haste doubles the speed of one willing creature within 30 feet of us, as well as provides it with +2 AC, additional Action on each of its turn, and disadvantage on Dexterity saving throw for 1 minute (concentration). After the spell wears off, the target can't move or take actions until its next turn.

Protection from Energy grants a willing creature we touch resistance to one of the following types of damage – acid, cold, fire, lightning, or thunder – for 1 hour (concentration).

Level 10: Halfway through this build and we get Aura of Courage, which gives us and friendly creatures within 10 feet of us immunity to being frightened. At level 18, the Aura extends to 30 feet.

We get our first 3rd-level spell: Blinding Smite gives our next successful strike additional 3d8 radiant damage; the target has to make a Constitution saving throw or be blinded until the spell ends (1 minute, concentration).

Level 11: We get a little upgrade with Improved Divine Smite, which is now permanently active. On a successful hit, the target receives extra 1d8 radiant damage. In my personal ruling, we can still burn spell slots to add extra d8s of radiant damage, as per usual Divine Smite.

Level 12: Another ASI; let's put one point into Constitution and one into Wisdom.

For this level's spell, Daylight create a sphere of natural sunlight at a point of our choice within 60 feet from us. It overcomes any magical darkness created by a spell of 3rd level or lower, and can be used to put some weakness to vampires. The spell can also be used on an object that isn't being worn or carried to make it glow.

Level 13: Here, we unlock 4th-level spell slots and gain two more spells from our subclass:

Compulsion targets a creature we can see within 30 feet that can hear us. It has to make a Wisdom saving throw (automatic success if it can't be charmed) or be forced to use its entire movement speed to go in the direction of our choice horizontal to us. It cannot be compelled to walk into hazard, but this triggers attacks of opportunity when leaving melee range.

Freedom of Movement gives a willing target protection from paralysis, being restrained, and allows them to move freely through difficult terrain for 1 hour.

Level 14: At this level, we receive the Cleansing Touch feature. Using an action, we can end the effect of one spell on ourselves or another target. That means we can now break paralysis, poisoning, sleep, fear, charm, etc.

For our first 4th-level spell, we get Death Ward. For 8 hours, a creature we touch is given a moderate protection from death. If the creature is reduced to 0 Hit Points, it comes back to life with 1 HP and the spell ends. It can also stop a spell which results in an instant death, such as the 9th-level Power Word: Kill.

Level 15: We get another subclass upgrade with Glorious Defence. Whenever we (or a creature within 10 feet of us) are hit, we can use our reaction to get a bonus AC equal to our Charisma modifier. If the attack against us misses, we can use the same reaction to make a counter-attack, provided the enemy is within our weapon's range.

Level 16: Time for another ASI. Let's get +2 to our Constitution to make us an even better tank.

We get another 4th-level spell: Aura of Purity gives all non-hostile creatures within 30 feet of us (including us) immunity to disease, resistance to poison damage, and advantage on saving throws against the following effects – blinded, charmed, deafened, frightened, paralysed, poisoned, and stunned – for 10 minutes (concentration).

Level 17: Here, we unlock 5th-level spell slots and receive the last two subclass spells:

Commune is a ritual that allows us to get in contact with some higher power and ask up to three question that could be answered by either 'yes' or 'no'.

Flame Strike calls a column of fire to rain from above on the location we select within 60 feet from us. Creatures in 10-foot-radius, 40-foot-high cylinder has to make a Dexterity saving throw or take 4d6 fire damage and 4d6 radiant damage (half damage on a successful save).

Level 18: We get our Auras juiced up with Aura Improvement. Every Aura we get from our class (besides Aura spells we have to use slots for) is now getting an increased radius to 30 feet.

Time for 5th-level spells. Holy Weapon gives our weapon divine properties for 1 hour (concentration); it emits bright light for 30 feet (and a dim light for another 30), the weapon becomes magical, and each successful strike deals additional 2d8 radiant damage on a hit. As a bonus action, we can dismiss the spell earlier and make it burst into a flash of divine radiance. Each creature of our choice within 30 feet must make a Constitution saving throw, or take 4d6 radiant damage and be blinded for 1 minute (half damage and no blindness on a successful save).

Level 19: For the final ASI of this build, let's get a +2 for our Dexterity. We don't have any new spells here, so we have to be satisfied with this.

Level 20: Our capstone is also our final subclass feature. With Living Legend we can get a significant power-up from the sheer hype being told about us.

As a bonus action, we get the following benefits for 1 minute:

Advantage on Charisma checks;

If we miss out melee attack, we can make it hit (on each of our turns);

If we fail a saving throw, we can use our reaction to re-roll it. We must use the new roll.

We can use this feature once per long rest, unless we burn a 5th-level spell slot to use it again.

We also get our final spell for this build: with Destructive Wave we strike the ground to cause a divine shockwave. Each creature of our choice within 30 feet of us mus make a Constitution saving throw or take 5d6 thunder damage and 5d6 radiant or necrotic damage (our choice, let's go for radiant) and be knocked prone (half damage and no knockdown on a successful save).

---

Alright, that was Amaterasu. Let's see what we have:

Well, first of all, we're a great vanguard. This build focuses on our positioning, supporting our allies with Auras, making sure we're within range for Interception of damage. We also have a very nice AC (14 without armour, 19 with half-plate and shield, to a maximum of 21 with Glorious Defence and Shield of Faith) and 185 Hit Points on average, with possibility of crossing 200 if the math shapes of destiny are in our favour.

We also have a plethora of SMITE flavours to support our weapon strikes.

Unfortunately, most of our spells require concentration. We managed to mitigate the risk a little bit with the Resilient feat and proficiency with Con saving throws, but there is still a risk of wasting a spell.

Our basic sword strikes are also not great because of our -1 to Strength.

---

Anyway, that's it for Amaterasu. I hope you guys enjoyed this ride, and I'll see you next time!

- Nerdy out!

#aasimar #dungeons and dragons #dnd 5e #dnd #amaterasu #paladin #oath of glory

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alexiessan · 5 years

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Never alone - Chapter Two - Soulmate AU

AO3

Previous - Here - Next

Master List

Hello! Faster than ever before, I present you the second chapter of Never Alone!

I chose to not describe Marinette with her clothes or hairstyle so that you can imagine her as you want! In my mind, since she's a fashion designer, I imagine her always changing her clothes and very fashionable. I don't see her with her pigtails either. But it's up to you as to how you see her!

Also, I'm French, so if there are any grammatical mistakes, do not hesitate to tell me so I can come back and correct them!

Two months in the new school year, and Marinette was already exhausted. While she had a very calm summer filled with outings with her friends, she was now drowning in work. Jagged wanted her to design his newest album cover, and Clara Nightingale has asked for a new outfit for a music video.

At school, Alya and Marinette were doing their best to find a good trip for the end of the year. The school had a decent amount of money that was set aside specifically for their class trip, but they would need to organize an event or two if they wanted to go somewhere outside of Europe. They were lucky enough that their class’ trip was set for their first year of high school: Mrs. Mendelieiv’s class’ trip was set for the next year, right before the first set of exams for the baccalaureat.

Along with all that, there was also her duty as Ladybug. Hawkmoth has been relatively calm during the summer, but as soon as school started again in September, he released his akumas again.

Except, now, they were more brutal than ever before.

Ladybug cursed as the Akuma managed to deeply cut her on her left side. She watched as Chat jumped in as she collapsed on the roof they were battling. True to his promise, Chat took his job more seriously and only joked during patrols now. He also stopped to jump mindlessly in front of her to save her from a hit and actually tried to get both of them out of the way.

The Akuma they were fighting was a dangerous one. His arm has been transformed into two big shears, and they hurt like hell.

Ladybug watched with fascination as her hand was tainted with her own blood. She couldn’t remember if an Akuma had hurt her that much before… She knew for sure that she was bleeding too heavily and she was getting a bit dizzy. They would need to end the fight very soon.

Standing up, she took advantage of the distraction Chat provided to trip the Akuma with her yoyo, succeeding in tripping him. Quickly, Chat snatched the man’s bow and used cataclysm on it.

As she cleansed the Akuma and watched the light heal Paris and herself as she cast the cure, the red-clothed superhero couldn’t help but think it was time to contact the Justice League again.

Back when they got their miraculous, she and Chat had contacted the Justice League of Europe to ask for help. They were just teenagers without any training entrusted to protect a whole city as big as Paris, and it was clear to them they couldn’t possibly do that alone.

The person they had talked to at the moment had listened to them, took note and told them they would come back to them after informing the heroes of the issue in Paris. It was a month later that one of the heroes contacted them, informing them they would not intervene in Paris, as they have been doing a good job up until now and the miraculous cure healed everyone and repaired everything. They then give them words of encouragement before they cut the connection.

Ladybug had then wanted to contact the Justice League of America before remembering they wouldn’t be able to do anything as France was certainly not under their jurisdiction.

And thus, there they were, still two untrained teenagers, acting on instinct against people with magic powers.

Great.

She let Chat take care of the victim, still feeling the pain on her left side, even though it was healed and there was not a trace of blood left on her person.

“Are you ok?”

Ladybug watched as the victim was taken care of by some policemen and turned her attention to her partner.

“I’m fine Chat. Sorry I had to let you handle everything.”

“Hey, you were hurt and losing a lot of blood. It’s a wonder you could even stand up afterward.”

The girl smiled. “Should we try to contact the JLE again?”

Chat Noir sighed. “Even though they won’t intervene, they are watching closely what’s happening here. If they haven’t decided to step in yet, contacting them won’t change anything LB.”

Ladybug sighed. “You’re right. Of course. I should go Chat, I’m about to transform back.”

“Sure thing. I’ll see you later, then.”

Back in her room, Marinette winced as she sat down on her bed.

“Are you really ok Marinette?”

Tikki was looking at her with her big, wide blue eyes. She was obviously worried.

“I’m fine, just a bit sore. I’m lucky that the cure healed me, but I think I’ll still feel the pain for a few days.”

While the cure healed her, the pain stayed for some time after, varying on the severity of the injury. Since her latest injure was pretty severe, it would hurt for a little while.

“Alright, I still have some homework to do for tomorrow. You should eat something and go to sleep Tikki, you must be tired after today. There should be a cookie or two on my desk.”

The kwami looked at her for a moment before flying over her desk, knowing it was useless to insist and there wasn’t anything she could do anyway. Even if she wished she could take Marinette’s pain away.

“Alright girl, you said you found something for the trip?”

It was early December now, and Marinette had asked Alya to join her in the school library to discuss the trip. The fashion designer took the laptop out of her bag and opened it to show her what she found.

“So, you know how the trip also has to be educational? This is the Wayne Career Program. It’s designed for high school students. Each one of us would shadow someone in the firm as a sort of internship to learn about different professions.”

“Putain, girl! That’s amazing. Wayne Enterprises have a lot of different sectors. I could totally work with the PR team if we can manage to secure a trip there. Plus it’s in Gotham, in America!”

Alya literally squealed at the idea of traveling overseas.

“Yeah, I’m a bit worried about that actually. You know it’s not really the safest place on Earth.”

And what an understatement that was. Gotham was probably the city with the most crimes in the world. It would be a miracle if the school allowed them to go. But then again, the school board would do anything to up their reputation and a class winning an internship at WE… The principal would boast about it years after they had all graduated.

“There is an essay we have to write to apply. I suggest we write it before we present the idea to Ms. Bustier. We also need to prepare arguments for her and the school board.”

“No problem girl, I already have tons of arguments there.” The reporter showed her her notebook where there were two pages filled with arguments. The class president nodded, those were really good. She could really rely on her friend.

“Well, that was quick. Those should be enough to convince them. On to the essay, then. ‘How do you think you can change the world?’”

They spent hours after that, taking notes and making several drafts of the essay. It took them a week to have the actual final product and when they handed it to Ms. Bustier, she was delighted. It was decided they wouldn’t announce the destination of the trip to the class until they were sure it could be a possibility.

Alya and Marinette had dropped hints about the destination though, to see if the class would actually like to go to Gotham.

After a week or so, they knew they had chosen well.

On Marinette’s birthday, on the 16th of December, after lunch where the whole class sang Happy birthday to her, the class president and the class deputy had a meeting with the principal and the board of the school.

It was tough to convince them, and the meeting actually lasted the whole afternoon, but at the end of the day, they had all signed the papers that confirmed that the trip would happen in Gotham, should the two girls won the contest. They even agreed to unfreeze some more funds for it. This program would really look good on the school’s record.

It was with a bright smile that they returned to class ten minutes before the end of the day bell and announced to everyone that the trip to Gotham has been confirmed. Using the classroom’s computer, the whole class witness as the two girls applied to the Wayne Career Program.

Now, all they had to do was wait for an answer.

Life after that was a bit calmer for Marinette, if you didn’t count the Akumas. She worried that they were more and more violent, and more often than not, she had lingering pain from injuries she got at Ladybug.

But life was good. Lila had even stopped lying and was herself. Even if it means that she wasn’t very kind to anyone, even mocking all of them at times, the class would just scoff and roll their eyes at her antics. The designer still wouldn’t talk to her, but the atmosphere in the class was lighter than the previous year, and for that Marinette was grateful.

They were all at an outdoor ice rink at the end of January when Marinette’s phone beeped with a notification.

“Oh fucking shit, guys!”

It caught everyone’s attention as the tiny Dupain-Cheng was not one to curse like that.

“I just got an email for Mr. Wayne’s secretary! Our class is among the nine others to have won the contest! We are going to Gotham in May!”

Everyone cheered at that, hugging each other and even going as far as carrying Marinette and Alya around, as it was their doing.

“America, here we come!” shouted Kim.

“You do realize that you will have to work extra hard on your English, right?” teased Max.

“Oh, shit.”

Everyone laughed at that, but it was agreed among themselves and their English teacher that they would all stay for an hour and a half after school to learn the language, up until their trip.

“I can’t wait to see Gotham’s heroes in action!” squealed Alya.

“Aren’t they vigilantes?” asked Mylène.

“Same thing!”

“Not quite, babe.” grinned Nino.

Even Lila was smiling with them, and it was huge progress in their book.

Marinette smiled, “We’ll be there for two weeks. The first week, we’ll be visiting around, and the second week will be dedicated to our internships. I will have to send a list of all our careers of interest to Mr. Wayne’s secretary, so they can organize who we will be shadowing. So, I’ll need you to send me those pieces of information this weekend, so I can send it on Monday, okay?”

“Roger that, boss.”

As Alya took her hand to skate with her around the rink, the baker’s daughter couldn’t help the huge smile on her lips. A year ago, there was a lot of tension in the class, and here they were, all laughing together and talking excitedly about the upcoming trip that their class president and deputy won them.

She could hear Rose talking excitedly about the things she wanted to see in Gotham. She watched as Kim challenged Alix on God knows what and laughed as Max stated that he had a two-percent chance of winning that bet. She smiled as Adrien, with them at an outing for once, fell on his butt and Nino laughed as he helped him up. She even grinned as she watched Lila having a conversation with Nathaniel without being mean or mocking him once.

She had thought a year before that Lila would never change, but she was wrong. And she was happy that she had been, because even though Lila wasn’t very nice, well, all her classmates were kind enough to make up for it.

Yeah, Marinette thought with a smile, life was good. And she had a feeling that it would be even better.

Tag list:

@bigpicklebananatree @animegirlweeb @crazylittlemunchkin @northernbluetongue @cutechip @justafanwarrior @iloontjeboontje @resignedcatservant

#ml x dc #miraculous x dc #maribat #daminette #maridami #damian x marinette

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angsty-nerd · 4 years

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Nonny Questions

Okay, so a Nonny (or multiple Nonnies) sent me a whole bunch of ideas for questions for Carina that I never got to ask... however, I do have MY answers for them, so... here you go Nonny(ies)!!

1. Can you ask her for me "You said that Nathan got hired because of his chemistry with Jeanine. Were there other actors that auditioned for Max considered before Nathan came in? And did you stop looking once Nathan read with Jeanine?

So this is actually something that Carina’s talked about quite a bit. Nathan and Carina were friends before RNM - they worked together on the Originals for a number of years. When it was time for casting RNM, Nathan was one of Carina’s first calls. She always knew she wanted him on the show, but he was supposed to play Michael and not Max. Then Vlamis came in for an audition and blew them away and at the same time they were having trouble finding the right Max. So Carina decided to ask Nathan if he’d be willing to do a chemistry read with Jeanine (who had already been cast), because she didn’t doubt that he was capable of playing Max...she just wanted to check the chemistry, and obviously it was magic. Jeanine told a little story about that read on Lance Bass’s podcast this past week. Something about how they both do the same awkward tap dancing move...

2. Can you ask her how Liz knew she could show Max her feelings and what memories did she show Max since that's how he used the handprint to show memories of her?

If you remember back in 1x02, she told Max, “When you showed me your memories, I didn’t just see them, I felt them.” Also, the connection through the handprint made her feel Max’s echoes, and she experienced it again with Noah in 1x12-13 (in a really not-awesome way). And in 1x13, Noah told HER that he could feel her through the connection. He comments on the guilt she feels. So that was really Liz learning that Max could feel her just like she felt him through the connection. I don’t know that there were specific memories associated with it. She wanted him to feel her feelings, not see specific memories. It’s not like she got memory flashes from Noah. Just feelings.

3. An idea for a question. When Max and Isobel were on their way to find Noah and Liz was on the phone with Max, was she going to say I love you? Because her mouth moved with no words and when the camera went back to Max she said "stay safe".

I think that’s pretty clearly suggested. Throughout the entire episode Liz is fighting her guilt for loving Max. She’s very firm with Maria earlier in the episode that “you can’t help who you fall in love with”, which implies that she’s pretty much there already at that point. Noah comments on her guilt. But Liz feels like she needs to come clean to Rosa first, before she tells Max. Which is what stops her from saying it on the phone (plus, lets be real...we don’t want a first I love you to be over the phone. That would be so lame!). Which is why she goes to visit Rosa’s grave after leaving Max in bed. She’s trying to get a clean slate for herself so that she can say it to him. But instead she’s left haunted by her decision NOT to say it for months. *excuse me while I go cry in a corner*

4. Oh oh you should ask her if Liz is the light to Max's darkness! Unless you think it's too spoilery.

Yes. Yes she is.

5. Can you ask her if there was an intention in having all Liz Ortecho items in Max's mindscape when Isobel and Rosa tried to talk to him?

I think it was clearly intentional. I don’t think we’ll get much elaboration on that from them, although admittedly, now that the whole amnesia/dark!Max plot seems to be done (which, honestly...should have taken longer to resolve), maybe they’d speak about it now. I’ll tell you what MY headcanon is on it, and I dunno, maybe we can call it canon too based on what Isobel said at the beginning of 2x06. I think that Max was being overwhelmed by all the dark energy, and his memories and associations with Liz were the only way he could fight it. But his body was dead — only his mind was active. So after “pulling his plug”, his brain slowly started dying, and as it was dying, slowly the darkness began to take over. His memories of Liz were dying along with his mind. Slowly disappearing. If you watch those scenes closely, things are constantly disappearing until the very end, when he’s dying on the operating table, and Isobel goes in and nothing is left except the Jeep and Bright Eyes playing...and then Bright Eyes fades away - like it was his last memory of her fading away. And then what do you know, he wakes up and he remembers everything about his life except for Liz — the thing he was hanging onto until the end as he died. Another point to sell this - Carina mentioned in an interview that she fought hard to use Bright Eyes in that scene — that it was an important detail to her.

6. Possible question, "Did Max absorb Rosa's ten year of darkness or just 10 years of a general dark energy? Cuz as Rosa was in the pod she was in stasis so it's not like her body was decaying for 10 years, but a couple hours or a day or two.

Max absorbed ten years of dark/death energy by bringing Rosa back to life. I don’t think it has anything to do with decay. I think it has to do with death and the amount of time that she was dead. Like, dark/death energy was just building for all of that time. And I don’t think it’s intended to be specific to Rosa. Like, if he went to resurrect Kate or Jasmine, or Jim Valenti, or some random dude killed by a stray bullet, he would absorb the darkness of their deaths too, for the amount of the time they were dead. Dude, think about his “wrongness” after healing Liz. And she was only dead for, like, a minute at most. This is part of why I’m a little critical about how “easy” it was for him to expel the darkness...because Liz’s one minute (ish) of death was enough dark energy to blow out the entire town’s power! So ten years of Rosa? Hell, that could be some scary shit. He shouldn’t have been able to just cause a little mini earthquake and shoot some lightning and then done? It doesn’t sit right with me.

7. If Liz had a fiance, does that mean when Diego asked her to marry her she said yes? Will we see this?

Typically that’s what it means when you have a fiancé. And god, I hope not. I did like that we got a little bit more Diego detail in this last episode. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see him at some point, but I really don’t care to spend much time with him. Diego is the past. Max is the future. And its not like Diego is a threat to Max. I think one of the things I like about the way they’ve set up Echo at this point in the series is that it makes almost no sense for them to find themselves in a love triangle. Like, they are already basically spiritually married at this point. I can’t imagine Liz looking at anyone else. I can’t imagine Max looking at anyone else. They’re it for each other.

8. Can you ask Carina if that's the real Max or a different Max?

Obviously I didn’t get a chance to ask, and I don’t think she would have answered it I had...but based on her tweets, I’m inclined to think it’s the real Max. Yes, there was a lot of interesting imagery, and we could still end up with some sort of Jekyll/Hyde situation per @maxortecho metas, but Carina basically admitted that they felt like they needed to get Max back at the halfway point in the season, and that even though they wanted to do more with Dark!Max, that they felt like they needed their male lead back. And that the amnesia twist was really just to give us the chance to see Max falling in love with Liz. So I think there’s some GREAT opportunities for AU/Dark!Max fic now, but that the guy we’re seeing on the show is the real deal.

9. Can you ask if we should be suspicious of Max or can Echo fans breathe for a little while?

So I think I answered a lot of this above, however, now that I have the recording of my chat with Carina, let me give you the exact quote that she said to me about Echo…

“Oh good, I felt like it was time that you got fed.” (After I told her I was an Echo person)

“It was nice to see them be happy and laughing. I don’t know how long it’s going to last, but...Echo’s relationship is pretty good for a little while.”

I think that’s fair and I told her so in the chat. I really don’t think it’s reasonable to assume they’ll be all happy all the time (like I posted about a few days ago), but I think pretty good for a little while sounds nice!

#anonymous asks #rnm behind the scenes #carina #rnm echo #max evans #liz ortecho #max&liz #rnm echo meta #long post

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jamiebluewind · 5 years

Text

Charatcter Descriptions and Summary 2.15

This is the "short" version of descriptions. I have a much MUCH longer one with lots of quotes that I might have to split up to fit. As always, let me know if I need to edit or add anything and tag/ask/PM me about art and stories so I can check them out!

Warning: multiple blood mentions, torture, imprisonment, violence, stabbing, gun violence, canon typical violence, injuries, burns, homophobia and bigotry, gore mention, horror (including body horror), beheading, violence against animals, 69 mention, and disrespecting a mummy

***

Bad Kids

Fabian

Fandrangor stats: +2 to attack and damage. Finesse, one handed. 1d8 piercing. Burn a spell slot on a sucessful hit to add an extra d6 of damage per level.

Wrapped Alistair's foot in his sheet to trip and flip him up before deeply stabbing him in the abdomen

Held his sheet out to further protect Adaine.

Slashed Dayne with a reposte (while also burning a 1st level spell slot on his sword) as he yelled "Toxic masculinity is dead! I dance now!"

Closed in on Penelope using an athletics check that involved jumping and running across the deck. His mobile flourish pushed her to the edge of the deck before he kicked her off the ship.

Took out Alistair and Penelope (details in their section)

Stood at the helm after Bill fell off, turning the ship over due to the gravity being off

Riz

Hissed at Vraz

Got so sweaty and nervous over a terrible line ("You attacked the wrong guy!") that he missed the greesers

Shot Dayne from hiding while saying "You missed spring break" before hiding again (Fabian responding "Classic The Ball. Always shooting from hiding").

Had no clue where his father actually was, telling Bill the little thathe knew.

Got sleepy while he was hiding

Was shot out of the cannon and blasted off into the city (taking some damage). Shouted "I'm the ball!" as he flew away before smashing through a dark red and black stained glass window 200 feet below the ship, tumbling into a strangly familiar building. The room was empty due to all the devils hearing the alarms and fleeing. He rushed down a familar dark hallway.

Witnessed his father being tortured and saying that he didn't care about his son, but still misty steped into the room with the unconscious Pok the minute the devils left.

Tried to scoop his dad up into his Briefcase of Holding, but the two barbed devils came back (snarling as they saw him), one grabbing his briefcase and the other grappling Riz to restrain him. He kept trying to save Pok anyway even while restrained and fought against the devils over his briefcase (see Pok area for more)

Kristen

Rolled up sleeves over Daybreak attacking Tracker

Walked up to Daybreak with anger in her veins (over him hurting Tracker), said "Hi Daybreak. It's so great to see you. I've been PRAYING FOR YOU!", and slammed her staff down, using distructive wave. Light radiated out of her as every enemy was hit but Penelope (due to Globe of Invulnerability) and Johnny Spells and took out 3 Scarecrows. She then spat on Daybreak which hisses on his cheek as he yelled "Ah! Love! Love wins!"

Was knocked out by Daybreak and was back in Silvar looking at a nice tree

Used a 4th level mass healing word before her and Tracker dimension doored away from Daybreak

Adaine

Arcane Hand works like a claw machine with a controler in her hands

While prone, shot a lightning bolt at Dayne, Penelope, and a Scarecrow (after counterspelling Penelope's counterspell). Took out the Scarecrow.

Hit Daybreak with a 4th level Cromatic Orb (cold damage).

Smacked Johnny's fire spell out of the air with a counterspell after calling him "a predator who didn't fuck" and then ignored Johnny completely to go after Daybreak by hitting him with a 4th level (cold) chromatic orb

Used Forceful Hand to grab Bill to keep him from falling (two of the devils stayed grapped to Bill)

Fig

Tried to shake Gilear awake

Fig The Unfaethable

Her insignia burned in her head when she used psionic blast (took out two Scarecrows)

Winked at Ayda

Used Healing Word on Kristen

Attacked Daybreak with Bombing Blade (adds bardic for extra and if he moves willinging before her next turn he takes thunder damage)

Took out Daybreak (details in his section)

Was tossed by Gorgug towards a plummeting Bill like a missile before backpacked onto Bill, snatching a scroll from Vraz's pocket (Vraz: No no no no no! / Bill: What's yours is ours.), and Dimension Dooring back to the ship with Bill.

Gorgug

Stood over Kristen's unconscious body to protect her

Used Reckless Attack twice on Daybreak, the first time dealing 50 damage and the second time ("I'm just so tired of you") another 48 damage.

Took out Dayne (details in his section) and two Scarecrows

Grabbed some holy oil to take with him to coat his weapon with.

***

Familiars and Companions

Boggy: Hit by Penelope's Cone of Cold which caused him to freeze, crack, and fall apart (can be brought back by Adaine)

Gaf: Made incorporial by Ayda to protect him/her/them during the battle

Baby: Was made invisible by Fig. Tried to pickpocket Vraz, but just got a scrap of some kind. Did a very indecent celebration dance while invisible (when Penelope was "killed").

Hangman: Freaked out over seeing Johnny before siding with Fabian. Leapt to attack Johnny Spells, but couldn't make it and settled for slamming into the greeser Sorching Ray. Frozen and knocked down by Penelope's Cone of Cold.

Hirelings and Partners

Tracker

Stayed behind on Goldenrod

Held up a hand with her holy symbol to summon Twilight Sanctuary (gives everyone a d8 of temp hit which they can choose to replace or keep each round).

Cast Beacon of Hope

Knocked out by Penelope's Cone of Cold (which also ended her two spells)

Hit Kristen with a max level cure wounds, yeling at everyone to look away as she jumped onto an unconscious Kristen who was lying between Gorgug's legs (Kristen started touching his leg thinking it's Tracker's). Everyone assumed they were 69ing, but Tracker actually just gave Kristen a very sweet kiss on the mouth and said "Double clerics baby. Nobody can keep us down for long."

Went into flying wolf form to catch Kristen when she fell off the ship.

Ragh

Took out two Scarecrows, goring one before tossed them the ship and spartan kicking the other off the deck.

Ran up to a prone Dayne chanting hoot growl and yelled "I've done a lot of shit in my life because of you asshole!" as he bodied into him (nat 20).

Walked up to Fabian and Gorgug crying after Dayne was killed.

Instigated a three way chest bump with Fabian and Gorgug, not noticing Adaine who was forced to duck ("Oh god! The jocks are being fiesty!")

Was yelled at by Daybreak which he used as an opportunity to confront Daybreak both verbally and physically.

Ayda

Cast a spell that poured out massive amounts of water over Avernus in an attempt to flood hell (in retaliation for them taking Fig) before checking on Fig

Touched both of Fig's arms as she checked if she was okay before casting Protection From Evil And Good on her.

Flew off Goldenrod to help Sandra Lynn protect the ship from incoming fire by throwing up abjurative wards, but came back and landed on the deck before the ship left Avernus.

Flew towards Daybreak and Penelope, teleporting multiple times per second to create a flickering group of 10 of her before slashing out with her talons to damage them both.

Cast clairvoyance to find Riz, pointing at the building he was in.

Used her portent to save Fabian when Goldenrod lost gravity (allowing him to hold on) before flying to catch Adaine.

Sandra Lynn

Left the Goldenrod to cover their tail, doing a swan dive off deck (which looked likes she flew up from the upside down deck) and landing on Baxter before knocking a teleportation missile out of sky with her arrow.

Smashed back down onto the deck with Baxter before healing a down Tracker (Kristen: Thank you Sandra Lynn!)

Hit Daybreak with arrows.

Jumped on Baxter when the ship lost gravity and went to help catch Kristen.

Gilear

Was immediately killed by Bill Seacaster who shot him in the chest.

Brought back by Kristen with 1 hp, a bleeding chest wound, and covered in cenders and fire

Was told by Gorgug (who stood in front of him) to lie on the ground

Hid in the golden sarcophagus (somehow lifting the massive lid to do so)

***

The Pirates

The Goldenrod

The still "living" transmogrified body of Kalvaxus turned into a flying ship against his will

Kalvaxus has to swallow down the cannon coming from his mouth to talk and turning always hurts him

Shot by Bill for calling himself a boat instead of a ship

Captained by Bill Seacaster, crewed by cender zombie pirates, and the flagship of Bill's rebel armada of dragon carcus ships

The ship has it's own gravity and can sail in any direction (including upside down), but the unsecured barrels on deck are a hazard during fast turns.

Able to breached through to Dis, Bill having some way to travel through the levels that the other devils couldn't find

Broadsided The Iron City, firing tons of gold, holy water, and saints finger bones wrapped in old parchment out of it's cannons.

Captain Bill Seacaster

An enormous devil with one cender eye, a devil bone hook, and a floating skull and crossbones insignia over his head

At the helm of Goldenrod after rescuing Riz, Fig, Gilear, Hangman, and Baby/Wretchrot (via being yanked up on rope ladders to the Goldenrod).

Part of his multi level marketing scheme was to have pirates steal holy relics for spell slots and then use the holy relics as ammo against other devils and their ships.

Shot Gilear throught the chest on sight

Got a chain wrapped around his neck by Kystrona

After Gilear was brought back to life by Kristen, he said nice things to Gilear and gave him a massive glowing sword (which was too big for Gilear to wield). The bad kids were all deeply confused by how quickly he went from one extreme to another.

Offered Kristen snuff powder

Ordered his crew to shoot Riz out of a cannon to "help" him look for Pok

As his hook hand was stabbing into one of the three devils he was fighting, he took a legendary action to shake his fist and yell "That's my darling boy!" over Fabian "killing" Penelope. He corrected himself to yell "He's his own his darling man boy!"

When the gravity on the Goldenrod was dispelled, he told Fabian to take the helm before letting go on purpose, taking the three other devils with him (rescued by Adaine and Fig).

Alistair Ash

An intern on the Goldenrod

Skull is cracked open like an egg with part of it fully missing. Inside the socket is roiling fire. His eyes are rotted out, the fire shining through his sockets.

Attacked Fabian exclusively due to being left behind by him

How he was finished off: Fabian stood up, his body very bloody and burned from the beating he's took. Fire enshrouded his sheet as he wrapped Alistair in it in order to spin him like a top. As Alistair twirled in the air, the Hangman hit him in a flash. As Alistair popped of the wheel of the Hangman, Fabian took out Fandrangor (which was rippling with his own inner light and magic) and pierced Alistair's ribcage up through his heart. Silver motes of light burst out of Alistair's mouth, "eyes", and the empty socket of his skull. Bill cried a single tear out of his non ember eye as he said "It be beau-ti-ful". Fabian told his father "I'm my own man now." to which Bill answered "The story keeps getting better!" Meanwhile, Alistair changed his opinion on Fabian, seeing him as chosen one and (since he had to die for Fabian to become who he was) himself as chosen in a way. Fabian asked if Chungle Down Bim was still alive, but Alistair only yelled "He's gonna shit in your mouth!" before being destroyed. One of the many bottles on Bill's belt filled with a red mist that was Alistair, now even more in debt to Bill with another 2000 gold added to his tab to bring him back in another form later.

Cinder Pirates

The crew of the Goldenrod, most (if not all) of which being victims of Bill's pyramid scheme

Assended from ropes to their respective ships after raiding The Bottomless Pit, yoinking up crates and boxes filled with treasure (like books and weaponry) as they went.

Loaded the cannons of The Goldenrod with holy relics, books, golden reliquaries, holy water, and even the body of a dead saint (who was unceremoniously dumped out of his golden sarcophagus). All the relics almost looked like they were from other worlds.

Bill doesn't do the best job putting his followers back together, so most are in worse shape than Alistair. One was missing his entire jaw!

Most were finished off by Penelope's Cone of Cold

***

Bill's Pursuers

Devil Crafts

Iron zeppelins piloted by devils in pursuit of Seacaster.

Shoot ground to air missiles that shot spinning pentagrams of fire teleportation that glowed when they hit, teleporting in reinforcements.

Vraz The Mean, Lorzug The Impaled, and Kystrona The Chained

All appeared through a dimension door at the helm of the ship before the three devils began fighting Bill.

Vraz (after Fig denied a direct order) released all warlocks under Gortholax by making all his contracts null and void.

All of them (including Bill) do tramendous amounts of fire and poison damage, but all of them (including Bill) are immune to fire and poison, so the fight devolved into a bunch of very dangerous people who can't hurt each other just slapping the hell out of each other.

***

Greesers

Johnny Spells

Appeared via teleportation missile with his crew

Roiling in flame with veins glowing in a red light, using a snap comb to brush his hair back and wearing a black leather jacket with a clean white tee.

Hit Fabian with Ray of Fire and then was IMMEDIATELY tossed off the starboard side of the ship by Adaine using her Arcane Hand.

Was saved by Kystrona (via animate chain) before he fell to his "death"

Spent an entire turn to get back on the ship only to have his fire spell dismissed by Adaine.

How he was finished off: Flew off the ship (again) when it lost gravity, saying "No! I had stuff. I had plans. I had-" as he fell to his "death".

Johnny's Crew

Six teiflings greasers who appeared via teleportation missile wearing black leather jackets with clean white tees.

Two trampled over a dead Gilear to get to the teens.

How they were finished off: One was gored by Ragh before being tossed off the ship, one was spartan kicked off the deck by Ragh, two were killed by Gorgug, and two were destroyed by Fig's psionic blast

***

Harvestmen & Friends

Penelope Everpetal

Got to Goldenrod via teleportation missile with Dayne, Daybreak, and four Scarecrow Harvestmen.

Had sunken deep pools of darkness for eyes. She wore a burnt prom queen dress. Jagged shards of metal were stabbed into her skull like a crown (which caused blood to trickle down).

Was protected from magic most of the fight due to casting Globe Of Invulnerability

Stepped forward with a corny line ("Oh I'm so sorry guys. It's time to chill out.") before casting Cone of Cold which took out Tracker, Boggy, Hangman, and most of Bill's crew.

Was knocked off the ship by Fabian and fell down into the sky over the Iron City of Dis, shreaking and wailing as she went. Saved herself by using Misty Step to get back to the ship.

How she was finished off...

Penelope: *appeared in a twirl of magic and hit Fabian with a Firebolt, knocking him down to 4HP* I'm so sorry that you had like... some sort of collapse and appear to be fighting with a blanket now, but I just wanna tell you something. We are gonna drag you and all your shitty stupid little- what? Bad kid friends to hell. Forever.

Fig: I actually already live here. I'm an arch devil.

Fabian: Yeah! Did you hear that? She already lives here!

Kalvaxus: Again if we [re con noise] it later. This fight seems mostly lost. Use reason!

Penelope: Now. It's time for you to go bye bye Fabian *starts casting another spell*

Fabian: (crit, mobile florish, plus 2nd level spell slot with Fandrangor) *throws up his sheet so it blocks her field of vision (like how people trick their pets) and then grabs her and tango swing dancing spins her off the ship as she yells and is destroyed as motes of silver light shoot out*

Dayne Blade

Burning ember flaming vains with a hellish gleam to his eyes

Doesn't know how long he's been there

How he was finished: Begged Gorgug to not "kill" him due to him being an Owlbear, but was ignored. He tried once more, saying "Dude dude dude we're both Owlbears!" but Gorgug simply answered "You're not an Owlbear anymore" before he chopped off Dayne head. Gorgug then pretended his head was a ball and that he was going for a pass.

Coach Daybreak

Burning ember flaming vains with a hellish gleam to his eyes, a whistle, a silvered halberd, and regenerating health

Aggressively targeted Tracker and Kristen (even as Gorgug literally stood over Kristen) and knocked Kristen out at one point

Yelled "No!" while flames shot out of his ears at the thought of ending toxic masculinity

Freaked out over Gorgug being an Owlbrear

Not a true devil, just a soul trapped in hell that was powerful enough in life to fight for the devils, punished to never understand why he was there (Brennan "He cannot find peace, but he can find you").

How he was finished: Daybreak shouted "I'm gonna kill you all. All of you deserve to be here, not me. I was a holy man! *points to Fig* YOU ARE A LITERAL ARCH DEVIL!" Fig answered "Yeah bitch it's fun!" before she used a 4th level psionic blast on him. He screamed as he was knocked off the ship and eviscerated by both Fig's psionic blast and the after effects of her booming blade* (Fig also steals his visage)

Scarecrow Men

The transfigured bodies of four former harvestmen who died

Burnt charred skin, flannel button up shirts, and heads of burlap sacks with scarcrow eyes, which were slightly aflame

How they were finished off: one was killed by Adaine's lightning bolt and the other three were gone in a flash of light by Kristen's destructive wave

***

Dis and Pok

Iron City of Dis

Choking smoke and freezing rain

Endless sprawling cast iron metropolis of dread, misery, and torture

Alarms (clacksaws I think Brennan said?) rang as the devils shouted "It's Seacaster!"

The city was lit up by Goldenrod (while the other ships in the armada caught up)

Building Holding Pok

At least one dark red and black stained glass window (which Riz crashed through). The room within was empty due to all the devils hearing the alarms and fleeing.

Dark hallway leading to a light coming out from under a closed doorway. A slightly ajar door was next to it and a possible third door with steal thrones was next to that. The slightly ajar door had a somewhat reflective marble wall (where a reflection of Pok could be seen from the hall) and a two way mirror that showed an interrogation room.

Pok

A goblin who was strapped to a chair and had a swolen eye. A pit fiend also splashed acid in his face

Was interrogated by a pit fiend flanked by two barbed devils

Kept a good poker face around the devils, at one point was snarling and growling as he had (what appeared to be) a goblinoid frenzy come over him

Was lacerated by barbed whips handled by the barbed devils until he collapsed, asking why he was there as he coughed up blood and appeared to go unconscious.

Shot both barbed devils in the head with his gun (which he picked off of Riz) as they were restraining Riz

Reached up and slapped his right ear to call for an extraction as a halo appeared behind his head. He reached out to grab Riz (Kid, I can't believe you made it here) before a beam of celestial light smashed through the ceiling. He confirmed that he was an undercover angel before raising his fist up in a superman pose as the beam made a loud sound and took the pair away.

***

Questions and Thoughts

How does Lorzug move, much less fight?

Fig shouldn't have told Vraz to eat her ass. She might have taken her up on it and tried to take a bite out of her ass. O_O

What IS a potentate?

How will Fig use her warlock abilities after being released? Was her insignia burning in her forehead how she's still able to do it?

Is Dayne's curse to never know how long he's been there?

How short is Adaine that our three Owlbears (all over 6 feet tall) didn't notice her when they went in for a three way chest bump?

Destructive Wave is the power of pissed off protective girlfriend energy.

When Kristen was knocked out, she was back in Silvar looking at a nice tree. Possible connection to the unknown goddess?

Adaine still has Johnny's warlock switchblade comb.

Will we get updated Pok art now?

Where is Riz now and how will he get back in time? Was this Kalina's plan all along (blow Pok's cover and delay the party longer to give them more of a lead)?

I am well aware that I spelled Alistair several different ways because I have no clue how to spell it and don't have it on my list of how I might spell it.

Please somebody teach Bill how to not suck at making bodies. I mean, I'm over here feeling sorry for those cinder zombies and between the crippling debt and unpaid internships, he could at LEAST give them working bodies with jaws and stuff.

Really paying attention made the 69 scene so much funnier and makes Ayda's confusion over it being a sex act so much more priceless. The couple was fully clothed, Kristen caressed Gorgug's leg while she was unconscious and being healed by Tracker, and (according to Brennan) Tracker just gave Kristen a sweet kiss. Part of me wonders if Tracker was messing with the group while Kristen came to thinking something dirty happened and just went with it, the other teens too inexperienced to know otherwise (save Ayda who must be so confused! XD).

The uselessness of Johnny Spells was one of my favorite parts of the stream.

Anybody else super happy Bill was so supportive of Fabian coming into his own, being supportive of his friends, and embracing dance?

Bill/Vraz. Nuff said.

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bluejaybabbles-archive · 4 years

Note

IS IT TOO GAY OF ME TO ASK FOR ALL THREE MIDWEST MONSTERS WIP CHARACTESR FOR THE SOFT MEME... i just love them DEARLY

IT IS EXACTLY THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF GAY TO ASK FOR ALL THREE OF THEM MAX

Putting this under a cut bc it got a bit lengthy!

Let’s go in alphabetical order! First up, Antonia Figueroa!

what they smell like

I haven’t thought about this much, but definitely something soft...like fresh laundry, or something floral! She tries to seem aloof and standoffish, but she’s really just. So soft, if you gain her trust, so I think her scent would reflect that!

what their favorite smells in the world are

Vanilla!! She has far too many vanilla candles. She also loves the smell of the ocean breeze. The last time she went to Puerto Rico, she used her magic to bottle the ocean breeze, and when she’s stressed, she opens the bottle and just sits in the scent for a while.

what pajamas they wear/what they wear to sleep in

Big t-shirts! She has a collection of graphic tees just for sleeping in. A lot of them have the Pepsi logo on them ajsdbsdufh and some of them are just like. You know those tacky shirts with the animals printed on them?? These ones:

[id: a grey t-shirt with images of a bald eagle, a mountain lion, a wolf, and a moose on it.]

Yeah.

my favorite ship (if applicable) and a cute hc about them

okay this one’s gonna be a little hard bc Toni, Javi, and Avery are all in a polyamorous triad so OBVIOUSLY I ship them all together but also! I definitely ship Antonia with Triss, a monster hunter from the Summer Court!! I can’t decide if it’s a casual thing or if Antonia is just also in a serious relationship with Triss, but Triss is over at Toni’s place all the time. Triss takes a big interest in Toni’s witchcraft and asks lots of questions, and she definitely curls up on her couch and reads spell books while Toni’s mixing potions or smth!

my favorite friendship (if applicable) and a cute hc about them

Antonia and Javi!! Like yeah they’re partners but a) they don’t start off as partners, and b) YOU SHOULD BE FRIENDS WITH YOUR PARTNERS!! They’re the kind of friends that bounce snarky fake-insults off each other and then just end up cuddling on the floor and playing with each other’s hair. They’d also definitely bond over their experiences in being Puerto Rican out in the Land of Corn and Ghosts and Corn Ghosts

a song that reminds me of them

Wild Roses by Of Monsters and Men! Specifically this part Gets Me:

Down by the creek, I couldn’t sleep, so I followed a feelin’

Sounds like the vines, they are breathing

(Oh it sounds like, it sounds like, it sounds like, it sounds, oh)

And I’ve seen the way the seasons change when I just give it time

But I feel out of my mind all the time

In the night I am wild-eyed, and you got me now

what animal i think they would be if they were an animal

She would ABSOLUTELY be a cat. 100% a grumpy cat who reveals her True Soft Nature around maybe one or two people. She says “mother I crave violence” but what she really craves is a good snuggle session

what position they sleep in

She starts off on her back, but she’s a restless sleeper, so she usually ends up on her side by the end of the night! She definitely starfishes, though, which becomes a little bit of a problem when she, Javi, and Avery start sleeping in the same bed aifhsidgh

their favorite drink

PEPSI!! She’s specifically a big fan of wild cherry pepsi, but regular pepsi also works. At any given time she’s probably wearing some sort of pepsi memorabilia.

a gift i would give them if i could

Spell ingredients! Dried plants from my yard! A ticket to PR! also this:

[id: a white shirt with the word Pepsi across the chest in blue. Beneath the word Pepsi is the Pepsi logo, a red, white, and blue circle. The shirt also has several Pepsi logos down the sleeves.]

Next up we have Avery!

what they smell like

Avery smells earthy and like. Fresh?? Crisp?? At the same time?? Kind of like a winter morning in the woods! Y’know that smell of “things are still alive here, the cold is just keeping them dormant”? That!!

what their favorite smells in the world are

His senses were enhanced during his time in the Court of the Moon, so he has some OPINIONS about smells ajfhsdiufhud that said! He LOVES fruity smells, specifically citrus scents! He’s also a big fan of the smell of fresh baked goods, whether that be bread or cookies or brownies!

what pajamas they wear/what they wear to sleep in

So Avery sleeps nude and keeps clothes next to the bed so he can put them on really quick if he needs to, HOWEVER! Javi eventually compiles a collection of lounge wear for him! (”Come on, you can’t just be in going-out clothes and armor all the time! Isn’t that uncomfortable?” “If I get uncomfortable I just get naked.” “I’m going out and buying you clothes right now.”) It’s honestly wild to see someone who wears mostly blacks and greys standing around his house in baby blue pajama pants with raccoons on them, or in a sheer green sleep shirt that says “Sunday is for snuggling”

my favorite ship (if applicable) and a cute hc about them

Okay so here I’m gonna focus on him and Antonia because holy WOW they’re so sweet, like!! Antonia feels like she can be herself around him, which is so rare. She’s his main supplier for spells and things since she knows the way he works, but also he says he goes to her because she “casts her spells/brews her potions with love” and that “makes them all the more effective.” He definitely comes to her place if a hunt goes wrong and she does the whole “patches you up while affectionately calling you an idiot” thing

my favorite friendship (if applicable) and a cute hc about them

Avery and Triss!! Triss is the first person Avery really opened up to after being released from the Court of the Moon. Even though the Celestial Courts are...different from the others, he felt that another monster hunter would be the one to understand him most. She helps him open up to more people, and shows him the beauty of the world. I imagine she gathers bouquets of wildflowers and “weeds” and brings them to him sometimes!!

a song that reminds me of them

Some Kind of Disaster by All Time Low! Especially these parts:

I woke up from a never-ending dream

I shut my eyes at 17

I lost every moment in between

I felt the sun rise up and swallow me, yeah

and

I crashed down from a high that felt so real

I never knew how much it would hurt to feel

You gotta hurt sometimes to learn to heal

You gotta get back up and learn to deal, yeah

AND

And it’s all my fault that I’m still the one you want

So what are you after?

Some kind of disaster (Some kind of disaster)

Fuck I gotta. I gotta go listen to this song now. I’m having Feelings

what animal i think they would be if they were an animal

Y’know, I was gonna be tacky and say a wolf, but now that I’m thinking about it...he’d be a coyote. Adaptable, can be a loner or in a pack, tend to be crepuscular when around humans, some people are very adamant about how they should be shot on sight.....

what position they sleep in

If he’s sleeping alone, he’ll sleep on his side, but if he’s sleeping with other people, he sleeps on his back so they can curl up on his chest!

their favorite drink

Water. Like, actually, he really loves ice water. Sometimes he’ll get frisky and drink *gasp* flavored water!

a gift i would give them if i could

A weighted blanket! Like, I know you have to be able to jump right up and get to work if duty calls or whatever, but can you please get one night of deep sleep?? And a hug. Someone hug this man

Last but CERTAINLY not least, Javi Justiniano!

what they smell like

Fresh rain on dirt, crushed rosemary, and fresh cut wood!

what their favorite smells in the world are

They absolutely ADORE the smell of peppermint! They’re also a big fan of pumpkin spice candles. It really is a shame they love seasonal scents so much sdifuhdiu I imagine they try to stock up as much as they can to last them through the year

what pajamas they wear/what they wear to sleep in

Okay so Javi is EXTREMELY tacky and will wear like. A sheer nightgown and silly patterned pants as pajamas. So a combination like this:

[id: a pale person with long, dark hair wearing a sheer and lacy white nightgown]

[id: a pair of black pajama pants with a red waistband and a red pocket. The pants are decorated with images of various red lobsters and the words “Pinch Me...I’m Dreaming”]

If anyone asks them about it they just shrug and say “I’m nonbinary, it’s allowed”

my favorite ship (if applicable) and a cute hc about them

Here, I’m gonna talk about Javi and Avery because Holy Shit I Love Them. Javi is EXTREMELY chaotic and Avery rolls his eyes about it but secretly adores everything about them. Like. Javi canonically drunk calls Avery and asks him to carry them to bed because they don’t think they can make it up the stairs and Avery actually does it. And when Avery’s about to leave, Javi asks him to stay until they fall asleep, and he stays until morning, and hold on I gotta sit down--

my favorite friendship (if applicable) and a cute hc about them

So I’ve already talked about how Javi and Toni’s friendship is AMAZING but I wanna give a shout out to Javi’s as of yet unnamed roommates! Like, they have to deal with the random monsters that Javi attracts and at this point they’re pretty unfazed by them. They walk into the kitchen and see a weird floating eyeball with wings or some shit and Javi’s like “I’m sorry it was there when I woke up” and they go “It happens. Does it like peaches bc ours are about to go bad”

a song that reminds me of them

3am by Halsey! Specifically this part:

My self-preservation and all of my reservations

Are sittin’ and contemplating what to do with me, do with me

Think I took it way too far

And I’m stumblin’ drunk, getting in a car

My insecurities are hurtin’ me

Someone please come and flirt with me

I really need a mirror that’ll come along and tell me that I’m fine

I do it every time

I keep on hanging on the line, ignoring every warning sign

Come on and make me feel alright again

Baby. Has some abandonment issues. It’s probably fine.

what animal i think they would be if they were an animal

DEFINITELY a dog. Like, a big, sweet, clingy dog whose adoption profile labels them as “Thinks they’re a lap dog, so they need to be taught not to fall asleep on top of you. Unless that’s something you want!”

what position they sleep in

On their tummy or their side! They don’t like going to sleep alone, so they have a couple people-sized stuffed animals to snuggle in bed. When Antonia, Javi, and Avery are all asleep in the same bed, Javi’s in the middle, curled up on Avery’s chest, and Toni is spooning Javi. It’s so good

their favorite drink

An iced mocha with peppermint syrup and LOTS of whipped cream! Most drinks are honestly just a vessel for whipped cream for them

a gift i would give them if i could

A big house with a nice backyard, and also a big dog to snuggle when they have to go to sleep alone! I’m totally not projecting!

THANK YOU AGAIN MAX, this was a lot of fun and I’m even more excited to write about these characters now!!

#goosemixtapes #ask games #this was so much fun akfuhsdfiushdf #midwest monster hunting wip #i should start using character tags again tbh #antonia figueroa #avery #javi justiniano #side note i nearly titled avery's section as #avery nolastname #anyway thanks max ily ily ily #like thunder below

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solitaria-fantasma · 4 years

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((Session #5 highlights, GO!))

Our DM admitted to me the night before that this session was going to be “plot and C H A O S” and honestly I am sO excited.

We start off with Matthias telling the party that he’d gone back to the bazaar and stolen a forged ledger. We’re uncovering organized crime today.

Recap: We still need to return Von Trikona’s books, as well as investigate/avenge the death of Clarissa Rose.

There are two new country names on the map - Croyden and Iandow!

New non-country locations listed include: Red Hawk, Caister, Alenwik, Aynor, Leeside, Dewsbary, Peinrith, Farenfros, Veritas, and Westwend.

Also ‘Fwee’ is actually spelled ‘Phwie’ and I need to adjust my notes.

We stumbled across a hungover wizard being harassed by a goblin. I immediately tried to scare it away, and rolled REALLY high intimidation.

“The goblin is intimidated af, and fucks off into the wilds.”

The wizard - Renaldo Ladboy - admitted that he’d ‘partied too hard’ the night before, and didn’t remember WHY he’d pitched his camp out in the woods.

Renaldo perks up when he hears that we are travelers, and heading in the same direction he is. He offers to take us there, but since a teleport spell has a limit on how many it can carry, and we are five people + five horses, he basically wants to put us in a Bag of Holding.

I imagined Renaldo pulling Udaji out by her horns and burst out laughing bc she’s sEVEN FEET TALL IT’D BE LIKE THE ENDLESS HANDKERCHIEF TRICK BUT WITH A BARD-

“Get in the fucking bag, Mountain!”

“What was the price of your freedom?”/”A Pringle.”

The interior of a Bag of Holding is - in the DM’s words - ‘a dumpster fire’. There’s everything from random treasure to books to laundry just thrown about in piles....and also there’s another person.

This is Helena (played by the DM’s mom), and she has been in here for a long time, apparently.

There is also Theo, a mysterious voice hidden in the laundry. They warn us to be wary of ‘skittering sounds’, and to hide when we hear them.

I think we were tricked.

Matthias knelt down specifically to slap Claus, who had rolled the highest on the insight check and found nothing suspicious.

Theo came out of hiding to once more warn us to be careful what we touched, and be wary of ‘the Guardians’.

Theo has been in here too long, though, and has a very small reservoir of spoons, so after this final warning, he disappeared back into hiding.

It is DEAFENINGLY quiet inside the Bag of Holding.

Udaji nervously strummed her lute, and the echo took a long time to come back…..and then we heard a flutter.

While Matthias tried to loot some potions and Mountain tried to take a nap, I strummed again to try and recreate the flutter….and I heard more fluttering. It was loud enough to actually wake up Mountain.

Udaji immediately ran off to investigate one of the sources of the fluttering, and then the fluttering turned into skittering. Oh no.

“Udaji, roll for initiative.”

I roared into the darkness and managed to intimidate away one of the gargoyles that were stalking me.

I also apparently terrified Theo with my ‘I Am A Mighty Dragon’ roar. Whoops.

I shouted back to the party “I FOUND THE SKITTERING THINGS!” and retreated one square, but Udaji is simultaneously too stubborn to completely run away and too afraid to run off into the darkness (again).

I TOOK “ZONE OF TRUTH” AS A SPELL LAST LEVEL UP I COULD HAVE CAST IT ON RENALDO-

Helena temporarily lit up our little corner of Hell, and I cast Heroism on Mountain because I have no ranged weaponry/spells.

Mountain could gain a max of 40 temporary hp from this spell if A) he doesn’t get hit and B) I don’t get hit and lose concentration.

Aaaaand one gargoyle promptly flew 60 feet and bit me, shattering my concentration. Heck.

Mountain tried to do a trick shot with his bow and accidentally shot Matthias.

Gargoyle #1 tried to bite Claus, but missed because Claus was too short for it to hit.

I desperately want to test out my Earth Tremor spell but my teammates are tOO CLOSE-

Honestly sessions with the DM’s mom are always a little bit awkward bc it sometimes becomes the mom and three sisters arguing and me just sitting there in awkward silence but I know she means well.

Theo ran up and hit behind the Dragonborn for safety when a THIRD gargoyle came out of hiding. This may prove to be a mistake

Gargoyle #1 hit Claus and I’m starting to wish I’d made Udaji a barbarian bECAUSE I’M READY TO RAGE-

All anger aside I’m actually having a very hard time not envisioning these gargoyles as THE Gargoyles from the Disney show, and I feel bad every time I stab them.

THEO KNOWS DIVINE SMITE?!

“It’s a very, very high pile of laundry, so we’re going to classify it as difficult terrain.”

I lost almost half my hit points in one turn and then got healed half of THAT back in the next what a roller coaster.

I FINALLY GOT TO USE EARTH TREMOR AND KNOCKED GARGOYLE #1 PRONE!

Two gargoyles down, one to go!

Helena coming in with the killing blow on gargoyle #1!

With the battle over, Helena picked up some of the gold off the ground.

Poor Theo was being harassed by those three gargoyles for at least a month, maybe more (it’s hard to keep track of time in a dark, sunless void).

Theo admits that he got tricked into entering the bag after getting injured fighting ghouls, and the wizard came along and offered to carry him to safety.

Renaldo has now kidnapped seven people with his Bag of Holding, and has four people lined up to punch him (the other three advocate for murder).

Theo gives us a much clearer warning now about ‘the Guardians’ - two suits of armor that guard Renaldo’s stuff, and attack people who try to steal it.

Matthias immediately disappears to try and steal things.

Udaji sat down and started filling the silence with lute music because she is realizing that she does NOT like this kind of heavy silence.

Astrid stole a few potions, and Mountain realized we could switch out our suspicious, fake gold for real gold.

Theo watched us in visible confusion as we poured gold out onto the ground, only to then pick up equal amounts of seemingly identical gold.

“This man has kidnapped seven people! Seven people and presumably five horses!”

Astrid has a crush on Mountain, and tries to snuggle up to him, but Matthias literally flung himself between them in protest, so Astrid snuggled up with Udaji instead.

We took a long rest, and at the end of it, Renaldo actually remembered to pull us all out.

The only reason he remembered was because he’d teleported with our party’s horses, and landed surrounded by equines.

Theo punched him square in the nose.

“Claus is old enough to drink, but Udaji is not. Do not let the Dragonborn order beer.”

We hadn’t eaten in two and a half days, so we all ordered double meals and chowed down.

While eating on the mostly empty inn floor, we overhear two women whispering across the floor.

Eventually, one of the women raises her voice and says “We are not having this discussion! You are marrying Hassan, and that’s final!”

Marrying the Lord who was supposedly betrothed to the young Lady Rose? So soon? How scandalous…

Matthias sidled up to try and talk to them, and finds out that they are, in fact, talking about the same Lord Hassan who was betrothed to Clarissa Rose.

The older woman demanded to know how we knew of this supposed ‘other prospect’, and Matthias lied - saying that we had been hired by Clarissa’s mother to retrieve her daughter’s body.

This, predictably, did not endear him to the two women, so Astrid had to saunter over and try to assist.

The women are Amelia (younger) and Charlotte (older) Ulsten.

They asked when this previous engagement had been made, and we said that it had been a month. Charlotte got very pale and very still, and Amelia immediately told her “I told you something was wrong!”

Charlotte tells us that they had received the marriage proposal around the same time.

Matthias asked if they had heard the rumors of ‘accidents’ and stolen dowries. They said no.

The two women were traveling from Westwend, in Croyden.

“Charlotte sort of blubbers, like a Karen who’s been confronted by a manager and isn’t getting her free Frostie from Wendy’s.”

I traded places with Matthias to try and smooth things over, and Amelia - who has never seen a Dragonborn before - can’t stop staring.

Charlotte unbristled, and explained that they hadn’t heard of Lord Hassan before the proposal, so they’d hired a private investigator to look into him.

Their PI found that Lord Hassan WAS a legitimate bachelor and Lord in Kenkilly, but they hadn’t heard of this potential scam.

“But we DO have guards!”/”So did Miss Rose…”

Amelia begs her mother not to make her see this through, and Charlotte agrees that this scenario is too weird for her, and that they will seek a marriage prospect elsewhere.

Matthias speed-ate all his cake purely to avoid sharing with anyone.

Astrid gave her father puppy eyes, and he eventually caved, and bought her a slice of cake.

Amelia was still staring at Udaji as everyone settled back down to finish eating.

Claus and Astrid may or may not be leaving the party for a time bc the DM doesn’t want to end up playing too many NPCs, and while I understand that, I am going to dearly miss my best halfling friend and only female companion.

#OOC #Quarantine D&D

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monstersdownthepath · 5 years

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Spiritual Spotlight: Dammar the Denied

True Neutral Psychopomp Usher of Liquor, Luck, and Medicine

Domains: Healing, Luck, Protection, Repose Subdomains*: Resurrection, Curse, Purity, Psychopomp

Concordance of Rivals, pg. 8

Obedience**: Consume a full serving of alcohol and spend an hour reflecting on the intricacies of the living form. At the conclusion, pour a second serving at the base of a tree or a large stone. Benefit: Gain a +4 insight bonus on Heal checks and saving throws against the effects of alcohol and swarm attacks.

(*IMPORTANT NOTE: The Subdomains are my best guess; Subdomains are not listed in Concordance of Rivals. **ALSO SOMEWHAT IMPORTANT: Dammar’s true Obedience squicks me out something fierce, so the one provided is an alternate take with only a slight deviation from its written form. The actual Obedience will be in the link at the end of the article, as always, but be wary if you have emetophobia or are otherwise sensitive to people un-eating things)

A single bottle typically contains six servings, by the way. Gutter-quality swill will maybe run you 5cp a cask, assuring you’ll more or less always have some on you provided you aren’t robbed, set on fire, or stranded away from civilization for weeks on end, eliminating the bookkeeping nonsense that Obediences with material components usually require. It doesn’t even have to be any specific kind of alcohol! ANY old stuff will do, including any you make yourself.

The tricky part is the second portion of the Obedience, requiring you to sacrifice a serving to a tree or rock. This means one bottle will carry you through three Obediences, which doesn’t sound like much until you have to start devoting a good portion of your carrying capacity to wine casks. Get yourself a cart! As for why the rock/tree bit is tricky, well, you won’t always have access to such terrain features! Sometimes you just get stuck underground, or in a frozen tundra, or in the Plane of Air for a few days! Maybe the DM will let you substitute the symbolic offering by just pouring it on an altar you make, but that’s something to discuss with them beforehand.

The benefit is mmmmmmmmmnot great, despite being a triple threat. It’s a triple threat against threats that aren’t super threatening; unless you invest in Signature Skill, the Heal skill in general has few uses. Being more tolerant of alcohol is impressive for roleplaying but not typically useful in combat, and while bolstering yourself against a swarm’s lethal Distraction ability IS good, it’s too niche to be impressive.

Boons are gained slowly, gained at levels 12, 16, and 20. Servants of the Monitors, though, can enter the Proctor Prestige Class as early as level 8. If entered as early as possible, you can earn your Boons at levels 10, 14, and 16. You MUST take the Monitor Obedience feat, NOT Deific Obedience. Monitors grant only a single set of Boons.

Boon 1: Mixed Blessings. Gain Enhance Water 3/day, Vomit Swarm 2/day, or Neutralize Poison 1/day.

Oooh, three spells I don’t think we’ve seen in a Boon before! Exciting!

Enhance Water turns any water you touch into some form of alcoholic drink, but here’s the twist: any diseases, poisons, minerals, and other contaminants within the liquid are transmuted into seasonings/flavoring and additional alcohol. Plain old purified water will get you a passable beer, but irradiated scum-filled poisoned pond water will get you several pints of top-shelf, sealed-behind-glass-and-rigged-with-an-alarm bourbon or wine that you can potentially sell to people for outrageous prices (by that I mean about 50gp to 100gp a bottle).

The unfortunate downside is that it only affects water, meaning no cheating and dipping your finger into a glass of wine that’s been served to you to clear out the poison your gracious host slipped in... However, the spell makes no distinction between free-floating water or water in a container, only that that it cannot affect Unholy Water and has no effect on magical liquids within the water (only mundane contaminants). While your round could certainly be better spent elsewhere, there’s something funny about having the ability to turn several pints of water surrounding an underwater enemy into cloudy alcohol. Aboleths aren’t immune to poison! And god, can you imagine how agonizing it must be to have alcohol rush through your gills AND into your eyes? Even if it’s just for a few seconds--ouch!

Now, Vomit Swarm is a good combat spell for those who wish to abstain from drinking too much. Sadly, no “drop the swarm in an enemy’s pants” casting range here, but the swarm starts adjacent to you and moves in a direction of your choice once its supply of victims is exhausted. Even better, though, is that the spell’s power scales with level; by the time you get this ability you can choose to spit out a swarm of spiders OR a swarm of wasps, and on hitting 13 Hit Dice you can spew a ravenous horde of army ants instead! And army ants are nasty, let me tell you. A swarm of them moving in their slow march will disassemble anything in their path, so make sure your allies aren’t in said path.

Neutralize Poison, predictably, neutralizes poison. It’s a good spell to have on standby, because some poisons can be nasty. Especially Con-damaging ones! All three of these spells have their own uses, but unless you’re short on liquor for your Obedience, I’d stick to Vomit Swarm unless you planned on heading into the Darklands or a jungle/swamp.

Boon 2: Dammar’s Mercy. 1/day, you may cast Maximized Breath of Life as a spell-like ability.

That’s 40+Caster level (max +25; you start with +10) HP restored to a single target. Breath of Life is an... interesting, very oddly-worded spell. As written, it’s effectively worthless for anything but death through HP damage (which, don’t get me wrong, is the #1 killer for many creatures) as it does not cure ability score damage/drain or negative levels. In addition, since it instills a negative level on its--oh hold on I forgot to explain how it worked, didn’t I?

You cast Breath of Life on someone who’s already dead, you see, and it restores HP to their corpse. Lets say Mr. Squishly, the local Wizard with an impressive Constitution score of 10 and 30 HP to his name is instantaneously blended by a monster with six natural attacks which all rolled maximum damage on every dice, bringing Squishly to -54 HP! You’re unconscious at 0 HP and dead once your HP hits a negative number equal to your Con score, so -10 in Squishly’s case. That means poor Squishly just up and croaked!

But you, Helpful Proctor, have Drammar's Mercy available. With a flourish of your fingers and a reassuring pat on the back (delivered within 1 round of death!), you give Squishly 50 HP back, taking him to -4. Since -4 is within his death threshold, Squishly is brought back to life!!! Unconscious, but alive! And then he gets a negative level slapped on him, bringing him to dangerous territory and teetering on the brink at -9, a papercut from death. But alive!

However, if he got an additional bump on his way to the ground and brought himself to -55 HP, there’d be nothing your spell could do; yes he’d come back to life for one brief and stellar moment just before the negative level killed him again. And at -60? Sorry, you’ll need some stronger juice here.

Thankfully, cases where you’re overkilled by a ludicrous amount are rare, especially if you’re smarter than Squishly and get out of the Adventurer Disassembly Zones that are threatened squares. 50 HP is a lot, enough to bring most people back from death unless their bodies were torn to pieces or disintegrated... Or if they died from Con damage or, again, negative levels. Healing in combat is generally not what you want to do, but Breath of Life CAN indeed be used on targets that are still alive, instantly granting them a huge chunk of hitpoints to keep on trucking in the current battle!

The most unfortunate part about Breath of Life is that it can only work on a corpse that’s been a corpse for 1 round or less, but Dammar has forseen that issue and gives their followers a bit more wiggle room...

Boon 3: Uncertain Fates. You may keep the souls of any intelligent creature that dies within 30ft of you, which orbit you as disembodied lights. You have a cumulative +1 bonus to AC and caster level checks to overcome spell resistance and a -1 penalty to Fortitude saves for each soul you keep in this way. You may hold a number of souls equal to half your Hit Dice plus your Charisma modifier, and they are immediately released to the River of Souls if you are stunned, unconscious, or fall asleep. If you have a creature’s soul and access to their body, you may use Breath of Life on that creature as though they had died on the previous round.

yyYYYEEEAAAAH

How would YOU like to have additional AC equal to half your Hit Dice? That’s 7+Cha mod when you first get this power and it only raises as your power does. Dammar is the Usher responsible for making the trip from the Boneyard back to the land of the living as grueling as possible, but this ability allows you to briefly cheat that system by preventing the souls from reaching the Boneyard at all. You can have a halo of flickering, moaning lights dancing around you, deflecting incoming blows as well as any armor. The more people that die around you, the more difficult it is to actually hurt you--it’s like Death Knell except better! Those hovering souls don’t even get a saving throw to avoid joining your little menagerie, though your ‘hold’ on them is so tenuous that you don’t actually stop them from coming back to life if they get raised by other means.

The fact that ONLY Breath of Life actually benefits from this ability is a little disappointing, but you DO get that 1/day for free, and Clerics, Oracles, and Shamans all get it as well. and since it requires no material components, it’s rather simple to get scrolls made--it costs around 600gp to make or a little over 1100gp to buy one--for later use. You can even make the scrolls yourself, given that you have it as a spell-like! The restriction that you can’t fall asleep or otherwise go helpless without losing your collection is pretty harsh, but if your allies NEED you to make it back to town with their souls in tow, just slap yourself with Lesser Restoration and keep trucking until all of them are back safe and sound.

Every ally that falls also make it harder to fell you! ... Just uh, be real careful around poison-wielders since your Fortitude save hemorrhages as your AC is bolstered. But hey, that’s why Dammar also gives you Neutralize Poison!

You can read more about them here.

#Spiritual Spotlight #Neutrality Notes #pathfinder #Dungeons and Dragons

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lichlairs · 5 years

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Checkout our new post over at https://lichlair.com/daily-monster-46-leshen-witcher-week

Daily Monster #46: Leshen (Witcher Week)

This has got to be hands down my favorite monster for the Witcher series… Not only is it fun to fight and has compelling lore behind it, but it also gives me the creeps. I think these alone are great reasons why the Leshen deserves a place in our home campaigns, so let’s take a closer look at today’s monster:

The Leshen

The basics

As you hopefully learned from our first Witcher inspired Daily Monster, we’re going to be using Regerem’s Book of Beautiful Horrors for the Leshen’s stats.

This awesome book presents us with not one, but three different stat Leshen stat blocks depending on your needs and the level of your party. Similarly to the Drowner article, the plan is to go over all of them, so you might want to click that link and take a look at the numbers yourself.

To start things off, the standard Leshen has a STR of +7 which, if you’ve played the games you know that to be pretty accurate. Even outside of the video games your best bet is going to be relying on its slow speed (-1 DEX) unless you want to end up half dead in seconds like this guy:

Even the standard version of this creature has some insane saves and pluses to its skills, not to mention their wide list of immunities and their super high passive perception of 18. With fire being their only vulnerability, a trigger-happy Fireball casting wizard sounds pretty good about now. You know, if they can get pass the Leshen’s Magic Resistance.

Today’s monster also gets a few spells thanks to their Innate Spellcasting, though some are certainly more useful than others (looking at you Speak with Plants). Considering how there will most likely be a small swarm of animals to aid your boss Leshen in combat, I think it could be fun to use the Polymorph spell on a couple of them and make them that much lethal. Likewise, Insect Plague is bound to add even more mayhem to the already chaotic battlefield.

Just like in the video game, if you decide to run this creature you’ll have access to its Root Strike (Recharge 5-6) and a small army of forest minions though the Leshen’s Call Primal Beast action (2/day), but what really sets this encounter apart is the Leshen’s Totem Stride, which basically allows it to teleport from totem to totem at the cost of 10ft of movement.

No more hiding in the back, squishy casters.

As mentioned before, the book offers us two other variants; the first one being a Black Root, which is basically a corrupted version of the Leshen. The main changes for this variant is a switch from Wisdom to Charisma (probably because they’re really spooky), a couple of changes in resistances and vulnerabilities, and a different spell list. While the Black Root won’t be able to summon creatures at will or make roots attack their foes, they gain access to Life Drain (Recharge 5-6) and are basically indestructible thanks to their Rejuvenation feature. Your party’s only hope lies on them having done some research on how to permanently get rid of these creatures.

Last but not least, the third and final version of this creature is its Ancient form. Apparently being a very old tree trunk means your hit points increase almost by a third of the max and so does pretty much everything else. Thankfully for your party, the Ancient Leshen’s DEX is still at a -1 so at least there’s hope of running away.

Other than getting the pay to play version of the features a standard Leshen gets, the Ancient variant gets access to a couple more fun spells like Eternalness and Storm of Vengeance.

Oh yeah, and Legendary Actions.

The lore

Can I just say? It’s really refreshing to look up the lore of a creature and actually be able to find tons of information on it rather than just write bad jokes about wooden donkeys and giant crabs. Step up your lore game, WotC!

To common folk in the Witcherverse, Leshens are often venerated almost as Gods. Many consider them to be Nature’s way of protecting itself (the name Leshen comes from the Slavic word for forest). Witchers, however, are aware of their status as monsters, Relicts to be exact.

Leshens can only be found in the most primal and deepest of forests where some of them have lived for hundreds and thousands of years undisturbed by mankind. They have incredibly strong bonds with the land and its natural beast inhabitants, going as far as being able to call upon them for combat situations.

Although there are still Ancient Leshens that live undisturbed in forest areas that haven’t seen and travelers in eons, there are some others who almost preside over small villages on the outskirts of their territory. This, of course, can be a double edge sword, since despite rejuvenating the local wildlife for hunters and foragers alike, Leshens can still wreak havoc on the nearby populations if their territory isn’t treated with respect.

On a similar note, expect for these very rare occasions in which villagers are able to strike some sort of pact with the ancient woodland beings, Leshens tend to be extremely territorial and aggressive. Those who venture into the deepest part of forest might just come across dead bodies that have been impaled by massive roots, their face still contorted in terror as a warning for future trespassers.

For those unfortunate enough to find themselves in the Leshen’s lair, they’ll often find monuments, totems really, that have been erected throughout the area. In the video game, the only way to truly kill a Leshen involves destroying its totems first. In the Book of Beautiful Horrors, however, they are used as means teleportation. But truly it’s up to which version you want to use for your encounter.

While the only thing separating the standard version of that creature and the ancient one is age, Black Roots are a little different. The one way to make a Black Root is for a Hag to steal a child and trap them inside a tree trunk within a Leshen’s territory. Once the child dies, the tree grows and turns black in color, becoming the point of respawn for the now corrupted Leshen. Once this has been done, the forest in the Leshen’s territory starts to corrupt as well, animals turn sickly and infected, plants blighted.

The execution

At this point I think it’s pretty clear that the Leshen most definitely has all the markings of a great boss for your party to fight. Even if you choose the standard version of the creature you still have a powerful creature able to summon minions at will to keep the battle going for a respectable amount of time.

Now, how are we getting our party of intrepid heroes into trouble this time? As far as forests are concerned, adventuring groups go near them frequently enough but I feel like there should be something stronger to motivate our heroes to tread Leshen territory. Maybe they hear rumors about a magical weapon that is imbued with the power of nature itself, or perhaps a local group of halfling boy scouts go missing and our heroes must rescue them, up to you really. Whichever choice you end up making, we should probably talk about the Leshen’s lair.

If you end up pitting your party against a Black Root I’d definitely recommend having the fight take place near the blackened tree so you could maybe hint at it being the key for destroying the corrupted Leshen. If, on the other hand, you’re hoping to have them fight a regular Leshen or even an Ancient one (I hope your party has life insurance), they definitely come with a preferred terrain; i.e. the area near their totems. Let’s take a look at what the Book of Beautiful Horrors has to say about this:

Other than a few interesting regional effects including stronger beasts in the area, and being able to control the weather, our Leshen is also able to use its totems as means of scrying similar to the arcane eye spell, expect limited to six miles around its lair. In terms of combat, there’s a small list of lair actions that we can take advantage of:

Roots and plants burst out of the ground, grappling and lashing at creatures. The area within 60 feet around the Leshen becomes difficult terrain until initiative count 20 on the next round. Huge or larger creatures are not affected.

The Leshen and allied creatures within 60 feet of it heal 4d8 hit points.

A green mist fill the lair. All creatures within 60 feet of the Leshen must succeed on a DC 18 Constitution saving throw, taking 13 (4d6) poison damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.

One of the most important things to keep in mind with running this encounter is the idea of using the environment to keep the player characters away from the Leshen and distracted fighting what’s around them. As a Dungeon Master you are free to use tree roots and vines, and crows and wolves, or whatever it takes to make this encounter a memorable one.

Oh, how time flies! We’re already halfway through Witcher Week! How are you guys enjoying it so far? We’d love to hear about your favorite article and what you hope will be the last Witcher inspired Daily Monster for the week. Make sure to follow us on our social media so you won’t miss out on any of our content. We post new articles every day of the week.

#Behind the Screen #Daily Monster #dnd #dnd5e #dndbeyond #dungeons and dragons #The Witcher #Witcher Week #Theme Weeks

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goodwriterwithbadhabits · 6 years

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SVT as Mutants and Mutates Pt 2

Please read part one first! It’ll make more sense!

Masterlist

Boo Seungkwan- Code Name: Apollo

Ability(ies): Healing; Healing oneself and others faster than naturally possible, and often through supernatural means

Status: Mutant

Development

He didn't fully develop his abilities until his early teens.

He had always been interested in medical stuff so he pursued it into high school

It started with small things

That he knew of, at least

Paper cuts that healed in a few minutes

A twisted ankle that healed in 4 hours

So he asked his parents about it and they told him the truth

When he was a kid he used to kiss their “boo-boos” and they would actually heal

His father had even once broken his leg but it healed faster whenever Seungkwan drew on the cast

He took the news pretty well, seeing as he had a less obvious power

Training

He started attending medical seminars while in high school

And collected tons of books on the subject

When word slowly spread that he was a great healer, mutants started flocking to his house

So his parents refurbished a shed out back as his office

It was a win-win,

The Boo's got money, Seungkwan got to train

Then one day, Cheol walks into his office(shed)

He's a little beat up and worse for wear

But Seungkwan patches him up no problem,

Then Cheol asks him to join them at Pledis,

To which Seungkwan politely declined

But when he was 17 Jun crashed onto his lawn and he didn't have a choice but bring the guy home

And he really liked it there

So he stayed

They hooked him up with the medical wing, which was sweet

In house doctor, without having to pay

Nice

Current

Boo as he's known, sometimes Apollo, mostly stays in the medical wing, his room (which is next to the medical wing) or Vernon's room

Jeonghan, Minghao, and Vernon are the people most often in his care

Because they're stupid and overexert themselves

He loves them he does, but damn they dumb

He's not remotely a field agent

Fuck that shit

He's part of SVT but he's the support squad

Also, he's got the voice of an angel?

Like if he's just patching somebody up, or cleaning up, he's singing

Which is part of the reason Vernon likes him

They're the perfect duo

The only people who don't know that Seungkwan and Vernon are in love are Seungkwan and Vernon

Kwon Soonyoung- Code Name: Bullet

Ability(ies): Superspeed; Movement faster than otherwise humanly possible.

Status: Mutate

Experiments

He was 7 when they took him

His powers developed almost as soon as he arrived.

They had him running laps to cull his insane amount of energy

Then suddenly he was a blur

He hates how early his ability developed

It meant he spent the rest of his time in captivity running tests

Literally

They had him hooked up to a treadmill most days monitoring his top speeds till he collapses

Then they throw him in a small cell with a bunch of food until they decide to pull him for more tests

When they weren't watching he was seeing if he could vibrate through the wall

Or shatter the glass

or literally, anything to get out of this fucking hell hole

But to no avail

There was this kid in the cell next to him

Its someone named Jihoon

He arrived later and Hoshi feels horrible for him

He wasn't sure why but when he was 15 Jihoon just disappeared

It really pissed him off

And he shattered the glass viewing window at the front of his cell

So he was moved to complete isolation

Just a dark room with steel walls

And just barely audible over the screams from some of the more insane captives, he could hear music

And he danced to it

It kept him sane and fit

then the music stopped

It pissed him off again but he couldn't do anything.

So it became emptiness

And he gave up

Rescue

When Cheol and Jun arrived to get Hoshi they found an empty facility

Jun searched the place but they didn't find anyone

Then Cheol found a lone security camera pointed at a cell with only one inmate

He barely responded when the boys went in to get him

He was just sitting with his arms resting on his legs, covering his face

When Cheol squatted in front of him and touched his arm to see if he was alive

He bolted to the other corner of the room

Wide-eyed, he gaped at the other boys

Then he apologized

When he got back to the manor he just kinda quietly followed Cheol around

Then he found Jun dancing in one of the rec room and joined him

Current

If he's not dancing, check Woozi's room

He's probably annoying him

He and some of the other dancers put on little performances for the squad and the kids

He also teaches the kids how to dance

When he's needed on SVT missions it makes him super happy

He hates being alone

It scared him

But you can't really tell since he's mostly a bouncy ball of sunshine

Lee Seokmin- Code Name: Angel

Ability(ies): Clairvoyance; seeing things or events in the future or beyond sensory contact, Empathy; feeling and at times, altering, other people's emotions.

Status: Mutant

Development

He didn't realize he had abilities as a kid

The Clairvoyance, never really happened until he was older

Mostly it was just empathy

If his parents were upset, he was too

If his teacher was having a good day, so was he

It was really weird being in school

All these emotions bombarding him

So he set out to be happy,

All

The

Time

At first, he didn't realize he was causing people's emotions to change

He thought he was just a cool guy

But then his mother was sick and feeling awful

She wouldn't let him into her room, so he didn't get sick

So he just sat outside her room

Being upset and willing his mom to be happy again

And she was

Training (Kinda)

He started testing his abilities on people at school

He focused on positive emotions though

The girl whose mom was in the hospital was suddenly smiling for the rest of the day

His clairvoyance appeared in high school

He was taking a test when suddenly he could see the answers

He didn't understand, figuring it just to be his brain's panic response to the unknown

But then a few days later, he saw his friend getting hit by a car

Something told him this was going to happen the next day

And it almost did

But Seokmin stopped him from going into the street

He waited to do something about his powers until he graduated

Then he waited a little longer

Because shit's scary

So he called Pledis when he was 19

When he got there

Literally, the moment he stepped in the doors

While Cheol was asking him about his abilities

He had a vision

It was about Dino

And then he passed out

Cheol was really sick of catching seers

Current

He rooms with Jeonghan and whoever recently came in.

He's technically part of SVT but doesn't tag along unless absolutely needed,

He prefers to stay behind and be emotional support (lol)

He's often awake with Jeonghan and whoever has had a nightmare but he doesn't go out with them

He just sends calming waves over to them

Honestly, I want a DK

Lee Chan- Code Name: Blink

Ability(ies): Teleportation; instantaneous travel from one location to another

Status: Mutate

Experiments

He was 4 when he was taken

They put him under every test they could think of

But nothing was happening

So they tossed him in solitary confinement

He was 9

A few weeks later they shoved someone in the cell next to him

The guy would just play music all the time

And he wondered how but stopped questioning it

He was 12 when he finally saw another person

He and the person in the cell next to him, a pale dude who was drugged after being taken out were being moved.

Chan was handcuffed and thrown into the back of a truck with the drugged guy

They drove for a while

Eventually, the drugged guy woke up, groggy as shit and told him ominously

“If I die, don't tell my family.”

To which Dino stared at him in horror

This guy was like a year older than him, max

“What's your name?” Was all Chan could respond with

The car stopped moving the second after.

“Vernon”

Then the doors were opened and Vernon was grabbed and pulled out

Chan figured he'd never see the guy again

In the new facility, they tossed him back in solitary

Where he stayed until he was 17

Rescue (kinda)

When he was 17 he was dragged out of his cell

And pulled through the facility

To more testing or death, he wasn't sure

but he freaked.

As they dragged him by a security guard complaining about some hideaway for mutants

He saw a picture of the Pledis Manor

And closed his eyes, picturing it

Then suddenly he was laying on his back

He could smell flowers and feel a soft wind.

When he opened his eyes he was looking up at a blue sky,

It was sunny which made his eyes hurt

He sat up and looked around, finding a huge manor nearby

At first, he thought he was hallucinating while dying

But then a taller man in a white shirt came to him with a smile

“I was wondering when you'd get here”

Jeonghan brought him inside and made him hot chocolate

The pair were talking about the other people in the facility

Like Vernon, when Hoshi walked down

He mentioned the music he would hear and Hoshi perked

It brought them closer together, knowing they were from the same place

But Hoshi just wanted to know about Jihoon

Chan wanted to know about Vernon

Neither had answers

But Chan chose to stay instead of going hunting

He wanted to learn what had happened

How he had gotten there

Luckily someone else knew how to teleport and helped him

Current

He's irreplaceable as the youngest member of SVT

Also, none of them can teleport

He also learned how to teleport other people as well

He's pretty fucking cool

Like Hoshi, he has nightmares about being in isolation

But Chan also likes being alone a lot

But withing hearing distance of other people

So he hangs out on the roof with Shua a lot

But when Vernon arrived, he nearly shit himself with happiness

So they stick close sometimes

Like when Vernon wants to be alone,

He likes being alone with Chan

They both do

He's unsure why Jeonghan loves him like a son

He's only a few years younger than the guy

But overall he does love his hyungs, even Jihoon

Xu Minghao- Code Name: Thanatos

Ability(ies): Necromancy; reviving the dead to semi-cognitive forms, Immortality; incapable of dying.

Status: Mutant

Development

He's kinda had this ability since he was 7

But he never told anyone but his mom who kept him hidden

It all started with a dead bird in his front yard

He picked it up and got sad that it was dead

But then it wasn't anymore

And it flew away

And Hao looked at his horrified Mom with blood flowing out of his nose

What a horrifying sight

Training

He trained himself

In a lot of things

Biology, Anatomy, Martial Arts, Poetry

He just hid and studied

He started bringing back things, just to see if he could

And to improve his strength

Now he wasn't just killing small animals

That would make him a sociopath

But he would go into the forests for days at a time and find dead and decaying animals and bring them back

Its kinda scary

He's never brought back a human though

Oddly enough, he happened upon Pledis

He was just in the woods, hiking and looking for dead things when he saw the building

At first, he thought it was just an abandoned building

When he got closer, he saw someone come outside

And they were waving to him

He wasn't sure why, but he went over to them

It was Dk, grinning like the sun

He was surprisingly chipper, but it made Hao feel better?

So he said “fuck it”

Called his mom

Told her he wouldn't be coming back any time soon

And stayed with Pledis

Current

He didn't abandon his mom

He still goes to see her a lot

Usually with Jun

His mom likes Jun because he is also Chinese

He's part of the SVT but mostly is just there because martial arts

He's a scary boy

And he can’t die

He's never brought a human back

And he's kinda scared to

But he's always training to just in case

He likes dancing with Hoshi, Jun, and Dino

Its a good way to get over the fact he literally has the power over life and death

Which everyone seems to forget a lot

But they watched him bring a bear back to life and control it

So now everyone's kinda scared of the tiny Chinese boy

Also, he always wears bucket hats on missions

No one knows why

Chwe Hansol- Code Name: Soundcloud

Ability(ies): Electrokinesis; generate and control electrical fields

Status: Mutate

Experiments

He was 6 when he was grabbed

His parents had done a decent job of hiding him

But even moving from New York to Korea didn't help

He didn't understand what was going on for a long time

At first, he was kept in the standard-issue cell

Three walls of brick and one of glass

Until he was 10

Then his abilities surfaced

It was storming outside and Vernon was staring out the little window when lightning struck the ground right next to his head

But nothing happened to him

He just turned to the doctors that ran in to see if he was still alive

But when they pulled him for testing the first nurse to touch him got zapped across the room

Every time they actually got him out of his cell he would touch the walls of the compound and turn off the lights

So they tossed him in Solitary

You know, throw the guy with electrical powers into a metal box

Good job.

He learned that he could create music by tapping his fingers on the wall

The electric sounds served as a background to his bad beatboxing and semi-bad rapping.

Then a few years later they pulled him out of the cell and knock him out

He barely remembers waking up to spook Chan

Rescue

He doesn't remember much

He had gotten shoved into another solitary cell

This time with no neighbors

He still just made music

And thought about his parents

Then when he was 19, roughly 5 years later he heard something different than just the normal sounds of the facility

Some loud thumps

So he called out to the guard in the corner and was answered with the viewing hole being covered

So Vernon did the only thing he could think of

He summoned a huge electrical field

and blasted the door off its hinges

nearly squished a Jun

And then promptly passed out

When he woke up he was on a bed in the medical wing

Literally second later Chan burst into the room and hugged him

Which made Boo shout at him

Vernon is almost certain he fell in love with Boo at that moment

Current

If he's not with Shua or Boo, he's probably alone in a corner

He's constantly trying to find his parents

Even if everyone thinks he should stop, he won't

And Cheol doesn't want him to give up on them either

Turns out he's really good with computers

But don't let him fly the plane

Someone nicknamed him storm once and he zapped them

Then educate them on the fact he could only manipulate electrical fields

He's a member of SVT, and arguably the deadliest

Others think its Shua or Gyu

but Boo told him he was the strongest so no one can take that from him

Lee Jihoon- Code Name: Phantom

Ability(ies): Invisibility; Cause oneself and specific objects to no longer been seen by the human eye.

Status: Mutate

Experiment

He was taken when he was 10

His parents were scientists and knew about the gene

So they kept him hidden as long as they could

But he was eventually found

Since he was older they were ruthless in their experiments

In the cell next to him was this guy, mostly known as Hoshi

But they didn't talk much

He always just wished he was invisible,

One day he was

He was 15, and had bolted from the hold of one of the nurses

They chased him down the hall

but when he turned the corner he vanished

He seemed to realize they stopped chasing him after a few moments

When he paused to see why he caught his reflection in one of the steel doors

Or his lack of a reflection I should say.

This shocked him into being visible again

And got him captured again

They actually taught him how to control it

And trained him to be a spy

He hated it

But his other option was death so

Hey, useful skills for his next escape attempt

Which brings us to

Rescue

His escape attempt was the same day Cheol and the others showed up

This time they brought DK

Jeonghan had told them what Woozi could do

He managed to get out of the wing he was trapped in and all the way to the lobby before DK noticed him

Scared the shit out of Seungcheol when he just kinda popped into existence

Didn't want to go with them but figured it was better than staying there.

Current

He was only rescued a few months ago

But he's a very important member of SVT

Not only can he go invisible, but he's also scary

but also adorable cuz he's like 2 feet tall

He found Shua's guitar in the greenhouse and played it

Which made Shua super happy

But Shua scared the piss outta Jihoon by just popping out of a tree

So he stays indoors now.

Cheol and Jeonghan are pretty much the only 2 he puts up with

Everyone else is only healthy in small doses

I hope you guys liked this! Don't forget to request any scenarios, headcanons, or reactions your heart desires and I’ll do my best

#Seventeen #seventeen imagines #seventeen scenarios #svt imagines #svt scenarios #seventeen headcanons #seventeen seungkwan #seventeen hoshi #seventeen seokmin #seventeen dino #seventeen minghao #seventeen vernon #seventeen woozi #goodwriterwithbadhabits

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sordm5 · 5 years

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Fallout: New Vegas Character Sheet / OC Questionnaire, 5k+ words

This is the part where I pray for consistency with my previous character essays...

The majority of these answers are from a character building perspective. Other perspectives are kept in parentheses.

Mason Shepherd McCoy

which faction did they side with (NCR, legion, yes-man, or house)?

Unwittingly, he sided with the NCR. But he abandoned the cause shortly before the lead up to the Second Battle for Hoover Dam.

preferred armor?

He favors dusters, but beneath that, he usually dresses in raggedly layers. Cycling between two pairs of majorly distressed and ripped jeans, and collected vintage scarves he finds from abandoned buildings.

(In game, light armor. Specifically the courier fatigues from the Courier’s Cache mod, modded with the standalone Lonesome Road courier duster.

Screenshots: front / back)

melee, guns, energy weapons, or unarmed?

Most skilled with a ranged bolt or lever action rifle.

After a compromising incident while he lived in Zion, Joshua attempts to teach him unarmed combat. But because Mase is a difficult, stubborn student, the lessons don’t continue on for long, and Joshua’s patience is tested to its limit.

highest skills? secondary skills? lowest skills?

His skill in everything aside from guns and repair are fairly mediocre, but his worst skills are definitely survival and unarmed. It’s pretty transparent that Mase’s priorities are focused on catering to his preference for gunplay.

(It’s hard to avoid having every skill high when level ups are forced on you, so I'm going to ignore in-game stats in favor of character development. Speech is the most notable skill I prefer to max out, but I don’t know if it’s exactly character-fitting for Mase considering he’s not actually a talkative person.)

SPECIAL stats?

3, 9, 6, 4, 7, 8, 3

what are their perks?

Confirmed Bachelor, babey. And Hand Loader. That one’s important.

(I'm not sure if this is asking me to list all perks my character has, but for the sake of not doing that – as it would be lengthy and tedious – I’ll leave it at these two.)

favorite companions? least favorite companions?

Mase adores Arcade more than he cares to admit. However, that adoration doesn’t overpower his own cowardice. He carries the weight of endlessly wondering what fate befell Arcade after Mase left the Mojave. He likes to...imagine he’s happy with the Followers, tending to new researches that could maybe benefit the public. The mental image distracts him from his guilt, at least.

The only other companion Mase was close with was ED-E. He doesn’t actively hate or dislike anyone, though.

any romantic partners? how do these relationships begin and end? are they healthy?

Yeah...Mase kinda...tries to pursue a relationship with Joshua, but it’s majorly onesided, and overwhelmingly unhealthy. Even Mase is aware of the unhealthy aspect, despite his feelings.

I’ve thought a lot about how to avoid making this sort of scenario lore-breaking. I can’t realistically picture, given what we see and know of him in-game, that Joshua would ever reciprocate any sort of romantic feelings anyone might have for him.

This might be my own interpretation, but I think by the time the courier meets Joshua, he’s resigned to live his life thinking he can find redemption through his faith. And I think he’s convinced himself to be wholly devoted to it. He even twists the biblical quotes he uses as excuses for his own internal anger. He needs to think that the things he does are justified by God.

Beyond the religious dedication, Joshua tells us that he feels indebted to his family, and the tribes of Zion, for welcoming him back like he had never done anything to shame them. After questioning him about his past, and the defeat he suffered, he ends with, "I will never be able to repay the debt I owe to them, but I must try." The way this is all presented leads me to believe there isn't much room in Joshua's life for anything else.

Also, on another note, one quote by Mr. Sawyer, who wrote the entirety of Joshua Graham’s character, stuck with me:

It's not as simple as being "set on fire". After suffering a terrible failure, he was humiliated by his superior and the people he commanded. He was cast out and left for dead. His entire reason for living was gone. When your entire way of life is completely destroyed, it has a profound impact on how you view yourself and your place in the world. [...]

Read the entire quote here.

There was also a quote, if I am indeed recalling correctly, by Josh Sawyer that expanded upon Joshua’s dialogue in-game that spoke about the love he received upon his return to New Canaan – about how he was in disbelief over it, how he thought he didn’t deserve it. But I can’t find that quote again, so don’t take my word for it.

I know that the developer’s input isn’t the “word of God”, and that Sawyer has said that he strongly dislikes when authors discourage fan interpretations and have an almost authoritarian hold over their stories. However, I still find it useful to reference dev commentary when expanding upon my own ideas.

Returning to the original point, as much as I’d really just like to say ‘they both lived happily ever after’ about my courier and Joshua, it’s not something I can picture happening. Joshua isn’t an ordinary man, and domesticity wasn’t ever an option for him.

There are some deeply self-indulgent scenarios I’ve written about for Mase and Joshua, and even in the more intimate pieces it always takes Joshua years to think it’s okay to even let Mase sleep next to him. So, I don’t imagine within the first year of staying in Zion anything even vaguely resembling intimacy would develop between them. Mase would have to come back to Zion after returning from the east coast and put a lot of work, time, and dedication into getting Joshua to open up on that level.

But, because I don’t feel fully confident in discussing my thoughts of how things change within the game post-canon-storyline (both base game and Honest Hearts/all DLC alike), these ideas and scenarios remain strictly self-indulgent. One detail I am comfortable saying that happens post-NV is that Mason does eventually come back to Nevada and end up settling there.

Since this is already a sort of a self-indulgent post about my oc, I will share some jumbled-context thoughts I’ve had. But keep in mind, if I were to keep this confined to my comfort on respecting the canon storyline and not exploiting it for my own purposes, this would have ended with Joshua never reciprocating, Mase leaving the west coast and returning at some indeterminate point, years later.

With that being said...

Mase and Joshua argue about the feelings between them a lot. With Joshua it’s always “You understand my position, we’ve spoken about it countless times. You’ve said you understood, yet you continue to persist.” / “I know. And, I’m...sorry. I just can’t help but feel like I’m a nuisance to you. That the way I feel disgusts you-” / “You know that isn’t true-” / “You always push me away-” / “I’ve told you why-” etc, etc.

The closer they get, the more doubt Joshua begins to show, the more he pushes Mase away, and the more Mase wants reassurance that Joshua still finds him important, in some way. Joshua does value Mase’s companionship, but what Mase gives is unabashed love, and there’s a huge discrepancy in outward reciprocation. Mase tries his best to adapt and subdue how he feels – to try to understand and match the level at which Joshua keeps him. But it’s hard. A lot of “you don’t care about me like how I care about you” feelings.

Joshua insists the discrepancy isn’t true, and it’s only perceived that way by Mason. He loathes when he’s forced to remind Mason of his situation – of the path he’s chosen to take in his life, his dedication to it, after what happened to him at the Grand Canyon. How large the amount of atonement he owes. How, even if he wanted to break away from this path, there are still things he would never be able to do for Mason.

Of course, Mase tries to keep all of this in mind. But with the lack of communication, and the constant distance from Joshua, it’s hard to know if the boundaries are because of Joshua’s self restraint, or if Mase is truly no longer wanted. He’s just...very troubled and brokenhearted by it all, and the situation isn’t easy.

There’s also the awkward re-acquainting with each other after the years they spend apart. Which is disheartening to Mase because, before, he’d felt Zion was akin to a home due to the time spent there, and, when he comes back, it feels foreign – like there’s no place for him anymore. Everything looks and seems different. It takes a long while to get over that feeling.

Joshua looks different after all that time, as well. He never takes to fully discarding his bandages – it’s too personal for him – and his scarring doesn’t ever necessarily fade, but they do heal, lessen in severity, and subsequently cause him less pain. Because of this, he’s more comfortable exposing his forearms without bandaging, and the areas around his nose, mouth, and jaw.

It takes Mase a moment to process this upon first seeing him again. In the past, he’d only ever seen Joshua without his bandages but one time, and it was because he’d been gravely injured and in recovery. He thinks it’s a good look for Joshua, though. And, more importantly, he’s overjoyed that he isn’t in as much pain.

Mase also continues travelling even after his return to the west. Especially between his home in northern Nevada and Zion. So it’s not as though he spends his every day with Joshua, although...he does try to persuade Joshua to visit his house and stay for awhile. Which he does eventually succeed at, after some complications on tribal responsibilities.

...tfw you set out to write about your own character and end up devoting the most time writing about Joshua Graham. To be fair, I have another huge character post about Mase that establishes way more about him, and I’ve been meaning to write about the dynamics with Joshua for awhile now.

yes, i’ve thought a lot about this. damn.

anyway...

doesn’t it suck when your first love after you get retrograde amnesia is a revenge obsessed warlord with misplaced dedication to a faith that he manipulates to lie to himself that his revenge obsessions are justifiable :( real sad boi hours

gender / sexuality / ethnicity / species / etc.?

Boy/gay/???

He doesn’t know much about his ancestry, or the roots of his past in general. Doesn’t want to know. He’s pretty sure he’s human, though...maybe. But he’s also considered the possibility of being an alien misplaced on earth. Maybe...

He’s also not particularly attached to his biological sex. He is genetically male, and does predominantly identify as male, but it’s not something he feels is important or necessary to his identity as a whole. On a basic level, this applies to, say, clothing. If he found a dress appealing, he’d wear it without thinking much about what gender a dress was intended for. If that makes sense.

This sentiment is also applicable to sexuality. He doesn’t really label himself in any specific way. He just knows that the majority of people he’s found even somewhat attractive or appealing happen to be men.

where were they born/raised? when/why did they leave?

He doesn’t know.

when, why and how did they become a courier? how long did they remain a courier before benny shot them?

Again: part of a past that he doesn’t remember. Brings him anxiety over the thought of finding an answer to who he was before.

how did the bullet affect them?

Retrograde amnesia. His memories never returned. After awaking at Doc Mitchell’s, it was difficult for him to acquaint himself with who he was. He didn’t recognize his voice, his age, his appearance. Nothing felt familiar. His speaking patterns even sounded foreign to his own ears.

Other than that, recurring migraines that plagued him for weeks after his awakening.

how did they deal with benny?

He spared him. Read more here.

what’s their reputation with the ncr / the legion?

Liked/Neutral

Mase aided the NCR whenever necessary, especially during the beginning of his travels in the Mojave. He refused to agitate the Legion. He never realized he was weaving himself into becoming a mercenary of war for the NCR, and, had he realized they were going to proposition him for such a task, he never would have helped to begin with.

In retrospect, after abandoning the Mojave, his regrets in assisting the NCR don’t add up to much. After consideration, he realized he would prefer an NCR victory as opposed to a Legion one. He’s aware there might have been a better alternative, had he stayed, had he put himself at the forefront of the decision making. But, he simply isn’t that kind of man.

what’s their reputation with goodsprings / novac / primm? (i know primm reputation was cut from the game but like let’s pretend for a minute sdkfjd)

His reputation with Primm would be the worst of all three, entirely due to his uncaring mistakes in handling finding new authority for the town. The NCR wasn’t the worst of the outcomes, but it still wasn’t favorable with the existing community, and Mase only realizes that after it’s far too late.

Goodsprings and Novac act as the friendliest respites Mase knows, and he is mostly in good standing with both towns’ residents. He assisted Goodsprings during the trouble with the Powder Gangers, and, similarly, assisted Novac’s trouble with feral ghouls.

what is their motive for taking vegas?

He doesn’t. Ideally, freedom for Vegas and Freeside would be what Mase would want, but he’s too prone to fleeing from pressure and stress. He doesn’t want the responsibility of an entire populace on his shoulders, and when presented with fight or flight in regards to the war for the Mojave, Mase chooses flight.

what do they look like? how tall are they? are they attractive? any piercings, tattoos, scars?

Just under 6′. Tanned, freckled complexion. Hair naturally dirty blond/light brown-ish, but frequently bleached lighter. Crooked, gapped teeth. He has multiple scars over his entire body, but half he can’t even remember the causes of. The most prominent ones being the bullet wound in his hairline, and the surgery scars from the Think Tank.

how old are they? do they know their birthday? if so, what’s their sign?

22 around the time of the events of Goodsprings. His birthday is November 22nd, information courtesy of his Mojave Express ID card, and not of his own memory. I suppose that makes him a sagittarius.

The only fitting quote I could find from a sagittarius horoscope was: “You are very critical of those around and of yourself and sometimes will prefer to isolate yourself.”

do they speak any languages other than english?

He doesn’t. He tries to learn the language of the Dead Horses and the Sorrows, but only retains basic phrases.

can they read, write, do math, sing? did they ever receive an education?

He is educated, but only utilizes his intelligence in areas that are practical to him. Like the kilometer calculations while adjusting his rifle scope. Other than that, he frequently writes in a journal that he received from the Mojave Express. Its primary function was to track deliveries, but he re-purposed it for personal use.

Mase is also somewhat of a collector, and, in his home, he has a guitar with rusted metal strings and a piano with many keys that don’t work (don’t ask about the complications of transporting the thing from an abandoned pre-war home to his own safehouse.) He aspires to fix them both and learn how to play them, and maybe write his own music, but he doesn’t often get time to do so.

what were their parents like? are they still on good terms with their parents?

Doesn’t know who his parents are. Doesn’t want to know.

what’s their d&d alignment?

Starting off as neutral good, but quickly becoming chaotic neutral the longer his travels across the Mojave go.

how’s their karma?

Canonically neutral.

how do they feel about killing people? do they try to avoid it?

He doesn’t actively seek confrontation – he’s no murderer – but he doesn’t have any moral objections to killing if there’s a good purpose for it. Killing the “bad guys”, etc. He’s not a coward either, and he’s confident in his gunplay abilities.

do they take chems? if yes, when and which ones?

Other than admittedly using med-x a couple times in attempts to treat his insomnia, he tries not to dabble in drug use outside of meds for intended purposes. His preferred poison is alcohol.

do they gamble? where? is their luck good?

He doesn’t partake. The atmosphere of the casinos on The Strip gives him a deep sense of discomfort. A piece of the world, frozen in time, sheltered away from the destruction of the wastes that lay just outside the doors. Men in suits, focused on their greed, their only concern how much nicotine they can inhale.

In his tattered duster and ripped blue jeans, face smudged with dust and dirt, Mase feels horribly wrong amid all the leisure and recreation. It’s stifling.

where do they usually sleep? do they have more than one home location? do they live with any other people?

Throughout his campaign in the Mojave, Mase doesn’t ever keep a main base of operations. From his room at Novac, to the Lucky 38, to Zion, to anywhere he’s welcomed to rest his head for the night. He keeps his belongings down to what he can carry, or things he’s isn’t afraid of losing if left behind.

After his return to Nevada from his journey out east, Mase settles in an abandoned, lone ranch somewhere in the mid-north part of the state. It’s there, in his late-20s, that Mase truly finds himself able to call a location a home. He begins to collect more, and his safehouse soon turns into an unorganized, messy museum of sorts.

what are their favorite weapons? where did they get these weapons?

He’s partial to his rifles, both bolt and lever action alike. Namely, the Medicine Stick and Paciencia, courtesy of the Gun Runners. He takes to further customizing both rifles (and altering the customizations already applied).

do they flirt a lot? is it well-received?

Mase and Arcade have a platonically flirtatious relationship. Neither of them desire to take it further than that and are comfortable in their friendship. However...there are nights Mase remembers fondly: bedrolls haphazardly thrown onto the floor of whatever safe place they could find to rest in their travels, Arcade somehow ends up in Mase’s arms in the early hours of dawn, his head tucked into the crook of Mase’s neck, Mase’s fingers carding through Arcade’s hair as the haze of sleep slowly fades.

Though Mase later ends up developing feelings for Joshua while in Zion, he doesn’t dare anything close to flirting. He regards their relationship as too important for empty flirtatious comments, while also knowing it wouldn’t be received well anyway. Between them, it’s more of mutual respect and trust.

At some point during Mase’s year stay in Zion, Joshua does clue in to the way Mase treats him, and what that alludes to. They speak about it, if very sparingly, and it can be summarized by Joshua vaguely referencing whatever is between them by saying: if Mase is waiting for something from Joshua, he’s waiting in vain.

do they goof around a lot? do other people find it funny or do they just entertain themselves?

Mase has short-lived moments of hyperactivity, but is usually more stoic in nature. He recalls his time spent with Arcade as having some of the more expressive moments in his life. So it’s to be said that he has the ability to be a more humorous or entertaining person as long as he’s comfortable around the company he’s with.

what do their companions think of them? are they close? have they done any companion quests?

He doesn’t stay with anyone long enough to become truly close to them, aside from Arcade.

ED-E is Mase’s first real travelling companion. After repairing the eyebot, Mase decides to keep it and regards it as little more than an extra weapon. The longer the road takes them, the more Mase finds himself talking into the open air about a myriad of things. Sometimes it’s a mess of world salad and scattered thoughts – the product of distant feelings of deja vu and the many migraines the bullet wound had caused.

The more this happens, the more Mase starts feelings like ED-E is listening to him. Maybe the beeps that he gives aren’t indicators that he’s listening and are just coincidence, but all the same, Mase starts to see a personality in ED-E, and starts to think of him as less of a weapon and more as a friend.

On a fittingly drunken night at the NCR Mojave Outpost, Mase crosses paths with Cass. He enjoys her attitude and her humor, and more than delights in sharing a bottle of whiskey or two- or three, or four. Beyond that first night of drinking challenges and hazy blackouts, and a few following encounters, Cass and Mase don’t stay as travelling companions. Fast friends over a bottle of brew, but nothing more.

Later, but still early in his travels, Mase finds himself with his hands full in Novac. It’s here he helps Boone uncover the truth about the person who disposed of his wife. He agrees to arrange the revenge without hesitation. There’s not even a droplet of blood on the red beret atop Mase’s head; he doesn’t flinch when Boone takes the shot.

Unfortunately, Boone’s animosity and hostility towards the Legion prevents them from travelling together. Mase understands, and it’s left at that.

As for Arcade, well...some of Mase’s largest regrets concern Arcade; how he feels he must have let him down after he’d left. He’d known of Arcade’s ideals, about his feelings towards what he’d wanted for the the people of Freeside, and Vegas as a whole. The wayward feelings of hope Arcade found in him. The rare moments of open vulnerability in the secrets Arcade shared of his past. Just how many things were shared between them, and how Mase let it go to waste for nothing – for his own cowardice.

For as much as having someone close to him by his side gave Mase strength, it also added to the weight of expectation from the pressure he already felt. Arcade wasn’t enough to change that. Nothing was.

do they draw, paint, play any instruments?

His main creative outlet is his journal. Writing and doodling little sketches. He doesn’t consider it a “real” art form, though.

how do they deal with injuries? do they use stimpaks, healing powder, med-x? does a companion help them? can they bear a lot of pain, or do they need to attend to injuries immediately? when they do have to see a doctor, do they have a preferred doctor, or do they just see anyone?

Mase has a high threshold for pain. The first time he’d been seriously injured (from memory) was during the shootout in Goodsprings. A bullet had pierced his upper left arm, thankfully missing any arteries, and became deeply lodged without breaking through the other side of the impact site. He remembered noticing he’d been struck was delayed, his arm had felt hot, wet, and uncomfortable, but almost indistinguishable through the adrenaline.

Once he noticed the red stains from the hole in his jacket, he stared wide-eyed and pale at the blood flowing from the open wound, the pain spiking like a blistering heat. He didn’t know what to do with himself; didn’t groan, didn’t cry, just stood with a lost look. He was in good company, though, and Doc Mitchell was there to care for the wounded.

Subsequent injuries have been reacted to with similar disconnect. He understands the importance of tending to wounds through the lecturing on infection from the Doc, and because of this tries to treat injuries as urgently as possible. However, if he can help it, he’d rather take a stimpak and slap a bandage over the wound and call it done. Fortunately, Arcade doesn’t let him get away with that one very often once they start travelling together.

have they ever been irradiated? how did they deal with it? did it have lasting effects?

In contrast to the high pain tolerance, Mase cannot handle radiation. In slight doses, it’s manageable, but when his Pipboy near deafens him with its Geiger clicking, like clockwork, the nausea immediately sets in. It debilitates him, and the contamination to his body never settles until he flushes it.

He recalls an instance of trying to bear with the radiation, barely dragging himself up the road from Novac, forcing himself to try to tough it out. He realized he’d made a mistake when he started profusely vomiting, and immediately checked his Pipboy for the nearest medical help.

Trudging up the slopes to Camp Forlorn Hope, Mase manages to make his way to the medical tent, limbs shaking and fatigued. Of course, Dr. Richards insists on helping him, having already been acquainted with the doctor from previously assisting with missing medical supplies. Mase had been hoping on a return of kindness when he’d chosen Forlorn Hope, while also not averse to being sweet-talked.

It seemed simple enough, let Dr. Richards hook an IV to his upper forearm, relax, and let the Radaway do its job. But...Mase had been shaking and hyperventilating from the nausea, and right as Dr. Richards offered him a reassuring “It’s going to be all right, buttercup”, Mase lurched and vomited on the doctor’s shoes.

Needless to say, one of his top most embarrassing moments.

in conversation, are they kind? gentle? sarcastic? rude? do they speak warmly and openly with people, or are they more guarded? do they talk a lot?

Generally very soft spoken, with little to say, especially in regards to strangers or people he’s just met. A monotone speaking pattern, with tendencies to a blunt manner of speaking his mind.

However this changes the closer he is to someone. He becomes more adaptive to the other person’s speaking patterns, becoming more or less talkative depending on the personality of his partner.

do they like long journeys through the mojave, or do they prefer to travel more quickly? do they prefer using roads or travelling through the deep desert?

It depends. He’ll have bouts of wanting to travel long, deserted stretches of land, leaving time to himself and his thoughts. No companions. And other times he’ll prefer to stay to more populated areas, not wanting to be alone, and dreading the idea of being left with no one but his own thoughts to keep him company.

name a random fact about your courier.

He has hang-ups about his name. For the first few months of his “new” life, he didn’t have a name, and was simply called “Courier” – which doesn’t entirely die out, even after he discovers his real name. The title “Courier” is something he more familiarly associates with his being/existence/person.

A continuous problem that his amnesia left him with was the inability to grasp or understand who he was. As time goes on and Mase becomes more self aware, this effect does diminish, but the conflicting feelings he has about his name remain. Sometimes he feels like his name is an important identity – one that he’s afraid of losing again, and sometimes he wants absolutely nothing to do with it.

When he leaves the Mojave, he throws his first name away completely, and takes to only telling people his middle name. Arcade had called him “Mase” consistently, with fondness; Joshua had only ever called him “Mason”, never the shorthand version. Somehow, that felt important. He didn’t want these memories to resurface – he didn’t want to remember what he’d left behind, or feel that pain – so he abandoned the name completely.

do they watch movie holotapes? what are their favorites? least favorites?

(Say The Man With No Name trilogy exists in the Fallout universe. That would undoubtedly be Mase’s favorite.

I admit I haven’t thought much about this sort of thing. The main kind of entertainment I imagine Mase consuming is mostly the radio. In-game, we have Radio New Vegas and Mojave Music as far as music/entertainment goes, but I like to think there would be other stations where the main focus is storytelling. Reruns from pre-war times, and newer stations featuring people recounting tales from the wasteland.)

what do they do with the lucky 38? do they like being there? do they leave their companions there? if they’re a yes-man courier, do they open it back up as a casino?

Much like how Mase feels towards the rest of The Strip, the Lucky 38 is a stifling, unwelcoming environment. He takes advantage of the shelter and amenities given, but he knows he’s being watched – being kept close like a useful tool, exactly how most factions and people in power treated him. He doesn’t make a habit of using the Lucky 38...but, he does like the convenience of running water.

what do they do after hoover dam?

Wanders out east towards Ronto. It’s possibly the most aimless 4 years of his life. He has no purpose, he falls onto self-destructive behavior, and loses what little sense of self he was able to garner from his time in Nevada and Utah. Ultimately, after confronting many internal fears and doubts, with not a slight bit of soul-searching, Mase makes the decision to go back home to Nevada.

how do they die? how is their death received, by the mojave and by their companions?

... (I haven’t gotten that far. I’ve only just barely decided Mase settles in Nevada, which is dependent on an NCR Hoover Dam victory. Which is extremely important to how things change in west coast territories. And thinking of Mase’s future involves thinking of the future of Nevada and the west as a whole. I don’t know if I’m capable of handling the weight of the aftermath of the NV storyline with my meager ideas.

I do imagine Mase would die from a shot to the head, though. Seems fitting.)

what are their vices? are they an alcoholic, a thief, a hoarder?

Mase has always had a proclivity for alcohol – these habits severely abate during his time in Zion, and then rise to a destructive level of full alcoholism during his time out east.

Hoarding has a negative connotation to it, right? Generally collecting garbage, and other trash? Mase collects items he finds to be interesting in his home in Nevada, but it’s not rubbish. It’s more of a collection similar to the likes of a museum.

can they cook, and if so, what do they cook? what are their favorite & least favorite foods?

Despite having less-than-useful survival skills, Mase is very interested in cooking recipes. The easiest and most satisfying one to follow is the desert salad, with more difficult recipes being mushroom cloud and wasteland omelette. He’s only had the opportunity to cook the latter two once each (thanks Quarry Junction and Bloodborne cave), and he savored every moment of both meals.

Another favorite would be iguana bits – a food he’s tried to replicate, but can’t quite pin the recipe for down. Besides that, he admittedly has a palette for pre-war sweets. Fancy Lads have a specifically...gone off...flavor about them, but he enjoys them all the same.

did they kill caesar? vulpes inculta? what about prominent ncr figures, like kimball and colonel hsu?

He doesn’t kill any prominent figures. Perhaps if he had been a different person, he would have been openly hostile toward the Legion – he disagrees with their values, and despises their leader – but this was not the life he felt he could lead. He already had enough paranoia about the prospect of having enemies coming back to kill him from the life he couldn’t remember, let alone adding to that by agitating any specific faction or group.

I deleted some questions I felt were already answered well enough in previous posts about Mason. Namely: this one.

I also just deleted things I didn’t feel like answering because it was too much effort.

The companions question is unfinished because I felt like that bit was getting really unorganized and chunky to read. So, some companions are omitted. May go back to this and edit it / add more to it.

#oc shepherd #fallout new vegas #i know no one aside from me will care about this #since it's not art and nor is it easy writing to consume #but that's ok because i love writing #and more importantly #i love writing character building for my oc

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cosmofantasy · 6 years

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Crusade: the (in)complete guide

(NOT REALLY COMPLETE YET. RELEASED EARLY AND INCOMPLETE JUST TO HELP PEOPLE WITH THE BASICS AND SOME OF THE ADVANCE FACTS FOR THE 12/5/2018 CRUSADE) (WILL COMPLETE SOON)

Index: (Coming Soon)

What is Crusade?

Crusade is a mode in which Guilds fight other Guilds. Victory or defeat will determine the rewards earned and the ranking of each Guild. Every Crusade Season lasts 3 days. Your Guild will fight one Guild each of the three days.

When do Crusades happen?

Crusades are seasonal. Meaning that they aren’t always on. Crusade Seasons are usually announced with some days ahead in the Notice/News of the game. Average, there is a Crusade every 2-3 weeks or so.

What are the rewards for participating in Crusades?

The main reason to play and win in Crusades, is to obtain Crusade Coins. Crusade Coins can be used in the Crusade Shop where players can buy Cosmo of the Three Gods (Athena, Poseidon and Hades). Playing enough Crusades will allow any player to unlock these three powerful characters without spending any money in the game (F2P/Free To Play).

What do I need to participate in Crusade?

First of all, you need to belong to a Guild. If you don’t have one, check the Domestic and Global Chats in the game and look for people posting request for Guild Members. Secondly, the Guild Master needs to set up a time in which the Guild wants to play Crusade.

And note that the times given are in UTC, so Google what each of those times are for your geographical timezone.

(3:00 UTC is 7pm for me here in Pacific Time)

How Crusades work?

BASICS

- Introduction

Two Guilds will fight for 60 minutes. The goal is to score more than the enemy Guild at the end of the 60 minutes countdown.

Every member of a Guild will have a Defense Formation and an Attack pool.

The DEF Formation is made of 3 teams, and up to 15 characters.

The ATK pool can (and should) have 15 characters.

The total number of DEF Formations of a Guild will determine the number of DEFENSES the Guild has. Max 50. (If a Guild has ideally all of its 50 members set up for Crusade, the Guild will have a total of 50 Defenses)

You as a player will use characters from your Attack Pool to attack and defeat the enemy Guild Defenses. That means you will fight against the Defense Teams that the players in the enemy guild have set up. You will need to defeat the 3 teams of that player DEF Formation in order to take down that Defense. Failing to do so will not count as a Defense taken, although if you killed a character or a whole team during your try, they will remain dead the next time you or another team member tries it. Their HP will also remain exactly the same as they had it the second your battle finished and you lost. (if one of their characters was almost dead, they will still be with low HP when you go to fight them again).

To attack an enemy Defense, you need to click in the Battle button

This will select a RANDOM enemy Defense from the ones that haven’t been taken down already.

If you feel you can’t beat it or prefer to see if you can fight someone else, you can click on the back button and click on Battle again. However, the game can be sometimes very broken and only show you the same enemy over and over, so be aware of that.

- Scoring

Once you have defeated a Defense, you will score for your Guild and add to the total Guild Combo.

The total score of your Guild and the enemy Guild’s will be shown in the main screen of Crusade. Your Guild always in blue, the enemy always in red.

(Always try to keep the blue crossing the middle line!!)

- Big Bang Attack (BBA)

When your Guild, or the enemy Guild takes down all of the Defenses, a big Bang Attack will happen.

A Big Bang Attack lasts for 3 minutes and allows the Guild who took all the enemy defenses down to score a MASSIVE amount of points during that time. Ideally players use the Cost: 15 BBA to score 3 times as much in the same time that it takes to use the Cost: 5. The idea of the BBA is to score as much as you can.

When you attack on a Big Bang Attack, a random character from your ATK Pool will appear on screen (what character appears has no effect or makes any difference in the score)

And then your BBA score will appear

(We will go more in detail later about how to optimize BBA scores, Battle Scores and Combo Scores)

When the BBA ends, the Defenses of the defending Guild are restored, and the other Guild will have to take all of them down again to reach another BBA.

- Blocking

When the enemy Guild wipes out all of your Guild’s Defenses, they will get their BBA Chance.

For the duration of their BBA, all the participating members of the Guild can choose to BLOCK.

Blocking will decrease the score that the enemy Guild is earning during their BBA by a percentage. Each blocking member blocks for 1%, no matter the level of the player.

However, blocking will keep you unable to do anything until the enemy BBA is over and your Defenses are revived.

You cannot cancel the block once you started it.

- Starting times.

All the guild members will see a BLUE countdown above the Guild Button in the Main Menu THE PREVIOUS DAY to the beginning of Crusade Season.

NOTE: It does not mark the beginning of the actual Crusade that you can play. It just marks the beginning of that Crusade Season and will reach zero exactly at Date Reset.

After the Date is reset, Crusade Season will be on and you will see a new RED countdown above the Guild Button in the Main menu.

Clicking on the Guild Button and the Crusade Mode once in the Guild Menu, you will see that same red countdown.

When this countdown reaches zero, the actual Crusade of your Guild will start

- Crusade Skills

Every character has a Crusade Skill (some powerful characters have two). There are different ones and each one has a different effect during a Crusade. There are ATK and DEF skills.

ATTACK CRUSADE SKILLS

Score Plus BBA

Increases the Score gained when you are attacking during a BBA if this character is in your Attack Pool.

Score Plus Battle

Increases the Score earned if the character with this skill is in the Attack team (NOTE: the character needs to be in the attacking team, it doesn’t count if the character is simply in the Attack Pool of 15 characters.)

Combo Plus

Increases the Combo earned if the character with this skill is in the Attack team (NOTE: same as with BT, the character needs to be in the team of 5 that is attacking, it doesn’t count just by being in the pool)

DEFENSIVE CRUSADE SKILLS

Recovery

When a Defense team wins against an attack attempt and they have a character with this skill in the team, the team will heal for a set amount. (usually their HP remains as low or high as it was at the end of the fight)

Damage Cut

A Defense Team with a character with this skill in it will receive a set % less damage. However, the character with this skill will only be able to perform charge skills and nothing else (unless there is an exception that specifically states in the description of the Crusade Skill that allows the character to cast a skill other than the charge skill). The character will stand static and only able to perform charge skills (or any allowed skill if any)

If you are attacking a team and any of the defending characters has a Defensive Crusade Skill, it will show in a dialogue at the beginning of the fight

(in the case shown above, three characters have Defensive Crusade Skills: one Damage Cut, and two Recovery)

There are also 2 different types that all Crusade Skills can be:

Quality: the quality of the Crusade Skill will be determined by the roman number in front of the skill, and goes from 1 to 3 (I, II, III). The higher the number, the higher the effect of the Crusade Skill will be.

Type: Crusade Skills can be intensive, standard, or delayed. (Exception: all Damage Cut and Combo Plus skills are Standard and won’t have any indication in the name). Intensive Crusade Skills are stronger than Delayed and Standard ones at lower levels, while Delayed is stronger than Intensive and Standard at higher to MAX levels. Standard are never the worst, and never the strongest.

Additionally, there are special types like “LG Exclusive”, or “Specter Exclusive”. They are usually stronger than all the other ones, so nurture those first!

- Combo

Combo is an essential part of Crusade and a vital factor to win. The main function of the Combo is to increase by a % the score earned by all the Guild members when attacking a Defense or attacking during a BBA.

Every time an enemy Defense is taken down, a player will not only score points for the Guild, but will also increase the Combo of the Guild. The Combo stacks up and increases with every Guild member that is attacking. The higher the combo, the higher the % score bonus for the Guild will be.

However, the Combo needs to be maintained or it will DIE. A countdown with the words “until combo ends” will mark when the Combo needs to be maintained. Every time one of your guild members joins a fight, that timer will reset back to 1:59

Specifically, the moment they click on the “Start battle” button, that timer will reset.

This means that there can’t be 2 full minutes since someone clicked that button and until someone in your guild clicks it again to join another fight. If the Guild fails at starting a battle in those 2 minutes, the Combo will die and it will go back to zero. All Score bonus will be gone and the combo will need to be build up again. This will surely mean defeat in an even match because you lost a big advantage and your enemy will keep their combo going higher and higher, scoring more and more than you.

- Stamina

Crusade Stamina is a different kind of stamina that is determined by the player’s PREMIUM RANK. It refills one per minute.

During a Crusade, every player has 2 free Stamina refills. After that, any refill needs to be done using Energy Fruits that can be purchased in the Shop, Rare Shop and Premium Shop for 300 Holy Stones each.

They can also be earned as reward for Guild Missions and at the end of a Crusade Season.

There is also a limit of times that a player can refill Stamina, no matter how many Energy Fruits they own.

ADVANCED

Optimizing your Attack Pool

So you know now that you need 15 characters in your ATK Formation and that they have Crusade Skills that will increase Battle Score, Combo or BBA Score. So what to put there now?

There are several things to consider:

BBA Score is determined by the Total Power of your ATK Formation. This means that the sum of the Power stat of all your 15 Saints in the ATK Formation will determine how good your BBA score will be. So consider including characters with high Power in the ATK Pool.

BBA Score Crusade Skills will further improve your BBA Score, so you might also want to consider adding characters with the best BBA Skills (III, Exclusive, etc)

You will need characters that can defeat enemies in actual fights, so don’t forget to include those characters you trust the most in battle.

If those 5 characters that you would include in your attacking team have powerful BT Score or Combo Crusade Skills, that would be optimal. Not always possible, but worth considering.

Consider having some characters with good Combo Crusade Skills. You will eventually encounter Defenses that have very low level units defending them. The score you will obtain against a low level defense is very small, HOWEVER the Combo score you earn is exactly the same, no matter the level of the enemy. Hence you will benefit your Guild a lot more if you attack a low level Defense with a team fully made of characters with Combo Crusade Skills.

Optimizing your Defense Formation

If you are thinking about putting your best units in Defense so your enemies have a hard time defeating it, consider the points mentioned in the previous “Optimizing your Attack Pool” section, because sometimes our best units have Skills that would benefit the Guild if they were in the Attack Pool. Also consider your player level. If you don’t have a high level, your team will probably be easily defeated even if you put your best units in Defense.

The better your defense and the higher their level, the more points it is going to give to the enemy team if defeated. Some people prefer to 1 level 1 character in every of the 3 teams to give no points to the enemy Guild. However, this strategy can easily backfire if they are defeated by a team with high Combo Plus Crusade Skills.

If you don’t have a high level, the best you can do with your defenses is trying to make the enemy Guild waste their time. This is vital in Crusade because if you force the enemy Guild to need even just one more second every fight, it will mean minutes later on that they will have wasted and that could mean a whole BBA that they didn’t have time to reach. And so, the difference between victory or defeat. There are several units that waste time. New Andromeda Shun revives when defeated and needs to be taken down by a number of hits or he will revive again and again. Phoenix Ikki revives once as well. Surplice Camus revives and becomes invulnerable for some seconds once. Virgo Shun and Geki Bear survive beyond their HP when awakened to Seventh Sense... etc.

There are characters that are Crusade Defense Specialists. For example Final Pegasus Seiya whose Damage Cut Crusade Skill will make it harder for the team to die, and his Charge Skill will make the fight start from scratch for the enemy team, making it longer and wasting their time. Other highly defensive characters like Hypnos, Abel or Shaka Spear will extend the fights and make the Defending team hard to kill, or at least waste the enemy time much longer. However, you will have to consider losing some of their powerful Crusade Skills if you put them in your Defense Formation instead of your Attack Pool (like mentioned in Point 1)

There are also characters that are useful for Crusade Defenses when they die. Kanon God Cloth, or Libra Shiryu for example, will deplete the enemy team Cosmo Gauge when they die. You can consider putting them in your defenses barely leveled up (just enough to awaken the needed skill, usually Silver Rank/level 53) just so they die quick and mess the enemy Cosmo gauge, forcing the fight to last longer. Some people put them as the only character in the second team. This way, the enemy team will be forced to start the fight against your third team completely depleted of cosmo gauge, and will lose the advantage of starting the third fight with full Cosmo gauges.

Guild Organization, strategy and communication

(will complete soon)

#saint seiya cosmo fantasy #sscf #saint seiya #zodiac brave #saint seiya zodiac brave #caballeros del zodiaco #knights of the zodiac #bandai #sega #crusade

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