#2. I don’t think rj would have resolved it the same way

[hauntedmoors]

Okay the post about Rand's sexuality is here - you can expect spoilers up to and including A Memory of Light so you should avoid reading it if you haven't finished reading the series. Obv I don't think that a lot of analysis on psychology and sexuality were necessarily rooted in science or research in the early 1900s but Freud's theories have always had a lot of literary significance and that's how I approach analysing how the larger narrative interacts with RJ's deployment of the oedipal complex in the post and I do think the books intend to critique it, at least in part.

the great hunt, chapter 16

Nynaeve and Moiraine are often both posited as potential romantic figures in the series if not in the same sequences in which Rand considers other romantic interests. They both go on to develop into Rand's mentor-mother figures in the series (as Lan functions as the mentor-father figure) and Moiraine’s death in The Fires of Heaven is very hard on him. Rand’s relationship with his various ‘mothers’ have always formed a very important facet of his characterisation - the first significant battle that Rand engages in at the end of The Eye of World involves the Dark One attempting to ‘tempt’ him by promising to resurrect Kari al’Thor, and it’s important to note that the Shadow is specifically involved in the attempt to lure him by using his mother - to succumb to Oedipus's fate is not a favourable outcome.

the fires of heaven, chapter 7

The vision (in other terms, a prophecy) that Moiraine witnesses in the ter'angreal in Rhuidean hints at disastrous consequences should she try to seduce Rand and it's in direct reference to the prophecy that Oedipus would kill his father (see: The Gathering Storm), marry his own mother, and bring down a terrible tragedy upon his people. Once the first two elements of the prophecy are fulfilled in the myth, the kingdom is struck by a plague and the crisis is only resolved when Oedipus blinds himself and goes into exile. This is again vaguely familiar in terms of how the story evolves over the course of the series as Rand is blinded briefly, nearly kills his own lover as Oedipus nearly did, and dies in 'exile' from a home he never returned to for fear of betraying it to his enemies.

With the Oedipal Complex, Freud postulated that the journey to adulthood resolved itself as a 'heterosexual' development of sexuality while homosexuality represented an arrested stage of development. In the series, Rand notably describes Ishamael and Demandred as attractive people and also goes on to describe various men as individuals that women might like to consider as likely candidates for romantic interests - the former also signals Lews Therin's own implied struggles with homoerotic relationships with men; regret colours how he remembers the friendships he'd cultivated with them as he refuses to accept the reality that he's dead; or in other words, stuck in a state of stasis that he refuses to move on from - to develop, or, to mature. He warns against the dangers of male channelers and the Black Tower and cautions Rand against them, which is where a lot of the queer readings arise from.

These references to the attraction that men hold for Rand also decrease in frequency over the course of the series, and are also significantly concentrated in situations preceding Rand's acceptance of responsibility - in other words, Rand is only considered a man who has reached adulthood upon accepting the responsibility of the Dragon Reborn at the end of The Great Hunt, following which he begins to actively return the romantic interest that Elayne and Min show in him after failing to adequately return any interest in Selene or Egwene. His true and final acceptance of his fate is seen during The Fires of Heaven where he's forced to confront the reality that he will not be able to evade or trick the prophecy as he'd planned to do following his trip to Sindhol in The Shadow Rising. His encounters with the Seanchan in The Great Hunt and The Fires of Heaven - i.e. colonialist imperialism, which is often likened to rape - waken him to the responsibility he owes the world on both occasions, and he later loses a hand in another significant encounter with the Seanchan*. Childhood is past for Rand, and there's nowhere to run.

*Mat also experiences several moments that can be described as a ‘loss of innocence' which can be directly traced back to participating in conflicts against the Seanchan, as seen during The Great Hunt and Knife of Dreams.

This recognition sets the trend for Rand's relationships with men moving forward - he severs the bond of friendship he's cultivated with Mat and overwrites it with a relationship based on responsibility during The Fires of Heaven. Following the "kiss" that Rand administered to Mat in The Shadow Rising and the intense degrees of homoeroticism they display in The Eye of the World, he recognises Mat as a point of personal crisis. Perrin is afforded a similar treatment in Lord of Chaos and they're both eventually banished from Rand's lives as they're figures from a childhood with varying degrees of homoeroticism coded into their relationships that Rand can no longer afford to associate himself with.

Similar treatments are afforded to all his friends and allies during books 4-7, but in doing so he weakens himself leading the narrative to deride him for childish, poorly conceived approaches to asserting his maturity. He begins avoiding the Maidens (who often identify themselves as his 'mothers') who are sworn to protect him more religiously to his disadvantage. He asserts his adulthood with irresponsible and dangerous acts, in part guided by the personal traumas that he's endured. He set himself at odds with Moiraine for four books before recognising his mistake - but it didn't prevent him from committing the same mistake again repeatedly in subsequent books.

But the books also display plenty of sympathy for Rand, and in preventing the fulfilment of Moiraine’s prophecy they tackle the idea of the inevitable disaster and Rand’s flawed approaches to reach adulthood - they recognise and draw attention to the points of pressure and negative forces corralling Rand in and preventing him from acting in his best interests and ask the reader to pity him as he begins to isolate himself. The books are critical of his ill-conceived approaches but they don’t forget to be kind to him. And Elayne, with her specific homoerotic relationship with Aviendha, exists to offer an ideal example of a leader who can accept responsibility and make the journey into adulthood with the proper support, empathy and training.

TLDR: rand is bisexual and in denial. like his mom, moiraine, and girlfriend, elayne, who were definitely not in denial.

[highladyluck]

Random meta/worldbuilding thoughts on the theme of eschatological time

Went down a Wikipedia hole today on the Millerites, a religious movement based around a specific prediction about the timing of Jesus’s second coming, and now I have three more Wheel of Time worldbuilding things to gleefully complain about and/or theorize on, as is my custom. (As usual, ‘ware whole-series spoilers.)

1) The Millerites apparently believed that Jesus would return "literally, visually, in the clouds of heaven" and I can't help but wonder if that's what RJ was borrowing for his 'Rand and Ba'alzamon fight in the clouds above Falme' aesthetic? The whole thing always struck me as super super weird since there's no in-world explanation for it except 'it's in the Prophecies', which doesn't tell you how it's done. Like we know the One Power can do projections/illusions, but there's no note anywhere that Moiraine or whoever was doing One Power cinematography at that moment. (However, I will consider headcanons that Verin was doing it for mysterious Verin reasons, just because that seems fun. Verin is extremely fun and mysterious, especially in book 2.)

I thought maybe it's the same kind of thing as the ta'veren television effect that the boys all start getting in later books- the swirl of colors in their heads that resolves into images of the other ta'veren, triggered by thought? But I think the color swirls are more related to 'reading the Pattern' and are similar to Egwene's Dreaming/the scenes Perrin sees in the sky in Tel'aran'rhiod/Min's visions. But 'floating images'/'images in the sky' does seem to be like... a way the Pattern appears to people, so maybe it is connected? And it's been a while since I read book 2; it's possible that Rand and Ba'alzamon are fighting at least partially in Tel'aran'rhiod, maybe due to the appearance of the Heroes of the Horn, who live there? In which case, sure, giant sky projections, sounds plausible, Tel'aran'rhiod is batshit like that.

2) I'm unreasonably annoyed that the calendar extant in the Westlands at the time of the books is set at 998 NE and the events of the books take 2 years, so that the apocalypse is RIGHT ON SCHEDULE at the end of the millennium. I CALL BULLSHIT. NOBODY'S APOCALYPSE ARRIVES ON TIME. That cute little note about the calendar at the end of every Wheel of Time book? Where they're like 'oh yeah we lost a ton of records at various points in the Third Age, there were a bunch of different calendar systems before this, and the Farede calendar dating from the arbitrarily decided end of the War of the Hundred Years is now in use'? 'ARBITRARILY DECIDED', MY ASS.

Honestly the only way this makes sense is if the books were written in the 'far future' and either the author or (from an in-universe angle) their civilization fudged the dates of events so that the end of the War of the Hundred Years was exactly the time needed to have the Last Battle end right at the millennium. Actually, this also explains why the timeline is so extraordinarily compressed and everything supposedly happened in just two years. It absolutely didn't, they just fudged the timeline from the distant vantage point of the future. XD

In RJ's defense, that does appear to be part of the conceit. I think the implication is supposed to be either that Loial wrote the books, presumably 100s of years later knowing Ogier lifespans/project timelines, or someone else is writing this based on Loial's notes/book. This is supported by that FASCINATING opening verse in Lord of Chaos, with the skipping rhyme from 'Great Arvalon, the Fourth Age' which is clearly future Tar Valon. (I've always been obsessed with that verse, and I think the only other Fourth Age quote we get opening the books is at the end of AMoL, and that's about the Breaking and doesn't tell us anything about the future except that there is one.)

3) What are the odds that the Seanchan still use FF (From the Founding, the calendar Artur Hawkwing tried to establish that now 'only historians refer to') for their calendars? Pretty good, right? I wonder what wacky stuff they were expecting around whenever their millennial date was. Everybody would have an extra-keen eye out for omens once the date drew near.

Actually, it would kind of make sense if they had a false dragon around then. Didn’t one of the Westlands false dragons pop up around the turn of one of the earlier millenniums? Also, because the only thing more fun than one weird headcanon is another even weirder headcanon... what if there were Seanchan false dragons who were female? I don’t think male channelers with the spark in Seanchan live long enough to get much in the way of delusions of grandeur, plus the prophecies got corrupted so maybe people weren’t necessarily expecting a male Dragon (granted, this is a stretch). Mostly I’m thinking that a female false dragon in Seanchan would have similar motivations to Logain and Taim, like ‘eh, who’s to say I’m not the Dragon Reborn, also this might allow me to get more power/escape my otherwise inevitable fate.’ I know people have run with the Female Dragon idea, but I haven’t seen anyone write a female false dragon or a false dragon in Seanchan. (If you have, point me to those fics, I’m curious!) In the 1000+ year history of Artur Hawkwing’s Seanchan there would absolutely have been at least some channelers who were like ‘yeah no thanks I don’t want to be damane, what are my other options?’ I’m not saying any of them succeeded in exploring other options in the long run, but somebody must have asked the question. I’m just constantly chewing over the idea that Seanchan is really, really not as culturally homogeneous as Tuon believes it to be and Imperial propaganda says it is; the last rebellion was put down 200 years ago, but there’s absolutely damane who were alive then and even people with ordinary lifetimes can still hang on to bits of their culture (and/or anger/fear about how their ancestors were treated) for that long. My best example of this is Ajimbura, who is manifestly not fully assimilated; he’s a permanent exile from his culture, perhaps, but you definitely get the sense that he’s following Karede out of some sort of personal honor code that comes out of his cultural background even if it doesn’t match up to it completely, rather than because Karede successfully absorbed him into imperial Seanchan culture. You can take a man out of the Kaensada Hills but you can’t take the Kaensada Hills out of the man. (Also now I’m thinking about how Ajimbura is to Karede as Mat is to Tuon, in terms of loyalty/house-train-ability and it’s blowing my mind...)

[dreamcatcherjiah]

Part 2

“I still don’t understand why you haven’t bought a new Army Bomb at the booth,’ said Hyejin, with her RJ headband and a frown. ‘I know you said it was an accident, but you could just buy a new one for the concert…’

She had been going on and on and on about your broken lightstick since you told her about your little mishap last night. You hadn’t told her much about the circumstances that surrounded the accident, and you weren’t about to do so. You were in so much pain it was unbearable. But that wasn’t about to stop you from enjoying. You had taken as many pills as you felt safe taking to keep the pain at bay, and your bag contained the pills and the prescription you had needed to pass them through security. It wasn’t fair, the fact that your body was denying you the pleasure of enjoying the experience 100%, but what else could you do? That morning had been specially strange, waking up with additional pain, feeling it as if it didn’t entirely belong to you, as if the sensation came from outside of your own body, and still, you could feel it. You had heard of ghost pains, but they were usually caused by an amputation… You had no idea what was happening to you whatsoever, but as soon as your alarm chimed and you saw CONCERT DAY boldly written in your calendar, you put on a smile and got ready. 

Before you met Hyejin at the venue, you walked slowly from the bus stop, allowing the wind to move your hair, your lashes. It was a bit cold, but it serve to cool down the feverish feeling you were beginning to notice. Not even high temperature would dampen your mood today.

You found Hyejin almost bouncing on the balls of her feet, banner and Army Bomb in hand and RJ headband in her head. The atmosphere was already electrifying and the concert hadn’t even started. People were going around taking pictures, going from booth to booth, singing the boy’s songs, giving out stickers and merchandise. The feeling that was feeling your whole body now was one of belonging, completion. You were here with Hyejin to celebrate her birthday, but this whole day felt like a present to you. When she saw you, her whole face lit up if that was even possible with the look of utter happiness that her face was already displaying. 

“You’re finally here!” She shouted while she approached you, dancing to the rhythm of Dimple as it sounded through the speakers. “I’ve only been here ten minutes and I am already so hyped up! I can’t believe I’m here, in the final, on my birthday and with a friend!”

Smiling at her silly display, you hugged her close and laughed. “I’m sure you would have been able to find someone to come with you had it not been me, Hyejin-ah,” you told her.

“But I wanted to come with you,” she whined. “Let’s go, let’s take a look around the booths for a bit and then we’re getting in line to enter. We have VIP tickets but these people get crazy when it’s time to go inside the stadium,” she said with a fondness you understood perfectly.

And you were there, floor, second row, right next to the second stage and the water cannons. Hyejin was vibrating with excitement, waving around her huge banner that read “Seokjin I adoRJou” and her lightstick at the same time. You honestly didn’t find the banner hilarious, but you did have to recognise it was original. With so many people surrounding you, you began getting a bit lightheaded, but you snapped yourself out of it quite fast. Not now. And absolutely not today. Looking at your watch, you noticed that in ten minutes you’d be able to take the second dose of the painkillers of the day and the concert was set to start in an hour. Just perfect. 

Taking your little pouch out of your bag, you opened your pillbox and swiftly downed the next two pills. Taking a look at yourself on the shining surface of the box you couldn’t stop smiling. Your Man headband proudly on your head, matching colours with your purple bomber jacket. You still couldn’t believe this was happening. It almost made up for the headache and the pain of your whole body. 

“Hey, Hyejin. I don’t think I’ve said it enough, but I am so very happy that you invited me today!” You told her for the nth time. It wasn’t like you were about to forget such act of kindness. “I know I’ve been quite distant in the office lately, but I just want to say that I really appreciate what you’ve done for me, with this, and over the years, and I really hope we can get closer after today.”

She had tears in her eyes, a bit over the top, considering you had been thanking her three days already, but you guessed the atmosphere and the place you were had something to do with it.

“Y/N do not worry about any of it, you hear me?” The emphasis with which she was speaking now was a bit unlike her, but you just smiled into her shoulder until she took your arms and looked at you in the face. “Of course we are friends. I’ve noticed how you seem to be uncomfortable most of the time lately and I didn’t want to impose, but I couldn’t just pass the opportunity of taking you with me to this concert, Y/N! I saw you take those pills, so if you feel bad just tell me, but for now, let’s just enjoy the concert together, okay?”

Now it was you the one who had tears in her eyes. She had noticed that you were in pain most of the time now and had decided not to approach you not to make it worse. How were you supposed to keep a straight face now? 

You were about to open your mouth to say something to her when an airy feeling filled your body from head to toe. At the beginning you thought that you were about to faint, but your jumbled mind ruled that out pretty quick. Your heart was beating a thousand miles a minute and your whole body felt light, lighter than it had felt in months, years even. The headache went away in a heartbeat. One second your whole body was weighted down with pain and the next one it felt as if was levitating several meters over the stadium. The pain from your limbs was being absorbed towards the centre of your chest at lightning speed, taking with it the tiredness and even the memory of the pain. Your heart was swelling with every second passing. Taking your hand to the place where your heart was making you feel alive again, you felt it tugging forward, as if it wanted to leave your chest, jump out and fly forward. You vaguely registered how Hyejin was trying to bring you back to reality, calling your name and trying to make eye contact with you. But your body was in ecstasy. Totally relaxed and pain free, and that was all you cared about.

And then the fireworks on the stage went off and the first few notes of Dionysus started resonating through the arena. The concert had begun.

Waking up the morning of the concert hurt like a bitch, in what Hoseok was concerned. He stayed awake a few moments after the alarm went off, not wanting to alert Jimin to how he was feeling, just laying on his back. After assessing his body, it was clear to him that he hadn’t felt this level of pain before. It wasn’t something specific. He didn’t have a very prominent headache and his joints weren’t specially tender. But his whole body was in an enormous amount of pain, so much so that he felt his skin on fire every time he so much as breathed deeper than normal. And this couldn’t be. Not today, of all days. His brothers were relying on him, there was so many people working themselves to the bone so today was perfect and he couldn’t disappoint even one of them. And then there was ARMY. While he knew that his members would understand if he told them that he couldn’t perform today due to his pain, he couldn’t fathom not going out to give ARMY the concert of their lives. It wasn’t just obligation, or some misguided sense of responsibility, he felt so strongly for these people, people that he had only seen once or twice, or that were seeing the concert in their homes. They were so many, they showed so much love and he wanted to give back. Today nothing short of breaking a leg would stop him from performing.

So, being this his resolve, he gritted his teeth and stretched his body painfully until he could reach his nightstand and the painkillers in the second drawer. Once that was dealt with, he plopped back on the bed and gave himself 15 minutes to wait for the pain to go away. Fifteen minutes that he used to mentally prepare himself for the long day ahead, for the smiles he would have to show the members and the staff to convince them that he wasn’t in so much pain — it was a fool’s errand trying to convince them that the pain had completely disappeared, they all knew better — and all the moves and rapid dances that he was gonna have to brave through.

After those 15 minutes came and went, he got up from the bed and clearing his throat, he woke Jiminie up in his usual chipper way. The sleepy man just looked at him with one of his eyes open, his hair a mess, like he had grown a second head while he was sleeping.

“We are unusually happy this morning, hyung… How are you feeling?” He whispered, still half-asleep and rubbing his eyes a bit. 

“I’m feeling better that ever!” Hoseok answered back, giving his voice a bit more of volume so Jimin wouldn’t notice the trembling. “Finish waking up and I’ll make breakfast meanwhile, okay? Coffee?”

“Americano.” Said the younger man, snuggling back under the covers, and going back to sleep.

When the rest of the members began filling the kitchen, Hoseok was well on his way through his third cup of coffee. His body was asking him to go back to bed and he couldn’t exactly do that, so he needed to be as hyperactive as possible for most of the day so that when the concert finished he could just collapse on his bed and hibernate for a week. Maybe the guys could go looking for his soulmate for him, it would make for a nice field trip. 

The feeling of the kitchen was heavy with tension and trepidation, so he took it upon himself to cheer his members up. They needed to be on the right state of mind for the day ahead, and Hobi was going to make sure that those worries they had flew out of the window.

What he didn’t notice was the worried glances the rest of BTS were giving each other behind his back. He might be good at acting hyper, but they could see the bags below his eyes with the lack of make up, they could see how his whole body was stooping forward in a protective fashion, as if the most minimal touch to his chest would cause him to break in a million pieces. It was obvious to his six brothers that he was putting on a display for them, but this was a complicated issue, one they had learnt to tread carefully around from so many arguments in the past. 

A couple of years after their debut, when things had started to look a bit better for them, Hobi had started rubbing at his sternum. It was a bit absentmindedly at first, a reflex as was rolling your shoulders back when you noticed your muscles tense. And then he had started getting lightheaded to the point that he had to be taken away from an award show nearly unresponsive. His mood had also worsened, he argued with any and all of the member almost every day, shouting at their faces how they knew how much he wanted to be out there, and that he could manage the pain perfectly not to interfere with their performances. This went on all through the following years, until the members had learnt to take care of him silently.

Namjoon always carried a couple doses of his painkillers, in case the pain was too strong and he run out. Jungkook and Jimin payed specially close attention to his performances, in case he was using too much energy, to balance him somehow. Taehyung had gotten used to carrying a change of clothes or just warm clothes in general for when he got feverish. And Seokjin and Yoongi were the ones in charge of stopping his bullshit when his pretending went on for too long. A person could only take so much on their shoulders before it was too much.

This was proven to be true a couple of hours later when Hoseok just sat down and was knocked out in seconds. The rest of the members just sighed and looked at him.

“We have to keep a close eye on him today,” said Yoongi, frowning. “He has been going all out for the final and it’s bound to catch up to him.”

“I have half the mind to leave him in the car through sound-check and just put him on the stage with enough time to warm up before hand.” Answered Namjoon, knowing fully well that the sooner they put Hoseok on that stage, the sooner he would have to start pretending and he wanted his friend to save his strength.

“Maybe not in the car, but we could convince him to stay backstage sleeping a bit. He must be dead tired,” reasoned then Jin.

Looking at his hyung worriedly, Taehyung was focusing solely on his chest and how the thread was pointing on the direction of the stadium. He didn’t dare say anything though, Seoul was huge after all, and it would be awfully coincidental that Hobi hyung’s soulmate just happened to be at the venue. 

“I have no idea how he managed to fall asleep, with the four cups of coffee he drank before we left the dorm…” mused Jimin, loud enough for his hyungs to hear him and look at him as if they couldn’t believe what they’d heard.

“FOUR CUPS OF COFFEE?!” Whisper-shouted Yoongi, at the same time Namjoon said: “He should be having tachycardia! How the hell is he asleep?!”

Running his hands through his hair, Seokjin just wished for the concert to be over so he could knock some sense into his little brother, this was borderline crazy now.

They managed to leave Hoseok sleeping in one of the waiting rooms backstage while the rest of them got soundcheck dealt with. And when the rest of them went back in to get dressed and their make up done, J-hope was already ready, with his grey suit, in-ears in place and new red mic in hand. He had obviously been warming up, and it was obvious because something that would have left him unbothered on a normal day, had managed to help him work up a sweat. The concert was going to be a disaster if things kept escalating this fast, thought Jungkook.

They got the call to get ready, did their chant and went up the stairs that would take them up into the stage. J-hope had been dragging himself all day long, and it took him twice as long to get from the waiting room to the table set in the middle of the stage, having to be supported by a couple of his members. If he hadn’t been so stubborn he could have been placed on a chair on the side of it so that he could still sing to his heart’s content, but he was J-hope, main dancer of BTS and he would be damned if this thing with his soulmate prevented him from giving his best.

Jungkook and Taehyung sat him down in his chair and started adjusting his clothes and the several cables connecting his in-ears to the transmission devices. 

From one moment to the next, he was standing and frantically looking around. Just the movement of his head from one side to the other contained more energy than any of them had seen him display in months. His smile grew little by little and he jumped around, testing his legs and arms.

The rest of the members had noticed his change of behaviour and were all looking at him as if they had seen a Ghost. Hobi even managed to giggle at their faces, while rolling his shoulders, his head and every joint he could think to test. He was painless, he hadn’t felt like this in ages. So light and quick on his feet, he jumped onto the table and sat himself down in position to begin the concert.

“Let’s get this concert started, shall we?”

💞Tight Hearts (Idol!Hoseok x Reader)

Plot: The red string of fate was visible when our grandparents were children. They would play around, following the strings from one person to their soulmate and laugh happily when these two people inevitably found each other. It was a reason for happiness. But little by little, people stopped seeing the threads. In bad times, it was dangerous, it was a liability, so people stopped seeing them to protect each other from harm. When I was born, nobody saw them anymore, they just felt their soulmate. Anxiety, happiness, sorrow, love, the hearts of the soulmates are one, feel the same things, but it is almost impossible to find your soulmate, now that the threads cannot be seen.

Tight Hearts Masterlist

Part 2

A/n: Hello my loves!! I am so excited for you guys to read this story, I literally can't stop telling you! I hope you like this part as much as you liked the first one!! Tell me how you liked it and let’s chat!!

Send me an ask if you want to be added to the tag list.

Love 💜🌙

Tag list: @obsessoverthesmallthings247 @threedecadesofawkward @mabel-k3 @tremendousminyoongi @justignoremepleaz @demonic-meatball @hadaises @littlestsweetpea28 @rjsmochii @take-u-2-an0ther-w0r1d @gali-005 @salty-for-suga @indicisive-af @nomimits7 @adoreguk

[swipestream]

An Elementary Alternative to Combat (Air/Earth)

Image Courtesy of Pixabay.com

Tactical RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons, Savage Worlds, and the AGE family of games (Blue Rose, Dragon Age, and the upcoming The Expanse RPG) offer an experience completely unlike more story-based games. While they can certainly contain any amount of intrigue, tense character moments, and plots as rich as any story-focused game, these titles tend to focus on individual encounters or situations more as challenges to be overcome through a combination of die rolls and player choices, using a relatively-constrained set of agreed-upon rules. Though this type of play is sometimes derided as “roll-playing” rather than “role-playing,” these rules can help create a sense of verisimilitude and immersion, as everyone has a shared understanding of how their skills and choices relate to what is possible, impossible, and extremely risky in the world the characters occupy. The rules help carry some of the weight of world-building and decision-making, and can lead to some truly unexpected, unforgettable game moments. While I love story-based games, my heart will always belong to games that fully flower with elaborate maps and miniatures that draw the whole table in.

Because these games reward a fuller understanding of these rules more than less-tactical options, players and GMs who have mastered these systems tend to prefer to stick with them, and can sometimes be resistant to trying out other games or other play styles. More often than not (and more often than we’d like to admit) that means that the overwhelming majority of challenges any given group is likely to encounter are either resolved with either relatively little interaction with the rules or with combat. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that approach to gaming; if you and your players have already found the right combination of rules, variety, and challenge, you probably don’t need this article (or any other) to tell you how to have fun; you have, in fact, figured out how to win at RPGs.

 …if you and your players have already found the right combination of rules, variety, and challenge, you probably don’t need this article (or any other) to tell you how to have fun; you have, in fact, figured out how to win at RPGs. 

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If, on the other hand, you find yourself as a GM or player wondering whether you can make a rules-adjudicated encounter varied, unexpected, and interesting in ways other than “hit them until they run out of HP (or Wounds or Fortune),” then maybe it’s worth looking into (drumroll please) An Elementary Alternative to Combat.

The preceding article in this series covered some ways that natural disasters (specifically, fire and water) can use movement, combat, and health rules to face challenges that can’t be defeated with violence or clever words. Continuing in that vein, and because Captain Planet had way, way more of an influence on my upbringing than it probably should have, this article will give you a few tools for making use of air (tornadoes) and earth (earthquakes) as challenges for your group to overcome. As with the previous article in this series, it’s important to highlight that these are real natural disasters that players in your group may already have experiences with. Make sure that these are topics your group will be able to enjoy. Additionally, none of this is intended to minimize the real human cost of these events. If you or your group find yourselves thinking about how awful these events are for the characters in your world, consider throwing a few dollars at the charities called out in these sections. If you can afford to, it’s surprisingly easy to help make the world a better place.

Air

Charity: Operation USA

Charity Navigator Rating: Four Stars

It may surprise you to learn that tornadoes do more than drop houses on nuisance siblings.

 It may surprise you to learn that tornadoes do more than drop houses on nuisance siblings. 

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Tornadoes can last for more than an hour, but generally (in the real world) last less than ten minutes.  Though they are very small when compared to the scale of other types of weather, with winds that can reach up to 300 miles per hour (~483 kph) or more, they can easily destroy every every structure in their path. A truly realistic depiction of heroes trying to survive a tornado probably wouldn’t be all that interesting; just by themselves, winds are destructive enough, but when you factor in debris, collapsing buildings, and other hazards that occur when basically everything becomes airborne, “realistic” rules for making it through a tornado outside of a shelter would probably be more like “save vs. death” than “a tactically interesting situation.

However, in the fine tradition of Dorothy Gale’s tornado-proof farmhouse and  Indiana Jones’ radiation-proof refrigerator, we can move forward with the understanding that sometimes bad science can make good stories. In worlds with elven wizards, alien cyborgs, and time-traveling sapient dinosaurs, it’s not like that’s likely to be the biggest stretch in your game. With that in mind, some considerations in having your characters survive tornadoes.

Setup

First and foremost, unless the characters have a compelling reason to do otherwise, their first priority should be to get to the nearest shelter. As a GM, your job is to

Find a reason to keep them outside for a few rounds (maybe they need to collect a magic item, a data chip, or an important NPC), and

Clearly identify the shelter they should be running toward–this can be a well-protected basement, a solid cave structure, or an area warded with magic or superscience.

Clearly map out the characters’ location, the location of their “goal,” and “safe shelter.” The ideal “safe shelter” should be approximately three full turns of movement away from the furthest player–the “goal” should be about the same distance from both the furthest player and the shelter.

Place some debris on the map to complicate your characters’ lives. These can be anything from flying shovels to building parts to unfortunate and confused livestock. Depending on the size of the map, you’ll want to have approximately one piece of debris for every 20 feet of map space along its longest dimension. While the encounter is ongoing, this debris will be flying around the map, potentially colliding with players. Larger debris will move slower, but do more damage when it hits. Smaller debris can whip all around the map, but is less likely to be devastating.

Large Debris: things like mostly-intact buildings, huge wooden statues, or ships fall into the category of “large debris.” When this debris collides with a player, it should have the potential to completely wipe out the character in the party with the highest health resource–depending on the system you’re using and the level of your characters, 10d10 damage or more is not unreasonable. However, your characters will be glad that this type of object moves relatively slowly.

Damage: 100% of full health of the beefiest character.

Speed: 10 feet/round.

Medium Debris: cows, doors, and heavy furniture can all be considered “medium debris.” Though these don’t pack quite the whallop of very large debris, they should still be able to take out 50% of the full health resource total of your most resilient character, and they move much faster.

Damage: 50% of full health of the beefiest character.

Speed: 30 feet/round.

Small Debris: Anything smaller than a full-grown, average-sized cow is “small debris.”

Damage: 25% of full health of the beefiest character.

Speed: 60 feet/round.

Have the players roll initiative, just like a regular combat, but have the tornado “act” like a combatant in the middle of the players (so, for example, your initiative order could go something like: Alex, RJ, TORNADO, Omar, Padma).

Play

At the beginning of each round, roll:

An 8-sided die to determine the direction of the wind, with one being north, then northeast, east, southeast, south, southwest, west, and finally northwest at eight.

A 6-sided die to determine the strength of the wind.

1-2: Very Strong—All players’ movement speed against the wind is halved, and doubled moving with the wind. Players moving diagonal to the wind move at 3/4 speed (rounding down). Any debris encountered during this round does 1.5X damage. All debris has 30 feet added to its movement speed.

3-4: Strong—All players’ movement speed against the wind is 3/4 (round down). Players moving diagonal to the wind move at full speed. Any debris encountered during this round does normal damage. All debris moves at standard speed.

5-6: Lull in the storm—Though the winds are strong, players’ movement speeds are unaffected in any direction. All debris moves at half speed, and all debris does half-damage.

Players and NPCs move as normal except as noted above. Note that, depending on the method of flight, flying characters may have more trouble moving in high wind than characters who are stuck on the ground.

During the tornado’s turn, all debris moves in the direction of the wind, determined by wind speed. If a piece of debris would be taken off the map, move it to the opposite side of the map and continue in the same direction.

If debris collides (somehow) during the turn, the smaller piece of debris is moved one size category down. Small debris is just destroyed. If the debris is the same size, both pieces move one size category down.

The encounter ends when the players reach safety. It’s tempting to continue past that point (take the temperature of your table to see if they are interested in doing so), but keeping this encounter as a bounded activity helps prevent players from feeling like the goalposts have been moved.

Earth:

Charity: Americares

Charity Navigator Rating: Four Stars

Earthquakes happen. Tectonic plates shift, wicked forces imprisoned in the earth rise, new and ill-considered energy sources get tested without anyone being warned. An earthquake is an excellent way for you, as a GM, to revisit former set pieces, but with a new twist. Some ways that earthquakes can be used to add depth to an encounter, scene or session:

Ancient structures can be uncovered and encroach on existing ones.

Floors can be rearranged, destroyed, or rendered inaccessible.

An earthquake can be an excellent way to create or resolve a “locked door” mystery.

Players trapped in a newly-enclosed area (or rescuing someone in a newly-enclosed area) must race against time as air, food, or water run out.

Aftershocks can make getting out of a dungeon, castle, or forest as confusing as exploring the area in the first place.

Buildings can have structural damage, making floors or walls dangerous to use or even be near.

Liquefaction can briefly turn otherwise-solid ground into a soupy mess as groundwater is agitated into areas it hasn’t been before. This can sink needed resources (forcing characters to excavate) or surface new and interesting developments.

Player characters are (usually) powerful, and their power to affect the world is part of what draws us to them. There’s something satisfying about the fantasy of seeing something wrong and being able to fix it. But every once in a while, players should encounter something their sword can’t conquer, and the exercise of learning how to use the power, ingenuity and strategy they’ve always used to beat the baddies for another purpose can be a breath of fresh air, or fire, or earth, or water.

…every once in a while, players should encounter something their sword can’t conquer, and the exercise of learning how to use the power, ingenuity and strategy they’ve always used to beat the baddies for another purpose can be a breath of fresh air, or fire, or earth, or water. 

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Do you have any go-to non-combat challenges you use in your games? If so, tell us about them so we can use them in ours!

  An Elementary Alternative to Combat (Air/Earth) published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames