#Ancient Sentinel

[overflowingshelf]

March 2024 Reading Recap

Well, this is quite delayed, as we’re now more than a full week into April. BUT. It was delayed for good reasons! First, I GOT A NEW JOB 🙌 I was laid off in January and have spent the whole first quarter of the year job searching, and I’m so excited about this new role. It’s with a company I’ve admired for a while doing really amazing work in precision medicine for oncology. I started it this…

[sandythereadingcafe]

REVIEW

ANCIENT SENTINEL (Ancients Rising 7) by Katie Reus at The Reading Cafe:

‘engaging, intriguing, captivating’

https://www.thereadingcafe.com/ancient-sentinel-ancients-rising-7-by-katie-reus-a-review/

[fyeahygocardart]

Agido the Ancient Sentinel

[lyssq]

Anyway thinking about how Hardwon Surefoot has cheated years onto his lifespan but it still won’t be enough. He got an extra century when he went from human to half-elf. He spent all those years on the astral plane. But Bev and Moonshine will still live an eternity compared to him.

[artemis-ches]

So i'm slowly catching up with Candela Obscura and Tide and Bone, and shoutout to @quiddie for the amazing world and characters you give life to there. The glimpses we got of Oldfaire and the bits and pieces of magic were just *chief kiss*.

Thanks a lot for that.

[weidli]

would be very funny to me to introduce a bunch of americans who are used to the constitution being treated as a gift from god that's very hard to change and is holy Because it's almost never changed and has been in operation in nearly the same form since 1789 to the way the swiss constitution (last total revision in 1999, there have been several hundred direct democratic votes on possible changes to it since 1848, all you need to suggest a change is hundred thousand people with voting power who'll sign the suggestion) works

[ancientorigins]

From the ancient human encampments of Lascaux caves in France to the remote island of North Sentinel in the Bay of Bengal, the world is full of places that we are not allowed to visit.

[cantsayidont]

March 1992. Probably the most interesting change the ROBOTECH storyline makes to the plots of the three Japanese anime series from which it's derived is that in ROBOTECH, the Invid, the snail-like alien race that conquers the Earth at the beginning of the NEW GENERATION/GENESIS CLIMBER MOSPEADA storyline, are a colonized people, interstellar refugees. As explained in the Jack McKinney novels and later dramatized in the six-issue miniseries ROBOTECH GENESIS: THE LEGEND OF ZOR, based on Carl Macek's story notes, centuries ago, the Tirolian scientist and explorer Zor visited the Invid homeworld, Optera, and discovered that the Invid "Flower of Life" could be used as the basis of a potent form of bio-energy he called Protoculture. Zor stole the secrets of the Flower and took them back to Tirol, where Protoculture soon sparked a technological revolution that created space fold travel, reflex weaponry, and bioengineering. The lords of Tirol, calling themselves the Robotech Masters, used this power to annex their neighbors, and created the giant Zentraedi to police their new empire. The Masters then ordered the Zentraedi to defoliate Optera to monopolize their control of the Flower. The surviving Invid split into two factions: one, led by the Regent, fixated on vengeance against Zor and the Masters, and the other, led by the Regiss (or Regis), determined to find a new home and a new evolutionary form that would enable their survival. The Invid later killed Zor, but not before he sent the last Protoculture factory to Earth (as shown in the 1986 ROBOTECH graphic novel), hoping in vain to put it beyond the reach of the Masters.

When Zor Prime, a clone of the original Zor, destroys that factory at the end of the ROBOTECH MASTERS/SOUTHERN CROSS segment of ROBOTECH, it effectively seeds the Earth with the Flower of Life and draws the attention of the Regiss, who invades in hopes of finally reclaiming what had been stolen from her. (This isn't the case in the original MOSPEADA storyline, where the Inbit simply invade Earth because it seems like a habitable spot for their eugenics project.)

This is a clever amalgamation of ideas from the original shows, and it gives ROBOTECH a very different perspective on colonialism than the original series. MACROSS says explicitly that the devastation of the Zentraedi holocaust makes the colonization of other worlds a moral imperative for the human survivors; the original SOUTHERN CROSS storyline is about defending a human colony world (established after a nuclear war devastated Earth) against the return of that world's weird and malevolent original inhabitants; and MOSPEADA ultimately suggests that the Regess has been a more-or-less benevolent, religiously motivated colonizer who leaves the Earth better than she found it. The ending of ROBOTECH is a series of moral reversals: The Invid Regiss has gone from refugee to conqueror, doing to the humans what the Masters and the Zentraedi did to her, but at the same time, the human survivors of the war with the Zentraedi have in effect become the new Robotech Masters (something the Regiss says pretty explicitly in her final monologue), prepared to replicate the devastation of Optera and the Zentraedi holocaust to keep the Regiss from winning. Her ultimate departure, which also destroys the attacking REF fleet, is driven by shame, and a desire for a very literal kind of restorative justice that seeks to redress the humans' sins as well as her own, which makes for a morally complex and bittersweet finale for the saga (the misbegotten SHADOW CHRONICLES notwithstanding).

[retrocgads]

USA 1990

[yonderoo]

Perched atop the craggy pinnacle, the dragon surveyed its dominion with ancient, all-seeing eyes. Its scales shimmered like forged steel in the muted light, a tapestry of armor woven by the hands of time. Mighty wings, tattered yet majestic, unfurled against the whispering winds, whispering tales of bygone storms and celestial flights. The creature's proud horned skull, a crown of natural splendor, held aloft a snout that had tasted the embers of a thousand sunsets. In its silent vigil, the dragon was a sentinel of the old world, a guardian of secrets long forgotten by the realms of men.

[yugiohcardsdaily]

Agido the Ancient Sentinel

“If a card(s) is sent from the hand or Deck to your opponent’s GY (except during the Damage Step): You can Special Summon this card from your hand, then you can Special Summon 1 Level 4 EARTH Fairy monster from your GY, except ‘Agido the Ancient Sentinel’. If this card is sent from the hand or Deck to the GY: You can activate this effect; each player sends the top 5 cards of their Deck to the GY (or their entire Deck, if less than 5), then, if ‘Exchange of the Spirit’ is in your GY, you can send 5 more cards from the top of either player’s Deck to the GY. You can only use each effect of ‘Agido the Ancient Sentinel’ once per turn.”

[thedragonagelesbian]

For the BG3 character development asks: 1 , 10, and 19 (sorry!).

1: Where in the Faerûn is your Tav from?

Main timeline Cyrus is from Baldur's Gate (with the caveat that he spent the first ~25 years of his life on the move across the Sword Coast with his mother and father).

Ranger Cyrus is... uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

/crawling out of the forgotten realms wiki five hours later covered in blood/

I am (with immense hesitation and tentativeness for fear that ed greenwood may strike me down) going to claim the city state of Iriaebor as the providence of the dispossessed noble that Cyrus pledges himself to. [redacted] who uses him to violently reclaim and maintain power while assuring him that it's for the greater good (and who Cyrus eventually kills before vowing to root out as much of their influence as possible). What existing lore there is for the city includes its lawful ruler being ousted by the Zhentarim, which seems to me to be a perfect set up for the lord's daughter/son* to have need of a paladin who could very easily be convinced that the Zhentarim must be expelled by whatever means necessary.

This also means Cyrus' decision to leave that life behind lines up with the city coming under the influence (but not the direct control) of a recently established Elturguard, and I can't help but wonder if that might've had something to do with it-- a reformed and redeemed Champion of Iriaebor being hailed as a symbol of the city's independence or something.

As for his exile cottage, I think it makes the most sense for that to be in the Wood of Sharp Teeth for its proximity to Baldur's Gate, putting him in decent tadpoling range (and, unlike the other place I was considering, the Reaching Woods, THIS woods doesn't have a thing about gnolls very recently slaughtering all the other humanoids because canon D&D lore is just fucking like that sometimes.)

*I don't have a definitive identity for [redacted] yet, but depending on the day/mood, they're based either on Cullen or Meredith............................

10: Are they proficient in playing any instruments?

Nope-- in any timeline or game, Cyrus doesn't consider himself to be particularly creative (or intellectual for that matter), and it's not like a full-fledged point of insecurity, but he's much happier to leave it to others

(Unless he gets drunk and starts singing)

19: How do you think they'll meet they're end?

Hmmmmmm not sure for shadow sorc and ranger Cyrus-- while I have a pretty strong idea of ranger Cyrus' immediate endgame (living a very good life with Duke Wyll), I haven't thought at all about what things will look like after Wyll passes (do we know if the devil transformation has affected his lifespan at all?).

And as for shadow sorc Cyrus........................................ well. He's a sword. That situation will resolve itself SOMEHOW, but I haven't planned much beyond some vague ideas of it involving a Wish spell (ESPECIALLY if Astarion has to choose to use it to help Cyrus instead of curing himself of his vampirism...)

As for our darling main timeline oathbreaker, I am quite content imagining him living a long and happy life with Halsin in the recovering Shadowlands, with all the work and the joys that are entailed in trying to rebuild an ecosystem that sustains and nurtures more equitable relations and communities. I just love the idea of this high leveled Oath of the Ancients paladin and archdruid pair planting deep, unshakeable roots and becoming mythic quest givers a la Keyleth of the Air Ashari (and also fucking nasty all day everyday).

In which case, if Cyrus doesn't martyr himself protecting the land and its people (which Halsin won't let happen easily), I imagine his death is a peaceful one of old age.

[rozunderpressure]

Player's Handbook: At level 15, the Paladin of the Ancients gets a feature that allows them to be impossible to be magically aged, and no longer suffer from the drawbacks of old age. Me: Oh... So I get cool white hair, but have the body of a 30 year old and can only die by being killed, nice... Some D&D DMs: No, you can still age and die. Why would you even look young? Me: Because the reason why you "look" old is a direct result of the other drawbacks of aging, your body is not doing it for aesthetics! Your bones are frail, and ache, so you're less dexterous. Your muscles and skin lose elasticity, so you're less strong and get wrinkles, these things happen due to ACTUAL REASON! White hair is the only thing that isn't necessarily a drawback, just an aesthetic change, I think... Some D&D DMs: Nah, you still age and die, you're only on your feet because of magic or something. That's why you can still die of old age, even tho you technically don't age! Me: So... Basically this is a power that makes me unable to suffer the very unlikely effect of being magically aged only, while I can still age and die, despite being told I don't get the draw backs of aging, of which the greatest one known to man, is death? Some D&D DMs: Yup! No quasi-immortality-but-not-really-because-you-can-still-be-killed for you! Me: Why is it called "Undying Sentinel" then? Some D&D DMs: . . . Me: . . . ? Some D&D DMs: . . . Typo? Me: Ah-- It should be "The Eventually Dying Sentinel" Some D&D DMs: Exactly!

[pwesident]

Completed master sword trials again :)

[masters-menagerie]

a ☕ for Pharaoh (the tea tag simply says 'SH')

Send me “ ☕ “ for my muse to drink tea a beverage uniquely flavored after your muse, and I’ll tell you what my muse tastes!

The vessel that held the tea was old fashioned and appeared handmade. Carved out of wood and smoothed to a fine finish, the rim of the cup as well as the bottom adorned with silver filigree that branched out across the surface like veins. The detail and craftsmanship were unparalleled. The liquid itself was warm, a deep brown color with fragrant notes.

Pharaoh lifted the cup carefully, enjoying the details of the silver throughout the dark wood. The handle resembling a tree-branch was a nice touch, he thought. It smelled fermented, a distinct bitter tinge that for a moment made him wonder if this were truly just tea alone. Upon taking a sip however, there was so such additions to be found. Rather, the tea was bitter and earthy, the ‘fermented’ smell likely from the notes of something akin to a fig, and pomegranate. It made him feel...nostalgic, in a way.

It was a pleasant drink to him, but was likely an acquired taste for most. More for me, he thought.

Health Restored: ♥︎♥︎♥︎♥︎♥︎♥︎♥︎♡♡♡

[theartist-june]

[SENTINELS]

"As long as there are memories, the spirit shall be immortal."

And so your legacy shall live on with me forever.

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