#Astral City

[itissadbutitsmy-artblog]

divinittty. one moment - tulio eldorado voice

anyways nothing makes me happier than an awful mishmosh of characters! no words also for your convenience. adding words is messy but oh i needed to.

[the-astralalchemist]

in his interlude they mention (quite skate over it too) that people at chaldea aren't affected by diarmuid's love spot. like, i love it??? diarmuid deserves so much. he must have a hard time realizing when people are being genuine

in any interaction, in the back of his mind he's probably thinking "is this person being genuine or is it the curse?" it takes a while of him walking on glass around this facility and his new master. his new master that grins at him when they see him. that invites him to are they really like this? just for him to have a place to rest mentally means a lot.

[pathofregeneration]

Jonathan Wiltshire, An Astral City

* * *

“Death is the name we give to the cessation of physical processes as perceived by our physical senses. Higher processes ... simply continue, free of the encumbrance of the outer body. Furthermore, we are more truly alive in this new awakening than ever we were on earth, since we no longer suffer the illusion that only the physical world exists. All of our inner senses are activated and, like arousing from a long sleep, you suddenly become aware of a most familiar and cherished reality—the inner world which is our original, authentic and eternal homeland.”

— Flower A. Newhouse, Christian Mystic

[dailyadventureprompts]

Settlement: Lydestrum, City of Glass and Mist

Attracting artisans, merchants, and those who wish to go unseen among its splendours, Lydestrum is a centre for trade across the astral sea, a glimmering jewel of a port city set in the centre of an ever swirling cloudbank.

Surging aetheric currents surround the planetoid Lydestrum is built into, not only making unauthorized approach to the city nearly impossible, but also contributing to one of its greatest industries: capturing the magical potential carried along with those currents and storing them in great batteries that can be used to power jammerships, artifice, or great acts of spellcraft.

Adventure Hooks:

Though far less rowdy than many other astral ports, the Lydestrum harbour district is a paradise for adventurers, able to pick up rumours, goods from exotic reaches of wildspace, and potential employment across any number of vessels (of varying repute). If nothing else, the party can always pick up some extra work rooting out void beats and wild elementals that are attracted to the aetheric currents that surround the settlement, and frequently make their nests in the great tunnels that run beneath the city and its outreaching rockmass.

Lydestrum is a beautiful city, founded by architects who now use the great wealth brought in by its harbours and aether trade to build marvels across the plannetoid and in pockets of calm scattered throughout the churning clouds. One of the greatest of these marvels, the Mirador, was lost when an attack against the city centuries ago destabilized the winds and sucked the spirelike structure out into the ever shifting winds, never to be seen again. Driven by a desire to recover lost history and believing the structure has merely been trapped in the currents, not destroyed, an up and coming vedalken architect wants to hires the party to help him find this needle in the cloudstack, needing their help in exploring the dangerous reaches of the city and just maybe breaking into a few off-limits meteorological archives to get him the data he needs?

While many wonders might attract the party while out browsing the city’s aether-lit bazaar, what might most draw their eye is the Beacon Brightsmithy, a shop peddling a series of weapons and other devices seemingly made of solidified light. Operated by the Turevas, a father daughter pair of gnomes, the Beacon is a wonder hidden among wonders, Supplying many of the city’s military officers and warships with lightwrought weapons and willing to do the same for the party. On a subsequent visit however, the party find the shop in disarray, the younger Turevas distraught at her father's apparent disappearance and possible kidnapping... more on that mystery below the cut.

Background: The city of glass and mist pays no allegiance to any world-spanning empire, having instead been founded (as an art project of all things) by a group of Vedalken known as the “Faceters”.  This conclave of architects and cloudwatchers eventually evolved into the Lydestrum’s governing body, who see the city’s operation as secondary to its continued development as a thing of art. Proud to the point of jealousy over the “greatness” of their home, the Faceters are welcoming to traders of every stripe but all but shun any diplomatic or political oveture made their way, feeling that outsiders should be content to gauk at the marvels the conclave has produced and then get back to their lives of uncultivated ignorance  once they’ve passed beyond the cloud bank.

Further adventures:

Though the intial evidence around the Turevas smithy might point the party in the the direction of thinking he was kidnapped by some of the sketchier traders down by harborside, a closer inspection will reveal that though the workshop was tossed, none of the lightwrought weapons were taken along with their maker, meaning that the gnomish smith was likely not greed that motivated this crime. Witnesses will likewise report a group of rough looking characters in the area making their way to and from the harbour, but that they were all speaking the local dialect of vedalken without accent.

Investigations into the upper reaches of Lydestrum are likely to be hindered by the fact that that the party are largely regarded as ignorant tourists, their questions answered with slow explanations of the building’s history or directions back to the foreigner's quarter. They will have one ally though, Garahame, a conclave military officer and longtime friend of Turevas who’s just as concerned by the gnome’s disappearance as they are.

The internal politics of the Faceter conclave are broken up into numerous “sets”, non-exclusive factions and cliques that all have distinct opinions on how they want the city to be run. Garahame belongs to the “Tower” set, a largely isolationist faction that just so happened to be working with Turevas to create a building sized light cannon to act as a deterrent against any fleet or polis that would attempt to overtake Lydestrum like the attack that cost them the Mirador. These plans were discovered by the “Gate” set, a commerce based faction that oversee the city’s diplomacy and markets, who were pretty staunch in their belief that Lydestrum building a big gun and pointing it at all their neighbors wouldn’t be a good step for peace, and so abducted Turevas with the use of illusion and have spent the intervening time trying to show him the error in his ways. Whatever set the players end up siding with will have knock on repercussions on Turevas and throughout the city, potentially spelling prosperity for one and crisis for another. 

[m00ngbin]

I always thought it was so odd that in Steven Universe they have a whole episode where Steven like projected himself into Lars' body and then him being able to do that was never mentioned again

[emmodii-mode]

Just finished my first playthrough of BG3. Romanced Lae'zel, but ending up turning into an Illithid because the idea of making Orpheus or Karlach do it didn't sit well with me (or my character).

I told Lae'zel to leave with Orpheus in the end (I heard she wouldn't stay with a ghaik anyway, which she's valid for, but also, it doesn't feel right to ask her to stay when I know how much her people mean to her). And like-

Her face before she flies off---

She looks so heartbroken and sad.

[ertrunkenerwassergeist]

In dreams of our past, Noctis had to actively suppress his healing during the Marilith attack so it didn't give him away as non-black mage.

But what if he couldn't do it? Maybe was unconscious, or maybe in too much pain to concentrate. Anyway, he fails and he heals his injuries where other people, including Regis, can see it. What happens next?

I tried multiple times to write a little one shot for this and failed miserably. So I'll just ramble a bit, if you don't mind.

Noctis falls unconscious and his magic protects him. Which means it heals him. A gentle golden and purple hue glows on his back and Regis is... not devastated, but it's close.

He's happy his son is alive and mostly healed. Of course he is. And his son's magic is strong enough that he can feel it prickle across his tongue from over 10 metres away. But it's not black magic. It's not black magic.

And that is the problem.

Lucis Caelum children without black magic are cursed. Regis's heart bleeds for his son. He rushes over, not quite daring to touch Noctis's back, but cradling him close nonetheless.

All around them the soldiers start to whisper.

"A miracle."

But Regis knows it's not a miracle. Was this what the prophecy was all about? It couldn't have been.

The Chosen King is known however, to the general populous. A knowledge they gained through little grains of the prophecy making it into prayers.

May the Chosen King come and bring us to salvation.

And if the people think the Gods holding a protecting and healing hand over their chosen king as a sign of his coming, then Regis would lean into that until he believed it himself. All to protect his son.

[astral-from-afar]

We ARE going to see the aurora borealis tonight no matter how long it takes

[gears2gnomes]

AGDQ 2023 - Astral Chain

"Lappy is ready for the speedrun.”

[eff-plays]

I always forget what I make for the guardians of anyone but Hira (cuz theirs was like ... an actual backstory plot thing so I had an idea of who he was supposed to look like) so I got jumpscared by Dulcinea's guy

Look at him absolutely serving in the BG

[atorionsbelt]

this is so weird but last night i had a dream that brett goldstein saved my life from a dangerous situation and bad people so now i can’t look at him the same like. he’s got my full trust LMAO. we met in the spiritual realm or some sh!t

[sunny-bunnys-blog]

OH MY GOD IS CLOVERLEAF ACTUALLY THINKING OF AN AU THAT DOESN'T TIE IN WITH DAD THOUSAND?! YES I AM

What if some of the characters got forcibly fused with monster cards and became uncontrollable and messed up hybrids who wander aimlessly and search around the crumbled remains of Heartland city for something to eat (or whoever did it, it'll be unclear if they remember anything) For example:

Kite/Kaito would be fused with the Galaxy eye photon dragon

Ryoga/Shark would be fused with Shark Drake

And either Yuma or Astral would be fused with Utopia!

And one day a couple of years later some kids decide to go exploring in the locked off Heartland City because, ha nobody can tell us what to do! And they find one of them

AND AND

One of the people who constantly warn them against going into Heartland City would be Hart/Haruto because he knows that there's no saving his big brother or the others :(

[stormsharknado]

In addition to the Astral mathematical charts, I made a relationship chart one for my own Astral Ocs

[dent-de-leon]

If. If Kingsley ever went with the Nein on a trip to the Astral Sea or something, do you think there are creatures there who still remember Cognouza and Lucien--

[shifuto]

😭

[historias-multorum]

@astral-multiverse continuing from this.

“Well I’m glad you are enjoying yourself. As a coffee drinker myself, I had to make sure the cafes were up to snuff.” Pauline said as she raised her coffee mug.