#Domains of Knowledge

[happypeachsludgeflower]

A related idea to my last post, but if Shang Qinghua was there when the ritual happened and the ritual latched onto Shang Qinghua and his system as well, I can’t stop imagining a situation where Shang Qinghua actually is a god (he did create the universe after all), but the ritual didn’t latch onto him because he was being suppressed by the system and now the systems trapped and his power is unleashed for the first time in his life and he’s gleefully hacking the system glitch to rewrite the system code.

After the system begins glitching, maybe he pokes it in shock and curiosity and realizes he can touch it now and it’s moldable and he’s able to reshape a bit of it into a keyboard that he can start recoding the system from. And rewriting the universe is literally just rewriting the system code (either recoding it is just rewriting since the world was birthed from pidw—a written novel, or airplane knew coding in his last life).

First thing Qinghua does is disable the system from ever being able to control them again. Second thing he does is make the ritual non existent.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

prayer of the day:

[vireja]

“Perhaps we might find some rapport. Despite her being a cleric of my Mystra. Though I suspect her faithful would carry the same disdain for me”

“I will never understand what the Lady Mystra ever saw in an ambitious man like Gale Dekarios”

.

.

.

“I can see why I love you”

“And I’m sorry…. Sorry I never said it back enough as much as I should have”

A devout Cleric of Mystra and Mystra’s former Chosen and lover.

The first ship that dragged me in BG3 and I realized I haven't drawn them enough. Anyway, I will be updating commissions in a few weeks? I’ll just finish up my work and school backlogs and last commission on my list (finally getting some time for this I'm so sorry)

[milksinyourarea]

"If the rest of my life was meant for this moment, then I wouldn't have changed a thing. My heart was a dark puckered hole, and you have filled it." Is such a raw fucking line to come from a book about a dnd character's grandfather fucking raw.

[yikesy]

you know those things where they personify the different facets of a character's personality into different people??? my take on that with (rrverse) apollo:

"sun" apollo: the arts, music and poetry. apollo's "facade" as it were. very dramatic, bombastic and performative, acts as if he were always on a stage. constantly distracting and entertaining himself with outside stimuli, zero introspection to be sought here!!. hopeless romantic. feels incredibly guilty when facing light!pollo so he just doesn't. on the rare few times his mask breaks he's just very tired and bitter. he looks like "modern" apollo, golden skin and hair, but his hair is also literally made of flames

"light" apollo: represents his truth and revelation aspects, directness and straightforwardness. is currently always surrounded in an inescapable lightless void. VERY intense and angry, not much to be happy about lately. fucking HATES sun!pollo, considers him to have ruined their lives and betrayed their morals and Self. would actually rather die than keep existing as is but can't. loves his siblings. can sometimes be heard chained screaming and crying in your ear. blinding to look at but looks like past apollo, with straight platinum hair. dresses in stark white

"knowledge" apollo: calm and rational. the mediator of the group, he's the one with the most empathy for the others of the bunch and is always quick to remind light and sun how their situation was influenced by outside factors and they're all doing the best they can. doesn't fall for logical fallacies, knows who the real enemy is. optimistic, sensible and uplifting. the most human looking of the bunch, has curly dark golden hair tied up in a bun and a real laurel branch wreath. is often holding scrolls

"prophecy" apollo: mysterious, mischievous and easygoing. nothing seems to surprise or faze him. always smiling like he knows something you don't or is laughing at you. whimsical, smug and amazingly confident. all around cheshire cat vibes. his smile turns gentle when the others are freaking out too much and he tells them he knows everything will turn out fine (if they ask his if he knows with his powers he tells them he just has faith ;)) just "immortal who's gone around the block and back" energy. has straight dirty blonde hair and vibrant green eyes. the most "primal" looking of the bunch, sometimes has antlers or a veil or extra eyes. always barefoot

[royal-wren]

If you don't include learning (in general, but especially history, philosophy, botany+biology, and math), writing (poetry and stories), as well as music in a Hermes devotional post, what are we really doing here?

[chaotic-zora]

What do you want him to wear? He's got a pretty great selection to choose from.

[dailyadventureprompts]

Dungeon: Valor's Refute

Past a wall of mist and into the bleak morass of the shadowfell there is a dreary and foreboding isle inhabited by the spirits of those who could not relinquish their blades, so driven by persistence and duty that they could not even rest in death.

Their armoured shades wander the isle's endless halls or stand sentinel over its crumbling, hollow gates, obeying long forgotten oaths to nations and sovereigns they can no longer recall. Some others find a corner in which to collapse in torpor, while others crash through the cavernous ruins, exhausting themselves in battle after pyrrhic battle.

Valor's Refute is not a haven or a hell, it is a purgatory, a place of slow forgetting and inevitable dissolution.... or atleast it would be if over the ages a bunch of darkness dabbling gods and mages didn't independently arrive at the idea that a labyrinthine shadow world full of memory eroding mist could double as a great vault, just as its the ever vigilant and honourbound inhabitants make for incorruptible guards. And so dotted throughout the solemn halls of Valor's Refute are traps and puzzles intended to safeguard artifacts deemed too precious or dangerous to entrust to mortal or material hideaways.

Challenges & Complications

Suffused with the waters of the river Lethe, Valor's Refute is cloaked in a chilling mist that imparts those it touches with lethargy and forgetfulness. Effects are minor at first, but a party can easily take a wrong turn and end up fighting through a fogbank for what turns out to be hours or plunging into the icy water that saps them of a whole day's strength. These effects are best tracked through my attrition system, available HERE.

While exploring the evertwisting corridors, the party encounter the ghost of Ser Zagaver, a knight errant who died uncovering a terrible secret regarding a great evil working in the shadows of the campaign. Having been unable to warn anyone of the unseen danger, she needs the party to swear to carry on her message, and she's willing to force them at the edge of swordpoint. If the party renege on their deal, or get too distracted with ongoing matters, they can expect to be haunted by an enranged ghost-knight until they're steered back on course.

A voice stirs the dreams of those who sleep on the isle, compelling them to seek it out and teasing at their hearts' desire. This voice originates in one of the dungeon's deeper vaults, and belongs to a cursed item known as the "chalice of want". Once the weddingcup of a pair of prideful demigods who later betrayed eachother, it grants those that drink from it visions of how their ambitions may come to pass. Such tastes of future glory are addictive, to say nothing of how dangerous the foreknowledge it grants may be in the hands of the wrong entities.

Art 1

Art 2

[kaleidoscopicbullettrain]

theres something incredible in terms of symbiotic symbolism for the betrayer gods and the primes. notably between asmodeus and serenrae is like. "your existence fuels mine. without you there is no meaningful victory for my domain."

in the face of despair, hope must be the strongest its ever been

the stronger the hope, the harder the betrayal sticks the landing

[somuchbetterthanthat]

Don't ask me what this is, I needed Jon and Elias at the end of the world

Here and there Jon’s eyes twitched as if he wished they would close; a faint, last echo of blasphemy that Jonah soothed easily with a gentle stroke of his hair. Neither of them talked much anymore — to each other, at least. There was plenty to say and to record, endless horrors to witness and exchange from one mouth to another, but that hardly left time for basic conversation.

Not that they needed it. They were beyond such simplistic notions. They were Gods.

Or, well. Jon was. Jonah was quite content to be the shepherd that had guided him there. After all, who was more powerful? The man who held the whole world in his pupil, or his creator? The monstrous divinity, or the king who’d trapped it in the gaze of his beloved and kept it well-fed and well-loved at his feet?

Jon’s chant against his thigh was melodic, decadent and terrifying; Jonah was not getting tired of it — he knew he would never get tired ever again, for all of eternity. Let everyone else outside weep with fear. Jonah and Jon’s tears were made of ecstasy.

Soon it would be his turn again to carry the voice of the Watcher. Just for a little while — a gift, for offering Jon and the rest of the world to it. A small respite for his archivist, as well; a quiet lull to think, to itch ever closer to Jonah, grasping at him with the hunger of a starving man, cursing him and begging him all at once. Wishing for death. Wishing for more. Remembering that outside, somewhere, there was still a pocket of darkness that escaped their Eyes and not knowing anymore whether this was a threat or merely hope.

Under his fingers Jon shuddered, speaking faster. Jonah licked his lips, curled his hand around the smooth leather of Jon’s collar, and pulled it with no real strength. This, too, had become unnecessary. The smallest gesture built a whole picture that both of them knew and understood in a single heartbeat.

Jon raised his head to meet his gaze; immediately Jonah felt breathless, falling into the beautiful endless dark of Jon’s pupils. He acted fast, bending over his seat to swallow the words right out of Jon’s lips, and they both gasped as more knowledge poured in their heads. Oh, Jonah thought, how hungry he still was, and how powerful they both were, like this, right now, in this perfect equilibrium. Jon whimpered, rising from the ground to get closer. Jonah helped him up, well practised now in manhandling him until Jon was sitting on his lap, his two burning palms pressing over Jonah’s cheeks.

The heavy chains locked over their wrists were long enough for Jonah to wrap his arms around Jon’s waist, nails grazing over the length of his naked back. Jon rocked against him — out of instinct, with no real desire for completion as the God he’d become craved that sort of pleasure even less than his old human self had, and Jonah kept still, too busy devouring all he could from the never ending feast that lived unto Jon’s tongue.

The pain of being granted a small part of the divine was worth it, of course. Eventually Jonah let his head fall back, his throat taken over, his eyes filled to the brim with the beautiful nightmare that their world had been twisted into, and it was only distantly he heard Jon take a sharp breath, forehead falling into the crook of his neck. 

“Jonah,” he whispered hoarsely against his skin. “Jonah, they are coming again.”

Let them come, Jonah thought.

“They think — fire. Fire. They made sure we couldn’t run.”

“Would you run?” Jonah’s mouth asked. “Would you preserve this, what we have become, if you could?”

“I— Yes,” Jon breathed. It sounded wretched and guilty and absolutely certain, the horrid truth ripped from him like everything else. “Yes.”

Let them come, Jonah repeated. If we burn, they will burn with us. And if we don’t — all the more to gorge ourselves with, my love.

[quinn-of-aebradore]

Oath of Devotion paladin Leylas. Echo Knight fighter Quana. Knowledge domain cleric Abrianna. Mastermind rogue Deirta.

[highway-stars]

A very normal architect cleric with a very standard workflow.

Background window schematics from this

[armed-with-a-waffle-iron]

Shadowheart & the Knowledge Domain🦉

Anyone else respec their Selûnite Shadowheart to a Knowledge Cleric after the Shadowfell?

"Let all who worship the changing tides of Life and Knowledge feel the blessing of Selûne. Trust in the purity of my light, see the constancy in its inconstancy, and you will be guided aright." -inscription on Selûne statue in the Stormshore Tabernacle.

Selûne and the Changing Tides

I thought Knowledge Domain was the most fitting domain thematically for my Selûnite Shadowheart. Most importantly, Knowledge is one of Selûne's divine domains, directly opposed to the philosophies of the Shar, and Shadowheart's movement towards a Selûnite domain is representative of the choices she makes in her story.

Shar sees knowledge, truths and the experience of living as sources of suffering and sorrow, remedied only by "darkness"; lies, illusions, numbness and ultimately the nothingness of death. On the other hand Selûne encourages her followers to step out of the "darkness" into the/her "light"; to embrace the truths and the experiences of life, no matter how painful, scary or unsettling they may be. Beauty is to be found in the "changing tides of life and knowledge" and to swim against these currents is to drown; to lose yourself. For Sharrans, faith is escapism from suffering while for Selûnites, faith is the eye of the storm that keeps them adaptable and resilient, and helps them embrace the changes that life and knowledge bring. When Shadowheart saves the Nightsong, she is embracing such change and hence rejecting Shar; she choses to reckon with the knowledge she's uncovered and value the life of the Nightsong. She puts her faith in the truth, no matter how painful, and in the possibilities of a life she's yet to live, and so she leaves the darkness and steps into the light.

Shadowheart: I... I can't believe I just did that. Lady Shar will disown me... what will happen to me? Nightsong: Not what will happen - what will you do. Your past is not yet lost. Your future is not yet fixed.

Light of Knowledge and Life

"Adaptable and adroit in all manner of languages and skills, your mind is an intellectual cup brimming with exquisite knowing." -BG3's Knowledge Domain description.

So for me the respec after the Shadowfell was necessary as it signified Shadowheart's turn to the light and to Selûne, which meant that she would have to become either a Life and Knowledge Cleric.

Selûne's Knowledge Domain champions inquisitiveness, adaptability, resourcefulness and skill, in direct contrast to the Shadowheart's previous Trickery Domain, which values deceit, secrets, illusion and cunning. The Life Domain on the other hand values healing, compassion, equality and protection. Considering how important unravelling and reckoning with the mystery of her past is, I thought the Knowledge Domain and its intrigue was more representative of Shadowheart and her choices than the loftier Life Domain.

The Knowledge Domain also gives Shadowheart access to all proficiencies under an ability score each long rest, the ability to read the thoughts of any creatures she interacts with until a long rest, and numerous Wizard spells which Clerics would not otherwise have access to. Essentially, the Knowledge Domain gives Shadowheart a lot of versatility and adaptability, guiding her aright as she rides the tides of change.

[yikesy]

okay so apollo vs python round one time!!

bear with me because this got really long

so the thing I've long wondered about this event is just Why The Fuck did he do this. at four days old. alone.

because it makes no sense right??

even if he wants to take revenge and protect his mom, at this time he's a duo with artemis and isn't she by all means more qualified for this than him?? she's the more martially inclined of the two and represents lawlessness and wildness, I don't know if she is yet but still, when she comes into her divinity (only a few days later!!!) she'll literally be known as the huntress of wild beasts

so that is one point. the other is just what possessed him to think he could do this?? python is a child of gaia who has been openly tormenting a well connected titanness and has taken over delphi the center of the world and dictator of fate and hasn't been defeated yet

apollo is, again, four days old and not the martial one of the pair, in either powers or disposition, he doesn't have any experience using his powers in general, let alone offensively what made him think he could do this??

why him, why now

well my answer is that I think it makes perfect sense if we take into account two things 1) that he is the four day old embodiment of Light as a concept and 2) the reason python was chasing leto around in the first place

right, what started this in the first place, python received a prophecy that the unborn son of leto would be his murderer, that's why he was trying to kill her before she could give birth

and again apollo is four days old meaning his nature has not been,, "tainted" by much of anything yet, be it humanity, belief, other domains or even social interaction. let us remember what he developed into in the future when he's more of a person and not only a pure concept, an avatar of relentless seeking and revelation and knowledge and truth. light is not restrained or subtle at all and this was the time when that was all he was

so basically I think apollo knew there was a prophecy that said he would kill python and just fucking went for it, the winning condition was already met just by being him so why wait right? did he think he was in any way qualified otherwise? no, did he have a plan or any idea of how he would manage? not at all, but it literally did not matter since his victory was already written in fate and confirmed by python, it must have looked like a bright point a to point b to him

and I think that's how he beat him, by leveraging prophecy and using it as a weapon, he was by all means no match at all but it was fated by a prophecy that scared python enough to confirm it's validity and they were at delphi that he usurped from his grandmother so he had the right of inheritance on his side and with his faith and steadfastness on this one thing, apollo won by literally muscling the domain of prophecy away from python

you know the fate string apollo uses on his bow in canon? my headcanon is that this is where it came from, that deep in the fight, he physically took the string of the prophecy and literally used it as the arrow that killed python and later used it to string his bow and now all his shots have literal reality piercing power

[sophiasharp]

Fuck it, Mercs as DnD Classes (and subclass cause I’m a NERD)

Scout: Monk (the main fast as fuck class), Path of the Kensei

Soldier: Paladin, Oath of the Crown (devotion to AMERICA)

Pyro: Cleric (hear me out), Light Domain (THEE most fire heavy subclass out there aside from Wildfire Druid. Fuck the healing it’s full battle cleric mode.)

Heavy: Barbarian (meat shield damage dealing class), Totem Warrior (BEAR)

Demoman: Warlock (explosive ranged capability), Hexblade (Eyelander, but also I don’t think it necessarily needs to be a sword? Might be wrong on that one)

Engineer: Artificer, Artillerist (fucking duh)

Spy: Rogue (obviously), Assassin (also obviously)

Sniper: Ranger, Hunter (got his start in the Outback hunting wild game)

Medic: Cleric (fun fact, medicine is a wisdom stat not intelligence), Death Domain (“The healing is not as rewarding as the hurting-“)

Feel free to tell me what y’all would make the mercs if you got other ideas, I’d love to hear them!

[bugpysforge]

Cosmoem likes to keep company with their self, by studying and learn about life while curled up with a good book.

Race: Android Class: Cleric Subclass: Knowledge Domain Location: Nacrene Library Alignment: Neutral Good

View the pokedex of all dungeon pokemon on the Bugpy's Forge website.