#Gann-of-Dreams

[ceruleanhawk]

My dreams are of you and I surviving this. --- Gannayev-of-dreams from NWN2. Mother Ethel from BG3 reminded me about him, as Gann was a rare hagspawn.

[rpgchoices]

Initial post here, this is the preliminary selection round! 5 top characters in this poll will end up in the bracket tournament!

At this tag you can find all the preliminary polls.

[hekateras]

Shadow-Touched: Part I Part II here AO3 link The whole comic as a Flipbook

Something a little different from the usual fare! :)

This year I took a bit of a chance and signed up for the Heart Attack exchange, where you have two weeks to write 10k of gift fic or make at least 10 pages of comics. I was on the fence about signing up until I saw that someone was requesting an old videogame teenagehood passion of mine. I did an awful job making good use of the allotted time and did pretty much everything you're not supposed to do, and it shows in how rough and sketchy so much of it is, but even so, I consider it a success. I finally made longer sequential art and tackled some of the things I'd been struggling with so much. And the recipient seemed happy, too. :)

[triflingshadows]

mask of the betrayer doodlies, also some great lines

clockwise from top left: gann, ammon, safiya and kaji, my girlie ezzik, and kaelyn

[gabriellerudessa]

2023 Drawtober 8: Gann-of-Dreams (Starset - Ricochet)

[strigital]

quick family portrait as i try to figure out what heckin species Keena is supposed to be as a spawn of a night hag hagspawn before the game drops and devours weeks of my life (thank Kelemvor there's no college in august!)

[gold-rhine]

hi for the character ask game, 4 + kaeya? or 9 + wanderer?

4. If you could put this character in any other media, be it a book, a movie, anything, what would you put them in?

i don't remember if i posted about it or not, but to me, kaeya was always a character from morally ambiguous RPG with complex player choices, trapped in a game with railroaded story. gann of dreams from mask of the betrayer, atton rand from kotor2, fallout new vegas' general vibe of freedom of choice, that kind of thing. bc like i played his quest and it was such an obvious setup for player choice - he tests the player on whether they will try to steal his heritage for profit or not, and then paimon just forces you to try to scam him. insane.

i think in actual rpg structure where players can make choices and characters can change depending on them, kaeya would be insanely fun companion, bc he could be a layered meta commentary bc his thing is making psychological experiments to see how a person would react, while expecting the worst, AND he has theater themes for the additional opportunity to explore artificiality of player\game interactions. like usually players in rpgs are the ones basically manipulating decisions for "the greater good" to get good outcome for the character, it'd be so fun to explore how it can be reflected back on them by a manipulator-through-theatrics like kaeya.

9. Could you be roommates with this character?

absolutely not. irl i would not be able to be in a room with scara for longer than 10 minutes without dying from rolling my eyes so hard they fall out of my skull.

[likeyua]

This is Akachi, my original character for Baldur's Gate 3! She's an archfey warlock and the daughter of my drow Kalach-Cha Ardul'ylene Farlong and Gann from the game Neverwinter Nights 2 and its expansion Mask of the Betrayer.

Born in West Harbor in 1375 DR, she spent most of her childhood between her home village, Crossroad Keep and Neverwinter, with regular visits to Rashemen.

She moved to Baldur's Gate, opening a shop, when she was around 30 years old in order to escape her mother's overprotectiveness . She opened a potion shop, specifically (one of her happiest memories is spending hours with Sand, helping him running his store in Neverwinter); she really likes making potions, mixing them, creating bombs and other alchemical concoctions. She also loves elegant clothes, jewellery (red, black and blue are her favourite colours) and she wears them every time she can. She also has very long hair which she enjoys taking care of ; she applies make up on her face everyday (unless she's alone) in order to hide the deep dark circles under her eyes.

She loathes people who practice necromancy, the ones who transform themselves into undead; above all, she despises Myrkul's followers for personal reasons.

She has a low opinion of gods and of everything divine related. She thinks that they are just powerful people, but not worthy of worship; if she has the opportunity of screw a deity over, she will take it (unless it causes harm to people she loves).

Impulsive, quick to anger but also quick to calm down. When she is set on doing something, almost nothing will change her mind (she's so stubborn, but usually things work in her favor).

Other facts about her after the read-more because they contain spoilers about Mask of the Betrayer (in particular about the end of act 2 ).

About a year before Akachi's birth, her mother consumed a significant part of Myrkul's soul while she was in the Astral Plane. This caused almost no changes in Ardul'ylene, apart to receiving powers from the death domain (she is able to resist Myrkul's malign influence). But, it will have devastating consequences for her unborn child, Akachi, given that the divine essence of the god latches onto the baby's soul.

Thus, Akachi is born with powers over death and undeath but together with them come terrible nightmares: dreams of revenge, of death, and most of all, of the Wall of the Faithless and of the suffering of all the souls trapped within . Sometimes she hear Myrkul's voice in her head. Also, the god wants his soul back and he's determined to find mother & daughter.

All of this causes her terrible insomnia (and all the symptoms that come with it), mitigated only by use of potions and herbs. A semi-permanent solution came in 1390 DR, when Akachi made a pact with an archfey who contacted her in her sleep: in exchange for power and a stop to nightmares and whispers in her head, they will take the divine essence upon her death (or before, if she manages to divide it from her own soul). They also requestes favors from time to time. The only drawback of the contract is that the protection works fully only if Akachi stays away from Myrkul and his followers: but, at the start of Baldur's Gate 3 her problems worsen again (This because I believe in the theory that Absolute = Dead Three) .

From Akachi's point of view the only advantage of this situation is that Myrkul's essence prolongs her lifespan: by the time of bg3, she's 117 years old, but she looks much younger.

[quenthel]

Also I wish Gann of mask of the betrayer fame was written less like that and more like a weirdo in the woods living trough other Ppl's dream n being all the more lonely for it... An outsider everywhere being a beloved child would be such a nice story but alas they had to write in the farmer's daughter joke...

[vaultsixtynine]

gann: i emerged fully formed from a dream

magda: what a coincidence i walked out of the swamp as a fully-fledged adult both talented and beautiful

[wurdulac]

life could be a dream if gann motb was a blue wet shrek type but they had to make him creepy instead.

[mask131]

Cold winter: The Fir Bolg

FIR BOLG

Category: Irish mythology

According to medieval Irish texts, Ireland was “conquered” six different times, by six different tribes before it became the country we know today.

The Fir Bolg, also known as the Firbolg or the Fir Bholg, were the fourth of these tribes – though their story begins with the third one…

  The third inhabitants of Ireland were the Muintir Nemid (People of Nemed), also known as Clann Nemid (offspring of Nemid) or the Nemedians – called as such because their king and leader was Nemed, son of Agnoman of Scythia, great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson of the biblical Magog, himself depicted as the son of the biblical Japheth, making Nemed a direct descendant of Noah himself. Nemed and his people sailed from the Caspian Sea onward in hope to find a new land to settle in – they left in forty-four ships, but after a year and a half of sailing only one remained, Nemed’s very own ship. He arrived in the deserted Ireland with his wife Macha and their four sons (who themselves were also married), but Macha died only twelve days after their arrival in Ireland. The people of Nemed did many great things to shape Ireland’s landscape: they cleared many of its plains, created many of its lakes, built some of its most ancient forts – all the while fighting hostile and evil creatures/entities called the Fomorians, or Fomoire. There were four battles between the two groups: on the first, the two kings of the Fomorians were killed ; on the third, Nemed’s first Ireland-born son was called ; on the fourth, one of Nemed’s four original sons was killed.

Nine years after their settlement in Ireland, a great plague killed Nemed and three thousand of his people. Weakened and leaderless, the Fomorians became the new tyrannical rulers of the Muintir Nemid: every Samhain, the Nemedians had to offer the Fomorians two thirds of their corn, milk and children. After many years the Nemedians decided to rebel: they gathered sixty thousand warriors (half on land and half on sea), and attacked then defeated one of the two Fomorian rulers, Conand, in his tower. But the other Fomorian king, Morc, retaliated and killed almost all of the Nemedians – only one ship survived, and fled Ireland with thirty men on board. This group of men split into three. Some went to the north, some went to Britain (and became the Britons), and the remaining went south, to Greece, and there became the Fir Bolg.

  The Fir Bolg received their name due to the nature of their life in Greece: they were enslaved by the Greeks, and forced to carry bags of soil and clay for them, which led to their naming, “Fir Bolg” meaning “men of bags” – it was even said that the Greeks forced them to live on poor and rocky land, but that the Fir Bolg managed turn them into fertile fields precisely by pouring numerous bags of soil over it. All in all, two hundred years after the defeat of the Nemedians, the Fir Bolg left Greece and returned to Ireland, taking it back as their own.

Since they were led by five chiefs, the Fir Bolg divided Ireland into five provinces: North Munster for Gann, South Munster for Sengann, Connacht for Genann, Ulster for Rudraige, and Leinster for Slanga. They established the High Kingship of Ireland, and for the next thirty-seven years nine High Kings of the Fir Bolg breed ruled over Ireland, from the famous site of Tara. The last of these nine kings was Eochaid mac Eirc, the greatest king to have ever existed: he was the first king to introduce a system of justice in Ireland, there was a harvest every year under his rule, and said rule was so good it never rained as long as he was on the throne – there was only dew.

It was under his rule that the fifth of Ireland’s inhabitants arrived: the Tuatha Dé Danann, descendants of the Nemedians that had gone to the “North”, and now returned to claim their land. Eochaid had learned of their future arrival through prophetic dreams, and so as the Tuatha Dé arrived, led by their king Nuada, negotiations started through their respective champions: Sreng for the Fir Bolg, Bres for the Tuatha Dé. Nuada and Bres demanded half of the Ireland for themselves, and if the Fir Bolg refused offered war: the Fir Bolg chose war. Meeting at the Pass of Balgatan, the two groups fought for four entire days. Sreng challenged king Nuada in a single combat, and vanquished him by cutting off his right hand. The Fir Bolg afterward refused the Tuatha Dé’s call for a truce, and so in retaliation the Tuatha druids cast a spell to hide all sources of water from the them. King Eochaid, overcome by thirst, searched for water far away from his men, and on the spot where now stands the town of Beltra, he met his fate at the hands of the dreadful Morrigan. Only then did the tide of battle change and the Tuatha Dé gained the upper hand.

At this point texts diverge. Some claim that the Tuatha Dé vanquished the Fir Bolg and that they were forced to flee from Ireland – only Sreng’s heroic deeds and warrior power allowing some of the Fir Bolg to survive and preventing the wipe out of their entire people at the hands of the Tuatha Dé. Other rather says that the Fir Bolg called for a truce, that the Tuatha accepted, and that the Fir Bolg were given three options: leave Ireland, share their land with the Tuatha Dé Danann, or keep on fighting. Despite being close to defeat, the Fir Bolg decided to keep on fighting, and it is their determination to fight until death that impressed the Tuatha Dé Danann, who decided to bring them mercy to reward their “noble” character: they were given Connacht to live onto, and peace was settled between the two people.  

This war was later known as the “First Battle of Mag Tuired”. The “First”, for a second was coming… one against the Fomorians.

- - - - - -

While in Irish legends and texts the Fir Bolg seems to have just been a group of humans, Americans most often known the Firbolg through… Dungeon and Dragons, THE fantasy table-top roleplaying game, that took back the name of “Firbolg”, but completely reinvented them as one of the four races of “giant-kin” (large humanoids that aren’t “true giants” and were said to have been sired by Othea, mother of all giants, when she cheated on her husband Annam, father of all giants, with Ulutiu, an arctic demigod of frozen seas, glaciers and polar environment), alongside the Verbeegs, the Voadkyn and the Fomorians. D&D Firbolgs are a reclusive giant-kin living far away from other people, living humble live in forests and renowned for their great love and respect for nature. Able to speak with beasts and plants, owning a magic that allows them to disguise themselves or alter their appearance, their great intelligence and massive strength makes them the most powerful of all four giant-kin, and yet they chose to reject violence (or rather to only use it as last measure) and to embrace a peaceful existence. Distrusting all outsiders and avoiding them at any costs, refusing to have contact with “true giants” and driving away all other giant-kin from their land, they however shouldn’t be underestimated, as if antagonized they can become dangerous and cunning foes.

[rpgchoices]

Hello do you or anyone else knows if in nwn2 (specifically motb) half orc/grey orc pc romances are restricted? In nwn2 itself they shoudnt be but I read that someone was playing motb as a fem orc and couldn't romance Gann. I don't want to miss much content from the module which includes the romance but I can't find anything about race restrictions anywhere else. I don't think a lot of people played as orcs lol!

Wait, I do not remember any restrictions... but I also only played non orc. I don't think they should be restricted, it seems strange. I played Yuan Ti which is definitely not a human, and it was not restricted to me.

Maybe someone else can help?

[hekateras]

Shadow-Touched: Part II Part I here AO3 link The whole comic as a Flipbook

And the other half :)

[kwebtv]

Character Actor

Stefan Ihnat (August 7, 1934 – May 12, 1972) Film and television actor and director.

In 1959, he played a truck driver in with cargo hijackers in an episode of Highway Patrol.

Ihnat guest-starred in many television series during the 1960s, including a mind-controlled lieutenant in the science fiction television series The Outer Limits in the two-part episode, "The Inheritors", (1964). In 1965, he guest starred as murderer Charlie Parks in the Perry Mason episode, "The Case of the Duplicate Case."

Ihnat held over 70 guest credits in such well known series as Star Trek episode "Whom Gods Destroy" (1969) as the psychotic Garth of Izar and also two episodes of The Fugitive, entitled "Cry Uncle" (alongside Ron Howard) and "The Walls of Night". Other credits include Blue Light ("Field of Dishonor"), Gunsmoke ("Exodus 21:22", "Jenny" with Lisa Gerritsen (December 28, 1970), “The Mission” & "Noose of Gold"), The Silent Force ("Take As Directed For Death"), Bonanza ("Dead and Gone" as Johann Brunner, "A Dream to Dream" as Josh Carter and "Terror at 2:00" as Mr. Ganns), The Virginian ("Jed" and "Last Grave at Socorro Creek"), Mission: Impossible ("The Astrologer"), ("The Mind of Stefan Miklos"), Cimarron Strip ("The Hunted"), I Dream of Jeannie ("My Master the Rainmaker"), Mannix ("Huntdown", "End Game" and "To Draw the Lightning"), The F.B.I. ("Region of Peril" and "The Prey"), The Name of the Game ("The Chains of Command" and "Nightmare"), Medical Center ("Fright and Flight") and Perry Mason ("The Case of the Duplicate Case").

Ihnat had several guest roles in Mission: Impossible including the brilliant Soviet Union investigator Stefan Miklos in the 1969 episode "The Mind of Stefan Miklos," widely praised as one of the most cerebral and intelligent episodes of the entire series. While he played other roles (mostly villains, like in "The Astrologer") in the show, his performance in this episode is his most memorable.  (Wikipedia)

[gabriellerudessa]

Drawtober 2022 4: 30 Seconds to Mars - Love is Madness: Gann of Dreams & Erudessa (Neverwinter Nights 2 Mask of the Betrayer)