#I love political intrigue

[rahadaddy]

Session 20 Recap

We had Session 20 this weekend! It was a wild ride because it’s one of those games where political intrigue dominated the session and I learned just how deep the conspiracy well runs within some of my players. 

The warlock had a confrontation with Father Lucian, her adoptive father, first thing in the morning, about her hasty engagement to Doru Donavich. Lucian confronted her about whether or not Doru is a vampire and received an honest answer, much to his dismay. He tried to forbid the marriage, but Theo managed to convince him that she has the situation well in hand. Ireena, Ismark, Yeska, and the church staff joined for breakfast and preparations.

Alistor, our cleric, awoke alone in the Blue Water Inn. He tried to rouse the ranger, Tam, but Tam’s player was absent, so Tam was ruled too hungover to join in. Alistor then went downstairs and learned of the first stirrings that all is not well with the Martikovs’ wine supply. He spoke briefly with Nikolai Wachter about the masquerade plans to restore Stella’s broken mind and the two of them (separately, but not that far behind each other) arrived at church late. Theo realized that Nikolai is trying to be seen at church, not unlike the way her uncle, Vargas, Tries To Be Seen, but is also very much trying to fill his late father’s shoes. He spoke with Theo briefly and mentioned that his cousin, Lavinia, would be back in town for the masquerade and he hoped his mother had the good sense to match her with his Bachelor Uncle, Rafael Buckvhold. Theo and Alistor concluded that it would be a lavender marriage and, you know? Good for them. 

The party then ventured to the clothiers’ for masquerade costumes. I told the party they have one week to surprise me with what they’re going to wear. I’m excited! Then, they went to Vallakovich Manor to peruse the baron’s library. On the way, Izek Strazni revealed that he has shifted his Intense And Possibly Violent Romantic Longing from Theo to Ireena, based on things that have happened since the last festival. No one liked this information. The party arrived to the manor. They agreed to lunch with Lydia after they did their researchl. They caught Vargas practicing his speech for the Festival and they began researching the Teray family tree on behalf of one of the revenants. The family tree showed interconnection among the nobility of several of the towns, including Vallaki and Barovia Village and the party learned that Sir Robern Teray’s last living (“living”) descendant is either Doru Donavich, Thorn and Rose Durst, or a woman named Anastrasya Karelova who appears to be a clerical error without a death date. They plan to go to Barovia Village at some point to deliver the Teray family crest to Doru. They then had lunch with Lydia, which I thought revealed more than it did. Oops. They also checked on Victor and tried to dissuade him from using his teleportation circle to try to find Ez D’Avenir again. While they were upstairs, Theo and Ismark clocked a voice in Lydia’s private chambers and Theo saw the outline of a woman in the mirror fading away. Vargas invited Ismark and Alistor back to dinner to discuss politics because the party successfully convinced Vargas that they know about political organization and, yes, Ismark is still definitely the burgomaster of Barovia Village. Theo and Ireena decided to get more information out of the Wachter boys about Fiona’s book club. During preparations to speak with the baron, Alistor caught Ismark checking him out and Ireena made fun. The group split.

Ismark and Alistor went to the manor and went on the weirdest double date with Vargas and Lydia… and Izek who kept asking if Ireena is single. Through some really good rolls, Alistor persuaded Vargas to consider building a council so he can focus on the truly important things in rulership (“Like festivals!”). Ismark clocked that Lydia was upset and scheming and he told Alistor of his fears as they walked back to the inn. 

Meanwhile, as Ireena served as a decoy for the very drunk Karl Wachter, Theo challenged Nikolai to a vodka-drinking contest and asked him about the book club. Nikolai drunkenly revealed that it’s not really a book club, but a place to discuss political and religious dissension and that his mother has introduced (or perhaps reintroduced) worship of The Lady of Shadows, with the belief that Strahd is her prophet. Nikolai expressed some disagreement with this view, stating that worshipping monsters never prevented tragedy from happening, never prevented him from losing Elizaveta (Vallakovich, his fiancee) or his father, never prevented Stella’s curse. He then drunkenly revealed to Theo that he doesn’t think his father died from sickness like everybody says. He said that the night he died, his father had a cold and went to bed early, his mother was out, and while Nikolai had the house to himself, he invited Elizaveta over. They heard a strange noise and Elizaveta ended up leaving. The next day she was gone and his father was dead. It had been mere weeks before their wedding and he’s never recovered from the double loss, which is why he thinks his mother is pitching him to Lavinia. He told Theo the book club will be kind of like a church event, kind of like a town hall, but that “miracles” happen - always for other people and often involving money that answers people’s prayers. Karl then interrupted the conversation, trying to get the girls to dance and Nikolai took his brother home. Alistor and Ismark rejoined Theo and Ireena and decided to walk them back to the church for the night. When they did, one of the PCs asked Lucian if it was ridiculous to think Lydia might be an assassin and Lucian got really quiet and said that he didn’t think it was ridiculous at all. 

That’s where we ended the session. The PCs are in the Church, asking Lucian for information about Lydia and possibly getting the reveal of a lifetime. Tune in next time for a “book club” meeting and the impending Moonlight Masquerade, the best festival of the year!

[pippinscribs]

Multicoloured, wildly unsuspecting and secretly magic I love them

[loptrcoptr]

The blue eye samurai fandom, for some reason

[yutaan]

The first of two illustrations I did for the MDZS WIP Big Bang! I’m paired with the upcoming fic "If I Should Fall Behind" written by theladyscribe, in which Lan Wangji and Wen Qing enter an arranged marriage! 

“The wedding was not what he had imagined, on those rare occasions Lan Wangji thought of his marriage. Wen Qing stood at the top of the steps, red veil dancing lightly in the wind. Red and gold suited her: a crimson gash on the white marble. Her stance was rigid, as if she, too, would rather be anywhere other than here, fulfilling the wedding contract made between their clans some ten years ago. A small comfort that perhaps he was not alone in this. * A wedding, a war, a friendship, a home.”

The fic will be posted later this month! :D Please keep an eye out, lovelies!

[coffeenonsense]

Remy: I'm nothing but a weapon trained to kill I don't deserve kindness

Xiaodan: oh, honey, you're acting like we're giving you a choice. Prepare to get smothered in affection

Zidan: yeah, get fucking loved idiot

[stopiwanttotalkaboutcheese]

ALSO ALSO ALSO i LOVED the way that sabine’s first real use of the force was a DIRECT PARALLEL to the first time luke used the force to move his lightsaber on hoth!

[hitemwiththeoop]

am i the only one who's really interested in roku's novel like, fr. he's like the avatar of whose companions we know more from the show but at the same time know so little. back then his waterbending teacher hadn't even been named. his earthbending teacher taught the earth king of his time. we'll get gyatso moments and political drama with sozin, appart from kyoshi's moments of guidance. i would think he might even contact szeto. we might follow on his journey right after leaving the fire nation and how he assumed his duty as the avatar in a world that had MAJOR conflicts and tensions by involving himself in his worlds politics in diplomatic missions

i honestly hope that the fandom's perception of his character won't make everyone completely disinterested in what great worldbuilding and expansion of character his novel will bring

[masterkeynobi]

trw e1 brain dump incoming im obsessed w how 0 people predicted some of the pc classes. BARD/ROGUE bulbian bishop? satanist (hungry one-ist?) shapeshifting BARD/WARLOCK teenage spymaster?? (karna is perfect btw i will never not love an ethically dubious aabria pc aabria i'm your biggest fucking fan but i was like 100% sure she’d be a rogue...)

anjali is sooooo fucking fun too ive never seen her play before but i love her already it’s real hot girl shit in there!!! she said somebody in here has to serve CUNT and she DELIVERED!!! jessica rabbit as a mango Do You Like Women. she has the most consistent accent(s) i’ve seen in the dome ever. like i wasn’t sure she Wasn’t irl british until she spoke ooc and sounded american. when she went french-accented british to speak fructerano... beautiful. love it. love to see it. (also was fun when matt went from french-accented to american-accented to indicate the switch to fructerano but that only lasted a few lines, rip)

feels characteristic (affectionate) of lou and zac to play very like. straightforward/Not Great At Politics pcs, given their past pcs within calorum (see: acoc ap ep 5, lou talking abt playing amethar so he doesn't have to be good at politics + zac talking about how playing lapin was hard bc he doesnt think/talk like that; by the time cumulous was in the picture there wasnt really Politics to deal with) vs iyengar + mulligan getting spicy with it and playing devious untrustworthy bitches w big ol secrets.

1. i think colin should kiss either deli or his mom, sorry, and 2. OBSESSED, truly, w the lady amangeaux-raphaniel-karna dynamics. brennans patented cute lil old man voice + a pc who's apparently so optimized to lie that he cannot get a sub-20 deception roll? i watched battle for beyond im gearing the fuck up for another mulligan minmax build that shit rules. lady a loving+trusting both of them implicitly but raphaniel maybe having killed...? her husband...? and karna def going out there and talking shit for fun and profit... yum. delicious. excited for it to get worse

[tweedstoat]

Pov: you are a dragon and a bald 14 yr old has just hatched you

[gingerbreadmonsters]

every time u reblog a fic a fairy gets its wings

[piosplayhouse]

Shen yuan texting Shang Qinghua like "it's so disgusting how much gay media is OVER SEXUALIZED with COCKS IN THE ASS HARDCORE BDSM and not GAY PEOPLE BEING NORMAL" And Shang Qinghua just texts back "dude why are you on the gay porn section of jjwxc"

[thehandymen]

i think today’s ep was a really great example of how although canute may not possess crazy physical abilities like many of the characters in vinland saga, he is definitely one of the most emotionally intelligent, and therefore one of the most politically skilled. while sparring with wulf he calls him out on his crush on princess estrid, which causes wulf to get distracted and canute achieve a rare victory. we don’t know exactly how long canute & co have been in england at this point, but it can be assumed that once canute picked up on wulf’s feelings for his younger sister, he filed the info away to conveniently use later, which is exactly what he does when olmar, son of wealthy landowner ketil, makes an absolute fool of himself. canute’s already been thinking about requisitioning some land, and then an easily manipulated idiot with the right connections shows up on his doorstep, and that’s that.

but what was REALLY interesting was the choice of music in the final scene. if i’m not mistaken, it’s askeladd’s theme that plays as canute discusses using olmar with wulf and gunnar. we all know the huge role that askeladd had in canute’s ascent to power, and how his actions continue to both haunt and influence canute even years later. until now, askeladd is probably the most physically and politically strong character we’ve encountered in vinland saga. he was a man with a plan from the beginning, and he made the ultimate sacrifice to put canute on the throne. playing his theme at the end of an episode where we see canute striving to become a better warrior and scheming his way up the ladder says a lot

[liobi]

Welcome new 3k followers! Just so you know what you're getting into, I post fic snippets mostly of Arknights, my tagging system is "[topic] tag" or the work title, and I'm VERY into GL/Baihe/Yuri, but BL is cool too as evidenced by... everything @trisshawkeye and i have watched together (and unfortunately I am a fan of random old man yaoi which is a problem outside of my control).

My absolute most unhinged 3k ships are Lady Huang/Lady Sun, Actual Living Knife Diaochan/there's a practical problem and I'm gonna kill myself about it Lady Mi, and Zhuge Liang/Caocao spade/blackrom style. Do i have a justification for any of these? No i just want to put them on opposite ends of a train track and send them at each other full throttle. Triss im sorry you had to find out about any of these this way.

oh right my dream fight mashup would be fictional characters Zhou Fei from Bandits/Legend of Fei and the mostly fictional Novel version of Guan Yu. i probably have more insane landmines laying around somewhere but i haven't found them yet. It's 3am. I'm going to bed now

[nonelysianthoughts]

Currently reading the second part of The Cruel prince and damn this shit is crazy, but I’ll be damned if I say I don’t get the hype now.

[orbitfalls]

Hello! I’m a new follower but I would love to hear more about how you view walaburga (I never know how to spell her name). I don’t often see her written as a complex character so that sounds super interesting!!

Hi love, welcome to my blog<33 if there's one single person out there i'm ALWAYS ready to talk about then it's the loml Walburga Black so buckle up!!!!!!

I'm very much with you on that she's rarely depicted as a complex character, which, sure enough, is certainly partly bc she's a horrible person, but robbing her of all complexity simply for the crime of being a bad mother doesn't sit right with me and never has... i feel like there's a lot of depth and anger and fear to be explored in her as a woman raised in a victorian-resembling patriarchal family and forced to marry- and have children with her own cousin. To me, she was - like most abusers - a victim first, and an abuser as a consequence of being so undone by trauma that she's unable to overcome centuries and centuries of generational trauma.

Okay to maintain structure in the rambles here comes some hcs of mine:

the way i view her, i think it makes a lot of sense that her control issues stem from experiencing sexual abuse throughout her childhood

due to this, she's very wary of people having power over her, and her greed for power - as well as her need to assert her power over her children, sirius in particular - is above all else a (deeply twisted obv) way of protecting herself

i think her and bella share some VERY fundamental similarities, HOWEVER the major difference, to me, is that walburga has the mind of a ruler whereas bellatrix will forever be a soldier

walburga's the oldest sister, she's incredibly protective of Alphard and cygnus, however her definition of protecting someone isn't always particularly in line with everyone else's

she's literally the tiniest little medieval princess-type of beauty, yet simultaneously the most absolutely loaded powerhouse of magic seen in a long fucking while in the history of magic

the point above is a well-known but rather shushed upon topic within the pureblood families due to her being the housewife of Orion, who's the real heir, and god forbid a woman outdoes the heir lmao

in relation to that, no one fucks with her. like genuinely, no one ever out right admits the terror she evokes in the pureblood ranks, but boy oh boy.

mountain lion patronus. no one talk to me okay this one's dear to me idk. this one i can't explain without frantically typing out a 2k analyzing essay that i'll spare you from tho ssjdjsjdh<33

ANYWAY if youre interested in walburga as a complex character with plenty of depths to explore (very dark ones tho, so tw!!!!), then she's one of the main characters of my black family character study Ultraviolence, in which all of the hcs above play a major role in her character and her relation to her brothers, children and husband<33 (not to mention to the black sisters, bella in particular!!)

[orzaika]

played wayfarer for the first time yesterday and (obviously) made a guy who is just so so bad at decision making. Hyr i love you but you need to get a braincell