#a-d-h-dragons

[rwbytales]

RWBY Search & Rescue: Island Maturin

RWBY Tabletop RPG Homebrew Story

OK so there were a few people who liked or commented on that post i made so i figured I would put it here so i dont have to do everything seperately persay, and tag everyone who said something!!!!

Plus I really like this so I'd love to properly have it down somewhere to go back and reference or if anyone else is interested in something or using stuff or anything!

I'm super excited and I'm gonna start with the premise of it and stuff and like if yall wanna hear more or the details up to what i have or have questions id love to know cause it'd probably help me. Eitherway this was a lot so ima put the deets under readmore!!!!

@eviltomb @caeruleum-feniks @utallige @a-d-h-dragons

So to start, I came across this Unnofficial RWBY TTRPG Rulebook Some things I either didn't agree with and wanted to change, or wanted to make certain things easier to find for player reference/ character creation, of which is outlined here if you're interested in seeing. (This was also a character sheet i found i had them use for reference to make the character) Most of it is changes to dust, potential for Team Attacks to do better and deal more damage, as well as a Team Leader for flavour who gets bonus Initiative and can give a small bonus call for a full team attack.

I also worked with each person to create a custom Semblance based on what type of skill or power they wanted to have, and adjust aura capacity and semblance use to actually require aura as well.

I did basically give them unlimited ammo, they just needed to reload as needed, and only had limited # of dust colors available to use based on what could reasonable be used by them and their backstory, so I made sure they would have to manage some sort of resource in someway, which did work out in my favour in the end.

(I recorded all(my 1 shot was 6 sessions so i called it a chapter instead) of them since it was my first time DMing a tabletop game and wanted to be able to reference it. and I want to transcribe them eventually into more of a story format)

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So for premise(this was not created this way but ended up during/after creation of the story because my team wanted to continue and was interested in playing more)

But I settled on a timeline because I dont want to have anything to do with current RWBY really, so some thigns have taken liberty and there may have been minor adjustments to events in the timeline, granted we never got exact dated anyway, just general timeframes.

So basically, this first story takes place after the party team has graduated. I'm imagining Hunstmen Academy is basically 4 years of school, the last 2 years could be... kind of part time? Because you are more so in the field than in school itself, sometimes going to other continents/schools or extended missions with veteran huntsmen or something meaning you would be gone for quite a while as well, you're just below freely licensed hunstmen, and often are treated as real huntsmen, especially when accompanied with veteran huntsmen, whether that treatment be good or bad.

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One of my favourite things abouyt RWBY is how everything is pretty much based off mythology, fairytales, or just fiction media in general, so I wanted to try to add in as much of that as I could to my story.

The first Piece I want to give is this

Search and Rescue: Mission Log

It was what the player characters would know about the mission and situation going on, basically this would be the reference they can look at at any time IC to check whats up or whatever.

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BASICALLY before Into too much detail the overall thing for it

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An island suddenly shows up near the shores of Anima, near the kingdom of Mistral, mysterious disappearances near the beach just days before the island showed up. Numbers of grimm increasing, causing more unrest in the nearby towns.

There are near forgotten fairytales of islands that disappear and reappear, that move and then never seen again. This island though, has been there for 7 days, through the fog and storm. Unmoving, unchanging. 

They've sent curious hunters, team SIOC(Sirocco) out the day it arrived to investigate, but 3 days after have lost all contact with them.

Now 7 days after the island appeared, and 4 days after contact has been lost, missions have been revised and they've called for a search and rescue on the island.

Players team, PMAV(Primavera), then accepts the mission and is flown almost an hours time to the island where they have to realize they should have thought about a landing stratagy if they haven't already and get yeeted out of the airship.

__

If you can't tell by the name, the island itself is actually a giant grimm tortoise, this thing is huge, it is ancient, and has a grimm forest on its back. Looking at it, you can't tell really. There is a heavy dark mist that surrounds the thick forest once you get close enough to see, and once in the forest, the canopy is so thick between that and the mist, you can't hardly tell night from day.

There are pools of grimm on it's back, causing new grimm to be birthed from them constantly, meaning there is always a threat, and many new grimm that they come in contact with. ( I found cool looking oc grimm on deviant art or made stuff up for them to make it different, but also had known rwby grimm as well)

The mysterious island, while also being a world turtle, (this being named for Stephen Kings work), it's also going to double as the Black Forest, where many fairytales were said to take place.

To allude to this more, I did decide to add in a.. rendition of Salem, obviously taking the place as the witch, as she has been called many times. I did kind of reuse the thought of Hansel and Gretel, because I most of the cast of RWBY seems based off stories in the black forest and didn't want to reuse any of those.

So I have, Cwrell & Margarite Katad, twins that take their place in this sense.

(Gretel means Pearl, Margarite also shares that name meaning, with Cwrell meaning Coral, thus giving the twins names that have relations to eachother, while still being able to allude in someway to their OG tale and bring colors to mind. Then their last name Katad, meaning animal skin/leather, pulling from the last name commonly associated with Hansel& Gretel, Leiderhosen which are a type of leather garments.

Pearl, actually has the ability to create physical illusions pretty much, which are more stable if they are placed over a physical object(disguising an object as something is more stable), thus allowing her to make a tent look like an oddly placed cottage in this oddly placed island.

Cwrell,has the ability to track via semblance/aura use. So they can see remnants of colored aura left behind in locations where it was lost or used, and can use it to track where to go/where others are.

They are clearly, instead of working against the witch, are working as the witch direct underlings. I have ideas for backstory thoughts on the Katad twins but idk if itd been too much or something

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Eventually, while they are on the island for a few days searching and such, they do come across the twins, who try to trick and attack them as they seem to be getting too close, or causing too much of a ruckus for Salem's liking.

But upon finding human remains and such scattered around and questionable abandoned tents and such, they end up finding out via a lost scroll they hacked into, that there seems to be a reason people were being taken and not just killed. It's hard to tell because presumably the scroll belonged to a member of team SIOC, and the notes and such are scattered and don't make sense. Like someone was scared, they didn't know what was happening, they were in a rush. Without more information, the most that can be gathered is that people were being experimented on, and newer grimm were more focused on taking people as opposed to just killing them. The experiments done looked gruesome, and there was mention how they could hear the pain and screaming at night and during the day echoing through the trees.

Eventually, in the end, they came across a claring with many grimm pools, flashes of bright silver light flashing and screaming almost in unison with it and all. They see a woman they never heard of, who we know as Salem.

An encounter starts as the team doesn't seem the woman is up to any good, which doesn't work out well as she just.. stands back up and continues, a large Praying Mantis-eque grimm, that towers nearly twice as tall as the people, the shape of its head and the main part of its body looks very earily human, moreso than any other grimm seen before., basically a fight ensues between the grimm, with salem there, and basically salem/her grimm pet kill the players at that point, in the spirit of teams unknowingly going against a big bad evil immortal lady that cant be killed and being killed because they didn't know

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Basically, Salem was trying to create Grimm experiments using humans and such, all of them being horrendously failed experiments of varying degrees and such. None of them worked, but all seemed very very painful and brutal and inhumane. All done in different ways dependant on what hasn't worked before.

The sucessful experiment that the players come across, is a very special one for 1 reason that seperates it from every other one.

She used the Silver-Eyed huntress from team SIOC as the base this time, and something about that specific trait meant she was able to succeed at creating a grimm hybrid. This basically serves as the Prototype of The Hound, that we met in Volume 8 of RWBY.

[vintagerpg]

Sentient Ooze is a little fold-up zine (I think it is riso-printed?) about…you guessed it, the sentient ooze. The writing is brief, a short run-down of the creature’s features, history and strategies. The art features a limited palette that spotlights fluorescent pink. I love it. This is bite-sized RPG art-zining at its best.

[sapphire-draw]

[writer-room]

I've decided the only reason Lloyd, known descendant of dragons, didn't tell this to Egalt, who refuses to train non-dragons, is for the same reason he never mentioned he's the First Spinjitsu Master's grandson. It just never came up. Nobody asked him directly about it. And besides, he's only like, one-fourth dragon, so does it really count? He doesn't look like a dragon, and he has never in his life considered himself a dragon. Mentioning his ancestry to Egalt probably would've just made him look like some hotshot, or make him more annoyed. There's no need to bring up such a silly little fact. He's sure it won't be important later.

[a-very-sparkly-nerd]

Hmmmm S6 releases 11 days after Callum's birthday and five days before Rayla's. 11 - 5 = 6 for sixth season.

Alternatively: 11 + 5 = 16, and the number 16 symbolizes "hope, faith, and overcoming struggles," so I am PRAYING.

And in other news, I haven't connected schist and am grasping at straws that don't exist.

[oldschoolfrp]

“There the Gibbelins Lived and Discreditably Fed” by Sidney H Sime, from Lord Dunsany’s story “The Hoard of the Gibbelins” in The Book of Wonder, 1912. This is the tale of a knight who becomes obsessed with seeking the treasures of some man-eating creatures who live at the edge of the world. “Alas that I should say of so perilous a venture, undertaken at dead of night by a valorous man, that its motive was sheer avarice!”

The next story in the this collection is “How Nuth Would Have Practised His Art Upon the Gnoles” in which two thieves go into the gnoles’ forest to steal their emeralds.

Lord Dunsany’s most important influence on D&D probably isn’t his vaguely described fairy tale monsters, but his greedy human characters who travel to the homes of nonhuman creatures to steal from them, often coming to a bad end. D&D originally awarded characters 1 experience point per 1 gold piece looted, as well as for defeating monsters, prompting players to follow the examples of Lord Dunsany’s adventurous thieves and seek ever greater riches in more dangerous lairs.

[mossymandibles]

Ok so, I’m a lot happier with Yuna’s design now. Her species is called ‘Fae-winged sea drake’ because of their long, gossamer fins that trail behind them.

She’s got more of a ‘polar bear’ build, in a way. And less horns pointing in different directions which made her overly difficult to draw from different angles

I plan to put more of her deal on my toyhouse thing I’m workin at✨ Maybe now I can work on Sobehk’s design a little more wew

[trashcora]

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON  1.05 “We Light the Way” | 1.07 “Driftmark”

[onepiece-polls]

One Piece Crack Ship War - Round 1 Side H

Kaido x Marigold & Sandersonia image by Isacco Nucleare

Propaganda under the cut

Kaido x Marigod & Sandersonia: Huge scaly Zoans unite! (nsfw ahead) Kaido can shag both at once: as a Chinese dragon, he's supposed to have two 🍆. {In Chinese culture, dragons have two 🍆, like snakes. The Chinese memo of how to draw a dragon: the body of a snake, the horns of a deer, the head of an ox, the mouth of a crocodile, the claws of an eagle, and the scales of a fish.}

Shanks x Dragon: Luffys father figure and actual father; I just think it’s a funny idea.

[rayllurn]

s4 rayllum + shoulder touches

[sindrakart]

THEY ARE COMPLETE WHEHEHE the results were mostly dragon and a mix of all the other answers so. i decided to combine them :3

[hidden-havven]

SPIDERMAN Y SPIDERWOMAN

leo's is a bit older than roier's, but ive been sitting on these two drawings for a while, I wanted to post them with the batfoolish and lobo nocturno when I finish them but I don't have de energy to even start them (； T.T)),,

[vintagerpg]

While I have a special affection for Jason Eckhardt’s work, it would be unfair to look at Necronomicon Press and not give some love to their other prolific house artist, Robert H. Knox. As luck would have it, he did all the art on the Clark Ashton Smith chapbooks — some of my all time Necropress faves.

Again, these feel important for their time. When I was getting into weird fiction in the early '90s, I had easy access to most of the important authors. The exception? Clark Ashton Smith. His dedicated collections were all out of print and scarce and a serious effort at definitive collection of his work didn’t get underway until the five-volume set from Nightshade, begun in 2007. Until then, it was the occasional anthologized story, or Necropress chapbooks.

Most of these represent efforts by series editor Steve Behrends to issue corrected texts of stories that better reflect CAS’ intentions. Xeethra (1988) is a melancholy Zothique story that weird tales deemed too poetic. Mother of Toads (1993), an Averoigne story, was too erotic. The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis (1993) is a tale of Mars that was heavily revised for print, which CAS was unhappy about. Another Martian tale, The Dweller in the Gulf (1993) was so tampered with that CAS stopped writing fiction for a time. The Hashish-Eater (1989) is a lengthy, cosmic poem, unbothered by editors during its author’s lifetime.

Knox’s covers are fantastic, but holy wow those interior illustrations for The Hashish-Eater are something else. Dripping, psychedelic vistas fit for Troika. I’ve loved flipping through this one for over three decades.

[vaedar]

𝐎𝐎𝐂; 𝙾𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙷𝚘𝚝𝙳 𝚂𝟸 𝚘𝚙𝚎𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚊𝚙𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚢

Okay, so I wanted more Valyria and dragon lore and that new season 2 opening delivered on both, if only a little bit. Below cut, I will try to break down the first sequences of the opening pertaining Valyria with some theories. As always, a reminder that these things are just my interpretation to be used only in this RP blog, and it is in no way to be considered canon unless so specified.

(Doesn't really contain spoilers about HotD, only the use of the first 3 opening theme scenes to elaborate on dragon lore/valyria theories).

The first one is pretty straightforward. Valyria was built on blood, and so that shows here, which transitions into the next scene, where we see Valyria (particularly, the Anogrion, which we are told was the 'source of power' of the valyrian bloodmages) be formed or 'weaved' from this first sequence of the blood.

We then get the blood continuing the path down to the figure that looks almost like a sphynx, with wings of fire, body of a dragon/lizard creature, and a valyrian head. This is reminiscent to the song Daemon sings to Vermithor, especially with the next sequence:

We see a valyrian seemingly 'offering' themselves to the creature, while apparently being stabbed, with their blood gathered in a bowl. We also see glass candles, three to be specific. Again, the number three, like the song tells of a 'winged leader, fire breather, two heads to a third sing'. In the original english song (not the literal translation) it's more clearly stated:

"One who breathes fire, one who bears wings, but two heads need three, and a spell that sings."

The song is describing a ritual, more specifically, a bloodmagic ritual:

"Follow my voice blood magic old the price has been paid as the fires foretold.

In visions of flame listen to me the spell that needs three is made whole through me."

What I initially take from this all is that we're being shown how the dragon bond was formed. This could also explain why Daemon sings this to Vermithor as a way of 'appeasing' the dragon, as it was once part of the spell/bloodmagic used to bond with the dragons. It would seem that the ritual requires a union of dragon and human blood (DNA?) for the bond to happen, which explains various aspects about Dragonlords and dragons themselves.

The intermarrying to keep the blood pure. GRRM has said that not all valyrians practiced this, only/mostly the Dragonlord or noble families. If only the blood of that original valyrian that was part of the ritual to bond with the dragons is what works then, of course, you would have to preserve that blood as pure as possible. However, does this mean that only certain dragons (from the lineage of that original dragon that bonded with the original family member) can bond with that family? Can this be used as an explanation to why the Cannibal ate other dragons, because he was hatched from an egg that was already there from the original valyrians that founded Dragonstone and not Targaryen bonded dragons? Does this confirm that Dany's eggs are Dreamfyre's? Maybe, maybe it's coincidence. I personally prefer to not take it as coincidence, especially for the sake of lore building.

The miscarriages and 'dragon/lizard babies'. If the dragon bond is through a magical fusion of human and dragon blood, then this means Dragonlords have dragon DNA in them, which of course, would probably not make for a great combination sometimes. And we get the deformities and dragon features in the unborn babies from that dragon DNA overpowering the human. It's no surprise that miscarriages can also be common because of some 'error' or incompatibility on the cellular level (magic can only do so much I guess?).

The creation of dragons. In TWOIAF and F&B both we are given the possibility that dragons were actually created. In the song/spell, I believe we are given a little hint to support that theory in the very first stanza: "One who breathes fire, one who bears wings, but two heads need three."

One who breathes fire = fire wyrms. We are told these are essentially blind, wingless, worm-like lizards that live under the Fourteen Flames. This can be supported with the appearance of Caraxes, the Blood Wyrm (the dragon looks like a winged worm pretty much), and the 'dragon' that hatched to little Laena Velaryon (a wingless wyrm, maggot-white and blind). One who bears wings = wyverns. We are told they are reptiles that look like smaller dragons since they have wings, but they don't breathe fire. They are wild in Sothoryos, where we know Valyrians liked to 'experiment' with creatures (because maybe a certain civilization already did as much? little bit more on that below).

In the rest of the song, we have the "But two heads need three" and "The spell that needs three is made whole through me". That second one is particularly interesting to me with the 'made whole' part. It could simply be symbolic only to the dragon bond, since the literal translation of the song says "To bind the three, to you I sing". I think this can be taken as in a fusion of three DNAs are needed to create the dragon, as much as three 'heads' are needed to forge the original dragon bond of a valyrian Dragonlord lineage.

The 'three' aspect is the base of a lot of things throughout the whole of ASOIAF, it's not exclusive to just one particular thing, or even the prophecy itself. So I do believe that it's possible it can apply to both the dragon bond and the creation of dragons. I would go as far as to wager that the hidden symbolism behind the Targaryen three-headed dragon is not just to represent the conquerors, but the original recipe of the 'three ingredients' (for lack of a better term) necessary for dragon creation, dragon bonding, and all else that the three symbolism is used for valyrians and bloodmagic. Let us not forget that the 'Fire and Blood' the Targaryens use is also based on Valyrian culture as a whole, not exclusive to the Targaryens alone, as Fire and Blood are what valyrian magic was rooted on.

However, it's important to note that we are also given in books how dragons pre-date Valyrians, and the existence of ancient Dragonlords before the founding of the Valyrian Freehold. What is an even older civilization that started out great but descended into brutality and slavery, that also practiced incest, dark arts (like manipulating DNA of creatures?), necromancy, bloodmagic, etc.? The Great Empire of the Dawn.

It's an old and pretty possible theory that GRRM might be giving us clues through Dany's dream of those 'gemstone eyed kings' that valyrians are either directly descended from this civilization or are its inheritors, and it's from their legacy that valyrians 'learned' how to forge the dragon bond ( and other magical aspects, including valyrian steel, which is also very likely forged through bloodmagic ). It could be valyrians did not create dragons but instead this older civilization ( that, interestingly, occupied the east of Essos, very likely Asshai, which is often used as the place from where dragons 'originate' from).

All of these things tie into the show's theme regarding prophecy but also how dangerous dragons are, because everything that made Valyria powerful is built on bloodmagic. I will not go into details because I don't want to use spoilers, but I believe that opening tapestry was purposely done to support these theories exposing the 'wrongness' of the dragons and their power. And how eventually, bloodmagic always has a price.

[amememightywarrior]

toe beans provided courtesy of midgardsormr

[taffingspy]

You've been a good friend, in the short time that I've known you