#and it's about my fucking call of cthulhu character

[trashpremiium]

sat down to write a silly little conversation between two characters that i've been rotating in my head for weeks. suddenly there are 4k words on the screen and i'm not even to the damned conversation

[cavegirlpoems]

Metagaming Is Good, Actually, You Just Suck At Playing Pretend

OK so metagaming is a term with an incredibly nebulous definition, but the way it gets thrown around - particularly in That Fandom - is just ridiculous. You are, in fact, playing a game. For fun. You should make your in-game decisions based on what will be most enjoyable for you, and the other participants in this game, and to do that well, the nature of the game is a consideration.

Some, non-exhaustive, examples of positive metagaming: -Deliberately taking plot-hooks even when you don't have a good IC reason to. -Deliberately grouping up with the other PCs even if they're basically strangers. -Making genre-appropriate decisions for the type of game you're in (being overly curious in Call of Cthulhu or petty and melodramatic in Monsterhearts). -Making tactically optimal choices in challenge-based games (such as osr dungeon-exploration, or 4e combat). -Not taking actions that will be unwantedly upsetting for other players ooc (such as not using arson as a weapon if a player has trauma relating to a house-fire).

'being in character' is not a suicide-pact compelling you to make bad decisions because 'it's what my character would do', and indeed 'it's what my character would do' is shorthand for a particular type of shit player for a good reason! If you fuck things up by making stupid ic decisions, or unfun ooc decisions, to avoid 'metagaming', you're a shit player.

If 'how would I know that' comes up, you can just make something up to explain it. RPGs are games about making things up. Add an incident to your backstory, maybe, and get some free character development out of it.

Anyway, yeah, despite what some people will tell you, metagaming is a positive behaviour so long as you're not deliberately using it to enable behaviours that would be toxic even without metagaming.

[gremlinmodetweeker]

I LOVE your eldritch horror kinky story! I can’t get enough of it! Were you inspired by HP Lovecraft? Where did you get your knowledge of eldritch horror because I love the genre and would love to read more

Okay so, SO, I have a lot I take reference from. The big one yes is Lovecraft, of course. I read his stories, but then I went on to read a bunch of Call of Cthulhu mysteries and ran a couple of Call of Cthulhu campaigns (ttrpg) and stuff like that. I also just consume cosmic horror everywhere I can! A big resource for Eldritch!König is really based on Lovecraft plus a couple of SUPER COOL video games.

The first game is Dredge, which is beautiful and stunning and through the story isn't too exciting, the world? OH MAN THE WORLD. Also, I love the ocean and fish and marine biology so that shit is just my game. I'm into it big time.

Another game is World of Horror, which is heavily based off Junji Ito's work. If Lovecraft isn't your jam, try reading some Junji Ito mangs. They're extremely graphic, but also the stories are wild and super cool. A lot of the times, people don't pick up on the social commentary on Japanese culture in his works.

Speaking of manga, Berserk? Crazy good, but read up on the trigger warnings before reading because despite being (imho) one of the best mangas of all time, it has graphic SA and abuse and gore.

Bioshock and Fallout also heavily inspired the bug horror (though I haven't finished either game but shhhhhh).

Finally, the classics inspire me. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is genuinely one of my favourite books of all time. The themes it explores? The imagery? The characters? All incredible. Just a beautiful book that I desperately needed to read when I was in high school. The monster's dialogue really hit home for me when I was a very depressed teen struggling to find hope and friendship in high school.

Various different body horror artists and analogue horrors also heavily inspire Eldritch!König. It's a big mix.

My main elements when writing him are incorporating marine and cosmic (astronomical) horror with him. I also notice I tend to rely on bugs a lot, despite his biology not being bug-like at all. I will say, he has tentacles and a beak under his mask, but that's about all that your mind can comprehend (also let's be honest, he's not gonna let you see anything else). When I think of how I want to write his horror, I sometimes think of Over the Garden Wall or a Ghibli movie with how he interacts with horror. To him, it's mundane. To you, it's shit-balls crazy off the walls insanity. He genuinely does not get why you find it so foreign until he remembers that you're a human.

I do want to write more gore and horror with him, but I haven't found a good opportunity... If you have any suggestions, let me know. I want to have Eldritch!König fuck somebody up. His tentacles are crawling for kills...

[justablah56]

Dndads?

DNDADS !!!! I'm assuming you're asking me like . what it is n shit . if not . my b . bcs I am about to give you as big of an infodump as I can without spoiling anything lmao .

anyways hello my dear follower , my beloved dungeons and daddies (not a bdsm podcast) is my favorite thing ever <3 it's usually very loosely a dnd podcast , season three tho switches into the call of cthulhu system .

season one is 69 (nice) episodes about four normal world dads and their sons who all get sucked into faerun , a dnd world basically , through a portal while trying to go to their kids soccer game lmao . they end up losing their kids and basically the whole season is them trying to find their kids and then trying to find a way back home with tons of little side quests and detours that they take along the way . most of it is super comedic and lighthearted and it's also just fucking insane sometimes but it also has a lot of super compelling emotional moments and iughencmd it's so good oh my god .

season two is a continuation of the world created in season one , but now the players are playing as the teenaged grandchildren of their original dad characters , and it's heavily influenced by season one so you can't really listen to it on its own . season two is 50 smthin episodes of these teens basically trying to clean up the world after the things that their parents (aka , the kids from season one , aka , the kiddads) and their grandparents did between seasons to try and fix things and kinda ended up making everything worse cbnsndnsnd and it kinda starts off with the kiddads all going missing and suddenly these teenagers are supposed to be in charge of everything the kiddads were originally doing to fix everything . season two is I think a bit less comedic than season 1 , but it does have like . twice as many of those absolutely fucking insane moments lmao , and it does still have a lot of cool emotional moments and ougjfj it's all so good .

a lot of what I post abt usually has to do with this sort of untold season that happened between seasons with the kiddads . a lot of people are very attached to the kiddads , and to me a lot of it is bcs these are the characters we've known for the longest and we've seen them as kids and we see how the events of the first seasons shaped them into the adults they are in season two and man . it's just so cool . season two gives us a lot of small hints to stuff that happened between seasons , and we get a few flashbacks , but there's a lot of stuff that we don't know , and there's so much speculation abt how things happened and it's a very fun sandbox to play in chwndnsnmxx anyways .

season three started just a bit ago , there's 3 episodes so far . they switched who was the dm and so it's a new universe with no relation to the first two seasons , and could pretty easily be listened to on its own . season three is set at some point in the 1950s , and the four characters don't really have like . a solid thing they can all be described as . there's like . a teacher and a weird wife and a car salesman and a teenager . they're great . but it's these four characters who are all in a bowling league together and they're kinda figuring out that hey weird stuff is happening around here and there's monsters and just a ton of stuff and so far it is absolutely hilarious , I love it dearly <3 every character is just . fucking insane . and the dynamic is great , it's just awesome and I personally am having a blast with it so far

ok anyways . thats dndads lmao . if theres anything more specific you want to know literally pleaaaaase ask me and I will be soooooo excited to tell you cndnmxmdmd I'm completely and utterly obsessed with this podcast , I've listened to it . so many times . I will talk about it any chance I get , it's just great . I love it . and that's not even to mention the wonderful community here on Tumblr !!!! it's a relatively small fandom , so for the most part everyone at least recognizes everyone else , and everyone is just so awesome , ive made so many friends through this fandom , its great

[impossiblepackage]

say, i heard you reblog a post about role playing games. do you happen to know of any ones that i, a beginner, could feasibly get into in this day and age? i tried DnD but a combination of not having anybody to play with (whether irl or online) and a dissatisfaction with low level boringness kind of made it fizzle out for me

oh hey an ask from 3 months ago that I didn't even see. hi.

ANYWAY. First things first, i cannot recommend @theresattrpgforthat enough. Ain't nobody better at recommending rpgs than that blog right there. Now, on to my thoughts.

If you want a DnD-like rpg, Pathfinder 2nd Edition is gonna be my first recommendation. It's harder to find games for on account of being significantly less popular than dnd5e but it's probably the 2nd most popular game. It's also completely free, with everything being hosted on https://2e.aonprd.com/. It's got everything except adventures, those ya gotta buy. For the next 10 days, there's a humble bundle that includes PDFs of lots of the pre-remaster legacy books, and includes a couple adventures, including a whole adventure path going from level 1 to 20. As a whole, the game is different to dnd but it's recognizable. Big fan myself, and paizo isn't a bunch of pricks. The setting is also super gay. There's a potion of trans your gender, and one of the main religions in the world is the worship of 3 gods in lesbian polycule.

Ironsworn: probably my favorite RPG, period. (also has a space version, that works the same way). It is narrative focused, and designed for solo play or in groups with no GM. Works just as well by yourself, as a duo, in a small group, or in a traditional way with a few players and a GM. It's structured around it's vow system. Your character makes a vow, you decide how difficult that vow should be to accomplish, and as you do things that advance it, you mark progress. Eventually, you make a roll to try and fulfill the vow, with the difficulty determined by how much progress you've made. If you fail that roll, it's bad. Cool thing is that just about everything works that way. Undertaking a journey, delving a dungeon, fighting a dude, it's all handled with the same system. It's a game about perseverance and struggle and relationships, both with people and with places. also very fun to play for writing practice. It's mechanics are rooted in it's setting, but there's no reason you couldn't play it in basically any setting. the youtube channel Me, Myself, And Die is, essentially, Critical Role But It's Solo RPGs, and he did a great season where he played Ironsworn, check it out. Also, Basement Fort on youtube did a duo playthrough. I've only seen the first episode but it seems like a fun watch, as well as showing off duo gameplay.

the Witcher RPG: i haven't played this myself or even looked at the books yet, but everything I've heard about this game has me super excited about it. the general consesus seems to be "yo this is wayyyy better than I thought it would be, why aren't more people playing this, what the fuck". If somebody more familiar wants to talk about it, that'd be dope.

gonna ramble about the rest much less, LIGHTNING ROUND OF RECOMMENDATIONS

Dungeon World: same genre as dnd, but much less crunchy gameplay. Much easier to learn.

Kids On Bikes: it's Stranger Things but as a ttrpg.

Call of Cthulhu: get spooky, idiot. The players are investigators unraveling some mystery or another, and trying to keep their sanity in the face of some cosmic bullshit.

Lancer: it's about mechs! closer to anime-style mechs than battletech style, from what I can tell. I've heard good things.

Vampire: The Masquerade: you will NEVER guess what this is about. It's a classic, it's great, it pretty much redefined the way I think vampires should work. The new version of Werewolf: The Apocalypse is coming soon, and I'm real hyped for that, too.

Shadow Of The Demon Lord: my understanding is that this game is basically "DnD 5e, but good".

[salubriwrites-blog]

A Weird Dive into my favorite ships

This started as an answer to an anonymous question but... it grew a little bit. I have no forward except to please drink water today! Love you!!!!

I'm actually pretty new still to writing fanfiction. I've been an avid writer since I was 10 and was even working on getting my own book published. From there I springboarded into TTRPG design where I wrote world building, lore, and characters for IPs like Call of Cthulhu and Vampire: The Masquerade. I only really just got into writing *fan fiction* in the last 2 years.

My first fanfic/ship was actually pretty silly. I was on the Encanto hype train when that movie first came out (can you believe its been 3 years???) and I loved, loved, loved Bruno Madrigal. He was the traumatized, distraught uncle living in the walls of Casita trying to fix the internal damage that came from Abuela's treatment of La Familia. His intentions were pure, and he obviously had gone through a lot to drive him to the point where we see him in the story. This was the first branch I would hit falling down the "I can fix them" tree.

The story is cute and has a happy ending, but as we all know in the real world, unlearning toxic behavior and overcoming life long trauma takes time. So I wrote a BrunoxOC story about it. I ended up orphaning it because I veered the story off in a direction I didn't like because the group I was part of were heavily influencing my creative choices. Boo, hiss I know, but I was still pretty new within the fanfiction genre so I buckled.

Moving on!

My second fiction that I put a lot more love into - sorta I may go back and rewrite parts of it now - was my YorickxOC fiction.

Yorick was my first ever League of Legends love. Fucking love that haunted beef cake. The Ruined Event did him dirty, the Ruined King Game did him dirty, and the book probably did him dirty too (I haven't read it). My Gravekeeper needs ALL THE LOVE because he is absolutely going through it in sheer solitude (though the Illaoi story where he goes to help destroy Viego's amulet gave me hope that now he gets visitors sometime on the island).

Remember Yorick Mori: Before the Ruination This was my first completed and quite hefty fiction weighing in at 153k words: it followed his story where he starts out on a lonely little fishing island called Portia (it doesn't have a name in Lore). He ends up on a slightly busier island that is situated off the coast of Helia (Blessed Isles capitol) and begins his journey to understand why he can communicate with the Dead. He meets a cast of charming monks that want to both see him thrive and maintain status quo. He even meets the owner of the bakery that barters with the Order of Dusk - whom he naturally falls in love with immediately. Rosalie McKahn is not a self insert. I don't make self inserts when I write OCs because I hold myself to a weird standard - also I don't see myself being compatible with most of these characters. Would I still like them to do unspeakable things to me? Oh shit yes. But from a story standpoint, I don't do self inserts. So Rosalie was not one of those. The story follows a young Yorick through his years of servitude to the Order of Dusk, uncovering dark secrets, finding confidence to become the man that he will need to be when the Ruination comes. Rosalie was not the only person who helped to build Yorick up in this story, but their love is what gives him the strength to keep fighting when the rest of it was bleak. This love eventually passes on to the Maiden of the Mist in the epilogue I have yet to write ^^;.

Then we got into the Heartsteel arc, and this was where I really found my love for the "I can fix them" dynamics. I have no shame in saying that I wrote all of "Making of Paranoia: Off Script" in a week's time while the music video played on a loop on my second monitor. I'm just not. That was where the neurons wanted me to go, and off I fucking went. I knew I liked Aphelios when he first debuted in League, but I was scared of him because he's an ADC with 5 guns. Skill Expression was not something I was confident enough in to pursue that character. But he was hot! He ha a backstory that excited me and had a lot of potential. I really wanted to explore Aphelios' dynamic with his sister and the Lunari elders - pigeon holing him into being a weapon of faith only.

I also knew I liked Yone, but was fearful of him for similar reasons. In the end I just nutted up, typed /mute all in game chat, and hit my head against the wall until I got M7 on Yone. His story is by far my favorite of all the League characters (rivaling Yorick's, of course). A man who spent his whole, short life trying to save someone who he thought was in danger of falling off the path of virtue? Only to come back and KEEP DOING IT but with extra steps??? WAITER ANOTHER PLEASE.

But I didn't really anticipate putting these two characters together within the canon sense. I didn't see a way that they could meet (though one of my friends has since written a beautiful fiction where it shows how they do meet, and how they do connect! https://archiveofourown.org/works/52384363/chapters/132517315 )

BUT THEN. BUT THEEEEN.

I was watching Paranoia for the 69th time that day and I saw THIS VERY SPECIFIC CLIP where the only person who looked the most remote bit of concern for Aphelios' well being was YONE. Boom, Off Script was born.

Off Script was definitely the first FanFiction where I really jumped into my current dynamic. It follows after the filming of that day, cut short after Aphelios fell into a water tank with one of the drones. Yone is going to check on him, and Aphelios is lamenting that no one else has come to see if he's alright. Not even his boyfriend, Sett.

This infuriates Yone because that's just not good boyfriend behavior, and he promises Aphelios that - should he be given the chance - Yone would treat him 10x better than Sett has, is, or ever will.

Also who wouldn't want to be treated like a princess by this specimen? Let's not fool ourselves. Anyway - Paranoia gave me a chance to explore this dynamic in a new way. Yone had issues of his own - I had to find a way to implement his Arzakana nature into a modern AU so I opted for "intrusive thoughts" that encouraged him to do some generally not nice things. In Yone's backstory he was a toxic person, used people up, whored his way through most of his opportunities, and was a bad brother to Yasuo. Yone initially followed Yasuo into the music making industry because he wanted to help his baby brother succeed - and he didn't really know what he wanted to do with his own life. Yone then got it into his head that maybe he and his brother could make music TOGETHER. Yasuo didn't want that because True Damage was doing it's own thing and - for just once in his life - he wanted something that only he had made, not with his older brother. Yone takes his poorly, and being the toxic brother that he is, makes a scene at an industry party and gets booted out. Yasuo cuts him out of his life. On his drunken, staggering tirade through the streets of Valoran City, Yone gets into an accident. He dies. But then suddenly gets resuscitated! I'm not a doctor so I just literally chalk it up to a freak accident that Yone comes back. While Yone believes that it's a second chance. He wakes up in the coroner's office in a cooler, and bangs and screams at the door the whole night until the coroner ME comes in the next morning to fetch the John Doe. Yone doesn't know who he is anymore, but he knows he can't be the asshole now cause that's what got him killed. So he spends time reflecting, soul searching. He knows he still loves making music, and though he gets a desk job and lives this semi-stable life, he still dreams of making music.

Enter Heartsteel.

Aphelios' twin sister is already a multi-platinum artist who runs her own record label - Lunari Studios. Aphelios is on the other side of the story - he's just kind of following Alune around and standing back as she shines. He knows he's talented - he knows a million instruments and helps Alune with her production, but he doesn't think that he could do it all by himself. When he and Sett start dating, it's more of the same. Sett is big and loud, people are drawn to him and his style, and it gives Aphelios someone to latch onto that isn't his sister for once. In Off Script, Aphelios' fate would have been the silent lyricist and musician for the band. He would have told himself that he was happy with standing back.

Except after the events of the music video, Yone won't let him. Yone encourages him to sing, to write bolder lyrics, to voice his opinion. Yone helps Aphelios find confidence, and in return Aphelios lets Yone help him. All Yone really ever wants in any AU is to help, but helpful people can be toxic too. Aphelios allows Yone to do that, but with his own confidence can help draw boundaries on when Yone is being too supportive, or investing too much of his own energy. In the Heartsteel AU I wrote, they are happy together ^^

I finished Off Script around the time of Worlds 2023. Which was when they announced my Babygirl!

And boy what a journey THIS CHARACTER HAS BEEN.

Hwei has it all. The trauma, the growth, the setbacks, the hips, the style, the potential. Surprisingly though - I am not a huge fan of the JhinHwei ship. Maybe cause I see too much of myself and who I used to be in its dynamic. I've been both of those characters in my past relationships, but this isn't the place for that kind of deep dive.

Hwei is neat because he introduced a new idea to my ship dynamic. He's not broken, just lost. He's looking for himself and every person he meets is just a stepping stone on his journey to peace of mind.

I wouldn't call Hwei self assured, because he doesn't know who he wants or what he wants to be, but he knows he has all the tools to reach that end. I like shipping him with multiple characters with Hwei in different stages of his self-realization because he is an inspiring character. He can terrify and and awe in the same breath, depending on which version of him we're visiting.

For this last one we're departing League completely.

I got into HSR after Genshin got a little stale for me. Also I got a fancy new phone that I could actually play Hoyo games on, and HSR is the best for mobile play.

I got into HSR in the middle of the Penacony story, but my friends warned me that I'd love Aventurine when I met him. I spoiled myself by looking at pictures of him and OOH BABY

You can fit so much trauma in this baby.

Aventurine is another fun one because yes - he has a tragic fucking story and I would single handedly help him repopulate Sigonia if given the opportunity. But once again, Teeeechnically not broken.?? He has ghosts he faces throughout the story, and must address each aspect of himself before crossing the river, but by the time he's come out, I like to think he's at peace with who he had to become in order to survive. From fighting in pits, murdering his former owner, tricking the IPC, I don't think Kakavasha would have done any of that stuff. Aventurine, on the other hand-

It's a common theme when you are in survival mode because of trauma. Is he fully cured? Fuck no, but will he continue to strive to be the kind of person he wished would have saved him when he was a kid? Fuck yes.

Which is why we need to impregnate him.

My friends warned me I'd love Blade. I was determined to not, but then I went through the Jingliu story and learned about the High Cloud Quintet and it was over.

I just think this guy's hot. I know a lot of people ship him with Dan Feng and Jing Yuan (it's pretty hot, ngl), but I kinda like Blade/Kafka or Blade/Stelle. The Kafka angle is not so much romantic as it is a mutual understanding that they are both going down this journey together and it can get lonely sometime. So more convenience than romance.

I'm working on a Blade/Stelle story right now where - Best I Am, Prey You Become. It explores Stelle abandoning the trailblaze to join the Stellaron Hunters, and as part of her initiation Blade if voluntold by Kafka to train her. Their relationship is mentor/student and she is obviously hot for him, but Blade is an immortal, tired old man who doesn't have time for that. Except Elio has other plans, as Blade's script reaches a conclusion - he finds something worth dying for. When it comes to HSR Fanfictions I take a lot more creative liberty because I didn't follow the lore to the letter. Also I love world building so!!!! I also built Sigonia-IV for that story, I just gotta get the neurons to activate x.x

[sixthsensewulf]

Something just annoys me when people say that Neverafter failed as a Horror Season. .

It was a horror season. It just moved through various horror sub genres. Did the vibe change after episode 3? yes. Did it still be a Horror season? Also Yes.

The Subgenres: Body Horror. Comedy Horror (That was the most one used, because it was 7 comedians in a HORROR SETTING), Dark Fantasy, Folk Horror, Cosmic Horror.

Horror doesn't need to be scary 100% of the time. Horror can just be creating a world of dread and uncertainty. A world where anything can happen. It was tense, it was spooky, it was a horror season.

Fucking hell. .take the video game Alien Isolation. The xenomorph learns how you play, but occasionally you know it's around, but you cant fucking see it or it's not that. That is the horror of the game. That is the tension. The pay off, you get enjoyment out of it.

Also I read a lot of horror books at the moment. The times I have been scared by a scene in a book, i can't count that high, but the reason why? The tension and the building to a reveal. The pay off. It's amazing. For Example: I got creeped out in The Ritual because of the style of writing and descriptions of the forest. You don't even see or read the description of what is chasing the main characters until literally the last chapters. I'm not kidding. That book is pretty much a Folk horror.

I've read some crazy body horror / splatterpunk that I'm not going to describe fully. Been creeped out so often and scared.

Also read some insane haunted house / psychological horror books as well. Those scare you because of the tension, the atmosphere and the build up to a moment. Like I have been fooled by a moment, where I think a scare or a jump is coming then nothing until it actually hits you.

The reason why people occasionally say it failed as Horror Season, just have one view of what a horror style TTRPG is. The common examples I believe are, Call of Cthulhu, Vampire the masquerade and Curse of Strand. Or just think horror is just how much we can scare people, jump scares galore right. It's not.

For example horror moments I loved in Neverafter:

The Spider fight. . Anything and everything could have gone wrong. And pretty much the aftermath. the description of the town being that fucked up because of the spiders.

PiB with the giants at the end - if he rolled badly, who knows what would have happened. But also he is a tiny black cat.

EVERYTHING WITH THE STEPMOTHER. Just my god. The description of her eating her children. Like the description of that moment of the group fleeing from her in the Library. Her treatment of Pinocchio. "I don't even have a name in my own story" speech (yeah that creeped me the fuck out)

Everything about Candlewick. . Yeah it was played for laughs because of Lou throwing away a Nat20 but Candlewick was just terrifying. My favourite Zac moment of that "so Brennan, who is being eaten"

Honestly the whole deal with the world between pages - that's Cosmic Horror, especially with the ink pot etc.. not going to lie, I was on edge with that episode, because my mind was going, something is too good to be true here, something is going to happen.

Ylfa - yes, 100%.. just her story, on one hand it's heartbreaking but the other the description of her eating the wolf to become the wolf..

Rosamund - got to admit I think why people think it failed as a horror season is because they were expecting more scenes like we got at the beginning. That opening sequence is incredible. The other briars moment that sticks in my head is the final fight one with Thumbelina.

Sorry for the ramble rant about Neverafter.

TLDR: THERE ARE MORE SUB GENRES FOR HORROR THAN PEOPLE THINK. BESIDES IT WAS A HORROR SEASON BECAUSE OF THAT.

[orchidbreezefc]

oh shit malevolent 29 went public i guess it's time to reveal my new previously-patron-only project!!!

bg for those unaware: each malevolent episode is first released on the patreon in 5 chapters. most chapters end in a decision for arthur (the first one was whether to shoot eddie in the first scene or try to reason with him, for example), and the patrons vote on what he chooses.

these choices are presented by an entity that sounds like john, whom we call booth!john because we envision him in a soundbooth handling the recordings. his bit is cut from the public episodes, but kayne has alluded to the polls and they seem to be what arthur means by the "gut feelings" that compel him to a certain course of action.

ANYWAY, WITH ALL THAT ESTABLISHED, the patreon poll for ch.143 (hide from collins in the crowd or try to trap him in the caboose and decouple it?) was so heavily debated that people started writing poetry about the whole affair, so my hand was forced aaaaand i started making limericks lmao

i've made one for every chapter since, and plan to continue doing them until i, uh, stop. enjoy my first batch of now-legally-publishable malimericks (malevericks?):

from 143:

there once was a murderer loose and some choices from voices in booths will you try to lay low or go derail your foe? because ruth wants you in the caboose  

[note: ruth is a patron who was VERY in favor of the caboose option lol]

our boys are in trouble once more (or so says the COC lore) the butcher draws near should we run or stay here? let's just hope he's not outside the door

[note: collins is a character from harlan’s previous call of cthulhu campaign!]

choose: scylla, charybdis, or circe? we could go sit back down with percy we also could try to face this murder guy but we don't know: will harlan have mercy?

lovers of violence rejoice! seems we'll get it whatever our choice do you vote for what's smart or just go with your heart? me, i just want 'caboose' in john's voice

144:

there once was a man bound for york whose options then came to a fork cut the car in the back or jump onto the track you--wait THAT'S the choice??? i can't make a limerick about that what the fuck

145:

if this little maneuver had failed arthur told john they just could have bailed good thing their attack sent the butcher off track because arthur just almost got railed

bonus:

it's not your choice or his choice, kayne said (though who knows what goes through that guy's head) the patreon poll has a big story role but it might be to leave arthur dead

[honourablejester]

Research Rabbit Holes & Call of Cthulhu Character Concepts

Okay. So I got the Call of Cthulhu Investigator Handbook, as people may have gathered. And I was browsing the list of occupations, and I found the Diver. Which. I mean. If we’re playing horrifying underwater Lovecraft Mythos horror, that makes sense. But. I went to look up the history of underwater diving a bit, just to get a better feel for where we would have been, technologically, around the 1920s? Not in detail or anything, but just to get a feel. And. Um. You do not need Lovecraftian horrors of any stripe to create terror in this regard?

Continued under cut for anyone who has triggers regarding claustrophobia or underwater anything:

So. One interesting little tidbit I came across while browsing Wikipedia on this issue was that decompression sickness, AKA The Bends, was originally called Caisson Disease. Because it was first observed not in divers, but in caisson workers and miners. And I do not know this word, so I go look up what a caisson is, and therefore what caisson workers are. And, um. It’s a rigid pressurised airlocked workspace that is slowly sunk down to the river/sea bed under large underwater building projects, such as bridge piers, so that workers can get down there to dig out foundations. Inside a tiny airtight concrete box at the bottom of the river.

Jesus Christ. Jesus, humans are fucking terrifying. These are the things we do.

Basically, decompression sickness was first sort of properly documented among people emerging from highly pressurised working environments like caissons and some mineshafts, and they later linked it to the same phenomenon as people coming up too fast from pressurised diving. There is a fantastic-slash-utterly horrific description of caisson work on the Brooklyn Bridge in the 1870s, which was a notable study for caisson disease as there were over a hundred cases during the construction. And it’s just. What a lovely rabbit hole to have wandered down?

But. But. How about that for a character backstory? A diver, a Call of Cthulhu 1920s diver, whose granddad was a caisson worker on the Brooklyn Bridge. One of the ones who survived, maybe with some health issues later down the line. Because this family, it’s a point of pride. That they can survive pressurised hell without a qualm, whether subterranean or submarine. Maybe the family were originally miners, and then caisson workers, and then divers. Granddaddy built the Brooklyn Bridge. Daddy was a navy man. And our character, he works in marine salvage.

I think I’d want their highest score to be Power. They are rock solid. They have calm, and control, and presence of mind, even when 40ft down in the mud and silt of the riverbed in a tiny fucking concrete box, or hanging in black abyss of lightless water waiting for their body to be ready to make it back up. They are relentlessly sane. Until, maybe. Until something supernatural has to come and shake them up. Because it’s a point of pride. Humans do these things on their own. They invent these things and put themselves in these situations all on their own. Willingly. So by god it’s going to take something really unnatural to horrify this man. My great granddaddy was a miner. My granddaddy worked the caissons on the Brooklyn Bridge. My daddy was in the Navy. I’ve dived wrecks along half the east coast. You’re gonna have to pull something big to put the willies up me, you squishy alien sons of bitches!

Because. Because look. Cthulhu is all very well. Great Old Ones, horrors beyond the stars. But humans do this to themselves. We do this to ourselves. We make tiny concrete boxes and sink them under rivers and go down to work in them ourselves.

I honestly sometimes think that there is no horror the universe could wreak on us that we couldn’t (or haven’t already) found a way to willingly wreak on ourselves first.

Why are we like this? God. It’s awesome, don’t get me wrong, but it’s also really terrifying.

[bitterkarella]

Midnight Pals: Solar Pons

August Derleth: Submitted for the approval of the midnight society, I call this the tale Derleth: of the world’s greatest detective King: yeah! Right on! Derleth: solar pons King: i King: wait, who? Derleth: you know Derleth: solar pons Derleth: the world’s greatest detective

Derleth: this is a story about the world’s greatest detective solar pons Dean Koontz: I thought batman was the world’s greatest detective King: no dean King: no batman is a scientist Koontz: a scientist is a kind of detective King: hold on, that’s a good point there Derleth:

Derleth: stop it! The important thing is solar pons Derleth: he’s the detective who hangs out with his sidekick Dr. Parker at 7B Praed Street Derleth: who smokes a pipe and has incredible powers of observation and deduction Barker: dude, you’re basically describing sherlock holmes Derleth: NO Derleth: solar pons is his own original character

Derleth: I asked mr doyle if I could take over sherlock holmes stories Derleth: when he said no Derleth: I spent years devising my own detective Derleth: close enough to be the new holmes but distinct enough to escape Barker: hey you know you can just write sherlock holmes now Derleth: what

Barker: yeah he’s public domain Barker: anyone can just write sherlock holmes Derleth: what Barker: for example Barker: I could write a story where sherlock and dr Watson fuck in gimp suits Derleth: WHAT Barker: yeah that’s right, try to stop me haha

Barker: heyyy maybe I’ll write a story where hell demons eat sherlock holmes’ dick Derleth: no! stop it! Koontz: can I write a sherlock holmes story too? Barker: why of course you can dean Barker: ANYONE can now Barker: and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop you haha

Derleth: noooo Koontz: what if sherlock holmes had a dog Derleth: noooooo Koontz: I bet it would be a bloodhound Derleth: nooooooo Lovecraft: s-so I could also write a sherlock holmes story? Derleth: hey howard Derleth: you know that solar pons meets Cthulhu in the Adventure of the Six Silver Spiders Derleth: thought you might want to know HP Lovecraft: [sweats] Derleth: maybe you’d like to read it? Lovecraft: Derleth: I mean just if you want to Derleth: if you don’t want to it’s no big deal or anything Derleth: that’s fine Derleth: I guess

August Derleth: mr doyle please Derleth: they’re ruining sherlock holmes! Derleth: please make them stop Arthur Conan Doyle: good! Doyle: I hate sherlock holmes! Doyle: he’s so stupid! Doyle: I hate him! Doyle: I hope he dies!

[utilitycaster]

Some of the resentment I've seen of FCG's coin feels like it stems from viewing FCG as less a character than a vehicle for Sam to do bits. They view the coin as Sam doing a bit that isn't landing and is taking up time and space that could go to the actual characters in the group that have stories instead of what they view as a bunch of disconnected jokes. I saw this with FCG going into the Grand Ring, too. People on Twitter saying that that was Sam trying to get the group killed for a laugh.

Truly I have to believe there is either one server or just like...a bunch of very stupid people who all follow each other and parrot each other's takes because the reaction to the Grand Disk especially is absolutely batshit fucking nuts:

If you give a heroic adventurer a weird noise, they are probably going to investigate it. If they investigate it, they are probably going to check it out. If FCG hadn't run in, someone else would have.

This show has been on for literally 8 years now and there has never been a main campaign TPK. Truly the Otohan fight is the only one where I take serious issue with the balance and signaling, and even then, so what, half the party died, they fixed it. Why is this fight different from all other fights?

On top of that this happened before we knew resurrection was broken, too, so like, the reaction during the episode truly makes no sense; the audience knowledge was that this party has THREE people who have revivify and two with Raise Dead and only one true glass cannon. They are arguably better positioned to take on threats than like, Bells Hells the regular party.

If a character dies the cast member will play another character and just based on the track record of past replacement characters the chances are high that they will be just as good if not better. If you don't want to watch a show in which permanent character death is an option then go do that.

I have, recently, actively tried to push back on the "bro do you even play TTRPGs" attitude people sometimes have regarding really stupid criticism, and to be fair this is narrative criticism too but like...unless a TPK is explicitly the goal or baked into the setting as a possibility (eg: Calamity; Neverafter; games designed for it like the Tomb of Horrors module or Call of Cthulhu or something) the GM absolutely does not want a TPK. Do you know how much fucking PAPERWORK is wasted in a TPK. If they had a TPK Matt would have had to look at an entire encounter and backstory regarding, say, Oltgar and Drixlitch, that he had lovingly designed, and go "well, guess that's fucked."

So anyway if you saw FCG go through the gates and your thought was not "ooh, combat" but rather "this will be a TPK" idk work on your breathing exercises or something because that's a wild leap.

Anyway the funniest thing in all of this is that the most recent episode made it clear that it's not just a bit. Also though it's like. Which "actual" characters? Chetney has been pretty decently served as a character, all things considered; the entire solstice plot revolves around Imogen so it's time for Laura to get a well-deserved break so Imogen can actually process and develop as a person rather than just be under constant nonstop stress; I love Fearne but this arc is just not really about her whole deal; and both FRIDA and Deanna have gotten plenty to do. Honestly while balance between characters is not really a thing in the sense that some people make D&D characters with tons of hooks and things to do and paths to take and some do not, and also the overall narrative of the party is important to consider*, the character balance of this particular arc has been the best of the whole campaign.

*most people get this intuitively UNLESS they are particularly stupid, or have either shipping or My Blorbo Is The Protagonist brainrot, to the point that you can diagnose these conditions when someone's previously decent understanding of story falls off a cliff

[wittyno]

Neverafter Episode 3 Spoilers

I’ve seen a lot of discussions about episode three of Neverafter and I’ve got a couple of thoughts

1) “if you’re going to kill the whole party do it in a cut scene” Brian Murphy. While I generally agree with this I think the slow killing of the party works for the horror setting. It’s not about shock value. It’s about dread. The slow building adds to the horror. Like slow consumption. What I liked about the “only a nat 20 will save you” is that you can hold onto hope in increasingly dire circumstances. We have all beheld the magic that is Ally Beardsley (Bardsley). It could have happened but it didn’t.

2) shock value - shock value is my BBEG. The amount of times I have ranted about shock value on this very blog is insane. But I think it’s too early in the process to write this off as shock value. Let us trust that these people know what they are doing. While everyone has bad moments. I have more trust in Brennan’s skill that if this wasn’t going the way he wanted he could have pulled his punches. The whole table has talked about all the safety tools they have. If anyone was uncomfy or wanted to pull a ripcord they could have. They also do check ins.

3) the horror genre - one of big tenant of horror is that things aren’t going to be alright and they will get progressively worse and it is how the characters respond to that. It’s not just ACoC deadly it’s that plus dread and fear and the knowledge that it’s not going to be ok. Call of Cthulhu does a really good job of portraying that. Even some of the intro modules have a very good chance of just TPK’ing your party. Maybe they should have gone full CoC to fully set those expectation. I think they are fully embracing the horror element and that is important. Those red beads are probably a sanity mechanic.

4) the future. The time loop theory is good but for me I’d want them all to be in separate limbos and they have to find their way back. Essentially forcing them to choose. The party or their version of limbo. Fight or submit.

5) It’s ok not to like Neverafter. It’s ok to have a season, even a big one, miss for you. I didn’t like Starstruck at all. But everyone on my dash fucking loves it, and that’s ok. It doesn’t make it bad. We are only on episode three. Give it a minute. Even if it doesn’t get better (for you) that’s fine.

[jellyshark-jester]

Minecraft oc tee hee

Guys I fucked up cuz I made an oppsies and deleted the Minecraft character post thing I’m gonna cry;-; Anyways this means I have an excuse to talk more about them<333

Anyways here’s mine and my friends Minecraft characters tee hee (again;-;)

Right basics the whole lore of the server that I’m running is that everyone isn’t acc form this realm and that we all got stripped off of who we are before we enter this space but you can also make characters that are from the world and shit, so it’s just random shit really.

But in my group all of us aren’t from this land and we band together to feel safe by creating our space called the enchanted grove that is forbidden to enter.

Here’s what the grove looks like hehe:

More info on the character hehe:

Player: Albedo/Aro/Ado (they/them)

First one: Albedo

Height: 5’1.5 (true form is bigger then the milkyway)

Pronouns: they/it/void/she

Age: older then time

Race: void archives angel

Origins: an anomaly born from nothing and is to be an observer to the laws of the universe in it’s empty space. It is weak and fragile but larger then the milkyway. It’s Curiosity with the “human experience” was its downfall, as it takes a smaller shape to be an observer up close, but due to it’s weak state and how fragile it is, one hit from a shooting star can cost its wings as it falls…

After that it spots a woman and shifts into a being that is similar but still retaining its angelic form.

Personality traits: seems reserved but loves and enjoys compony and always drowsy.

Player: Rion (He/him)

Second one: Comet Cosmos

Height: 6’3 (tire form is bigger then most constellations)

Any pronouns and star/starself

Age unknown and hard to date as they’re made up of multiple stars

Race: celestial entity (Comet is a physical manifestation of a constellation)

Origins: Comet is the constellation of the devil who spent eons watching over the world wishing that they could take part in it. One day, a lovely goddess lily took the world from a place of limited resources to a place of love and joy in which more people were welcome to enjoy. By doing this she granted a physical body to the stars themselves so they too could enjoy the world they cared so much for.

Personality: Comet likes to keep to herself, she’s reserved and snarky but curious and passionate.

((To preface that comets origins is acc kinda false but they don’t know that*

Player: Tomo (he/they)

Finally: Precious prince 

Height: 5’0.5 (other form is a giant dumbo octopus bigger then The kraken)

Race: was once a human a long time ago

Pronouns: he/they

Age: also old

Origins: adopted by Cthulhu and is a warlock of chaos that’s just want a brake and a carefree life.

Personality traits: very nice for an chaos warlock<3 but also very nice for a normal guy

The enchantment grove crew<333

What albedo looks like in their true form, i haven’t draw what the other two looks like yet dhdhdhhd

[yourdeepestfathoms]

I have such chaos choir brainrot because of your blog, dude.

That being said do you have any silly little headcanons about the choir kids? Much appreciated if you do :)

-✨

i do!!

here’s…

Ride the Cyclone Kids Playing A D&D Game Based On Silent Hill

(based on my own Silent Hill-based dnd game, which i DM!)

(there’s gonna be A Lot of references to the Silent Hill franchise/lore and to the Call of Cthulhu module, so try to keep up!)

BASICALLY, it’s a completely original storyline and everything, but it uses the Call of Cthulhu module for rolls and stats

Penny is the DM!

And

Good Lord

This girl is RUTHLESS

Her mind? Oh my god. Some of the shit she’s come up with is fucking INSANE.

But we’ll get more into Penny’s mercilessness soon

Characters!

All the others were given simple instructions

Spin a wheel with a bunch of themes on it. They get three themes, and then they must build a character around them

(My players got to pick theirs, but Penny’s doing is differently)

(As in, I’m spinning a wheel to determine the themes for the kids so I can make them random characters)

Ocean’s themes were: Corruption; Identity; and Murder!

Noel’s themes were: Justice, Injustice, and Revenge; Body Image/Body Shaming; and The Meaning Of Happiness and Sorrow

Mischa’s themes were: Murder; Trauma and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder; and Bullying

Ricky’s themes were: Corruption; Rebirth; and Love and Hate

Constance’s themes were: Depression, Grief, and Mental Illness; The Human Condition; and Psychology

The characters were made!

They then did their stats and gave Penny their backstory and reason for being in Silent Hill

Penny, looking at Ricky’s 80 Luck: nice!

Penny, noticing his Sanity is 40: oh no

(Luck is used to negate damage and stuff like that. You can also do a Hail Mary aka Avoid Sudden Death if you have 30, which will allow you to survive an attack that would have killed you otherwise!)

(And then Sanity determines how a character will react to something traumatic or disturbing. You roll to see if your character will be able to tough it out, or if they’ll take Sanity damage. If they take a certain amount of Sanity damage in one session, they’ll suffer a Bout of Madness, which Penny has a WHOLE LIST of effects for. And if you lose ALL your Sanity, your character becomes an NPC and the DM can play them however they want.)

They play in Mischa’s basement, and Penny goes ALL OUT. She’s got props, costumes, the whole nine yards. She does character voices and everything! It’s INCREDIBLE

Finally, it was time to go into Silent Hill!

The plot is this: The party has woken up in a motel to find that the whole town of Silent Hill has become shrouded in fog. They can’t get out of the town, forcing them to traverse the place to find a way to escape. And to get out, they must enter five different Otherworlds designed after each of their character’s, which are made to torment them and put all their trauma and flaws on display. They even get their own customized bosses based on the PCs (player characters), which are HORRIFIC.

There’s also these creatures called the Dark Tormentors, which stalk the PCs and appear from time to time to psychologically torture them. They’re born from the darkest parts of the PCs, can speak, and cannot be killed.

Yeah, Penny went ALL OUT

But the game!!

First session is relatively chill for a horror game about everything that’s horrid in the world. The party starts in South Vale and ends up in Brookhaven Hospital after the Fog World starts to transition into the Otherworld.

Penny BLASTS foghorns for that part, it’s fuckin menacing

While in Brookhaven, the party must compete this puzzle. There’s a door made out of flesh that won’t open without four offerings: a finger, an eyeball, a tooth, and a tongue. These items can be found throughout the hospital, acting as rewards for their own puzzles (but Penny, being the menace she is, does attempt to get the characters to have their PCs maim themselves for the items)

In the kitchen of the hospital, there’s a cooked dog, and Penny deadass looks them in the eye and asks if they want a bite

(She has a whole prepared description of the taste if they say yes)

(None of them do)

(She’s a little bummed)

Penny, after the party enters a cramped room: Are any of you, by any chance, claustrophobic?

Ocean: Yes.

Penny: Interesting.

Noel: No.

Penny: Oh, you will be. You will be.

Noel, fearfully: Wh

Noel: What

Penny: :)

They end up fighting the Missionary from Silent Hill 3 and complete session one!

After that, the pure disturbing horror that Penny has prepared for them is ramped up to one hundred

I’m not gonna go into detail about each and every session they have because I would be here for awhile, and I’m already kinda worried this isn’t the most entertaining batch of headcanons, but I’ll give A TON of highlights!

At one point, the party goes to this market, which has a ton of supplies for them to find. However, there’s a Two-Back sleeping inside of the market, meaning that they have to roll Stealth every single time they want to go to a different stall

THIS is a Two-Back

What do you know, Ocean fails her VERY FIRST Stealth roll, and the whole party has to flee

Ricky, after the party comes to a locked gate: Can I roll Locksmith to try and open it?

Penny: Of course!

Ricky: *rolls Locksmith*

Ricky: *fails*

Penny: You’re a bit rusty on your lockpicking skills. So are your tools. They’re as weak as the branches of the trees all around you and snap with ease. You failed. But that isn’t a surprise, is it? All you do is fuck up. Maybe don’t volunteer unless you know for sure you won’t waste everyone’s time.

Ricky: 😥

Like I said, Penny as a DM is RUTHLESS

But her cruelty is mainly the narrator in the script she has for each session. She purposely wrote the narrator as bitchy and cruel toward the PCs whenever they fuck up.

She had to let everyone know that nothing of what she said was a personal attack, and she loves them all very much

Mischa: Can I try to bust this door down?

Penny: Sure!

Mischa: *rolls*

Mischa: *fails*

Penny: You try to bust the door open, but this is wrought iron you’re dealing with, and you’re basically the Christian version of one of those inflatable men outside car dealerships. You were never going to get it open. Maybe conceal your hubris next time before you embarrass yourself again.

Constance, who wanted to ask if she could pry the door open with a crowbar her character had found: *slowly puts her hand down*

There’s this part where the party encounters this hole in the floor, and Mischa has his character hop down. It ends up being this well, and he shouts up to the others to not come down. Penny asks the rest of the PCs to roll Listen to see if they can hear Mischa’s character tell them to not come down. They all fail. They all then jump down.

Penny, after the party can’t get through a gate around an area they want to explore and are beckoned to follow an unknown voice: Surprisingly, the force doesn’t seem very threatening, just eerie. Will you follow, or do you think you’ll be able to sprout wings and fly to the other side of the fence?

Noel: No.

Penny: Pussy.

Noel: >:O

Okay, so Penny came up with this REALLY COOL puzzle that damn near made Constance shit herself.

So one of the Otherworlds the party explores is in Toluca Prison. In the Interrogation Room, there’s an item that they need to progress sitting on a table. Noel’s character picks it up, which causes his arm to be ensnared by this bear trap-like contraption. To free him, someone must go into the actual interrogation space and lock themselves in these chains attached to the wall. Once they’re in the chains, they gotta make three successful Strength rolls, and doing so will release the trap on Noel’s character.

Here’s the rub: The door to the interrogation space will slam shut and lock the moment someone enters. The whole room is soundproof, and what they thought was a wall of glass is actually a one-way mirror. So the character inside can’t see out to their party, they can only see themselves.

So, Constance’s character is the one who steps into the interrogation space first, which forces her into the role of being Noel’s character’s savior.

She locks herself in the chains and starts the rolls.

First roll is a success! Yay! That’s good!

That’s when Penny pulls Constance out of the room to talk to her one-on-one.

And when she talks to her one-on-one, she describes something absolutely horrific that only Constance’s character can see.

Penny: You notice something in the mirror. There’s something against the wall directly behind you. At first, you think it’s just a trick of the light on the dirty white paint, but then you see it move. You realize that it’s a hand. And if there’s a hand, that must mean there’s a… A body. Something is pushing its way out of the wall. It has no face—instead, there is only a gaping hole. Its limbs are thin and disjointed, and it looks almost mutilated and disfigured. Even without eyes, you know it’s looking directly at you.

To make it even worse, she shows Constance a picture of exactly what she’s dealing with here

This is the creature! It’s called a Raw Shock!

Anyway, Constance’s character must now make three more Strength rolls, but this time with a penalty. And each time she rolls, the Raw Shock gets closer and closer and closer.

She fails.

Which leads her to getting THIS description.

Penny: You feel something snag on the back of your head and pull you backwards by the hair. The creature has caught you, and its touch is icy cold. The longer it has its hands on you, the more warmth you can feel draining from your being, as though this thing is sucking out your body heat to take for its own. The creature, surprisingly strong for its skeletal frame, begins to pull you to the wall it had come from. It seems to want to take you back with it. It also seems to have friends, as you start to notice other hands pushing out from the wall, reaching for you, beckoning for you. The bodies soon follow, and they’re all abstract beings of nightmares: bodies with exaggerated female forms, organs and bones and nipples exposed; bodies that are terribly bloated, bubbles and fungi consuming the pale flesh; bodies like disks, bearing a sliced appearance, as though a knife had been taken to their skin and slashed them to pieces. Whispers fill your ears. Whispers that call your name, that tell you that you’re home, that say it’s safe now, and the voices sound so warm, so genuine. Maybe this is home…

Constance is fucking HORRIFIED

Her character is fine, though! The trap releases Noel’s character, and they all get out!

But Penny has successfully scarred both Constance and her PC

Which is what she wants >:)

*The party is at a door that won’t open (because they need certain puzzle pieces for it)*

Ocean: Maybe you have to…say a magic word?

Ocean: Abra kadabra!

Nothing happens.

Ocean: I don’t know why I thought that would work.

The party takes this LONG ride in an elevator, and while they wait, Penny starts going around, asking everyone who they would eat first if they had to resort to cannibalism to stay alive 😭

Ocean: Can I drink some water?

Penny: Absolutely! Can you just roll me Spot Hidden real fast?

Ocean: Yeah.

Ocean: *rolls*

Ocean: *gets a Regular Success*

Penny: Cool, thanks!

Five minutes later, Penny stops roleplay to tell Ocean that her character has started to violently vomit her blood everywhere

Penny: Hasn’t your mommy ever told you not to drink random water bottles you find in alternate dimensions? Fucking idiot. If you haven’t noticed already, that wasn’t water you drank. It was actually water mixed with hydrochloric acid! You’re going to continue regurgitating your blood for an hour. Also you take 1d8 damage every time it happens. Good going. Stupid bitch.

Ocean was so sad

They go to YET ANOTHER market, and this time there’s no Two-Back there to screw them over

But there ARE a BUNCH of weird as hell stalls for them to explore

One in particular is called Caricature Cabin

Penny, doing the voice of the faceless person who runs the stall: “Hiya! Would you like to have your caricature done?”

Noel: No.

Penny: Then what the fuck are you even doing here?

Constance: I will have my caricature done! Please.

Penny: “Wonderful! Here, sit down! It won’t take very long!”

Penny: You sit down. The artist examines you with eyes that aren’t there, then gets to work. They sketch and color and paint diligently. Once they’re done, they show you, radiating great pride.

Penny: It… it isn’t a caricature. It’s just you drawn as a turtle wearing a wig.

The whole party was HOWLING with laughter

Penny made her own painting of this just for the session

There’s also a stall called “I Sell Weird Lemons”

Penny: The stall consists of a singular lemon sitting on a table. It has googly eyes glued to it. It’s being bidded on.

Penny: The highest bid is $500,000.

Ricky’s character bids on it

He puts $500,001

(He wins the bid)

(The lemon appears to him two sessions later)

The party encounters a pack of Wormheads. Mischa’s character accidentally alerts them and gets attacked by one.

Penny: The Wormhead’s head whips up. The maggots and grub making up its whole face shift around restlessly, emanating a wet sound. Then, suddenly, it’s lunging directly at you.

Penny: Surely it can’t bite with it’s head full of worms, you think to yourself as its head full of worms splits open horizontally to reveal a gaping, oozing maw of insects.

Penny: Oh.

The whole party: 😟

Noel was GAGGING

OH THE NEEDLE PIT!!!!!

I just remembered this trap from my own game

This one is GOOD

SO

The characters are all in this Otherworld for Ricky’s character, and one of the traps is in the Study Room

When they step into the Study Room, they’re all lashed up into those baby bungie harnesses and suspended above the floor

This talking parrot begins to tell them about a game called Truth or Dunk. The parrot will ask them the questions, and as long as the characters answer truthfully, they won’t be dunked into the FLOOR OF DOOM!!!

(It’s just the regular floor)

Ricky’s character is the first to lie, but the harness just lowers a little bit

Ocean’s character is the second to lie, and instead of just being lowered, she drops STRAIGHT through the floor

Because the “regular floor” was all a lie

It seemed to be an illusion of sorts

Underneath it is a giant pit full of needles

Which Ocean’s character is described to be plunged into in very graphic detail

Constance’s character is the third one to go into the pit because the character mentions God at one point, and she refers to him with “he/him” pronouns, when in Silent Hill lore, God uses “she/her”

So into the pit Constance’s character goes!

“YOU GOT DROPPED IN THE NEEDLES BECAUSE YOU MISGENDERED GOD???” -Ocean

One of the Dark Tormentors is named Ideal Daddy (the character it belongs to has daddy issues lol), and when the party meets it, it holds them hostage in a tea party (which Penny brings props and food for!)

But during it, Noel and Mischa’s characters get into this really heated argument over morality

And then others are just There

Ocean, while Noel and Mischa are verbally tearing out each other’s throats: I’m going to offer Daddy some more cake

The party wanted to enter a building Penny didn’t have any content for, so when Mischa’s character tried to kick the door down, she just made the entire building (minus the door) fall out of existence

So

There was this One Boss

A boss that fucked over EVERYONE

This boss belonged to Ocean’s character

It was called the Bloated Lamb, and it was this DISGUSTING fleshy sheep monster that had a very, how do I put this, phallic head

Everyone was groaning in disgust by just its DESCRIPTION

And then combat starts

First round

Two characters die INSTANTLY

Everyone had known about the possibility of death in the game, but they had managed to tough it out for several sessions. There was one close call where Ricky’s character got dropped all the way down to 4 HP (they all got to start with 100), but they used a healing item called an Ampoule on him (which Constance’s character kept in her cleavage lol), which would raise anyone all the back back to full HP

So yeah, they knew about the dangers of death in this game. But they didn’t think much of it because they had managed to get through so much!

They let their guard down.

Foolish mistake.

Penny had been waiting for this day, and it finally came true.

After surviving fights with a scorpion abomination with guns for pincers, a 300 foot long flesh mermaid, a horrifyingly uncanny sphinx monster, a walking skin sack with a giant drill for a hand, the embodiment of toxic masculinity itself, it took just one (1) attack from a big dick sheep to wipe nearly half the party out.

The blood that was spilled that day was delicious.

The victims were Noel and Mischa’s characters.

The Bloated Lamb reared up from the water the battlefield was set on (they were fighting on a ferry) and sprayed acid on them (you can probably get the euphemism here)

However, Mischa actually had enough Luck left to use his Hail Mary, which meant his character got to survive and be set back to full health

Noel’s character, however…

The party got an EXTREMELY detailed description of how their beloved party member looks as he is melted by the Bloated Lamb’s acid

Everyone is now terrified but also PISSED

They gotta get their heads in the game

…Perhaps that is taken a little too literally, though

Round two begins

Constance’s character is killed

The Bloated Lamb literally smashes her into an incredibly gory pulp with its head

And then Ricky’s character is fucking LAUNCHED across this underground lake they’re fighting in because the Bloated Lamb smacked him with its flesh hoof, and he DROWNS

By this point, Mischa and Ocean are STRESSING because they might get a TPK (total party kill)

The entire table is fucking RATTLED

Noel had to get up and walk around because he’s So Overcome, Constance has her head in her hands, Ricky is just in shock because oh my god did his character really DROWN, Ocean and Mischa are SWEATING

And then Penny looks absolutely sinister, feeding on their fear and stress

She Loves This

By some fucking miracle, Mischa and Ocean manage to kill the Bloated Lamb

Even still, the whole party is mourning the loss of their companions…

But then, they get revived! A monster they met before named Valtiel revives the three who died! (but if they die again, then they’re actually fully dead)

And so, the nightmare continues >:)

[probablyevilrpgideas]

I started thinking about Boris' story from the isekai I was posting chapters of here and what that story might be. Starting with who the necromancer who created him was.

I pretty much immediately decided it was a necromancer character i created awhile ago, and got a short chance to play, Kerila/Nisharven. They have a very distinctive appearance I created by melding together visual cues from xenomorphs, Yzma, The Sassomancer (props to @kadabura for such a cool character), and then added some of my own "way overthinking things" to, like how they actually style their hair like that. While Nisharven didn't have a particular race when i created them, Kerila was a githyanki.

I had recently watched a video talking about the Gith (tho i strongly disagree with Pointy Hat's taste, but then I'm an avowed xenophile, so), and decided i definitely wanted to use some of the Gith/mind flayer lore in Boris' backstory.

There's a small problem with that, but a fairly easily surmountable one- WotC claims the Gith and mind flayers as "Product Identity." Which is bullshit, because neither of them originate from D&D. The Gith were created by Charles Stross for a White Dwarf article, and the name was pulled from an old GRR Martin story. Mind Flayers are just starspawn of Cthulhu with the serial numbers and wings filed off. The Gith/Illithid war takes from a book by Larry Niven. So, I personally consider them fair game, since they represent a history of artistic theft. I just need to call them something different and make a few differences.

And given that I actually think about how fantasy species and cultures function, that's easy to do.

Which is a long ass prologue for what I actually am making this post to talk about:

How To Create Truly Alien Cultures

Mind Flayers are described as utterly alien in mind and body. They see themselves as the apex of life, superior to all other life, and as destined to rule the multiverse, creating order under their rubbery grasp.

They see "lesser" lifeforms as only fit to be food, brainwashed thralls, or, essentially, breeding stock. They believe that they are giving these creatures "a gift" when they eat their brains.

These two things don't fucking compute.

This "we are superior to you, and true order can only be found if you submit to our rule" bullshit is all too fucking human. If this is your take on illithids, they're not alien, they're Nazis with squids for heads and slightly more complex justifications.

But, I read up on the canon, because there's this inherent tension between "we eat brains" and "we reproduce by putting our larva in brains." I wanted to see what the existing lore was to see if I needed to square that circle. I don't. A mind flayer only *needs* one brain a month because they actually primarily subsist on the psionic energy of the brain. A mind flayer who can might eat one or two brains a week, but in general they eat a brain every couple weeks, along with other things, such as organs other than brains, which are like healthy snacks to them since they contain the non-psionic stuff their bodies need.

But the lore also contains the seeds to actually start making them genuinely alien.

Let's start with the thing I remembered and didn't need the lore to refresh my memory on- for an Illithid, the Good Ending of life is for their brain to be put in their home elder brain's pool to become one with it. Every Illithid, no matter their personal goals, unless they've gone rogue or something, is aiming for an afterlife where they become one with the ruler of their personal community. That is Illithid Heaven.

Now, the things I needed the lore to remind me of-

When an Illithid consumes a brain, they receive the memories, personality, etc of the person whose brain they eat. The mind of the victim is absorbed into the Illithid's own mind.

There is one major point of lore I discard, the idea that illithids have no gender and instead individually lay one or two clutches of eggs in their lifespans. Like, I'm here for genderfuckery, but if we're going to make aliens, let's fucking make aliens. Have the tadpoles spawn directly from the elder brain through budding.

This is how you make the "brain consumption is a gift" thing work from the mind flayers' perspective!

The Cycle of One and Self

Ok, so, first you have to step into the webbed, two-toed feet of a mind flayer. You value your individuality, but also long to return to the elder brain which spawned them. For you, your individual life is but a short time in which you serve as a node of the community, to accomplish its goals away from the pool.

Further, you absorb non-illithids into your number when you eat. You don't see the act of consumption as an end of that person, you see it as helping them ascend to be part of a greater whole, which you likewise wish to ascend to. Your brain and mind is a way station for those who were not spawned from the Great One and are not destined to become extensions of it through ceremorphosis.

Now, we can understand this way of thinking, from an academic sense, but it's substantially non-human, in a way that "you are lesser beings and must be controlled by us superior beings" isn't. It gives the illithids a philosophy and a pathos that a person can almost sympathize with, but not, because to accept that perspective, one must sort themselves into "food."

This isn't a whole genuine alien mindset, but it's a good start. A much better start than, say, "look they just do things that seem random, but that's because we don't understand them." There's a logic, however abhorrent or frightening. It actually makes internal sense and isn't just "this is a thing we don't like to think of historical human actions, so it seems alien to us."

[historia-gloria]

Hellou! I just saw in your latest ask game you also play dnd (or write dnd characters? ). If you feel like it, I would love to hear about your characters! As in your favourite tidbits, favourite backstory detail or, if you play, funniest twist of story you didn't see coming... Anyway have a lovely day!

AAAAAHHH

Okay this is maybe one of the sweetest asks I've ever had, I love talking about my DND characters and will do so for forever Thank you So much for asking ❤️❤️

So I've been playing DnD for over 5 years now, started out as a DM (woof that learning curve!) and have since then both played and DMed a lot. I mostly play DnD 5e, but I've also played Pathfinder 2e, Shadow of the Demon Lord and Call of Cthulhu.

Currently, I have three active DnD characters and one Pathfinder character (and one retired who I will never not think about) so here's a bit about them!

Nym Silentshard, Drow Night Cleric: My beloved baby Nym is a cleric who never really meant to be a cleric? When I originally envisioned the character he was a warlock but then the party ended up without any healers or mages, so I switched him to a cleric. He's young, bright and full of anxiety. The DM for that campaign is so good and Nym's god is a voice in his head which is slowly developing into a proper god with his help. Poor Nym is somewhat doomed by the narrative and was sacrificed to bring his god into being, which means he's slowly becoming a Saint (a monstrous creature created when that person wishes a god into being) but he's trying his best and his god Osiris is so kind to him.

Pollux Azari, Kalashtar Oath of Hope Paladin/Shadow Soul Sorcerer/Barbarian: Oh Pollyyy. He's my Curse of Strahd PC and if you know anything about that game, it's that it really fucks up your characters. Pollux was originally a ray of sunshine type character, oath of hope paladin and CoS has just absolutely destroyed him, he's now full of rage! Genuinely a really fun character to play and my DM has been so good at helping him get worse ahaha

Nox Leukos, half elf Artillerist Artificer: Nox is a character I've had the great joy to be able to come back to, with the campaign restarting after a 3 year gap. He was originally an asshole, but ended up in a coma back when the campaign when on hiatus and woke up from that with a lot of realizations about maybe having a moral compass aha. The DM really pulled the rug out from under us and revealed that the fiance of another PC had cured Nox of his coma but also had published her research about that without telling him that he was the subject!!

Infernus Nyrin, Fire Genasi Lycanthrope Blood Hunter/Hearth Cleric: This is my retired PC (he is also my pfp aha), he was my first long term PC and we finished his four year long campaign last year and God that was such a fucking insane and incredible campaign. He was originally a blood hunter and mercenary who had a soft spot for the PCs and then he just never left. He was fiercely loyal but deeply untrusting and had an almost suicidal tendency to step in front of danger. He died twice and would go unconscious like at least once a combat honestly. The DM helped me multiclass into a hearth cleric, so he ended the campaign retiring with his husband to a small village where he was one of the most important clerics in his whole religion, a soft epilogue for a character who had spent his whole life fighting.

Magnus Zyryah, undine bard: Magnus is my pathfinder character! He's in a short campaign that takes a lot of inspiration from fairy tales, so I did too! He is basically the Little Mermaid. Magnus is a trans man with a curse that is slowly and painfully turning his body to seafoam, so he's an ambulatory wheelchair user with chronic pain (I also have chronic pain, so it was good to explore that myself) and he's trying to make the best of his life before it is cut short by the curse. My boyfriend is playing The Prince and his character and Magnus had a relationship before Magnus transitioned and the Prince is looking for Magnus, but doesn't know that he's now a man!! Also to add complications, that campaign is set in a timeloop so we're living the same day over and over.

Special shout out to Milosh Greywing my Shadow of the Demon Lord character who got lucky enough to be part of an insanely perfect party where accidentally every character was hiding something important about themselves from the others but also we needed each other to escape, that party was a special kind of magic with illegal mages and dhampirs and religious inquisitors who all couldn't trust each other but couldn't get out without the others!

This is waaaaay longer than I expected but I just love DnD so much and I love being able to talk about my characters so much