#anyway vampires exist in that one codex and they WILL let us in one day. or so help me

[vigilskeep]

i was discussing some of these a while back with @v-arbellanaris but they’re still on my mind... some ideas for dragon age subclasses...?

mage:

hedge mage - you have spent much of your life on the run from chantry control, and survival has been a better teacher than any dusty book. a “jack of all trades, master of none” ability lets you learn limited spells from other specialisations, and you have access to a stealth skill tree

glyph scribe - you are a learned expert in the arcane, and glyphs are a second language your enemies won’t understand until it’s too late. you have access to a unique skill tree of glyphs that react when your enemies step on them. you may cast one—or more, as you level up—during the pause at the start of combat

primalist - fire was your childhood plaything, the earth is putty in your hands, and lightning always strikes twice if you ask it nicely. you have increasing bonus damage in your element of choice. your elemental AOE attacks have wider range, you may ignore enemy resistances to elemental damage, and your elemental spells cause no friendly fire no matter the difficulty

rogue:

templar hunter - you were once a deadly weapon in the hands of the templar order, bringing back its most feared apostates dead or alive. whether or not you regret the past, you cannot leave it behind. you have access to a templar skill tree, some of its abilities exclusively possible to use at long range

vampire - you were temporarily possessed by a voracious demon, and it left its mark. it left its hungers. you may drink your enemies’ blood to regain health or fuel demonic abilities

arcane trickster - while blades or bows are still your best allies, the trace of magic in your blood gives you limited access to spellcasting. unable to create anything real enough to touch, you manifest illusions that bemuse your foes. you have access to a unique skill tree of primarily defensive buffs and disorienting spells

warrior:

dog lord - like all great fereldan warriors, you are never better than with your trusty hound at your side. you gain an animal companion, though unlike rangers, you level up your mabari as you progress rather than unlocking different types of animal. you can also equip kaddis warpaint on yourself instead of a helmet, providing further buffs to you and your mabari

enhanced soldier - you were born ordinary, but that doesn’t mean you have to remain so. you supplement your skills with powerful potions brewed by secretive alchemists or your own careful hands. you have access to a unique skill tree, with a variety of potions that temporarily boost your stats and attack speed or allow you unnatural power. to improve them even further, collect special ingredients from areas of the map where the veil is considered thin

half-golem - you are a failed experiment. attempts to recreate the golems of old left you with thick stone skin over parts of your body. you cannot equip armour or weapons. instead, you equip crystals that help you inflict and resist different types of damage, and have access to a unique skill tree that supports your natural armour and powerful unarmed attacks

[khaleesiofalicante]

Historical Inaccuracies

So, remember how we all yelled about Alec finding out about Magnus inventing the portals with Henry? Yeah, so it led to this ;)

You can read the fic here on ao3 too :)

“I’ll never get used to it,” Alec told his husband as they returned home from Cirenworth. “Sure, the runes are amazing. The angel blood is pretty cool. But portals. Damn!”

Magnus only chuckled, setting down the box of cookies Jem and Kit had baked for the kids.

“Sometimes I really pity the mundanes,” Alec continued, taking off his shoes and jacket. “I mean, we live in New York. I can’t imagine travelling without portals. Oof!”

“Alexander, you have been spoiled!” Magnus chuckled harder.

Alec winked at his husband. “I wish I could make portals. Then I can go anywhere I want anytime I want.”

“You 're married to a warlock. You already do,” Magnus pointed out. “Besides, you can’t make portals without a warlock. You need our magic and panache.”

“Clary can though,” Alec pouted. “How can she make portals without warlock magic? It doesn’t make sense.”

“She got herself to engaged to Jace,” Magnus pointed out. “A lot of things Clary does doesn’t make sense.”

Alec giggled at that and flopped down on the bed, his t-shirt discarded on the floor. Magnus walked sat down next to him.

“Alright, think of it this way,” Magnus said. “What Clary does, that’s pure magic. Straight from the angels. But what we do…It isn’t just magic, it’s also science.”

“Oh,” Alec said, propping his face on his palms.

“Henry created the portals only after tinkering with them for weeks. It was an experiment, you see? It was a combination of science and magic. While Clary’s powers are no doubt fascinating, I’ve always preferred warlock portals. It’s a combination of nature and nurture. A fine balance of how all things should be. Actually, back in the day-”

Magnus stopped abruptly, but only because Alec was giving the biggest heart eyes in the world.

“Stop it!” Magnus blushed.

“I can’t help it,” Alec grinned. “I love it when you talk about magic. It’s like watching Simon talk about movies or Jace talk about weapons, but 100 times better and it doesn’t make me want to jump off the balcony.”

Magnus laughed. “Anyways, I’m saying you’re right. Portals might be the coolest invention because they combine science and magic. See how much we can achieve when we allow to entertain mundane thoughts?”

Alec smiled. “I wish I was there when the first portal was made. It must have been so badass!!”

“It was actually rather terrifying,” Magnus said. “We were off to defeat Mortmain. We didn’t know if it would work. Knowing Henry, there was an equal chance of us ending up in the Thames. But it all worked ou-”

“Hold up,” Alec interrupted. “What do you mean ‘we’?”

Magnus blinked.

“Magnus,” Alec said. “Were you there when the first portal was made?”

“You’re welcome,” Magnus winked. “Now, what should we have for dinner? I’m craving ba-”

“I don’t understand,” Alec looked stunned. “I didn’t know. How could I have not known? I should have never slept during the history lessons!”

“You shouldn’t have,” Magnus chuckled softly. “If it’s any consolation, it wouldn’t have mattered if you’d been awake either. Contributions of warlocks such as myself are not usually a part of the Nephilim curriculum.”

Alec only stared. "But that's ridiculous. Surely it must be in the Codex. I remember there is an entire subsection on portals.”

“Alexand-” Magnus called, but Alec had already jumped off the bed and was going to Rafael’s room.

He came back a moment later, flipping through the pages furiously.

“The first successful portal was created in 1878, a collaboration between Henry Branwell, then head of the London Institute, and a warlock whose name history, unfortunately, does not record.”

Alec looked up from the book.

“This is bullshit. BULLSHIT!”

“Alec-”

“Whose name history unfortunately doesn’t record?” Alec repeated. “Well, that’s fucking convenient, isn’t it?”

“It’s just an oversight,” Magnus shrugged.

“This is outright bigotry and discrimination!” Alec yelled. “It’s racist!”

“Alec,” Magnus called. “Shh! You’ll wake up the kids.”

“Good! They should hear this! In fact, everyone should,” Alec took out his phone.

“What are you doing?” Magnus asked, getting up from the bed and walking to his husband quickly.

“I’m texting the group,” Alec said, punching the buttons as if he was punching a demon. “Everyone should know about this. I’m going to send mass fire messages to every shadowhunter-”

Magnus grabbed Alec’s phone away. “Darling, it’s midnight. You need to calm down.”

“Calm down?” Alec asked incredulously. “Magnus, I’m pretty sure, No-I’m 100% certain that none of us would be alive if it wasn’t for you. I’ve heard enough stories from Jem and Tessa to know what you have done. And this is what you get back in return?”

“I never did any of those things hoping I’d get something back in return,” Magnus pointed out. “It doesn’t matter to me.”

“But it does to me,” Alec replied. “It matters to me that your kindness is valued. It matters that your power is respected. It matters that your contribution is acknowledge. It does matter, Magnus.”

Magnus only sighed and sat down on the bed again. “What do you what me to do?”

“You don’t have to do anything,” Alec said, his voice softer now. “You’ve done enough and more. It’s us. Nephilim need to do better.”

“Nephilim need to do better,” Magnus chuckled softly. “Could be your slogan for a reelection campaign.”

“Magnus, I-” Alec faltered. “If this is the how the Clave operates, then I'm not sure I want to be a part of it.”

“Alec, no!” Magnus said forcefully. “Don’t you ever say that. Many Consuls wouldn’t have even bothered about this. You do. Shadowhunters need a leader like you.”

“Someone who didn’t even know his husband invented the portal?” Alec mumbled.

“Someone who gives a shit,” Magnus smiled. “Someone who cares – not just about the shadowhunters but about all of shadow world.”

They were quiet for a moment. The only sound in the apartment was the windchime from Max’s room.

“I’m sorry,” Alec said quietly. “I’m sorry they did this to you.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Magnus caressed his husband’s cheek. “It’s not your fault.”

“It isn’t,” Alec said. “But downworld erasure like this exists because no one bothered to question it. I did know a warlock helped Henry but I never bothered to look it up. It didn't matter to me.”

Magnus kissed Alec on the cheek. “It’s alright. I never cared for credit anyway.”

“I know, Magnus,” Alec smiled. “But I...I got the Codex from Rafe’s study table. I don’t want our son learning from a book that only documents half of what happened. It isn’t fair.”

Magnus’ face softened at that. “Okay. If it matters so much to you. Then I will talk to Rafael in the morning.”

“No,” Alec said. “This isn’t just about Rafe. It’s about all the kids.”

Alec looked away, as if he was ashamed.

“You know I wasn’t always like this. I was bigoted too – in my own way. And I think…If I had known…If someone had taught me, it would have helped. If shadowhunters had been taught history as it is, and how it should have been…We could have avoided wars. We could have avoided so much loss.”

“You could have,” Magnus said quietly. “It isn’t just warlocks who are erased. Faries, werewolves, vampires…even mundanes.”

Alec looked pained. “Ignorance breeds hatred. We can’t go on like this.”

“I agree, Alexander,” Magnus said. “But sending a mass fire messages in the middle of the night or spamming the group chat isn’t going to fix this. You said it yourself. This attitude is discriminatory. Discrimination and racism can’t be erased overnight. If you really want to fix this, then you need to sit down and think about this properly.”

Alec was quiet for a moment. A long one.

Then he held out his hand, clearly asking for his phone. Magnus sighed and gave it back.

He started pressing the buttons rapidly again before throwing the device on the bed. “Alright.”

“Did you just scream at the entire clave in all caps?” Magnus laughed, a little nervous.

“No,” Alec said, pulling Magnus into his arms. “Just texted Diego and Simon. I want to talk to them first thing in the morning.”

Magnus raised an eyebrow.

“I’m going to ask Simon to analyze the existing curriculum at the Academy. Catarina should help him. I want to know what the future generation is learning. I want to know how much of it is the truth,” Alec said. “And I’m going to ask Diego to put a team together to rewrite the codex.  We’ll make sure we have representatives from the downworld. If we are going to teach history, then it needs to be as accurate as possible. The Codex should be a book of truth, not carefully worded propaganda.”

“Lots of people might not like the truth,” Magnus said quietly.

Alec kissed him the forehead and shrugged. “Too bad. They picked me as the Consul. Now they gotta deal with it.”

Magnus laughed, his voice becoming softer as it was filled with unending happiness.

“Nobody gets left behind,” Alec promised. “Not this time.”

“Thank you,” Magnus smiled.

“For what?” Alec chuckled. “Giving a shit?”

Magnus shrugged and hugged his husband close, never wanting to let go.

“Thank you,” Alec whispered. “I know the Codex doesn’t say it. But thank you. For all that you do. For all that you are.”

[prose-for-hire]

Penny for your thoughts

Pairing: Wesley x reader

Request: Not requested. I just needed to write something from my own brain !! Inspired very loosely by season 3′s ‘earshot’. Reader can read minds and struggles with this. One day, they meet Wesley and thoughts threaten to spill. [Italics = thoughts]

Warning: Very mild violence mentioned. Hostage situation.

When you first meet people, you always knew exactly what your first impression on them is. Sometimes it was good, others not so good. But it was never as disastrous as the time you met Wesley. He hadn’t been in a good mood that day anyway, he was late and his research had led to nothing. Even worse, he would have to face Giles and admit that he had been wrong about which codex the relevant information would be in.

It was the early morning and you had arrived at your new job. You had needed something normal, you weren’t to know that living in Sunnydale would be the furthest thing from normality. You were the new school administrator, hired only because you knew the exact answers that Snyder was looking for when he interviewed you.

There was something about you that people couldn’t tell just by looking at you. You were telepathic. You could read people’s minds. That’s how you knew exactly how much he disliked your demeanour. Some people were jealous of your abilities, but often you decided it wasn’t worth the constant headache (both metaphorical and unfortunately literal too).

Whenever anybody found out, they often held you at arm’s length. People liked to keep their thoughts in their own heads, apparently. Not in yours. You had been practicing ways to ease the headaches and thus quietening the voices down inside your mind. These foreign thoughts bubbled up when you focused on someone you were near, but you could block out a lot of it now. Thanks to a lot of practice.

This morning, Wesley had been trying to walk straight past the front office and into the library without being stopped – but you had got in the way of that. You stepped in front of him and he stared at you as if he was trying to burn holes into you.

“Yes?” he asked curtly, looking past you now towards the corridor he should be walking down.

“Hi, I’m Y/n, the new administrator. Snyder’s asked me to put this sign-in sheet in place for, uh, late staff…”

“This is ridiculous! I am barely a minute past the hour-”

“I know, but you still need to sign…” You said, your voice wavering as he thought about how he wished that you would explode into dust like a vampire and leave him alone. He scribbled something illegible onto your sheet and stormed away, cursing you both in his head and under his breath as he walked.

You sighed. You learned two things on your first day at Sunnydale High, one being that doing your job and contractually having to side with Snyder wasn’t going to win you any friends. And a second being that vampires, demons and evil existed. Which, I mean, you guessed it must be true if you had the abilities that you did but it was finally confirmed to you.

The rest of the term went on like this, with you only ever encountering Wesley the same way and him getting decidedly more annoyed with you every time. You, on the other hand, became more fond of him. You learnt more about him every morning through his thoughts and found him to be a kind and genuine man who was just desperate to prove himself to the people he now worked with.

After getting a cold reception ever since you met him, one morning was a little bit different. Not only because Wesley was early but he made a point by saying good morning very loudly to you to which made you smile widely at him. You couldn’t help it, his thoughts had made you really like him. He faltered only slightly and you didn’t quite catch what he thought as he brusquely walked past.

Much like in verbal conversation, you didn’t always hear everything clearly if you weren’t focusing enough. Moreover, you often tried to make a point of letting people have as much privacy as you could. You could hear an underlying buzzing of everyone’s thoughts but if you focused and isolated on a person you could hear it clearly. But everything was always so busy it could be hard to catch things clearly sometimes.

In some instances, however, some specific thoughts called out to you with an almost painful clarity. This happened later that same day. You had walked into the library to explain to Giles that there had been some complaints from students that they had been turned away from the library for no good reason when it hit you.

I will eat them. I will kill them all…

You must have reacted very obviously as Giles with sincerity asked if you were okay. You rushed out your words, knowing that this was a lot to suddenly admit – but you knew these were the right people to tell.

“There’s something in here, the school I mean. Something looking to eat people. You need to, uh, do some research. The Sumerian will have to wait, this is happening. And soon-”

“H-how did you know about-” Giles began, he had just thought about beginning to read the Sumerian text he needed.

“Uh, yeah, so, I can read thoughts and I know I can trust you because you save the world often between school opening hours and I never once thought about telling Snyder so please just trust me?”

“I knew it!”

“You have never thought that before, Mr. Wyndam-Pryce”

I may have done… eventually.

“But you didn’t” You smiled softly and he looked at the ground. Giles caught this look between you and your seemingly one-sided conversation. You found his look endearing and found yourself thinking this for a moment too long before snapping yourself out of it.

Nobody tried to test you or question you after they chose to trust you. They appeared to be able to tell how genuine and how much you appeared to want to help. So, they listened to what you said and began to do more patrolling. Some even questioned other students in case they had seen anything suspicious (which, they had it just didn’t happen to be the kind of suspicious you were all currently researching).

Buffy and her group of friends were guarded around you with their thoughts which you were used to, people really didn’t like their thoughts being shared. But at the same time, you could hear that they thought you were pretty cool which was really a big compliment.

You were all searching for this demon on the school campus, it had been a week by this point and you and Wesley kept being paired up by Giles. Whether that look you gave him had inspired him to be a match-maker or he was truly oblivious and just wanted the two of you far away from him you didn’t know. Either way, you had quickly been adopted into the little team.

Wesley was bashful and often began tripping over his words to talk about anything that you appeared to take an interest in. He began to warm to you once he realised you had just been trying to keep your job and not trying to ruin his career as a watcher (and fake librarian).

You kept listening intently as you and him did your usual loop around the school, having to hope everyone in the school could forgive you listening to every single thought in search of the person you had heard that day. You were sieving through every thought anyone had ever had and it was getting tiring. Exhausting, even. Your head was so full it began to spin almost violently. A merry-go-round you could never get off, it kept going faster the more you listened.

While you were listening one day in the library, Wesley, who you had been distracted by and had been watching from the other side of the room had moved to stand beside you. You hadn’t noticed him, much less that he was speaking until your legs gave way from under you. You started to collapse to the ground until his arms reached to catch you. It was instinct, he gripped you tight preventing you from falling. He allowed you to shift some of your weight onto him as you walked towards a chair. He turned away to make you a cup of your beverage of choice to relax you.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Wesley said softly as he sat beside you. His demeanour so different from how he had been even a week ago. You had become fond of him much before this, but he was just beginning to warm to you. To understand you had only been doing your job, helping his when you could. You had been leaving notes of thoughts you had overheard on Wesley and Giles’ desks ever since you realised what was going on with the school and the Hellmouth.

“If I got a penny for every thought I heard… I would be rich” You smiled, but you appeared washed out and weakened as you tried to raise yourself from your seat. This was a mistake, you began to go dizzy and tried to still yourself, raising your hand to your head. Without you noticing (or, admittedly himself until it happened) his hand rested on the back of yours. Your stomach flipped, an elation rising inside at the mere whisper of his touch.

He leaned in closer, his face now level with yours. The proximity sent shivers through your body. You closed your eyes, focusing only on his touch. No thoughts, not even your own should interrupt this. It was promise. Of care, of some deep down need to comfort you. No matter if his intentions were romantic or otherwise, just knowing he cared meant something. It was enough to keep you happy. You wanted to stay in this moment, where his touch was yours.

But, of course this was Sunnydale. Wesley had appeared to help you clear your mind. Enough to hear something.

Kill… Eat… Kill… Eat again

“No!” You shouted, a completely different style of shivers now went up your spine. You were horrified at the images you were starting to see. The thoughts were getting stronger which meant… they were getting closer. If only you could make out exactly where.

“Y/n, I apologise. I should n-not have thought to-”

“Wesley, no, that was- well, it-” You paused and sighed. This was a conversation for another time. You just wanted to tell him how much the tenderness of his touch meant, but it really wasn’t the right moment, “Demon. I heard the demon! I think it’s in the basement” You rushed out, gesturing for him to follow you.

How is that possible? We checked at least a dozen times.

It could have been hiding or somewhere else – it could have even been invisible. I just know where it is now.

You nodded, thinking this was the only reply you had given him. He blinked not once but twice. He was surprised to say the least. You had communicated to him without speaking. You were fascinating to him. He looked at your lips before scanning the rest of your face as he thought how much he wished that he could…

No. Better not think on this now. His mind may run wild and the last thing he needed was you catching this particular train of thought.

You stepped gingerly into the dark basement, the light was very dim but you were both able to just about get your bearings. You could hear the thoughts again, louder and louder as you approached. All this guy seemed to do was think about killing and eating.

Talk about one track mind.

Wesley made a noise that sounded like a laugh. You didn’t realise that it was in reaction to your own thoughts. But any remnants of a smile was wiped off his face when he saw the scene before him.

There was a pit of what appeared to be lava with a green coloured demon hanging precariously above it. In the corner of the room, a man that looked human apart from the sizeable canines and horns protruding from his face.

Without thinking and notedly before the demon in the corner of the room had spotted you, you started to pull at the rope that the green demon was suspended from. Wesley, although the frown on his face read as a reluctance to assist what would usually be seen as the enemy, came and helped you anyway. Especially when he saw how affected you clearly were by what you could hear of the demon’s thoughts.

You managed to untie the rope that was fixed in place to keep the demon suspended just as the man who intended to dine on them began to run at you. This made your hand slip, letting go of the rope and making the green-hued figure drop into the pit with a scream.

As Wesley moved to protect you, using the skills he could remember through the fog of fear he was experiencing you ran to the pit. You gasped, pleased to see the four hands were clinging onto the crumbling side of the pit. The demon hadn’t fallen into the pit yet – you still had time to help.

“Take my hand!” You shouted over the noise, opening your palm for the green demon to take. You could hear the demon’s desperation, their thoughts that it was the end. You couldn’t bear it. You had to help them.

“Go” Wesley shouted to the green demon as you both helped them up from the pit. The demon whose thoughts brought you into the basement became even more mad at this and began to attack you fiercely.

You managed to keep the demon at bay until reinforcements arrived. Buffy and Angel soon ran into the basement and held off the demon from snapping off your limb and eating it like a chicken leg. You did all you could to assist with the fight and shouted out the demon’s intended movements out to give the others the upper hand.

Wesley walked you home that evening, after Willow spoke an incantation to close up the lava pit and make it very hard to enter the basement (the last thing you needed was anyone else setting up (evil) shop down there).

You continued to be a big part of the group as the months went on. You would spent a lot of your time researching and learning all you could from demons and the students to help Buffy fight. You didn’t have the heart to tell the others that they weren’t fooling anyone – most people had at least some idea there was something special about her and her super-strength.

As you did your bit to save the world, your mind was never far from him. You had grown close, savouring every detail you learned about him. You knew that through the sometimes clumsy and ‘proper’ exterior, there was a kind and well-intentioned heart. He wished to open up to you, but his upbringing made it hard for him to grow out of the need to hide his emotions and feelings.

He caught your eye during a meeting and you couldn’t stop your own thoughts from flowing.

I love him. Wow, is this what being in love feels like? I can’t stop thinking about him…

He smiled wider as you thought this which made you want to hold him into you even more. Everything about him, from his need to stick to what he had been taught to the letter to the deeply sensitive and caring parts of him he revealed with out even meaning to and everything in between.

He was soon the reason you arrived at work with a smile on your face. Just to catch a glimpse of him or hear something from him. It meant everything.

Graduation day came and so did the battle against the Mayor and his ascension. As rubble, dust and demons lay defeated around you, he made his way straight towards you. Ensuring that you were safe. That you hadn’t been hurt.

“I think I’m out of a job” You joked, still catching your breath after the fight. But this was a futile task as Wesley rested his hand against the base of your skull and pulled you towards him, crashing your lips with his. 

His lips glided over yours, a subtle urgency igniting your continued passion for him. You grasped at the shirt that had been ripped in the fight, feeling the warmth of his skin as you kissed him with all the feeling within. He pulled you nearer still, no matter how close you were to him would never be enough.

This fight had put everything into perspective. He needed you, he loved you just as he was sure you felt the same. He couldn’t hide away from revealing the deepest parts of himself from you anymore. He had only kept it because he was sure that his mind was deceiving him. You couldn’t possibly feel those things for him. Those things he had dreamed and hoped and wished that you would say. It had appeared too good to be true.

“My entire life I have found myself having to prove myself, to work to be accepted. When I met you, without realising until much after, my heart started beating again. I began to live because you made me feel like I matter. That I could make a real difference.”

“Wes, you make a difference everyday…”

“Well, before I met you it appears that I had been living my life wrong”

What does this mean?

“It means that, uh, I was miserable. You showed me a joy to life that I had not even considered” He replied before continuing to explain how much you meant to him, “You do the right thing, the decent thing, no matter if it is written in the watchers handbook or otherwise. To assist even a demon in their hour of need, I am in awe of you. Truly”

You smiled, leaning in to press your lips against his again, ready to tell him exactly how you felt about him. You couldn’t hide this feeling you held, your soft adoration enveloping him in the best way.

As you leaned against him, you realised something – he had just answered your thought. He knew everything, had heard every adoring thought fact that he had been too polite to reveal to you until recently. He had been able to read your thoughts.

You had been so wrapped up in your feelings in a way you never had before, your feelings for him were just so strong, that you had managed to broadcast your own consciousness into his mind. Only such strong and true feelings could do this, you were sure of it. He confirmed this to you later when he revealed he had done extensive research on it.

The soft aroma of love now surrounded you, it smelled of him. Cologne and old books. This smell surrounded the area, which thankfully masked the smell of dead demon in the air. You walked away from the battle, victorious, now in more ways than one. You felt as if you were on top of the world, invincible by his side.

With his confession and your minds entwined with the deepest sentiments of love, you didn’t think twice when he asked you to leave Sunnydale with him. You would embark on a trip spanning several states, the two of you fighting evil and helping others. You grew closer, adoring every inch of the other and finally made your home, at least for a while, in Los Angeles.

[lunarmoonflowyr]

Because I’m bored I’m going to write down a bunch of my passive thoughts on a new game I started playing and because once I start making streaming/youtube content related to viddy game I might make a video on this

Vambrace: Cold Soul Initial Impressions

Vambrace: Cold Soul is a game by Devespresso Games, an independent game developer based out of Seoul, South Korea who’s other notable titles seem to be a series of horror adventure games titled “The Coma”. 

Vambrace however, is a game far more akin to something like Darkest Dungeon in visual style and gameplay design however the Steam store page description has it claiming to be inspired by “the gothic fantasy of Castlevania, the deep lore of a series like The Elder Scrolls, the replayability of roguelites like FTL: Faster Than Light, and the sweeping, character-driven epics of our favorite JRPGs.”

This is going to be a small writeup of my initial impressions after 2 hours of the game. 

THE STORY SO FAR

We are a woman named Evelia Lyric, although she just goes by Lyric most of the time so that’s what I’ll be referring to her as throughout the rest of this writeup. Lyric immediately begins showing tell-tale signs of “JRPG Protagonist Syndrome”, as she:

1. Survives being passed out in a freezing arctic-like environment while wearing what could maybe be called clothing for a slightly harsh winter in New England, and comes out of it with barely any complications to speak of

2. Has an (allegedly) famous father who leaves her a Mysterious Book That No One Can Read, and the titular Vambrace, which is now apparently fused to her arm, that lets her pass through what the game refers to as the “Frostfell”, a massive magical ice barrier surrounding the city of “Icenaire” that apparently kills anyone who touches it. Apparently she can also one-shot evil ghosts with it, but only in the narrative. She did it in a cutscene once, and so far that hasn’t translated to gameplay.

3. Has so-far-unmentioned heterochromia

4. Gets a high-ranking soldier to trust her almost immediately when only one brief conversation ago he had a suspicion that she was a spy for “The Green Flame”, apparently some rival faction that’s very, very Not Good. 

Getting confused by all the random names yet? Trust me, it doesn’t really get much better. This game’s story shows a lot of the very painful signs of an over-written, over-developed fantasy world that someone very obviously put a lot of time and love into, but didn’t really know where to stop.

Names, places, and concepts are thrown at you non-stop with a new one being introduced almost every dialogue sequence if you spend time talking to the locals of Icenaire once you convince the guard captain to let you go wandering the streets. You can also find random lore pages strewn around the place that add even more lore on top of everything else. 

It all gets to be so dense and confusing you almost completely lose track of what the actual, present-day story is. The game has no trouble throwing random scraps of lore at you, full of names that mean nothing, but when it comes to actually explaining what the hell is going on right now, it falls a bit short. Here’s my understanding so far. 

Lyric’s father has either died or mysteriously disappeared, I can’t remember which, and she’s been left a letter, a book, and the titular Vambrace. The book is referred to in the game mechanics as “The Codex” and is referred to by NPCs as a “book that nobody can read”, because apparently foreign languages don’t exist in this world, yet so far I’ve counted 6 or 7 distinct fantasy races that apparently all speak the exact same language all the time. 

The vambrace has fused itself to Lyrics arm, and her fathers letter tells her to go to Icenaire (I have no fucking clue what that name is supposed to mean by the way, and it sounds really fucking awkward to say so it has to mean -something-. The “ice” part is pretty self-explanatory if a little on the nose, the entire game takes place in what appears to be an apocalypse along the lines of if you took the events of “Frozen” and turned it up to 11, but the only insight I could get on the “naire” part is that it’s from the Irish Gaelic word “náire” which means something along the lines of “ashamed” or “to have shame”. So this city is basically named “ice-ashamed”, which I have no clue what that’s supposed to mean, and it’s bothering me enough that I’ve gone on an entire run-on paragraph to rant about it because it sounds stupid to say and exactly like a city name I would’ve come up with for my crappy fantasy stories that I wrote when I was fourteen.)

Where was I again?

Right, okay, so Lyrics father instructs her to go to Icenaire (blech) and find some dude named “Zaquard Ventrue”. That name also means nothing, except as far as I can tell, “Zaquard” is the pseudonym of one of the people at Devespresso, and the first thing that comes to mind for Ventrue is Vampire: The Masquerade, and I’m not sure it really means anything there either. 

The naming system in this game seems really off, it has no consistency and a lot of it is really self-indulgent, because you find out that this Zaquard fellow (in the game) is the big head honcho of what apparently is some kind of resistance movement of the oppressive organization called “The Green Flame”. 

So Lyric goes through the “Frostfell” (the magical ice barrier thing around the city that allegedly is the cause of this whole Frozenpocalypse deal) by using the power of the mysterious Vambrace, and...passes out because of it, only to be found by a scavenging party in a tutorial section where the game teaches you how to play it using said scavenging party. 

More on that later. 

Lyrics unconscious body is dragged back to the city, she somehow hasn’t contracted hypothermia, and the next scene we’re given is an interrogation from some guy who’s last name is Esquire. 

I don’t think the writers of this game knew what the word “Esquire” meant, because despite traditionally appearing after a person’s name, it is not a surname, it is a title. So the strange and unconventional naming choices continue. 

Anyway, Captain Generic Man, Esq., interrogates Lyric for all of five minutes before believing her at face value that she has a magical super-gauntlet that lets her pass through this extremely lethal magical barrier, when he has all the reason in the world to believe that she’s some kind of spy sent by the people his resistance faction is supposedly fighting against. 

And instead of keeping her under close watch until she’s at least somewhat established some trust that she’s not a mole or a spy or an assassin, he just...lets her roam free, around the city. Completely by herself. With no supervision, whatsoever. 

As you can probably tell, I already have several problems with this games pacing and general overall writing quality, and we’re not even past the prologue section yet. 

Oh, yeah, and Captain Generic gives Lyric some free money for her troubles, because the player needs to know how the market system works and how to buy healing items, and we can’t be assed to have them come across money in a non-contrived manner. 

And the currency is really weirdly specific? Its this stuff called “Hellion”, which in real-person-language is a word for a malicious troublemaker or nuisance. But in the same setting where a city is named “Ice Shame”, “Hellion” is apparently some kind of magical incense that the fox people burn to appease their gods. 

Oh yeah there’s a race of fox people in this game. They run the markets. They’re less full on furries and more like regular humanoids, but with fox ears, a tail, and pointy teeth, so like that weird halfway “haha guys look I’m totally not a furry” deal thats basically just “catgirls but with a different animal”. 

Anyway. 

You’re given a fat stack of cash and told to go buy yourself some food from the market, because we need to give you a tutorial on how to buy shit. 

So you go to the market and are taught by a smooth-talking fox-man-person-thing how to buy things at a market, after which you are immediately spotted by the only guard in the city with an ounce of sense who instantly goes “Hey holy shit isn’t that the person that literally nobody recognizes in this city that’s been cut off from the outside world for presumably several years at this point and the only other known faction that has the resources to keep a human alive is one we’re actively at war with?” and throws your ass right back in jail. 

By the way, the things you can choose to buy at the market are all pretty typical JRPG items that heal stat debuffs, or are basically different flavors of health potion that restore different amounts of health, and for any seasoned JRPG veteran it’s pretty easy to guess what items do what and how they function (sort of) but there’s plenty of unique-to-this-game stat conditions and the way the health mechanic works is kinda wonky, and the game asks you to buy your healing items before it even explains to you how the hell that part of the game actually works. 

I’ll go more in-depth to the gameplay once I finish this story synopsis but I just felt like pointing out that at this point you’ve been walked through some of the basic mechanics of the game and some of the combat, but the part of the game that deals with debuffs and HP and how you deal with those things hasn’t been explained yet. 

This game is very weird. 

Anyway, during the attempt to throw your ass back in jail, some shit is going down in the room that has the elevator to the surface (yeah apparently this city is like, underground. They don’t actually explain why, or how, or if it was like that before the Frozenpocalypse or if the Frozenpocalypse buried it, and if it was buried, how the hell did it get excavated so cleanly like this and why are all the buildings intact? Whatever, apparently the game doesn’t consider this important, which is weird considering all the random lore tidbits it does deem important, so we’re moving on now.)

OH hold on let me backtrack a bit. While you’re being let out of your jail cell because Captain Generic just felt like it apparently, you walk up to this other jail cell with a goth chick inside it and you’re told she’s an Extremely Powerful Bad Guy, Do Not Fuck With Her. 

So, as you arrive at the elevator to the surface, guess who just made an escape and caused a spooky ghost person to invade the city and injure two people! That’s right, Spooky Not-So-Jailed-Anymore Goth Chick! Who’s name is Isabel Salazar, and it’s really saying something that that’s the most normal name we’ve encountered so far in this god forsaken game. 

So you’re now face-to-face with a spooky ghost. You think you’re about to get into a combat section, you’ve been taught how to do combat, but nope! Lyric just waltzes up to the fucker and smacks him in the face with her Vambrace hand and it...melts...him? Just, with absolutely zero fanfare? 

Uh. Sure. Alright. Weird, do we get some kind of special attack that hurts ghosts? Guess we’ll find out. 

So the guard who was trying to arrest you, a redhead with pointy ears who’s very obviously an elf but hasn’t directly been called an elf in-game yet so I’m not sure if we’re using that word but fuck it she’s an elf, who’s name is Celest. That’s all, I don’t remember if she’s given a last name. 

Celest is reprimanded by Captain Generic, Esq. for trying to re-arrest the possible spy who was let go with literally no actual forethought put into it, and she’s understandably miffed, and Captain Generic tells you to come meet him in the war room because “someone is very interested in meeting you.” 

This leads nicely into the scene where our protagonist meets the leader of this massive underground (literally) resistance movement, who, upon hearing our surname and being told we’re the daughter of Some Random Guy, immediately trusts us to go after Isabel and lead an expedition all on our lonesome with a party of random soldiers we get to pick from a “help wanted” board instead of, I dunno, maybe sending some actual soldiers with us. 

This leader is the previously mentioned Zaquard Vampire Clan Man, who looks exactly how you’d expect a self-insert resistance leader to look, a young white-haired anime boy looking dude who’s bangs cover his eyes and we can’t see them. And he has earrings. 

Farquaad here apparently knew about our dad, and our dad was apparently the lead researcher about Archons (?) and the Vambrace is an Archonian (???) artifact (also they spell it “artefact” in the game and I hate it, they also say “magick” and it makes me want to find whoever was in charge of writing this and punch them) so that’s why he trusts us now, apparently. 

We are then tasked with a mission to go retrieve Evil Goth Chick, who apparently is going to go tell these Green Flame fellows the location of our massive underground city secret base, which is somehow super duper secret despite being huge. 

Keep in mind that this entire game’s setting is allegedly one massive city, it’s not like Eragon where the big inside-the-mountain Dwarf city was kept secret from Galbatorix, because that at least had the justification of being halfway across the entire fucking continent from the Empire as well as being on the other side of a massive fucking desert. 

This is all apparently one huge city! And the “secret underground base” is kinda big itself! It doesn’t make sense that its some big secret!

Ugh, whatever, if I keep harping on about every bit of the narrative that doesn’t make any fucking sense when you think about it for more than ten seconds I’m going to give myself a stroke so now that I’ve caught you up to where I am in the story, let’s move onto the gameplay. 

THE GAMEPLAY

If you’re at all familiar with Darkest Dungeon (a much better game) the gameplay is most similar in style to that. You have a party of 4 adventurers, you walk through room after room of a connected “dungeon” except in this case its neighborhood streets and buildings, find treasure, manage the balance of treasure in your inventory vs healing and utility items, and you have combat. 

Let’s talk about the combat first, because its the part I like most about this game and the reason I’m probably going to keep playing it. 

Vambrace takes a similar approach to Darkest Dungeon in that each character has a certain number of skills at their disposal, being limited in use by where the character is standing in the party order and what position slots in the opposing party they can target. 

When you get into combat, the party orders will look like this, with your party on the left and the opposing party on the right. 

4-3-2-1-1-2-3-4

The skills are divided into three range categories.

- Short or melee range skills can only be used in position 1 and 2 and can only target positions 1 and 2 on the opposing side unless those two positions are empty, in which case they can target 3 and 4. 

- Medium range skills can be used from any position, but can only target positions 1 and 2. 

- Long range skills can be used from any position and can target any position. 

Some skills also take flourish points to use, and characters build up flourish points throughout encounters by using their basic skill. 

Different characters have different classes, which determine different skills they’re able to use. 

This is a basically solid combat system, as proven by Darkest Dungeon, however Vambrace falls short of DD in two ways:

The first is Darkest Dungeon’s position system, and its supplementary corpse system, work slightly differently. Position order is the same, however, there can be no empty spaces breaking the line. If the line would be broken, units that are furthest back move forward to close the line. 

So say you encounter 4 enemies, so positions 1-2-3-4 are all fully occupied. If you kill the enemy in position 2, the enemies in positions 3 and 4 will move forward to fill in the blank space, so now only positions 1-2-3 are occupied. 

This is mitigated in Darkest Dungeon by the corpse system, when you kill an enemy it leaves a corpse behind, which fills up the space and prevents the backline from moving forward. However there are several skills in DD that remove corpses as part of the effect. 

This opens up different paths to take in terms of strategy. In both Vambrace and Darkest Dungeon, the 3 and 4 positions are usually filled by the more deadly foes, the enemies that take those positions usually cause debuffs to your party or have a higher damage output. 

However, in Darkest Dungeon, you can either run a strong backline of your own and try to eliminate the opposing backline quickly, or you can run a strong frontline and a more supportive backline to try and take out the frontline, and then wipe out the corpses, pushing the backline units to the front and making all their skills basically useless, since most enemies that stick to the back in DD have maybe one attack that they can use in position 1 or 2, and it’s usually not a very good attack. 

There are also attacks in DD that you can use to force the enemy to shuffle positions, bringing the backline to the front and crippling them without even touching the tanky frontline. 

However, in Vambrace, positions are static on the enemy side. When you kill enemies in front, the backline enemies stay in the backline. This leads to a much more limited strategy, where you pretty much only want to focus the backline first, and the frontline afterwards. 

There’s also the matter of turn order. Characters with a higher Awareness stat (more on stats in a second) get a bonus on their initiative and can go higher in the turn order, beyond that I’m not actually sure what factors are involved in determining this. However, the turn order itself is transparently displayed in the bottom center of the screen during combat, telling you very clearly which position on which side gets the next move, which helps out a lot with planning out your encounters.

Once you get the hang of it though, Vambrace’s combat is still enjoyable, and I’d say the aesthetic and environment around it makes it different enough from Darkest Dungeon that I can enjoy playing both for different reasons. Vambrace far more embraces certain JRPG aspects, for instance. 

Speaking of which, lets talk stats. 

Before I do though I want to talk about one of my biggest gripes with the game so far, and that’s the fact that its interface is terrible. This game doesn’t have a menu for keybinds, it doesn’t let you re-bind things, and its control scheme is a little awkward to say the least. 

It also hides a lot of information to be only accessible in the tutorial pages, which you can access at any time in the pause menu, but it makes things tedious because this game has a lot of smaller things to keep track of.

Each character has 5 stats. Combat, Sleight, Merchantry, Awareness, and Overwatch, and each one has a different impact on the game. 

Combat is fairly self explanatory, it determines how good your character is at fighting. 

Sleight determines how good the character is at scavenging, and it affects the quality of loot you find in containers.

Merchantry affects buying and selling, the higher the merchantry, the cheaper stuff is to buy and the more people pay for your junk. 

Awareness determines how well you can avoid traps

And Overwatch determines how good your character is at managing the party during camping.

Your stats can also affect the outcomes of certain random events that can trigger throughout the dungeons, although I’ve only encountered a handful of them so far.

Speaking of camping, one of the most under-explained mechanics in this game is the camping mechanic, and my first and only death so far has been because of a failure to properly explain said mechanic, causing me to fuck it up 3 times before I did it right, and because camping is actually extremely vital to success in this game, it caused me to die and fail the mission. 

Any healing items in your inventory cannot be used on the fly, they are only usable during a camping session. You can initiate a camping session upon finding a suitable spot for one, which you can either randomly find in the generated rooms of a “dungeon”, or in between the “dungeons” on a mission in shelters where you get sort of a mini-camp session. 

A full camping session involves you selecting the character with the highest Overwatch skill to manage said session. You need to do three specific things to maximize your sessions effectiveness, and these things are not properly tutorialized and are easy to misunderstand or miss out altogether. When the camping session starts, the character you’ve chosen to manage the whole thing starts out by standing in front of the campfire, with an “interact” icon hovering above it. 

Do not interact with the campfire. It will end the camping session immediately and you cannot redo it, you will have to find a new campsite. 

Instead, you need to find the interact icon for sleep and the icon for music. The first one will restore the HP of your whole party equal to your session leader’s Overwatch skill provided it goes without incident, and the second one will restore the Vigor of your whole party equal to the session leader’s Overwatch skill. 

Oh. Right, Vigor. 

Vambrace has 2 health bars essentially. There’s your Hit Points (HP), and then there’s Vigor. HP works how you think it does, you take damage in combat or from poison or traps and if you hit 0 you die. 

Vigor is basically a worse version of the Stress mechanic from Darkest Dungeon, but instead of ticking up as your characters get more and more stressed out, their Vigor essentially goes down as you walk through the various dungeon rooms, and certain debuffs and traps can reduce it as well. 

Once you’ve done both a sleep and a music session, you then need to open up your inventory and use the appropriate healing items to cover up whatever those two things didn’t get. If one character was particularly badly hurt and needs extra patching up after a nap, do it with healing items now. You cannot use healing items outside of a camping session, so do it now. 

You can also only use status healing items here too, and status ailments don’t go away with a nap. 

Only once you have done those three things should you interact with the campfire again, ending the camping session and continuing on with the dungeon. 

The Other Stuff

The other reason besides the gameplay being interesting enough that I plan on continuing to play this game is that the art direction and the sound design are actually very, very well done, with a feeeeew small exceptions. 

Let’s start with the art direction. 

Visually, the game looks fantastic. It’s as if you took the visual style of Darkest Dungeon but made it more anime-esque and less horrifying, more pleasant to look at. It’s really pretty and well stylized, and is a style that will hold up visually even when graphical advancements outpace it. 

The character designs are also all fairly unique, if a little over-designed sometimes. You can pick out all the named characters on sight alone, they’re all visually distinct from each other and are easily recognizable. 

The sound design is also, for the most part, really really good. The ambient noise is a good quality, the audio is well balanced and none of it really grates on my ears, and some of it is actually pretty nice to listen to.

The music in the game so far is also good, and while I haven’t come across any tracks that made me want to just sit there and listen to it on loop for a few minutes, I also haven’t found any tracks that made me go “oh god oh god make it stop”

The only part of the audio I have a problem with is...the voice acting. It’s only shown up in a few very small cutscene bits so far, mostly the initial opening scene, but I can’t really put my finger on what’s wrong with it. The only character who’s spoken so far is Lyric, and I really am finding it hard to say exactly why her voice-acted dialogue bothers me, but it really grated on my ears and I was glad when the cutscene ended. 

I think it was a mixture of the quality of the audio, it didn’t sound professionally recorded although I’ll grant it that it wasn’t “Skyrim mod voice acted by the modder” level of terrible, but it still left a lot to be desired. The other part that got to me was just the style with which the actress was talking, however I can’t really pinpoint if it was just the stilted dialogue she was stuck with, if the direction was bad, or if she just didn’t really have much of an idea what she was doing. 

She had a very monotonous voice throughout, and while she wasn’t speaking flatly or like she was bored, it was moreso that kind of voice people give characters like Sasuke in fandubs, where they’re overly mopey and Serious™ which kinda takes the oomph out of lines that should have had the more somber tone. 

Overall Thoughts and Opinions

Keep in mind this is all based on the first 2 hours of gameplay, and that I’ll probably post a more detailed version of this (or make a video) once I’m either a lot further into the game or I beat it. 

I don’t hate the game. I think the writing is completely overdone and obnoxious, and has way, way too much lore and way too many things going on without focusing on the more narrow plotline, and I have a huge problem with the very very inconsistent naming scheme, but aside from those two specific criticisms, I’ve definitely seen worse writing. 

And it’s not like the characters aren’t endearing in that “this character 1000% slots into a very specific JRPG trope but I’m here for it” sort of way. I did enjoy what I got to see of Lyric and the other named characters, even though they were completely stereotypical and Lyric comes off as a bit of a Mary Sue. 

So far the writing is very flawed, but in a tolerable way. I’d much more rather play a game written with love and care and have the flaws come from human error rather than a game that was written by committee to be as bland and appealing to as wide an audience as possible without offending anyone. 

The gameplay definitely isn’t as deep as it could be, but the out-of-combat mechanics actually do require a lot of forethought and planning once you actually understand them. 

That’s probably my biggest criticism of the game outside of the writing, the game has a pretty decent tutorial that tries to explain everything, but the UI design and how the game presents its information outside of the tutorial works against that and forces you to memorize things and constantly refer back to the tutorial pages. 

There’s a lot of quality-of-life things that are missing that shouldn’t be. The ability to rebind keys, the ability to even check a simple menu solely dedicated to the keybinds instead of sifting back through the tutorials trying to figure out what fucking key you need to press for things is. 

There’s no hover-over information, on anything. The mouse does literally nothing, you could control the whole game with the keyboard. This is especially problematic when dealing with stat buffs and debuffs, because while you can open up your character stat menu in combat to check exactly what their debuffs do, you can’t open up an enemy stat page and are completely reliant on having memorized what icon corresponds to what debuff and what that debuff actually does. 

But if you can look past the cripplingly bad UI and inability to rebind keys, along with the weird writing, the game is actually fairly charming and does have a lot to offer, so I’d definitely recommend checking it out! I bought it on sale for about $16 USD, and if the game keeps up the current quality for a decent chunk of playtime, I’d say it’s worth it around that price. Probably not at full price though.