#arcana fuckery

[motherofqups]

Everyone talks about how Muriel only likes sour foods because he didn’t allow himself to like stuff, but

No one talks about how skinks are probably as plentiful as like… squirrels… in Vesuvia. And Asra developed a taste for them by catching them on the streets as an orphan to eat.

🙂

[tremendouskoalachild]

it's been brought up before but seriously, Hades 2 has so many callbacks to and inspirations from Transistor.

woman protagonist. specifically young woman protagonist. young woman protagonist dragging around a fuckoff-huge weapon if you take the axe.

protagonist avoided horrible fate due to outside intervention and is on a mission to rescue and avenge their family and save the world.

absorbing aspects of other characters to make yourself stronger (traces/arcana on top of the weapon aspect mechanic from Hades 1)

time fuckery abilities. also time fuckery that doesn't work on the final boss.

venue boss fight. boss fight music with lyrics.

the Eris/Melinoë dynamic is reminiscent of the implied Sybil/Red dynamic.

hum-heavy sound in Oceanus.

dynamic music (switches to a hummed version of the track when you plan your moves in Transistor, or press the hum button outside combat; the siren song changes based on the status of each enemy in their boss fight).

people frozen in glitchy cubes.

a more careful, analytical approach to builds than Hades 1.

Chaos trials with a preloaded boon/arcana/keepsake setup, similar to performance tests in Transistor.

[theradicalkanji]

I had something happen in the DND campaign I'm in that I was quite proud of.

So some quick background deets. My guy is a fairy sorcerer who has the telepath feat. I get a lot of mileage out of detect thoughts and the telepathic ability to send messages to party members. Our warlock is specced into every eyesight based invocation in the game. If there is fuckery afoot he will See it. We have a kobold draconic lineage sorcerer in our party who has been beset by different dragon flights for the entire campaign. Some seek to kill him. Some seek to enlist him.

We recently finished a major battle which had us rescue a city from an undead assault. As part of our reward we met with the ruling council. This consisted of a foppish prince, a miserly merchant, a well-connected PR person/journalist, and a simple farmer.

The farmer was exceedingly sweet, and I don't know what it says about me/my character but while everyone was eyeing the shady merchant for ties to this massive horror we faced, my guy was zeroed in on the farmer.

I pinged the warlock. What do your elf eyes see?

Farmer is covered in a lot of transmutation magic but he doesn't appear to be in a false form. That doesn't seem right.

Warlock player: if he is using an illusion of a transformation spell, I should be able to see through it.

DM: that's true. But it doesn't seem to be the case here.

Arcana check [hard: success] - sounds like a True Polymorph.

My guy was unable to pick up any surface thoughts from the farmer, nor could I get anything from a deep dive. The farmer resisted it outright.

Meanwhile Sorcerer was stressing out because this previous battle was Very public. Basically broke out in the middle of a festival so our team was not just in the public eye for the fight but then we're brought up to be publicly rewarded for our deeds. Sorcerer was trying to hide from the various dragons and draconic cults, so this level of publicity is Bad for him.

So sorcerer freaking out about dragons reminded me that when we entered town for the first time, a few guards were discussing having seen a dragon nearby. This got me thinking. Dragon sightings? Seemingly unassuming farmer is not only impervious to deep dives but very good at masking his surface thoughts AND under the effects of a level 9 spell?

I pinged the sorcerer. Yo. I think this farmer is a dragon.

After the meeting with the council, the sorcerer followed the farmer back to his place and confronted him. Turns out the farmer IS a dragon, but not one of the evil ones. One of the ancient order metallic dragons that protects the realm. This led to a long RP session where the sorcerer gets a huge lore dump re: his personal storyline, and I felt super excited for him and pleased with myself that my meddling/fact finding lead to this scene being possible.

[blackkatmagic]

what are some of your favorite dead dove fics you've written?

I don't really have any?? Unless you're counting Arcana, but like. that's mostly emotional fuckery, not hardcore sex or violence.

[raptorix]

3 Campaigns and 30+ years of Exandrian campaign history with campaign character crossovers could mean we could easily play the game of 6 degrees of separation.

-Orym has Imogen send a sending to Keyleth with a concise update about the connection between the assassins & the Apogee Solstice.

-Keyleth & her mother Vilya are probably doing their Ashari best of investigating & acting on what they can to protect Exandria & the Prime Material plane from plane shifting fuckery during this solstice.

-Jester probably has Vilya on her sending gossip chain. Jester has likely informed the rest of the M9 about what Vilya’s been up to.

-Beau & Caleb have always had the Cerberus Assembly’s shit on their radar, and probably know something big is up for the Apogee Solstice. Whiffs of Ashari involvement might be a tantalizing thread to follow for the Empire Kids.

-Beau & Caleb are in contact with 2 other Arcana Pansophical members/contacts with Allura & Yussa. They probably keep tabs on what the Cerberus Assembly keeps up with for their own reasons.  IDK if the Pansophical checks in with each other, but if anyone else tried to do a sending to Planerider Ryn, (a founding member of the Aracana Pansophical), they’d see she’s been petrified on a divination.

-As another tumblr user already suggested, Matt may have had Liam & Marisha do rolls to see how well Caleb & Beau are following the trail to Ludinus’ Moon Plans.

[wetbloodworm]

still got the zenith brainworms so here's some thematically appropriate subclasses for someone who follows/gets their power from zenith. this isn't exclusive, other subclasses are also perfectly fine, these just have closer ties to him imo

warlock: my custom dream eater subclass, though great old one is acceptable as a non-homebrew option. might tweak my custom subclass eventually i'm not 100% satisfied with it but you get the idea.

sorcerer: aberrant mind, obviously. repeated contact with him (mostly telepathically or directly with his true/full form) has a non-zero chance of just doing that to a person. i feel like wild magic is another possibility, though less likely

barbarian: path of wild magic is also a possibility, i just like it when the far realm influence has an Effect

cleric: knowledge domain is the most obvious one to me, because zenith loves to learn and to experience and would absolutely encourage that in his followers. twilight domain is the number 2 option. i feel like arcana domain is fine, though i'd add aberrations to the list of creatures affected by arcane abjuration. trickery domain is acceptable though not inherent to him, he'd just approve.

bard: college of lore for the same reason as the knowledge domain cleric

druid: trying to decide if circle of dreams would be appropriate; it feels too positive and protective over dreams so i'm thinking not? might need to tweak the narrative there to make it work.

fighter: zenith's focus on psionic power means psi warrior makes sense to me

monk: way of the cobalt soul's focus on knowledge feels Right

ranger: change the narrative of the horizon walker to less 'preserve the order of the planes' to 'interplanar fuckery is fun and interesting' and it's perfect

rogue: inquisitive is another good 'loves to learn' fit! psionic connection means soulknife is also good

bonus: oath of the watchers paladin is like. one of the anti-zenith subclasses. but i'd love to see that fucking argument lmao.

[playerkingsley]

while I would love if Ludinus was similarly beset by crippling lapses in magic, (if anyone deserves the consequences of cosmological fuckery, it’s our resident smiling villain) this is still possibly a deliberate first stage of the predathos plot—arcana may very well remain functional around the tether site, if the ritual involved some sort of leyline redirection for its singular purpose, perhaps doubly so if there’s a time dilation leveraged by the beacon that allows those in the vicinity reap the surging benefits of a prolonged apogee solstice. bells hells (and allies, perhaps) may have been the only ones ejected from the area in an effort to either save them or shrug off their interference. we just don’t know!

[samuraiko]

Yet another late night CR thought for C3E36+ (SPOILERS AHOY)

(YOU KNOW THE DRILL)

(STOP READING IF YOU DON’T WANT SPOILERS)

(OKAY, I DON’T WANT TO HEAR IT AFTER THIS!)

So, let’s assume for argument’s sake that our dear gnome cleric from C1, Pike Trickfoot, is actually in Whitestone at the moment. (One possible reason for Keyleth bringing the Hells there, apart from the obvious one of telling the de Rolos, “yeah, you know how you thought Delilah Briarwood was toast? Think again”...).

If Matt decides to have Pike cast Raise Dead, the Hells are going to have to do a skill challenge for the ritual to work. (Never mind the obvious of trying to find a 500g diamond to use for the spell. They have a bracelet of diamonds from Jiana Hexum worth a decent chunk of change, but I think for Raise Dead it has to be a SINGLE diamond.)

I wonder who will participate, and what skill they’ll use to bring her back?

The four that I can see doing it are:

Imogen (this is such a duh... and most likely Persuasion?)

Ashton (also kind of a duh... but Ash’s Charisma SUCKS, so what would he use? It’d be a creative use of the skill, but if he were to make the case about how they both came back through magic that neither of them understand, and how both of them are broken but doing their best, maybe Arcana? Or more likely, knowing Ash, Intimidation if he wants to take a leaf out of Grog’s book)

Orym (out of survivor’s guilt... another possibility for Persuasion, since at least his doesn’t suck nearly as bad as Ashton’s does, but his isn’t nearly as good as Imogen’s is)

Fearne (also out of survivor’s guilt... and for her, Religion might work if she’s trying to implore the Changebringer for another chance?)

Only three are needed... and personally, I don’t really see FCG or Chetney participating in this one, unless they really come out of left field with it. Neither of them really has the same connection to Laudna that the others do, and Fearne’s isn’t quite as strong as the other three I mentioned.

That’s also assuming that Delilah Briarwood doesn’t try some beyond-the-grave fuckery a la Orthax and Percy from C1E69...

[queenlua]

post contains: c++ standards committee fuckery, c++ arcana, and sickass art to illustrate the horrors of the former two, what's not to love

[thisisnotthenerd]

started thinking about laudna and her magic and then i thought

but what if she was a bard?

taking away all of her sorcerer features or warlock features would make laudna into something that she isn't, so i've settled on 1-2 levels of each, with sorcerer as base class, then warlock, then bard as the class she actively takes levels in.

picture this: before her death, matilda bradbury was a commoner's daughter. a weird, slightly eerie young woman with a knack for the creation of puppets and telling stories.

dies at the hands of the briarwoods. pops back up as a hollow one due to ancestry in the shadowfell (first level of shadow sorcerer gives you strength of the grave) along with necromantic fuckery from dying in an almost ritual act of cruelty in whitestone.

the woman who wakes up is pale and gaunt--she looks human at first glance, but a closer look tells a different story. doll-like eyes, pretty countenance that you could swear looks otherworldly in the right lighting. when you look into her eyes, you know she has already faced deep tragedy and pain and yet chooses to keep going. she clawed herself down from the noose, mutilated but still willing to keep moving forward. she'll never see her family again alive.

this is where the Haunted One background would fit very well: proficiency in arcana, investigation, religion, or survival. for laudna i'd pick arcana and survival. with a bard level she can pick 3 other proficiencies: given her existing list, i would take intimidation, persuasion, and stealth. from warlock, i would take investigation and deception. as a variant human, she can take one other proficiency; to round out from her existing list i would add perception. that gives her eight to choose from in terms of expertise.

the woman who clawed herself down from the tree is no longer matilda. no longer the dutiful daughter who marched to her death willing but unknowing.

what she does have is her puppets. her stories. her melodies carrying haunting stories on the wind. she travels from town to town with only her voice to accompany her--creepy little ditties and whispers of a witch's magic follow the woman who becomes laudna, named for a tincture of poppies that soothes the mind and body that easily leads the path to death.

when the necromancer who killed her takes up residence in her head she refuses to speak, simply using the poison that drips from delilah's words as fodder for more stories, for more whispers. she folds into a distorted form sometimes, wearing a widow's veil and aspect, forever yearning for lost love and life, frightening those who look upon her. (form of dread from one level of warlock)

this brings us to the next point: subclass. there are a few routes that she could take. one with potential for both humor and utility would be college of spirits. a ghostly woman telling ghost stories? come on. i think marisha could pull it off. also, pate and the other puppets as her spiritual focus? if she took magic initiate as a feat she could get find familiar still.

i do think making laudna a bard also gives her a little more reason to be a voice that imogen seeks out, and gives her a little more reason to be trying to become a student at ascension's rise and/or starpoint. it gives her a point of connection with dorian--while she would be a fundamentally different type of bard, i think it would serve the party well to have someone that can do non-personally damaging buffs in dorian's absence and have access to more spells from a variety of backgrounds. the other spellcasters have leaned into their specialties while laudna has been more lower level utility spells--i don't see why laudna couldn't be a bard and still perform that role.

also knowing that she came from a dream that marisha had, i think it would be interesting to hear what horror stories could emerge from laudna on the battlefield. she could really lean into the spooky. fun scary indeed. also taking every charisma caster class in one? fun concept.

[bottomvalerius]

torn between doing the early bird offer for touchstarved while also being plagued with knowing there was fuckery with The Arcana's Kickstarter (I think it was Kickstarter??) campaign too LMFAO

[motherofqups]

Has science yet explained why every arcana character has a twohead

[archesa]

asks for you! :) have major arcana XIII and XIX & ace and seven of cups for galaed, if you'd like? <3 @kerra-and-company

Sorry it took so flippin long for me to answer these! Ive had the colornote app open on these couple of asks for months and couldn't find the peace of mind to answer them! What's a vacation for? 😁 back to work tomorrow but I couldn't go to sleep without at long last answering this! Hope you'll enjoy these (way too short) answers, still 😚

XIII. Death - what kind of transformation(s) has your character gone through? If multiple, which is the most significant?

Over the years, he has learned to see the world in shades and colours rather than black and white. Even the very wise can be reckless. Even the loyal can fall. Even the lost can find their way and return. Even the strong can fail.

His succumbing to the Call – albeit briefly – left him shaken and changed... to his very core. The antlers crowning his head are a constant reminder of both his frailty and his fortitude, of his weaknesses and his greatest strengths.

XIX. The Sun - what was the most significant “truth” your character has had to reveal?

The truth revealed itself, but the full disclosure of his implication in Trahearne's return was a complicated experience...

More than justifying himself to his fellow guild members or to the Commander, the hardest part was for Galaëd himself to confront his reasons.

Trahearne had died a honourable death. A knight's death. And Galaëd should have accepted, respected his sacrifice. But he couldn't. Trahearne's death was unfair and cruel. But in the end, as much as he wanted this to be the reason why he pierced the veil and searched the Dream to save the firstborn, the real motive was much more simple. He missed his brother.

◥█̆̈◤ Ace of Cups - has your character made any new friends lately? New love interests?

He likes Rama. Canach has taken at heart to have the detective loosen up a bit, and Galaëd is very keen on introducing him to Logan!

(Pictured below : Rama realising the two sylvari are playing the matchmakers!)

◥█̆̈◤ Seven of Cups - how does your character view dreams?

As a sylvari, dreams hold a very strong significance to him – be them visions of possible futures, nightmares or nonsensical what-the-fuckery.

So he tries to retain as many memories – images and impressions – from his dreams, but the misinterpretation (or rather very lacking interpretation) of his Dream by the Luminaries have convinced him there's none who could find sense in these vision better than him.

[theradicalkanji]

Some fun little fuckery was afoot in tonight's DND session. We were in a spooky dungeon crawl full of giant, skittering, zombie hands. Eventually, we reached a room with a giant, self-playing pipe organ.

Group was like. This is magic as hell. Bard's detect magic pinged that the organ was magic. Paladins divine sense was pinged it as super infernal. So I was like. Do we think the song itself has some magical effect? Discussions and preliminary arcana checks were inconclusive so I was like. I'm gonna fuck with the melody and see what happens.

DM was like. "do you touch the keys?" So I was like HELL no. This is a pipe organ. It is physically producing the sounds. As in, there is actual air flowing through the pipes, correct? DM was like, yeah. The keys are moving by themselves by the actual pipes are working as intended.

So I was like. Storm sorcerer perk. Storm guide. Can redirect the flow of wind within 100 feet. I'm gonna reverse the flow of wind in one of the pipes and change the pitch.

Fucking with the melody apparently aggrod all the remaining skittering zombie hands and was all told, probably a bad idea, but I was still proud of myself for thinking of the storm guide perk.

[phoenixdynearch]

scout. 23. they / xe / he. white. us cst / us cdt. evil bisexual. this is a headcanon based, alternate universe focused roleplay blog for a sun arcana / phantom thief! suzui shiho of persona 5, as adored by scout ( evil bisexual, 23, us central time, they / xe / he. ) this blog is unaffiliated with any fandom, and is highly selective and mutuals only.

WARNING : DARK & TRIGGERING TOPICS AHEAD, SUCH AS : csa, abuse, suicide, self harm, depression, bullying, mental fuckery, violence, institutional abuse.

my timezone is US - CST / GMT - 5

THIS IS A TALE OF : becoming a your own heroine, fighting against shitty people in power, princehood, bisexuality, and the death of the old self and the rebirth of one's self.

[soraavalon]

Mistletoe: Can I see any sign of what might be causing this effect?

DM: Yeah, go ahead and make an arcana check. Or investigation I'll say if you just want to see if there's a thing and not necessarily why.

Mistletoe: Can it be an arcana check instead of investigation?

DM: Sure.

Mistletoe: Thank you.

DM: With different information this way, but yeah.

Hunt: Can I look around 'cause I'm trying to make sense of--

Mistletoe: That's a 4!

DM: Cool. I don't know, this shit's fucked though. Hunt, how close are you getting to look?

Mistletoe: You might not want to get too close friends. There's some magic fuckery going on.

DM: Mistletoe says back.

Hunt: Not close enough that it'll affect...

DM: So I'll say go ahead and make your investigation check with disadvantage because you'd have to be at least, it seems like 60ft is where you saw them both stop at a certain point.

Hunt: *rolls* Investigation.

DM: Yep.

Hunt: Okay. *looks at character sheet* I believe that's a total of 15, but let me double-check my maths.

DM: Okay.

Hunt: *calculates* Oh nope 17. 8+9 is 17.

DM: yes indeed. *low* The prompt doesn't give me that. *normal* So, you notice as you're circling as you're trying to see what the hell's going on, you're counting the satyrs that you can see, the one that is currently wrestling with Mistletoe for their pickaxe back and just the constant 'tink' "ow" 'tink' "ow" filling the air. You start to realize that where the gums should be like between the teeth is woven this iron band of some kind it seems to have sigils in it.

Mistletoe (OOC): Bracers.

DM: Braces. These iron braces.

Tark (OOC): Like 'Oh man, he has braces.'

Nathaniel (OOC): Amazing.

Hunt: On the giant's skull?

DM: Yeah like between the teeth and they seem to have these sigils on them.

Hunt: Okay, huh. Hunt's gonna relay back to the others, "There's some iron with some sigils tucked in the gum line (between the teeth) of the skull. I think that's what they're trying to get at?"

Mistletoe: Goldilocks, what are you doing?!

Marigold: I gotta make holes in the teeth.

-laughter-

Nathaniel (OOC): That's terrifying.

Mistletoe: No no, no we don't. We need to go.

DM: I'll let you make that save again Marigold.

Marigold: *rolls* Nope!

Hunt (OOC): Oh my god!

DM: Okay. No, you don't get it.

Marigold (OOC): My dice won't roll higher than a 10.

DM: Mistletoe does not get it. The teeth are rotting though. This giant has been dead, clearly has not been brushing, you have to-- you have to cause cavities, it is the thing you have to do. These guys get it, these dudes around you they get it.