#blind mage

[asayuriofficial]

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In the middle of the frost pouring over him, He is sensing that he is not quite himself. His steps are slower. His breaths further apart. His commlink reminds him that his body temperature is less than ideal, yet he is not shivering.

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Sooo, I made a blind vodou mage and played around with SURGE. He is working closely with a free spirit to be able to spellcast.

[schneiderenjoyer]

This part has provided and honestly confirmed an insight that's been implied occasionally, but never openly stated as much as this moment.

Arcanists are less durable.

It's mentioned a handful of times how it's important for combat between arcanists to be quick and efficient. While they can be physically strong even beyond human standards, their limits are far shorter in comparison. They're far more prone to taking physical and mental damage quicker with their quick healing/recovery to make up for it, but not change just how fragile they are.

This is very insightful too as to why arcanists would be more inclined to fight using arcanum instead of physically as much as possible. Their arcanum gives them an upper hand where their physical stamina is lacking.

[shushmal]

i just binged all of frieren so ofc im thinking about elf mage eddie who's been around for thousands of years. everyone thinks he's this ethereal emotionless infinite being, but actually he's very silly and a coward—he runs from battles and he hides by pretending to be a powerless bard. people treat him differently though, and those that knew his true self have long died.

enter warrior steve who's on a quest to defeat the demon king and takes one look at eddie and sees right through his cold elfen mask and is like, "you're coming with me, harp boy" and drags eddie kicking and screaming across the continent (it was not kicking and screaming, eddie is weak to pretty boys)

[pb-dot]

Film Friday: Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

After my last FF being of a slow burn indie movie of excellent pedigree, I figure it's time to talk about something big and (joyfully) stupid to even things out. I joke, but Dungeons and Dragons have been on my mind these last few days, so why not talk about the movie adaptation. No, not that one, the good one. Trust me, I will get to the Jeremy Irons Chewing The Scenery movie eventually, but today we're talking about Honor Among Thieves.

One of the greatest joy of the current era is that with the mainstream-approximate popularity of Actual Play shows like Critical Role, Dimension 20 and Naddpod, there's a wider understanding of the kind of storytelling that goes on in tabletop roleplaying games. The particular way these stories blend character-focused storytelling with a main plot that usually functions as a lens for said character focus isn't unique to roleplaying necessarily, but it is a central component that this kind of storytelling needs.

As such, Honor isn't a quest for a magical artifact to slay an evil wizard undertaken by brave adventurers, it's more the ongoing catastrophes of a bunch of walking disasters that also happen to feature some looking for magical artifacts and slaying some evil wizards more as a matter of consequence.

To wit, our story follows bard Edgin, Barbarian Holga, Sorcerer Simon (I SEE what you did there), and outcast druid Doric as they attempt to reunite Edgin with his daughter Kira, now the ward of former friend of Edgin, Forge. Complicating matters is that Forge turns out to be a lying, thieving, betraying backstabber who has teamed up with an evil red wizard to rule the town of Neverwinter, and he's not much keen on relinquishing his ward, so it's-a-thieving our adventurers must go.

When I say the storytelling follow the beats of a D&D campaign, that isn't only on the character focus stuff, it's down to the structure of the thing. The band of adventurers plans to preform a heist, but needs a magical artifact to do so, so they enlist a legendary warrior whose hyper-competence and cryptic advice makes him the most obvious GM PC I've ever seen, for the uninitiated is a GM PC is a NPC made to follow the rules of a player character, usually for the GM to get some vicarious playing thrills and/or wrench the plot back on track directly. Together with this hot piece of HP, our heroes fumble some puzzles, circumvent some puzzles and gets into moderate to severe peril, as is tradition.

There's a real sense of fun to the proceedings, and the movie is filled with the kind of gags that might arise from a table full of giddy nerds. Of course the bird-man Jarnathan becomes the most important character in the room for like ten minutes, that's the kind of character players latch on to. Of course, our players have a close call with a pack of Intellect Devourers, who it turns out have no interest in the group. For one nobody plays a class who benefits from high Intelligence, they're also idiots, not that they let that stop them of course.

All of this comes together to create this infectiously enthusiastic film. The action scenes are made somewhat more kinetic than the miniature and/or imagination-based fair it's based on, yes, but there seems to be some attention paid to structuring most of them like D&D fights. The final confrontation with the aforementioned evil wizard in particular has the distinct flow of a climactic campaign-concluding encounter. There's stuff to nitpick, of course, but show me a single D&D group who plays strictly "Rules As Written," and I will tell you that you've shown me some miserable gits that'd be happier playing a video game.

There's obviously a lot of love behind Dungeon and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, from the writing and directing choices above to using practical effects to show off some more fantastical humanoid races that they didn't really need to show off, although I would be derelict in my duties if I didn't remark that while Tieflings can indeed have human skin colors, it is highly unusual for a player to chose to be anything but blue, red or purple. I'm not saying Sophia Lillis should've been in body paint this entire time, but it could easily be justified.

[ghost-bard]

cant wait for the solevellan reunion in veilguard knowing aila (my poor sad oc) will try to kill him on sight

[kcuf-ad]

Yuno: *defeats a clone of Lucius all on his own while everyone else is struggling to beat a single Angel/Paladin*.

Morons: He has been watching White Clover 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

[null-entity]

New series..Fantasy Prophet.

Model: Me.

Photographer: The Remote Camera Trigger.

If you want to help support me and get awesome stuff like early access/polls & pose requests Become A Patron / DA Subscriber or you can check out my Ko-Fi store for exclusive stock!

Read My Rules Before You Use My Stock.

[touhouweed]

my current dq9 party :) just got to Alltrades Abbey

[cosmik-homo]

Thinking of ways of having Orla survive the vortex in ways that makes Into The Labyrinth more interesting and doesn't distract from anything it has going on and.

My batrery is really low but my brain is whirlinngggg

I *like* that Alfred has some avoidance mental health regressions in the vortex and has to Dragged out. Idk how to not change thst but.

I think Orla is still more struggling politically with Discovering the labyrinth is this bad and Patryn Are People and the like, I think she's more emotionally upset, for instance, at that kind of tension while Alfred is more adept with it, and maybe also a little awkward and complicated with his level of struggle in the labyrinth physically- into the labyrinth has some great disabled Alfred moments imo, and. Having another Sartan around to a) see him b) be able to do it Normal, highlighting how exactly some of his shit isn't Being A Dainty Sartan / Privilege Inexperience but. Something Wrong With Him. Would be fascinating.

And relationships!!! Into the labyrinth is so about Haplo and Marit- and how despite everything between them going so distant and their opposed ideas at the start they find each other again and love each other for who they are and.

Having Alfred and Orla- so similar in so many ways, p much on the same page to some various degrees, last time we see them, and their relationship is somewhere between squeaking and crumbling, depending how you play it.... the pairs could be fascinating foils.

(Idk exactly how to resolve this aspect well- or, well, I do to my own Shipping preferences but even there I can see a myriad of ways to do it.)

Regardless I think Alfred would still tell Haplo his name First. The cultural context of it is so heavy.... And doesn't that add an insane tension?

Same with Alfred and Vasu's revelation. Alfred reacting to the knowledge of patryn and sartan mingling socially with awe and recognition and connection while Orla first and mainly finding relief she did not damn these people she's so guilty and afraid of becoming to demise.... (maybe Vasu would question that judgement- being put in the labyrinth is still pretty fucking bad)- but also that means, yknow, the weight of that unity having been possible to achieve within her generation???? Insane. Delicious. Also I do think she'd freak a little at the Racial aspect.

I keep feeling bad for trying to cast Orla as more conservative to Alfred but she. Is that's part of the whole thing.

The bit where Haplo decides to translate Alfred and Hugh both as Mensch to the patryn to not out him as Sartan could be another FASCINATING thing to see Orla grapple with. It's familiar and normal to Alfred, but something she actively Pities him for...

And again, Marit and her can foil for each other in interesting ways, to balance Haplo and Alfred who've both grown much more comofrtable and confident in their ideas and their connection.

And IDK I think it would require v much complicating things all the time but. I think she can stay with Kari and the battle at the final gate so Seventh Gate can stay as is and it would be a cool and fascinating example of cooperation and then gives an opportunity to play various political concepts ive always wanted to play with but would be too ooc or miserable for alfred- like telling Ramu that since allegedly the purpose of the labyrinth was a reforming challenge and she made it out, done her sentence, she can be back in society, right. Otherwise are you admitting it's not really what we meant. In our hearts.

And Ramu will always have some ears his way when talking against Alfred- the Outsider, The Faggot, the Traitor- but as much as "if you think you can talk to your mother like that you've been noticing how I've been subtly degrading her for years" dot the onion dot com applies here I still think this being, for a new occasion in Sartan political life, a PUBLICLY OBSERVABLE forum, any way he'll talk to his mother is gonna have much more weight.

I understand why it would have made the already large and complex novel too large and complex but!!!! ORLA IN INTO THE LABYRINTH! MUCH TO THINK ABOUT!

[isnt-it-pretty]

There's something to be said about how disability rep in fantasy is more often than not in found in characters that are more than a little evil. It has to do with our perception of disability and how it relates to morality, but somebody smarter than me could probably write a whole essay on the topic.

That being said you can take classic fantasy characters like Raistlin Majere and Elric of Melnibone out of my cold dead hands.

[wawtman]

Sephtis Blind Mage.

[tracle0]

hi hi Trade, I am here because I simply Must know more about Elan immediately please and thank you (also do you have any tunes for him? just by the look of him n his vibe I feel like he'd have some bangers) mwah ok bye

:D HELLO

I'm tagging @khufiya-khaufnak-antariksh here as well cause you both asked about Elan and I figured I'd just babble a lil about them to both of you here, hello, thank you for your interest!!!

Okay okay okay Elan issssss yeah! A fucking mess, basically! They, they, they. Hmm. HMMM!

They're basically the result of a fun kidnapping and testing that was executed on a wide number of colour mages. Elan semi-volunteered for it, with zero intention of actually taking part, and then took part anyway. Sucks to be them.

I don't know an awful lot about the actual process, but the general aim of it was to see how much colour could be taken from a mage before they. Yknow. Fucking died. Which for most people was alarmingly far! Strip magic away and see how deep this colourlessness can go.

Alas, most of the people fucking died before anything truly interesting could happen. But but but! Elan did! Not! For various reasons I'm keeping disclosed, they were full of spite and rage and Vengence and decided actually, you know, I'm not gonna die, I'm gonna take this white you're pumping me full of and just. Harness that, thank you very much. Reject the magic you were born with and embrace this synthetic model instead.

Basically, edge 14-year-old brain went 'teehee evil science experiment character :)))?' and I went oh HELL yeah!

Elan is the kinda guy who likes gardening :)! Lil gardener fella! They've got a section of BigBad's base wardened off for Just Them, where they have a little living area and a big garden, where they spend most of their time, chilling out, feeling At Peace, crushing any sliver of green that starts to edge into any stalks or leaves. It is a petrified garden. It could not survive without them. They love it dearly. Sometimes, when they get overwhelmed or frustrated, they smash it and sob in its remains until it's replaced and they start the cycle over again.

They also stand as one of the first characters of mine where I looked at them and decided they wanted to be in a lil relationship, which is nice and good for them! Less good for them that it's, uh, with the. BigBad. The woman who funded and dictated the research that made them Like This.

The relationship is very much a. Toxic one. Power struggles between the two, knowing full well they've hurt each other badly and still coming back for more. By the end of the first book, they quite literally stab her in the back and ease her into her death, all romantic style.

Mmmm despite how things have been phrased, I think Elan does quite like being a White. They want more people to be White so they can understand how things are, how they should be. Very obsessed with perfection and cleanliness and purity. Bleached as many pigments out of themselves as they possibly could, and still finds the red of their blood to be grating.

I have exactly one (2) songs that vibes for them at the moment which I think you know both of, Monday? Tis 'The Quittin' Kind' by Eleisha Eagle and 'Pretty Little Head' by Eliza Rickman. Both vibe with the more toxic part of their relationship with the BigBad. Who has no name. Pretend she does.

Okay that's it! Bye! Thank you!

[thefinalwitness]

thinking about shtolaiha fencing lessons this fine 1:33am on a saturday..... u know how it is............

[hellbatschilt]

Oh it was so worth getting the new mount on both of them

[dollynightmareblog]

Visions of Dragons (Taming Beasts 1) is now on Kindle Unlimited!

Enter the dark but majestic world of Ice Mages and Fire Dragons who fight against each other in Visions of Dragons (Taming Beasts 1)! Princess Vrai has been locked away in a tower for most of her life didn't expect her knight in shining armor to be a Fire Dragon, nonetheless for it to be the cruel King of Oria. She is baffled why he chose her to be his Queen amongst her purebred sisters, a blind bastard, but she is the only thing stopping an ongoing war. Will he be as bad as they say or can the young king be tamed by the likes of his Queen?

[danielnelsen]

getting mad again reading cullen's section in wot2,,,,,,