#break!! campaign

[myfirstbreakcharacter]

The Nocturne Crusade

A holy pilgrimage of sorts has become a common practice on the Bronzed Continent, where participants attempt to visit all of the Shrines of Night within a single year. A new "commencement" of the pilgrimage happens for each season and most travelers will try to fit their journey in within a single season. The keepers of the Shrines of Night and their guard establish a new route for each season, depending on travel conditions and the current route projections of Crater Island.

The Nocturne Crusade is not merely a holy endeavor, though. The areas surrounding these shrines have blossomed into large towns or cities in some cases, and the most common routes between them have become routes for travel, diplomacy, commerce and trade, even tourism! There are even places where proper roads are maintained between multiple communities all designed to service the constant traffic of these pilgrims.

Now the Sol Alliance HATES this, because this free movement gives power to the other kingdoms in the hemisphere and challenge its cultural supremacy. In particular, devotees of the Invincible Bright would be happy to see the Shrines of Night cast out like a serpent from the Blazing Garden for not-entirely-spurious reasons. However, since the Alliance benefits so greatly from the strong trade and diplomatic ties to its rivals, it does not actively (OVERTLY) interfere with the Nocturne Crusades. It does, however, demand certain concessions from the planned routes, certain levies from the pilgrims who can afford it, and are very difficult to liaise with when Crater Island enters their territory.

Because routes vary so much between seasons the whole of the Bronzed Continent is webbed with reminders of pilgrimages past. Some of the most remote permanent settlements in the region were established once to serve those on the Nocturne Crusade. Along the way, traditional "outset points" have accrued among the culture of travelers, and these have become designated places to meet and equip before setting out. Peek Peak, and the recently-established settlement of Innstead, is one of these.

A person can have any number of reasons for "following the dark" and setting out on the Nocturne Crusade. Events and festivals are planned around its movements and its routes touch on many of the great civilizations of the hemisphere. Political, mercantile, spiritual, cultural, technological, informational, educational, and employment opportunities of all kinds exist for everyone from killers to kindergartners. Each season many travelers are waylaid by adventure and mystery, and many more manage to gain and lose a fortune a couple of times over.

[amikoroyaiart]

Some 22 and 09 angst doodles

[magpiedraws]

So I started watching Once Upon A Witchlight-

[marvelousbelladonna]

The level of feralness I’ll reach when this come out

[wispexists]

Kinda obsessed with this guy

[thewhalelord]

“I just want you here, that’s all. Next to me.”

[ohnohelpitsagain]

i read what doesn’t break again and OH MY GOD?

i’m sorry laudna and imogen are SO INSANE THE WAY THEY FALL IN LOVE IMMEDIATELY LIKE THAT???

laudna really looked at imogen Once and decided that she was the most perfect thing on the planet. her saying that even if she had NOTHING else in a hundred years, she’d remember every freckle on imogen’s face after knowing her for like AN HOUR MAX?

there’s something about the way laudna cherishes imogen SO SO gently but SO SO intensely that is soooooo important to me. their traumas so deeply paint how they love and it’s not always a bad thing. laudna spends a lot of what doesn’t break losing things. her sense of autonomy and humanity, her things, her connections and relationships. so when she finds imogen? it’s like she eventually says! imogen is her anchor. she won’t lose imogen and her hope and desire is that imogen won’t lose her or let her go.

it’s why she memorizes the sound of her voice, the color of her hair, all the freckles on her face. she’ll remember imogen in every way she can. and when she gets to stay with imogen? she’ll cherish her in any way she can.

she describes filing imogen’s name away gently like it’s precious and fragile and doesn’t it often feel like that? the feeling of your mouth around a name, a perceptible marker of the person in front of you. an exchange of information that you can carry with you forever.

she’s laudna’s rescuer, she’s beautiful, she’s powerful and she’s real.

she’s imogen. and laudna loves imogen.

they are truly the wives of all time, i’m immediately rewatching bells hells bc WHAT DO YOU MEANNNN.

anyways that’s all.

[shorthaltsjester]

watching the sdcc panel and i am just very :) about how sweet their answers to “what are some of the micro moments from the game that have stuck with you the most over the years?” are. taliesin saying what the fuck is up with that which was the first like The Party Gets To Know Each Other moments of c3. travis saying asking his wife if he could kiss her in campaign. marisha going way back to the cannonball competition in campaign one. ashley choosing the beauyasha date but also just the silly goat noise matt made. liam adding onto that to compliment matt roleplaying grass so well and then saying his favourite moment was writing a story for laura and reading it to her as caleb for jester. and then matt saying that was his answer, and that his favourite moments of the game are when they find ways to give gifts to each other whether tangible or not. and sam saying his favourite moments have less to do with the story and is more so when he can just. see his friends across the table from him. when marisha perches and when laura and ashley are (badly) drawing dicks and liam saying he loves when sam sneezes and ashley tells him to stop it and just. yeah. they Are an extremely popular online powerhouse, but i’m so happy that they’re also friends building a world together out of gifts to and love for one another.

like i Am so enamoured with the characters and the world of exandria but the moments when you can feel the love that those people have for each other reach out from behind the stained glass of their performances (to steal a metaphor from brennan lee mulligan) are so extremely special and i am endlessly grateful that they decided to share their silly little home game with the world.

[mothtato]

I love the stupid little bird

[dovelydraws]

And so death will follow, wherever you go.

[woahcoolbear]

practing blades in the dark portraits

[myfirstbreakcharacter]

The Seasons of Bronze

The Bronzed Continent follows the calendar of the Cogstone Warwork in the same way as does much of the Outer World but, in practical cultural terms, the continent marks time through in inexact passage of the three seasons.

The Still Season brings nothing but oppressive heat and increased ferocity from the creatures of the region. Spirits grow restless in these times, too: both those semi-divine and the vestiges of the departed. Because instances of the dead walking are most common during this season (while still rare), and because many creatures and remote homesteads wither and die from lack of food and water in these months, the Still Season is sometimes referred to as "Carrion Days." This is the most popular season for the pilgrims walking the Nocturne Crusade, especially after the losses of the Floods. It is typically the longest season.

The Wailing Season comes with howling winds which scour the land as much as they cool it. As the cooler air from the Twilight Meridian slips in to the realms of eternal light the heavy, cooler air from the Wistful Dark flows in to the Sunrise Lands. This front acts as a wall, leaving nowhere for the swirling airmass to go. The constant buffeting crosswinds give rise to sudden lightning strikes and makes many modes of travel more difficult. The Paw Post in particular seems to have the roughest time during these months and are sometimes forced to suspend certain services, with many people jokingly referring to them as the "Pause Post." The impact of this season is different across different regions, and is welcomed like family in the Sol Alliance.

The Floods come next, the shortest and most dangerous of the three seasons. Scorched lands betray the life they once harbored and those places where the mountains pile up the clouds drink deeply, resulting in lush jungle and rolling green hills. The cost of this is a constant threat of rain and storm at minimum, and the likelihood of sudden unexpected slides and floods nearly tips over into a certainty in many regions. This is considered a season outside of time, when debts and sins are forgiven. Community and mercy take on an added importance, but any truces or alliances during this period are washed away in the currents. This is also the naturally-darkest period on the Bronzed Continent, when people take advantage of cloud cover, softer ground, and the force of mighty torrents to effect great change. It is paradoxically a time when many shelter at home as much as possible as well as a popular time for certain festivals.

The seasons go in turn and it is possible, though rarer, for a season to occur more than once throughout the year. It is also possible for a year or more to be spent within a single Still Season. This has occurred most recently, and is the setting in which the company finds itself setting out….

[brontios-helm]

Destiny 2: The Beginning Of The End

[ludinusdaleth]

-Critical Role Campaign 3, Episode 98, "The Nox Engine"

[tenderjock]

I’m with you, my love The lights shining through on you Yes, I’m with you, my love It’s the morning and just we two

[somerandomassnerd]

Kenku can’t form their own words.

That one Kenku commoner yelling “THEY CAN’T STOP US ALL” wasn’t the first time they heard that.

It’s chilling that more than likely they didn’t act and help the last time they heard that phrase. Even though they weren’t brave enough before it still stuck with them.

It’s a shame that Kenku went down, we don’t know if they are alive to be fair. However, what would be truly tragic is if their last act was one that they wish they did a long time ago. That in their final moments they finally got to stand up against their oppressors like they wish they would’ve when they heard that phrase the first time.

God I love Critical Role and I absolutely love bird people.