#dark elf home mod

[mikatesmods]

ASHUBIRNIRAM - The Dunmer Home in Tundra

[thedeadthree]

-`. i need to be more unhinged about her so here is yana in this picrew. 🥀🌸<3💀

[torchship-rpg]

Dev Diary 14 - Star Union Members!

Hello cosmonauts! Today we’re going to go back to the lore and identity Dev Diaries and cover the remaining members of the Star Union. So far, we have done Terrans & Lunars, and Martians & Spacers. These groups collectively make up the Solar Union, which is far and away the largest and most influential member of the Star Union (as the names imply). 

However, there are three other members; let’s touch on them.

Camp Aldrin

The first member we’re going to talk about is actually still within the Sol system! Camp Aldrin was once a major mining base on Earth’s Moon and a small second city, but the costs of maintaining two sets of infrastructure saw it rapidly outpaced by Armstrong City and eventually become something of a ghost town, home mostly to military bases and robotic mining. It is like Armstrong City in most ways, a network of underground tunnels, just smaller.

That changed during the war, because as Solar Patrol started winning battles, it started taking prisoners, and nobody was exactly sure what to do with them or where to put them. The initial plan was to keep them on Earth, which would be cheapest and safest, but Aquillians are not exactly accustomed to 1 g, so that was deemed needlessly cruel in short order. So, Camp Aldrin was repurposed instead; hardly anyone was living there, the systems were robust, it was close enough to Earth to make feeding everyone easy, and escape risk was very, very low on the moon.

Of course, the Sol Union hadn’t really run very many prisoner of war camps in the last half-century, so it dusted off the models it had used during its expansion on Earth, which was basically to have the prisoners self-organise a little community under their supervision, which is a very good way of ensuring that after the fighting is over, the enemy soldiers you release have familiarity with your mode of political organising. This worked extremely well among the Aquillian prisoners (and various auxiliaries and unlucky others who ended up there), who had up until this point lived pretty miserable lives as press-ganged crews of rockets and space stations. Camp Aldrin was the kind of place where the guards didn’t bother carrying weapons.

Then the war ended, and a lot of the prisoners didn’t want to go back. Some left for the new Aquillian republics, some hardliners tried going back to the various Remnants, but after that was over, there were 200,000 people still living in this creaky old moon base who wanted to stay.

So after some negotiation, the guards handed over the keys, and Camp Aldrin was the second full member of the Star Union.

The details of this identity are going to depend a lot on the Aquillian identity, which we’ll go into in more detail in the next Identity-focused dev diary. What’s interesting for our purposes is that Camp Aldrin’s Aquillians are distinct from the other groups because of their ongoing enthusiasm for biological and genetic modification, which is very taboo among other Aquillians. This is basically an excuse to play just about any kind of space elf you want; whatever characteristics you think a space elf should have, there’s a subculture on Camp Aldrin like that.

The other common Traits of Camp Aldrin’s citizens are War Veteran (for obvious reasons), and Dark History, in case you want any juicy dark secrets or old enemies from before you ended up here.

Camp Aldrin’s flag is based on the old uniforms they gave prisoners, which had a terrible colour scheme and a big symbol on it so everyone could recognize escapees on sight. If the ears didn’t give it away.  (Which it might not on Earth. God, can you imagine how embarrassing it would be to be part of some cool fantasy elf gene-mod subculture and then you meet real space elves and it becomes hashtag problematic? How do you explain to people you just liked Lord of the Rings before First Contact?)

Proxima

Gee humanity, why does the Star Union let you have two members?

Well before FTL was invented by humans, we sent tiny near-light probes to the nearest systems using our mastery of Fuckoff Big Space Engines. When the images came back decades later, people were overjoyed by the readings from Proxima b; despite being a tidally-locked iceball orbiting a flare star, it had both liquid water and abiotic oxygen generation in the upper atmosphere. Sure, it was cold, you’d need to live in canyons on the terminator band to avoid the howling winds, you need to bring your own soil to grow stuff, and there’s no terrestrial source of metals, but other than that it's basically just like home!

Needless to say, the moment FTL drives were invented, humans threw themselves on some FTL rockets and made the months-long crawl (they were shitty FTL drives) to the nearest star to set up a colony. Compared to Mars, it was basically paradise! Sure, it took months to get supplies from home, and there was no FTL communications yet so that was the only time you got any news, but the basics were covered.

Then one day, after an unusually long delay, one of the supply rockets came in and told them, hey, first contact just happened. Anyway, we’re at war with a giant alien space empire, everyone back home voted to set up an emergency War Council with way too much power over basically everything, and they’ve unilaterally decided that the colony project isn’t affordable in a war economy, so pack it up, you’re heading home.

Needless to say, people reacted in an entirely rational manner. Which is to say, they concluded that the Solar Union had just had some kind of insane military coup, probably by the same bloodthirsty maniacs that oversaw the Elysium Emergency (which was a formative event for most of the colonists), and was trying to shut the place down because it was outside their control. So, naturally, they promptly declared independence, then immediately fell down a rabbit hole of spiralling radicalization and internal conflict as they tried to figure out how to survive in their half-built colony when Solar Patrol would surely be arriving with the jumpjets at any moment.

This is where we get our two Proxmia identities. The first are the surface-dwellers on the planet themselves, who are the far better-known group. Properly Centaurians, but universally known as Proxies. The Proxies had no doubt that humanity would triumph in their war against these mysterious aliens, if it was even real; they were largely Terrans who had grown up at the centre of the Solar Union’s power and could not conceive of something beating them. Obviously, this meant they’d be next! 

This group seized heavily on the preliminary plans to do a Martian-style genetic engineering process and decided that going full-steam ahead and making themselves a distinct species would make them too much trouble to re-integrate back into the Union. And, of course, this could be used to create The Ultimate Specimens of Post-Humanity, an impulse that never ever goes wrong ever.

So, obviously, it went wrong. Sure, a lot of Proxies were faster, stronger, maybe even smarter than the human norm back home. But mostly what happened was they made their kids really sick. Even when it worked out, a lot of them were left with chronic pain, neurological disorders, or permanent dependence on various medicines or procedures to have any kind of decent quality of life, things not in abundance on the tiny colony. To make things worse, the place was rapidly falling apart, and the adults were accelerating this process fighting one another over whether to swallow their pride and call home, or somehow try to tough it out. Eventually, the older generation were overthrown by the super-kids they made, who promptly called their grandparents and asked for medical assistance.

Proxies are a chance to play with all the really fun gene-engineering stuff and make a post-human character. There’s a few recommended Traits; almost all Proxies have a tapetum lucidum for better night vision in the eternal twilight of the terminator band, and the Augment trait’s mix of bonus abilities and medical or metabolic drawbacks is perfect for representing it. The Cold Resistance trait is also a good one; a lot of Proxies have an insulating layer of fat or some other adaptation which makes it easier to survive the bitter cold.

The other group in the system which split off were the Proxima Spacers, a group of Spacers who tagged along with the colony to set up mining in the rich asteroid belts in the system. As Proxima b has no local metals, they were the ones who’d need to provide them, in exchange for food and biological compounds from the surface colony. Being Spacers well-accustomed to the precarity at the edge of the system, and just how fragile the Solar Union was, they were convinced humanity was going to lose the war, and they’d be next when the aliens swept in to clean up. Human extinction was surely imminent. 

So they started to hide, disassembling their major stations and rebuilding them into the sides of low-spin asteroids, spreading out into many small communities and increasingly relying on cold-gas jets to make increasingly infrequent journeys between stations and to the planetary colony. They put up shielding, used lasers in place of radio to communicate, and did everything they could to disappear. They became the Archivists; doomsday survivalists in space.

When the Solar Union returned to the system, it at first looked like the vast majority of spacers had fled down to the colony or died, but over years they slowly became aware of the Archivists through intermittent contact. They mostly want to be left alone to their task, though sometimes members join Star Patrol, either defecting from the tightly controlled and spartan lifestyles of the spacers or, worryingly, spying and gathering information to squirrel away. For the most part, the Archivists seem to just be focusing on long-term survival, and may even have spread to other systems using their reserve of old FTL drives for redundancy.

An Archivist is a really good way to play a loner. The exact mix of Traits is a bit up in the air right now as we rebuild character creation, but you get all the common Spacer ones with a few extracts to represent the culture of secrecy and isolation you grew up in. Archivist communes are often organised quite a bit like mystery cults to compartmentalise information, so lack of trust is something very central which you may need to overcome.

Proxima's flag is a stylization of the sky as seen from the colony, with the three stars in the system and the endless sunset.

Corvus Peasants’ Republic

Finally, we have the first member to consist of aliens and not be located a convenient walk away from Earth. The unimaginatively-named Corvus is the natural exonym given when a wartime Solar Patrol rocket crashed on an alien world and were greeted by a bunch of crow-people; they presumably didn’t recruit them for creativity. 

The Koath are a species of hunched, bipedal non-humanoid aliens with an interesting evolutionary history. As best anyone can tell, their distant ancestors were once the domesticated pets of a humanoid species which managed to Great Filter itself about a million years ago, possibly over the fact that they’d bred at least one strain of their companion animal to be able to speak and possess the intelligence of a ten-year-old child. The Koath emerged as survivors of the apocalypse, which included a pretty severe biosphere collapse and resource depletion, and have become the dominant form of life on their world.

At first glance, Koath societies look more or less mediaeval, mostly in that really late period where people were doing really cool things with waterwheels, granted, but there’s not a lot of industry or steelworking owing to the easy sources of carbon fuels and decent iron all being long-depleted. For those reasons, the Koath have been at roughly this state of infrastructural development for roughly a hundred thousand years, at the edge of their population carrying capacity and unable to intensify production any further, resulting in interlocking networks of feudal kingdoms prizing stability in an attempt to build up their resources and overcome the gaps.

This does mean that the Koath have a lot of interesting surpluses, though. Having had organised agriculture for ten times longer than humanity, the Koath have selectively bred some absolutely incredible crops; not just for eating, but for just about everything. Need a dye? They can cross-breed you arbitrary Pantones. Need paper? They can make you a lot of it. It’s so impressive that while the planet had consistently been considered not worth conquering, it has long been considered worth visiting, which means the Koath have learned a lot of things they don’t have the technological infrastructure to have discovered on their own… which dovetails with a quirk of their biology.

Koath are really good at languages. Really good. It’s what their ancestors were bred for. They start talking within months of being hatched, and they make up new languages constantly because it’s easy and fun. They have unique languages for regions, religions, guilds, and within families. They can learn to read in weeks. They’re all literate, they make paper with the waste-products of food production, and they’ve had moveable type for longer than human civilisation has existed. And they are, to a fault, curious.

A Koath peasant working the earth with a bronze plough might not know much about quantum mechanics, but they’ve at least heard of it. They have a rich body of secret political writing written in coded languages about how much it sucks living as serfs so a lord somewhere can have the county’s only lightbulb. So when a human spaceship filled with 3d printers, the diagrams for 3d printed guns, and a bunch of very confused communists who immediately bristled at the idea of ‘local lords’ crashed in their neighbourhood, the local peasants did a whole little revolution about it, and were then promptly besieged by every single one of their neighbours.

So that’s the Corvus Peasants’ Republic. Not a whole planet even; a tiny peninsula of possibly overenthusiastic little bird communists trying to build up technological infrastructure while literally having trebuchets pointed at them. They’re very excited to be a part of the Star Union, because every iron-rich asteroid found out there is a new steel foundry back home, so maybe their people can enjoy all the cool technology they’ve had blueprints for since Ur was the happening place on Earth.

As a Koath, you get the Polyglot Trait, obviously, and the Non-Humanoid Bodyplan trait which gives you some cool little tool bonuses when you use your claws, vestigial feathers, and adorable little legs that give a surprising burst of speed, at the cost of needing special tools and being bad at throwing things. You are also a really good recipient for the Out of Time trait, as you may have gone from living as, you know, a peasant, to operating a spacecraft in a few short years. The Prodigy trait also does double-duty here for the curiosity and literacy of the species.

A year ago this little guy was a farmer.

[regulusblackfest]

Masterlist

And that's a wrap on this year's fest - all 28 (!!) works have been posted, and creators have been revealed. You can find the works in our ao3 collection or beneath the cut; as always, mind the tags, and leave some love <3

A huge thank you to everyone who has participated in the 4th year of this fest, whether for yet another year or the first time, whether as a writer, artist, or reader!

All the love,

the mods

Title: A Boy and his Cat AO3 username: aCanadianMuggle / @acanadianmuggle Pairing/main characters: Gen Rating: G/A Warnings: None Medium/Word Count: 1 603

Summary:

Regulus Black becomes an animagus specifically to spend more time with Sirius.

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/46110178

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Title: Umbrella Drinks AO3 username: patriceavril Pairing/main characters: Regulus Black/Peter Pettigrew Rating: Teen Warnings: None Medium/Word Count: 4201

Summary: 

Regulus and Peter escape the war and start a new life on the beach, where Regulus learns to relax, forget the past, and wear flip-flops, God help him.

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/46169656

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Title: by the milk-light of moon AO3 username: dalula Pairing/main characters: Regulus Black/Sirius Black Rating: Explicit Warnings: Underage, Incest, Dubcon, Painful Sex Medium/Word Count: 2587

Summary:

Only Sirius can make him feel safe. Even if it hurts, he knows his brother loves him.

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/45726763

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Title: black, mirror shards AO3 username: puddinghater26 Pairing/main characters: Regulus Black & Sirius Black  Rating: Explicit Warnings: Blood/Violence/Abuse Medium/Word Count: 2,433

Summary:

“Sirius, I’m scared,” Regulus confessed, cheek pressed against the mirror. “It hurts.” His insides burned. Then, something breached the surface of the lake. Deathly pale arms and faces, water bloated and rotting. (In which Sirius DOES run away from home, but leaves Regulus with a communication mirror, and how that small change affects Regulus' future.)

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/46642927

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Title: A Little Bird Told Me AO3 username: MidnightStargazer Pairing/Main Characters: Gen; Regulus Black, Sirius Black, Original Character (Regulus's daughter) Rating: Teen and Up Warnings: mentions/discussion of injustice, oppression, and bigotry; canon-typical violence; minor character death; brief mentions/references to self-harm Word Count: 49,988

Summary:

In 1979, Lord Voldemort asked to borrow a house-elf, and Regulus remained silent. As a result, he never learned of the locket horcrux and remained a Death Eater until the end of the war, avoiding punishment by claiming to be a victim of the Imperius Curse.

Now, it's 1995, and the Dark Mark is burning again. Regulus, who has spent fourteen years trying to distance himself from the Death Eaters, is not exactly thrilled about this turn of events and has no desire to rejoin their ranks. Unfortunately for him, the Dark Lord does not accept resignations. What is a semi-reformed Death Eater do when the past he thought he had left behind comes back to haunt him?

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/46457365/

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Title: El Reyezuelo de El Dorado AO3 Username: AmethystHeart2421 / @amethystheart2421 Pairing: Regulus Black/Remus Lupin Rating: Explicit Warnings: Rape/non-con (sex on polyjuice potion), kidnapping and torture Word Count: 4,430

Summary: 

Sirius Black has made a habit of ruining Regulus's life. His support of a political rival that threatens their family's California dynasty is a step too far. Regulus decides it's time to take back what is rightfully his. He ends up getting more than he bargained for.

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/46456318

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Title: Good Luck AO3 username: solavonn (vonnibel) / @solavonn Pairing/main characters: Regulus Black/Lily Evans Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Medium/Word Count: art (no words)

Summary: 

When Lily attends the quidditch game between Gryffindor and Slytherin, it’s not to cheer for James, as everyone assumes.

AO3link: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/regulus_black_fest_2023/works/47003767

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Title: Moonlight Shenanigans AO3 username: Puddinghater26 Pairing/main characters: Regulus Black, Remus Lupin, Sirius Black, James Potter, Barty Crouch Jr. Evan Rosier, Pandora Rating: Teen and up Warnings: Violence, Implied past Child Abuse, Casual bloodpurist racism, substance abuse, underage substance abuse, Werewolf attack, crude language, Suicide attempt, casual mentions of suicide, threats of violence, reggie being a little shit Medium/Word Count: 10,516

Summary: 

Regulus tags along to investigate the whomping willow with Snape. The ‘prank’ AU in which Regulus was with Snape on that fullmoon night but wasn’t saved in time. Featuring 14-year-old newly infected Werewolf Reggie and a lot of angsty, teenage drama.

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47080993

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Title: Fate and Love and a Potion for Finding It  AO3 name: Lilolilyann Pairing: Hermione Granger/Regulus Black Rating: G/A Warnings: None Medium/Word Count: 1883

Summary: 

Hermione doesn’t ask for much.  Hot tea. A cozy fire. Old books.  Oh, and a potion that will show her one true love.  Will it be Weasley-red she sees at the bottom of the cauldron or someone else? 

AO3 link: archiveofourown.org/works/47023795

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Title: What We Do For The Cause AO3 username: piximera / @piximera-art Pairing/main characters: Regulus Black/Severus Snape Rating: Explicit Warnings: Rape/Non-con Medium/Word Count: 3 074

Summary:

In order to get access to some sensitive information they have to first gain access to the inner circle. Regulus is willing to do everything for Severus, even accept Voldemort's advances.

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47043400

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Title: Flowers Sleep in the Winter AO3 username: daydreamerdisease / @daydreamerdisease Pairing/main characters: Regulus Black/ Muggle OMC, multiple original characters Rating: Mature Warnings: MCD, terminal illness Medium/Word Count: 10,250

Summary:

Main Prompt: Regulus pining for a Muggle Summary: Instead of dying in the cave, Regulus goes into hiding in the muggle world while he figures out how to destroy the locket. He doesn't anticipate falling for a muggle, never mind one that is sick. OR Regulus cries at the movie Bambi and is never the same again.

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47160751

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Title: Prawns AO3 username: wandering_thought / @w4ndering-th0ught Pairing/main characters: Regulus Black/James Potter Rating: Teen Warnings: None Medium/Word Count: 7,459

Summary: 

“You’re a dog, Sirius?” Regulus asks. “Of all the animals in the world, your animagus is a big shaggy dog?” “Oh shut up, like you’d get something better.” “Definitely would get something better.” “Oh yeah?” “Yeah.” “Well, I guess you’ll just have to prove it now.” “I guess I will.”

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47098750

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Title: Regulus Black vs Dish Washing AO3Username: writer_of_sorts / @writer_of_thoughts Pairing/main characters: No Pairing Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Medium/Word Count: 920 words

Summary: 

A short canon-divergent AU where Regulus struggles with household chores, copes with his trauma and reminisces on past events regarding the war and his childhood.

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47151775

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Title: Somebody to Love AO3 username: Graceless_Lady / @gracelesslady23 Pairing/main characters: Regulus Black/Lily Evans, Regulus Black & Sirius Black, Sirius Black/James Potter Rating: Mature Warnings: None Medium/Word Count: ~15K

Summary:

Regulus had never wanted to end up as Sirius' wedding planner, but here he was, making sure everything was running smoothly with the other wedding planner, Lily Evans while his brother was off somewhere snogging Potter.

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47164600

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Title: sanctuary AO3 username: unspeakable3 / @unspeakable3 Pairing/main characters: Regulus Black (Regulus & Cassiopeia Black, Regulus & Kreacher) Rating: T Warnings: Medium/Word Count: fic, 16,352

Summary:

Regulus chooses to live in hiding for many years. He slowly recovers from his experiences during the war and builds a quiet little life for himself and his thestrals. But has he recovered? And is he living?

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47174248/chapters/118857865

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Title: Rule One AO3 Username: Caiti / @caiti-creative-corner Main characters: Narcissa, Regulus, & Sirius Black Rating: G/A Warnings: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence; Marauders Era Medium/Word Count: 2,325 words

Summary: 

When Regulus is Sorted into Gryffindor, it changes more than one trajectory. Narcissa Black sees an opportunity . . . and what kind of Black would she be if she didn't take it.

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47179129

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Title: All That Remains AO3 username: CelesteMagnolia / @celestemagnoliathewriter Pairing/main characters: Regulus Black/Original Female Character; Sirius Black, Walburga Black, Orion Black Rating: Mature Warnings: implied/referenced underage sex. implied/referenced suicide and suicidal thoughts. teen pregnancy. blood, gore and violence. discussions of abortion. sexism. Medium/Word Count: Fic. 53,046 words.

Summary:

Regulus Black has one goal in the fall of 1978: find a worthy, pureblood witch to marry. Walburga and Orion, his parents, have made it clear that he's got to secure the next generation of Blacks. How hard could it possibly be, when he's the heir of the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black, is *almost* as good looking as his older brother Sirius, and has the Dark Mark to show his devotion to the Dark Lord? Regulus will soon find out that finding the perfect witch is harder than it looks when he's engaging in war crimes, studying for his N.E.W.T.s, and trying to win the Quidditch Cup. Then, it's damn near impossible when a baby shows up on his doorstep nine months after he loses his virginity (it was all a big misunderstanding, he blames Narcissa), and stumbles into the real world for the first time in his privileged life. Despite the humorous summary, this tale is darker than it appears. Read/mind the tags.

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47052514/chapters/118540876

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Title: The Day Bleeds Into Nightfall AO3 username: acari / @ghaniblue Pairing/main characters: Regulus/James Rating: Explicit Warnings: no archive warnings Medium/Word Count: 4800

Summary:

If this was Regulus' last night on earth, he would use it to ruin Sirius' favourite thing. James was in a gay Muggle club, all by himself. Regulus would send him back ruined.

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47191057

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Title: In the Colossal Brain of Damnable Gods AO3 username: tenrousei_kuroi / @tenrousei-kuroi Pairing/main characters: Regulus/Sirius Rating: E Warnings: Physical violence, Rape/non-con, Incest, past/reference underage Medium/Word Count: Fic, ~10,000 words

Summary:

Deep in the lower cell block of Azkaban, Sirius Black is one of the only prisoners managing to retain a level of sanity by focusing on the depressing truth of his innocence. But Sirius hides from the Dementors a terrible weight of true guilt, a sin so soul-crushing that he vowed to never face it again. And for some time, he succeeds... Until Barty Crouch throws his son into the next cell, and Sirius finds himself getting far too close. Close enough to shake loose his own dormant secret.

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47145352/chapters/118783324

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Title: Of Soulmates and Starbursts AO3 username: StayTrue / @probablyahopelessromantic Pairing/main characters: Lily Evans Potter/ Regulus Black/ James Potter Rating: Teen and Up Warnings: None That Apply Medium/Word Count: 3 330

Summary:

Regulus Black finds himself closer than he has been to Lily and James Potter in a few years. The two have officially tied the knot and not only moved into his apartment complex but the very space next door. Now, torn by past feelings for James and the knowledge that Lily and James are quite literally destined for one another, Regulus is left with complex feelings for both parties.

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47232049

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Title: Rich Kid, Asshole (Paint Me as a Villain) AO3 username: Loki_Demon / @leogichidaa Pairing/main characters: Regulus Black, Evan Rosier, Barty Crouch Jr. Rating: Mature Warnings: poisoning, torture, murder, assault, animal abuse (implied), discussion of alleged sexual assault, bigotry and slurs, child abuse Medium: Fic, Word Count: 16,569 Summary:

Regulus Arcturus Black has noble blood and noble intentions to rid the world of mudblood infiltrators and bring the muggles to their knees where they rightly belong. Unfortunately, the world is massively unjust and, through no fault of his own, his plans go horribly awry.

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47171086/chapters/118849576

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Title: Life goes On AO3 username Grey_Kenaz / @green-and-grey-kenaz Pairing/main characters: Regulus Black, Horace Slughorn, Minerva McGonagall, OC DADA Professor Rating: Gen Warnings: None Medium/Word Count: 2945 Summary: 

Regulus tackled the horcrux before completing his Hogwarts education, and he survives. He returns to Hogwarts and it's as though nothing has changed for everyone else and the dark lord doesn't know his horcrux has been taken. But everything has changed for Regulus.

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47332498

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Title: Patience, Plots, and (Broken) Promises AO3 username: DepravedDesires Pairing/main characters: Regulus Black/Sirius Black, Sirius Black/James Potter, James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Sirius Black/James Potter/Lily Evans Rating: E Warnings: Noncon Medium/Word Count: Fanfiction, 12.5k Summary: 

Instead of blasting Sirius off of the family tree, Walburga Black sets something even more sinister in motion. Pitting son against son, which Black brother will come out on top? or Regulus Black is not as helpless as he appears to be.

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47345560

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Title: could we pretend (this won't end?) AO3 username: a_sentimental_man / @a-sentimental-man Pairing/main characters: Regulus Black/Harry Potter Rating: T Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Medium/Word Count: Fic, 4483 Summary: 

For the Prompt: Set after Deathly Hallows, ignoring the epilogue, and with Regulus already out of Hogwarts: Regulus knows better than to mess with objects in Grimmauld Place, but he has been brewing over books on Horcruxes for hours and didn't pay attention. There's a lurch and a lot of dizziness, and suddenly Grimmauld Place looks like it hasn't seen a living person in decades. There is a boy of Regulus' age though, looking exactly as exhausted and done with the world as Regulus feels. Regulus survived the cave filled with Inferi. Sometimes - like when he's hurled through time into a future that is incredibly different from his own - he couldn't help but wish he didn't.

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/regulus_black_fest_2023/works/47334193

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Title: Goodbye Lullaby AO3 username: LimeOfMagicLimo / @limetimo Pairing/main characters: Regulus Black & Sirius Black Rating: Gen Warnings: None Apply (could be MCD depending on reader's interpretation) Medium/Word Count: 5.5k Summary:

Prompt: Age Swap between Regulus and Sirius. Regulus was the firstborn son and heir instead while Sirius was the younger but still unruly brother. Life for Regulus was fine and he was doing fine. He was the perfect pureblood son for the noble house of Black. He has done well in school, being sorted in Slytherin, getting good grades, and making connections with other pureblooded or talented witches and wizards. He also had a younger brother who, though unruly and filled with mischief, Regulus loved dearly. Everything was fine. Until his mother hit Sirius for simply wearing red and golden instead of green and silver and the whispers of a coming war grew louder. Written while listening exclusively to the Goodbye Lullaby album by Avril Lavigne.

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47376688

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Title: Home is not a place AO3 username: regulusarchieblack / @regulusarchieblack Pairing/main characters: Regulus Black & Original Child Character Rating: Gen Warnings: None Medium/Word Count: 3077 Summary: 

Regulus was told - implicitly - that this was not the order of things. But he knew he could never let go.

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47526781

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Title: down in alabama they like home-cooked fare AO3 username: griddlebones / @elvendorx Pairing/main characters: regulus black & sirius black Rating: teen+ Warnings: none Medium/Word Count: fic, 2729 Summary:

The House of Black is not made for the drawn-out press of summer. They come from the night sky, scattered pricks of polished dust that push out of the darkness, as old as the nothingness itself, suspended the freeze that wipes out the rest of the cosmos.

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47401354

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Title: do you have a best friend? AO3 username: coincidences / @ncoincidences Pairing/main characters: Regulus Black & his daughter Rating: Gen Warnings: None Medium/Word Count: 16,000 approx. Summary:

It's 1985, Regulus and his daughter have just moved into Hogsmeade to start a new life, when Dumbledore comes on their doorstep with a request.

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47532421/chapters/119790268

[studentinpursuitofclouds]

So I've been having a lot of fun with both sve and rsv and npc adventures, and I was wondering... how would the adventurers in each mod react to each other's dangerous areas? Like, for example how would Lance react to Ridgeside Forest and the Spirit world, and how Daia and Jio would react to the Crimson Badlands. Bonus points if the farmer is their romantic partner and say they've been going to these places on their own before they became a couple!

This is actually very interesting topic. I remember thinking of writing a headcanon at least about Lance getting to know Ridge Forest and Jio.

Also, I decided to keep Isaac and Alesia neutral since they are not yet marriage candidates. Thank you for your question and enjoy 🫰

_________________________________________

Lance:

Though it's a beautiful forest full of various interesting flora and fauna, Lance keeps his hand on the hilt of his sword. His skin tingles slightly from the magic that wafts through the air. What's most tense is that the magic is dark, unnatural. The pink-haired adventurer had no idea that such powerful monsters and such a huge source of magic could be so close to the human settlement, Ridgeside Village. And the fact that his dearest Farmer had tread the ground of Ridge Forest more than once before genuinely amazed Lance. He knew that Farmer was a very talented person, but to single-handedly slay local monsters.... Lance marvelled. That being said, however, the second-in-command of The First Slash clan couldn't help but worry about Farmer's health even more. He's also very much interested in why the Ministry of Magic, or anyone else for that matter, has never been mentioned for this land. Still, learning something new will always intrigue Lance, and he's thrilled that his spouse will share those feelings with him.

Jio:

This place... Jio had heard of this cursed desert many times, his Lady had once mentioned it when she was looking for the 'mysterious blue man'. Suspicions that this mysterious man might have something to do with the creation of this area made him tense up. That someone, or something, could create a truly hell on earth..... Or not create, but maintain the population of these monsters, the spawns of darkness... And most importantly, how and why? This questions, by the way, is the reason why the elf first appeared in Crimson Baldlans. Jio doesn't particularly want to meet with the local adventurers from Castle Village to find out the information he needs, but wouldn't mind the company of his beloved, the Farmer, and is grateful for their help as a guide through Crimson Baldlans. Taking some local sand for Daia, collecting some monster loot and local artefacts, and learning the behaviour of certain monsters so that it will be easier to fight them in the future - jio glad that the Farmer will be able to take care of themself if they comes back here again.

Daia:

So this is the Highlands... Interesting. Daia can't wait to explore the area with her spouse, who has agreed to be her guide. She's sure there's plenty of wonderful rock, gems and interesting monsters to explore! Plus, it could be considered a date in the woods, couldn't it? And there's so many bushes for the two of them to go into- Hee hee! Okay, okay, she's just kidding. However, the Lady with the Red Tail cult member immediately brushes the jokes aside when they reach Highlights Cave. Daia doesn't doubt her and Farmer's fighting skills in the slightest, but she has a gut feeling that those who shadow people in the cave are outnumbered by dozens of times. The fight could be serious, so she'll need to be on her guard. Will also be very interested in the tower near the cove where they moored their boat, as well as the local inhabitant of this tower. The girl will have to show her eloquence to get to know the pink-haired adventurer without telling too much about herself and the Cult. Or ask her cutie Farmer!

Alesia:

Alesia couldn't remember ever travelling so far from her home, Castle Village, but Camilla had instructed her to meet the Farmer in Ridge, who would help her in exploring this new area that could hold a great source of magic (and maybe a threat to the people living nearby). She arrived at the agreed upon location, however the Farmer was already twenty minutes late. Out of boredom, the famous sniper decided to take a little walk through the forest, and her attention was attracted by the sound of a waterfall in the west. She had not expected to see such a beautiful place. The rushing water of the waterfall, the flowers and trees - Yoba humbles everyone by this beauty, untouched by human hand. The water is so clear that Alesia can see what is at the bottom. She is taken by surprise by the long fox ears that emerge from the water, and a moment later by Raeriyala herself in full height, standing on the surface of the crystal water. If the Farmer (Finally, they arrived!) had not explained to Alesia that it was a local forest spirit, the sniper would have believed for a moment that Yoba had appeared before her.

Isaac:

Spirit Realm... It's a strange place for Isaac, a man who is used to seeing a catch everywhere and being on guard. It's a very special place, and he doesn't need to be a wizard to feel the magic in the air and the presence of spirits. And the very fact that the Farmer showed him exactly how to get here - through the crystal teleporter - was unusual. Although Isaac can't understand why he agreed to visit this place and who Farmer wanted to introduce him to, but the decision has already been made, so the only thing left to do is to wait for them. And while Farmer is about to teleport to Spirit Realm, Isaac takes a moment to look around the place. It was... strange, quiet and peaceful. Green crystals, ancient columns, violet trees.... Well, the scarred adventurer has a little more time to relax and rest, enjoying the silence after all... For now.

[aeterna---amantes]

|| Tonight I went on another adventure with Taliesin (also using this mod)! And of course, had tons of fun while I was at it- I mean really, this sassy Elf has made me giggle in the past few days when nothing else could make me smile (due to personal reasons), I mean look:

..........that dragon isn't exactly hiding, my dear. 😂

Looking good in the moonlight~ (he did slaughter the dragon though, didn't really need my help either 😂 what did we unleash on Tamriel with him, oh my oh my-)

Then I dressed him up in some Immersive Armour, and got a lil' weepy before I headed off for the Thalmor Embassy (and let's just mention that dying there isn't the worst that can happen to someone who infiltrates it, by the way):

I put him back in his Thalmor robes and. His profile never ceases to make me go *siiiiigh*. He always ends up in front of me when we fast travel - or wanders around in my home, Goldenhills Plantation -, and turns back a bit like this and I'm 😩 Boy. Pls.

Oh, by the way, he's an idiot for running in front of EVERYTHING he sees. 😑 Trolls. Werewolves. Dragons. In today's playthrough he was Shouted back in the corner by a Draugr Deathlord because His Highness thought he'd deal with it up close and personal. (Constantly worried btw.)

Then he makes this comment and I'm. I'm sorry I love him. Same Tally, same. 😂 Princess or prince, I'm not picky, either.

I can't with this. I want to glomp on his back. 😂 Carry me, Tally! I am your burden. 😂

If I let him rest in my home and he's sandboxing, he starts swiping in every area?? Sassy, elf, AND cleans my home? Can I marry him? 😂

Then I dressed him up in my Lustmord Vampire Armour - and forgot that this way I ended up bare butt naked, because of which he was like:

Oh my gods, Tally. "Impressive specimen". 😅

Then we found a Heroic Stormcloak helmet and... he looks like he's thinking gurl. Seriously?!

Now I'm thinking, I'm going to put Vittoria's floral headband on him as soon as we get there with the Dark Brotherhood. 🫶🏻 And I will also put his ass in assassin leather. Yes. That'll be good. 🔥

[deusexlachina]

Antisocial DAO Part 1 (Dalish Elf Origin) - Defy societal beauty norms and good taste

In which I make the worst Dalish Elf ever and look upon my creation with pride.

My lack of social skills extends to character creation.

Because I Am Socially Inept, I must avoid levelling Cunning or Strength. This would pose major issues to Rogues and Warriors, respectively, so I must be a mage. Mages in Thedas are required to join the Circle, but, having already played the Circle Origin, I decline this invitation and use a mod to have the Dalish Origin while being a mage. (Given that there are Dalish mages, it's a little strange that you can't do this by default).

To help immerse the Warden in the world of Thedas, they use the same appearance options as almost all other NPCs. This is a solid design choice that I will be entirely subverting. After giving myself a Seriously Spooky Stare, I install a mod that expands the range of hairstyles and pick ostentatious twintails that go down to my hips.

I just need a name. Something goth, but also elvish...

Deathroot it is!

I have made yet another Horrible Goth Girl, but something's missing. I end up going back to add in facial tattoos, on the grounds that all Dalish have them and they're religiously significant. This is religion. Fashion is another story.

Being able to safely ignore Cunning and Strength, I put all my points into Magic. I choose to start with Paralysis, favouring the Entropy spell tree, mainly because it seems the most goth and edgy. I am rewarded for my aesthetic choices: paralysis is fantastic against the enemies in the ruins.

Unfortunately, as I explore the ruins, I lose my buddy Tamlen, and only survive because a mysterious human carries me back home. The Keeper sends me and Merrill out to go rescue Tamlen. This is the same Merrill as in Dragon Age 2, but here she isn't Welsh, isn't a blood mage and doesn't look like a baby. She's also not nearly as strong as her sequelized self, so to avoid dying horribly, I grab another friend, Fenarel.

Merrill protests at this unauthorized addition to my party because Merrill is very strict about the rules and would never do anything Keeper Marethari wouldn't approve of. There's an easy social check to convince her to let Fenarel come, but I cannot pass it because I Am Socially Inept. So I have to swallow my pride and Ask Mom if I can have a warrior in the party. Thankfully, she says yes. She even thanks me for asking her upfront, a scrupulous act that I have done solely because I could not convince Merrill to have a strong party otherwise. I cleverly forget to take a screenshot of this part.

Time is not on my side. I have been infected with the Taint, a disease which is very serious, despite the name. My friends notice I'm strangely pale.

I ask what they're talking about, because I'm always pale. And the veiny marks on my face are my Vallaslin, thank you very much.

After an unsuccessful hunt for Tamlen, I encounter Duncan, standing ominously amid the fresh corpses of several powerful darkspawn. There are a lot of pressing questions here, but the most pressing one on my mind is "Can I loot these bodies?"

He lets me loot every single one of them before talking to him. Poggers.

Duncan is a Grey Warden, an expert in my disease, and promises an unspecified cure if I just leave my family and join his secretive order. Unfortunately for him, he's a human and humans are currently preparing to forcibly displace my clan. The game, realizing this, gives you plenty of opportunities to openly distrust Duncan, and I pick every single one of them. This guy seems sus.

You always encounter Duncan, but the ways you can interact with this key character depend heavily on your Origin, giving you meaningful, interesting character choices right from the start. Take notes, Inquisition!

I tearfully embrace my clan and depart. This is a very solemn moment, full of gravitas and dignity. I am leaving my people, perhaps for good, and setting out on a dark, lonely path to fight nightmarish monsters. There is nothing even a little funny here.

[yanderes-galore]

To the anon that asked about “why can’t we adopt a Khajiit child”, I’ve seen at least one kid for that on Nexus Mods. Probably some other race kids if you go looking. Sucks you have to mod options in, but hey, that’s Bethesda for you.

Actually, that does have me thinking now… you think yandere mods exist? You think yandere mods *could* exist now that I just threw that idea out for any passing by modders to see?

I want yandere spouses 😥

That would add an interesting gameplay element.

I feel bad for my Dark Elf spouse as I'm not home all the time.

[vosh-rakh]

rabinna

author’s note: this fic is about the morrowind quest “rabinna’s inner beauty,” and most of it aligns with the events of that quest, aside from some artistic liberties taken. it also features certain events/places/people that are either completely made up or part of the “juniper’s twin lamps” mod for morrowind. lyveth (and of course ku-vastei) is the only character here who is not canon to either morrowind itself or to juniper’s twin lamps. anyway, without further ado:

- - - - -

Ku-vastei was tired of the harsh, rocky terrain that blew constant gusts of ash in her gills, so she decided to vacation in the Bitter Coast, for a while. Pick alchemical ingredients from the weeds and mushrooms, practice her skill with her short sword on mudcrabs, maybe raid a tomb or slaughter some slavers. But most important was just absorbing the swamp into her soul: its humidity, its heat, the flies so stupid they must have wanted to be snacked on. 

The lands of southern Morrowind, her naheesh had said, were not quite like Black Marsh. But it was all Ku-vastei ever knew, and to be in this little pocket of Vvardenfell felt like home.

But home was slavery, which made Ku-vastei angry. She began to itch for slaver blood to moisten her scales. She followed the coast northwest from Seyda Neen, hoping to find a smuggler’s hideout to ambush.

Eventually, when she came across the mouth of the Odai, she found a target. On the far side two dark elves were bombarding a small shack with arrow after arrow, while a Nord pounded on the door with the pommel of his claymore. Without thinking, before she knew the situation, Ku-vastei conjured her spear with a wave of her claw and dove into the waters.

She suddenly jumped from the river onto the rickety patio of the hut, causing the Nord to back up against the door in surprise. She cut off his holler with a Daedric spearhead through his heart.

One of the archers came running, using the hut for cover. He turned the corner, bow drawn, and loosed a steel arrow towards where he had hoped the sudden assailant would be. But Ku-vastei was crouched low, and the arrow flew off into the distance. She leveraged the strength of her tail and legs into a powerful upward strike, piercing the dark elf’s head from chin to crown. She couldn’t help but grin as blood sprayed from his mouth onto her face.

The last elf decided it best to keep his distance. As Ku-vastei turned the corner, he began to shoot at her from ten yards away. The first arrow Ku-vastei narrowly dodged, and then continued marching towards the archer. The second arrow hit her in the chest, unable to pierce the Orcish mail she wore under her robes, but delivered a strong blunt blow. The last arrow the elf would ever loose was feebly drawn, and Ku-vastei swatted it aside with an effortless sweep of her spear.

She lingered for a moment among the dead, satisfied with her work. The terror-mask of the last victim gave her strange peace.

Finally, she rose from her knees and went back to the shack’s door. She retrieved her spear from Oblivion and gently knocked with its butt. “Hello?” Silence. She knocked again. “They’re gone now. I killed them.” Still, no response.

Maybe one of those arrows got to them, she considered. She tried the knob and sighed. She leaned her spear against the doorframe and created a glowing magical key from her fingertips. The key fit the lock perfectly. She slowly opened the door, spearhead first.

The room was dark and empty, save for a dark elf crouched behind an overturned table. He stood with both hands raised and empty. “Ah, Argonian,” he said, “it is too late.” He nodded towards the floor. 

Ku-vastei quickly waved her hand in front of her face, enhancing her vision. In the magical brightness, she saw a Khajiit and dark elf lying dead on the floor. Both wore slave bracers. 

She pointed the spear across the room, the tip placed against the living elf’s throat. He did not react.

“I was trying to save them,” he whispered, through a gravelly Vvardenfell accent. “I’m with the Twin Lamps, serjo.”

“Twin Lamps?” Ku-vastei did not yet remove the pressure on the elf’s neck.

“We’re an abolitionist group.” He looked to the ceiling of the shack. “You can kill me if you want. I couldn’t even break the law successfully, it seems.”

The dust shaken from the planks by the barrage of arrows settled on everything in the room, including the slaves’ corpses. Ku-vastei dematerialized her spear. 

“I was a slave, once,” she said, lifting the Khajiit’s bracer-bound wrist idly, not looking up at the abolitionist. “Then I was … an abolitionist, of a sort.”

“Was?” The dark elf sat down next to the Khajiit’s body, leaning back against the wall.

“Started a revolt. Everyone I loved died. Went to prison.” She dropped the bracer with a loud thud on the floor. She stared at the bead of blood she had apparently drawn from the abolitionist’s neck. “Your kind are too cruel. You take us from our homes. Us root-kin, and the hajhiit too. Even your own kind. You abuse us for your profit. Now you seek some kind of redemption?”

The abolitionist’s wet eyes roamed the room.

“All you get is people killed. Innocent people. You dark elves will never give up your ‘birthright’. The Empire will even help you enforce it. And you think you can do anything to stop it?”

The dark elf locked eyes with Ku-vastei. “Then why are you here? Why did you kill those slave hunters?”

Ku-vastei flared her nostrils and widened her pupils at him, but could say nothing. They sat in silence, among the dead, guilty and innocent. 

Finally, the abolitionist stood to leave. “I should return to Stendarr’s Retreat to let them know.” He stopped at the door and looked back at Ku-vastei, who still knelt by the Khajiit. “You should visit sometime. It’s just north of Vivec. Someone might ask you, ‘Have you seen the Twin Lamps?’ The correct response is ‘They light the way to freedom.’ That’s how they’ll know you’re a friend. I hope to see you there, muthsera.”

Amidst smell of sea, dust, and blood, Ku-vastei remained in the shack as the morning ran into evening.

- - - - -

When Ku-vastei returned to civilization it was long past dark. “Civilization” seemed to be a small, dingy fishing village off the Bitter Coast, north of the Odai’s mouth. Despite the late hour, the place was bustling with activity, nearly everyone outside their shack homes and visiting with one another. But as soon as Ku-vastei stepped beyond the threshold of the village (the sign called it “Hla Oad,” a bastardization Ku recognized as meaning “little harbor”), silence fell swiftly over the noise, smothering it almost completely.

Finally a wood elf spoke up. “You won’t be needing that here, sera,” gesturing vaguely towards Ku-vastei.

Ku-vastei glanced at the torch in her left hand, then at the lit sconces hanging from homes around the village. She nodded, and snuffed out the torch in the dirt.

“No, sera,” said the wood elf again, clearly ill at ease, “I meant the sword.” The nearby brazier cast a flash on the steel shortsword in Ku-vastei’s right hand. 

“Yes, sorry,” she mumbled as she sheathed the blade on her hip. The crowd slowly began to return to its business of idle talk, albeit interspersed with glances at the stranger.

Ku-vastei slowly progressed past the village’s threshold as she looked for a place to rest. Under the dark eave of one of the huts to her left, she spotted a pair of side-slitted eyes leering out. As she turned to look at them, she also noticed the scaled tail wagging in and out of the shadow.

Ku-vastei swiftly approached the hidden Argonian and reached out, grabbing them by the wrist. “Well met, root-sister!” she exclaimed loudly, and the poor Argonian she’s accosted nearly jumped out of her scales.

The argonian ripped her hand away from Ku-vastei, rubbing her wrist as she quietly replied, “Well met.”

Ku-vastei frowned but continued her assault. “What do they call you here, sister?”

“I am called Okur, sera. What are you called?”

“Ku-vastei. Is that name Jel? I’ve never heard it before.”

Okur’s face-scales paled at the mention of Ku’s name. “No. I made it up. When I was freed. Are you that Ku-vastei?”

Ku-vastei’s frown deepened. “Is it better if I’m not?”

“No, no, sera,” Okur spouted. “It’s just…I was freed by a Ku-vastei, many years ago.”

“Hmm…” Ku-vastei muttered, leaning against one of the supports for the eave. “I can’t remember every slave I’ve freed. And it has been a long time.”

“So it is you…” whispered Okur through a slack-jaw. She bowed deeply before gently taking Ku-vastei by the hand. “I am forever in your debt, muthsera. If there is anything you need in Hla Oad, I will do my best to give it to you.”

Ku-vastei gave Okur’s hand a light squeeze and leaned in. “Do not ‘muthsera’ me, Okur. You can call me beeko. We swim upstream together.”

“Of course, muth-” she began before stopping herself, “beeko. What brings you to Hla Oad?”

“I am looking for somewhere to sleep without corpses.”

“Should I ask, beeko?”

Ku-vastei scratched her chin. “No, I don’t think you should.”

“Well, Ku-vastei, you are always welcome to take my bed. I can sleep on the floor.”

“No,” said Ku-vastei, shaking her head vigorously. “I shan’t impose. Is there an inn or tavern here?”

“I’m afraid not,” answered Okur. “There’s Fatleg’s Drop Off, but it’s just a tradehouse. And,” she whispered, motioning for Ku-vastei to come closer. Ku-vastei obliged, tilting her head towards Okur’s. “It’s a Camonna Tong front. I wouldn’t go there if I were you. And I would be careful here in general.”

“So the Tong reaches even here, on the island,” Ku-vastei said, shaking her head. “I’ll go to this tradehouse and see what troubles you.”

“No, beeko. You mustn’t. It’s too dangerous.” Okur took Ku-vastei by both hands. “They’ll kill you if they find out who you are. They lost a lot of people in the Arnesian War. Surely some still remember, the elves living as long as they do.”

“I can be discreet, Okur,” smiled Ku-vastei, politely taking back her hands. 

“But Ku-vastei,” Okur said, looking Ku up and down, “There’s blood on your robes.”

Ku-vastei looked down to check her clothes. Okur was right; her robes were splattered with blood from her earlier encounter. She frowned and pulled them off over her head, folded them up neatly, and handed them to Okur. “Wash them and keep them. I will go in without them.”

“But Ku-vastei,” Okur said again, staring in astonishment, “you’re wearing armor.”

Ku-vastei laughed. “I’m a mercenary, or a caravan guard. Don’t worry so much, beeko.”

“Okay,” said Okur. “Just don’t kill anyone in there, alright? They’ll say it was an Argonian, and it won’t matter much to the Tong which Argonian.”

“Discreet,” Ku-vastei reminded, before marching off towards Fatleg’s Drop Off.

- - - - -

Ku-vastei’s entrance seemed not to be noticed. A Khajiit and Redguard were conversing loudly.

“It’s a bad idea,” said the Redguard, shaking his head. He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his blue robes and leaned back against the wall.

“Pah, you have no ambition,” said the Khajiit. “No one’s lived there in thousands of years. It belongs to nobody, certainly not any Empire of men.”

Ku-vastei stood quietly in the shadows by the door, thinking herself unobserved.

“Still,” the Redguard said, “It’s dangerous. You’ll get your tail handed to you by those machines in there. Everybody knows those ruins are crawling with them.”

“Ra’Zhid knows,” the Khajiit hissed. “That’s why Ra’Zhid will be quick and quiet. No brass monster will see him come or go. In and out with the loot, like a phantom.”

“Whatever. Look,” the Redguard said, suddenly turning his head towards Ku-vastei, “Do you need something, or what?”

Ku-vastei’s tail tightened. “No,” she said after some hesitation.

“If you’re not here to trade, what are you here for?” asked Ra’Zhid.

“Just…” Ku-vastei struggled to find the words. “Looking for something to do.”

“Work, eh?” said the Redguard. He shared a glance with Ra’Zhid, who seemed to size-up Ku-vastei with his feline eyes before nodding. 

“Come closer,” said Ra’Zhid.

Ku-vastei again hesitated, but approached the Khajiit anyway. He pointed behind a stack of crates to his left. Ku-vastei’s eyes struggled in the darkness to see what his cat-eyes no doubt saw immediately. It seemed to be a trapdoor leading down into the earth.

“Head down there,” Ra’Zhid said with a crooked smile, “and turn right at the bottom of the ramp. Speak with Relam Arinith. He should have a job for you.”

Ku-vastei nodded and cautiously bent down to open the trapdoor. With her oversized bonemold pauldrons, it was a tight fit, but she managed to squeeze through and descend the ladder.

It smelled damp down there. Scarce torches lit the wooden-plank path down into the cavern with a dark orange glow. At the end of the ramp was a pool of water, the depth of which Ku-vastei could not discern. The walkway split left and right. Ku-vastei turned right.

In another chamber was a Dunmer and a Khajiit, with another Dunmer standing with his back turned on a raised platform behind them. The lower Dunmer seemed to be inspecting the Khajiit’s clothes. The Khajiit wore a slave bracer.

Ku-vastei’s nostrils flared, but she kept her cool and approached the Dunmer. “Are you Relam Arinith?”

Without turning away from his inspection, the Dunmer returned, “Are you a slave?”

“No,” Ku-vastei stated firmly.

“Hm.” The Dunmer finally turned towards Ku-vastei and evaluated her from a distance. “Shame. You look strong and hardy. Well-suited for the fields.”

Pushing away her fury, Ku-vastei changed the subject. “I was told you have work.”

“Ah, interested in doing some business, Argonian?” Relam smiled wickedly. “You look like you can handle yourself.” He placed an arm around the Khajiit’s waist and pulled her forwards toward Ku-vastei. “I need someone to deliver this slave to a Vorar Helas in Balmora. You’ll be rewarded once you get there.”

Ku-vastei glanced at the Khajiit. Her eyes were pure terror. A look Ku-vastei knew all too well.

“Yes,” said Ku-vastei. 

“Ah, obedient. Very good. You sure you’re not a slave?” Relam laughed and patted Ku-vastei on the back.

Big mistake. Before she could think her sword was already in her hand. But before she pointed it at Relam she wrested control from her instincts and sheathed it again. But it was too late - he had noticed, and stepped back.

“Watch yourself, Argonian,” Relam said with a chilled tongue. Ku-vastei noticed that the Dunmer on the raised platform had an arrow pointed directly at her heart. But Relam raised a hand towards the archer and smiled again, saying, “Now be a good little thing and run along. Vorar is waiting.”

- - - - -

Ku-vastei was too furious to speak until they were well out of town. Then she remembered she was escorting a scared slave, and softened her affect.

“You’re going to be okay,” she said without looking at the slave. “I’m not going to hurt you.” But she heard nothing in response, so kept silent for a while.

Suddenly her stomach reminded her she hadn’t eaten since a few hours before her encounter at the shack with the slavers. Then the weight of her eyelids hit her, and it spread throughout her entire body like a dull flame.

“We’re going to stop here for the night,” Ku-vastei said, glancing back to make sure the slave was still with her. She removed her backpack in a quick motion which frightened the slave girl, spiking her fur and anxiously tightening her tail. Ku-vastei frowned and repeated, “I’m not going to hurt you. Let me set up camp and then we can eat.”

The slave shook her head furiously. “Not hungry?” Ku-vastei asked. The Khajiit tentatively nodded. “Okay. You don’t have to eat. But I will.”

Ku-vastei rolled out her bedroll and started a fire. “You can sleep in the roll,” she told the slave. But the Khajiit awkwardly stood over the bedroll, uncertain. “I’m serious. It’s okay. I’ll sleep on the ground,” Ku-vastei emphasized. “Get comfortable.”

Slowly the Khajiit sat cross-legged on top of the bedroll, sitting as still as possible except for her tail, which swished behind her frantically.

Ku-vastei kept an eye on the slave while she cooked some mudcrab meat she’d acquired earlier in the day. The poor girl stared into the fire blankly, only looking up every now and then when Ku-vastei made a too-sudden move. 

Before Ku-vastei took her first bite, she offered again. “You sure you don’t want to eat?” The Khajiit nodded her head again, this time slowly. “Okay.”

After she finished eating, Ku-vastei put out the fire and got as comfortable as she could on the ground, looking at the Khajiit, who was now curled up on top of the bedroll. “What’s your name, beeko?” 

The slave frowned and glanced around, avoiding Ku-vastei’s gaze. Eventually she swallowed hard and whispered, “They call this one Rabinna.”

“Rabinna. ‘They’ call you that? The slavers, or your family?”

“Family,” Rabinna said, then fell silent for a long time. Ku-vastei took the hint and tried to fall asleep.

The night was troubled, on two fronts. Ku-vastei dreamed of the Sharmat, waiting for her at Red Mountain. Wedding and funeral scenes blended together into obscene ritual without meaning. 

On the other hand, she was awoken several times by the sound of weeping and groaning. It seemed Rabinna either couldn’t sleep or was beset by similarly horrible nightmares. Ku-vastei did not envy her. At some point, the weeping ceased and Rabinna seemed to sleep, but by then there were only precious few hours until dawn.

- - - - -

Ku-vastei woke to a scream and opened her eyes to the glint of steel. Instinctively she batted away the sword - her sword - pointed at her throat with one of her Orcish bracers. It clattered to the ground uselessly, her assailant’s grip feeble. She rolled them over, pinning her attacker to the ground. 

Rabinna began to weep under Ku-vastei’s weight. Ku-vastei eased up once she realized. “Rabinna, what are you doing?”

“Please don’t take Rabinna to that man,” Rabinna begged, sobbing. 

“Why?”

“He’ll kill Rabinna. For the drugs in her stomach.”

Ku-vastei frowned, quietly cursing Relam Arinith. “I’m sorry. We’re going there anyway. But don’t worry, I won’t let him harm you. And you and I won’t be there long, anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m taking you somewhere else, somewhere safe. But first, I’m going to kill Vorar Helas.”

“You’ll be arrested,” Rabinna said, but she was shocked out of her crying. “And they’ll probably have this one killed.”

“In Morrowind, murder is legal -”

“- in self-defense,” Rabinna interrupted. “This one sees.”

Ku-vastei got up from pinning Rabinna down and let her sit up. “Exactly.”

“It’s still a bad idea,” Rabinna said. “The Camonna Tong will hunt you down.”

“Let them!” Ku-vastei exclaimed. “Did I not tell you who I am?” Rabinna shook her head. “I’m Ku-vastei!”

“Do we know each other already? This one doesn’t understand.”

Ku-vastei frowned slightly. “I guess you’re too young to know who I am. Just know I can take care of myself.”

Rabinna sighed and reluctantly rose, and the two picked up camp before carrying on to Balmora. 

-

They asked around in Balmora once they arrived about Vorar’s whereabouts. It turned out that he lived in a house right next door to Caius Cosades. Ku-vastei would have to ask Caius next time she visited if he knew he lived next to a slaver and drug dealer - but knowing his proclivity for skooma, he probably wouldn’t have cared about the last part. 

Ku-vastei knocked on Vorar’s door, but there was no answer. She tried the door handle and found it to be locked. With Rabinna keeping an eye out for guards or other witnesses, Ku-vastei again conjured a magical skeleton key which fit the lock perfectly, contouring itself to fix the pins in place as it slid in. They entered, Rabinna reluctantly first but Ku-vastei close behind. 

“Ah,” shouted a voice from upstairs, “who’s there? Is it my sweets?” 

“Vorar Helas?” Ku-vastei called. 

Down the staircase came bounding and tripping a girthy man, one hand wrapped around the handle of a chitin dagger, the other around the neck of a jug of mazte. As soon as his red eyes alighted on Rabinna, they filled with a horrible bloodlust, and his lips stretched wide into a wicked smile. He launched himself at her with a shout, slinging mazte about the room. 

Blood mingled with the mazte as, in one swift motion, Ku-vastei appeared from behind screaming Rabinna and cut his throat with her short sword. 

Vorar dropped his dagger and jug, clutching at the gaping wound in his neck. Blood spurted out between his fingers as he collapsed on top of the mazte, shattering the bottle underneath, the beer exploding outwards. 

Rabinna couldn’t stop screaming. Ku-vastei didn’t care, simply admiring her handiwork.

“Ku! What in Oblivion is going on here!”

Ku-vastei turned around to see Caius Cosades standing in the door, trying to block the space with his body so nobody else could see inside. After he saw the corpse on the ground, he quickly entered the house and closed the door behind him. “Shut up, girl,” he said, slapping the back of Rabinna’s head, making her stop screaming. Ku-vastei almost turned the sword on him for that. But it’s generally best practice to not attack your boss.

“He was going to kill her,” Ku-vastei said. “Self-defense.”

“I told you to keep a low profile.”

“You know my history,” Ku-vastei replied as she sheathed her sword. “You should have expected this.”

Caius pinched the bridge of his nose. “I suppose I should have.” He glanced at the slave bracer on Rabinna. “What are you going to do with her? Does he have the key?”

Ku-vastei squatted to loot the corpse. After patting him down extensively, all she came up with was a hefty sack of coins. “No key,” she said, shaking her head. “But I have an idea.”

“Like what?” Caius asked. “Cut her arm off?” Rabinna recoiled from him at the suggestion.

“Have you heard of the Twin Lamps?”

Caius scratched his chin in thought. “Heard of them, yes. Don’t have any connections with them, though.” 

“I do,” Ku-vastei said, and left it at that.

“...Well, I suppose I can’t stop you,” Caius said. “Good luck.”

-

Ku-vastei and Rabinna took a silt strider to Vivec, then traveled north from the port. After about an hour they came upon Stendarr’s Retreat, a three story, round-cornered, stucco building in the Hlaalu style. Outside stood a familiar Dunmer, who, upon seeing Ku-vastei approach, smiled widely, albeit with his arms still crossed, leaning against the wall. 

The abolitionist Dunmer from the Bitter Coast greeted the two of them once they came within earshot. “Hello, serjos! How can I help you?”

“Have you seen the Twin Lamps?” Ku-vastei asked. 

The Dunmer smiled wider. “Of course I have, serjo. They light the way to freedom.” He glances at Rabinna. “And your friend here? How can I help her?”

Without speaking, Ku-vastei grabbed Rabinna’s hand and raised her arm, displaying her slave bracer. 

“Ah,” said the Dunmer. “We can help with that. Come with me.”

Ku-vastei and Rabinna followed the Dunmer inside, which was sparsely populated. There was a man behind the bar, and one cloaked patron sitting across from him, their face obscured by a hood. 

“This is the Argonian who rescued me in the swamp,” the Dunmer said to the bartender. 

The bartender nodded. “And you never got her name?”

“Right,” said the Dunmer. He turned back to shake hands with Ku-vastei. “I’m Lyveth. What’s your name, serjo?”

“Ku-vastei.”

The bartender nearly dropped the mug he was cleaning. The person at the bar jerked their head around to see. It was a Dunmer woman Ku-vastei didn’t recognize, her crimson eyes still mostly obscured by the shadows of her hood. 

“Surely not the Ku-vastei,” said Lyveth. 

“One and the same,” replied Ku-vastei, smiling at her fame. 

“…I think there’s someone you should meet,” said Lyveth, bowing before Ku-vastei. He glanced at the woman at the bar, who nodded and rose from her stool to approach. 

Ku-vastei extended a claw for a handshake. The woman took it delicately and curtsied in the Imperial fashion, removing her hood with the other hand. She was pretty in a certain way Ku-vastei couldn’t pinpoint. Not conventionally attractive but pretty nonetheless. 

“Ilmeni Dren, at your service,” the pretty woman said. 

“…I’m sorry, am I meant to know you?” Ku-vastei asked. 

“She’s the duke’s daughter,” Lyveth said, his mouth agape. 

“Ah,” Ku-vastei said. “I meant no insult.”

“None taken,” said Ilmeni. “I strive for anonymity, and distance from my noble station, anyway.” She smiled and glanced at Rabinna. “It tends to get in the way of my true occupation, besides. How can we help? Tell us what brings you to us today.”

“I was hired to deliver her as a drug mule. They forced her to swallow moon sugar, the true delivery. I took her first to the man who wanted her, and killed him. Then -”

Ilmeni winced; Lyveth gasped. 

“What’s wrong?” asked Ku-vastei, looking back and forth between them. 

“We don’t generally do that,” Ilmeni explained. “We’re not the Morag Tong. But continue.”

“Well, then we came here. I met Lyveth yesterday, as I’m sure he’s told you. He told me about this place. We need to get Rabinna somewhere safe, somewhere we can get her bracer off.”

Ilmeni frowned. “We can’t take her here. But I do know somewhere she can go.”

“Where?” Ku-vastei interrupted. 

“Take her to the Argonian Mission in Ebonheart. Speak with Im-Kilaya. He can arrange for her to be freed of the bracer and returned to Elsweyr.”

“But Rabinna was born in Morrowind,” interjected Rabinna. “She knows no one in Elsweyr.”

“I’m afraid that’s your best option, Rabinna,” said Ilmeni delicately. “You can begin a new life there, free from slavery.”

Rabinna frowned but nodded after a moment of thought. 

Ilmeni reached into a bag hanging at her side and produced two scrolls, handing them to Ku-vastei and Rabinna. “These will teleport you to the chapel in Castle Ebonheart. Say hello to my father for me.” Ku-vastei nodded. “Don’t, actually. That was a joke. The chapel isn’t far from the Argonian Mission, so you shouldn’t get lost.”

“Do you know how to use these?” Ku-vastei asked Rabinna.

“No,” said Rabinna. “Rabinna can’t read.”

“Okay,” said Ku-vastei. “Just recite this while looking at the letters on the scroll.” She leaned into the Khajiit’s ear and whispered something. The Khajiit nodded. 

As one, the two recited the contents of the scroll, and in the instant they finished, they were ripped away from Stendarr’s Retreat to fly instantaneously through Oblivion to their destination across the Ascadian Isles. 

-

Ku-vastei was mostly used to Intervention spells and scrolls by then. Rabinna had never teleported in her life. She spewed vomit all over the stone floor of the platform outside the chapel. Ku-vastei patted her on the back as she retched. 

Circumventing the vomit (a nearby guard grumbled to himself as he grabbed a mop and bucket), they began to traverse Castle Ebonheart until they stumbled, almost by accident, upon the Argonian Mission. (Ilmeni, who likely grew up here, overestimated how easy it is to get around.) Out of habit Ku-vastei knocked on the door, but shook her head and quickly opened the door herself. 

The room was sparsely decorated, austere save for a large yet simple rug covering the floor. An Argonian in exquisite golden robes, quite in contrast to the room he was in, stood near the center of the large chamber, facing away from the door. 

“Ah, a visitor,” said Im-Kilaya, turning towards Ku-vastei and Rabinna. “Welcome to the Argonian - by the Hist! Is that really you, Ku-vastei?”

“I am Ku-vastei,” she said. “Do I know you?”

“Likely not,” said Im-Kilaya, bowing. “You freed me years ago, and I fought the Dres under your banner.”

“Ah,” Ku-vastei said. “Well, I’m not exactly the same ‘Ku-vastei’ you knew anymore.”

“I can tell. You’ve phase-shifted, haven’t you? A woman’s body suits you.” Im-Kilaya looks at Rabinna, who hides behind Ku-vastei. His eyes naturally caught on the dull shine of her slave bracer. “But I see not much else has changed.”

“Rabinna here is a drug mule,” Ku-vastei said. “She needs help. Ilmeni sent us.”

“Shh! Not so loud with that name, beeko. Yes, we can help the girl. I’ve heard stories of the smugglers’ cruelty in sending these ‘mules.’ We can take it from here. Thank you, Ku-vastei.”

“Of course,” Ku-vastei said, before turning to leave. 

“Wait! Ku-vastei!”

Ku-vastei turned her head back slightly to listen. 

“What will you do now? Now that you have returned? Will you save our people again?”

“Again?” Ku-vastei asked, snorting. “I failed the first time.” She turns her head back to the door. 

“But times are different. The Empire is putting pressure on the King to ban slavery. Maybe you will succeed this time. True as anything, I know it is the Hist’s will.”

Ku-vastei sighs. “Maybe it is, Im-Kilaya. Maybe it is.”

[mass-effect-galaxy]

Another Baldur's Gate Roleplaying Idee: The False Monk

I always wanted to play a monk but never had the idea for a proper background. I am also not that fond of the idea of punching harder with bare hands than any sword could.

The inspiration for this character is a mixture of Mizu from "Blue Eyed Samurai" and Aloy from "Horizon Zero Dawn". I call her Mizoy. The idea came when downloading the Ha-arashi mod.

Mizoy is a half-wood-elf. Her mother was raped by a group of humans on her way to the nearest market (her clan lives quite secluded). She died while giving birth to Mizoy. And because the elders now considered Miloy a "child of death" she was expelled from the clan.

The child was taken in by another exile: A disgraced monk who lived in the woods. His order expelled him because, in his youth, he had stolen a legendary sword, the Ha-arashi, from the cloister's swordmaster and joined a band of mercenaries.

So great was his disgrace that his home clan refused to even mention his name anymore. So, he was called just "the Smith" because he earned his living by crafting pots and other metalworks that he used to sell to traveling merchants, once he no longer was fit enough to fight.

The Smith taught Mizoy his craft (she has the Guild Artisan background). When he was drunk enough, he also told her about his youth in the cloister and the basics of monk traditions (her class is Way of the Shadow monk). She also is proficient with the longbow because, when the Smith's eye side started fading, it became her task to hunt and keep them fed.

Now, the Smith is old, nearly blind. His time is over. The only thing he wanted to do before he died was to return Ha-arashi, which he had hidden in an unmarked grave behind the hut.

But when the two made their way to the old cloister somewhere on the coast, they were snatched away by Mindflayers. Mizoy was able to free herself, but when she tried to free the Smith, he turned. She had to strike him down with the Ha-arashi.

Now, she has a tadpole in her head (together with some half-understood monk teachings) and a legendary sword on her back. Even though she has no experience in sword fighting, the blade cuts down her enemies left and right.

The Ha-arashi fights on its own. It's alive! It speaks to Mizoy. And it's thirsty, it wants to be fed...

The roleplaying idea here is that the Ha-arashi is influencing Mizoy in a way that every encounter that you can either resolve by diplomacy or by violence turns into a fight. It's some sort of "Dark Urge light".

[lunarrosespirits]

Rosemary the Brownie/Earth Elf [Mod Lilac]

Name: Rosemary

Species: Brownie/Earth Elf

Gender: female

Pronouns: she/her

Sexuality: bisexual

Alignment: Light

Personality: Rosemary is a kind, gentle soul. She is thoughtful about everything she does, and is careful to make sure she harms none. She is very easily excited and has a sense of childlike wonder. She loves to learn and is very happy to spout plant facts until she can’t talk anymore. She has a genuine zest for life and has a sunny and positive disposition. She doesn’t shy away from talking about serious subjects, however. She is a great listener and wants you to feel like you’re able to come to her with anything. She is a genuine sweetheart and wants nothing more than to bring joy, friendship, and sisterhood to your life. 

She has a big smile, an even bigger laugh, and has a habit of calling everyone "darlin," "baby," or "sugar."

Description:  Rosemary is about 5’7” tall, with beautiful deep brown skin. She has dark brown eyes that shine golden in the sunlight. She has a slightly crooked nose, and it scrunches up when she smiles. She has the youthful look of someone who is young, even though she is over a thousand years old. She has long, thick forest green braids that fall down to her waist. Her favorite outfit is linen pants, often dusty from gardening, a bright blue shirt, and a big straw hat.  Her smile is big, her laugh is bold and both light up the room. She is unafraid to throw her head back and laugh until tears are streaming down her face and her sides ache. 

Favorite color: a soft, pale yellow, deep greens, earth tones

Favorite animal: foxes, songbirds

Favorite song: Here Comes the Sun by The Beatles

Likes: gardening, landscaping, warm weather, apple pie, being outside 

Dislikes: storms, mean people, dead grass, scorpions

Companion requirements: Rosemary is beginner friendly, and would like a smaller family, of around 15-20 companions, including herself, based on past experiences. She would like a vessel in the form of a potted plant you two care for together, a gemstone, or another stone you’ve found in nature. 

Extras:  I met Rose in March in 2020 in the astral as she was traveling through the town I was visiting. We decided to sit and have tea and tarot, and hit it off and she stayed with me for a bit to take a break from her nomadic, wandering ways. In May of 2020 she stepped forward for a CC I was facilitating and went home with that companion.  Unfortunately, her companion ended up parting ways with Rose in a less than pleasant way. She came back to me, and after working through her fears and abandonment issues in intense therapy decided that she would like to try to find her true forever companion. She is still in therapy and her new companion must be respectful of that. She has made a ton of progress, but this is still something to be mindful of.

Furthermore, Rose was first posted over in Hallowed Conjurations - my Mod name there was Mod Banshee. Now that HC has closed down, she is pursuing companionship through Lunar Rose.

If you would like to apply for Rosemary you can apply for her here.

Price: $33.33, per Rose's request Mod Lilac

[mikatesmods]

A good update for Dead'mans Grin Den🖤🤘🏻

For all the details see on the Nexus🖤

[loremastering]

Writing a “realistic” lotro Lore Master

(Disclaimer: This is just me taking notes and making a reference for myself of how to incorporate the Lore master game mechanics into a more believable setting for me, no one else has to follow it if they don’t want to. I am not dictating what other people should do in any way. This mainly concerns my elven LM) 

The Lore master is class is my favorite because of it’s animal and nature abilities but I feel like trying to write the class into the broader world of Middle-Earth lore can be seen as god-modding or cringe, in my opinion at least. Brings me back to those days of role playing where the setting was just normal, real world animals and humans, until ebony darkness dementia raven way made an appearance and won every battle and argument with 5 different magic spells and could communicate with dragons and unicorns, making themselves a god amongst the other players. 

So to avoid my main lore master Daerhovan being seen this way, I've tried to come to a compromise between source material Middle-Earth and LOTRO Middle-Earth in a way that makes my OC more believable.

In regards to animal communication and relationships with them.

I don’t want Daerhovan to be seen as a Snow White esque figure who makes animal friends wherever he goes and they help him with chores and shit, so I've tried to make his relationships to wildlife and other creatures a bit more in tune with middle earth elf canon and real world interactions.

-Animal interactions in general: 

It’s book canon that elves can converse with animals, so there’s no problem with communication there. But I don’t think they would warm up to an elf right away, some of them? Especially wild beasts. Most of the time Daerhovan leaves animals alone and lets nature take it’s course. But he tends to befriend those he rescues from cruel and inhumane traps. 

-Animal Companions: The bear, raven, bog guardian, eagle, lynx, and nature spirit.

I think he would grow fond of certain individuals for sure. Everyone in the list above he might have rescued from what I mentioned above. For game purposes I mainly use the lynx. In the real world, I absolutely loathe wild animals being kept as pets, and it was hard to separate that part of myself when writing in daer’s faithful lynx companion. To compromise, I decided that, hey, a character can’t be a character without some flaws, so maybe he messed up with his lynx. In my story of him, she was rescued from starvation when found without a mother, and Daer took matters into his own hands, perhaps a little too much. Verya (the lynxs name) is still wild, but despite him trying to teach her to live on her own, in the lynx's mind it’s easier to stick by someone who helps you get food more easily and offers security. And maybe she’s just a really stubborn cat. Thus this is a lesson learned sort of thing.

So he lets the lynx stay. Besides, life back then for him was really lonely. When it comes to domesticated animals he’s all for them and wants to take every one of them home and give them love. 

Lore Master Skills

This has been a little harder to write with, but I've done what I think is my best. Many things I took out completely, and they are as follows. (i’m only listing those that relate to his in-game trait tree. I use all blue with a bit of red and yellow)

Gust of wind, the power signs, Sic em, heals, lightning storm, light of the rising dawn, wind,fire/frost lore, power of knowledge, inner flame, 

-Explanations for skills I've kept in

Burning Embers: To me the skill induction looks like the LM is igniting something by natural means that makes it explode upon contact with an enemy. So perhaps he keeps a decent sack of whatever it is that accomplishes this. 

Blinding flash and bane flare: These can happen by man made means and require no magic really. But with the gifts that elves can do in regards to crafting perhaps a little something more is involved (same with the other skills perhaps)

Sticky Gourd and Sticky tar: Like Burning embers, just bigger, and one has a different substance. 

Ancient craft: The in-game skill directly says that the LM is throwing a handful of metal to impede the enemy. 

Now, I didn’t want to completely omit some of his elemental skills, as I believe they’re a core part of who he is too. But the output is much, much lower, only used as a last resort, made possible by the canon fact that elves have a connection to the land, and doing these in battle severely weakens him after. (based on some tidbits from the skill deed texts). I also believe that being immortal gives elven lore masters the time they need to learn and harness this as well. 

Cracked earth: It was the elves who first taught the trees how to communicate with others, and I've used this canon fact to help Daerhovan persuade the trees around him to aid him in battle when the need arises. For this skill in particular, if a tree be willing, it can shoot its root up from the ground to entangle and root the enemy in place. 

Lightning strike: I’m still debating this one, but here’s what I have so far. He can only do this when he begins to master his craft. (still debating on whether that's at age 600 or 5000 lmao) He can only stun with it, there has to be electricity in the air already via storm, and it severely weakens him after use. 

Murder of Crows: An upcoming skill to replace Sic em. I’ll leave this here for when it actually comes out and I can decide how to incorporate or leave out

AND SO that concludes this mini essay lol. Might add more stuff as I think about but hopefully this puts Daerhovan in a much more believable light as a character and oc 

[autumnslance]

sorry if you've been asked before, but how did you initially get into roleplaying and learn how to improve at it and be comfortable rping? it seems like something difficult to learn, especially rping in video games, so i'm always interested in how exactly people adjust to it

OK, let me preface by saying I am old enough to remember the Satanic Panic of the ‘80s and actually read Chick Tracts that were at places I went to with my parents. Including the infamous one about Dungeons & Dragons. They were real dumb; even as a church-going kid I knew Christian media was by and large…very There in quality often, so much of it being overtly about morals and messaging (the best really is more subtle or flat-out silly about it, letting the characters and events speak for themselves with only just a little requisite shoehorning to appease their publishing house requirements). And Chick was…something with those hyperbolic comic stories.

So I didn’t get to RP at all until I was an adult (19ish years old), and in the army away from home and was introduced to it via an entirely different gaming system and world I’d never heard of before, the World of Darkness specifically, second edition, and I was a kid who loved supernatural things like werewolves and other shifters a lot. My first RP character ever for a game that only ran once was a Metis Fianna Galliard.

Bless White Wolf, they tried. The old editions have some serious Problems in various ways looking back now with what I’ve learned since, but they Tried.

I went to my first Vampire LARP in Augusta, Georgia while in job training—this was back in the fall/winter of ‘98 and ‘99–and when I got to Kansas I met up with the guys in my unit who RPed Palladium game systems (Rifts, Palladium, Robotech, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, etc). My first Vampire: The Masquerade char was a Toreador (artiste vampire). My first Palladium fantasy char was a bardic demigod. Then I settled into a I think half-elf druid in Rifts and was the only one interacting with the GM’s attempts at story while the other guys talked about minmaxing their megadamage and waited for me/my character to point them at things. At the local independent LARP in Kansas I swapped the Toreador for a young Tremere named Lynell Marsden.

My buddy and eventual roommate, the LARP GM, introduced me to a RPG-themed webcomic whose premise made it ripe for online roleplay, which the readership did initially on the old forums in play-by-post, and then also in IRC chat in a series of rooms we had. My main characters were an Amberite soldier-princess and a drow cleric/bard of Eilistraee I brought in from a D&D game after a few years, as I expanded to many, many other gaming systems, like D&D and Shadowrun, and so many others I can’t remember them all. I ended up helping narrate and do admin work for the LARP and the World of Darkness games we ran in our own town as well as at a small local convention we attended for several years.

And dear Anon, I sucked at RP in my 20s.

Cuz I was new and learning. What appealed to Young Me, once properly explained by a peer and seeing the game rule books, was that Roleplay is collaborative improv storytelling. It’s playing pretend—which I’ve always loved to do!—but with an actual ruleset and boundaries. As a writer, it sounded so neat to sit around creating characters and telling stories with friends. The rules were there as randomizer but also to help balance and make sure everyone could contribute (well, once one stopped playing freakin’ Rifts…).

In free form play-by-post, and in the IRC chat, there weren’t really rules like you’d find in a gaming book for at the table; you had whatever rules for the forum or chatroom the mods made, usually about being courteous and communicating, but the characters varied wildly. Each thread or room GM had their own ways to run their stories. Communication was key. Letting others get time in the spotlight. Making attempts, working things out, not being afraid to fail on purpose (even if your character was trying) cuz sometimes that was more interesting. We had some random commands for dice we sometimes used in the chat, but it could depend on who was running that particular session or storyarc.

It took practice. And mistakes I still look back on and wince at myself about, more for the times I hurt others or made things less fun for them, than my own creative errors that weren’t good for my characters (and I made bad choices for my characters aplenty). OK, and also for the times I spent staying up way too late roleplaying, plotting, chatting, when I should have been responsible and sleeping due to work and/or class in the mornings…But I also don’t entirely regret all those lost sleep hours.

LynMars, my common internet handle, comes from that Tremere I played for a few years in my friend’s LARP, before retiring her to play other characters. I made many Baby RPer mistakes on Lynell, she was a learning character, and while I messed her and her story up badly, I still love her as one of my firsts and ended up using her name as a handy online identity and also a reminder to myself.

You don’t have to do or be everything, especially on one character; everyone has specialties and limits, it’s what helps with the collaborative parts and team play. Learn and know your own boundaries. Respect others’ boundaries. Learn OOC doesn’t equal IC but also doesn’t give rein to be a jackass IC in a collaborative setting. Communicate. Be willing to collaborate and compromise. Be willing to lose as often as you win, sometimes the better story comes out of it. Build your characters with some grounding as people; give them flaws (sometimes their virtues taken too far can also count!), let them make mistakes, let them have their own stories so when they interact with other characters, you’re actually improv acting that person, not yourself in a funny hat.

I reconnected with my old webcomic-based group over the pandemic and people still talk fondly of my old characters and stories, and I have some good memories of theirs. A lot of things we all look back at 21-to-13-ish years later now and cringe and laugh at ourselves about, but the memories of those times are still mostly good and about the fun we had together back then, despite the clunky nature of our storytelling, our mishandled character concepts, the wank and stressors, the few bad apples we did have in the old community, the mistakes we made. We still remember the cool stuff and how it made us feel and why we sought each other out again to just say Hi. And in some cases, ended up playing games together again.

My experiences in forum and chatroom RP made the jump into MMO RP in WoW (back in Classic!) fairly easy, honestly. It was pretty much the same thing, only we had actual avatars and environments and in-built emotes as well as whatever gestures or settings we described for when the game didn’t have something. I wrote stories of my characters, many of them still up on my alt blogs, and collaborated on a few stories and RPs with friends.

After several years, some people had weird ideas I was “popular” and “established” and “good” so stirred up wank and jealousy that hit me out of the blue, especially since we were on a small server whose RP community was dying off as folks migrated away (from the server or WoW in general) and we were just among the last RP groups to still hang around out of inertia. They wanted to be a Big Fish in our drying-out pond, and didn’t like that I told them that it takes time and effort to build a story and a group with the reputation they sought, that one has to make time to run events on a regular basis and be there for it even if turn out isn’t great. I hope they’ve figured out what they want to do and better ways to do it since then.

Cuz even after 13ish years of WoW RP on top of all my tabletop and LARP and chatroom experiences, I still made some mistakes. I still sometimes ran and played in some mediocre to bad RP. For my characters and their stories, and in interactions with other RPers.

It’s OK. Learn from those errors, talk it out with your pals and others, keep IC and OOC knowledge and feelings separate, be willing to bend (not break; compromise means all involved parties have to give and get a little) for collaboration and interaction, know who you can only interact with in public RP events with a polite nod and small talk and otherwise not engage with—kinda like in real life, when you have to be tolerant or nice to those irritating classmates or coworkers but otherwise don’t deal with them more than you must.

It’s simply being social, with imagination thrown in. Remembering the stories are pretend, but there are real people behind those words and characters. The nuts and bolts of how to do emotes, which tense to use, whether to use /random or other dice commands…that’s just variable detail that can change as needed. Being a decent person OOC to make an enjoyable story—“good” or “bad”—IC with others is what’s important.

I don’t really RP online now, as I just don’t have the time or energy I used to—especially for the inevitable wank, as Roleplayers are by and large a dramatic bunch with our own hangups, awkwardness, and miscommunications galore (so many callout posts I’ve seen where I’ve wondered if the grievances were IC and came from lack of OOC communication about expectations, boundaries, and blurring the lines between characters and players. So many). These days I stick to my silly nonsense fanfics and some tabletop RP with friends—though due to us being scattered across the continent, we usually end up playing via Roll20 or similar programs to mimic it in an online environment, and even my local group’s had to do that during the pandemic and now with two players moving away soon, on top of the usual trials of being adults making time for games together. I could likely get into FFXIV RP easily enough, here on Tumblr and in game, if I were so inclined.

But it takes time. And constant learning. Figuring out the community norms and methods, which ones work for you, and which don’t. Giving yourself a bit of grace. Knowing your boundaries and respecting others’. Being social and willing to communicate, not being afraid of it, or making assumptions, giving benefit of the doubt—to yourself as much as to others. Patience. And just focusing on the fun and the good and who cares if it’s a bit cringey and weird and silly and dumb with outrageous characters so long as folks are feeling included, treated fairly, and having a good time.

That’s really what’s important.

[stabbyapologist]

Here’s My Mod Bundle for my Bosmer Playthrough:

In no particular order (btw, Live Another Life is also a pretty good one, but I know a way where the main storyline (kind of) makes sense for the character), I’ll list off the mods.

Nagriel Nightwind is the name of my Dragonborn; she was in the middle of poaching the Jarl’s deer (how else can you make a great living??) when she ran into the imperial ambush. Wood Elves don’t usually travel alone, so sus. As a race who lives in the wilderness, Nagriel has a kinship with beasts: dragons, werewolves, druids, Spriggans.

As a Bosmer, Nagriel will harvest plants, but she won’t eat alchemical ingredients that are consistent as plantlife (no eating mountain flowers to get that first ingredient effect.) She only eats meat (Survival mode makes a toughy if you don’t cook everything). She doesn’t create arrows; she purchases them from vendors or loots them off dead bodies. Nagriel uses alchemy and restoration as aids in battle; she never uses destruction magic. She will use ice and lightning arrows. 

This is a rather lengthy list; so read below the line to see the list:

Mods: 

1. Wintersun Faiths of Skyrim: Religion and faith-based mod. Nagriel worships the Daedric Lord Hircine, The Forest Deity Jephre, and Nocturnal, Mistress of Shadow.

2. Technicolor Alchemy Overhaul: adds 3000 plant variants in Skyrim. 

3. JK’s Interiors AiO: basically overhauls the interiors of all stores, homes, etc. If you check out the Huntsman, it’s beautiful.

4. Enemy Reinforcements: If you see the usual amount of enemies you have to fight, double it. Two guards outside of Embershard Mine instead one, etc.

5. Realistic Conversations: Pretty self-explanatory. 

6. Belt-fastened Quivers: Quivers lie on your waist, not on your back. 

7. Bandoliers: Bags and Pouches: Mod lets you craft bags and pouches to hoist on your waist to extend carryweight; where else can you fit all those arrows and potions??

8. STAR: Thieves and Assassins (Reward Mod): Basically all the rewards you get from quests are useful for a stealth or thief playthrough.

9. Sneak Pose and Sneak Movement: Crawl on your hands and knees when you’re sneaking instead of crouching all weird and shit. 

10. Character Creation Overhaul: Basically you choose your birthsign and your class and get an extra boost to your skills that follow your playthrough; along with extra buffs to your racial passives and powers. It’s quite nice. 

11. BIG Jump 5X Higher: Wood elves live in trees. They gonna jump high as fuck. 

12. Lootable Things: Loot crates, barrels, boxes that usually would be static in the vanilla version of Skyrim. It’s noice.

13. Wear Multiple Rings: You can wear multiple rings. You got ten fingers, don’t you? 

14. JK’S Skyrim AiO: Bad ass overhaul of entire towns and cities.

15. Hearthfire Multiple Adoptions: Lots of chill’uns. 

16.: Cuyi’s Bosmeri Antlers: MY FAVORITE. It gives your Bosmer antlers, as they always should have. 

17. Creation Club--Better Adventure Backpacks: Lets you create backpacks with 300 carryweight; the bedrolls add on an enchantment of learning all skills 25 % faster; and the dark leather backpacks allow bats to swarm you when you enter melee combat for protection. Hell, yeah nature.

18. Rings of Speed: Wood Elves move fast, like really fast. “They’re nimble and quick.”

19. Bosmer Armor Pack: Bosmer-themed bows, arrows, swords, armor, etc.

20. Triumvirate-Mage Archetypes: Druidcraft is from Danica Pure-Spring. You can cast this Druid Magic onto corpses; they’ll spore into plants and produce harvestable ingredients. 

21. Song of the Green: Auri: A beautiful, talented, and sweet, sting-like-a-bee follower who is Bosmer, reacts like a Bosmer, and should travel with a Bosmer. That would you.

22. Amazing Race Tweaks! Wood Elf: Adds Green pact as a power, where you would cannibalize your kills to fortify your stamina or health at random. Outdoor tracking allows you to detect others using your scent. 

"The second best thing in life is the thrill of the hunt; the first is the idea that when I die, I shall feel it for an eternity on my Lord's Hunting Grounds."

[breadedsinner]

Three Vampires and a Were-Bear (2/4): Vampire Dorian/Vampire Lavellan

Back in Kirkwall, Varric finds himself missing Skyhold and all the friends he made there. So he does what anyone would do: neglect his duties and write friend-fiction!

The Inquisitor in this story, Baelfire Lavellan, belongs to my best friend, Sloane!

You should check out their mods and support them!

Also on AO3!

***

Hooves thumped on the grass, fading with each step, as the young halla became a white speck in the deep mouth of the forest. The Dalish girl tried to keep up, but lost her breath, then lost sight of the halla. Nothing but trees that reached for the emerging stars, the sound of her own cries, and the expanding darkness.

"Wait, come back!" she yelled, her voice cracked with exhaustion. She reached out her hands and ran, with no regard how far she had gone from her clan. That no one was behind her.

The breath left her, and her throat became dry and raspy from calling out the for the halla. "Please!" she whimpered as she stopped in a clearing. She threw her hands on her knees, and tears and sweat dripped down from her flushed cheeks, and stained the grass.

A rustle creept through the bushes. She turned, hoping it was her lost friend, but it was too heavy and crass, its form nearly tearing apart the plants.

It was a human, dressed in furs, with a hunting knife and bow. The Dalish girl stepped back and gasped.

The human glanced at her with indifference. Two more hunters of similar dress and weaponry appeared. Grass and leaves crushed under their feet.

"You there," said one, pointing to the Dalish girl. "You seen one of those deer-thing?"

"No," she shook her head.

The same hunter paused. The girl could feel the ice in his stare. "I don't believe you. You were calling for one just now. Why else would a child go running into the woods, if not to chase a lost pet?"

"She's not a pet!"

"Ah, so you were lying," said the hunter. A crunch of leaves as he stepped forward. "Those creatures are very rare. Their pelts alone would make a huge fortune. You're going to help us find it."

"Never!"

The hunter came closer, kneeling down before the girl, while the other two chuckled. "Either we find this halla, or we find your home and make life difficult for everyone. So why don't you play nice?"

Tears welled up in the girl's eyes, but her ears perked at the shifting of trees. A chilled breeze danced through the leaves as purple shades of twilight crossed the sky.

A fog rolled in at their feet, a sudden bitter cold bristling at their backs. The hunters turned and found the fog tumbling from the shadows of the forest, spreading wider and deeper as night approached.

A mass of animals emerged from the shadow and fog. A fox scampered past, its high-pitched yips almost like laughter. Squirrels skittered up the trees, rabbits hopped through from stone to stone. The clearing no longer felt empty, but part of the forest again, reconnected, bursting with life.

 A pair of bright eyes popped from the shadow, greener than every blade of grass in the forest. The hunters shivered at the site of them. There was no white to the eyes; only swirling verdant, wild green, peering into their souls.

As the shadows receded, an elf emerged; Dalish, like the girl, with interwoven markings of Mythal etched onto his forehead, crowning his cheekbones and nose. He blinked, and his eyes seemed to shrink, the whites reappeared. A shock of wild, curly red hair bounced as he walked. He was dressed in traditional Dalish hunting armor, a lean body with taut archer’s arms.

A few sparrows and owls fluttered past as he stopped walking. A small halla, its antlers still nubs on its white head, rubbed against his ankles.

The strange elf looked at the humans, then the girl, then looked down at the halla. The words came softly and slowly from his mouth. "There you are," he said. "Go on ahead, little one."

The halla bounced from the elf's side and back towards the girl. She scooped him up and embraced him.

"Thank you, thank you, Baelfire!" the girl squealed. "I'm sorry, I won't lose sight of him ever again!"

"Ah, no trouble at all," the elf, Baelfire, chuckled. The glint of his green eyes softened as he focused on the girl. As if the hunters did not exist in that moment. "He was just curious, that's to be commended. But do tell your clan where you're going next time. You know how your grandmother worries."

“I will, I promise!”

“Good girl. You should go home now,” he continued, his gaze turning from the lost girl to the human hunters. His eyes glowed a brilliant green, accentuated by the falling night. “It’s quite easy to get lost in these woods. And to never be heard from again,”.

Baelfire did not move or speak until the girl and her halla were gone, their little footsteps faded into nothing. When only the chirping of birds and shifting of the wind against leaves surrounded them, he turned to the human hunters.

"Leave this place," he said, the gentle lilt he used to speak to the girl was ironed flat. "I will take you to the border if you can't find your way, but this land was given back to the People by Divine Victoria."

The hunters all exchanged confused looks. "Victor-who?" said the first hunter. "You mocking us, elf?"

"Wait, no, I think I know that name," said the second hunter. "It was one of last Divines of the last age."

"What?" scoffed the third. "I don't give a shit about what some old woman from a hundred years ago said."

"Not a hundred,” said Baelfire, already exasperated, rubbing his temples. “But her word still stands, last I checked. Turn back, there's plenty of forest for you to hunt, but not here."

"Not a chance," said the third hunter. "This place is untouched, it's prime territory. There must be more of those halla."

"It is untouched by humans, and that's how it will say. I will ask you one more time. Leave, and don't come back."

"Aha, I think he's trying to threaten you!" cackled the first hunter.

"That so?" said the third, cracking his knuckles, the shadow of his tall bulky form cast far over Baelfire.

In the darkness of the shadow, his eyes turned full green. Ridges formed on the bridge of his freckled nose. His fiery red hair stood on their ends, frizzling with wild energy.

The hunter raised a hand, but Baelfire pounced on him like a cat. He wrung the edges of his collar and lunged for his neck. Fangs popped from his mouth and pierced the skin like needles into cloth.

"Ahhh!" the hunter screamed, running frantically, flailing his form back and forth. "Get him off me! get him, ah..."

A few moments of frantic shaking, and the hunter was too consumed by pain to scream, his voice dwindled to cries and whimpers. Then his body fell to the ground, a white sack of compost.

The other two hunters grabbed their weapons and sprinted towards their fallen partner, but the first one yelped. The second one barely registered the sound of a body dragging along the grass, of fists fruitlessly trying to grip the grasp, instead pulling blades out from the dirt. By the time the second one could turn around to look, his other partner was gone, a path of torn grass and dirt where he once stood. There was frantic rustling and screaming among the bushes behind, until there was none.

The second hunter turned back. One partner was ghastly pale, a single twitching finger as the Dalish man gnawed on a gaping, bloody gnash on his neck. The other was completely out of sight.

So, he ran in the other direction. He dropped his axe and ran, panting. He did not get far before a whoosh of wind and shadow, a wisp of light and glaring fangs.

A human man, dressed in blazing black and gold finery, the likes of which the hunter had never seen. The moustache was precise and prim, curling just so on his young face. The hunter almost sighed in relief to see another human, even one so strangely dressed. But then this human's eyes were enveloped in light, and his nose creased and furrowed, the same way the Dalish man’s did.

"What the..." the last remaining hunter pedaled back and the elf. His chin was slathered in blood.

"Ah, there you are, Amatus," said the strange human. "And you got us dinner! Why, you shouldn't have!"

“I would have found something better,” Baelfire sighed. “But I got sidetracked.”

“We need not feast like kings every night. Just most nights! Now, go on and have your first bite. You found him, after all.”

“No, you go ahead.”

“I insist, you bite first!”

“No, please, I want you to go first.”

“What the shit are you two!” yelled the hunter.

Baelfire and the strange new man looked at each other, shared a little laugh, then reached for the last living hunter, their fangs jutted from their mouths at the same time, planted on each side of the hunter’s neck. His screams were washed away by a flock of birds bursting from the tree tops.

 “I knew that girl,” said Baelfire, leaning against Dorian’s shoulders as they sat on a branch, watching the stars spread across the sky. “Well, that is, I was friends with her great, great… ah, I’m losing track of the great’s. When I was part of clan Lavellan…”

“You still are,” said Dorian, planting a kiss on Baelfire’s bushy head. “You’ve been watching over them for quite some time.”

“I don’t think they really need me. It’s not like three random hunters wandering in with short bows would have done much.”

“They might have hurt that girl. They may not rely on you, but they know you watch over them, and they love you for it.”

“Maybe. I like to just… come by every few years, see how things are doing. Helps keep me grounded, I guess.” Baelfire looked out into the sky. “Do you think… you want to live forever? I mean, we CAN die, but we don’t get sick or die. Just… watching things change, seeing people grow up then grow old…it’s sad, sometimes.”

“Hmm,” Dorian chewed on his lip. “I rather like seeing things change. For the better, mostly. Like the things we did long ago rippled, and we’re still watching it go. Eternity? Perhaps not. Perhaps one day, we may be ready to put this world behind us and explore what’s next. We’ll embrace by a balcony overlooking the sunrise, as we did in Skyhold so long ago, and share one last kiss as the sun’s light causes us to combust like beautiful, fleshy fireworks.”

“Aww, you’re so romantic,” Baelfire tucked himself in closer into Dorian’s shoulder. “I love you. I’m glad you’re here with me.”

“There’s no one else I’d spend millennia with, Amatus.”

 ***

The words trailed off, and the ink dried. Varric looked at his notes, scattered with the Official Letters to the Viscount. He took each page and patted them together.

“Hmm, not sure how I came up with this,” he said to himself. Then he looked out the window, watching birds graze Kirkwall’s horizon, and sighed. “Maybe Freckles will get a kick out of it when I see him next time. Hope he and Sparkler aren’t strangers…”