#dorks and half-orcs

[estrellami-1]

Steddie Microfic

Let Down Your Guard

November prompt: guard

532 words

Rating: G

No warnings apply

@steddiemicrofic

“So, brave traveler.” Eddie sends Steve a shit-eating grin. “What do you do?”

Steve narrows his eyes at Eddie, then glances down at the table. He looks back at Eddie to say, “I flirt with the guard.”

Eddie blinks. “You- alright. Roll for initiative, I guess.”

Steve peers down at his dice, then grins up at Eddie. “Twenty.”

“Jesus fuck,” Eddie mutters to himself, then louder, “Before you say a word, the guard notices you. In a deep, gravely voice, he says, ‘I’ve seen many come around in search of the treasure. I’ve never seen anyone who outshone the treasure all on their own.’”

Steve blushes, but perseveres. “Then maybe you’d like to come with me for a bit? Find out what it’s like to have your own treasure.”

Eddie checks his papers, rolls a dice. Sighs. “‘Perhaps I will,’ the guard says, and allows you to lead him away. Henderson!” Dustin jumps. “Your turn.”

“Uh.” Dustin blinks. “Okay, what the hell was that?”

“Language,” Steve and Eddie chorus.

Dustin rolls his eyes. “Oh, lay off it, I hear you say worse than hell. Perception check?”

Eddie nods. “Roll.”

So the game goes. It finishes with the party finding the treasure and defeating the orc protecting it. The Party cleans up their bit of the mess and bikes home, while Eddie stays behind, cleaning up his part of the game and helping Steve in the kitchen. “I’ve gotta say, I didn’t expect that move from you.” He smirks at Steve.

Steve smirks back. “What can I say? I’m a man of surprises.”

Eddie snorts. “A dork of surprises, maybe.”

“Hey!” Steve says, affronted, and splashes him with water. Eddie immediately splashes him back, then jumps out of the danger zone. Steve laughs and continues washing dishes.

A few minutes later, he quietly continues. “I’ve been… talking some things through. With Robin.”

“Oh?” Eddie takes a plate from Steve and starts drying. 

“Mhm. About…” he sighs, nibbles his lip.

“You don’t have to tell me.”

“But I want to. I want to say it.” He squeezes his eyes shut, then opens them again. Turns to Eddie. “I think- no. I like guys and girls.”

Eddie smiles encouragingly. “That’s cool, man. Thanks for telling me.” They’re silent for a second before, “What made you think about all of this?”

Steve glances at Eddie. Murmurs, “You.”

Eddie blinks. “What?”

Steve shrugs, won’t look at Eddie. “Yeah. It started with Spring Break, I think, and it just… continued. I couldn’t get you out of my mind. Didn’t want to, half the time. And I know that just because we both like guys doesn’t mean anything, and I know you don’t feel the same, and this doesn’t have to change anything-”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Eddie covers Steve’s mouth with his hand, eyes wide. “Slow down on the catastrophizing there, Steve-o. Let’s take this one thing at a time. First,” Eddie chuckles, “dude, I’ve had a massive crush on you since high school. I do feel the same. And it doesn’t have to change anything, you’re right, we can take it slow if you want-”

“Hell no,” Steve says, grinning, and kisses him.

Eddie gladly kisses him back.

[bump1nthen1ght]

A Very Monstrous Kinktober (2024) Day 6 - Lingerie

Kink: Lingerie

Pairing: F!Reader x F!Orc

Other Kinks: 69, domesticity

Word Count: 1601 words

Kinktober Masterlist

“Well, well, who knew half off lingerie could look this good?” You say, twirling the small red babydoll negligee in the mirror. The way it flares up in the air reminds you of a 50’s starlet, tantalizing yet tasteful at the same time. “How is yours, honey?” You call out from your walk in closet, still admiring yourself in the mirror. Damn, you look hot.

“I don’t know, you tell me.”

Reyna’s sultry voice is enough to snap you out of what you're doing, whipping around to see her leaned up against the door frame.

God DAMN.

She had gone for a black two piece, a lacy thong paired with a sheer push-up top, whose straps crisscrossed across her chest in the shape of a diamond. The effect draws your eyes right into the center of her pressed cleavage, almost daring you to touch.

“Well?” Reyna tosses back a strand of et black hair behind her shoulder, a near perfect match to her two piece. 

You cross your hands over your heart. Mimicking a strong and dramatic heartbeat, the kind that beats outside of the chest like a cartoon character.

“Hubba Hubba~”

You dance on your toes to her, making grabby hands as you get closer to her waist. Reyna rolls her eyes at your antics, but pulls you in for a steamy kiss either way, wrapping her muscle arms around your shoulders while yours circle around her ribs.

“You’re such a dork.” Reyna says, lips still pressed against yours in a half kiss. You flit the tip of your tongue against her bottom one, relishing in the ways her eyes darken at the taste. She always said you were like a pixie; playful, naughty, and infuriatingly sexy at the same time,

“Yeah but I'm your dork.”

“Damn right.” 

It doesn’t take much effort for Reyna to scoop you up by the back of your thighs, your hands scrambling to find a hold around her neck. But it's not for long, the whole world turning as Reyna lays you down onto the carpeted flooring. Her long locks curtain you both, her abdomen now snugly between your thighs as she looks down with her own sense of mischief in her eyes.

“Y’know, I don’t think I got a close enough look at these panties. Let’s fix that.” Flipping up the sheer fabric of the negligee, Reyna hums to herself as she traces a finger down your belly button and right to the hem of your red lace thong. Goosebumps pepper your thighs, your chest taking a shaky breath as her tongue darts between her tusks. Her finger pills taut at the hem of the underwear, snapping the fabric against your stomach. You gasp, all the bravado from earlier suddenly lost. “Hmm, this material is good quality.” Her pointer finger slowly moves downwards, charting a slow path across your pussy from over the fabric. “Yet someone’s got it all wet. How naughty.”

Your fingers dig into the carpet as Reyna rubs a slow circle over your clit, eyes covetous as a wet patch of slick makes itself apparent. Reyna’s thumb joins her forefinger, nudging between your pussy lips and rubbing against your hole. Her pointer pushes back your labial hood and presses just a smidgen harder against your sensitive button. Your legs clench unintentionally, but a lightning fast hand is quick to grab you by the inner thigh and force them open.

“Uh uh. Bad girl.”

“Not true.” You whimper, hips jutting up into her hand. “You're the one, a-ah, who started fondling me.” You say with some sense of confidence, despite the way your pussy currently leaks at just the littlest of touch, the way your legs shake as her forefinger rubs faster. 

“True, but look at you.” Reyna’s hand moves up under the negligee and palms at your bare breast. It presses into her grip, your chest heaving as she brushes her thumb over your nipple. “How could I not?”

You crunch your abdomen and press another kiss into her lips, her tusks knocking with your teeth in the desperate move. Reyna laughs, but returns the peck just as deeply, tongue slipping into your mouth. She palms at your cunt, the fabric squishing with your new found wetness.

“Wanna taste you.” You pant into Reyna’s mouth, grinding your pussy against the base of her hand.

“I wanna taste you.” She slyly remarks, finger now pressing through the fabric and lined up with your sopping hole. “Though I think there’s a way we can both get what we want.”

Reyna pulls back, wiggling her eyebrows. You chuckle, pressing another kiss to her cheek.

“Flip over.” You whisper in your ear.

You yelp again as Reyna deftly twists and turns so you now lay on top of her. But you are still face to face, and although you always enjoy looking at her beauty, it’s not where you want your mouth to be right now.

So you swing both your thighs and turn around, arching your back to press your thong-covered cunt into her jaw as you lean down, pulling aside her g-string to see her pretty pussy. 

“Seems like someone got their nice thong all wet too.”

“Yeah, but yours is nicer.” Reyna slaps your ass, jolting you forward and even closer to pussy. You lick your lips, just the sight of her stringy essence on the fabric making your mouth water. “Now come to Mama ~”

You’re yanked backward once again, Reyna’s arms wrapping under your thighs to press your clit right against her jaw, the flat of her tongue licking a stripe up between your lips. A moan bursts out of your mouth, fingers once again curling into the fabric.

“Unh! No fair.” you whine, now having to stretch your neck to get close enough to her crotch. “Put up your legs, I wanna eat too.”

Reyna sighs against your hole, but puts up her legs and leaves a perfect opening for you to dive in. Licking your lips, you thank whatever god or gods is up there for blessing you with this meal, and dig in.

The room fills with sloppy noises, tongues fucking open sticky walls and muffled, sticky moans. Reyna’s tongue is long and tough, just as muscled as the rest of her, and fucks you open with the deftness of a sex toy. While you may not have the force she has, your eagerness more than makes up for it, sucking hard on her clit and making fast, tight circles with your tongue.

Reyna’s plus thighs squeeze around your head, making you wiggle your hips and press your ass even deeper into her face. You know she loves being snuggled between your cheeks.

“Such a naughty girl.” Reyna pulls away, fingers coming underneath you and pinching your clit. You jerk, more juices squiritng down Reyna’s palm. “Just a couple licks and she’s already so sensitive.”

You’d snap back, but are a little distracted with drawing intricate shapes with your tongue, with feeling the way Reyna’s walls clench down on your mouth. Reyna’s unfortunately right, her expert mouth deftly pushing you close to the edge and making it difficult for you to keep up a proper technique. But you persevere anyway, knowing just how good it will taste when she comes on your mouth.

“Someone’s working hard down there.” A calloused hand movies down your back and to the back of your skull, forcing you deeper into her pussy. You gasp, nose pressed right against her clit as he grinds your face into her like it’s a vibrator. Your eyes roll back, loving being encased in her musk. “Fuck, that feels good. I gotta keep up.”

Reyna’s grip slightly loosens as she refocuses on your pussy, giving you the space to breathe. Though you would die a happy woman in her pussy, your thankful for the remaining brain cells that let you eat her out with style.

“A-ah!” You moan as her free hand moves to circle your clit, rubbing it with the fabric of your thong to increase the friction, making your thighs start to tremble. Inspired, you grab onto her thong and yank, letting it dig into the sides of her hips. Reyna hisses, but the way her cunt flutters tells you she likes the sting. 

“Fu-uck.” You whimper, still muffled in her muff. “Gonna cum~!”

“Me too.” Reyna says betweens sticky kisses to your puffy clit. “Let's drink each other up, baby. I wanna taste all of you.”

That’s the sign for the end of chatter, both of you now hyper focused on reaching the end. You moan and hump, thighs clenching together as you both feel the shattering orgasms on coming.

“Mmmph! Mmmph!” Your hand forms a fist and pounds on the carpet, body rolling against Reyna’s as you come like a firecracker, squirting all over her face. Still face deep, Reyna practically screams into your cunt as she creams all over your jaw, thunder thighs locking you in as her whole body trembles.

There’s a lewd pop when both of you detach, jaws sticky and foreheads beaded with sweat. You rest your cheek against Reyna’s plush inner thigh, thankful for the moment to catch your breath.

It's Reyna who recovers first, those superior cardiovascular skills having her crunch up and adjust you on her lap. Her hands grab your waist like you're a rag doll, flopping you up and laying you back against her chest. You instantly go limp in her arms, feeling her lips press kisses in your sweaty forehead.

“We gotta..get more of these.” You snap Reyna’s bra strap.

“Definitely.”

[electric-blorbos]

Can we get some more loser nerd Bagel facts for the fans? :3 (it's me i'm the fans)

-Brawl Anon

Ok so Bagel was really only supposed to be in like, a couple of scenes in the game. I only kinda invented him because I thought the idea of twins named Donut and Bagel Torus was kinda cute, and then it spiraled, lol. (I also think black trans men with little scruffy beards and mini dreads are cute and hot, but that's unimportant). I also just kinda liked the idea of identical twins who transitioned their genders in different directions and ended up looking very different as adults. He's a little taller than Donut, partially because Donut's legs are more heavily atrophied than his, and partially because his testosterone made him grow an inch or two.

Ideally, Bagel would call up Jade at the beginning of the game to reach Donut, telling xer that xe can't just bedrot forever and needs to try dating, or maybe getting a job to avoid all that depressing blursday blah that Donut constantly has to deal with. He'd also be in any wedding scene that Donut could unlock in an ending. Probably say something like "This is weird as shit, but you're my big sibling, and I support the hell out of you."

Though if he does end up having actual dialogues, I might have to give him sprites instead of just CG drawings like I planned to give him for the phone conversation scene. He'd look so cute in a wedding appropriate suit, though, so I'm not complaining.

Bagel is a few minutes younger than Donut, and always looked up to xer. Donut is a misanthrope, but has always had a much stronger sense of self than Bagel. Donut came out as maverique and started going by Donut before Bagel came out as a trans man, and xer coming out gave him the courage to come out, too. He picked the name Bagel to match Donut's new name, too. Their deadnames matched too, and I had them written down in a discord chat, but I deleted the chat and forgot the names. I know they were like, Cadence or Melody or Harmony or something, but I'm not exactly sure and I can't remember which was which. It's probably not important.

Bagel is diagnosed as autistic, but only got his diagnosis because Donut got xers and they decided to test him too. He's pretty passable, and just acts like a stereotypical "nerd" or "dork" that most NTs wouldn't clock as autistic. He's nervous around girls (and some conventionally hot guys), he's really into D&D, high fantasy series, and space opera movies. All his friends are stereotypical nerds, too, and they meet up at the gaming cafe regularly to play D&D. (in case you were wondering, Bagel's D&D character is a half orc half elf cleric who was raised as a humble nun before he transed his gender and went on to join an adventure party with the blessing of his god of choice as part of his spirit quest to save the world and spread religion. Bagel originally wanted to play a paladin with holy armor, but he was only really interested in playing a character with a heavily religious background, and his party convinced him to play a cleric instead because they needed one)

Bagel has muscular dystrophy, like Donut, but he doesn't usually use crutches. He does wear braces in his shoes to keep his feet straight, though, which sometimes makes walking really uncomfortable. He has to skip out on more active activities with his friends, and sometimes overexerts himself so that they don't think he's lame. His friends wouldn't think he's lame if he had to bail on activities because he's too tired, though. They love him.

Bagel and Donut were not raised religious, despite having a lot of Judaism on their mother's side of the family. Bagel is still fascinated by religion, and loves watching movies where God or gods and godlike entities are portrayed as enormous and inhumanly beautiful humanoids. His favorite is Ponyo's mom from Ponyo, since he watched that movie as a kid and never shook the image of Ponyo's parents from his head.

If you asked Bagel what his ideal partner would be like, he'd probably say a cute girl or guy who respects him for who he is, and who he can watch movies with and then rant about those movies to, but his actual ideal partner would be a goddess who would close him in her ethereal and impossibly strong yet soft hands, let him see the wind and the warmth and the water, and help him understand that everything can once and always be truly okay.

He's also an Xbox gamer. He likes open world RPGs like Skyrim.

[toosoft4everything]

I've just got into Fantasy High and I'm on sophomore year and I just gotta say if I got a nickel for a time my favorite character is a half-orc dork with a streak of white hair who is absolutely badass during a fight, I'd have two nickels...

Which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice. (Not really, my heart is biased)

[talenlee]

3e: Monk Attacks

Have you ever encountered something where a system is evident but the language for discussing it isn’t?

Cast your mind back to the days of Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition. No, not 3.5, the one that forms the basis for Pathfinder that people generally claim is ‘the good one’ before 4th edition (the best edition) came along. 3rd edition, the edition before 3.5, which is what it definitely was, was notable for being ‘the things people like about 3.5 D&D, but all quite a bit more shit.’

Know what was really bad in 3rd edition? Well, a lot of things, including Paladins, Rangers, Fighters, Barbarians, Bards, Half-Orcs, Half-Elves, Halflings and all but two melee weapons, but, in particular for this conversation, one class that was quite bad was the monk.

I won’t relitigate the whole story of how 3rd edition was a bad place to be a person whose primary job was punching things in the face. If you want to know more about that, I’ve written about it elsewhere, but just as an example, haste was a really stupidly powerful spell that made every melee character struggle to keep up. But if we cut off the top of the graph where all the spellcasters that are good (like the wizard, druid, and cleric) live, and focus just on the 3.0 Loser Brigade that do melee damage, even then in that space, the monk had some problems.

The way the monk worked is that the monk, limiting itself to melee attacks made with its fist or its collection of ‘exotic’ monk weapons, would get to attack more often, at lower accuracy. At level 1, instead of swinging a 2d6 greatsword, you could make two 1d6 attacks at -2, for… well, less likely to deal 2d6. But okay, you may think, the trade-off isn’t good at level 1, but what if the monk gets better, faster, than the fighter does?

Well, let’s assume that’s the case, and before we move on to talk about how badly that is implemented, that idea is a really bad one for the actual game. If a level 1 wizard, level 1 fighter, and level 1 monk all approach roughly equal threats knowing that some of them are just plain out worse at dealing with things, then you’ve got a balance problem. Being unfairly bad at level 1 doesn’t make being unfairly strong at level 16 okay, and vice versa. The notion that power ‘scales up’ in this non-linear way is one of the poisons 3e has had in it, because you run into a problem so obvious that it’s got a TVtropes page.

No I’m not going to link to it.

But here’s where things get really weird, when we talk about iterative attacks. Except I’m not sure the game rules call them ‘iterative’ – that’s game language that cropped up for sad dorks online. The way the rules worked is that you have a stat, universal for all characters, called a base attack bonus. When your base attack bonus passed a 5 threshold, you got another attack at -5, at the end, if you ever did a full attack. That means when your base attack bonus was 6, you could make two attacks, one at +6, one at +1.

Monks got a different version of this; they got to iterate their attacks when their Base Attack Bonus crossed the number 4. Since they got the medium Base Attack Bonus (which improves at a rate of three points every four levels), that meant that they got their second attack at level 6, just like a fighter, their third at level 10, one level before the fighter, their fourth at level 14, two levels before the fighter, and their fifth at level 18. Fighters never got a fifth attack (I know, I know, you in the back, you’re very clever, leave it for now). At level 18, the monk could be attacking for 6d20, whenever they make a full attack, with their flurry, and that sounds pretty cool!

And we’re going to set aside the gap between magical powers and weapon enchantments and things like bleeding weapons that monks can’t use and all that jazz, but the important thing here is this is all due to the way that the monk adds its base attack bonus. The rules, once you know that iterative attacks work by adding base attack bonus, are evident. Monks get their extra attacks at +4, so, hey, maybe you could push the monk to get more attacks, faster, if you mix monk levels with fighter levels? What does that do?

It does nothing.

Don’t get me wrong, there were some vague attempts to work on it – there was in the 3e book Sword and Fist, where a monk prestige class said some things about adding and it counting, and monk levels count, but the whole thing was written in a very confusing way. And like, the rules didn’t have a good formal way to say: Monks gain extra attacks for every 4 points of base attack bonus. Or A monk’s unarmed attack iterates at +4.

It was a weird thing where the game rules clearly had this complex rules operation, but also the game had no in-language way to refer to it. Like, the game doesn’t refer to as ‘points of base attack bonus’ or even ‘when your base attack bonus exceeds.’ It’s just something the game only represented on tables. And that means that it was very easy to work out how the rules worked, but the game rules then had a very hard time explaining how the rules worked to players. The way it wound up wording things for Monk Prestige Class is that monk prestige class levels stacked with monk class levels for determining bonus attacks, but not actually base attack bonus. So you had to always make sure you were taking levels in 4s, which was awkward and untidy.

Monks were helped quite a bit in the next edition, 3.5, where they had a smoother damage curve and more abilities and they were just a little bit less hooped by damage resistance and the like in general. It was a much needed improvement necessary to keep Monks as about as shitty as Barbarians and Fighters, and well away from being actually strong.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[optiwashere]

Wait, an exasperated Asheera trying to simultaneously save Barcus while also not starting a fight with the goblins WHO ARE AFRIAD OF HER BECAUSE THEY THINK SHE IS A FULL ORC sounds so funny to me.

Like she's trying SO hard to stick to the redemption passifist route. But these goblins keep profiling her and she's only one paladin.

Lol, I think a little exasperated comedy would work wonders for her character introduction if she were a companion. And there's actually a lot that could be done with the fact that they think she's a full orc.

That would require a pretty deft hand w/r/t sensitivity though. The most that I think BG3 could reasonably do is comment on the biracial experience of a half-orc if the PC pressed that.

Goblins in the Forgotten Realms are actually kinda ambivalent towards orcs as a general rule, but the goblins under Minthara are uniquely subservient little dorks so I definitely see them being confused how to deal with Asheera. They wouldn't have a reason to recognize her armor or anything like Wyll would either.

[chaoticdumbasshalforc]

reminder that I have a shop and wouldn't you know? Redbubble is having a sale! Up to 40% off Shirts and stickers and buttons etc etc

(I'm only happy when I RAGE sweater)

(Half Orc All Dork sticker)

(can't DM if you ain't Cute bag)

[belphegor1982]

OKAY OKAY SO

I said I'd be able to play DnD Saturday and I did!! And it was sooo good 🥰

Oh man, I am 100% hooked. I love the other TTRPG, but DnD is something else. I played my late middle-aged halfling bard I'd RPed juuust a little way back in April (my Malva) while the rest of the party finished the arc they were on. The DM incorporated her into the story with another new character (the only other woman), Antinua the half-elven mage, and she and Malva did a bit of camping for a week - and were beset by bandits! I was down to 3 hit points at some point 😅 Good thing I packed Cure Wounds! (But Malva got the kill on the main attacker and also his purse, so how's that for a highwayman? "Your money and your life!" And yes she made that joke because she's a huge dork :D)

Met with the rest of the party (mostly), a tiefling rogue and a half-orc (almost full orc) monk, and off we went on an archaeological quest to find an oracle in the middle of ruins. Shenanigans ensued, we met a whole lot of NPCs, and we were attacked by a bunch of kobolds in the ruins!

GUYS! I got to cast Vicious Mockery! I got to give inspiration to our rogue! I scribbled ideas on a paper waiting for my turn, and to the tune of Prince's "Superstitious" I sung something (in French, natch) that could roughly translate as this:

A little inspiration We will back you up A little inspiration Now go fuck them up

I felt very silly and very proud that everybody cracked up 😄

*happy sigh* Man, I thought I'd love playing a bard and I am SO HAPPY to be right. October's going to be all about the other RPG and my disaster lesbian gnome mage (love her), but November can't come quickly enough!!

[shockingshitshow]

after that whole fiasco, sarah decides to begin on her quests and talk to the necessary npcs to begin those

the first was to deal with a rat situation in the sewers underneath the city, which was given by the mayor of artreaus, john dews

the second was to see dorn (my player likes to call him dork) about an assassination plot that would happen in 3 days time

the third was to see comi zale for the final quest, which was very vaguely explained but had something to do with a unicorn

sarah decided to start by visiting the owl’s eyes, the trading post that dorn worked at

dorn is a young half-orc who sells illegal weapons and drugs out of a briefcase while on his lunch break from his minimum wage job

he told sarah and mono that he was a part of a plot to take down the tyrant ruler of artreaus, a high elf named thorian cadreoa, who terrorized the mayor into doing whatever he wanted

cadreoa castle was outside the city, farther up on the hill that artreaus was located on. the castle had its own gates and walls and security and such, but none of that would really matter, because in 3 days time thorian was holding a fancy rich snob party for his birthday

it just so happened that sarah had an invitation to this party in her strange stack of magical papers

they plotted a little more before heading off to other things

sarah dragged mono along with her to see the mayor, and deal with the rat problem

mayor dews was an overly friendly and easily scared man who was influenced greatly by the cadreoa’s

he told sarah that the sewers were infested with rats, and that there was a rat king rumored to be down there. she was tasked with dealing with the rats, and with some convincing, mono and dorn agreed to accompany her

[somewhatsentientspellbook]

You don’t understand, now the gears are spinning!

Could you imagine their relationship being such a slowburn it transcends a single lifetime? Like they start out with “Let’s keep in touch via letters and sending spells”, but as the years go by, a war begins to brew. Verin reaches out to Keyleth right before heading into battle telling her “Hopefully it won’t come to it, but just know I might not get back to you for a while. But when I do, you’ll know it’s me, I promise.”

And then Keyleth hears through the grapevine that Verin died in that battle and is heartbroken again. She doesn't realise that Verin was consecuted and she tries reaching out to Vax to at least confirm the soldier’s soul made it to the other side safely. Obviously, Vax doesn’t have an answer for her.

But 20 years later, she gets a letter.

“When’s the next book club meeting?”

They meet again, and Keyleth can’t help but note that even though Verin is a completely different drow, he’s still the same good-hearted person and loveable dork for Ashari culture. One of the few remaining people to idolise her but simultaneously treat her like a normal person.

The two of them pick up right where they left off with a promise to meet in person more often and their romance begins to blossom. Eventually, as another lifetime passes Verin by, Verin confesses to Keyleth (in his new form, a half-orc) that her face, wisdom, and laughter have become one of the first memories regained during anamnesis.

Verin loves Keyleth.

And honestly? He’s been an idiot for not admitting it sooner.

The clear solution to Keyleth's ongoing immortality/love interests dying problem

Verin Thelyss already loves and admires the Ashari culture, is also basically immortal and will always return to Keyleth, AND is a genuine delight 😄

[unicyclehippo]

For the word prompt: the course and your bg3 game:)

‘sta-AY the course, steady the course, sung a coarser man than i-YUH. sta-AY the hand, steady the hand, sung the coursing river by-YUH!’ dante sucked in a breath before launching into the ninth verse. ‘merik the orc was a handsome dork with a thirst for adventure and war, he bought his boat for a mighty good price not realising he was missing an oar - hm, no, er…. what about… - met a witch by the shore, and put out to sea with a bucket and spoon for an oar—hey!’

a book thudded into dante’s bedroll, missing their head by a few feet. they paused in their singing and frowned across at gale.

‘you missed.’

‘a pitiful throw,’ lae’zel muttered, scornful, from her place between the trees where she had hacked a vantage for her watch. ‘if you require lessons—‘

‘it wasn’t intended to hit. only to stop you from singing.’

dante frowned harder. they flexed their hands—the ache half from old, forgotten wounds and half from curling them into new placements to practice on alfira’s lute—and flexed again, whistling up a phantom limb. it snatched up gale’s tome and, with another whistle, carried it over to him.

‘i can’t help but notice,’ they said—not sulked, they were a fearsome warrior-bard and never sulked—‘that an awful lot of people are being rather harsh about my singing voice lately. first there was that squirrel, then the kid on the beach, and now you, my good…travelling companion.’

it was too soon to call him friend.

dante felt queasy at the mere thought. would the urges come back stronger than ever now that dante had thought those forbidden words? they had brushed so gently across their heartstrings when alfira had begged to join the camp and look where that got her. dante’s eyes flickered to the red stained dirt. saliva pooled beneath their tongue. they swallowed hard.

unaware or unconcerned, gale glared at them. ‘it’s not that you’re untalented—‘

‘odd way to start a compliment, but i accept.’

‘—it’s just that everything that comes out of your mouth is the most frightening thing i’ve ever heard.’

dante squinted at him. ‘…i was singing about a river. and an ocean, i ‘spose.’

‘you described a drowning in quite vivid detail two verses ago.’

‘a real risk when it comes to sailing.’

‘did you forget,’ gale pointed out, tone bone-dry, ‘that your magic resides in music? by the weave,’ he snapped, ‘how dull are you? when you sing scary things,’ gale said, enunciating as if he spoke to a very young child he suspected of being stupid, ‘everyone around you becomes frightened. it’s your magic. control it!’

[the-wardens-torch]

FFXIVwrite2023 Battle Plan

tl;dr - Late start, microsoft blows, I may may not be out of ideas, I want to do 12 this year, but I'll consider 10 a success.

I wanted to do this post on the 31st, but I was too busy seething with rage at the fact that I have to use conversion software to be able to display all of my old writing on my new computer which means going through and rearranging 100+ pieces by hand. I should cave and just get scrivener, but I'm sick of spending money since I've already shelled out $1,300 (which took me years to save) for this new comp and its various peripherals and I'm so very tired.

Then I didn't do it with the first 2 days due to being too busy with nerd pursuits (such as that of Strahd Von Zarovich by my 7 foot tall ginger half-orc Ranger girl) and dork hobbies (like staring at Harris hawks and border collies for 3 hours.)

I feel like this will be the year I finally run out of ideas, but I've said that for the last 2 years already so I might surprise myself.

There are a few remaining bits of Fal's backstory I desperately want to get out. The biggest of which is what got him to go to Carteneau and therefore pick up Bahamut's power. I could go with a prophetic dream (perhaps courtesy of his deceased duskwight grandmother who sometimes messes with him in his dreams,) but that seems too obvious. I'll probably try to do that for one of the free day prompts unless I get one that's really on the nose.

And there's also the obligatory things I do every year; a folktale (probably about Azeyma,) a free-verse poem, and a collection of 4-5 dirty limericks (I love doing those but they're SO HARD.)

I don't have much of anything to distract me IRL this run… Unless you count Baldur's Gate III, which my partner bought it for himself as a b-day gift. I'm dying to start playing it when he's done since it looks like the first D&D based game I'm not too stupid or uncoordinated to play. I think I might use that as my reward for finishing 10-12 this year.

[tigerbeansshop]

Got my samples in from TeeSpring and they're lookin pretty good!

Tiger Beans on TeeSpring! 

[gamjeebreadfox]

henk the half orc barbarian

[dicenete]

Eiko really can't be mad at Silvester for too long. Even if she tried. It doesn't help that he throws in some romantic lines about his bad eyesight. It was fitting for these sketches to happen on Valentine's day.

[talenlee]

Getting High In Cobrin'Seil

This is more talk about Drrrruuuugs! More stuff about DRRRRUGS! You should avoid this if you don’t want to hear me talking about drrrrrruuuuuuuugggggs. In the context of a D&D setting. You know, that kinda thing. You won’t get any real or cool tips about that stuff just D&d Dork Stuff.

The first time I tried this article it wound up three thousand words long and barely talked about actual drugs. It was mostly about drug regulation, about the ways in which governments and systems recognised the existence of drugs. But we’re not done! Because this isn’t even necessarily a list of cool fantasy drugs (you can probably find those written by other people better for the task than me) but instead I want to talk about the material realities of how different peoples regard different drugs!

Glossary Note: Conventionally, the term used in D&D for this mechanical package is race. This is the typical term, and in most conversations about this game system, the term you’re going to wind up using is race. For backwards compatibility and searchability, I am including this passage here. The term I use for this player option is heritage.

Okay, something real quick about real world biological science: drugs are things that more or less work consistently for all humans more or less. The idea that humans as large groups have really consitently different reactions to almost all but the finest stimuli, divided on common genetic lines is a bit of race science that sits underneath the architecture of D&D. The idea that different groups of humans have major fundamental reactions to stimuli is root to a lot of medical racism and it’s complicated further by there being real things (like the way that lactose intolerance and types of anemia are distributed across some population groups) and then completely nonsensical things (like biological testing for supposed IQ rates).

In the context of Cobrin’Seil, while there is room for communities to have, for example, genetic trends towards handling a type of alcohol or drug better than others, the differences between any given person and the baseline is not meaningfully, predictably different to their population’s deviation from any other large group. That is to say, for any given individual, their responses cannot be meaningfully predicted based on the groups they’re from within that group. It’s much more likely to have a regional trend, like people with a lot of cow farms are more likely to be able to drink milk, and if you can’t handle that odds are good you move away.

Why then do I care about drugs across populations?

Because Cobrin’Seil, and most D&D settings, is actually like the thing that Race Scientists of the 1800s and therefore Gary Gygax believed in: A place with multiple biologically distinct species. In the context of Cobrin’Seil, the reason Elves and Orcs can have half-children with humans is because they’re (effectively) ring species to one another, with humans still in the middle of the ring. But there are also much more distantly related genetic groups and that means that there are characters with wildly different biologies even if they have reasonably similar phenotypes.

To look at things as a cladistic biologist would, there is a Common Prehuman Ancestor for Orcs and Humans, and if you look at that as a starting point, that ancestor forks down into Orcs and Humans, half-elves, halflings, tieflings, the entire wing of creatures known as Erd (things like ogres, hobgoblins and the like), the Kyranou Genasi and other niche heritages, who all share a reasonably similar response to drugs. Bonus, Elves try to emulate that. That means there’s one major biologically close bloc that even if they can’t interbreed (keeping genetic material from crossing into one another) are all meaningfully built on the same biological architecture which you can detect by how they react to diseases and stimulants. In the context of drugs, then, there are a whole wing of drugs that you can classify in a way that they affect this group in a predictable way. Since these groups represent one of the most widespread collections of people, the things that affect this group is a reasonably useful ‘drug’ category for commercial operation.

There are two other major threads of biological relationships for the major cultures; there’s the Beastfolk thread, which are related upstream to some kind of sapient event, and the Goblins. Goblins aren’t actually representative of many different species of culture, because Goblins are so flexible within the category of ‘Goblin.’ Basically, all Goblins can have Goblins with other Goblins even the ones that look wildly different. This doesn’t have a lot of interface with the drug stuff though because Goblins are so resistent to drugs, they’re only really affected by drugs that are explicitly magical.

That makes two large, major, predominant forms of nervous system that drugs can interface, the Common Prehuman Ancestor group and the Beastfolk Group. These groups are both linked by being mammalian tetrapods (which incidentally puts minority cultures like centaurs outside of it), and so there is some overlap between them. There’s also the wildly diverse Dragonkin, who are hexapod reptilians and their relationship to drugs is even more niche.

What this means is that drugs in general work the same across all of the heritages of Cobrin’Seil, but not specifically. For example, most Beastfolk don’t respond to something best compared to Catnip, but Gnolls and Abilen do. What these groupings tend to highlight is particularly rare inter-related commonalities, and create niches for specific community consumables. The more specific a community is, the more likely there is one specific way they can get fucked up but also that way is probably not commercially interesting and therefore widely known outside of that community. Abilen smoke on their hookahs all the time and people can tell that they’re smoking, but they don’t have to know exactly what they’re smoking, as the ‘doing drugs’ part of the situation is well handled by the obvious participation.

There’s also questions of just sheer bulk and metabolism. An Orc and a Halfling are, from the perspective of a genetic mapping trend, as close to one another as a dhole and a wolf, and they respond to drugs almost entirely identically, except the Orc is literally as much as eight times as much mass as the halfling. What gets an Orc modestly toasted could put a Halfling peer well into the realm of what medicinals and apothecaries would classify as ‘proper zooted.’ This also plays into the economics of such things; Halfling dealers famously espouse the power and potency of Orcish weed but it’s more that Orcs grow lots of it and sell it in huge quantities. They grind it down more finely and pack it more tightly, just because it’s pragmatically a size difference.

Thing is, there are also thresholds! From the perspective of a human, Orcs tend to take ‘more’ drugs and they tend to be more potent but don’t tend to have a notable impact. Halflings can consume with Humans pretty much piece for piece up until the point the Halfling drops unconscious, but the Human is pretty well on the way out the door at that point too.

Finally, there is just plain magical nonsense. The big one in-setting is Opprobrium; it’s essentially, magical cocaine. A stimulant that sharpens your senses and heightens your ego and activates latent magical ability (supposedly) and also, guarantees that it’s not harmful or addictive because of how it uses transmutation magic to make your body repair itself. This common belief about Opprobrium is completely not justified by any expert in the field, and if you ask almost any skilled magician if you should be using consumable magical items that explicitly claim to cast spells on your brain, you’ll probably get a consistent reaction of ‘no.’ And even if there are those who are okay with going ‘hey, yeah I would trust my skill to make that’ then you ask them if they’d be okay with consuming it when it was made by someone else and explicitly they would have no way of knowing who did it, and suddenly the number of experts interested in using this stuff goes way down.

In the category of magical nonsense, I want to highlight that the Eladrin, specifically, despite being very politically important and internationally relevant, are not only not common enough to really have a meaningful drug culture, but also, they’re not entirely organic creatures. Still somewhat Fey creatures, the Eladrin can huff, you know things like the dreams of a butterfly, which means that not only are their drugs extremely hard to commercially produce and distribute but also they might be getting high off something that you think is entirely G-rated and not telling you.

What we get then are these broad categories:

Drugs For Almost Everyone

Drugs For Beastfolk

Drugs For The Humanfolk

Just Plain Magical Nonsense

Within that category, then, some cultural notes because I mean I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface here and … what’s our word count at, oh lord, 1400 words, okay, moving on from that concern, here’s some stuff about how cultures are commonly perceived to relate to drugs from within them, which is to say, not how people stereotype them doing drugs.

Kobolds are big on synthetics. They have access to magical synthesis tools and distillation of chemicals, which means if you’re thinking like LSD, or other forms of ‘make it in a lab’ rather than ‘grow it in a field ‘stuff, chances are Kobolds make it. They also tend to think of it as a thing you take very precisely, which means they tend to think of doses as personalised, not shareable. Like, if you have a Kobold drug dealer, they come to your place and they get you high. They’re very expensive.

Orcs are enormous people who get keyed up very easily, don’t like difficult cultivation methods and have enormous open spaces. Typically Orcs favour either stuff that heightens how you get keyed up (so short-term stimulants, like imagine a root you can chew to get a high-power caffeine spike), and stuff you can partake of for a long time doing nothing (so, weed). People call Weed ‘Green’ because it is an Orc association.

Humans are the booze nerds of the drug world; not exclusively by any means but specific, niche forms of alcohol are almost all going to be linked to some human settlement or cultural space.

Abilen and Gnolls both partake of catnip, which the Abilen pay people to cultivate and make as a cash crop, and which the Gnolls just plant in their path at celebratory/sacred spaces.

Goblins don’t get high off drugs but they do consume them as food stuff, and have very clear opinions of which ones taste good or don’t, and most drugs do not taste good. They tend to like Orc Green, because it’s kinda minty and nutty, but they don’t like it as a smoke.

Elf communities are druidic, which means that there are regular drug experiences as part of religious rituals, and the druids can even magically grow specific ones.

Dio Baragh know every kind of mushroom you can consume and get stonky wonky, and the funniest part of that is that Dio Baragh are extraordinarily tough, which means that their recommended doses for enlightening experiences instead render smaller or less hardy peoples completely hammered. Orcs and Dio Baragh swap drugs a lot, especially as people who don’t tend to engage with capitalism by default.

The Tjosen reputation for being both extremely comfortable with contact and interested in staring at the stars is perhaps directly related to their common cultural practice of distilling MDMA from a type of plant root.

Aaaand…

I think I’m done.

Thank god.

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