#dungeons and divination

[dungeons-and-divination]

BARD College of WHISPERS - HALFLING Lightfoot - Gambler

I know it’s been a long time since that introduction post, but I wanted to have some things ready before getting this blog started. And now, here we are. The first actual “character analysis” thingy is here. I hope you enjoy it.

Name: Cora Wildheart (34yo)

TAROTS

Mind: The hanged man (upright) Cora is the kind of person that struggles a lot with dilemmas. She overthinks important things to the point of feeling trapped by the need of taking a decision. She sometimes loses perception of the situation at hand and just tries to find a getaway from it. That’s usually when she ends up making very stupid decisions and getting into trouble. 

Body: Five of cups (upright) This is kind of a hard one. To me it immediately talked about a physical loss Cora had to deal with. While she still tries not to cry over it and hide her suffering behind a brave face and a shiny smile, she still has a lot of lingering anger brewing under the surfaces. Which made me wonder if she still blames more herself for this loss other than someone else.

Spirit: Four of swords (reversed) Like I just said, her physical loss really did a number on her all around. Hence why her spirit is very hurt. She had a deep need for self-care to heal from it and she tried isolating. Didn’t really work apparently (figures, a bard usually thrives with an audience, after all). Yet, maybe going out in the world once again might be the right way for her to find a sense of new self and new mental strength.

Past: Ace of wands (upright) Cora’s past is filled with a discovery of potential, with the fiery attitude of a person that is always up to a new challenge, that loves to embrace the creative spark that’s been gifted to her. There’s also an undertone of fertility in this card, that added up with that physical loss coming from her body, made me think that she gave birth and maybe things didn’t really end up in the best way possible.

Present: Five of wands (reversed) In general, this card gives me a huge vibe that because of her past, at present Cora struggles with confrontation. Like, she doesn’t like them at all. So she either does everything she can to put an end to them, or she avoids them. I feel like it could go either way depending on the kind of confrontation; she could be very aggressive and hot tempered about it and fight tooth and nails. Or be very shy and demure to the point of just giving up for the sake of ending the conversation.

Future: Knight of cups (upright) So, this is a hard one for Cora. Because at this point with what I had with the previous cards I kind of had built up in my mind that she lost both the person she loved and a child at birth. And this card is mostly about following your heart, finding warm affection and even diplomacy, which I just explained is something she struggles with. Since it’s a “future” card I feel like it should mostly work as a suggestion on what you should look out for her while playing. I suggest leaning on the conflicts, especially within the party (yet, react as you feel is appropriate for her at the time). There lies her growth as a character (and maybe some love).

FULL BACKSTORY

Abandoned at birth, Cora always considered family her adoptive moms, Yeselle and Diafira, and her 2 older brothers, Milosh and Reed. She never had many luxuries in life, but she was lucky enough to live in a very big house, even if she had to share it with the entire Wildheart family (composed of Diafira’s older brothers, Evan, Ander, Barvias, Coramin and their families). She had a happy childhood, filled with laughter and the friendship of her many many cousins. Yet, that demure life of sacrifices left her with a desire to find a quick way to get richer, especially once she got exposed to the outside world around her teenage years. While at first she was a patron at one of the clubs in her town where there was a lot of gambling, she was quickly noticed by an enforcer of the criminal syndicate that run the place, mainly for her beauty but also for her way with words (which was the reason why she was even allowed to be in the club in the first place). For a time she was kind of an insider at tables, the kind of player planted just to make big spenders think they were winning before making them go for the big hit and have them lose lots of money. But being there, exposed to the life of the club, especially before and after opening hours, had her dabbling with the instruments of the people that performed at the club. She quickly picked up a knack for playing, and put her free time and money to have people teach her how to play the viola and the flute (and taught herself how to play water glasses just to use it as a trick at the tables to distract/annoy people while playing). It was because of her passion of hanging out with the entertainment of the club after closing hour, that Cora fell in love with one of the performers, Oswald Fiddlefun. The lad convinced her that she would never really get to be a performer as long as she kept working in the club, cause the syndicate was more interested in the money she was bringing them as a plant at tables than her talent with any instrument. So, after planning for a couple of weeks, she decided to run away to pursue a life as an artist on the road with him. It didn’t really work that well. From the start they realized that neither of them really had the skills necessary to live without the support of a company while on the road. And even when they were in some village or town, an unknown duo of performers was not paid really that much, sometimes not even in room and board for the night. Still, they tried to hang onto each other and Cora even got pregnant soon enough. After months of a life of misery and traveling, with Cora very much pregnant and both of them struggling to find their way out of a forest in the middle of nowhere, they were attacked by a group of bandits. While Cora was very meek and tried to give everything she had to the bandits to protect her yet to be born child, Oswald was a true coward: he created a distraction and as soon as he could, he run away, leaving Cora behind, alone with the bandits.  After that sudden show of magic from Oswald, the bandits were even more convinced they had to be hiding something precious and pressure Cora. Despite all the crying and repeating of how dirt poor she actually was, none of them believed her; tired of her whining, they decided to just kill her and get whatever she was hiding from her corpse.  Left for dead with a couple of deep stab wounds to her torso, Cora was saved by a druid that was alerted by the noise of the bandits running away while complaining of the meagre spoils. The druid, that she later found out was called Tianamin, took her to his village. There she was healed properly, yet there was nothing anyone could do to save her baby. Still mourning the loss of the baby boy and trying to deal with the anger of Oswald leaving her to die and never even looking back or trying to search for her, Cora stayed with at the druid’s village for some time, reflecting on what she wanted to do with her future. Sick and tired of depending on other people, she decided to become the only person she would trust with saving herself and really started learning the ways of a true bard.

SUGGESTION CORNER

Suggested features Ability scores: High Charisma and Dexterity, Low Strength and Intelligence. Skill proficiencies: Persuasion, Perception, Sleight of hands Musical instrument proficiencies: viola, flute, water glasses (as already mentioned) Others: a multiclass in rogue could be a good idea, but it might feel a little too much on the nose with her background. So you do you.

Suggested Characteristics Trait: The perfect bet is out there somewhere. I just have to keep my eyes open. Ideal: You can’t win if you’re dead. Live to fight another day, when the odds might be in your favor. Bond: A criminal syndicate I once played for isn’t happy I left the game and its enforcers are looking for me. (There is also still that grudge with Oswald, fyi.) Flaw: No one wants to know my real story. So I make up a new one each time.

[zeldasavefile]

Also I saw someone say they loved the divine beasts because they were challenging. I don't mean to sound negative or like they can't find divine beasts challenging but when I see things like that I'm like yeah you haven't played ocarina of time

[vivtanner]

The brightest sun 🌞

These horse boys are my friend's elf character Ignatz (Divine Soul Sorcerer) & my character Bataar (Path of Wild Magic Berserker).

[introspectres]

Realized I never posted my divine soul sorcerer aasimar! His divinity is melting him from the inside out :)

[lo-batteryy]

Miss Jessamy Quinn 😈🔮💜

[dishonored-pendletwin]

Barbarian with negative INT is out, Barbarian with positive INT, 1 Lv in Sorcerer, and the noble background is in.

My wonderful drow lass Ariana by @inspiderwiht

[dailyadventureprompts]

Villain: End Without Rest, Outer God of Ceaseless Apocalypse

How many times can a thing break before it can break no more?

The mummified corpse of a titanic dragon defies all laws of scale and destiny to sink its teeth into a bleeding sun, a fleet of ships like clockwork locusts stripmine a world for spare parts, angels gone feral parade down the road while scourging their flesh singing songs of the coming endtimes in a thousand witless tongues. All these things and more are the being known as “End without Rest”, an engine of destruction that wanders the multiverse without aim, a nomadic Armageddon looking to impose itself on the mythologies of other worlds.

End without Rest is a god for those who are convinced that final days are upon them, whether that be doom preaching madmen, the scions of crumbling empire, or religious fanatics convinced they alone will be saved. It is the impulse to ignore your own safety and the safety of others, and to instead heap all the good things of life upon a pyre and watch them burn. End without Rest senses these pyres like signal beacons, and descends on the arsonist’s innocent world to make good on all their fears.

Adventure Hooks: 

Exploring the ruins of a now forgotten city leads the party into conflict with a series of strange, rust-covered automotons that seem to have been haunting the site since its fall. Pushing deeper, they find the machines defending the wreck of a long grounded astral ship, with the surrounding evidence pointing to the city’s inhabitants having died defending against an army of these constructs a thousand years ago.

A few generations ago, a charismatic priest found a book of prophecies, and took his followers out to the badlands where they could be safe from the cleansing fire that was about to destroy their homeland. The apocalypse is now overdue, and the priest’s followers have gone a bit squirly in the meantime, living off the land in pious austerity and attacking travellers and native inhabitants of the badlands for supplies. The most recent head of their congregation has decided to take a more active approach to prophecy, and has begun a series of grisly raids with the intent of triggering the endtimes by orchestrating his own omens.

The stars bleed, the horizon seems to burn, and the party have to run for cover as a falling star makes its way directly towards their camp. Returning to the smoking crater they find a Planetar angel gasping for life, heavenly light bleeding from innumerable battle wounds. With their last breath, they recount their battle with a fallen angel intent on beginning the end of the world by blowing a sacred horn. This plannetar gave its life to avert this crisis, and with their last ounce of strength to knock the horn from their foe’s hands and sent it crashing to earth. Now the party must race to find where the second “falling star” landed before their fallen adversary completes their final mission.

Background: The origins of End without Rest stand as a testament for what happens when gods and mortals meddle with the ineffable nature of fate. It begins with a petty war god watching as a world reached the predestined end of its mythology, it sun devoured by a great beast to usher in the final age of darkness and dissolution that would spell that realm’s end. This wargod was not the type to see a whole world full of people and weep at the futility of all, or rush in to try and set fate onto a different course.... she was the type to see something that could destroy pantheons and start thinking about how it could be weaponized.

End without Rest is the result of all her efforts: The body of an apocalyptic dragon, mummified from its long time in the void, pulled from the dead realms and reawakened with a supernova burning in its belly. Around this monstrosity she set a legion of constructs to maintain, defend, and reign the beast, answerable only to her. She wielded her new weapon with glee and with pride, carving out an empire of worlds that bowed to hear in fear of the apocaylpse she could bring down on them... until she fucked up and brought it down on herself instead.

With its master consumed and her divine fire burning in its furnace of a heart, there was nothing to stop End without Rest from growing, of reaching the critical mass of its own godhood, of moving from world to world ending them based on instinct alone.  This process has repeated so long that the remnants of other apocalypses have got swept up in the apocalypse engine’s wake: routed legions of the endtimes pledging themselves to its service, orphaned harbingers following it in hopes of finding meaning after their task is complete.

Titles: The Apocalypse Engine, Suneater, the unready end

Signs: Confused visions of the enditmes, animals going feral, objects rusting breaking or unraveling before they should.

Symbols: The Jaws of a beast (often black, often skeletal) closing around a red sun. Iron locusts

[thestuffedalligator]

Hypothetical question. If someone was to make a D&D character based on Ebenezer Scrooge who gets his powers from his pact with the Ghosts of Christmas and/or his oath to keep to the ideals of Christmas, would he be a warlock or a cleric or - leaning on the edge of weirdness here - a paladin.

[artofshinga]

i love Sohra and her absolute loathing of like 90% of what happens in adventures

[fishsticxz-art]

ouugh redesigned cosmo’s outfit

[dungeons-and-divination]

BARBARIAN Path of the BERSERKER - Mountain DWARF - Failed merchant

Some characters just have a lot to talk about, others a lot less. This is one of those with a very full life even before they start adventuring! I hope you enjoy his very long life story… 

Name: Melbek “Donnybrook” Lutgehr (56yo)

TAROTS

Mind: Nine of wands (upright) I love when the first card I draw is such a positive start. It might not look like it, cause the Nine of wands does give off this battle weary vibe. Yet, it’s also a big card of courage and persistence, of learning from past mistakes. And I feel like it's the perfect card for how I pictured good old Donny from the get go. He’s obviously very tired because of some failures he’d endured in the past, but he’s also up to the challenges the future has in store for him. He’s sure that he can still turn it all around and have something good to talk about at the end of it.

Body: Nine of cups (upright) Yet again, finding success, fulfilling a dream. It really made me wonder if maybe he failed as a merchant because his heart wasn’t into it, if he just put his energies in the wrong dream. A self-confidence card for “body” for a character that I already knew would be a barbarian… I mean, if very on the nose, but also so perfect! Donny knows what he’s good at, probably wanted to embrace it for a lot of time. But there was something that made him try to fing the success he craved for in something else.

Spirit: Seven of swords (reversed) Oh, how wonderful! Running away from consequences AND a need of coming clean! This is just the cherry on top. So, this poor lad repressed what he wanted, probably cause of some kind of duty towards something or someone, then finally he tried to reach for his dream, and that’s when the guilt trip started! He can’t seem to win, he’s always turn between his dream and that sense of duty towards something. I still can’t stop but coming back to that capacity to learn from his mistakes though. I know Donny can find a solution to his conundrum! 

Past: Wheel of fortune (reversed) And look at that, once again the tarots point out how Donny’s life was going perfectly well, then they crumbled in front of him. And that mess made him feel so powerless, despite knowing it was kind of his fault since he never was a very good businessman. Yet, Donny sees that mess as an opportunity, he can finally move on and what he does best. Which is get mad and kick people in the nads. He just has to bear the weight of the responsabilties he’s leaving behind to everyone elses he loves. 

Present: Eight of swords (upright) While this card can be related to actual imprisonment, I feel like considering everything I already got from Donny’s read, this is more of a psychological issue for him. A deep denial of how he truly feel probably. This very brave man, facing every enemy without a care in the world, yet, when it comes to coming true to his family, he shies away from the discussion. Literally paralyzed by the fear of coming back home and finding out that they’ll never forgive him. Yeah, more that kind of prison of the mind.

Future: Two of pentacles (upright) Aw, I’m moved. That Donny got this card just confirms how much of a family man he is deep down. He’ll struggle deeply to keep that balance between adventuring, and staying with the family he loves so much. Like always, the future card is a suggestion on a general direction for this character development. I do see Donny really trying to make a decision between the two things, especially if he finally decides to apologize in person to his family for leaving. I can see him torn between the party and his family, before either his family or the party helps him finally make a decision. Or they help him realize that he doesn’t necessarily have to choose at all, if the party becomes family too.

FULL BACKSTORY

Born in a brothel, Melbek is the son of Kettin, a sex worker. His father, unluckyly, was never in the picture, despite Kettin repeatedly telling him that he would have loved to be with them (apparently, Tordek, his father, had been captured by a bounty hunter just a couple of months before Melbek was born and Kettin, which at the time was planning on leaving her life as a sex worker with him, never saw or heard from him again). Melbek lived all of his childhood and teenage years with his mother and his two older half-sister, Gymres and Ingres, inside the rooming house where a lot of other sex workers lived with their own children. He considered all of them actual family, to the point that he called aunts and uncles the other sex workers and cousins their children. Some of those kids, he even considered brothers and sisters, mostly because in their early teens they got into trouble all together. His family still struggled a lot with money, so both his sisters and Melbek started to work as young as they could. The first job Melbek could find was as an errand boy for a brewery in town. He was known for getting into trouble, but also for not having an issue putting in his place people way bigger than he was with a well placed kick or punch. So, while he was allowed sometimes to help inside the brewery for the actual brewing (and he did develop a passion for the process), Melbek mostly delivered the product to the local seedy dive bars. It was during one of these deliveries to a bigger establishment that he stumbled in the middle of a brawl; nobody was actually trying to stop the fight, and the bartender, a very worried and way too young to be dealing with the situation girl, was about to have a mild panic attack because of it. Deciding he wanted to help, Melbek got into the fray and quickly stopped the fight, to the cheers of the other people and the gratitude of the poor girl. The following delivery to that establishment, came with a proposition from the owner itself, that was so impressed by the very glowing recommendation given by the bartender, that he wanted Melbek to be sort of a bouncer for him, since it wasn’t the first time that the place had been half-destroyed by things getting too heated up. In the following months, Melbek quickly gained himself a reputation and a nickname. Everyone started calling him either Donnybrook or Donny. Everyone but his family and the cute bartender, Maerma, which spent longer and longer talking to him, even when both of them were actually supposed to be working. Nobody was really surprised when they married just two years later. What came as a surprise was the inheritance from an old almost forgotten aunt of Maerna a couple of years after they married, when Maerna had just got pregnant with her first child. Apparently, Maerna was the only relative her aunt Gwenmyla had left, and while she used to visit her aunt a lot in her childhood, she hadn’t seen Gwenmyla since she was 7, when Maerna became an orphan and ended up in an orphanage. With the suddenly acquired money, the couple decided to buy a comfortable house for the family (which included not only the two of them and the baby that was about to be born, but, to Maerna’s insistence, even Kettin, Gymres and Ingres). The remaining money was put to a project that the couple had been talking about since the moment they met: opening their own bar, where they could have beer that they themselves brewed. So, they opened a new family business: the Brewer’s Den. For a long time their life seemed to be fantastic. Mearna and Donny became proud parents of two baby girls (Maeve and Marryn), Donny’s family was finally doing something that made them all happier… Yet, the bar never really seemed to completely succeed. They were always struggling, despite Donny’s efforts to brew fun and creative beers or liquors that could attract people to their establishment. After about twelve years from the opening, they were on the verge of bankruptcy. Well aware that he could do nothing for his business other than apparently make it go into even deeper debt, Donny tried to think of what else he could do to try and prevent his family from ending up on the streets. One night, while he was tending the bar on his own, a group of adventurers in very expensive looking garb, entered to find momentary shelter from a terrible rainstorm. Impressed by their wealth, he inquired about their way of life. And a forgotten dream, the dream of a child playing with his brothers and sisters in the seedy streets of the poorest neighborhood in town, quickly came once again to the forefront… Could he really gain so much wealth like them? Could he really make sure his family was happy once again? Before he knew it, he’d already decided… And left just a couple of days later, in the middle of the night, only a letter left behind, a heavy guilt inside his heart and a hope that he’d made the right choice this time.

SUGGESTION CORNER

Suggested features Ability scores: High Strength and Charisma, Low Intelligence Skill proficiencies: Nature, Intimidation Artisan’s tool proficiencies: cook’s utensils, brewer’s supplies Suggested Characteristics Trait: I love a good insult, even one directed at me. Ideal: Too many consider me a failure. I need to prove them wrong. Bond: My family means everything to me. I failed them before and I must not do so again. Flaw: I find that most people are trustworthy. Hey, where’s my belt pouch?

[zephyrbug]

Asteria Galanodel, a being of the stars and a student of the eternal, with her familiar Willow🔮💫🦉

This was a Christmas gift from a while ago!

[incorrect-dnd-classes]

Wizard: So apparently feeling like something is going to go wrong is called "Anxiety" and not "Portent"

[oldschoolfrp]

In desperate need of divine intervention (George Barr, Legends and Lore for AD&D 2e, 1990)

[circuslollipop]

and my second piece for the beyond the divine gate project by @artists-guild-of-exandria -- the leetol bloo tiefling herself, jester!! miss champion of the traveler ✨

[gaysiimar]

pretty pretty aasimar ⭐