#ethical or non ethical necromancy

[thegirlinthecher]

[thermodynamic-comedian]

john gaius is such a good antagonist, because he's not bad because he's evil, he's bad because he's a normal person who became a god.

because, wether we like to acknowledge it or not, normal people exist on a complex spectrum of morality. we all have our own rules, what we're willing to do and what we're not willing to do. but when it comes down to it, those rules can be bent for the sake of our own survival. humans are ethically more complex than just "good" or "bad", and most of us fit neither label.

john gaius is an allegory for what happens when a human being becomes too powerful. it's not the human that's inherently evil; it's the fact that they have that kind of power that ultimately makes them a force of evil.

john gaius was, to some degree, trying to re-create the universe. re-imagine it based on himself and what he wants. necromancy itself is ethically questionable, but because of the positive things he could do with it, john believed he could make a better world with it. and, to achieve that world, he had to break his own rules more than once.

this is why i think it's so important to his character that we get to hear his story from his own mouth; we get to hear everything he did, and we get to hear how he himself felt (and feels) about the things he did.

comparing john's actions to his personality is an important part of understanding who he is as a character. every interaction he has with other characters is calm, conversational, non-confrontational. he's never described as scary, cruel, or cold, because he isn't. his actions are. his power is.

his humanity is almost uncomfortable in some scenes, because every character treats him either as a god or a villain. his jokes and references and awkwardness feel displaced, because we know he's the most powerful person in the room at all times. it's a little jarring to know what he's done, and still be sort of forced to acknowledge how human he is. but i think that's kind of what i love about him as a character.

[suppotato123]

Thank you to everyone who voted on the last poll, and all the people who put their cool ideas in the tags. This is the new poll and it’ll have to be two parts because there’s too many degrees.

Thaumaturgical Artificing- The scientific study and application of magic as it pertains to Alchemy (the creation of of potions) and Arcana (the engineering of magical devices).

Advanced Applied Necromancy- A degree for those looking for the most modern and ethical methods of raising the dead. This is a degree for those looking for new and inventive ways to apply the Necromantic Arts to the betterment of society. Students can expect to learn the ways in which Necromancy can be applied to various fields such as medicine, criminal justice, and even industry, all wrapped up in serious discussions about ethics and consent.

Arcanic Archaeology- This degree walks students through the history of magical artifacts, how to find them, and their proper uses to aspiring Sorcerers and non-magic users alike.

Linguistic Incantology- The study of the properties of magical languages as well as the characteristics of those languages in general ascertained in order to gain mastery over the magical art of incantation.

Runic Studies- the study of the history of runes and sigils, their relevance in art, politics, and culture, and their various uses to the modern spell caster.

Magiphysical Sciences- The study of Humanoid systems, anatomy, and physical health and fitness as it pertains to magical gestures and more physically involved magic systems.

Mystic Virology- The study of magical diseases and curses, their effects on the humanoid form, and the treatments and counterhexes for such magical conditions.

Beasts Behavior and Health Sciences- This degree will prepare students for work with both wild and domestic fantastical creatures by giving them essential knowledge and essential skills in magical veterinary medicine and biology, grooming, feeding, and care, as well as wildlife rehabilitation.

Magical Performance Arts- A degree for those seeking to enchant and bewilder audiences of all ages. If you’re looking for something something showy and fun, look no further! Includes the option for courses like Enchantments and Shapeshifting.

Wandsmithing Technologies- This is a course for students looking to design wands. Students will learn to many essential lesson including, but not limited to, magidynamics, the magical components of many different wand building materials, and a comprehensive analysis on different wand styles throughout the ages. At the end students will have several wand prototypes and models under their belts.

Criminal Justice- Study how criminal justice organizations function, deal with people and their recurring problems, and create programs and policies that include and benefit the community. Here’s the twist; we add in a little magic to make your job easier. A popular magic class taken for this degree Scrying (with a warrant of course).

Supernatural Physics- the study of how and why magic came to be and how and why it works. Students will learn the structure of magic and how it interacts with other fundamental constituents of the universe.

Economic Divination- This degree provides studies in supply and demand, consumer behavior, and financial markets with an added twist. Students will learn the most reliable methods of divination to help insure future financial success.

Mystic Ecology- The study of relationships among living magical organisms, humanoids, and their physical environments. This degree looks at organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Students can expect to learn how to use their magic to help repair damaged ecosystems, increase power output, and cast diagnostic spells to access what remediation is necessary.

Novel Entomology- The scientific study of magical species of insects, arachnids, myriapods, and crustaceans.

Magic History- The history of magic and it’s uses across different ages and cultures. This class will look at the different major events involving and influenced by magic and it’s interaction with society.

General Studies- This degree covers the most basic information on various magical studies and provides a great opportunity for students to discover their magical passions and/or complete their prerequisite courses before moving on to a more advanced degree.

[fandomchokehold]

I didnt wanna harass your comments so ill ask here, I'd love to add Samson to my small growin collection of people's peeps in bg3 that I get to doodle randomly and with my own. But before I accidentally draw em in a way he wouldn't act, who's the boy?

I see The Good Doctor and can assume from that a bit, and don't worry if ya didnt think that much about it. I'm weird with a old dnd character of mine as my Tav so I think too much into Tavs and their stories and know not everyone does XD

That's so cool! I would be honored for Samson to be a part of that group and don't worry I've been working on his personality and backstory since before I had the game lmao

full warning I've never played D&D so stuff is probably gonna be but I did what I could with a basic map of Faerun and the internet lol

full name is Samson Silversten, high half elf bard, he/him, 31 y/o

he's a 6'4" beanpole with broad shoulders and a strong (well strong for 9 strength) back and upper arms; he's practically covered in light freckles and has heterochromia (his right eye is a rich brown and his left is a golden hazel)

he's demisexual homoromantic which is basically just he's only romantically attracted to men and can only be sexually attracted to someone he knows well and is good friends with, basically romantic feelings have to exist before he can feel remotely sexually attracted (I hope that made sense?)

the most self indulgent part of this character is that he's Irish (his human dad was) and in my head he sounds like Hozier, both speaking and singing

his preferred instrument is the violin but he can also play the lute

he's somewhere between lawful good and lawful neutral, basing most of his morals on the doctor's oath and code of ethics and trying so hard to avoid violence at all costs though he knows when it's necessary like with the goblins in Act 1

he's a bit of a hoarder; he keeps every weapon, article of clothing, tool, food and drink, and gold piece he finds, but he will happily toss all that aside to fill his inventory with any medicinal item, book, or magic artifact for Gale

at camp he can usually be found at his tent or by the lake engrossed in some necromantic tome or copying surgical illustrations from medical textbooks into his personal journal

he loves taking early morning swims before anyone else has woken up (he's shy lol)

he is soooooo autistic (as am I) and will often get frustrated by things he doesn't immediately understand, sometimes goes non-speaking for a bit if he's overstimulated (usually by mouth noises)

for a bard he's not particularly suave or charismatic, usually reserving flowery language for songs and poetry

his main passion is medicine, he wants to be a doctor so he can help anyone in need while also contributing to the progression of science, he also has an interest in necromancy but couldn't afford wizard tuition 😔

actually got all of his proper medical knowledge from the library and "borrowing" material from private institutions like Blackstaff (he actually did borrow them since he would break in again and return them after copying everything into his own journals)

his mom who was a sun elf taught him everything he knows about medicinal plants while his human dad taught him everything he knows about baking, although he can't cook for shit (thank god he marries Gale)

his other skills he picked up while working on a ship as a kid after his parents died include fishing, tying knots, navigating the stars, sailing, and swordfighting; he's especially good with a rapier

I can't reiterate enough how much he loves medicine and being a doctor he will help anyone in need of medical assistance like one time he wasted some salve and gauze on a rat in an alley cuz it was bleeding out from losing its foot; the rat lived lmao

he's very sweet and chooses to see the good in everyone, also fairly perceptive; Astarion didn't need to bite him for Sam to know he was a vampire he could tell as soon as they met but didn't say anything cuz it was Astarion's business to tell him

he gets flustered and shy very easily when people are obviously hitting on him, usually at a loss for words just goes beet red and wide eyed, tries everything he can to leave (Lae'zel: "I want to taste you" Samson: 🏃‍♂️💨)

I think that's about it sorry if it's a lot this isn't even the half of it lol

Thank you again for being interested in Samson! I appreciate you wanting to draw him and you've actually encouraged me to post some of the things I've written for him so I'll have to work on finishing those when I have a day off 💕

[jakethesequel]

It is interesting how many fantasy settings - especially D&D related ones - make Necromancy self-evidently evil but neglect to actually make it evident at whatever point. It especially stands out in Forgotten Realms where Necromancy is almost always a cultural taboo but Enchantment magic escapes mention. From a prima facie point of view, making a robot out of a dead body seems a lot less Evil than taking away a living thing's free will.

Now because I'm a freak I'm less interested in the way people often respond to this: "well, maybe Necromancy isn't that bad and it's just a superstition." To me that's boring and always has an air of "oh those silly superstitious fantasy-medievals, us modern rationalists are better than that." I much prefer to try and come up with why a rational, reasonable populace might develop a taboo against necromancy.

There are arguments that have parallels in modern ethical debates around the treatment of the dead. One might say that a person's right to bodily autonomy does not end when they die, and their body must be treated according to their wishes, or if they never spoke any, then to be laid to rest and undisturbed to the greatest extent reasonable. One might say that allowing the reanimation of corpses into robotic servants creates a material conditions that can incentivize murder: why continue employing your human servant who requires food and water and shelter, who has a body that tires and a mind that might have desires outside of service; when you could just kill him and use his uneating, untiring, unpaid, and loyal corpse?

Now these do leave potential exceptions. In the latter, some societies might rule that just because necromancy may lead to murder, that doesn't necessitate banning necromancy, just additional attention to preventing murder, and the non-murdering necromancers are fine. In the former, there's the edge case that a person's final will might explicitly consent to the use of their body for necromancy, in the same way one might donate their body today to science or medicine. Although that case is also complicated by the notion of consent being revokable, whereas necromantic reanimation might last forever. In comparison, being a posthumous organ donor is a one-time process, not dissimilar from any other desired method of disposal. Donating your body to science would be the closest analogue, and that has a long and sordid history of exploiting oppressed communities and disrespecting the dead. Although there are large ethics boards involved in full-body donation nowadays, there are still many grey areas and even plainly unethical behavior that slips through the cracks. In any case, there's also the argument of moral degradation: that treating a dead body without respect, like a tool or a means to an end, will dull your compassion and can lead to treating living people with the same disrespectful instrumentalism.

All of those are primarily real-world ethical questions applied to fantasy Necromancy, though. MOST interesting of all to me are the ways the other elements of the fantasy world and metaphysics would factor in to this. A big one is that there are often literal gods that maintain a material influence on the world. Presumably, most gods of death have a vested interest in maintaining the natural circle of life, and might smite attempts to interfere with it. This leads to the "encroaching on God's domain" argument, socially discouraging Necromancy in order to avoid the much more destructive divine discouragement. Though, depending on your theological beliefs, that may be more of a practical rule than a moral one.

Plus, there's often a verifiable afterlife and non-physical souls. That could factor in to it in interesting ways. In many real-world conceptions of the afterlife, though the body and soul separate after death, they still maintain a connection, which is often justification for funerary practices and respectful treatment of the corpse. Maybe this is verifiably true of the fantasy world, and through this connection the soul feels harm when the dead body is reanimated. Maybe reanimation even requires the use of a portion of the soul to animate the body, like summoning just a quarter of the soul back to power the body's motor functions and leaving the other 3/4s practically lobotomized in the afterlife. In D&D, at least, we know there's some essential difference between the spells Animate Dead and Animate Objects that places them in Necromancy and Transmutation respectively. Maybe this magical manipulation of a person's soul is the reason.

Whatever the reason for the taboo against Necromancy, one thing is unarguable: Enchantment magic is way more evil than it gets credit for and I think the only reason there isn't also a taboo against it is because the Enchantment wizards have supernaturally good PR.

[dragonologist-phd]

#5, 23, 27, 37 of the BG3 asks for Naia?

thank you!

5. Do you remember the first humanoid enemy your Character killed? Was it the first person they’ve ever killed, in your opinion? Would they have been bothered by it?

Let's see, that would be...the looters in the ruins on the beach, if I remember right. I cleared out that area before even getting to the grove, so that would've been the first non-mindflayer fight for her

I don't think it would have been her first kill- her first time killing someone directly, maybe, but she doesn't really split hairs on the difference. She'd made a living for a while selling herbs and potions, and she definitely sold poisons as well. She knew what her poisons would be used for, and she did it anyway- she doesn't see it as all that different from killing someone in battle.

All in all, it didn't affect her that much; she tried to resolve things peacefully, they attacked first, she was justified in fighting back, and honestly, she had much more important things to worry about at the time than the ethics of killing in self-defense

23. What are your Character’s thoughts on the dream visitor?

She was...conflicted. She definitely didn't trust them at all at first, but over time they did start to seem a little more trustworthy. Still, they always seemed too perfect- too beautiful, too patient, too cajoling- and Naia is too cynical to take something like that at face value.

It was after they saved her and Lae'zel at the creche that she finally started coming around to the idea that they really did want to help, though she never did take their advice on consuming the tadpoles. She values her independence and the sanctity of her own mind way too much to ever take that leap of faith.

27. Who ended up in your Character’s most used party?

I don't think Shadowheart has ever left my party in Naia's playthrough lol. I love her, and so does Naia! (Plus Naia is squishy, she needs a healer with her at all times. especially in Act 1.)

Her other constant was Karlach, whom I also love. Naia is a little more awkward around Karlach- she doesn't always know how to meet Karlach's energy- but she admires her a lot, and it's always useful to have someone around who can actually pass an athletics check.

The last party slot varies depending on the quest, but those two were pretty constant!

37. Did your Character find the Necromancy of Thay? How are they handling it / planning to handle it?

She did and of course she read that thing right away! Her initial reaction was really just being psyched at finally getting some actual, peer-reviewed necromancy theory, seeing as her practice up to that point was almost all self-taught.

It all worked out pretty well, too- she breezed through the checks in reading the first section and got that nice Forbidden Knowledge buff. There's still a lot she couldn't read yet, of course, but she kept the book close at hand in anticipation of unlocking the rest.

(She did piss off Astarion by taking it for herself, but...come on. There was no prying that thing out of her hands.)

BG3 Act 1 Asks

[crossplanar]

The Mages Circuits

I know tumblr despises wide images, and some people struggle with searchable text, so you can find the transcript below the cut:

The Mages Circuits are the regulatory and educational agencies of the spell casting world. Comprised of practitioners and academics, the seven circuits control licensure of active mages and (attempt to) ensure safe and ethical practice of magic. The circuits often approve contract work for its members ensuring that mages keep safe, well paying jobs and their clients receive skilled, quality work. As a Divine Initiative, the Mages Circuits appear in the majority of universes in some manner or another. The Circuit is sometimes a government organization and sometimes independent, but most regions of significant casting population will likely have at least a joint circuit of some kind, even if every branch is not represented.

GOLD - Those who use their magic for healing and / or work with the body. This includes any application of magic in a medical setting as well as shapeshifting and some forms of necromancy. The Gold is among the more strict circuits.

SILVER - Those whose magic is applied in practical means. The Silver is the largest circuit (and often the least respected) This includes such applications as preservation, structural reinforcement, fire retardation, and other maintenance. Silver Mages are also called House Mages or Lantern Tenders.

PALE - Those whose magic is defensive or environmental, including weather watchers, terraformers, and barrier casters. Also called the Pearl, Platinum, or Iron Circuit, the Pale and the Silver often overlap.

STEEL - Those who use their magic for combat or other offense. The most well known and well storied of the circuits is comprised mostly of soldiers and mercenaries. The Steel is the favorite circuit of non casters and the least favorite of anyone else.

BRONZE - Those who use magic in delegation. Construct masters, programmers, and the majority of necromancers fall under this circuit. The Bronze is among the tighter circuits and heavily regulates its members’ activities.

BRASS - An offshoot of The Bronze which deals specifically with the combination of domanic and non domanic mechanisms in. The smallest and newest circuit, the technomancers are oft looked down upon.

GLASS - Those whose magic deals in the unseen. This includes diviners, mediums, exorcists, and truth seers. As one of the smaller circuits, The Glass is often combined with The Pale, with whom they work often.

The Casters' Amulet is a simple medal or button of the appropriate material or color framed with wood and worn by licensed magical practitioners. Style varies wildly by location and time period.

[nerath-mp]

Lore: Eternal Samara - the Living City of the Dead

Pre-Giantwar:

The Baelish under Vecna recreated a version of Bael Turath. Vecna replaced the role of the cult of He Who Was/Asmodeus with his personal variation of the arcanist orders - resulting in something more akin to an early magocracy, with an arcane bureaucracy.

Uncharacteristically, the nobility was barely tolerated within the society, as Vecna's values did not align with those of magical power or temporal power, but in the curiosity of ability to discover the fundamental secrets of creation. Temporal power, in the archlich's mind, was a fools game that led to the war with Arkhosia - something of an addictive necessity bypassed by knowledge.

As a result, Vecna's society emulated similar god-king centered civilizations but lacked the divine nature - at least for a time.

March of Mountains and the Retreat:

After the Betrayal of Kas and the disruption of the empire's wards, while Vecna's soul fought to exist, the trinity of cities under his control were attacked by the Storm-Titan. The arcanists, in the absence of Vecna himself and under the direction of the mix of hereditary nobles and the senior members of Vecna's new society, pulled the cities into the Shadowfel to evade the Primordials. The transition was difficult, as the arcanists has misjudged the mystical strength of the giantkin, or how coordinated they were with the death giants of the Shadowfel. The cities instead accelerated the presence of the mountains in the echo, effectively sealing themselves under them and pulling the Underdark up over themselves like a blanket to further lessen the blows.

Life in the Echo of Death:

The transition meant a significant reorganization of the Vecnan society as they lost virtually all of their agricultural resource capacity. The civilization became wholly urban-centric, encouraging the development of vertical gardening through use of the stolen godling of Melora's to provide the spark of life. Still, there was mass starvation but Vecna's queen ordered the reorganization of society to adapt to their new planar home - using an arrangement foundational to necromancy arcane theory: Blood, Bone and Ash.

The Blood caste or tier encompassed the living as well as those undead whose nature still relied on the consumption of the living - ghouls, wights, etc. The Bone were the next order, and these were fully undead or otherwise no longer living organic matter (so constructs) - this middle class would swell over time as those of the Blood made the transition into Bone as the entropic effect of the plane took them. The final, the Ash, were those who had liberated themselves entirely of corporeal existence - thereby removing all dependency on non-renewable resources.

Much to the societies' consternation, not all who attempted transition from one state to another succeeded, or they would skip steps becoming Ash immediately but doing so in an imperfect form, deeply flawed with a lack of maturity of their soul.

Many still resented the uncertainty of the transition, and how the Ash ultimately emerged as the more socially powerful of the factions. This allowed the Kassite Asmodean seduction to once again take hold - but Asmodeus had no real value in immortal undead - especially ones essentially trapped in the Shadowdark behind a barrier of protection. Still, many bid their time, lingering among the Bone caste.

Samaran society:

The Samarans believe they have changed little, and even that was necessary due to circumstances. The slow erosion of morality and ethical concerns, as well as empathy for the living, has gone unnoticed by them. Even their respect for the living has become more lip service and intellectual privilege with notions of paternalism than actual respect for the necessity of that stage of existence. The gardens once grown to sustain their populace have become more a distraction from the tedium of eternity - allowing the arcanists to tinker with attempting to find a state of being drawn from Ash that would replace Blood.

Reaction to outsiders:

Samaran society is isolationist and xenophobic, but again this is by necessity - some of Vecna's own Baelish pride and defiance. The drawing of the Knochental vale into the Shadowfel was triggered by what the Samarans believe was an escape from the Oubliette - a prison for the eternally existing and the inviolate undead state. The senate's castellan, secretly in league with the Kassites, has been hiding the real nature of the breach from the senate and therefore from the Queen and her court - most of whom are currently in torpor as they have been for some time.

Intellectually the Samarans know the Giants lost their little tantrum of a war, even without the Baelish taking the field in strength, but their knowledge of what occurred since has been very fragmentary. They are not aware of the continued development of humans into the Valisians, the Kovaloi, and the Nerathi. They are especially unaware that they have surviving descendants living once again in the region of the Aschfel Floodplains.

Such things are of curiosity to the Samarans, while they still value exploration of the forbidden - a search enabled by their isolation but also restricted due to their inability to leave the sanctuary of their city.

[our-flag-means-death-ao3feed]

leave and get undone

by gangnamstiles

The Annihilation is coming. Anyone who hopes to survive will need to know how to fight the descending Hell when the clouds finally touch the ground in two years, churning out death and undeath until the whole of sentient life is either unmade or bound to Her whims.

Edward doesn’t have anything to worry about, of course, considering he’s going to cause the whole thing.

Words: 733, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: Our Flag Means Death (TV)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: M/M

Characters: Blackbeard | Edward Teach, Stede Bonnet, Lucius Spriggs, Israel Hands

Relationships: Blackbeard | Edward Teach/Stede Bonnet

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Fantasy setting, Wizard!Stede, Totally-a-Wizard!Ed, Necromancy, ethical necromancy, Magic, High Fantasy, Izzy’s a fucking vampire, Possession, Non-Consensual Warlock-Patron Relationship, Ed’s supposed to help end the world but surprise! he meets an impossible man and things change

source https://archiveofourown.org/works/40310925

[sylvanas-girlkisser]

I’m sorry I keep harping on about Broken Earth, but in my defense it is literally the perfect book; and it is kinda relevant in the context of GtN.Similar to GtN, Broken Earth centers a specific type of magic, Necromancy in GtN, earth magic (Orogeny) in BE.

And like to be fair, Jemisin does kind of have an inherent advantage by virtue of Essun being basically the greatest Orogeny ever and also a teacher by trade; wereas Gideon is aggressively trying not to think of anything that isn’t boobs or swords.

But that said, Jemisin is a lot better at making you think about the Earth as a force, than Muir is at making you think about Death as anything besides bones. Jemisin explains plate tectonics, the physics of volcanoes, how geodes are formed, and motherfucking celestial geodynamics. Furthermore there’s the stone eaters who experience time the way the earth does: slow, except when they’re not.

A significant plot point in the second book is Essun coming to understand how local seismic activity affect the migration habits of swarms of bugs. This is a really concrete way of showing Essun’s skill as an earth wizard, she uses her powers in ways that make complete logical sense, but which the reader wouldn’t have thought of (i.e. defeating the bad guys by siccing a swarm of murder bugs on them).

The entire plot of GtN is Harrow needing to overcome a set of challenges specifically designed to test her skills as a necromancer; but at least the two she has faced at the point i’m in the story, don’t really relate to how death works IRL. She’s not forced to confront grief, her own inescapable mortality, notions of an afterlife; or heck even just the ethics of reusing a non-consenting human beings mortal remains.

Actually let me latch on to that one for a bit more before i pass out. I think Muir kinda did herself (and her world building), by just starting out the story with “well its the cultural norm to have your corpse animated so no one is really that bothered by it”, when that should have been the central topic of the story: “what do we do with our dead?” Especially when the book so clearly starts out by contrasting two types of “immortality”: Gideon being animated after her death and forced to work the fields until her bones crumble to nothingness, versus Harrow achieving eternal life through divinity and granting Gideon the right to live (and die) with dignity.

[stellocchia]

So, I’ve been thinking: where do the characters of the smp actually fit in the morality spectrum?

We’re all always pointing out how everyone is “morally gray” in the smp, but it’s not too hard to see that the level is different in different characters, for example: Puffy’s light griefing when she first arrived on the smp is in no way comparable to Dream blowing up a country 3 times... so how about we take an objective look through this characters actions?

First let’s establish what are the categories we’ll be talking about:

Morally gray characters: they are the intermediate between a villain and a hero. They are neither wholly bad nor good. 

Anti-Hero: someone who may perform moral actions but always for selfish reasons. Basically morally gray but with bad intentions.

Anti-villain: someone whose desired ends are mostly good, but their means of getting there range from evil to undesirable. Basically they think they have good intentions, but they’re actually villains. 

Sympathetic villain: an immoral character who’s backstory/character arc makes them sympathetic to the viewers. We can’t agree with their actions, but we can understand how they got there.

This is more or less the spectrum we will be moving in, as it would actually be rather hard to define anyone in the smp as a classic black and white hero or villain (with 1 exception). Also I believe we all kind of understand what the definitions for those terms are.

In this I will be only going over the characters I know the most about as there are way too many people and, I’m afraid, it’s impossible for me to cover everyone properly as I would need to watch their povs. Anyone though feel free to add on to this! 

Also I won’t be going in any precise order because that would take more effort then I’m willing to put in, so here we go: 

Tommyinnit: He is a bit of a trouble-maker. He has been involved in the most conflicts out of everyone in the server (although he didn’t start the big majority of them). He has griefed, stolen and caused a whopping total of 3 canon deaths (1 to Jack Manifold and 2 to Dream). He has however sacrified himself multiple times for his friends (both literally and by giving up his possessions) and he apologized and tried to make amends for his worse actions. He is mischevious but he also often proved that he can be very selfless. No doubt he earns a morally gray stamp.

Willbur: He is a difficult one because of the big split between his character pre and post election. That said, while Willbur was rather power-hungry before the election he also was very caring for those under him (sometimes slipping into being downright demeaning towards Fundy). He upheald his principle of “words over violence” and mostly wanted to build a peaceful nation. After the election however (because of his declining mental health) he did turn to violence and manipulation and ended up blowing up his own country. So I’d say he went from a morally gray character to a very sympathetic villain

Ghostbur: This one is being considered separatedly from Willbur, as it has been said multiple times that they are separate entities. Ghostbur, you would think, has never done anything bad in his life, he has however hurt some people. He refused to have an actual talk with Fundy or with anyone really when it comes to what Alivebur did, hurting them as a consequence and while they are separate entities, they’re still very much connected. His intentions in general though are good, he just wants everyone to be happy, he just doesn’t realize his incapacity to fully understand other people’s struggles can hurt them at times. He has however never intentionally caused harm to anyone and tried to help whenever he did so unintentionally. He lacks the qualities that would make him a “hero” but he’s morally good 

Tubbo: While people in this fandom have a tendency to portray him as a poor innocent bean he’s not entirely squeacky clean himself. He steals regularly, he has partook in Techno’s scuffed execution attempt and organized a festival with the clear intention of killing Dream. He has however, more often then not, done what he thought was right and what he felt he needed to do in order to protect his people. Even now he’s built a safe heaven away from everyone because he wanted a safe place for anyone wh needed it. So there you go, morally gray stamp of approval.

Techno: And here I already know there will be some contentione... oh boy... anyway! Techno undoubtedly thinks he’s always doing the right thing. He thinks that destroying the governament was the only way to get rid of corruption. He thinks he’s doing something good. He has however released weapons of mass destruction (aka withers) in L’Manburg 3 time, caused the most canon deaths in the server (yep, more then Dream) and he’s been manipulative (wether intentionally or not doesn’t really matter here). In general he’s caused so much pain to so many people that it cannot go ignored. For this reasons he gets an anti-villain stamp

Phil: He’s also one of the characters deserving of a split, in his case it’s pre and post Techno’s attempted execution. Pre execution he was a mostly uninvolved member of L’Manburg, he did however help greatly with the rebuilding and tried to give a family to Fundy when he realised he needed one. He did also kill Willbur. ater the execution however he joined Techno in committing atrocities for what he percieved to be something good (”teaching how bad governament is” was his perceived goal). So I’d say he went from morally gray to joining Techno in the anti-villain gang

Quackity: He is a very complex character and I’m sure opinions about him are rather split. He joined the election to insure it’s fairness. He stayed by Shlatt’s side to try and make the governament fair until he realised that he would never be litened to and then he joined Pogtopia to take down a tyrant. He tried to protect L’Manburg in every way he could, but did get carried away with the attemted execution and the festival, even arriving to suggesting executing Ranboo. Now he wants to build capitalism and is trying to fight the Egg in his own way. He is the definition of a morally gray character

Ranboo: Another split opinion incoming here! Ranboo does mostly have good intentions (at least in his non-enderwalk state, which we won’t talk about here, because there still isn’t enough lore about it to understand it). He would like to have a united server with no conflicts. In trying to achieve this however, as he noticed himself, he actually went against every single one of the people he cares about: not sticking up for Tommy at the trial, assisting with Phil’s arrest and Techno’s execution, giving back Techno’s weapons and armour with no fight and, in general, giving him resources, helping to plan the Green Festival and so on so forth. That said all this things are “bad” from one side but “good” from the other. He has also kept company to Tommy in exile more then anyone else and he was there in the final fight against Dream. In conclusion he gets a morally gray stamp as well

Punz: Punz fights for money and his own self interest. He showed before that his alliance was with those who paid him, even though he actually seemed to care and consider Dream his friend until a certain point. He fought in a few wars but was never overly involved in the petty conflicts. He did however end up being the reason Dream was defeated (athough that was also for money). This was also before the Egg’s corruption as we won’t be considering that as part of the character since, you know, the Egg literally mind-controls people... anyway he gets to be in the anti-hero club

Sam: The warden of the prison is someone with a great work ethic (though he doesn’t seem to care much were the money are coming from once a project gets commissioned to him) and a very kind individual, always ready to offer pumpkin pie or his help to anyone who seems to need it. He’s also building a bank with the express purpouse of building an economy to take control over the server... he is morally gray as well is what I’m trying to say here

And, our final one:

Dream: This man also actually needs a split to better understand him, and that split is before and after he received the necromancy book from Shlatt. Before that he started a few conflicts (Declaring war on L’manburg and the whole railway skirmish thing) nut in general he had mostly sound objectives. Toward the start he didn’t want trouble in his server and he went to extreme leghts to ensure there wouldn’t be any (stealing Tommy’s disks, the whole declaring war etc). He did try and help Pogtopia at the start for this very same reson, because he was hoping that the two indipendent factions would cancel out each other. At one point however the objective in his actions seems to have shifted between wanting to obtain unity for the server to wanting to obtain control for himself. It’s after this shift happened that he committed his most heinous crimes (blowing up L’manburg other 2 times and all the manipulation that went on). After the shift there is not a single redeeming thing he did. He went from an almost anti-villain to a straight up villain, he is, in fact, the only one aside from the Egg that I’m willing to deine as a true villain.

[suppotato123]

Hey this is poll 2 thanks again to everyone who participated in the first one!

- [ ] Thaumaturgical Artificing- The scientific study and application of magic as it pertains to Alchemy (the creation of of potions) and Arcana (the engineering of magical devices).

- [ ] Advanced Applied Necromancy- A degree for those looking for the most modern and ethical methods of raising the dead. This is a degree for those looking for new and inventive ways to apply the Necromantic Arts to the betterment of society. Students can expect to learn the ways in which Necromancy can be applied to various fields such as medicine, criminal justice, and even industry, all wrapped up in serious discussions about ethics and consent.

- [ ] Arcanic Archaeology- This degree walks students through the history of magical artifacts, how to find them, and their proper uses to aspiring Sorcerers and non-magic users alike.

- [ ] Linguistic Incantology- The study of the properties of magical languages as well as the characteristics of those languages in general ascertained in order to gain mastery over the magical art of incantation.

- [ ] Runic Studies- the study of the history of runes and sigils, their relevance in art, politics, and culture, and their various uses to the modern spell caster.

- [ ] Magiphysical Sciences- The study of Humanoid systems, anatomy, and physical health and fitness as it pertains to magical gestures and more physically involved magic systems.

- [ ] Mystic Virology- The study of magical diseases and curses, their effects on the humanoid form, and the treatments and counterhexes for such magical conditions.

- [ ] Beasts Behavior and Health Sciences- This degree will prepare students for work with both wild and domestic fantastical creatures by giving them essential knowledge and essential skills in magical veterinary medicine and biology, grooming, feeding, and care, as well as wildlife rehabilitation.

- [ ] Magical Performance Arts- A degree for those seeking to enchant and bewilder audiences of all ages. If you’re looking for something something showy and fun, look no further! Includes the option for courses like Enchantments and Shapeshifting.

- [ ] Wandsmithing Technologies- This is a course for students looking to design wands. Students will learn to many essential lesson including, but not limited to, magidynamics, the magical components of many different wand building materials, and a comprehensive analysis on different wand styles throughout the ages. At the end students will have several wand prototypes and models under their belts.

- [ ] Criminal Justice- Study how criminal justice organizations function, deal with people and their recurring problems, and create programs and policies that include and benefit the community. Here’s the twist; we add in a little magic to make your job easier. A popular magic class taken for this degree Scrying (with a warrant of course).

- [ ] Supernatural Physics- the study of how and why magic came to be and how and why it works. Students will learn the structure of magic and how it interacts with other fundamental constituents of the universe.

- [ ] Economic Divination- This degree provides studies in supply and demand, consumer behavior, and financial markets with an added twist. Students will learn the most reliable methods of divination to help insure future financial success.

- [ ] Mystic Ecology- The study of relationships among living magical organisms, humanoids, and their physical environments. This degree looks at organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Students can expect to learn how to use their magic to help repair damaged ecosystems, increase power output, and cast diagnostic spells to access what remediation is necessary.

- [ ] Novel Entomology- The scientific study of magical species of insects, arachnids, myriapods, and crustaceans.

- [ ] Magic History- The history of magic and it’s uses across different ages and cultures. This class will look at the different major events involving and influenced by magic and it’s interaction with society.

- [ ] General Studies- This degree covers the most basic information on various magical studies and provides a great opportunity for students to discover their magical passions and/or complete their prerequisite courses before moving on to a more advanced degree.

[luwupercal]

ok i jest a lot but i actually do want to sit down and explain (in a really long post sorry) my view of the imperium vs chaos conflict, because i got an ask on my inbox a bit ago asking me how i’d make chaos the “good guys” of 40k, and it got me thinking a lot, so i guess i should probably make a post outlining my thoughts on the subject before answering that.

i think labeling “chaos” broadly as the “good guys” is kind of a reductionist take, though its something i think can absolutely be accomplished. and thats kind of my fault because that ask was from when i was still figuring out my feelings on a lot of stuff about 40k and thusly i posted “chaos should be the good guys of 40k actually” but now i’ve had significantly more time to think about it so here’s my opinion

i think primarily the confusion stems from seeing chaos as like, one big faction. “everything that’s anti-imperium likes each other” fallacy when that’s very clearly not true

i think the chaos v imperium war would honestly be most accurately titled the space marine v space marine war. it’s ex-imperials versus imperials, with chaos mostly as an inciting incident and not necessarily the very reason for the conflict existing. thats gonna sound like nonsense so let me articulate further

the imperium wasn’t the big future of humanity, the imperium was merely the emperor’s project, his (erroneous) vision of what would help humanity return to the glory of the pre-great collapse days, regardless of an increasingly changing galaxy, regardless of how much ethical misconduct it would take. it was veritably cultural necromancy, and not the cool type

and he inarguably mismanaged things horribly. and that’s the very reason the 30k imperium failed, crashed and burned upon him. space marines were an ethical mistake, the primarchs (as much as i love them) were at the very minimum a tactical mistake, and the relations of power in the imperium -- and the relations between imperials, and the actions of imperials towards non-imperials -- were both tactical and ethical mistakes. he said he believed in humanity and yet he allowed slavery? in terra, nonetheless! (yes, there was human slavery in 30k, and even if there wasn’t, the extermination of hundreds of sentient species and colonization of thousands if not millions of human cultures is still pretty fucking bad!)

and here’s the thing, okay. i fundamentally believe the vast majority of the pain chaos causes the imperium is just chaos acting as a mirror to the imperium and causing it the pain it’s inflicted on others

horus’s end goal wasn’t to dissolve the imperium or really change it in any meaningful way; he wanted to be its head. abaddon’s end goal isn’t to destroy the imperium, i presume, out of a detailed analysis of why it’s bad; it’s purely out of revenge -- i wouldn’t be surprised if he has no fucking idea what to do once the emperor’s fully slain and his death accepted (hah! it’s been 10 thousand years, dude, there’s gonna be people who never accept his death)

“chaos is equally as bad as the imperium” is only really a point you can make because of two reasons, and one of those two reasons is that chaos is merely reflecting the imperium’s evil. if CSMs hadn’t had all their other tools except violence and conquest taken away from them by the imperium, they wouldn’t be causing violence and conquest, regardless of chaotic affiliation or no. and i’m willing to argue the same for most “humans committing evil under chaos’s influence” happening between the imperium’s founding and the current moment

this might be ringing hollow to some people, because chaos is depicted as inherently sort of fucked up, but i do actually have an answer to “but daemons want to kill people wtf” etcetera. how could i not? i’m the guy who has a ton of feelings about fulgrim’s possession that very clearly cast the daemon that possessed him as the villain. no. okay

i like to think of chaos as less a great big mass of evil and more... merely sort of the weather conditions of the universe. and as we all know the War in Heaven was a thing, and it was canonically what shot condensed fucking evil into chaos. at least as far as i understand it. no, no, chaos isn’t a force of pure evil residing into the core of the galaxy: chaos is climate, shifted artificially towards a new, violent status quo by the violence of those that came before us. and the harm it causes -- bloodthirsty daemons, extremes, etc -- are merely... blizzards where it was warm, heatwaves where it was cold, hurricanes out of season. (i think of orks in a quite similar way, funfact)

and that i think is the real tragedy of warhammer40k that a lot of people fail to grasp: it’s not an universe where there’s just a Mass Of Evil at the center of the galaxy, it’s an universe where the future has been ruined over and over again by those who thought themselves all-powerful. the emperor, the old ones, the necrontyr, the aeldari, chaos space marines -- they are all the same pattern repeating. over and over again. and their consequences do not just affect them, do not only affect them -- which is the second, equally true cruelty of their actions, with the first one being the obvious cruelty they displayed in the first place

anyways the emperor is a climate change denier lmfao

[thirteen-jades]

I recently completed my very first D&D (technically Pathfinder) adventure of non-trivial length! It was actually a little while ago, but I was waiting for someone to draw a thing before posting that. Not sure if that’s going to happen, so I guess now’s as good a time as any!

@self-loving-vampire ran Godsmouth Heresy for a few friends/acquaintances and I, and it was a blast. In addition to the dungeon crawl that was built into the adventure, she created a whole big side dungeon that was a lot of fun to explore, filled with all sorts of unique encounters. It was an ancient prison that had been abandoned millennia ago, but whose prisoners were largely immortal or magically prevented from aging and thus had languished there to the present day. Of special note was the “main” prison room, where seven immortal prisoners were held inside small cells behind walls of force. We freed several of these, including an Azata and a hag that offered us martial assistance, a lamia matriarch that gave us information, and a vampire that we freed mostly because my character liked vampires and wanted to befriend one.

I was utterly smitten with my character by the end of it; she was a half-vampire necromancer named Pythea Nightbough that was very begrudgingly hired along with some other adventurers by an undead-hating church to kill off another necromancer that was essentially operating out of their basement. She was also an awful person, but not in the way that necromancers tend to be. Rather than edgy or brooding, she was essentially a lost sassy child that didn’t give a single fuck about anyone else in the world other than herself.

This turned out to work really well, as it allowed me a reason to work with the party (she may not care about them, but they’re the thing between her and getting mauled to death by a demon, so she needs them anyway), and also lead to some fun decision points here and there. She committed at least one deeply evil act with the specific reasoning that it would benefit her personally, and the aftermath will be somebody else’s problem. I’ve rarely played evil characters before, but I think I want to do it more often now; it’s remarkably fun to be presented with a moral dilemma and solve it by not caring about morality in the first place. And just being an ass in general is fun sometimes too, as long as it doesn’t detract from the other players enjoyment of the game, which I tried hard to prevent and was pretty successful at avoiding.

I really want to run this character again in a campaign more suited to large-scale necromancy, as even beyond evil being fun, I think she has quite a lot of potential. She grew up entirely bereft of friends or other healthy interpersonal relationships, which she handled by projecting *hard* onto the skeleton minion she started with as well as the other undead she dominated. Her starting skeleton was named Mister Rattles for the sounds his bones made, and was what remained of the most vicious of her childhood bullies.

Pythea always referred to dominating other undead as befriending them, and she did quite a lot of befriending over the course of the adventure. Most notably, the boss of the side dungeon was an allip, the specter that remains when someone commits suicide and can’t let go of the world. He emerged from the final treasure room in spectacular fashion, leading us all to panic about how we were going to fight this thing in our exhausted and battered state. I happened to get very first initiative, and tossed out a Command Undead spell on the odd chance that it’d work. One bad Will save later and I’d befriended the boss of the entire side dungeon, easily the strongest single creature we fought, and won the encounter in a single turn.

When we finally got to the end boss of the main dungeon we were powerful enough to easily wipe him, but instead of just leaping to combat the encounter took a much more interesting turn. We discovered that the necromancer was a former cleric of the church employing us who had figured out a way to reanimate corpses with alchemical methods instead of necromantic magic. He incorrectly thought the church wouldn’t be opposed to this, and was promptly excommunicated for it.

While Pythea was of course interested in his methods, he also proved a somewhat sympathetic character. He’d used his knowledge to attempt to cure a woman afflicted with a wasting disease, and though she ultimately died, she did revive as a sentient undead. The two of them quickly fell in love (maybe before she died? I don’t remember), and he continued his work in order to try and restore her body and eventually overthrow the church that he had once belonged to. Rather than killing him, we persuaded him to give up trying to destroy the church (to placate the party members who cared about things like “morals” and “ethics”), and in turn we helped smuggle him and his lover to safety.

The whole campaign wound up being remarkably wholesome in the end, too. While she started out bitter and lonely, Pythea slowly did forge several genuine friendships over the course of the campaign, and managed to maintain them even into the epilogues. While she was still an objectively terrible person, her friends were considerably better. This lead to some positive character growth, with lots of potential for more in her future. Ultimately, I’d say things ended about as well as they could have for her, which is great. She really needed it.

In addition to playing the game, I kept a journal from Pythea’s perspective, which turned out to be a really good idea. I now have a permanent record of the game, which really helps the part of my brain that’s desperately afraid of losing things, and I can share it with others, too! And it feels great to have a finished product like that, like (somewhat) tangible proof that it all happened. It’s always nice to have created something, at the end of the day. I’d like to maybe get it bound one day; I’m planning to keep journals for all my campaigns henceforth and would like to collect them somewhere as they finish.

[livvywrites]

🧠 and ⛓ for the magic ask game for the metanoia series? it sounds so amazing

thank you so much <333 i’m so glad you like what you’ve seen of it!! i’m hoping to maybe get back into writing it soon, or posting about it more, or something. but—until then!

🧠 is it possible for magic to be used unconsciously, or can it only be used through active choice?

it can be used unconsciously! most often by children, as that’s one of the earliest things that teachers/tutors/parents start working with them on! babies are especially prone to it—though luckily their magic is weak enough (or at least unfocused enough) that it’s not hard to counter it or distract them.

as one gets older it takes more to cause unconscious magic—their control needs to be broken down, first.

⛓ what are the limitations of magic? is there anything magician’s CANT do? are there any laws forbidding the practicing of certain magic/spells?

mages can’t bring back the dead. they can raise their bodies; summon their spirits (temporarily), but they are physically incapable of bringing back the dead. (the NEAR dead, or still recently dead enough the reaper hasn’t come… that’s possible. the latter only with an impressive feat of magic, the former… also very taxing but less so.)

that’s the only hard limit i’ve come up with at the moment? other than monumental tasks like… adding a second sun, rearranging the stars, affecting planetary orbit, etc. major changes to landscape (removing or creating mountains) could THEORETICALLY be done if enough mages were to work together*, but.

as for forbidden magic! that varies from place to place.

mind control is generally on the forbidden list—how strict people are about it depends on place. some places restrict control only. others restrict non consensual mind-reading. others restrict ALL mind-reading. sometimes this includes telepathy. sometimes it doesn’t.

necromancy is forbidden for funsies, but, there is also a place for necromancy in eldoran society. (wanna solve a murder? just summon the victim!) there is some debate on whether or not it’s ethical to use bodies in battles / war. the verdict is usually “well, they didn’t opt for cremation so it’s probably fine.” (others use consent forms.)

um… there’s almost definitely more, but i’m drawing a blank!

& then there’s time travel. that one isn’t forbidden by countries / kingdoms / what have you. that’s one of those things forbidden by the gods—specifically Order. his Justiciars will hunt down people who attempt to dabble in time travel, & if they get too far, will fix any inconsistencies in the timeline.

[ the magician’s prep list — a magical ask game ]

* — idk if this will end up being canon or not, but, in my timeline, there ends up being a fairly severe war between the northern & southern countries. in the end, the south decides it would rather become its own separate continent & so a bunch of mages get together and… split it in half. there are almost definitely major consequences for this, more than i’ve thought of bc i’m not. a geologist or anything. so that probably gets tacked onto the “forbidden (for our own good)” magic list.

[crouton-knight]

Chapters: 12/12 Fandom: Homestuck Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas, Jake English/Dirk Strider, Rose Lalonde/Kanaya Maryam, John Egbert/Roxy Lalonde, John Egbert & Karkat Vantas, John Egbert & Jake English, Kanaya Maryam & Karkat Vantas Characters: Dave Strider, Karkat Vantas, Rose Lalonde, Kanaya Maryam, John Egbert, Roxy Lalonde, Jane Crocker, Dirk Strider, Jake English Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Slavery, Master/Slave, Kingdomstuck, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Alternate Universe - No Game, Trolls (Homestuck), Worldbuilding, Alternate Universe - Derse/Prospit Royalty, Derse and Prospit, Fictional Religion & Theology, Explicit Language, Language Barrier, Language Kink, Accents, Camp Nanowrimo, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Alternate Universe - Human/Troll Society (Homestuck), Threats of Violence, Mild Gore, Implied/Referenced Gore, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Stockholm Syndrome, Isolation, Nightmares, Poisoning, Manipulation, Emotional Manipulation, Necromancy, Partial Mind Control, Magical Charisma, Dubious Ethics, Poetry Summary:

Derse has fallen to the Prospitian Empire. Dirk Strider, King of Derse, has given himself to the Emperor of Prospit as a plaything, hoping to save the few people he calls family. Dave Strider, second to the throne, is given to a Prospitian General who's called for the slaughter of thousands.

Roxy Lalonde, royal alchemist, finds her craft and skill in the employ of the Emperor's younger brother, working for him in a bid for freedom. Rose Lalonde, royal seer, finds an unlikely ally in a Prospitian noblewoman, trading portents of the future for a chance to change hers.

(Camp NaNoWrimo July 2019 entry)

Final chapter for part 1! Next part will be uhhhh sometime in the future probably, but before that I'll be working on Jade Harley's adventures with the Midnight Crew. (Title pending.)