#fantasy storytelling

[joncronshawauthor]

Nobledark: Balancing Grimdark Nihilism and Noble Bright Hope

In the vast landscape of modern fantasy, readers find themselves navigating between two rather extreme realms. Grimdark and Noble Bright. It’s a bit like choosing between spending a weekend in a haunted mansion or at a blissful monastery. Both have their appeal, depending on your taste for misery or calm. But what happens when you want a bit of both? That’s where the delicate balance of…

[marshfeldman31]

Four Goblins Hiding Behind a Rock

Peering over the jagged rocks, the quartet of goblins—each with a countenance twisted in a mix of fear and anger—are unmistakably in the throes of a dire situation. One might surmise they're hiding from an encroaching peril, perhaps the thunderous steps of a wandering giant whose shadow looms as ominously as a storm cloud over their sanctuary. Their eyes, wide with trepidation, tell tales of close encounters with creatures much larger than themselves, encounters in which they were not the hunters, but the hunted.

Alternatively, the fury etched upon their faces could be born of an intrusion, a violation of their sacred grounds by audacious adventurers or plundering bandits. These goblins, known to be fiercely territorial, may well be plotting a defense of their home, their anger fueled by the audacity of uninvited guests.

In the end, whether it's a beast of legend or the all-too-familiar greed of man, these goblins find themselves bound by a common cause: survival. Their expressions are the masks worn by those who live on the edge of a knife, where fear keeps you sharp, and anger keeps you alive.

[re-reclass]

Creating a more unhinged clone of Kristen has been such a boon because she gives Beardsley a way to fulfill their impulses for absurd bits without compromising the real Kristen's arc of realizing chaos isn't cute.

[loor-101]

What happens when a Merman falls into wonderland?

✨ Read Merman in Wonderland ✨

On Webtoons and Tapas!

[jakubrozalski]

'Caledonian Forest'

" Written by Titus Ursus, Primus pilus of Legiō IX Hispana, in the third year of Hadrian's reign (* 120 AD). This will probably be the last entry in my diary. Our legion was ambushed in the wild realm called Caledonian Forest and was almost completely annihilated. Half of my first cohort is all that was left of the IX legiō. We were pushed into the marsh and we will probably die here, fighting bravely to the end in the name of Rome and the Emperor. We were attacked by a demonic pack of the barbaric Picts. They looked more like wild beasts than humans. Some of them were dressed in animal furs, painted with strange runic signs... others seemed to be two-legged wild beasts. They tore us apart as if we were made of paper! I saw our legatus and my brothers in arms being eaten alive, I will never forget their screams. The barbarians attacked us unnoticed, quickly and with wild fury, then disappeared in the fog. Mainly at night. Our shields, swords and armor were no use here. The enemy we face seems to be the ancient wrath of some dark gods we have awakened. We should never invade these lands. I hear demonic howls, they're coming! They're coming! "

Scrap of the papyrus written by Centurion Titus Ursus. Found in October 120AD in the Caledonian Forest. Taken to Rome, where it was presented to the emperor and then burned. Two years later, Emperor Hadrian ordered the construction of a wall on the border of the land called Caledonia, in north Britannia. Coincidence? I don't think so :)) work process: https://jrozalski.com/projects/Ke94zG

[doughycookie]

Garth Greenhand falls in love with Warrior

Garth was renowned for his green thumb. His shoulders relaxed with contentment while tending crops and gardens. Then a warrior appeared, and Garth yearned for a life of adventure and excitement, his former contentment with tending crops now faded away.

The fierce fighter’s strength impressed Garth. From a distance, he observed their battles against monsters and defense of their people, in awe of their courage and expertise; particularly with swords.

Garth realized he couldn’t just approach the warrior. He was a farmer, not a fighter, and he doubted they would be interested in someone like him, frolicking around in fields. But it didn’t stop him from admiring them from afar.

As the seasons passed, Garth spent more and more time in the fields near the warrior’s village. He would watch them practice their swordplay or lead their troops into battle, always staying hidden in the shadows.

One day, the warrior caught sight of Garth Greenhand as they passed by his fields. He froze, unsure of what to do, but they smiled and approached him, easing his fears. “You are the farmer, Garth Greenhand, are you not?”

Garth nodded, feeling his heart pounding in his chest. He couldn’t believe that they had noticed him.

“I have seen you watching me from afar.” Their eyes were sparkling with amusement. “And I must admit, I have been curious about you.”

Garth couldn’t believe his ears. The warrior was genuinely interested in him?

Over the next few days, Garth and the warrior spent time together in his fields. They would practice their fighting techniques while he tended to his plants, and together they would talk about everything from their respective professions to their hopes and dreams.

As they spent more time together, Garth realized he had fallen in love with this warrior; a deep, all-consuming love. He admired their strength, their courage, and their unwavering commitment to their people.

A week later, the warrior had to return to their village, but they promised to visit Garth whenever they could. He watched them leave, feeling a mixture of sadness and joy in his heart. Though they were from different worlds, he knew he had found a kindred spirit in the warrior, and he hoped that their love could one day overcome all obstacles.

[debbie-sketch]

Recent commission ☆ﾟ.*･｡

Remember you can DM me for work info

[thelheo]

well, guess I am thinking more about vikings, norse myth, and how to do a ttrpg with it.

my main hangup is about real world or fantasy worldbuilding from scratch. do I avoid just recreating cultures (but also having to recreate a culture for vikingness? or do I set it on earth but fantasy?

to badly quote Avril Lavigne: Why did stuff have to be so complicated?

[eelhound]

"I think Homer outwits most writers who have written on the War [fantasy archetype], by not taking sides.

The Trojan war is not and you cannot make it be the War of Good vs. Evil. It’s just a war, a wasteful, useless, needless, stupid, protracted, cruel mess full of individual acts of courage, cowardice, nobility, betrayal, limb-hacking-off, and disembowelment. Homer was a Greek and might have been partial to the Greek side, but he had a sense of justice or balance that seems characteristically Greek — maybe his people learned a good deal of it from him? His impartiality is far from dispassionate; the story is a torrent of passionate actions, generous, despicable, magnificent, trivial. But it is unprejudiced. It isn’t Satan vs. Angels. It isn’t Holy Warriors vs. Infidels. It isn’t hobbits vs. orcs. It’s just people vs. people.

Of course you can take sides, and almost everybody does. I try not to, but it’s no use; I just like the Trojans better than the Greeks. But Homer truly doesn’t take sides, and so he permits the story to be tragic. By tragedy, mind and soul are grieved, enlarged, and exalted.

Whether war itself can rise to tragedy, can enlarge and exalt the soul, I leave to those who have been more immediately part of a war than I have. I think some believe that it can, and might say that the opportunity for heroism and tragedy justifies war. I don’t know; all I know is what a poem about a war can do. In any case, war is something human beings do and show no signs of stopping doing, and so it may be less important to condemn it or to justify it than to be able to perceive it as tragic.

But once you take sides, you have lost that ability.

Is it our dominant religion that makes us want war to be between the good guys and the bad guys?

In the War of Good vs. Evil there can be divine or supernal justice but not human tragedy. It is by definition, technically, comic (as in The Divine Comedy): the good guys win. It has a happy ending. If the bad guys beat the good guys, unhappy ending, that’s mere reversal, flip side of the same coin. The author is not impartial. Dystopia is not tragedy.

Milton, a Christian, had to take sides, and couldn’t avoid comedy. He could approach tragedy only by making Evil, in the person of Lucifer, grand, heroic, and even sympathetic — which is faking it. He faked it very well.

Maybe it’s not only Christian habits of thought but the difficulty we all have in growing up that makes us insist justice must favor the good.

After all, 'Let the best man win' doesn’t mean the good man will win. It means, 'This will be a fair fight, no prejudice, no interference — so the best fighter will win it.' If the treacherous bully fairly defeats the nice guy, the treacherous bully is declared champion. This is justice. But it’s the kind of justice that children can’t bear. They rage against it. It’s not fair!

But if children never learn to bear it, they can’t go on to learn that a victory or a defeat in battle, or in any competition other than a purely moral one (whatever that might be), has nothing to do with who is morally better.

Might does not make right — right?

Therefore right does not make might. Right?

But we want it to. 'My strength is as the strength of ten because my heart is pure.'

If we insist that in the real world the ultimate victor must be the good guy, we’ve sacrificed right to might. (That’s what History does after most wars, when it applauds the victors for their superior virtue as well as their superior firepower.) If we falsify the terms of the competition, handicapping it, so that the good guys may lose the battle but always win the war, we’ve left the real world, we’re in fantasy land — wishful thinking country.

Homer didn’t do wishful thinking.

Homer’s Achilles is a disobedient officer, a sulky, self-pitying teenager who gets his nose out of joint and won’t fight for his own side. A sign that Achilles might grow up someday, if given time, is his love for his friend Patroclus. But his big snit is over a girl he was given to rape but has to give back to his superior officer, which to me rather dims the love story. To me Achilles is not a good guy. But he is a good warrior, a great fighter — even better than the Trojan prime warrior, Hector. Hector is a good guy on any terms — kind husband, kind father, responsible on all counts — a mensch. But right does not make might. Achilles kills him.

The famous Helen plays a quite small part in The Iliad. Because I know that she’ll come through the whole war with not a hair in her blond blow-dry out of place, I see her as opportunistic, immoral, emotionally about as deep as a cookie sheet. But if I believed that the good guys win, that the reward goes to the virtuous, I’d have to see her as an innocent beauty wronged by Fate and saved by the Greeks.

And people do see her that way. Homer lets us each make our own Helen; and so she is immortal.

I don’t know if such nobility of mind (in the sense of the impartial 'noble' gases) is possible to a modern writer of fantasy. Since we have worked so hard to separate History from Fiction, our fantasies are dire warnings, or mere nightmares, or else they are wish fulfillments."

- Ursula K. Le Guin, from No Time to Spare, 2013.

[tisorridalamor]

Recently I’ve been reading Kui Ryoko’s fantasy short stories, and they’re all fantastic! Highly recommend that all Dungeon Meshi fans (and fantasy fans in general) check out her other works:

Terrarium in a Drawer

The Dragon’s School is on Top of the Mountain

The Works of Ryoko Kui: Seven Little Sons of the Dragon

[morgana96]

FFXIV players who want their WoL to kill the Elementals: "My WoL would be applauded for freeing the Shroud of their evil and their death will fix Gridania's shortcomings, prejudices, and xenophobia."

The actual likely consequences of that scenario:

[joncronshawauthor]

How Egypt Inspired the World of "The Fall of Wolfsbane"

As a fantasy author, inspiration can strike in the most unexpected places. For me, the seed that would grow into “The Fall of Wolfsbane” was planted not in some misty forest or atop a craggy mountain, but in the arid heat of Egypt. This happened somewhere between the ancient cities of Cairo and Luxor. A Flight of Fancy It was on a domestic flight, soaring over the timeless landscape of Egypt,…

[frogtax]

ISAT X FFXIV

stardust you stupid fucking idiot you messed up your opener. you're going to parse grey. now we have to wipe. i cant believe this

[nottspocket]

Reunion! Context in terms of story is up to interpretation because my 2am brain spat out this nonsense <3

[herecirmsims]

Interference

Instead of releasing any of the 12(!) finished posepacks that I've made for people so far this year, I decided to share this incredibly niche pose set that I made for my own story. 🥲

Pack contains 6 couple poses plus all-in-ones. There's a built-in height difference and, as always, height sliders may cause issues. Masc and femme frames used and clipping or floating is possibly depending on Sim clothing or body type.

Download here (always free): SFS | Patreon

TOU: you may adjust for personal use to avoid clipping etc., but please do not reupload/paywall/claim as your own.

I’d love to see them used! You can tag me on Twitter, Instagram, or Tumblr. I repost. ❤️

You can easily browse more of my posepacks using my Ko-Fi gallery. Have a request or want to make a commission? Details here!

@ts4-poses @alwaysfreecc

[jakubrozalski]

'Intruders' It was a frosty winter evening in a distant land called Vinland, pristine land discovered by Leif Eriksson. Midwinter, a few days before the Yule celebration. A small group of Vikings, led by Knut Ironhand, ventured deep into the forest in pursuit of a band of native warriors.They found a strange glade, full of weird wooden structures and ancient, mysterious totems. There was something unnatural in this place that sent a chill down their spines. A young warrior Halfdan, very superstitious and God-fearing by nature, was particularly concerned.  - I don't like it, I don't like this place, we should go back to the camp. I think this could be some kind of burial ground or place of worship. We don't know their customs. What if we anger some powerful ancient deities or demons? - Burial ground you say? Good! So we will certainly find some treasures here, buried by these savages! You better start looking, before the rest find out about this place and beat us to it. Knut said. - Last night before the attack, you took that native girl against her will, you shouldn't do that Knut, maybe she was some kind of priestess or witch... maybe she put a curse on us. - Stop whining like an old woman, they never want it but they always like it, haha. Knut laughed loudly. - It's too quiet... I have a bad feeling about this. We should go back! Halfdan's voice was shaking. - You always have a bad feeling about everything. You're starting to bore me, better sing me a song, Halfdan. And why do you smell like a wet dog... Halfdan?!

The story of the last day of  Knut Ironhand and his company in the wild land called Vinland. 

 A historical fact of an unusual clash of two of my favorite and most interesting peoples and cultures, Northmen and Native American. Could there be anything more inspiring, fascinating and stimulating the imagination? Endless source of inspiration! work process: https://jrozalski.com/