mangow0rld

[ratasum]

Actually you know what, since I did a fav character (general) post, let's go with a different angle since @hawkepockets tagged me.

Original poll I made is here!

[i-mybrunettelady]

commander week day 3 - pact

welcome to the pact, commander. set during lw4, after during war eternal. commander: alysannyra ainsaph.

It still feels weird to say they’re walking all over Kralkatorrik’s back. A part of her can’t comprehend the sheer size of the dragon, but she doesn’t bother. His size is irrelevant when faced with the fact that he killed her daughter; he might be the size of the universe itself, she will take him down for that alone. 

Of course, Aurene didn’t really die, but the image carved itself in Nyra’s mind so strongly she still feels the residue blood on her tongue. No mother should watch her child die. Luckily for hers, Nyra herself died far away and by the time the news might’ve reached Antonia Ainsaph, she was whole again. 

She doesn’t let herself think of it more than it is enough to fuel her anger. She uses it to build a solid base on her enemy’s back, pierce holes in his skin, and probably terrorize the men under her command. It’s only the last thing she feels bad about. 

There are times to be gentle and there are times to be rough. Sure, Nyra can be gentle, but not to herself, not now, and certainly not before this island is an island, and not a living being. 

Trahearne has long since gone asleep. Nyra’s blood won’t rest, so she sits at the Pact Command, looks at the sea and tries to release the pressure under her skin. The lid is too tight. If she releases it, she won’t be the Commander this campaign needs. 

And by fucking Gods is she the Commander this campaign needs, even if she isn’t the Pact Commander anymore. 

Footsteps interrupt her doom and gloom. She turns her head towards the source; four figures step into her view. She turns to face them. 

“Can I help you, Logan? General Soulkeeper?” Nyra asks, letting her hands drop to her sides. 

“Why aren’t you asleep, Ainsaph?” Almorra grumbles. 

“I couldn’t. Maybe someone ends up needing me. Like you are now, apparently.” 

“With all due respect, General, the Commander could also aim the same question at you,” Renira adds from the corner. Nyra blinks. She didn’t see her disappear in the shadows of a nearby tent. “The only one of us with any plausible deniability as to why they’re aware is Commander Elandrin.” 

“Awake, asleep, who gives a fuck,” Elandrin says. “I was dragged from very fucking necessary research. I will nod along to the proposal you’re about to give Alysannyra and go back to my shit. You do need results on Elder Dragon research, right?” 

“On point as always, Elandrin,” Nyra says lowly. “What’s the proposal? A new plan of attack? Strategy we might’ve missed? Scouting report?” 

“You rejoining the Pact,” Logan finally speaks up and clears his throat. “I am the Marshall now, and your spot has been vacant for a lot of years, Nyra. Too many to make sense. We tried pushing the choice off but you are the best choice, you know?” 

Nyra smiles. “You need to raise morale. You need the men to know it’s not just Aurene’s Champion that fights beside them, but the Commander of the Pact as well.”

“Damn right, Ainsaph!” Almorra says. “And I’m here to grin as you say yes because you turned me down how many years ago.”

“Fair enough,” Nyra laughs and her shoulders slump. “For fuck’s sake. And depending on how fast I say yes, we’ll all go to bed earlier?” 

Renira shoots her a look. Nyra shoots a look back. As much as she meant that statement to be a dry joke, there’s truth to it and Renira knows. She knows everything. But she’s smart enough to not say shit about it. 

“So you’re saying yes?” Elandrin prompts, arms folded over his chest. “Pact Commander Ainsaph officially reinstated. I now have to work. We’re racing against time here and you’re here humoring her of all people.” He turns his back on them and starts walking, as much a torch as the ones stationed on the beach. “We all know she’d never turn any fucking opportunity for a triumph down.” 

Nyra frowns. “I’m glad to be so well received,” she says under her breath. “But I am accepting the offer. The Pact is my legacy, after all.” 

“Glad to have you back, Ainsaph,” Almorra says as she strides over and grips Nyra’s shoulder. Logan reaches out a hand for Nyra to shake with a small, relieved smile. Almorra then leans in to whisper in Nyra’s ear as she squeezes Logan’s hand, “Raze that fucking beast to the ground, Commander, like you did so many of its siblings.”

It’s not as if Nyra would like to do anything else. 

[full-of-skritt]

Guild Wars 2; 30-Day Challenge

9. Your favourite npc.

Love love love R'tchikk and Gladium to pieces! They are precious! (I ship R'tchikk specifically but also the two of them in a polyam QPR with Cixxe if I'm honest.)

Odds are, I like every Skritt with more than just generic NPC lines.

Also in my favorites list are:

Efi, the little orphaned Olmakhan charr girl

Blish and Gorrik

Canach

Almorra Soulkeeper

Tybalt Leftpaw

Palawa Joko (look, he's an enjoyable villain, okay?)

Wurmmarshal Osa Ekolo

And there's probably more but I can't think of any at the moment.......and I'll probably like even more NPCs when I get to play through the Icebrood Saga and End of Dragons properly.

[brightwingedbat]

Ramble thoughts, Vigil Warmaster Nastazya training with General Almorra in 1325 AE

Nastazya trying to break through Almorra's guardian shields to no avail, getting more and more frustrated and ultimately making it easier to block her.

"GRRRGH! Scorch it, I'll break that damn shield if it's the LAST THING I-"

Almorra deflects yet another strike from the Warmaster's axe, not a mark on her thanks to her guardian magic. "Enough. You're too easy to predict, too blind with anger."

"Like hell! I'm strong enough to break your shield, just watch!" Ragewelder growls, putting away her axes only to charge forth with her greatsword. A gravelled roar bursts from her as she brings it blade down to the General's barrier.

"I said ENOUGH!" An expertly manoeuvred parry knocks the greatsword clean out of her opponent's paws, following up with a quick slam of her foot to Nastazya's abdomen.

"HRK-!" The warrior grimaces as the impact strikes to her very core, her balance upset, she crumbles and falls to her back. Groans of pain escape her as she grasps her stomach, though an anger still fills her, her free paw clenching hard to a fist.

Soulkeeper glares down to her Warmaster, disappointment clear in her expression. She had promoted Nastazya for her improvement and efforts alongside Forgal, by all means Forgal assured it was the right choice. But this view gives her a hint of regret. "You need to be better than this, you're more than an animal, fighting fang and claw in blind rage will get you and others killed."

Get others killed... The words pierce like an arrow, the look in her eyes is almost as if she were already shot. Nastazya huffs frustratedly, her gaze falling from her general, her voice balances on the edge of breaking. Furious, yet sorrowful. "...The hell am I meant to do? This rage is all I have! It's what keeps me goi-!"

"And what is that rage for?" Almorra barks questioningly, interrupting before the anger gets worse. She needs to confirm the source, so as to remedy it. "Is it rage against the dragons? For corrupting your dam? Slaying half your first warband? Making you have to look into the undead eyes of your warbandmate?"

Ragewelder's eyes widen, the mere mention of those moments return a harshness to her chest. She can't bear to meet the General's gaze. "How do you know...?"

"I have files on you from the Legions. But that's besides the point." The elder charr's yellow eyes squint down, still glaring at her warmaster. She has an assumption about this, confirmed further by the reaction shown. She is blunt, direct. "You're not angry at the dragons, nor any of the other threats. The only rage you hold is for yourself, for being unable to prevent the deaths of those you cared for."

Nastazya suddenly snarls harshly, a vicious baring of her fangs directed to the general. "That's not-! I did all I could!"

"You tell yourself that, and I can see well enough you don't listen. You snap back the instant it's brought in to question, that's as much an admission to it as any." Her words are bitingly harsh, Almorra knows that with her warmaster being Blood Legion that's what she needs to hear it as.

Ragewelder's breath huffs through her teeth, brows contorted in fury. A fury that gradually melts into confliction as her gaze falls. "I- I didn't- GRRRH!" Her arm leaves her abdomen, only to crash her knuckles to the floor. "You're wrong!"

"Oh, and how?" Soulkeeper can sense something more behind this outburst, maybe there is a fragment she's missing.

"It's not that I couldn't save them, it's...!" A mournful snarl escapes the warmaster, her claws digging into the stone floor. "Howl was in the tomb because he followed me! Tullia, Graw, Clio, Faust. They all were in the brand because I lead them there! I might as well have killed them myself!"

Almorra's eyes widen a slight as realisation is bluntly thrust upon her, so that's the truth of it. "...Hrmm. Seems I was mistaken."

"What? For making me warmaster?" Nastazya mutters harshly.

"No, I assumed the source of your anger wrongly. Now I know where it springs from..." The general approaches closer, holding down an open paw. "We can work on getting you back on your feet, your rage can be a tool in battle, should you learn to control it properly."

Ragewelder looks up to her, some of the confliction in her face is gone. She was expecting Almorra to be harsher than this, and yet... Despite that, she still looks hesitant. "You still... Even after how I just was?"

"We all make mistakes, better we learn from them than let them happen again." Soulkeeper nods towards her open paw, still offering the gesture. "You don't want that anger to cause the death of any more of those you care for, do you?"

Nastazya is silent for a short moment, her eyes shut as she nods, before firmly grasping the general's hand. "...I don't. I have to be better. I need to be better. I don't want to lead anyone else into a meaningless death."

"Good." Soulkeeper pulls Ragewelder up to her feet, then stands respectfully tall in front of her. "Tomorrow, we start with discipline. We'll forge that anger you hold into a weapon you can use, not blindly, but with keen precision."

"Yes, General Soulkeeper." Ragewelder salutes her, though a matter still rests on her mind. "Is there nothing else for today? I'm eager to keep going."

The general shakes her head, keeping her stoic stance. "No, you rest. Patience is just as important to learn, you'll lose yourself again without it. In any case, dismissed."

"...Right. Understood." Nastazya offers once last salute before going to leave on her way, retrieving her parried greatsword on the way. She stops for a moment, turning back to Soulkeeper. "General, one last question if I may... Why are you doing this? Just for me?"

Almorra exhales, head bowed in thought. "Perhaps... It is because I sense a kinship in you, we both lost our warbands to the crystal dragon." Her gaze raises once more. "I hope that, maybe one day, we'll both be there to strike that beast down. I want to make sure you are alive to be there."

"Soulkeeper... I-" Ragewelder stands strong once more, a sense of dedication fills her. "I won't misplace that faith of yours. I'll do everything I can, I swear it."

A smile finally adorns the general's muzzle. "Good, I'm looking forward to it."

[brax-was-here]

You left the high legions to join the Vigil to fight against the dragons. You were there when Orr was freed by the Pact. You help battle the forces of Mordremoth and help bring peace to General Almorra Soulkeeper by helping to bring down Kralkatorrik. With General Soulkeeper now gone, you felt lost, but you found your way. 

Will you help lead the Pact against the next threat to Tyria, Brom Silvertooth?

[anghraine]

I'll put most of this under a cut because GW2 headcanons are irrelevant to most of my followers' fandom experience, but I've been thinking more about headcanons for my two main versions of the GW2 PC.

The storyline does not actually allow for two Pact Commanders to exist simultaneously, so in your character's story, all other people's characters are ... I guess, AU non-Commander versions of themselves you can cooperate with, and I figured the same could go for different PCs of your own. So there is a Xiulan in the Pact Commander Althea verse (pro patria), but an AU version where her backstory doesn't conflict with Althea's.

So stuff about pro patria!verse Xiulan:

Xiulan is tall and rather lean, with brown hair, brown skin, and nearly black eyes.

Although she's descended from both Canthan and Orrian immigrants, and she identifies equally with both peoples, she physically resembles the Canthan side much more and typically presents/describes herself as Canthan (especially when it's assumed she's Ascalonian).

Her last name, Azar, comes from her mother's Orrian family, but the Orrian diaspora is so small, and their culture so unknown to most Krytans, that few can recognize it.

Both sides of her family have managed to quietly scrape by in the Salma District of Divinity's Reach for generations, and Xiulan only knows Cantha and Orr through family accounts passed from her parents.

She's an only child.

Her mother, Judith Azar, came into a little extra money in her youth and promptly gave it to her bff Andrew to help keep his tavern afloat. He never forgot this, and he took Xiulan under his wing when her parents died in an accident when she was fourteen.

His sensible, spirited daughter Petra was Xiulan's best friend as they grew up, and all the more after Xiulan became effectively part of their household.

Xiulan's first kiss was with Petra, though more as a matter of curiosity than romantic feeling. She is 100% lesbian, but she and Petra were too much family at that point to feel altogether comfortable, and they laughed about it afterwards.

Strangers often have the impression that Xiulan is smaller than she really is, both in height and build, and even when they do correctly judge her size, they typically underestimate her strength.

Unusually for someone of her strength, she also has some magical ability with fire—as a child, she would breathe little flames when she got angry, and every weapon she touches becomes encased with flame.

Between these and her flair for strategy, those around her have often said she must be blessed by Balthazar, god of war and fire.

At fifteen, Andrew and Petra convinced an embarrassed Xiulan to ask the local priest of Balthazar if he could tell if it was true. After questioning her and observing her, he assured her that their suspicion was correct, which only deepened the already very devout Xiulan's devotion to the gods, and especially to Balthazar.

dun dun dun

Additionally, the priest offered to recommend her for free training in the military arts, as a way of honoring Balthazar. She eagerly agreed and proved sufficiently gifted to catch the eye of local members of the Vigil.

No members of the Vigil spoke to her yet, but they noted their observations about the local girl in their reports to their higher-ups, and Almorra Soulkeeper herself ordered them to keep a close eye on Xiulan.

Xiulan is privately very fond of "the finer things of life"—fine jewelry, clothes, armor, and weapons, though she doesn't have the resources to actually own much. However, she does own and wear a fine hair piece of Canthan design, which her father had managed to combine with two (very) small heirloom Orrian stones from Judith's family. (It isn't cursed, since her ancestors emigrated before the Cataclysm.)

Xiulan becomes acquainted with Logan Thackeray just after she would in the canonical timeline—that is, not through the battle at Shaemoor (in which Lady Althea Fairchild rushed to his rescue), but in the conflict with local bandits, the rescue of the Queen's Heart orphanage (she has a soft spot for orphans), and their maneuvers against the aristocratic Commander Serentine's plots.

Xiulan has seen Althea before, usually accompanying Faren in the tavern and trying to keep him from getting too drunk. She doesn't know her and has rarely had cause to say much in her presence, but she can recognize her even before Althea's heroics catapult her to local celebrity status.

Xiulan looks vaguely (very vaguely) familiar to Althea, but when their paths cross in a way that involves actual interaction, she can't pin down where she's seen her before.

They meet by chance in Ebonhawke, which Althea is visiting after her induction into the Order of Whispers, while Xiulan has just been successfully recruited into the Vigil and is there to help safeguard the peace talks with the Charr.

The Vigil members stationed at Ebonhawke tend to be disapproving or even bewildered about the Ascalonians' ongoing resentment of the Charr, especially non-human Vigil members. Xiulan, on the other hand, was raised with stories of Orr and the Charr invasion ultimately leading to her people's eternal undead servitude to Zhaitan. She doesn't make a point out of it and she understands their value as fighters and their contributions to The Cause, but she gets the Ascalonians' towering resentment over the 250-year attempt to obliterate them and pride in their own survival.

This becomes relevant when a Vigil member is cluelessly talking to a visibly frustrated Althea about how the people here just don't understand, they're so short-sighted, blahblah, and Xiulan's tolerance finally snaps and she quietly sticks up for Althea and the people of Ebonhawke. It's not flashy, but it's enough for her to be dismissively addressed as "Recruit Xiulan" by the other members.

Althea doesn't forget her name again.

[vulturereyy]

do you think laranthir of the wild and general almorra soulkeeper explored each other's bodies

[dualumina]

So we played Forged Steel for the first time...

[queer-as-used-by-tolkien]

We are NOT honoring Almorra's death by leaving Bangar corrupted in a cage.

Bangar deserves death for many reasons. At this point, he can't wriggle out of it.

Either he's 1) funded the Renegades, 2) killed Almorra, 3) started a charr civil war, and 4) woken up an Elder Dragon, OR he's been corrupted.

If he isn't one, he's the other. Both are deserving of death.

On the one hand, he's done things that in charr society WOULD have him executed. In a lot of other societies, too.

But apparently, Crecia thinks being corrupted gives him a pass?

Crecia: Can't kill him. He's Jormag's now.

Girl... I know you're new to this whole fighting-Elder-Dragons thing, but when they belong to the dragon is exactly when you do kill them. If they were your allies you cry over it, if they were your enemies... well.

If they were your enemies, even they don't deserve corruption. Corruption, throughout the whole entire game, has been depicted as something horrific, awful, and something nobody deserves. It's practiced by character cast as irredeemably evil: Elder Dragons and the Inquest, and them only. Every decent person understands that it's everyone's right as a person to not be corrupted.

Now: it has turned out that Bangar seems to still be himself, and otherwise none the worse for wear for being rather icy, and the only time he seems truly corrupted is when Jormag is speaking through him. So you can argue if he's really corrupted or not, or at least whether or not its that bad of a thing.

But if he's not corrupted, then he should be held to answer for his crimes. If he gets out of that on grounds of being corrupted, then he's corrupted and we should kill him.

But I want to talk about before we knew he was still himself. It was two weeks before he could even speak.

It took five minutes - and one good look at Bangar in his cage - for me to realize that this is not justice. This is not revenge. He looked miserable and there was no way I could justify to myself why we were keeping him alive in this tormented state.

It's spitting in the face of everything the Vigil stands for. Some must fight so that all may be free. ALL. Regardless of sociopathic tendencies, personal grudges, or starting a civil war, nobody deserves to be corrupted. It's an insult to Almorra's memory, not because we let her murderer live, but because even she would agree that Bangar doesn't deserve to be corrupted.

I swear my Commander must be hallucinating or something to let this go on. This is so counter to such a large chunk of the game's storyline that it's shameful how much this wasn't addressed. There should at least be special dialogue for Vigil characters where Crecia is forced to provide more (read: better) rationalization for keeping Bangar around.

I looked in that cage and I pitied him. My Commander felt sick (or, would). And yet nothing is done about it. Not even a token protest is put up to Crecia's declaration, at the time or after the fact.

"Some must fight so that all may be free" and "nobody deserves corruption" stop being meaningful when you start picking and choosing who stays corrupted and who gets freed.

The game and all relevant characters takes this incredibly seriously. Almorra killed her warband. In the PS we kill corrupted Apatia for a greatest fear story. We killed Trahearne over this. In Bloodstone Fen there's dialogue about killing Bloodstone-crazed Pact soldiers.

And even if there is a good explanation for why we keep Bangar around (he's Crecia's prisoner, not ours?), we're abusing him.

If Bangar isn't corrupted because he still has his mind, and that makes everything okay, well, sure...

But we're inviting Jormag to speak through him. In those moments, he IS fully corrupted as much as any Branded. And WE are calling for it.

This experience is so horrific that Bangar, proud even in captivity before this, goes from sneering "I don't take orders from you" to begging and pleading "don't do this" after one experience of Jormag's domination.

We're abusing him. This is at best some form of slavery. We didn't even acknowledge his pleas that second time.

I'm not sure what my opinion of Aurene is on this, but I'm wholeheartedly disgusted by the Commander, who should know better.

Some must fight so that all may be free.

#freebangar

[commander-coppercogg]

GW2 for the fandom ask? All of the points 👀

All of the points!

blorbo (favorite character, character I think about the most)

Braham. I really do like Braham the big himbo. He’s undergone so much growth as a character and as a person and he’s really become a super interesting person. I feel that it’s sometimes difficult to find good healthy examples of masculinity in fiction and in real life but I definitely think Braham is a good man. He definitely has some ups and downs but he learns and grows and I’m really proud of him and love him very much

scrunkly (my “baby”, character that gives me cuteness aggression, character that is So Shaped)

Shashooooooo!!! She’s so good and she’s trying to hard and shes very good at her job and I always have to go help her out at the Pact Ordinance camp because I have to support my commanding office Shashoo whomst I adore. Also such a shape. All quaggan are such shapes.

scrimblo bimblo (underrated/underappreciated fave)

The General Almorra Soulkeeper herself. Not so much in terms that I think she’s underrated in the fandom space but more a fallout of myself in that I don’t talk about her near enough. Cause listen General Almorra Soulkeeper is the fucking best. She is in fact the greatest thing ever and I have so much respect for this woman. Like I don’t really have any characters who are in the Vigil so she isn’t even my commanding office and yet I would follow her orders without question. She is an utter icon and I will hear no slander against her.

glup shitto (obscure fave, character that can appear in the background for 0.2 seconds and I won’t shut up about it for a week)

Captain Rahim of the Amnoon Cavaliers. Mostly because he had a realllllly nice voice.

poor little meow meow (“problematic”/unpopular/controversial/otherwise pathetic fave)

Rytlock. He’s supreme meow meow literally. Like dude has been through so much in his life and he’s doing his best but tbh he does keep messing up. I still love him though and would always help him while calling him a doofus.

horse plinko (character I would torment for fun, for whatever reason)

Lord Faren. Time to learn about the consequences of your own actions buddy boy.

eeby deeby (character I would send to superhell)

Rear admiral rutabaga himself: Trahearne

[kianga-snowstorm]

General Almorra Soulkeeper, Founder of the Vigil

3D view on Sketchfab

[scrumptiouslyimpossibleharmony]

I love you Rytlock.... But General Almorra Soulkeeper is 10 times cooler then you are. Im a Big fan!

[i-mybrunettelady]

I had a question about Nyra, And I'm using the blindfold meme as an excuse to ask.

We're they're any charr in particular that helped her get over the feelings she had towards the race?

Also, how did she process Almorra (a charr) being the leader of the organization she always wanted to join?

Also, feel free to answer this as Nyra herself if you'd like :D

Why anon you made my evening! This is such a nice question, one that I'd secretly hoped someone would ask (I would have made a post regardless at some point) but I'm happy someone notices things like that because they're quite important for me, as is the whole thing about Nyra's patriotism :)

So, cue the lady herself!

Nyra: "So, charr. Okay. Had you told me I'd be saying this when I was a young and stupid, I'd laugh at you. But now? My parents told me that, the year I was born, there was a charr siege, one of many. And if you asked me how many cousins I lost to them, I wouldn't be able to count. Not that I ever really met them - it was always, "this man died for your freedom," "this woman died for your freedom," and now add a sneer of, "you're friends with them, you fucking lionheart and traitor to the cause."

And.. And it hurts, to a degree. I'm Ascalonian first, but to hear them sneer at me like that for whose company I choose to keep, for who I choose to ally myself with, for choosing to break from the limitations of my ancestors and family.. I can't lie. But the world is bigger than Ascalon, than our fight.

Discounting that slap Forgal floored me with years ago when I talked shit about them (don't let norn hit you, really, it hurts), I remember travelling to Ebonhawke I think, what, 9 years ago, when there was a separatist ambush on the road, there was a Priory team without who I would've been killed. One of them was a charr named Spesa Nightshield, an Explorer if I remember well, who bandaged my wounds afterwards and told me, with an apologetic smile, that "we aren't all renegades."

There was also Rytlock himself in Black Citadel - these two dipshits had cornered me and Rytlock roared them away and gave me blood whiskey afterwards for the trouble in his office. It was surreal, having to testify against two charr in the ruins of an Ascalonian city for an attack against me and actually win the case!

Whatever I'd been told was starting to fall apart. They weren't all monsters who ate human hearts for fun.

The world is bigger than Ascalon.

Almorra, huh. Shit, I need to get her sword to the Vigil Keep. I promised Laranthir, it's the least I can do. Grenth's mercies, Almorra. If anyone says shit about Almorra, I'll deck them where they stand.

But yeah, Almorra. I'd heard the stories, of course, but I never really made the connection before I actually saw her. She is- she was, the single most terrifying charr I've ever seen. She could eat me alive, I felt. She could eat me alive and I wouldn't be able to do anything back to her. And when she complimented my strategy at Dragonfall, shit, I don't remember being that proud of anything I'd ever done.

So, you know how there's this person you really wanna follow, no matter what? Like your legs cut off whenever they look at you wrongly? That was Almorra Soulkeeper.

I wrestled with it, sure, but eventually, it was clear. She was my General now. If she ordered me to jump, I could only ask how high. That's the only way I can describe it.

And now she's dead. Because I was- Nyra, no, you can't have known, stop it.

I really need to get her sword to the Vigil Keep."

[archesa]

General Almorra Soulkeeper: Certain Pact elements feel like Marshal Trahearne's mistake was going out into the field and getting himself killed.

The Commander, in mourning and having gotten eight solid minutes of sleep - not consecutively, but still - since Trahearne's death : Come again for Big Fudge?!

[brightwingedbat]

14 & 3 for Nastazya?

3 - What person impacted them the most?

For 3 it's General Almorra Soulkeeper! I have a more in depth answer in this one.

14 - Biggest misconception about them?

That Nastazya is a prime example of a traditional Blood Legion warrior. Powerful, brave, unrelenting. Something that she also worries the Legions would take advantage of to try net more 'blood' so to speak.

She has the physical traits of Blood Legion that's for sure, but her feelings could not be any different. She's growing extremely jaded over the charr's focus on warfare, but that's where Blood thrives, they don't really have a non-combative backdrop to fall on. So it's hard for her to really shut down this misconception without something to replace it with, aside from claiming herself gladium which she really doesn't want to do given her cubs in fahrar.

[morkaischosen]

Crecia Stoneglow, Almorra Soulkeeper, Malice Swordshadow

putting aside the truly incredible Malice/Shining Blade OC slow burn enemies-to-lovers thing we came up with in the car, where they meet while they’re infiltrating the Renegades and Separatists, get to know each other, are torn apart by duty, and then run into each other years later as Commander of the Pact and Ash Imperator-

Slow burn with Almorra, mostly because I can’t make either of the others hang together as well as I’d like; and I think she’s a good fit for that ‘slowly opening up’ dynamic, burned by the loss of the people she loved and trusted and short of time to relax as General of an army formed to defend against an existential threat.

Enemies to lovers with Crecia. She’s sharp and quick and we’ve seen her with that touch of flexible thinking that can make something like this work; and as the head of security for the Blood Imperator, I can see a bunch of ways to end up on opposite sides and butt heads, from active combat to more... diplomatic angles.

Fake dating with Malice Swordshadow. Didn’t credit this one at first because in her position as Ash Imperator she’s too busy to go undercover, but I found the angle: we’re fake-dating as an excuse to throw curveballs in diplomatic meetings, as cover for the fact that we’re allied on some grand plan - we know the other Imperators and whoever else is around the table will realise we’re singing from the same hymnsheet, so we need to obfuscate a little. Of course, since we take our cover seriously, that means we’re going to have to put the work in to make it look plausible...

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go and make a human thief who I can put in a plausible Shining Blade spy outfit.