#he's not (technically) undead because he physically can't be turned into one but he's been very very cursed instead lmao | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

aikoiya · 2 years

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DP - PT AU - DnD Phantoms

Another twin au. What if one day, during a fight with Vlad in the Ghost Zone that takes place instead of D-Stabilize & Phantom Planet, Vlad activates some artifact he stole in an attempt to escape & it opens a portal that Danny, Dina, Ellie, & Vlad all fall through. Valerie pursues with Sam, Tucker, & Jazz following after in the Specter Speeder.

They all land in the DnD Reality, which turns out to be a seperate reality from the one that they lived in. The reality they land in is any one of the Critical Role universes. I'm partial to Exandria with Matt Mercer as the DM, but it could be any of them. Could be the Fool's Gold campaign with Sips, Gothi, & Katrina. It could be in any one of Matt Mercer's campaigns & at any point. I'll just use Exandria for now.

Either way, the Raven Queen takes immediate interest in the Halfas. I can definitely see her taking a shine to the twins in-particular, but that's all subtext until later.

They are all separated from each other & part of the story is finding each other again. During that time, they have to learn to survive in this new reality & they all gain their classes. They would almost immediately recognize that they were in a reality modelled after the game DnD & freak out, but this would at least give them an edge because they play it themselves. Diana would especially be well-informed being their group's DM. Jazz would know more than the others, being a baby DM herself, but would know less than her sister who's been a DM longer.

To start off, let me just say that the Halfas would be considered odd. Most of their powers aren't technically considered magic. According to my theory, ecto-energy has more in common with psychic power or psionic energy. However, Danny's ice powers & Dina's water powers ARE partially magic, but not completely.

Also, because of their make-up, if someone were to hit them with, say, a Detect Undead spell. Instead of saying, "this thing is undead" or "this thing is NOT undead," it'd be more like, "...???"

Like, they wouldn't necessarily light up in the caster's view, but they would give off weird vibes. At the same time, it wouldn't be "kill it now" vibes. I mean, Vlad's would, but that's because he's a creep & according to my theory, his non-ghost half is a Lugat with Strigoi ancestry, which are both breeds of vampire.

Not to mention, powers like invisibility & intangibility don't work the same way as their DnD counterparts do. They aren't simply fading from the visible light spectrum so much as shifting onto another plane. See, back home, when ghosts go invisible or intangible, they are actually also going to the Spiritual Plane, which is a plane of existence that exists in the exact same space as the physical one. Only Earthbound ghosts/spirits & special mediums/gifted spiritualists can see it. Most mediums can only see the spirits there on occasion while a very, extremely rare few are able to see the whole of it. By shifting to the Spiritual Plane, GZ ghosts change their frequencies to more match that of the plane. However, they're generally just accessing it, so those who never had the sight when alive only see the Physical Plane with a faded filter over it. So, even GZ ghosts can't see the Spiritual Plane unless they had the sight when alive.

However, the closest equivalent that DnD has is the Ethereal Plane, so the Halfas tune into that instead. Because of the differences between the exclusivity of the Spiritual Plane & the non-exclusivity of the Ethereal Plane, it's easier to be able to see the Halfas when they're invisible in Exandria, provided you know how to.

One way to do so is, obviously, with See Invisible, but it's nowhere near as effective as when using it on an Invisibility spell. All it reveals is a very translucent & difficult to see outline of them. As such, you'd be forced to look for them with disadvantage &, in game terms, you'd still have to roll pretty high to spot them.

The best way to actually see past their invisibility is with True Sight because it allows you to look into the Ethereal Plane. This would give you advantage when looking for them because of how different they'd appear to everything else there. At the same time, when looking at the Halfas this way, you'll see them as a mix of their human half & ghost half layered on top of each other.

For that matter, Detect Good & Evil would cause all the Legacies to ping in a similar way to Celestials, but the 'data' gleaned would be more in-line with Legacy information.

Also, maybe being Halfa can be the answer to all of them multiclassing. Like, the fact that they have 2 forms, it allows them full access to 2 classes in a way that circumvents the usual downsides to multiclassing. Of course, if they were to try to multiclass into a third, they'd discover the same difficulties as multiclassing regularly.

As for powers, I think that the full Halfas would still be able to manage to use them pretty regularly provided they continue to eat regularly because, being what they are, they can sort of generate their own ectoplasm from the thoughts & emotions they make themselves. However, they wouldn't be able to use them as freely as they'd been able to in, say Amity, where ectoplasm saturated the air.

They could also supplement that by either absorbing ambient, left over thoughts & emotions, which is what Danny & Dina prefer, or they could drain the emotions of others directly, but only Vlad & Ellie are okay with that. Ellie does both so she doesn't rely on a single method. Danny & Dina are more in tune with positive emotions, being Tutelary spirits, while Vlad is a Revanent Psychopomp & thus more attracted to negative emotions like Spectra who is a Wraith.

However, Ellie, & eventually Sam & Tucker, are fine with both positive & negative emotions for one reason or another despite also being Tutelaries after a fashion. Ellie because of her being more neutral in morality. Sam because she is a conservationist & activist, so when pairing that with being a nature-type Tutelary, she can also rely on the fury of the green & of conservationist indignant rage. However, relying too much on that can cause her to be infected with that anger.

As for what they're Tutelaries of: Danny & Dina are both protectors & guardians, as well as Psychopomps. Danny & Dina are generally protective to anyone who needs it, but Danny also protects astronomers, astronauts, aerospace engineers, & anyone who works with interstellar tech/travel. Dina, specifically, protects doctors as well as the sick or injured, not to mention fishermen, sailors, ect. The rest are more specialized in their protection, which makes them less versatile in nature. Ellie is a Tutelary of travelers, adventurers, & vagabonds. Sam will be a Tutelary of nature & the forests. Finally, Tucker will be a Tutelary of science, invention, & geek/nerdom, who protects scientists, inventors, gamers, ect.

As for Valerie, she isn't a Tutelary as her driving force was never protection, but rather revenge. So, she absorbs negative emotions much like Vlad. If I were to classify her, I'd say her armor will begin to give her a few Revenant abilities.

Anyway, full Halfas flying in ghost form would be a Free Action so long as at least one of their core elements were related to either the sky or weather, because ghosts would have the racial feat to manipulate their own gravity.

They'd also have something I call Advanced Darksight. It's where they can see normally in the dark, but things are obscured in dim light in magic darkness. Like looking through fog with regular Darksight. This allows them advantage when inspecting or perceiving things in the regular dark, but the dc in magic darkness matches that of dim lighting. Other than that, no other bonuses.

Not to mention, I feel as though they'd have a certain degree of immunity to Necrotic damage.

Like in my other aus, as time goes on, I think that Sam & Tucker would show signs of becoming Halfas themselves due to their exposure to ecto-acne.

However, I think that due to Sami being an Earth & Darkness aligned halfa, I don't think she'd be able to manipulate her gravity as easily as Danny, Dina, Vlad, Tucker, & Ellie can. She can only go as far as gliding, floating, & slowing their falls, like free Feather Fall.

The reason being that they all had at least one core element relaying to either the sky or weather. Thing is, by default, a half-ghost's gravity core is naturally only half as effective as full ghosts. Having specific elements makes up for it. Danny having 2 turns that up passed 100 & one of them being specifically wind improves it even further. As it stands, he & Dina are the fasted & have the most control of their flight.

Sam would have to use her florokinesis/botanomancy (depending on whether or not you go by my Legacy hc) to grow large leaves from her back & use them like wings.

Also, their core elements cause them to obtain spells & cantrips as though they were all Druids, typically of the Land. They also have secondary elements, but they don't learn as many spells for those. Sam & Tucker are both unique in that due to their history of possession, their possessor's elements have rubbed off on them & thus they have dual main elements, Sam's original main being Darkness or Shadow with Wood being a carryover & Tucker's original being Electricity & his carryover being Sand.

Danny's elements are Ice(main)/Wind(secondary) & would therefore be Arctic terrain with supplimentary Circle of the Wind, Dina's elements are Water(main)/Ice(secondary) & would be the Coast terrain with an Arctic terrain supplementary, Vlad's elements are Fire(main)/Lightning(secondary), so he's Volcano terrain with a supplementary of Plain terrain, Ellie's elements are Wood(main)/Earth(secondary) so she's Grassland/Forest terrain with either a Circle of Earth or Geomancers supplementary, Sam's elements are Darkness & Wood(main)/Poison(secondary) so she's a Cave/Graveyard & Forest/Jungle/Briar Tangle terrain with supplementary of Swamp/Blighted Mire/Withered Land terrain, & Tucker's elements are Electricity & Sand(main)/Metal(secondary), so he's a Plain & Desert terrain with supplementary of City/Urban terrain or Circle of the Molten Heart. These spells would just come along with their typical levels despite their classes not facilitating them. They could also learn other spells that fall into their elemental alignments.

For instance, Danny could learn Armor of Agathys, Chilling Blow, Cold Fire, Cold Snap, Corona of Cold, Frigid Blade, Ice Guantlet, Star of Selune, Wall of Ice, & other similar spells. He'd also begin to learn a few wind-based spells due to his secondary element being wind & because of this, it'd be something he'd need to pursue for himself. He'd later also be able to learn several star-based spells due to both being a Legacy of Artemis & his connection to Nightlight who was a literal wishing star. Things like Star Map, Dream, Light, Meteor Swarm, Faerie Fire, Crown of Stars, Guiding Bolt, Starlight Mote, Hartmut's Honest Horoscope, Shimmering Constellation, Starry Night, Lodestar, Guiding Star, Twilit Prayer, Shooting Star, Starlight Resurgence, the Twinkle cantrip, Starlight Shroud, Wall of Light, Dream, & Wish. A lot of these are homebrew & very interesting.

Similarly, Dina will have access to water-based spells & cantrips, such as Tidal Wave, Anarchic Storm, Control Currents, Create Water, Depthsurge, Drown, Flashflood, Heart of Water, Holy Storm, Misty Step, ect. Then, later, moon-based ones like Faerie Fire, Moonbeam, Moon Blade, Moon Bolt, Moon Path, Moonfire, Lunar Serenity, Wall of Light, Sleep, & Dream. She'd also specifically study the Remove Curse, True Restoration, & Wish spells for plot reasons. She could also later learn a few ice-based ones due to her secondary element being ice, but like I've said before, because it's a secondary element, this would be something she'd have to intentionally pursue rather than something that'd just come to her naturally.

On the other hand, Ellie would get access to plant-based spells & cantrips for her primary element, earth-based ones as her secondary, as well as general light-based ones that aren't attributed to a specific celestial body.

At the same time, due to being Legacies, their light magic would give powerful Radiant damage & they'd also be at least somewhat immune to Radiant damage because of it. At the same time, Danny would be immune to Cold damage & vulnerable to Fire because of his ice element, while Dina would be resistant to it because of her cold core with a water element. They'd also be vulnerable to Lightning because of their deaths. Likewise, Vlad, because his main core element is fire & lightning is his secondary, he'd be immune to Fire damage & resistant to Lightning damage. Then, after becoming a Halfa, Tucker would be resistant to Fire damage & immune to Lightning damage. Sam would be vulnerable to both Cold & Fire damage.

Thing is, Danny, Diana, & Ellie eventually represent the 3 dimensions of space; width, height, & depth. Danny is ice (wind for secondary element) & represents sky & height, Diana is water (ice for secondary element) & represents sea & depth, & Ellie is nature/plants (earth for secondary element) & represents land & width. Together, they are not only the 3-pronged dimensions of space, but also the ghosts of space, as in the place. As such, they also represent celestial bodies. Danny represents the stars (the sun is a star, so the sun is included in this), Diana represents the moon/satellites, & Ellie represents planets. This allows them access to different types of photomancy; Danny's astromancy, Dina's lunamancy, & Ellie's albedomancy (which I made up & refers to the magical production & manipulation of the light reflected off of planets rather than satellites or stars). This ability to manipulate light would come out in the form of Radiant damage.

Plus, Danny & Dina would both be able to control the amount of light they produce to a perfect degree, even able to blind their opponents or create solid objects with light, & can also manipulate tears, turning them into diamonds because they both possess half the soul of Nightlight/Jack Frost. This becomes very useful to Dina as she is the healer of the group.

Halfas in-general would have access to at least a few Nectrotic spells simply for what they are. Vlad & Sam having access to more than the rest, Sam even more than Vlad due to her relation to Hades & Hecate.

Danny, Dina, & Ellie would all have points in Fighter with proficiencies in Athletics & Acrobatics, as well as a Bare-Fisted fighting style.

Sam, as a Halfa, would sort of be like a fusion of Poison Ivy & Raven from DC in terms of powers.

Powerwise, Tucker, as a Halfa, would be like if Static Shock, Technus, & Gaara from Naruto fused.

---

Danny would end up in a small rural town where he's taken in by a couple, man is a carpenter & wife is a blacksmith. They teach him the tools of the trade when a few years later something happens in town involving ghosts. His foster parents tell him to stay away, saying that a Paladin is coming to take care of it, but he's got a lot more personal experience with this sort of thing than them & actually deals with the situation very quickly on his own. As soon as he's done, he's then caught & taken in by the Paladin he was told about, who takes him to see his fosters. Danny thinks he's gonna be grounded, but it turns out that the Paladin, Lady Brighten, wants to take him as her apprentice having seen his talents & sensing that he'd taken the same oath as her at some point in his life.

This is how he discovers that he's got points in Paladin, specifically the Oath of the Watchers because that's kinda what he'd already been doing on Earth & what he'd continue to do on Exandria, keeping ghosts from wrecking his new home. It could even be used to highlight how he's given up on his dream in favor of taking responsibility for protecting others from ghosts as, before becoming Phantom, he would've taken the Oath of the Celestial. His secondary fighting style would either be Dueling or Protection.

Anyway, he's brought with Lady Brighten to study how to be a proper Watchers Paladin.

His occupations would be Carpenter, Blacksmith, Astronomer, & Engineer. For hobbies, he'd be a Singer, Fisher, Sculpter (mostly using ice), & Whittler, plus varying skills at things like construction, roofing, ect. That he just sorta picked up due to helping his fosters out around the house.

I feel like Dina would become a Water Cleric & later multiclass into an Elloquence/Lore Bard who uses a violin. This would make her the primary healer of the group. She'd find herself in the middle of the ocean where she'd be picked up by a ship. In order to make herself useful, she'd apprentice under the Ship's Surgeon & become one herself as well as a Sailor. Eventually, the ship would be taken by pirates & she'd save them with her hydromancy. They eventually dock somewhere with a shrine to Melora (possibly the lighthouse to Melora in Nicodranas maybe) & the head priestess there would approach Dina saying that the Wild Mother had sent her a vision of her. It's there that Dina learns to be a Cleric.

Dina would have proficiency with medicine, persuasion, sewing, & violin. For occupations, she'd be a Medic/Healer, Chemist, Apothecary, Alchemist, & later Herth Witch.

For hobbies, her occupations would be Fashion Designer (using it in a more practical way like Tucker does), Singer, Fisher, Cook, Pastry Chef/Baker, Acrobat, Musician, Mercer/Weaver, Contorionist (to Vlad's eventual delight), & Dancer (after beginning to date Vlad).

As for Ellie, she'd absolutely be a Phantom Rogue before multiclassing into Survivalist Ranger & might even have gotten herself involved with the Clasp. Her occupations could be Pathfinder, Explorer, & Urchin. Also, she'd have a proficiency such as Polyglot due to having traveled the Earth. Also, proficient at survival & have the potential to gain the occupations Linguist & Anthropologist.

Though, I feel like being a Halfa should make it easier to learn languages in-general, especially dead languages, which is what they'd all be doing considering they were all new to the place.

Vlad, I could definitely see starting off with points in Fighter with a Dueling style, but then later getting himself into trouble by making a deal with some demonic entity sealed inside a cursed sword (possibly a Soul Eater variant-type blade, but the entity inside has the ability to take control of its wielder if they don't complete their end of a bargain so long as it's reached a certain soul-collection threshold; when it does this, it gives the body it uses a 2-5x stat boost) & becoming a Hexblade Warlock. Then, almost immediately regretting it.

As someone without the Good alignment, he was unable to discern its malicious intent. Like, he thinks it's all under control because his charisma is high enough that he always manages his saving throws against it, but it comes back to bite him eventually.

Much like in his own universe, Vlad would very quickly find a way to become some sort of lord or something in Tal'dorei. Also, he dresses even more like a vampire in ghost form than before. Like, full-on Dracula with a cravat & everything. His human form wears an f-ing ascot!

His ghost form looks like this:

Don't know the artist or I'd list their name, but it's gorgeous.

Or this:

This one's by @ecto-stone I believe. Correct me if I'm wrong. It certainly looks like their art style.

For that matter, he gains vampiric racial feats that he'd never known he'd had before & can use freely even as a 'human,' such as the ability to charm people by looking them in the eye if he wants, polymorphing into only a few specific things such as a wolf, a bat, or a swarm of bats, as well as what basically amounts to the Gaseous Form spell. He might even learn a bit of hemocraft, but I'm not sure.

When he learns that he's even less human than he thought, his mind sort of bluescreens for a solid minute before his anger at Jack just redoubles. That's when he starts to study what Strigoi/Lugats are capable of, thus expanding upon his repertoire of powers. This is how he learns that being half-ghost rendered any ability he had to turn others into things like him, inert.

I feel like Vlad would have occupations like Entrepreneur/Business Owner, Appraiser, Charlatan, Engineer, & possibly Count or Earl with proficiencies in baking, persuasion, deception, & piano. Other occupations he has due to his upbringing, but doesn't use is Dairyboy & Cowherd. Occupations he has that are more hobbies would be Hunter (based on Maternal Instinct), Wine Taster, & Dancer.

I could see Valerie coming into Exandria a Paladin with an Oath of Vengeance & at some point multiclass into Blood Hunter. She might also end up being a Monster Hunter & could be recruited into the Slayer's Take in Vasselheim, specializing in spectral & extraplaner entities. It seems right up her alley.

Valerie's suit is able to absorb new tech & weapons, however, because it isn't a full ghost & Valerie isn't a full Halfa, it can't create its own ectoplasm at a sustainable rate in order to fuel itself properly. Because of this, she has to mitigate how often she uses it. If she eventually develops either a full core or a pseudo-core & becomes either a Pseudo-Halfa or an Ecto-Liminal respectively, then that will help a lot, allowing her to more easily provide the suit with ectoplasm made from her more potent thoughts & emotions & she could even use it indefinitely while there, but only for a certain amount of time every day. However, if she uses it excessively, it could take up to a week to recharge. As such, she's forced to learn the local methods.

Also, her suit works similar to Animated Armor which is a soul bound to a set of armor. There’s also this homebrew somewhere that allows a character to wear said armor. So, I think of it like Valerie’s wearing one of these armors. The only difference here is that the soul possessing the armor is her own living one. Not to mention, if she does become either a Pseudo-Halfa or an Ecto-Liminal, whatever ghostly powers she'll get would be bound to her armor & they'd only be the basic powers & she wouldn't be able to use them freely like the other Halfas.

I think Sam would initially have points in Gunslinger because she's the best shot in Team Phantom, but she'd choose to multiclass out of it. So, she'd likely go Druid of the Circle of the Moon & later Sorcerer with a Divine Soul origin (because of her status as a Legacy; technically, all of Team Phantom would be considered Divine Souls, but Sam would be the only one to follow the path through in this way. Though hers acts in a way similar to having a Shadow Magic origin thus granting her darkness spells because of her connections to both Hades & Hecate), but despite being goth, she's also not stupid enough to sell her soul to some malevolent being for power.

Sam would be taken in by, like, the Ashari or something & taught to be a Druid, then later after meeting up with Danny, she'd find herself at the Alabaster Lyceum in Emon to learn to hone her innate talent as a Sorcerer. She could possibly multiclass as both, but then, she couldn't get any of the higher-level spells until after developing a core & becoming a Halfa. Either way, I could see her having gone into the GZ to collect samples of the local flora to see if she could transplant them into her green house & she came to the DnD reality with them. As she's being taught, she plants these specimens in her new home & studies them, developing both as a Gardener & Botanist.

She'd be proficient in nature with occupations in Herbalist, Conservationist, Arborist, Ritualist, & Enchantress.

Her hobby occupations would be Poet, Painter, Tattooist, & Potter.

Meanwhile Tucker would start as a Ranger of the Hunter Conclave before eventually multiclassing into Maverick Artificer after making his way to civilization. I could also see him taking up trapping to survive, but this would later become a point of contention between him & Sam. I'd make it so Tucker was put in the middle of nowhere & was forced to learn survival tactics to live & even had to craft his own weapons for a long time. So, by the time they'd all reunited, he'd be vastly different from before. Like, he'd eat vegetables now, but only because he needed to in order to survive.

So, he'd be a Forager, Hunter, Renderer, Peddler, Cobbler, Furrier, Glovemaker, Ropemaker, Tailor, Tanner, Fowler, Falconer, Whittler, Archer/Marksman, Leatherworker, Bowyer, & Fletcher. I know it's a lot, but he needed to be all these things in order to survive so long on his own. Surprisingly, he's also a Forester, but his perspective is more in-line with the circle of life/eat or be eaten perspective in that everything eats something & that it's a balance. That nature is harsh & can be cold. That predators exist to keep prey from overpopulating & overeating. That there is nothing wrong with eating meat. He also considers himself a predator in the natural sense & lives by this balance. He's kinda got the Alan Perish thing from the original Jumanji going.

He's proficient at sewing & another occupation he has would be Engineer (which he'd utilize to make more advanced traps, more advanced bows & arrows, & scopes for his bow).

Jazz could be a Mystic from the Order of the Open Mind or maybe a Sorcerer of the Aberrant Mind? I've always thought of her as being a bit psychic or even a medium. Possibly having a psychic for an ancestor or something. Her main occupations would be an Oracle, Medium, Runecaster, & Wordsmith. I could also see her hobby occupations possibly being a Scholar & a Tutor. I also think that she'd specifically learn Intellect Fortress to safeguard her mental faculties.

I know that the combination of classes, proficiencies, & occupations might not make sense as far as DnD is concerned because of the stats & skill checks involved, but remember that they're not from the DnD reality, so they kinda break the game a little bit in this regard. Also, they're not playing an actual game right now, so their personal skills that they already had before get transferred over. As a result, they have a lot of skills & proficiencies compared to a regular player character.

As far as weapons are concerned, Danny & Vlad would be proficient with swords, Vlad specifically with foils & rapiers. Danny & Dina both would also be good with both their fists & spears to go with the fact that they're lares. Di would specifically use tridants. Sam would take Fencing Instructions to become proficient in foils & rapiers. She'd also have proficiency with whips. Tucker is proficient with a bow per canon, but depending on his class, may also learn proficiency with guns. Ellie is proficient with daggers, as well as, wrist-mounted crossbows, & Valerie with guns & greatswords.

Anyway, they're basically all separated for, like, 7-10 years. Only 2-4 years after getting to this reality, Danny & Sam meet in Tal'dorei while Vlad & Dina meet in Nicodranas when the teens are mostly 18-20; when Vlad is going on a political vacation. While there, he sees a gorgeous woman with a familiar face, but can't quite place her name. He spends a couple days trying to learn her name by schmoozing with the Marquis & his other associates living in Nicodranas. None give her name, but they call her a Naiad in human skin sent by the Wild Mother herself. Until, eventually, they meet face-to-face & he's startled to learn that it was his little kitten all along!

After Dina lectures him about getting her, Danny, & Ellie into this mess, to which he apologizes, they spend the rest of his vacation catching up & just spending time together, asking if they'd seen hide or hair of the others. In the end, he offers her to come back with him to Tal'dorei & be a guest in his manor.

Figuring that he'd have better resources with which to search for her brother & Ellie (because neither of them know that the others came too), she'd say 'yes.'

Over the next 3-6 years, they get closer & it eventually becomes romantic. Then, Vlad's 'patron' demands Diana's soul in exchange for his freedom from the bargain. (It is a ploy to get at least 1 of these powerful extraplanar souls. If Vlad refuses, the sword will just take over his body & kill the girl anyway. Then the sword demon will have 2 & maybe then the demon could use them to escape its confines.)

Vlad can't do it. Oh, he tries; drugging her meal & hovering over her sleeping form with the cursed blade at her neck, ready to plunge it into her delicate flesh & heart pounding in his ears. Tears gather in his eyes as he looks down at her peacefully dreaming in the bed he'd given her. His mind flies at a mile per minute, unable to move as the thought of his desire for power & the knowledge that if he didn't do this, his soul was forfeit, fought with dear memories of the 2 of them together & the image of Diana well & truly dead & him never even seeing her again because she'd be unable to reincarnate with her soul taken.

He shut his eyes, plunging the cursed blade down. A second passed, then 2... Despite knowing what he'd see, he opened his eyes to gaze upon his darling Diana lying in bed... The blade piercing the pillow beside her head. He breathed a shuttering sigh of fear & relief, tears falling from his eyes before removing the sword from the down-filled pillow & left.

He refused the sword's demand, his soul is collected, & it takes control of his body, but the body rebels against the sword so strongly when it tries to kill his love that the sword-possessed body leaves in a huff. The next day, Dina woke up to find her boyfriend & his sword gone.

Dina's goal is to find Vlad. Later, when she does, discovering him wrecking havoc on a town, she learns that the bastard sword is controlling him, that it took him from her. She tries to fight him & get him back into his right mind, but the combination of the cursed sword boosting its host's stats by 2-5x & a Halfa body, which already has insane stats, is too much for her alone. She barely escapes with her life, swearing to get him back someday after destroying the piece of shit that did all this.

Not long afterward, she meets up with Sam & her brother. Then, later Tucker, Jazz, & Ellie too.

Di spends much time studying cursed blades & how to fight against them. Initially, she learns Remove Curse to try & lift it, but when she used it on Vlad it only lasted for 12 hours.

Eventually, Dina is able to save Vlad's soul using True Restoration. Them being soulmates gave Dina advantage when restoring Vlad's soul to him.

---

When Vlad was brought back to himself, he didn't know where he was at first. Then, he blinked the blur from his eyes to find his Dearest above him in a terrible state. "Diana Darling? Whatever happened to you?"

That was when she launched herself into him. "Oh God! I was so worried!" They embraced for a moment, before a confused Vlad pushes her back to get a better look at her, he realized that she was sobbing, her body shaking with the effort.

She then exploded at him. "Do you have any idea how long it took to get your soul back, you asshole!? TWO YEARS!!"

That was when he remembered what happened. The sword! It'd wanted Diana's soul, but he couldn't... he just couldn't!

His kitten saved him? He was utterly speechless. No one, in all his life, had ever gone to such lengths for him. Not even Vlad's own parents. Let alone for so long.

His chest filled with warmth & he knew. He knew!! He loved this woman & he'd follow her wherever she went. Even to the 9 Hells & back.

Vlad slowly wrapped the crying woman in his arms & held her to his chest before burying his face in her midnight hair. He could feel his own tears surfacing as he breathed her in.

"You ever do that again & I'll fucking castrate you." And suddenly, he started to go back over every up incoming scheme he'd had in mind.

---

Vlad later chooses to accompany Dina on her journey with Team Phantom. (He ends up being the one who faces the most difficulty with life on the road.) He doesn't initially think of himself as being part of their party. More so that he's accompanying his Diana & protecting her. It doesn't occur to him that she's several levels above him at this point & far more experienced in combat.

However, this leads to him slowly getting a bit of an attitude adjustment & he multiclasses out of Warlock to separate himself from that dark time & into being a Bladesinger Wizard. He finds that he quite prefers it this way. It utilizes his knowledge of fencing & passion for dancing while also giving him the benefit of magic.

Vlad & Diana make it their goal to find a way to utterly obliterate the cursed sword that did this.

Vlad & Danny don't get along at all. Danny makes it very clear, very early on that he believes that his sister is too good for the multi-millionaire & this is a source of tension in the group.

Not to mention the severe atmosphere between Vlad & Ellie for obvious reasons. In this timeline, he specifically didn't go after Ellie after Kindred Spirits because of Diana's influence on him, so their relationship isn't as wholly terrible as in canon, but it's still pretty bad.

They don't really know how to act around each other.

---

Sam & Tucker's opposition eventually comes to a head when Sam makes one animal/monster rights remark too many & Tucker snaps at her. "We're not back home! These people don't have factory farming! They don't have chemicals that they pump livestock with to increase yield! They don't have slaughter houses! This place isn't like Earth! There are horrible, dangerous creatures here that would like nothing more than to massacre us in the most horrifying ways! And they're EVERYWHERE!! If we don't kill them, then they will kill us &, frankly, if it's between me & a 10 ton dragon that's been feasting on villagers, I'm not only gonna kill it, I'm gonna use its hide to make myself & my friends armor so we can survive for longer!"

Sam: "It's a living, sentient being, Tucker!"

Tucker: "So are WE! Doesn't stop the dragon from killing those innocent villagers!"

Sam: "Maybe they're not innocent! Maybe they did something to it & it's just defending itself!"

Tucker: "Okay then. We'll investigate. If it turns out you're right, we'll try to find a diplomatic solution. But I warn you Sam. This isn't Undertale. This isn't some thinly-veiled, onesided anti-human narrative about bigotry. The monsters here are real &, yeah, some of them can be reasoned with, but others will eat you alive. And if they do, there's no RESET button."

They find, to Sam's dismay, that the dragon is, in fact, the antagonizer. Sure, a young, foolish villager had insulted the mighty beast & Sam even tried to run with it for a while, but even she realized very quickly that that didn't give the dragon clearance to murder entire villages of men, women, & children just to seek vengeance for such a small sleight.

Even the dragon itself admitted that it'd just been looking for a good excuse to pillage & blackmail people into giving him treasure or else face his teeth.

It was Sam's first real lesson in the harsh reality of this world. That things weren't nearly as black & white as she believed.

(A/N: I have no personal qualms with vegans or veganism, I just feel like Sam is the type who'd need a reality check in this situation.)

---

When they meet up with Valerie, she doesn't know how to react. She wonders how Danny, Dina, Mr. Masters, & this other little girl got there. She sort of forces herself into their group, thinking that she's gonna protect them, but it quickly becomes evident that they are stronger than they were before. (At least, as far as she was aware.)

However, this means that the Halfas have to keep their ghost halves under wraps at the moment & that severely cuts down on their power output. Sure, they are able to finagle some of it so that they can give the excuse of it just being this world's magic but it only works so far.

Until either Valerie leaves or she figures them out, the team is at a handicap.

---

A side-goal could be trying to locate the Specter Speeder. At the same time, maybe someone already found it & are trying to study the technology used in it. The overarching goal would be to figure out how to get everyone home which could take years.

They generally study extraplanar travel & since several people in their party are capable of learning Plane Shift, Danny, Tucker, & Vlad have to work together to study the effects of the spell, then possibly build a way back home using ectoplasm in the creation. If Vlad is able to learn it first, he could try to fuel the spell with his ecto-energy to try & guide the spell towards the Ghost Zone. However, he's not strong enough to do so & it saps all his energy trying. This is what prompts them to try & build their own Ghost Portal with a mix of the local technology, magic, & ectoplasm from their world as well as the artifact that Vlad used to get them there in the first place as a ground.

Danny & Vlad both have memories of how the Fenton's Ghost Portal was made, but it'd take a while to remember all the details. Even then, the real issue is translating the schematics into something that can be used with their current reality's available tech. This is what they always go back to after every mission. It's a nightmare just trying to figure out replacement parts!

Even still, the real problem was finding someone to be the sacrifice for the portal because that was the only way for it to work properly. Every time a permanent portal to the GZ is opened, it requires a sacrifice. They needed to find someone who wouldn't mind the possibility of either dying or becoming a Halfa themselves because the vast majority of their party will already be Halfas after a while.

That isn't to say that this is all they do. It just so happens that there are several worldwide threats for them to help take down too.

(Demons & fiends call the members of Team Phantom 'godlings' because of their Legacy blood, & it's partially because of this that they covet their souls so immensely. They covet every one of the people from the Phantom Multiversal Reality, but mostly because of the very nature of mortal souls from there. You see, souls from the Phantom Reality are all but immortal & while they can be destroyed, it'd take an immense amount of power even by level 20 standards to do so, & if left alone they would persist forever. This durability of soul is part of what allows them to reincarnate in the first place. It would take a power unfathomable even by the Prime Deities of Exandria to create such brightly shining, long-lasting souls & that scares a lot of the Prime Deities. Mortal souls from Exandria, however, are like tokens amongst DnD demons & are quite often consumed. The Legacies' souls are even more outstanding than the typical Phantom Reality soul with their divine qualities to them & Halfas have their own unique powerfulness to them. Danny & Dina, especially, are odd. Them both being the reincarnation of a literal star split between them with them both also having dual souls. So, there will be quite a few dark creatures & even cultists that will be after them. It's actually being attacked by all these things that spurs their photomantic abilities to assert themselves in order to protect themselves. As more & more soul-suckers attack, the more powerful their light abilities grow.)

As for faiths, all the Halfas would gain favor with the Raven Queen, but that wouldn't necessarily make her their personal deity. For one, Sam is Jewish, so her number one will always be the Great I Am. However, if she were to have to choose an Exandrian deity, it'd be either the Raven Queen or Melora, possibly both. Dina would prefer Melora for her connection to the ocean. Danny would be more inclined to Celestian the Far Wanderer because of his connection to space. At the same time, they wouldn't necessarily worship them in the same way that the people who lived on Exandria their whole lives do. It's more like, the goals of these deities align with their own.

If this is during the Vox Machina campaign, Danny makes a deal with the Raven Queen to save Vax's life by turning him into a Halfa via opening their Ghost Portal on him. After all, she very much seemed to like them. 'The embodiment of the moment between life & death, but not undead themselves,' she called them. This way, Vax could live out his life & still remain part of her domain.

She agreed, so long as she also got to keep at least 2 other Halfas on Exandria. They could go & visit their home reality every once in a while, but must always return after, at most, a fortnight. Ellie volunteered, then so did Dina which prompted Vlad to stay as well.

Vax became a Halfa (half-a ghost, half-a half-elf) & lived. He marries Keylith & they have many half-elf children.

Phantom Twins AU Masterlist

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