#henrik dragon quest

[sleepyorchidmonster]

What if king Henrik managed to steal Malleus's egg after defeating Meleanor?

The main point is that the egg WOULDN'T hatch because it needs love (and even in canon it took a couple of centuries to hatch, despite the presence of Lillia and Maleficia).

So after a few tries, he discards his plans and keeps the egg as a trophy. Years pass and a five year-old Silver finds the trophy room while playing. He stumbles into the pedestal holding the egg, but manages to save it before it falls.

The child then senses a tiny heartbeat, and realizes there is a baby inside the egg!

The egg hatches immediately. Baby Silver loved it at once (the way he did once upon a dream).

And that's how we get a Dragon Prince journey (sorta).

After the dragon hatched, Silver went to talk with his animal friends to see if they could help (he loves his parents, but he couldn't just tell them he went to the trophy room to play, some instinct of his was also telling him they couldn't be trusted).

He left the little dragon under the care of a mother bear and went to the library to see if he could find anything. He came across a few old books from before the Silver Owls that described the Draconias (the little prince was so excited! His dragon friend could become a friend friend! He didn't have any friends besides the animals! And the dragon was even a fellow prince!)

But first things first! His dragon friend needed to meet his actual family, they were probably worried sick! So he grabbed a few maps, marked out the closest fae castle, told his parents he would go play with the animals in the woods and left.

The trek was very long and dangerous, but the entire forest was on his side. Baby Silver kept talking to Malleus, explaining life as a prince, introducing his animal friends, and trying to find out if he liked to eat berries.

They avoided war-stricken areas and managed to reach fae territory. And that's when things took a turn for the worse.

Henrik and the Silver Owls found them. Apparently, the egg was missing and a search party was assembled to follow its magical traces. Baby Silver didn't know that, and went to greet his uncle, saying that he was helping out a friend find his family!!

Henrik looked at his nephew, then at the dragon, and went for the kill, literally. The kid couldn't even defend himself, as his uncle cut him down with a simple strike (dawn knight was at home).

And that's when baby Malleus's magic blew up.

A snowstorm of cataclysmic proportions struck, complete with fire tornados and lightning. At the center of it all stood two children, the tiny Silver that was bleeding out, and Malleus, who had taken a human form and was trying to close the wound (he changed forms because he was scared and emulated the only thing he could think of as strong and protection, and that thing was five year-old Silver). Meanwhile, all of the animals formed a protective circle around them.

Luckily, reinforcements soon arrived. Both Lillia and Maleficia came (that storm could only be a Draconia's doing, they would NOT lose the egg again). They made quick work of the rest of the Silver Owls before rushing to Malleus's aid.

The animals let the faes though, as if they knew the dragon had finally found his kin. But Malleus wouldn't let go of Silver, even when the kid started telling him "Look, we found your family!! You're safe!", smiling despite the pain and looming death.

With the use of "Far Cry Cradle", Lillia quickly explained the situation, and the faes made the decision to save the human. They had a much too big debt with this child, who was so innocent it hurt.

They were also keeping the human. If that despicable man was his UNCLE, then no way in hell were the rulers of Briar Valley going to give the child back to his family. It would be a disgrace to the Draconia family.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now, there a a few ways this AU could go.

1. The faes weren't able to save Silver. They create a monument in his honor and he becomes the only human they respect. Relations with the Silver Owls may improve now that Henrik is dead, if they can convince Dawn Knight his son died to save Malleus.

2. The faes save Silver, who lives in Briar Valley until the end of his mortal lifespan, acting as Malleus's big brother and knight. The Silver Owls are angry, but eventually come to an agreement once they realize there was no mind control involved.

3. The faes manage to save Silver, but the wounds were so grave that he had to stay in magic stasis for a few hundred years. Receiving the BOTW Shrine of Ressurection treatment. Due to the nature of the magic, he lost his memories, got silver hair and became sleepy. He later wakes up and becomes the Silver we all know and love. Malleus still sees him as the older brother, but thinks that now it's his turn to protect the human!

[camus-love-circle]

Repost

グレカミュ Henrik 💜💙

[fankayart]

Do you have any favorite non-romantic/gen ego fics? It's been such a long time and I want to get back into ones with a good plot.

Hmmm… I do have a few! Here are some by different authors with different vibes, depending on what you enjoy you might like these or might not :)

Aura: Beyond Imagination by Kiranagi, Kitsunekitto

This is a good overall fic, it’s about the egos slowly coming to life around Jack. It’s a very nice story! I have yet to read the third part, but you might enjoy it. Little bit of tension, lots of “trying to make it work”, and misunderstood Anti, if you’re interested in that kind of thing.

Fantasy Masks AU by CrystalNinjaPhoenix

BIG jump. This AU has nothing to do with them looking alike, this is all a fantasy AU where they meet and go on a quest to take down a tyrannical king. They prepare to lead a rebellion, Chase gets weird ass dreams, I think this fic is very neat and gives off a DnD campaign vibe. They also have had a lair made of dragon bones and I think that’s so fucking cool.

Memory by beerecordings

Absolutely fucked Anti torture fic where Henrik trades pieces of his life and memories for things in return. Manipulative Anti, and kinda horrifying, so have fun!

Also Consider Checking Out —

These Hands of Mine by Sapphire_Ruby (Jackie loses his powers and has to come to terms with it. I just can’t find it anywhere, it might be gone :()

The Prince of Puppets: A Jacksepticeye + Egos Fantasy AU by RogueOfBrokenTime (Oh boy, can you tell what my favorite trope is? This one is about a curse put over the land by a certain someone. I think the concepts are neat, very old school Disney kind of fic (lovingly) but it IS discontinued)

The Inverted AU by CrystalNinjaPhoenix (Personal favorite, Anti is trying to save Jack from a hoard of violent and twisted people that are after him. Basically, the bad guy is your ONE good guy. Also enjoying their Septic Heroes fic too)

All of these are on AO3!!! There’s a lot of fics I could put here but a lot of them are fairly old, I have yet to get back into reading new ones,,, but hopefully these will get you started! I tried to stick to long reads, so all of these will have fairly long chapters :)

[bettykwong]

✨The Luminary✨

[whyrish]

Hot Take

Sylv and Henrik fucked and that is why henrik is so shook when he finds out his ex boyfriend is now the queen of pride.

[dailyadventureprompts]

Villain: Halfeaten Henrik and his All-Devouring Beast

“Most people like to think of wizards as scheming masterminds, but in my experience most of our brainpower is devoted to figuring out solutions to the problems we ourselves caused. Many of the great magical workings throughout history were done because some poor fool was flying by the seat of his robes and needed a solution NOW rather than later. ” 

Adventure Hooks: 

It starts, as it often does, with a dungeon, word reaching the party of a recently abandoned arcane research complex up in the highlands. Folks speak of oddly behaving animals in the region and caustic clouds that poured over the landscape, but true treasure hunters will be thinking about secret research left behind, as well as the valuable magical clutter that any such site is liable to accue. Investigating, the party finds that the complex isn’t quite abandoned as they were told: soldiers of the local ducal army are sifting through portions of the rubble and shoveling anything they think might be valuable into carts. This gives our adventurers three options, turn around and go home, delve the portion of the dungeon the army isn’t currently investigating and hope to go undetected, or risk it all and try to rob the authorities of all their spoils. 

The party is confronted with a group of commoners and lay priests wielding cudgels and other simple weapons, collecting “tolls” on a road into a major settlement. These shakedown artists claim their mission is holy, as any “donations” they collect go towards the completion of a grand temple in the vicinity. Investigation on the player’s part reveals that construction stopped years ago after ducal funds were suddenly cut off, leading the artisans and head of faith in a complete lurch. The skeleton crew tasked with guarding the large, half finished complex describes that some kind of creature has come to live in the unfinished structure, and could our heroes be so kind as to help clear them out? 

Then the dragon attacks begin, wild and erratic: First a raid on a cattlefield where it gorged itself in grisly fashion, then rampaging over an isolated mining town, forcing an evacuation.  The party gets an up close and personal view of this when visiting a local temple (perhaps to collect their rewards from the previous quest) and the golden-scaled wyrm dropps out of the sky, scorches a few parishioners with its greenish firebreath, and then proceeds to tearing up the foundations as if looking for something. The party is beneith the dragon’s notice at the moment, and are likely to receive a bone-breaking tail swat or a flesh charring snort for their trouble as the beast roots around the undercroft. If they make a real nuisance of themselves,  the dragon will take one of them hostage, and force the others to go down into the crypts to recover for it a particular set of bones. If questioned, the creature will answer any and all questions with some variation of “ This is not of my willing, Blame Halfeaten Henrik for this suffering.”

Setup: Henrik never wanted to be a villain, he never even wanted to be in charge of anything, all he ever really wanted was to prove he was more than a dabbler in the arcane arts and study under one of the kingdom’s greatest magical practitioners. Said practitioner happened to be one Albrairt the All-grasping, the sort of mage for whom fancy words like “hubris” and “mission creep” were invented, 

Albrairt had been hired by the Duchess to devise a means of protecting her realm from magical beasts and rather than stick with anything tried and true, he leveraged his patron’s fear of monsters into building him his own research facility stocked with the very best of what the ducal coffers could offer. 

While the facility contained multiple projects at any one time ( and a whole menagerie of dangerous test specimens), Albrarit was fixated on the idea of asserting his will over the most powerful of beasts, and focused his endeavors on a captured dragon by the name of Phyris-Sul who he endlessly tormented with spells intended to deceive the senses and break the mind. 

Henrik was one of the poor apprentices assigned to care for and guard this psychologically tormented dragon, and earned his “half eaten” moniker after Phyrius-Sul  bit off both of his legs while trying to escape from his cage. Albrairt fashioned a pair of arcane prosthesis to keep his apprentice useful, but made sure Henrik knew that if he decided to quit the project, he’d be leaving his new legs behind. Henrik’s rotten luck continued on for years, up until the dragon inevitably broke lose again and ending up killing Albrarit in it’s biggest rampage yet. 

Desperate to protect himself against the dragon seeking vengence against anyone who had kept it captive over the years, Henrik through together scraps of five or six of his master’s failed spells and managed to bring Phyrius-Sul to a halt. Now one of the only survivors of the research facility and the last of Albrairt’s apprentices, Henrik is faced with a new set of issues: Namely that he has a VERY angry dragon at the end of a mostly notional leash, and has no idea how exactly he got the binding spell to work in the first place. Phyrius-Sul isn’t being very helpful, as the magic seems to compel him to follow Henrik’s commands in only the loosest sense, while allowing him enough free will to constantly threaten and demean Henrik at every turn. 

Further Adventures: 

Stuck between trying to manage his incredibly dangerous captive and pull anything useful out of Albrairt’s research notes, Henrik has fallen into a spiral of rash action and overcorrection, terrified that at any moment the magic will fade and the dragon will finish devouring him and then turn on the greater countryside ( as he has threatened to do multiple times). To that end, the apprentice is taking extreme action in expanding Albrairt’s work, while at the same time giving Phyrius-Sul very specific instructions not to hurt anyone that the dragon seems to take great pleasure in subverting at every opportunity. 

Duchess Telenna has been seeing dragons in her nightmares ever since she was a little girl, having survived a drake attack on her family’s hunting lodge that spared few others. It was this fear that Albrairt exploited to fund his research, preying on her deepest anxieties just in the same way he had with Henrik. Now with an ACUTAL dragon on the lose and with years of the mage’s whispers stoking her greatest fears, the Duchess has gone into full isolation, Barricading her court in the innermost keep of her strongest fortress and promising incredible bounties to any hunter capable of taking down the beast. The party may need to speak to Tellenna for a mission, but doing so might require them to go dragonhunting or sneak into an impregnable bastion just to have a conversation. 

While the dragon was Albrairt’s primary test subject, his facility contained all manner of dangerous monster, which scattered to the wind after their menagerie was destroyed. 

Saying that Phyrius-Sul is a monster might be reductive (he is after all a dragon), but neither his captivity nor his nature as an apex carnivore cannot account for the joy he takes in petty cruelty. Phyrius-Sul gave Henrik his “halfeaten” moniker and popularized it’s use around the research facility, singling him out as the weak-link in the facility’s staff and the source of their every blunder. The dragon did this mainly to amuse himself during his long captivity, as there was little joy to be had down in the depths. After breaking free and killing most of his captors however, Phyrius-Sul saw the opportunity for a new game when he realized his favorite chewtoy had managed to survive.  The dragon, you see, is only pretending to be under any sort of magical influence, and is deluding Henrik into thinking he has any control over when the dragon might eat him. The desperate apprentice is now the prisoner, kept in a cage of his own mortal terror and guilt, chasing Albrairt’s hairbrained formulations in the hopes of finding some kind of solution. Phyrius-Sul has resolved to keep the game up for as long as possible, let Henrik steep in utter terror for as long as possible and only finish eating him once the little morsel has realized that he never had any hope in the first place. 

 Hope for the party may lay in the skeleton Phyrius-Sul had them steal, as they happened to belong to a sage named Speaker Myeong, who in life was purported to be able to command things alive or inanimate with the force of her rhetoric alone. Henrik had his dragon collect the Speaker’s bones in the hopes of summoning her spirit to learn of her art, but Meyong has infact already returned from the afterlife with the intent of haunting the SHIT out of whoever defiled her grave. After two or three ghostly visitations, Meyong will discover the truth about who exactly stole her body and begin feeding the party information on Henrik’s plans and whereabouts. Perhaps if she helps these idiots resolve this situation she’ll be able to get back to the afterlife and continue the multi-decades long debate she’d been having with several other learned masters. 

[ohmeshedxfilms]

79/100 - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

Disgraced financial reporter Mikael Blomkvist finds a chance to redeem his honor after being hired by wealthy Swedish industrialist Henrik Vanger to solve the 40-year-old murder of Vanger's niece, Harriet. Vanger believes that Harriet was killed by a member of his own family. Eventually joining Blomkvist on his dangerous quest for the truth is Lisbeth Salander, an unusual but ingenious investigator whose fragile trust is not easily won.

Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery

[laureviewer]

Dragons Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age—A Review

WARNING: (not full) spoilers below.

‘We did it darliiiings!’

That’s what I cried, a-la the Great Sylvando, once I finished this game. 112 hours in, and all the way through it showed no signs of slowing. Which, for a shameless JRPG-lover like myself, is exactly what I want in a game. Hours and hours of combat, exploration through stunning scenery, empathetic and deep characters and, most importantly, a completely immersive and entertaining story that I can’t wait to see the climax—but, crucially, I can.

The Chosen One

The story begins in Erdrea, where monsters have invaded the fantastical world—why, we’re not quite sure. All we know, as the infant protagonist, is that we are found washed up on the riverbank by a kindly old man named Chalky, who takes us to his village and gives us to our adoptive mother, Amber.

And, guess what? He’s the Chosen One—the Luminary. You’d have thought our hero would have realised something was different about him with the presence of a very specific birthmark tattooed on the back of his hand, but he and his childhood friend Gemma do come from a sheltered town with very little knowledge of the outside world, after all. True to form for a lot of adventure games, he’s the only one who can save the world. After finding this out in a coming-of-age ceremony a few years later, Amber tells him to go to King Carnelian of Heliodor, who is sure to help him understand what all this means. Right?

If our silent protagonist could talk, this is where he would be screaming, ‘I’m not the Darkspawn!’ as King Carnelian throws him in the dungeon. But thank Yggdrasil he did, or we wouldn’t meet our first companion in our band of loveable misfits.

The Power of Friendship

I’m still unsure why, after so many hours of gameplay, why Erik endears himself the most to me, but he does. Sure, he’s the first one you meet, and you team up to escape the dungeon (running from a giant dragon along the way!), but he’s also a dishonest thief. Throughout the game, you never quite know if he’s in it for himself or to help you save the world. I’ve concluded that he’s actually doing it for you, and your budding bromance…or, at least, that’s my own head cannon. He’s misunderstood. His cutting sarcasm is welcome in a story of overly keen optimists (see: Sylvando). And he’s who the hero seems to look at whenever there’s a sweet, sentimental moment in the story, cementing their true friendship.

Or, maybe it’s because Akira Toriyama drew these characters, and his colourful hair and spunky attitude remind me of my childhood DBZ crush, Trunks. Either way, I’m Team Erik, with his knife-wielding, quick-thinking style of fighting, all the way. My only gripe is that his damage wasn’t that great for me until endgame, unfortunately.

Even though we don’t meet Sylvando until later, it seems that my mind demands he be the next to discuss—much like Sylvando demands much of the attention within the game. We first meet him at the circus, where he is a beloved performer. His quest is to make the people of the world smile—a noble endeavour in a world where the Dark One is coming to rid the world of happiness for good. He is the absolute epitome of flamboyance: he calls your band of companions ‘darlings’; he has a half-naked ship captain with bulging muscles and a pink face mask called Dave, of all things; and he even leads a peacock-feathered parade at a certain point in the game, which the hero must cheerily join in, feathers and sassy sway absolutely necessary.

And yet, he doesn’t simply function as comic relief. He is brave, charming, sympathetic, and quite often the heart of the group. He is always the one to ask if a character is okay, or if they need help, and has conviction that only Henrik, our resident knight in shining armour, would rival. Plus, he’s fantastic with a whip (because of course he is) and has some fabulous healing moves that have saved me more than once in a tough fight. The group would be nothing without Sylvando—and he absolutely knows it!

Veronica & Serena serve as our other characters who are bound by destiny. They are Keepers, born to protect aid the Luminary on his quest. As twins, you’d expect them to look the same…but, after an encounter with monsters, Veronica was turned into a child, and is stuck that way. As an offensive mage who hates being treated like a child, she serves as the brash one of the group, quick to anger, much like her fiery spells.

Serena, on the other hand, serves as the yin to Veronica’s yang. She is temperate and always willing to help, if somewhat hapless. The primary healer of the group, she excels in restorative and defensive magic, and has a harp to while away the less hopeful days. As a pair, these two are steadfast, loyal, and…to be honest, aren’t much more interesting than that, unless Veronica is being goaded into an argument.

Until the later game, anyway. I won’t spoil that here, but will just say I underestimated both their spell casting abilities and their importance in the story. 

You know how the hero is the Chosen One, the Luminary and the absolute saviour of the world? Well, he also happens to be a Prince of Dundrasil. Had the fates been kinder, he might have been brought up in a huge castle, with loving royal family around to raise and guide him.

Rab, a fierce, playful and wise old man (with a banging Scottish accent) is ready to heal, attack with offensive magic, and guide our hero around the expansive world. And, as we find out after defeating him and his sexy companion in a battle competition in Octagonia (see: Jade), he is also grandfather to our hero, and thus a Lord of Dundrasil himself. He may seem old, but not only does he have royal blood, but he is a capable spell-caster and martial artist, making it apparent that he is one of the most capable companions in the game. If I were to ask anyone for advice, knowing that he would neither mince his words nor omit anything important, I would go to Rab.

You know what any game directed at kids needs? That’s right, a sexy warrior princess that you can stick in a bunny costume for most of the game. Even if you choose not to do that, her combat outfit doesn’t leave much to the imagination.

Thankfully, Jade isn’t just eye-candy. She has far more going for her. She’s a Princess of Heliodor, the hero’s childhood companion who lost him as a baby. She just wants to find him, her younger brother figure (sadly), and help him fulfil his destiny. Plus, as a battle and spear fighter, she has some of the strongest moves in the game—albeit mostly from her sexy, love-based moves such as ‘Hip Thrust’ and ‘Sexy Beam’, only comparable with Sylvando’s equally as sexy and flamboyant ‘Lashings of Love’ and ‘That’s Amore’ moves. She’s a badass bitch who takes no crap from lovestruck men or monsters.

Though, she has her very own Princess Leia moment, where she is captured by a horrific, giant, evil and ugly monster and made to wear a sexy outfit (hey, there’s that bunny girl outfit again). It is heavily implied she has been under his mind control, and that he’s been having his ‘wicked way’ with her. Good thing she comes out of it with sexy vampire powers, isn’t it?

HEAVY SPOILERS NOW. I warn you, don’t go any further if you care about that kind of thing.

Our final companion is one who doesn’t show up until late game. Sir Henrik, a Knight of Heliodor, is the hero we all need. He defends his ruler to the last (which, spoiler alert, nearly ended up being his fatal flaw), is willing to sacrifice himself for the good of all, and defends the weak: a true knight, with chivalry, bravery, and total care for all others. It’s a shame he hated the hero for the first half of the game, really.

But do I care about that? No, I care that his greatsword abilities make him an absolute tank. On a one-on-one fight, I needed him front and centre of every battle just for his incredible damage output. Against multiple enemies, he is less useful, but with his supplementary healing and defence skills, he isn’t just an attacker, but a true defender of the people to the last.  

Calm it with the Combat

My god, this game has a lot of battles. While that’s expected for a turn-based JRPG, and there were a lot, unlike others such as Pokémon, you can choose which battles to avoid as the figures traverse the overworld. This is useful in such a slow-burning game, and also helps you find the monsters you want—again, a definite improvement on the way Pokémon works, as it saves you having to fight hundreds of creatures you don’t want to find the ones with the best EXP.

A notable exception to this is when you have to find and defeat a rare monster for a quest, which don’t traverse the overworld. This means you have to fight potentially hundreds of more common monsters to find the one you want, which can be frustrating, especially as it is all done on chance and not on how many you have defeated. While you can increase your chances with various items or equipment, it still adds a frustrating amount of time to an already long game.

Another vague annoyance is how much harder the game gets post-game. I actually did not have an issue with this, as a friend told me how to farm the elusive and high-EXP metal slimes using a particular Hero-Erik-Jade Pep Power and so I could use this ability throughout post-game. However, for those not in the know, the potentially grinding at the end of the game may put some people off finishing an already saturated game.

What I loved about the combat was how it kept getting harder and harder. I never worried about over-levelling (as said above, I was more worried about being under levelled) and that meant I could do what I do best: do all side-quests before the end of the main story. In other JRPGs, the completionist in me has always made me want to do all side-quests, but this has meant the final boss has been underwhelming and easier than it should be.

The variation of powers and attacks was also really interesting. You can spec into different forms of fighting for each character—I went for Swords with the hero, Whips for Sylvando, Boomerangs with Erik (after using Daggers for most of the game), Heavy Wands for Rab and Veronica, Wands for Serena, Spears for Jade, and Greatswords for Henrik—and this makes all the combinations of them in the party very cool. I normally just controlled the hero during the fights and let the others fight wisely, unless there was a specific quest to fulfil or a particularly hard boss. Not only did this speed up combat, but it also helped me to learn which of their moves were the most effective against which monsters automatically and quickly, which was easier than picking moves and trying them out myself. It’s easy, with enough gold, to respec if you like, and this I’m sure could make the game fee different every time if you wanted to play with different specs.

Pep powers were also a lot of fun. While it was sometimes annoying waiting for some or all of the characters to pep up and therefore use these moves that combine different characters’ moves for ‘Ultimate’ attacks, they provided fun cutscenes and made the battles more interesting. Plus, they reminded me a lot of DBZ moves, especially the epic ones with the hero and Rab!

Top tip: you can swap out characters and they will keep their pepped-up status. I wish I’d known about that a lot earlier!

The monster designs are great, as per usual Akira Toriyama style. There are lots of different kinds, from slimes, to mechs, to really weird ones like the kissy lip monster and the Bongo Drongos. The bosses are also amazing. Just all the character designs, from human to monster, to anything else. I see a lot of DBZ in all of them, which is fantastic.

You know what? Here’s some pictures. You’re welcome.

Mini Games & Challenges: Hey, I actually want to do these!

I often have issues with mini games, as sometimes they are so different from the main game that I just don’t want to spend time playing them. Gwent in another of my favourite games, The Witcher 3 is a good example: I never really learnt the rules, which I’m sure would have helped, but it was so detached from the main game I just didn’t care. Plus, it had no effect on the story or game at large, so what was the point?

In DQ11, sure, you don’t need to rack up 500,000 casino tokens in poker or the slots to buy better gear. You don’t have to finish first in all five Gallopolis horse races. Forging items isn’t totally needed to advance the game. It’s not necessary to win all five rounds of the Wheel of Harma in a certain number of moves (though this is much more like the rest of the game than the other mini games). But I did all of these, and it was great fun. It’s what’s helped make the game such a time suck (especially the casino) but I never felt like they were a chore.

Apart from the crossbow bullseyes. I did none of them as apparently I only noticed about three out of however many there are. They can suck my Sword of Light.  

 What’s a good JRPG without me questioning the point of life after it’s over?

JRPGs do it best—fight me.

The story of DQ11 is immersive, interesting, intricate and, at times, incredibly heart-breaking. Following the hero and his friends for over 100 hours really means you get to dive into their adventure, and more so, their relationships. You truly believe why they have chosen to follow each other into danger, to protect each other as well as the world. Sure, he’s the Luminary, so Serena & Veronica, the Luminary’s guides, at least have a reason to follow him to the end. The fact he’s the Luminary at may mean the characters have more faith in him than they would anyone else without lightning powers. But, even without that, you get the impression that they trust him for his innocent and yet resolute determination to do the right thing, whatever the cost.

The NPCs in the game also provide variety and are a lot of fun. There’s a lovesick mermaid, a brilliantly incompetent prince, two brothers in Laguna di Gondolia who are trying to sell the same things to you for different prices, and Silvando’s Smile Brigade, to name just a few. Their backstories, personalities and current stories all bring life to a game already chock full of it, and makes even simple fetch quests interesting and well worth doing, if you value a good story like I do. These little touches explain why the game clocks in at well over 100+ hours, but at the same time gives true justification to why that is. It’s the difference between a boring game, and one I loved to turn on and just relax of an evening. I might not have done all that much in three hours, but I still enjoyed every minute.

With everything considered, I will remember DQ11 fondly as one of my favourite JRPGs to date. The storyline, characters, combat and score are all fantastic and makes me wish I played the older games. Thank you, Dragon Quest, for giving me 112 hours of fun. 

[lostitgeorgemeade]

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Some of the moral and ethical issues in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo are straightforward: Nazism = bad; murder, rape, torture, physical abuse = bad; global financial fraud and organised crime.

Disgraced financial reporter Mikael Blomkvist finds a chance to redeem his honor after being hired by wealthy Swedish industrialist Henrik Vanger to solve the 40-year-old murder of Vanger's niece, Harriet. Vanger believes that Harriet was killed by a member of his own family. Eventually joining Blomkvist on his dangerous quest for the truth is Lisbeth Salander, an unusual but ingenious investigator whose fragile trust is not easily won.

[jorius-and-co]

Session 4: Vallaki

This session began with our heroes changing their watch in the Blue Water Inn in Vallaki -- Eda is on watch at midnight when a storm blows in, waking Bavirim. Everyone else just rolls over in their sleep. Bavirim is trying to get back to sleep when he looks out the window; in a flash of lightning, the figure of Strahd is illuminated in the pouring rain outside. With a harsh laugh, Strahd blows the windows of the Inn open, and a swarm of bats rushes in. Strahd can’t enter without invitation, but is keen to annoy our heroes and prove they aren’t safe anywhere from his harassment. 

Our heroes eliminate the bats with some difficulty -- Jorius is half asleep and fails to cast Ray of Frost, and Mir tries to fling a bat out the window but it flies right back inside. 

Eventually, they are left in a room covered in dead bats and with broken windows, and they decamp to the other room. This sets off the alarm that they had set earlier, which brings Urwin to the top of the stairs to figure out what’s going on. He gets serious: if our heroes are enemies of Strahd, he is willing to help, but he can’t have his Inn being targeted. They still don’t tell him everything but he is at least convinced that they are enemies of Strahd and he reluctantly lets the stay the night. 

The rest of their night passes uneventfully (they maintain a watch), and they achieve a short rest. Up at 11am (Mir: “This Tavern does a great fantasy brunch”), they discuss what to do about their situation. They feel it’s untenable to stay at the Inn until they’ve completed Urwin’s wine quest, but Ireena pipes up to ask them if they intend to fulfill their promise to her and Ismark. They speak to Urwin again (Bavirim: “We’re sorry for the mess; we threw all the bats out the window”), and he allows them to stay in the Inn after they promise that they will undertake the winery quest on his behalf (Urwin seems less concerned by the fact that his son is missing -- this is because he has other folk searching already).

They decide to finish the mystery of the bones, and try to figure out who the mysterious nobleman is. They visit the shop of Henrik van der Voort, the coffin maker, which is shuttered up. Their plan is to have Mir pretend to be someone who wants to buy a coffin. Henrik isn’t interested, even when Mir shouts up that he’s “in need of some coffins” and that his wife and child are dead. He finally persuades Henrik to open the door, but doesn’t get very far. Henrik asks what he wants, and when Mir says, “I’ll have two coffins, please,” Henrik tells him to come back tomorrow when they’re complete and shuts the door in his face. 

Bavirim wants to break in and rough the guy up, but Eda and Jorius resist. Jorius has a flash of inspiration and insists that they are going about this all wrong: they know that the mysterious nobleman had something to do with the theft of the bones -- why not pretend to be an agent of this nobleman, come to collect? Jorius refuses to let Mir try again, so Bavirim hides his weapons and pulls his hat down low and knocks on the door again. He successfully persuades Henrik to come down and let him in. WIth more persuasion (Bavirim was a high roller), Henrik tells him where the bones are and eventually how to collect them. He also tells them that there is a nest of vampire spawn in the next room, but that they won’t be disturbed as long as you don’t go into the room. He also asks Bavirim to relay to Vasili that he’s done his job, and to remember his promise for good business and to get the vampires out of his house. 

Bavirim rushes out with the bones and they all collect Ireena and Ismark at the Inn and rush over to the church, where the bones are put in their proper place and the church is now hallowed ground again. Everyone rejoices, Ireena agrees to stay at the church as long as they promise to take her to the Abbey later. Ismark stays with Ireena for the time being. 

It’s after midday now, and they all debate what to do next. They decide the winery is too far away (they can’t get there before dusk), so they wander around the town to explore further. They pass the Burgomaster’s mansion, where they stop a servant coming out of the house and learn about the Festival of the Blazing Sun: it’s taking place the following day, and there will be a procession and a ceremonial burning of a giant wicker sun. 

Then they visit Blinsky’s shop, and learn about the creepy Ireena dolls and Izek Strazni with his crippled arm: he makes a new doll every month to the same pattern and Izek comes to collect them. If Blinksy doesn’t make the dolls, then Izek has threatened to destroy his shop.  Everyone is convinced that a) the toys here are 100% cursed, and b) that Izek is important in some way. Mir, surprisingly, is the only one who expresses pity for the toymaker. 

They pass the Wachterhaus and stop a passerby to learn that it’s the home of Lady Fiona Wachter. They remember the mention of the Wachter brothers from the day prior, but they decide not to go in until they have a reason to talk to them or to Lady Fiona. 

They stay in the church that night, on hallowed ground, and get a long rest. 

Their third day in Vallaki, they decide to stay in town to see the Festival of the Blazing Sun, and in the crowded town square they witness the humiliation of the Burgomaster and the guard locked into the stocks. At this point a stranger covered in blood comes running into the crowd screaming for help, that something has attacked the church. 

Our heroes scramble out of the crowds and rush over to the church, where they witness the devastation taking place. Ireena and Ismark are standing a distance away, and watching in horror as several vampire spawn crawl the walls of the church, killing everyone in their path. They explain that someone must have stolen the bones again: none of them were on watch, assuming they were safe, and by the time they realized, it was too late. They lost Father Lucien in the Church and he is nowhere to be found. They all watch in shock for a bit, but all agree that it would be foolish to get into this fight, so they run back to the Inn, the only place where they might find shelter. 

The Inn is barricaded shut, but ravens line the roof. Eda tries to speak with one, and it flies down and turns into a human: Urwin’s wife. They persuade her that they’re all on the same side and she brings them inside, where they talk to Urwin. He’s still not sure if he can trust them, but he knows that enemies of Strahd are friends of his, and he promises them protection and a place to stay if they can deal with the Wizard of Wines situation. But for now, they need to get out of town. His ravens will watch from afar and provide protection as needed. 

They immediately leave for the winery, leaving Ismark and Ireena at the Inn for safekeeping, worried that they’ll just get in the way. Mir, astute as always, calls this “the road to Marovia.” 

On said road, they run into a wraith-like soldier, strangely inhuman who claims he is from the Order of the Silver Dragon. He is forgetful and easy to rile, but only interested in killing Strahd’s minions. He explains that he is under oath, and encourages the party to visit Argynvostholt. Eda/Jorius recall the lore necessary to identify this man as a Revenant, an undead creature who dies violently and whose spirit returns to its body seeking revenge. 

They see a giant spooky house on the road to the winery. 

At the winery, Davian Martikov and his family appear out of the woods (Jorius: “Hey, buddy!”), and they wave the party over and explain what’s going on: three evil druids have taken over the winery. He also explains some history of the winery. Basically, way back before anyone remembers, a wizard came here with three magic gems which he planted in the ground, making it fertile and lush. They’ve been growing grapes with this magic ever since. But 10 years ago, the first gem was stolen (Davian blames Urwin for the loss). Just three weeks ago, another gem was taken (NB: I didn’t explain this but should have: Davian believes the 2nd gem was stolen by Baba Lysaga. Five days ago, the druids came back for the final gem, carrying it away to Yester Hill, and they returned with their blights to take over the winery).  

Davian urges the party to return the gems to the winery if they can. But for now they need to deal with the immediate druid problem. 

Bavirim immediately makes two malatov cocktails with empty bottles and rags he finds in a storeroom, and they begin to methodically explore the winery. They almost immediately run into the first druid in the fermentation room, with her twig blights. Jorius’ magic missile almost immediately wipes out the twig blights, and Bavirim teleports to behind the druid on the balcony and stabs her in the neck. The druid casts thunderwave, and Bav takes tons of damage as he’s thrown from the balcony. Eventually the druid casts entangle, and Jorius and Mir are trapped (they’re both shouting at Eda, “SHOOT HER!”). Eda does shoot her, right between the eyes, killing her immediately. 

Alone in the room, they try to heal Bavirim a bit. Jorius tries to use the rock of healing but it fails and basically just throws a rock at Bavirim’s face. Mir casts healing word. 

Mir breaks the lock to the veranda with his dwarven credit card easily, but there’s nothing there. 

Jorius searches the druid’s body and discovers the poison. Bavirim immediately fills an empty bottle with poison wine to carry around... just in case. Eda uses her purify food and drink scroll on the wine. 

Exploring further, they encounter the second druid in the printing room. Jorius surprises the druid and the vine blights with Ice Knife. Bavirim stabs the second druid to death fairly quickly, but the vine blights prove more of a challenge: both Eda and Mir are constricted by the injured blights and take damage. 

In the guest rooms, Mir rifles through some lockers and takes the flaming horse toy he finds. Jorius thinks this is mean. 

They now go down to the cellar, where they are sure they’ll find the third druid. Mir and Bavirim successfully stealth their way to the foot of the staircase, but don’t perceive much in the room. Bavirim fails a stealth check as he goes further into the cellar, and their cover is blown. The final druid casts thunderwave, which doesn’t reach them but bursts 20 wine bottles with a deafening crash and five needle blights come swarming out. Bavirim chucks his unlit molotov cocktail bottles at the blights and succeeds in covering them with oil. He then casts prestidigitation to light the blights on fire (we use bonfire as a guide to damage). All take some damage. One of the needles stabs Jorius and does some serious damage. Mir casts bardic inspiration on Jorius, and after the druid casts thunderwave again, Bavirim and Jorius are both hurting. Bavirim, also direly injured, finally kills the druid and falls over in a faint. After the needle blights are eliminated, Jorius goes over to the druid and recovers the Gulthias Staff. 

When we end, the party is debating how/if to use the Gulthias staff and plans to return with the wine to the Blue Water Inn. They have leveled up to 5. 

[lostitabigailweston]

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Disgraced financial reporter Mikael Blomkvist finds a chance to redeem his honor after being hired by wealthy Swedish industrialist Henrik Vanger to solve the 40-year-old murder of Vanger's niece, Harriet. Vanger believes that Harriet was killed by a member of his own family. Eventually joining Blomkvist on his dangerous quest for the truth is Lisbeth Salander, an unusual but ingenious investigator whose fragile trust is not easily won.

The most important themes are friendship, morality and ethnics, family, sex, violence, isolation, memories of the past, justice and judgment, and technology and modernization.

[camus-love-circle]

Repost

グレカミュ Henrik 💜💙

[lostitaspenbloomfield]

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was written by Stieg Larsson and was written in 2005 in sweedish but was released in english in 2008. The themes in this book are Nazism, murder, rape, torture, physical abuse, global financial fraud and organised crime.

Disgraced financial reporter Mikael Blomkvist finds a chance to redeem his honor after being hired by wealthy Swedish industrialist Henrik Vanger to solve the 40-year-old murder of Vanger’s niece, Harriet. Vanger believes that Harriet was killed by a member of his own family. Eventually joining Blomkvist on his dangerous quest for the truth is Lisbeth Salander, an unusual but ingenious investigator whose fragile trust is not easily won.

[lostitrileyanderson]

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Disgraced financial reporter Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) finds a chance to redeem his honor after being hired by wealthy Swedish industrialist Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer) to solve the 40-year-old murder of Vanger's niece, Harriet. Vanger believes that Harriet was killed by a member of his own family. Eventually joining Blomkvist on his dangerous quest for the truth is Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), an unusual but ingenious investigator whose fragile trust is not easily won.

[slimkhezri]

📺🎞 #LateNightCinema Watching “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”, a 2011 psychological crime thriller film based on the 2005 novel of the same name by Stieg Larsson. This film adaptation was directed by David Fincher and written by Steven Zaillian. Starring Daniel Craig as journalist Mikael Blomkvist and Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander, it tells the story of a disgraced financial reporter Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) finds a chance to redeem his honor after being hired by wealthy Swedish industrialist Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer) to solve the 40-year-old murder of Vanger's niece, Harriet. Vanger believes that Harriet was killed by a member of his own family. Eventually joining Blomkvist on his dangerous quest for the truth is Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), an unusual but ingenious investigator whose fragile trust is not easily won. #film #drama #psychologicalthriller #thegirlwiththedragontattoo #danielcraig #davidfincher #rooneymara #sexy #movie #christopherplummer #watchingmovie #movienight (at Los Angeles, California) https://www.instagram.com/p/B0vPYqHnMsl/?igshid=bn481d1uhx80

[lostkeiana]

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

2011 ‧ Mystery/Crime ‧ 2h 38m

Disgraced financial reporter Mikael Blomkvist finds a chance to redeem his honor after being hired by wealthy Swedish industrialist Henrik Vanger  to solve the 40-year-old murder of Vanger's niece, Harriet. Vanger believes that Harriet was killed by a member of his own family. Eventually joining Blomkvist on his dangerous quest for the truth is Lisbeth Salander, an unusual but ingenious investigator whose fragile trust is not easily won.