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ravenloftbythelamplight · 2 years

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Well luckily for you I am now awake and thereby now able to try and explain! I’m gonna try and keep this as structured and coherent as possible, but I am very liable to ramble my way into a word salad so apologies in advance if this becomes unreadable a paragraph or two in. Brace yourself because this is gonna be long.

So, first things first, in order to explain what the fuck is happening in that meme drawing, I have to explain how my brain eventually made its way to this bizarre conclusion because yes that process of going from thought to thought does have significance here.

Flashback to however many months ago: I had speed-read through VRGR several times over and was mindlessly, non-literally hungry to non-literally consume more Ravenloft lore. I went to TV Tropes because I do that on occasion and the idea of digging through a whole wiki felt intimating at the time. I only skimmed through the bits I was interested in (i.e. the pages on the darklords) but one thing on the main page caught my eye:

Now for weirdly personal context: in ninth grade at my high school we did a whole section in English class all about Edgar Allen Poe and one of the things we had to read was The Masque of the Red Death. As an end-of-section project one of our options was to make a short graphic novel (of sorts) out of one of ol’ Poe’s writings, and I picked masque of the Red Death because it was the one I liked the most. I made a design for the Red Death based on the description given for the uninvited guest and said design was something I really liked, and even after that section of class was thoroughly done with, I kept drawing it anyway because I just really dug that design I made. Slight aside but actually, funnily enough, I at one point about two years ago had an idea for a story that where I smooshed all the gothic horror lit. stories into one universe (fun fact: the franken-lad NPC in the middle from this post of sketches is a carry-over from this story idea! That’s it’s own whole text post though so I’ll leave it at that), and because I wanted to use that Red Death design for something, I put it into that story as an overarching, looming presence... which is an exceptionally funny thing in hindsight, now knowing that the Gothic Earth spin-off is a thing.

So, with that personal context you can imagine the degree of eyes emoji but slightly blurry to indicate rapid movement I was to see something in reference to the Red Death (and a mashing-together of gothic lit.) so of course I wanted to know more. I wanted to know more, but then I got hung up on that last bit: “..., and Word of God has described the Red Death as an ‘exiled’ Dark Power from the Demiplane of Dread.” “exiled”- that word choice, that one word, fucked me up and I have friends who can attest to that because there is evidence of my wild text-yelling about this on Discord, most of which boiled down to two questions: 1.) Is dissension amongst the ranks of unknowable, cosmic nightmare forces even a thing that can happen? and 2.) If so, then why and how was the Red Death exiled in the first place? What did it do? Those questions can be considered more thuroughly another day though.

Here’s where our detour ends and we finally make our way back onto the main route of this whole post: Saidra. In the section on Saidra in VRGR it is stated several times that she will, when not hosting lavish and decadent balls, shed her elaborate garb and haunt the streets of Dementlieu as a murderous spirit known as the Red Death.

You can probably see the direction in which this is going.

Saidra’s story in official 5e is a fairly simple tossing-into-a-blender of Cinderella and The Masque of the Red Death and nothing much else beyond Dementlieu itself ... but what if there was more. As my mind is wont to do, I connected dots that had no need to be connected in the slightest and went “OKAY BUT HEAR ME OUT-” and decided that it’d be kinda cool if there was a connection between Saidra and the Red Death of the Gothic Earth spin-off. Now we’re finally at the explanation of the meme image.

For my partial “my city now”-ing of lore and thereby my campaign, I’ve decided on the following points:

I’ve changed Saidra’s backstory somewhat; in the broad strokes it’s the same as the official one, but of the changes I made the most notable for this post is that her powers and her “darklord” (and that’s in quotes for a reason) status stem from and are due to the influence and interference of the exiled Red Death. It is, functionally, her warlock patron. The plague that swept the ball she was at was not a random occurrence and it wasn’t the Dark Powers either, it came as a result of the willing Faustian pact she made as did her death and return as a wraith-like being.

Throughout this whole thing I have yet to even mention the grandfather clock in the back. That is the vessel through which the Red Death was able to reach into the domains and make a pact with Saidra in the first place, hence the intended ominousness in the drawing. There’s an unrelated reason as to how it was even able to do so without being kicked back out into the infinite multiverse which can be summed up simply with, “Once again Azalin has fucked up everything for everyone and also himself” (a whole post in it of itself). The clock is currently hidden within Saidra’s estate and yes organic tissue has amassed around it.

Speaking of which, you may be wondering what the fuck is up with all the flesh ‘n bones ‘n stuff. That is because for some reason I wanted to give the Red Death a visual association with flesh and organic bodily material. Why? I really don’t know, I just thought it’d be a neat contrast to the immaterial, shadow visual associations of the Dark Powers. So Saidra, as a result, has the power to twist and mold flesh and bone to her will, hence the gross muscle-claw-hand; the two lines coming down along her arm is the skin unraveling like a ribbon (EUGH--). Also, now instead of just casting a regular ol’ disintegrate... you get melted. Like, “Good day to you sir you are now a puddle of viscera on the shiny tile floor” melted. Also there’s minions made of flesh and bone and teeth and eyes. It’s all very body horror. She might make a flesh-throne for herself later but we’ll get to that whenever.

If you’re wondering how she even has flesh to rend like in the picture if she’s still a spirit like in the official stuff... yes.

None of the darklords are aware of this all even being a thing, even Azalin (this has plot reasons). The Dark Powers haven’t done anything about this either (there are also reasons for this).

And that’s the basic bulk of what I have at the moment. So yeah that meme post is A Lot and I didn’t even get to how all of this ties into my campaign’s overarching plot! I also left a lot of points undiscussed because they could be posts in it of themselves! I have likely thought on these things far more than I should even as a GM--

In summary: ominous clock does not bode well and Dementlieu has gotten a lot more body horror-y. Both vampire and lich don’t know what the fuck is going on and neither of them are on board with this, meanwhile ghost lady is having a great time. That’s it that’s the meme.

#dm thoughts #ravenloft #gore mention #I am very happy to get to type this stuff out #explaining things helps me fix and put ideas together better so thank you #as you can tell I am a person who must connect dots no matter what #so yeah I arguably gave Saidra vast amounts of plot significance depending on where things in the campaign go #I will welcome questions about what the fuck I'm doing at any given time

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erindrifter · 1 year

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So, this weekend I’ve set up a meeting with some friends. These friends have all agreed to play DnD. I got a story up and running first, so I will be the first DM. This weekend is when they will build their characters.

There are four players, two of them are familiar with DnD, one of them I don’t know how familiar she is, and the other one has heard those letters in that order before. One of the ones who know what’s going on won’t be able to make it, so I’ll be getting his character later. The other three will be making their characters on Saturday, and getting the rules of the game explained.

Here’s the thing. One of the things I’m telling them is that while I have an outline for the pre-planned story, there are no rules. They are allowed to just abandon the story whenever they feel like it. Because here’s the thing that not a lot of people seem to understand about me...

I am a master at making things up on the spot. I have spent YEARS of my life at this. Almost everything I have done has led to me being a DM, in fact. I spent 5 years in a choir, learning control of my voice. I enjoy making environments and worlds. I make a backstory for everything I do. I don’t do things by half measures.

And, I can do all of that pretty fast. Now, it’s not the cleanest thing if I have to make it up on the spot, but if the players decide that they want to get the help of the local guards for the final battle, firstly, they’ll miss the final battle (it’s on a bit of a time sensitive schedule) and secondly, I can just have them discuss their plans as they walk to the nearest town with a proper guard presence while I draw up a rough sketch of the town and make some NPCs of note.

Thing is, they don’t know what they’re getting into. I’ve spent the last several days planning elements of this story in my head. I’ve planned several contingencies, and I look forward to them doing something I did not plan for. Only one of them has had a small taste of my improv skills, the rest don’t know. I’m going to tell them to do things creatively. Do things in an interesting way, and I will make the outcome just as interesting.

Hopefully though, they don’t end up leaving the town to get massacred by the final boss... That would be bad...

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thesumlax · 2 years

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Posting increasingly shittier-looking content once in a blue moon as usual, yay! Anyway, I`ve had enough dreams to assemble another page of these, and now I`ve got an opportunity to scan some haphazard sketches, so, as usual, top to bottom, left to right:

1) There was a some kind of page with six pictures of monsters, of which I only vaguely remembered two. This dream might have also taken place in the world of Monster Hunter - or not, the setting was in constant flux, sort of. Anyway, here on the right we have a "spotted bearshark" - nothing like a bear or a shark, really, and I`m not even sure if it was actually spotted, but it was probably blue. On the left is an "oceanic kitten" - some kind of swampy-green cat-penguin that couldn`t even walk, but was apparently a great flier, and a swarm of these scared away even the most powerful monsters and hunters alike. 2) All I know about these two is that they`re a cartoon protagonist duo. The buff lizard girl may be an amalgamation of several dream beings that I misremembered, IDK. 3) What my subconscious considers an elf, apparently. Not sure how his face is supposed to work, and I know absolutely nothing about his armor/clothing, but I remember him being a nice shade of pink. He was singlehandedly waging a revenge-motivated war against a race of "orcs" (they were called something else, but whatever, I forgot that word) - beings of similar body plan, but redder and pointier. They had a crippling weakness in that killing their sole queen would make them go extinct, so that elf better be stopped! 4) Now this was a rare one - an actual nightmare, kind of. I even submitted it to Bogleech`s Nightmare Menagerie 2021, so I`ll just copy my description from there: It starts as some sort of simple, 2D, probably pixel-art video game – which I guess I am playing, though I can`t see myself at the computer or anything, the game is the whole dream. Nonetheless, I associate myself with the player character – some sort of simple, unsegmented yellow worm with little eyespots – look at some terrestrial nemerteans and you get the picture. The only thing it can do is spit a little webbing or goo. It crawls through a winding, but completely linear corridor of brown dirt and equally brown (though sometimes not) ribs and skull interspersed through it (ostensibly human ones, though sometimes the skulls are just weird bone lumps with circular orifices). The only obstacles here are strange double-ended spikes that rotate in the middle of the corridor, which must be locked in a transverse position for the worm`s head to pass through them (the rest of the worm does not seem to be affected by the spikes). At the end (bottom?) of the corridor is a bigger pile of those weird bones, and puling it apart (with the worm`s webs, I suppose) reveals the monster. It`s another, bigger worm (exciting, I know) – this one is segmented, with either some markings on its back or the organs showing through skin. Something like a semi-transparent tapeworm with a planarian`s head. Now I (the player character worm) must run from it backwards through the corridor, and the only thing that can hurt it (not that there are any consequences to it later) are the rotating spikes locked in the same transverse position that allowed me to pass through them unharmed. Finally I emerge from a hole in the ground, and it`s now the “real life” – I`m somewhere at the highway near the place I grew up in (it`s a decent-sized village, or maybe a town by American standards, near the city of Barnaul, Russia), and also my mother is there. It still retains the aspects of game – apart from the fact I`m still the worm (now actually in first person), there are some characters I can only describe as videogame NPCs and I must navigate a short labyrinth of tiny walls in order to proceed (thankfully, a can crawl over the walls now that I`m 3D). The monster worm emerges soon after, scaring away the NPCs, but it`s much slower than me, so I flee through the village towards my parents` house. It`s placed differently from what I remember, and in place of the garage they`re building a new house – starting with a roof placed directly onto the foundations, so it must be lifted constantly to build the walls. Also all the neighbors are replaced with my relatives. I look for places to hide and eventually find one in the basement of the unfinished house, as the neighbor-relatives alert me that the enemy worm is approaching. From its back, it extends multiple noose-shaped tendrils of wispy cloud-like substance high into the sky, trying to locate me via electroreception. In the end, the weather grows cold and wet for some reason, and the monster worm is anticlimactically defeated by spraying it with water until it freezes and can be shattered into pieces. I get to keep its head, which is surprisingly snakelike, impaled onto a huge needle (I’m still a worm, though I managed to grow hands somewhere along the way apparently). 5) This is the oldest one here, and one I remember surprisingly well. This creature was an alien species hunted by humans for valuable pelts and chelicerae. It was huge and metallic in composition, and the humans were only allowed to use melee weapons, which was not a good time to say the least. Naturally, some people decided to do some poaching with a powerful armed drone... and were immediately arrested by a squad of even stronger police drones coming out of nowhere. It turns out the aliens had their own well-hidden civilization, and the individuals being hunted lost their minds due to a certain disease. This is because they need to consume "metallorganic embryos" sucked from some kind of massive superorganism, but there`s a deficit of those due to overpopulation, and that causes them to irreversibly turn into mindless feral animals. Fortunately, an artificial replacement can be made from human automobiles, so they arranged a deal with the human government. Apparently this species is fine with sick individuals being hunted like beasts, but only if it`s honorable melee.

#my art #sketches #dreams #creature design

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pixelgrotto · 3 years

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Saltmarsh stories

One more Dungeons & Dragons campaign comes to completion! For over a year and a half, I’ve been running Ghosts of Saltmarsh for my girlfriend and her best friend, and the pair of them finally finished last Saturday after 23 sessions and nearly 100 hours of playtime. We started playing in person December 2019 and had to move online in March due to COVID, and eventually my gf’s best friend moved out of town and then out of the country. But in spite of global transitions and pandemics, we still surmounted the odds and finished without missing a single month.

Since Ghosts of Saltmarsh was my gf’s introduction to D&D (minus a few games she played as a child), it took up quite a bit of space in my crusty Dungeon Master mental cave of planning. Luckily, I found it to be a very enjoyable campaign to run, mostly because as an anthology of classic adventures, it lacks the overly convoluted storyline that plagues a lot of other D&D fifth edition campaigns I’ve either played through or DMed, like Tomb of Annihilation, Out of the Abyss and Waterdeep: Dragon Heist.

Ghosts of Saltmarsh contains eight adventures united by their seaside themes. Three of them are updated versions of the classic U1-U3 Saltmarsh modules, which were among the first British D&D products produced from 1981 to ‘83. These three tales revolve around the players befriending local villagers and helping a lizardfolk tribe fight off invading sauhaugin, and they’re good, mostly as an example of early D&D material that required players to treat so-called “monstrous races” with diplomacy rather than violence. The other adventures are from old issues of Dungeon magazine, and run the gamut from a decent lighthouse dungeon crawl (Isle of the Abbey, from Dungeon #34) to a nifty survival horror-style ship romp (Salvage Operation, from Dungeon #123). Additionally, Ghosts of Saltmarsh contains rules for ship battles, which are good enough considering that D&D isn’t a naval combat simulator, and the book also devotes its first chapter to describing a great new version of the town of Saltmarsh to serve as a central hub.

I think Ghosts of Saltmarsh’s anthology format is my preferred style of D&D hardcover book at this point. Just give me a main town that I can detail and populate with my own NPCs, a bunch of adventures taking place around the vicinity that I can hack as necessary for my players, and I’m good. This format is also reflective of D&D’s early roots, where campaigns weren’t 250-page books with save-the-world plots, but short modules focused on building clout in a certain region and establishing a base. I think it’s also a very newbie-friendly format, since beginning players can really become invested in one central location and the people residing in it.

Since I was only running this game for two people, I had plenty of time to help the girls grow attached to Saltmarsh and its denizens. These consisted of several faces from my other games, including the very first D&D character I played as - a ranger who settled down in Saltmarsh as the head of the city guard and served as mentor for the next generation of adventurers. Other NPCs evolved depending on what I thought might make my gf and her friend laugh. For instance, Oceanus the sea elf, a Saltmarsh mascot since the '80s, started out as a surfer bro but eventually morphed into a douchebag/dingbat a la Schmidt from New Girl, which I started watching with my gf sometime over the course of 2020. And Captain Xendros, the tiefling owner of the local magic item store, was only supposed to be a minor shopkeeper until her sassy banter stole everyone’s heart, winning her a place as a major character by the end of the game.

I also gave the girls their very own house to decorate and return to in between missions, which was another fun ode to the older D&D roots that Ghosts of Saltmarsh embraces, but also a chance to insert Animal Crossing-style interior decoration into our campaign. My girlfriend clocked a staggering 300+ hours into Animal Crossing: New Horizons at the start of the pandemic, and seeing her and her friend derive great pleasure from using Roll20′s wonky drawing tools to sketch out every room of the house (and create a shrine in the bathroom with random bits of gold on the floor, no less) was stellar.

Aside from a house, the gals also received two animal companions - a pseudodragon and a shadow mastiff. The pseudodragon appears as a familiar that can be found after Ghosts of Saltmarsh’s first adventure, The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, but the shadow mastiff was an inclusion of my own because my girlfriend really wanted a dog for the longest time, and I figured I would give her one in-game before we got one in real life. (Yup, we now have one in real life.) Generally, I’m a huge fan of injecting a little Pokémon into my games with animal buddies, but in this case the pets also served as valuable fighting companions that helped balance Ghosts of Saltmarsh’s combat encounters, which are meant for four people.

On the topic of inclusions, I stuck a bit closer to the content in Ghosts of Saltmarsh than I usually do when running a campaign based on an official D&D hardcover, probably because the book in question was just more usable this time around. The final split was maybe 60% book material and 40% my own stuff. The end of the campaign was nearly all me, since I couldn’t quite formulate a way to include the final two adventures in the book, Tammeraut's Fate and The Styes. So instead, I gutted them for concepts and created an overarching story that tied Saltmarsh’s threats to H.P. Lovecraft’s Esoteric Order of Dagon. There’s a ton of Lovecraft influence in The Styes, after all, and Dagon was included as a demon lord in third and fourth edition D&D, not to mention Pathfinder. I drew inspiration from all of those versions, along with the stats included in Sandy Peterson’s Cthulhu Mythos book for fifth edition.

Ultimately, it all made for an entertaining story that scaled mightily. At level 2, Thea the tiefling rogue (played by my gf) and Zora the half-elf bard (played by her best friend) were utterly outclassed by smugglers in a haunted house and had to use a door as a shield to escape. At level 12, the pair defeated a demon lord and closed a portal to the Abyss. (To be fair, both accomplishments are pretty epic. The door escape was one of the most creative D&D moments I’ve ever seen, and we’re still talking about it today.)

While I wish we could’ve rolled physical dice together for a little longer, I’m glad Roll20 was available to keep our game going through a period of global strife. In the midst of it all, there was always D&D to fall back on. And hopefully, there will be more to come. I’ve got Candlekeep Mysteries on my shelf, another anthology of D&D short adventures...and it’s just waiting for me to formulate a plot to tie ‘em all together!

#pixel grotto #musings #tabletop games #dungeons & dragons #d&d #ghosts of saltmarsh

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komatsunana · 4 years

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The Chronicles of Exandria: The Mighty Nein I

And so I do what I did the last 2 times for the Vox Machina Chronicles of Exandria books, which you can read [here] and [here].

These posts by no means contain all of the information in these books, but plenty of what would most interest other fans. This is by no means a replacement for actually seeing the book.

My best guess on up to where this book spoils is episode 46. Anyone who has not watched passed 46 can read this without spoilers outside of vague references that don’t really matter.

First and foremost, as usual, the artistry is the most important part of the book. All of the lovely fan-created art work is even more beautiful in ink than on screen. This I promise you.

As has been noted by other people who have received the book, it is written as though it was transcribed by Beau’s journals by the Cobalt Soul. Some unnamed writer(s) from the Cobalt Reserve from Tal’Dorei have written all parts that are not excerpts from Beau’s journals. There are edits by Zeenoth, which indicate that the book is not a final draft. Zeenoth is not impressed by their work.

The books’ foreword is a dedication to critters. I won’t transcribe all of it but it ends, “As always, we are richer for your company. For truly, what good are stories unless they can be shared?”

Unlike the Vox Machina ones, which started with pages dedicated to Vox Machina and their adventures first before branching out for guest and NPCs, this one’s table of contents shows that everything is scattered.

The first section is dedicated to the Storyteller - accompanied by art of Matt as “The Storyteller.” An excerpt follows below:

“A story walks the land through the songs and tales of those who are touched by its heart. And then one day, long after all the players within have met the Matron, a story will be told for the very last time. Unless, by the Grace of the Storyteller, we are let to it. [...] Through Ioun’s blessing we make his favorite children immortal. You hold one of them in your hands even now. Wake it carefully.”

Thoreau contacted the Cobalt Soul immediately after Beau’s first arrest - presumably the one with Tori. As the monks took Beau away, Thoreau referred to her as “his misfortune.” It is also noted in the margins that Thoreau is a good friend to the Archive.

Unlike the rest of the M9 and characters, there are no excerpts about Beau herself from her journal... Because obviously she doesn’t need to take notes in herself. However the Cobalt Soul write their own notes about her and her reputation in the Cobalt Soul and note... more than a few times that Zeenoth thinks she is aggressive, stubborn, and quick to judge and anger and as a result they can’t put a lot of stock into her notes on other people. However, Dairon was right to put their trust in her because her insight in invaluable and is quick to call out injustice.

Beau’s note taking is exceptional - and color-coded.

Beau’s first notes about Molly is that he is “not that bright, definitely drunk, completely full of shit, and not nearly as good of a liar as he thinks he is. His outfit is loud, far louder than the man himself.” His coat contains iconography from at least half a dozen gods. Beau also noted that Molly’s swords were interesting to which the footnotes immediately made note that Molly’s swords were just swords. Beau thought, in her first impression of him, that he might be on the run from a family of Warlocks.

The librarians decided to omit all of Molly’s earlier lies that he told Beau and the group about his background, and instead only described the climbing out of the grave and only able to say “Empty” story. He had scars and 9 red eye tattoos on him at the time.

There are sketches of the tattoo in full, after Molly had added to it, but it’s noted by Beau that part of the tattoo is covered by Molly’s hair. Looking at the sketch, it is implied there are more tattoos on his scalp, rather than just the length covering it.

For Molly’s story of climbing out of the grave to be true, it means that Molly relearned to speak both Common and Infernal, learned to perform his skills and duties with the Carnival, covered his eye tattoos with additional, elaborate tattoos, befriended Yasha, and discovered his innate magic ability to use his blood to infuse his weapons with magic.

Beau had made a list of every book she knew Caleb had on his person or expressed interest in. This includes the erotic books and the 2 spellbooks.

On the spellbooks, Beau says she isn’t sure about them. One she knows is a spellbook, but she’s not sure on the other as he never opens it. She wonders if it is a journal of some kind.

There is a page on Beau’s notes in the first arc with the Fletching and Moondrop Carnival - notes about the victim and all her possible suspects of which it is everyone that is part of the carnival. All of them have a strike through their name, indicating she had eliminated each of them as a suspect at one point, including Kylre.

Among the notes she has, my favorites are that Beau thinks that everyone in the circus hates each other, never trust a clown (about Desmond), and that everyone has a title such as Molly “The Ice-Spinner” and Yasha “The Brute.” Beau also notes Yasha as being human.

Outside of Beau’s notes, the best information to be found about Shakästa “Hush” is from an anonymous book from Deastock titled “Heroic Deeds of the Golden Grin.” It is because of Beau’s notes that Hush is confirmed to be real, not a myth, once and for all.

Because of how cool Shakästa was with his cool bird, Beau notes “I gotta get a bird.” So we have him to thank for Professor Thaddeus.

Unknown what deity Shakästa draws power from.

Known members of the Tombtakers:

Lucien Nonagon (Molly)

Cree: currently employed by the Gentleman. Blood powers like Molly’s.

[A name which as been severely crossed out but looks like it says Tyffinl]: Currently said to be in Nogvurot.

Otis and Zoran: Still at large, whereabouts unknown

Jurrell: Deceased

Some lady spellcaster from Rexxentrum

The Myriad is currently gaining footholds in Tal’dorei as well. There is also a written notation by Zeenoth to cross reference the Myriad activity with the Tombtakers, indicating that he believes that the Tombtakers and the Myriad might be connected.

Cobalt Soul theorizes that the blood Cree claims the Gentleman took from the M9 to track them might be a new form of blood-based mutagenetic tracking.

Beau’s first impression of Nott and Caleb’s relationship was that Nott heaped praise on him and that there might be some sort of blood debt or magic going on.

Beau’s early theory on Caleb was that he was hiding from a criminal employer and had done a high-level theft. She made note to watch if he attempted to side-step certain kinds of work.

Everything about Caleb sounded like bad news to Beau, but because he stuck around to get her out of jail Beau comes to the conclusion that that’s endearing.

Beau has made an observation that Caleb was searching for some kind of information in a book, related to transmutation. She wonders if bartering to get him into the Cobalt Soul library will get her into his good graces, though she hopes he won’t find out that the library is technically open to all if you ask nicely.

There is an entry (in Beau’s second journal, it should be noted) were several pages were ripped out about Caleb. This indicates that Beau had written down Caleb’s backstory of killing his parents but she, Caleb, or someone else had ripped it out before it got into the hands of the Cobalt Soul. The Cobalt Soul draws the conclusion that Caleb is connected to organized crime. They are also unable to find anyone born with the name Caleb Widogast in the Empire and they believe it to be an alias.

There are written notations that say that at least one of the ripped out pages were recovered, in which Beau describes the night Caleb told her and Nott about killing his parents. Both mentions of Trent Ikathon’s name were crossed out until illegible. Beau was unconvinced that Caleb’s memories after killing his parents aren’t still jumbled (rather than missing).

Fun fact! All of the Caleb illustrations in his art section all either have fire or Frumpkin in them. Because when you boil down Caleb to his essentials that’s all I’m saying.

The strangest thing about the M9, as far as the Cobalt Soul is concerned, is that they have a goblin among their party.

Beau also wonders if Nott’s relationship with Caleb isn’t also out of love or blind loyalty. Upon finding out that Nott feels like the parental figure (rather than the other way around, as Beau had assumed) Beau wonders what it is that Nott wants Caleb to be stronger for... Revenge? Or to change herself.

Beau notes that while Nott might have named herself so to call herself not brave, Beau thinks she is pretty brave. She describes Nott diving into the water for Fjord’s arc twice (even if she complained the entire time) and Nott saving Jester from the blue dragon which “absolutely saved Jester’s life.” Nott is very focused on everyone remaining together as a team. Beau believes that while Nott’s loyalty to Caleb has not lessened, her loyalty to the rest of the party has extended to them all.

“I think we might all be her kids now. It’s kind of sweet, in a really weird way.”

Zeenoth is extremely salty their junior drew lots of buttons instead of researching the crossbow Nott got from Hupperdook.

A list of all phrases that Beau noted in her journals that Kiri had learned in her time with them.

Welcome to the Mighty Nein!

I am Kiri!

Yes, I am very sweet.

It’s sharp.

Ooh, I’m a captain.

Where do babies come from?

Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire!

If it bleeds, we can kill it.

I killed people!

Get into trouble!

She’s probably a good egg.

Go fuck yourself.

Zeenoth is VERY upset about the word fuck and wants that entry removed.

Beau thinks Calianna is too polite.

Cobalt Soul believes there is at least one other bowl like the one Calianna destroyed with the M9.

Beau hopes they don’t pick up any more stragglers, as she thinks it is getting crowded.

Cobalt Soul theorizes about why Keg had a four o’clock shadow rather than a proper Dwarven beard, wondering if she wasn’t forced to shave. This indicates that beards are normal on female dwarves.

Beau thinks Shady Creek Run is so called because it’s full of shady criminals, but the Cobalt Soul notes that Shady Creek Run has a creek that is in near constant shade in the abundant pine trees.

On Molly’s death Beau says:

“Fuck. That went horribly. We lost Molly, and I don’t know what to do. [This part is crossed out: Maybe if I had-] I’m trying my best to stay objective.”

Beau also crosses out “I’m starting to like her” about Keg, and replaces it with “She’s fine, I guess.”

On Nila Beau says: “She said something really nice about Molly. How in her clan, someones spirit never leave you. They return to nature, and are forever by your side. I don’t know if I believe it, but I like the thought.”

Beau wants her own “lucky smell bag” that’ll make decisions for her.

The Blooming Grove was built post-Calamity.

Beau’s first impressions of Caduceus is that he is both grounded and flighty.

Because Caduceus hasn’t eaten meat or alcohol in the time she’s known him, she thinks he’s got to have some sort of vice.

Because of Beau’s talk with Caduceus after killing the blue dragon, Beau remarks that she likes her edge and doesn’t want to lose it and go soft. But maybe it is a better, more efficient way of doing things by being there for the M9. “Gross.”

There is a note in the margins telling the editor to contact Archivist Demid (AKA the guy studying the moons) for information on the Dust family. This indicates that he may have some special information.

Because of Jester’s defacing every town she visits, the Cobalt Soul has been able to track the M9′s movements.

The Cobalt Soul’s 2 working theories on the Traveler is that he’s a smaller/younger deity either from folk tales about a cloaked figure that either rewards or punishes heroes with a ironic twist OR a god of vandalism.

Zeenoth notes that if the Traveler IS a god of vandalism... they may have a secret follower in their ranks because of all the smut doodles in their books lately. Which of course Jester probably drew.

Beau says that as Jester told the group about her prank causing her to have to flee from Nicodranas she was full of her usual bubbliness... But was starting to see that there was underlying sadness in Jester.

Beau has known Jester has had a thing for Fjord since they first met, but after she got Tusk Love it became full-blown infatuation.

“Fjord seems super oblivious, though, which isn’t surprising for a man who occasionally wakes up covered in seawater and confusion.”

Beau stands by her and Jester’s purchase of the owl and blink dog, but she wonders how long the weasel is going to last in their line of work.

Beau wonders if it’s weird to be attracted to your friend’s mom and comes to the conclusion it is so she’ll back off... But the Ruby is smoking hot.

Beau can also see why people who want to release and evil god for Avantika. Not that she would. “She’s hot, but come on.”

No really new information on The Plank King is revealed in his section, but quite a bit is crossed out until illegible. This could detail what connection to the Cobalt Soul he has, but was redacted.

The Cobalt claims that while the M9 titled a leader, Fjord often took that position.

Beau is making direct reports on Fjord to the Cobalt Soul and his connection to Uk’otoa. In her latest report, she says that they’ve bought some time until their next trip to the sea............

Waiting for the rest of the M9 to come out of the Happy Fun Ball, after fighting the blue dragon, are among the rest worst few minutes of Beau’s life.

Beau believed Twiggy that she killed the blue dragon, in part because Caduceus believed her.

Beau accidentally writes “cute and dry” instead of “cut and dried” about Yasha’s background.

“For someone dressed in greys, who carries herself like a dark cloud, Yasha sure seems drawn to color and light. I wonder where it stems from.”

On Yasha being tested by the Stormlord by the “man made of lightning” the Cobalt Soul says it is not uncommon for the Stormlord to test his disciples through acts of physical, mental, or spiritual exertion.

The final notes by Zeenoth indicates that whoever wrote the book (outside of edits from Zeenoth himself and excerpts from Beau’s journals) were by someone from Tal’dorei. Who might it be? Someone we know?

#critical role #critical role: the mighty nein campaign #cr #the chronicles of exandria #critical role art book #i scream #my crit role feels #long post

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kaibacorpbros · 3 years

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In with the New

Mokuba was a tolerant person. Even to a fault.

But there were still certain lines, ones he wouldn’t allow to be crossed.

Which was why this kid sitting near his table badmouthing Kaiba Corp for a solid hour had Mokuba as tense as a bowstring in his seat.

It wasn’t his business. Besides, probably a kid of someone that got kicked out when the KC switched to a gaming company. Kid looked like he could have been old enough to remember that many years ago.

Mokuba shouldn’t get involved.

“And Kaiba himself is sketchy. Ya know how he took over? His predecessor died. But all that news was swept under the rug like no one’s business. And he doesn’t give a shit about his employees. Threw my old man out on his ass over nothing—”

And then one of the members in the little posse said what Mokuba assumed was the name of the kid’s dad. Saying how nice the man was. But there was something that sounded familiar…

Mokuba didn’t even realize he had crossed the distance between him and the other guy. He knew who the kid’s father was. Seto had kicked the man out because he was a traitor. A lingering supporter of the Big 5 that was part of the employee purge Seto conducted. What kind of story did the guy give the family!? Not the truth by a long shot.

“Who the hell are you? We got a problem?” the kid barked.

Mokuba pushed the other boy out of his chair, and his fist collided with the other’s cheek. A couple of people around them started screaming. But this boy was much bigger than Mokuba, and after the initial shock, it didn’t take long for him to strike back.

It got messy, and eventually, the bystanders managed to pull the two apart.

Thankfully Mokuba had his hair up and a hat and scarf on, so it didn’t seem he was recognized. But looking down at the flecks of blood on his knuckles, a bit of the other boy’s and his own, the gravity of what he’d done settled in, and he bolted.

_____

“Ya don’t look like the brawling type,” the cashier at the gas station Mokuba had ducked into remarked as she rang up a bag of ice.

“I’m not, I—” but no decent explanation could leave the younger Kaiba’s tongue.

“It’s whatever dude, just try not and make it a habit, especially not around here, I was just about to close.”

Oh great. Oh great, it just kept getting worse.

“S-sorry…”

Mokuba handed the cashier a twenty and told her to keep the change as he pressed the ice to a bruise on his face and turned to leave.

“Hey! Don’t leave like that, all that blood on your knuckles is just gonna make a mess if you don’t patch it up.”

The young lady who’s nametag read “Riley" had taken her own backpack out from under the counter and within a few moments flung a box of band-aids at Mokuba’s face.

“Go outside and start opening those up while I lock the doors. But don’t put them on yet—I got some medicine somewhere in this thing, just gotta take a minute to find it.”

“R-right, on it.”

_____

“And I honestly don’t even know what came over me. I don’t usually get angry, nor do I even have much of a reason to be defending him after everything. Hell, I felt conflicted enough by shipping him a gift for New Years this morning.”

Was it wrong to be venting so much to a stranger he just met over hot cocoa in a twenty-four-hour diner? Probably. This lady wasn’t a therapist—but honestly with how she listened and discussed as the younger Kaiba babbled could have fooled him. But then again, maybe it was largely due to the fact that he hadn’t stopped for very long enough to really get a read on what opinion Riley had on everything he was info-dumping.

“Really? What’d you send him?”

“Just an outfit I designed, more lowkey than his usual stuff because I heard he’s been leaning that way anyway.”

Riley dropped another handful of marshmallows in her mug.

“That’s not exactly a low-effort gift, Mokuba.”

“O-Oh! I didn’t sew it all myself or anything—I can do a bit, but I had some friends in the theatre crew I’ve been working with help me out. Ha, pretty simple compared to what they’re used to.”

“What’s on their usual to-do list? Costume with exploding fake head?” Riley asks with a smirk.

“Well….”

A marshmallow gets tossed at Mokuba.

“Now you’re just pulling my leg.”

“It was worth a shot,” Mokuba says with a cheeky grin. “But we did an exploding dummy once. Or…several.”

Light laughter lays between the two before Riley carefully considers her next words. She didn’t want to kill Mokuba’s mood more than it already was unless he wanted to truly hear what she had to say.

“Do you want my honest opinion?” The tink of a spoon hitting the edges of the cup as she stirs seems to be the only sound in the building.

After a moment of deliberation, Mokuba nods.

“I think…you’re so used to caring for your brother that you can’t imagine not doing so. But going how it sounds, it seems this isn’t a new thing. And I don’t think people like that change. No usually anyway.”

The expression Mokuba now had on his face made her want to backpedal. It felt like kicking a puppy.

“Of course not saying it’s a sealed deal or anything just—you know.”

Mokuba took to picking at the Band-Aids on his digits.

“No, I know—get what you’re saying. I…I’ll keep that in mind.” He clears his throat with a cough.

“I’d like to change the subject though. You uh, been working here long?”

“Ha! That old place? Nah, just a placeholder.”

Like every job was.

“I’m going east after this, everything’s too crowded here. And the prices are insane, I don’t even want to know how you’re getting screwed over by the conversion rate.”

Oh, Mokuba had an idea. And he was sure Seto was seeing that loss.

“Very. You traveling too, huh?”

Maybe they didn’t have to say goodbye so soon.

_____

Front or back? Seto wondered as he fiddled with his scarf hanging down his front. He’d grown used to wrapping it loosely around his neck and fall over his back so the eyes on it stared out behind him. But the design sketch for the outfit he’d gotten from Mokuba had it just hooked over the back of the neck down the front of the coat.

Turns out, he wouldn’t have time to debate over it anymore as the door to the apartment he was standing outside opened.

“How many white coats do you have?” Diva asked.

“I’ve…not really stopped to count.”

Maybe he should do that sometime. But what could he say? Blue white and black were his colors.

He gave a half turn. “Mokuba designed it.”

“How do you know? I thought—”

“He’s the only one who sends me clothes. And he has a style I can recognize. But no, there was no letter or anything like that.”

Diva held out a hand and after Seto nodded, straightened the scarf, so both sides were a bit more even.

“He has one I approve of,” the ex-Plana said with a small smile as the two-headed out together for the night. _____

// this is a hella late new years/holiday thing thanks to my lil hiatus rippp. Anywho, hope everyone had a nice holiday/winter.

The outfit that Mokuba designed and made was the one Kenjiro-san had for the Duel Opera! I’m sure you’ve seen fanart of Kaiba in them-- it’s all the same sans he’s got the previous blue chaos max themed scarf instead.

Also introduced and OC who may also be a bit of an NPC over on this blog for interactions with Mokuba. But mostly Riley will be over at @pledgedsouls

#(do not reblog)#blazing a trail [riley]#make the impossible possible | seto 💜 diva | indioragod #legacy [drabbles]#KC files [Lore]

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alissamarietart · 4 years

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Some concept sketches I drew in my sketchbook several months, and finally got around to slapping some color on in photoshop!

Here are are some rough concept sketches for Arì'luanae Amastacia, one of my OCs and DnD characters! On the left, some enchanted armor, on the right, a more casual-priesty-moon elf look.

In my main campaign, they’re an NPC -a level 20 knowledge domain cleric, and the Reverent Dreamer (High Priest) of Sehanine Moonbow. They have the sage-astronomer background, and had intended to study the arcane arts to become a wizard, before being blessed with clerical powers by the Moon Goddess. In addition to being the Reverent Dreamer, they’re also a mentor (they taught Tdi’or much of what they know and still guide them to this day,) and they also help uphold the illusory magic that keeps the city of Isilardholen hidden from those who would wish to exploit its lands and how thin the veil to the Feywild is there.

In my secondary campaign, I play a younger past version of them as an occasional guest character, before they become a high priest and a mentor, in the thick of their adventuring days. Arì'luanae has been missing for a while now though, and their last messages to the group wasn’t necessarily optimistic.

If you like my art, please consider supporting me on Patreon! Link in bio.

#dnd art #dnd character #dungeons and drawings #dungeons and dragons #dnd cleric #cleric #knowledge cleric #moon elf #elves #fantasy art #fantasy characters #concept art #character design #my art #ariluanae amastacia

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headlesssamurai · 4 years

Text

My Lazy, Poor, Stupid Person’s Attempt to Paint Tabletop Miniatures

by headless

This has nothing to do with covid-19 really, it’s just something I reckoned I’d share. For several years I’ve played Dungeons & Dragons, and occasionally others like Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green, or Shadowrun. Though, I say ‘play’, when I mostly run games as a Dungeon Master. It’s one of those “hobbies” that is a lot of fun for someone like me, but requires a ton of dedication, so it isn’t always easy to get a dedicated group together.

Anyhow, I generally homebrew settings and adventures, never really been too big on running pre-written games, even if some of them are fantastically written. And one of the most frustrating things is I some times want to have a miniature on the battle grid that looks a certain way. This is hardly a big deal, since miniatures are just markers meant for reference in combat encounters, the real image of the characters is in all of our heads.

Still, I sometimes want to have something especially specific, a lot of the players in my current group appreciate cool looking miniatures, and seeing as I’m usually hard-up for cash, I can’t always buy pre-painted mini-figures, unless I get a good bulk deal on ebay or something.

One of my recent attempts to acquire bulk miniatures came a few years back when I realized during the 4E days, Wizards of the Coast had released boxed board games themed with the D&D style, which all came with a great deal of unpainted miniatures; these came in sets like Wrath of Ashardalon, or The Legend of Drizzt, with lots of themed minis for the board game’s scenario.

Anyhow, I’ve had a ton of these unpainted miniatures forever and use them often for nobody-NPCs and other characters the players run across. Lately, however, the group I’ve been running in a campaign for about eleven months (usually weekly), ran across a problem where their dragonborn ranger Grixxis was captured by and then negotiated his away out of the clutches of this ancient entity who calls herself Gorgoth (who appears to be a pale, beautiful young woman, but probably isn’t; even the not so arcane-y Grixxis intuited that much). She was actually impressed that he resisted her Sleep spell, and offered him a deal, she’d let him go but he needs to complete a task for her in the next seven days, and if it isn’t completed in that time frame his soul will be bound to her forever.

The task was to go to a mountaintop and retrieve something that resides there, though Gorgoth did not explain what the object was, so the party set off to find this mysterious mountain. The journey led them to an area of bad wilderness where no one lives, and where roving bands of orcs constantly hunt and war with one another, so only a few people know anything about that region. The party ended up hiring a guide, who was a wood elf exile named Skaya. They seemed to be intrigued by her because she’s living in a city which is currently at war with wood elves, so there’s a lot of prejudice and racism against her kind. Skaya does have facial tattoos that indicate she’s been exiled from her tribe and therefore no longer truly considered by her people to be a wood elf (their worst form of punishment in this universe), but still, the party seemed immediately fascinated by this single NPC among the potential seven or so they might’ve hired for this expedition.

Anyhow, my players have only gotten truly invested in one other NPC they’ve met before this; a small little orc toddler named Gruuba who they saved from a bunch of slave trading bandits early on in the campaign. I’ve had difficulty finding a good miniature for Gruuba too (because she’s really small and scrawny), but since she’s at the same developmental level as a human six year-old they try to keep her out of combat scenarios (despite Gruuba’s excited insistence that she enjoys using clubs “for smashings”). Since the party have begun to really enjoy Skaya as character, the longer they’ve slowly, slowly gotten to know more about her stand-offish personal history, I really wanted to get a miniature for her that reflected my image of her better than the one I’d been using.

So, even though I got basically no experience doing so, I bought a miniature from Reaper Miniatures, and after looking up a few tutorial vids for beginners like me, I set about trying to paint my first mini-figs.

Two things, if you’re looking into this yourself; First, I’m not totally unartistic, I write creatively and I sketch with pencils and ink. Painting’s fairly new to me, but it’s not like I have absolutely no artistic talent. I also solder a lot of really small wires and components in my normal daily job, so I may have better muscle control for this sort of thing than some people. I only mention this because I may have had a few advantages in this undertaking. I just don’t want to make people overly confident, keep things in perspective. So whatever your level of expertise at this, if you want to start just try to patiently measure your expectations, and don’t get discouraged if your first results aren’t so great. All things improve with time.

And B. if you’re poor, lazy, and stupid like me, there’re ways to get around that. This video I watched gave me a good rundown of the basic steps which are; - scrub the plastic down with some dish soap, luke-warm water, and a toothbrush; allow at least 1 hour to dry (I let them sit for a day because I’m paranoid), and be sure there’s no lingering moisture before you start painting - get a good primer or base coat on the model before you start adding other colors; lighter base coats allow more colors to show up easier, while darker base coats tend to make the colors you paint over them darker - stay calm and take your time - try to paint the colors that’ll go under other colors first, like, if a barbarian dude is shirtless but’s wearing a few pieces of armor, paint his shirtless skin first, then paint the armor he’s wearing second because it layers over better that way - use thinner paints and multiple coats of a color to get an even final color instead of one thick coat - allow each coat of paint to dry for 10 - 20 minutes before applying the next coat - learn about washes, pigments, and inks, because they’re awesome - get a decent varnish for a final protective coat, matte varnishes make the model look dryer and flat, gloss varnishes make the model look shiny and wet, if you do a coat of gloss and a coat of matte varnish it equalizes it pretty good

And this video here sort of laid to rest my fears that I’ll need to spend $600 on paints and washes and stuff. The very helpful lady in that video explains how she uses generic acrylic paints from the craft store (I got mine at Wal-Mart) to paint her Warhammer miniatures, and she even offers a method of making your own washes from a combination of paint and flavorless mouth wash. It’s genius. So try not to stress too much about buying the really nice brand name paints, because it’s not necessary, those paints just have an optimal mix I think, otherwise they’re the same damn thing as generic acrylic paints. Also, you’re just trying to learn, so unless you really, really feel like emptying your bank account, just use the generic stuff.

I started out painting something I didn’t care about. I wanted my miniature for Skaya to look badass and awesome, so I wanted to start with some practice miniatures. Grabbed a few from those 4E board game sets and gave it a shot. But I had also recently gotten hold of a Goliath Barbarian miniature from the Player’s Handbook Heroes sets (also from the 4E days) a rare find, since it usually goes for like $60.00 by itself. Randomly found some dude on ebay selling an unopened box set for $20.00, so I got a wild elf druid and a human berserker along with it. So I started out touching up the goliath’s armor to make it look more like armor and less like weird blue stuff.

Here’s a before-and-after for him (I didn’t take photos of them before because I wasn’t anticipating this, so I just found examples from around the web):

Next I tried a re-paint. A friend of mine had recently guest-played in my campaign and created a half-drow monk (his backstory was fantastic), so since nothing like that exists, I took a Soulknife Infiltrator miniature seen here:

And repainted it to sort of look like his half-drow Monk of the Open Palm:

I finally had the courage to do a full paint, so I grabbed the Dragonborn Elementalist from the Wrath of Ashardalon box, and painted her up with reddish scales (I’m one of those who thinks dragonborn should have physical attributes of their heritage).

In the box her name’s Heskan. I definitely used way too much wash on this one so she looks super shiny.

I then took the orc archers in that same box, and not really paying too much attention this time, quickly painted them, because I lack many orc archers:

At this point, I felt it was time to finally paint Skaya, the wood elf exile. I used the Reaper Bones model Deladrin, Female Assassin ($1.99) for Skaya’s mini.

And taking way more hours than I did on the others, which were only about 1-3 hours each, when you count waiting for the coats to dry, I managed to sort of make her look like Skaya, I guess:

After this, the fact that it wasn’t complete and utter shit, which is what I expected, I was encouraged. So I tried to do out party’s tortle cleric, named Daruuk of Chult (who oddly speaks with a Slavic accent, so that’s how people from Chult sound in our campaign), for whom we’ve lacked an accurate mini-figure for some time. I bought a pack of Spikeshell Warriors ($2.99) from the Reaper Bones line.

But Daruuk characteristically wields a large shield and a warhammer, so for some reason I got super detailed and bought a pack of loose shields from the Reaper Bones line ($0.99), then bought Halbarad ($1.49) a human cleric.

I clipped off Halbarad’s hammer at the hilt, then I trimmed the spikes off of the spikeshell warrior’s club, and used a dremel to carfully mill a hole inside the shaft of the spikeshell’s club, then pinned the hammer inside and secured it with gorilla gel. I used an actual cork board pin to push the shield onto the spikshell’s offhand after cutting off his turtle shell shield in order to pin it before gluing, then clipped off the rest of the cork board pin. Somehow, this ended up making the shield look meaner because it now has a like pyramidal spike sticking out the center. After allowing the glue to dry I painted him up, and my attempt at Daruuk the Death Cleric turned out thus:

I guess his hammer looks sort of Acme-level cartoony, but he’s a giant 350 lb. turtle-man who talks like Omega Red from X-Men The Animated Series, so I’m okay with that. The spikeshell also fits well with the razorback sub-race feature I allowed Daruuk’s player to homebrew for himself. I was really proud of this one.

Finally, because I’m an insane asshole who is getting obsessed with my new hobby, I decided it was dragons or bust. So I bought a pre-primed unpainted Young Blue Dragon from WizKids ($13.99).

And spent, like, three days meticulously testing different paint layers to see how they come out. I tried to paint her in the tradition of blue dragons as they appear in the art of Forgotten Realms material, but gave her a somewhat darker cast, and added metallic blue layers to her claws and spinal ridges. I still need to paint her base, put some highlights on her eyes to accentuate the glowing effect and add my washes to give her a final layer of dimension, but here’s how she came out so far:

Behold, Stormfang! Mistress of Thunder...

Anyhow.

This is super long and I wonder if anyone will bother to read any of it. But just wanted to put this out there. From a dude who, if you asked me a year ago if I thought I could do this, I’d have said I’m too stupid, poor, and lazy. I still think of myself as all of those things. The real pros use crazy detailed techniques with like seven layered highlights on their models, and airbrushes and all kinds of other madness. I use maybe three coats total and I don’t get too worked up if I make a mistake here and there, and I haven’t spent more than maybe fifty bucks total across six weeks, and most of that was wasting paints because I was still learning how to mix different shades.

So if you got something you feel like you’ve always wanted to do but are too stupid, poor, and lazy to figure out, just go for it yo. I managed to crack out these bastards and I still think I suck, but it’s way better looking than I expected. For real though, you should see some of those Warhammer players, they got mad crazy god skills at this stuff compared to me. But your level of skill isn’t the point. The point is to have that moment with that thing you did, and look at it, and just go “Yeh, I did that” when at one time you never believed you ever could.

There’s always going to be somebody better than you, but even they, like all of us, are still learning.

侍 headless

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affcgato-archived · 4 years

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MUNDANE / ELEMENTARY TEACHER.

verse tag: → clary fairchild // to awaken joy (v.) location: manhattan & brooklyn, NY. age: varies; 26-29, thread dependent.

verse summary.

Art has always been Clary's passion, threading itself through her entire life. at first, it even took her to college until a pivotal class prompted her to declare a dual major, & she started on the path of Elementary Education & Art. graduating with honors & earning both her B.A. & M.A., she took a risk & did a nine month artist in residency program with The Whitney Museum.

After the conclusion of the program, she would go on to accept a job teaching kindergarten at one of the prestigious private schools in New York City. Her curriculum centers largely around art, & language development following the expectations established by the school.

During the school year, she works with other volunteers for a nonprofit specializing in guided art therapy for both men & women - youth & adults - looking for support after trauma associated with assault, as well as military veteran groups confronting issues surrounding re-entry to civilian life, post-traumatic stress, & other related things. Typically she oversees one session a week after the conclusion of her school day for each group, with her youth group being on Saturdays, & her adult group on Wednesday nights.

During the summer, she's often called to act as an artist in residence for various programs through New York Foundation for the Arts. Through these residencies, she's traveled to places such as Cape Town, South Africa, Skowhegan, Maine, & Itaparica, Brazil - the latter of which was funded by grant through her employer in the hopes to bring back ideas for further diversifying their curriculum.

basics.

Clary's canon backstory in this verse is largely similar to her seemingly mundane life prior to her sixteenth birthday. She was born the younger child of Jocelyn Fairchild & Valentine Morgenstern, but raised solely by Jocelyn in Park Slope, Brooklyn. They had separated following steep personal tragedy that had claimed the life of Jocelyn’s parents when their home burned under mysterious circumstances, & Valentine had bolted with their son.

She attended St. Francis Xavier School, a private school near her home in Park Slope, Brooklyn, which is where she met Simon Lewis when she was six years old. Additionally, prior to her high school graduation, she was taking classes at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

When she was 16 ( circa 2007 ), she received a letter from her father’s estate revealing he had passed away far more recently than she & her mother had been lead to believe - Jocelyn had been under the impression her husband had died in that tragic fire that had claimed the life of her parents & young son before the birth of their daughter. Several weeks later, Jonathan turned up on Jocelyn’s doorstep with the revelation that not only had Valentine lied about his own death, but also that of his son.

Jonathan has been living & working in Manhattan since, compliant with @idumean‘s professional chef verse unless plotted otherwise. Jocelyn & Luke are now married & living at Luke’s.

Clary teaches kindergarten at a private school in Manhattan’s Upper East. Her class size ranges from 8-10 small children, & follows a Scandinavian elementary model that emphasizes playtime & education through discovery. Her school year runs from roughly the second week of September through the first week of June, with her artist in residence programs typically picking up the third week of June through the second week of August. ( yearly salary: 76,000, pretax ( link ), $60,291 after taxes. works out to roughly $5,024/mo. )

Clary does not drive. She does however frequently use the metro, as well as very, very rarely takes cabs to get between home & work as well as the various places she goes during the week for her volunteer work or art ramblings. She runs an instagram account based on the rambling sketcher ( link ), & sells prints for additional income. she carries an etchr field case with her for those excursions. you can find the rest of the details of her kit here ( link ).

Clary lives in East Harlem ( link ). She has a small studio apartment that’s perpetually covered in plants & paintings. It’s very small, but it’s one of the most walkable areas & close to public transportation - & it’s home. Her rent takes up a disproportionate amount of her income, but she supplements her teacher’s salary with her art work, & various grants cover the cost of her artist in residence excursions that aren’t covered by the programs themselves. She doesn’t have any pets.

simplified timeline of events.

prior to 2007, lived in Park Slope & attended St. Xavier’s.

after August 2007, lived with Luke & Jocelyn but continued attending St. Xavier’s. Additionally started taking classes at Tisch.

Graduated St. Xavier’s in 2009, age 17, & starts college the following fall.

Graduates college in 2014, age 22, with both a B.A. & M.A. in elementary education & art. Starts a nine month artist in residency program with The Whitney Museum immediately after graduation.

Summer 2015, Artist in Residence in Cape Town, South Africa

Starts as a kindergarten teacher in the Fall of 2015.

Summer 2016, Artist in Residence in Skowhegan, Maine through the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture.

Summer 2017, Artist in Residence in Itaparica, Bahia, Brazil through The Sacatar Foundation’s Instituto Sacatar.

options & ideas for interaction

option i. meeting in a public space. Clary frequently wanders the city doing sketches, so it’s very possible to run into her at various museums, coffee shops, or while she’s navigating the sidewalks after work. places of high interest for her at the New York Botanical Gardens, the High Line, The New York Public Library, or her canon haunt, Java Jones in Brooklyn. Additionally, she can also be found at various gallery openings, or at her brother’s restaurant, Per Se.

option ii. meeting through work. Clary works in Manhattan’s Upper East at a private school modeled after The Brearley School, as well as with various artist in residence programs listed but not limited to above. Her artist in residence programs are relatively short, & only occur during the Northern Hemisphere’s summer months ( late June - early August ), but offer flexibility in that they aren’t restricted to Manhattan as the rest of the school year would be.

option iii. meeting through volunteer work. Clary additional volunteers with a nonprofit organization working with youth & veterans. These programs emphasize art therapy, with youth activities on Saturdays, & the veteran meetings on Wednesday nights.

verse specific ooc notes

Disaster related plots ( bird box, apocalypse, etc. ) will default to this verse unless otherwise plotted.

Additionally, if using other canon TSC muses as NPCs, I will default to my own portrayals if possible unless plotted otherwise for simplicity’s sake.

#→ clary fairchild // verse introduction #→ clary fairchild // to awaken joy (v.)#→ repost #since I expanded it #long post #→ the shadowhunter chronicles // fandom

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gremlinships · 5 years

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yandere game wip?? nani the fu

yee boye! so im still brainstorming everything. that includes trying to figure out set characters and such.

what is LIKELY set in stone so far: - the game is yandere themed. violence will be a given as well. - Game will take place in a University based City. yknow, like those cities that are built around a University and its several campuses? yee! - I hope to have a character creator, albeit pretty simple. it will be purely for the player’s immersion into the game! - Will likely be set in a pixel art style because that is one of my artistic strong points. - players get to choose/start an NPCs route pretty early; and routes will have at least one good and bad end. - players will be able to choose pronouns, and NPCs will absolutely include male, female and NB people. i hope to also include NPCs/routes where the NPC is either Ace, Aro, etc. (platonic or solely romantic yan characters? boye howdy i’d personally like that, why the hell not)

anyhow, tumblr hates me right now so i cannot post my sketches/any pics ive done so far for it otherwise my browser will die, so ill put them in another wip post/update qwq

#this post killed my browser while putting it together #game wip #wip

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thewakingcloak · 5 years

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Building a ProtoDungeon

With the impending release of The Waking Cloak’s first demo, ProtoDungeon: Episode I, I thought it might be fun to write up a list of things I actually did to get this demo off the ground.

Since the demo is pretty small, and limited to a single main mechanic from The Waking Cloak, people might not realize just how much work went into this. The Waking Cloak is not feature complete at all, and so I couldn’t just copy+paste all my code, slap on some art, and call it done. I had to build tons of systems from the ground up, which will then be used in The Waking Cloak (and future ProtoDungeons). For example, The Waking Cloak doesn’t even have working doors!

This is what I started with:

Camera

Decoupled from player so that it wouldn’t break if the player wasn’t in the room (logo room, title room, etc.)

New state to follow the swap energy

Collision

Added “corner rounding”

Added “point collision” checking

Dialogue system

Added the ability for different dialogue box styles

HUD

Added the ability to show/hide it

Added displaying key and chapel seal count

State machine

Pixelated Pope created both versions of the state machine I use. The Waking Cloak was on the old version, and I updated this to the new version (which includes a draw portion for each state, very useful)

That’s it. Might seem like a lot, but let’s compare it to what I built brand new for the ProtoDungeon:

Designed the dungeon

A few weeks of messing with graph paper, sticky notes, and Tiled

Streamlined dungeon creation process

Rough sketches to graph paper to Tiled whitebox to GameMaker whitebox

Previously I just painstakingly built the final version directly in GameMaker, which was slow and difficult to find problems early on

Actually building the rooms in GameMaker

Swap mechanic

New states for player

Energy ball

Swappable object parent

Breakable swap objects (jars)

Non-breakable swap objects (blocks)

Several revisions to speed and mechanics

Originally the player could move around while the swap energy was out, but this proved 1) not all that fun, 2) difficult to keep the player out of trouble, 3) difficult for the player to focus on two things at once, especially while the swap energy was changing direction

The next revision, the player had to hold the spacebar to keep the swap out. This didn’t feel very fun.

The swap energy moved MUCH slower, then tweaked it and made it way too fast. Settled on a compromise for player control: press space and the swap energy goes really fast, hold and it goes slow.

Originally the camera did not follow the swap energy (since that would be weird if the player was moving and couldn’t see what they were doing), but changed this later on after I rethought that (and due to a suggestion from my first playtester).

Two levels: initial, and ability to change direction

Block pushing mechanics (the very first version of ProtoDungeon had this before The Waking Cloak as a prototype, but I also improved how collision, player push animations, and so forth worked)

Trigger/listener/broadcasting system (to hook up buttons and doors, mainly)

Buttons

Doors

Normal

Doors that close after you enter a room

Doors/gates that open when you press a button

Locked doors

Chapel door (requires special chapel seal)

Pits

These were working in the prototype earlier, but I added falling between floors

Cliffs and walls

Including one-way jump/slide down cliffs

Z-height--needed several things from this:

Player needs to be able to go up stairs within a room and be “above” the lower level

Swap energy fired at a lower level will hit walls

Swap energy fired at a higher level will go over walls

Essentially created a parent object that everything inherits from to add a “z” and a “height” variable, and then zones that modify objects’ z when they’re in those zones

Also added optional z-checking to collisions

This will also be nice for when I get to the jumping ProtoDungeon!

Player “teleportation” (stairs, doors, etc.)

Transition manager (for fades, wipes, etc.)

I have one of these in Genogatchi, but it’s not as robust and didn’t use the GUI layer

Added circle transitions

Added white transitions

Much easier transition triggering

Cutscenes

Had this in Genogatchi via FriendlyCosmonaut, but improved on it and added more functions (going to room, properly working with the transition manager, etc.)

Throne movement logic

This was extremely complicated/buggy and I still don’t know why

Swap mirrors

Resetting items when leaving the room and returning--tricky, because we don’t want to reset items if you’ve solved the puzzle

Art

Gosh, I thought I could just take all my art straight from TWC and recolor it, but it was a LIE... only thing that came over was grass/trees/walls/pits/gates and some HUD elements

I had to draw literally everything else from scratch--the player and all her animations (SO MANY ANIMATIONS), blocks, jars, jars falling down pits, three kinds of floors, tables, stools, arrows, arrow launchers, doors, buttons, rugs, swap energy, scrolls, keys, chapel seal (HUD and in-game versions), chapel seal pieces (HUD and in-game versions), bookshelves, dressers, stairs up and down and in-room, the final item, throne, exterior windows, braziers, and more

Of course adding the art to all the rooms took a while, though it helped to have the whitebox

Getting hurt

Arrows, pit

Getting reset in the room when you fell down a pit

Player health system

Writing

Intro

Outro

NPCs

Etc.

Audio

I was surprised at how much there was to do here

Designing and creating the sounds (probably 25 or so of these?) in FamiTracker and Bfxr

Playing them consistently, balancing the volume, not looping/looping, etc.

Game over state

New control system to allow keyboard/controller

Juju’s GameMaker input system, but with a few tweaks--this is 1-player only, and I also needed to fix issues with my crazy joysticks which apparently constantly poll for input setup

Win “cutscene”

Logo

Music

The most intimidating thing I’ve done in gamedev, kept getting in my own head and getting discouraged. Took me about a week, and a lot of scrapped tunes.

Then had to put it in the game and get it looping seamlessly

Improvements to debugging display

Also hid some hotkeys behind the debugger so the player doesn’t mess up their experience

Title screen

Loads and loads and loads and loads and LOADS of bugfixes and tweaks

I counted 95+ of these on my Trello board, not including tons of bugs I fixed during the process of actually creating each feature, and not including the bugs left at the time of writing

All this took approximately 2-3 months. Not too shabby! And I’m very excited for the next ProtoDungeon, because even though the next dungeon won’t have the swap mechanic, I can build on this foundation instead of creating everything from scratch! That means I might even be able to include stuff like enemies and a boss, or menu settings. And then who knows what I’ll be able to do in the third and onward ProtoDungeons.

All of this loops back into The Waking Cloak. I’ll be able to get feedback as we progress through the ProtoDungeon and really make The Waking Cloak the best it can be.

That’s all for now. See y’all on the demo release on April 6 (or March 30, if you’re a patron!)

#devlog #devblog #The Waking Cloak #ProtoDungeon #game development #gamedev #indiedev #demo #changelog?

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rpgmgames · 6 years

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August’s Featured Game: Shroom Soup

DEVELOPER(S): Shroomy ENGINE: RPGMaker 2000 GENRE: Adventure, RPG, Psychological Horror WARNINGS: listed here (may contain spoilers) SUMMARY: You play as Arnika, a gloomy teenage girl. Perpetually tired, you live off excessive sleep, lime juice, and instant soup. You look into the vortex forming in your cup of said soup, this time mushroom flavour. Next thing you know, you are in an entirely different world where everything, from buildings to people, is being devoured by fungi. It seems like you have no choice but to walk on... Your journey involves exploration, puzzle-solving and battles.

Download the demo here!

Our Interview With The Dev Team Below The Cut!

Introduce yourself! Hello! I am Shroomy, and I still haven't figured out which one of my nicknames I should go by, but I use "uboaappears" for art and "toxic shroom swamp" for games. I have a bachelor's degree in biology since two weeks ago and like everything surreal, gory and gay. Nice to meet you. I have been in the community since about 2012, and that might be also when I first wanted to make a game - a Yume Nikki fangame, because YN brought me here. I messed around with the engine for a long time, and certain characters and ideas gradually mutated to whatever this is now.

What is your project about? What inspired you to create your game initially? *Shroomy: It's about making a cup of instant soup and accidentally going on a very weird adventure. ...Okay, actually, it's a coming-of-age story with an emphasis on mental health, relationships, and toxic flesh-eating mushrooms. The idea came to me when I made myself an instant soup once. For some reason, I thought it would be cool if there was a portal into another world in the cup. That's how it started. (I was also into drawing mushrooms growing on people at the time, so that naturally made its way into my Awesome Game Idea.)

How long have you been working on your project? *Shroomy: ...A while. It's enough to say that I graduated from both high school and university with it. But to be honest, I didn't really do much with it until about two years ago. Right now I tend to think of the time before that as trial and error, playing around with ideas and learning to use the engine. I feel a little self-conscious about how long it took me to come up with a coherent story, but that might be a good thing. Since this is quite a personal game, it helped to grow as a person. I think it made for a more interesting and mature work than it would be otherwise.

Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project? *Shroomy: I feel like I take little bits of inspirations from everything. But I'd say Yume Nikki and Re:Kinder were the biggest game influences. Maybe Hello Charlotte, too - the minimalistic world gave me some food for thought :> Design-wise, I think my current (character) style is a lovechild of Danganronpa, Killing Stalking and something else I am not sure about. Maybe just me.

Have you come across any challenges during development? How have you overcome or worked around them? *Shroomy: I think the biggest challenges for me have always been centered around the lack of free time, the lack of energy or the lack of motivation. Some people manage to juggle life and gamedev, but I get exhausted really easily, so it's hard. This is an ongoing issue. I tend to try and free up a day just for relaxing and creative stuff. I've also started using the Forest app for focusing on things, and sometimes use it for gamedev as well. At the beginning I found it frustrating that my skills (in pixel art, for example) didn't match what I wanted to create. That one was improved by - you guessed it - making a lot of pixel art. Making and scrapping a bunch of tilesets for the game. It's as simple as practice and learning how to get the most out of your art program. (It also helps me to make a detailed sketch of a map before I start working, or at least brainstorm the main elements of it.) Another challenge was the incoherence of the story. Originally I wanted to make something really vague and open to interpretation, but... that actually didn't give me enough material to work with. In the end, I played around with the characters, tried to write them some backstories that no one was going to see, and somehow ended up with an actual plot..? Shocking, I know! And the final thing is putting gameplay into the game. To be honest, the puzzles in the demo were pretty random on my side, I just thought them up on the spot. In subsequent locations I tried to make them relevant to the game's themes and/or hint towards the story.

Have any aspects of your project changed over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept? *Shroomy: For one thing, the current project has a story and a plan, even if the story is presented in quite an obfuscated way. The original concept was not much more than an idea of a shroomy world. The characters also have a lot more depth and pain to them than they used to. The locations have changed a lot as well, to the point where most of the original ones don't exist anymore.

What was your team like at the beginning? How did people join the team? If you don’t have a team, do you wish you had one or do you prefer working alone? *Shroomy: My team is mostly just me. At the beginning it was a young and naive me, and now we have a slightly older and better-at-art me. After I started my dev blog, I was contacted by Tommuel, who now helps me with sound design and music. And my old friend Robin has made a few NPC sprites for me, and might give a hand with more pixel art in the future. They're not really involved with other aspects of development, but I really appreciate their help anyway! I prefer to keep most of this game to myself - it feels too personal to share, plus I'm a bit of a perfectionist.

What is the best part of developing the game? *Shroomy: I would say it's putting my work out there and sharing it with the world. I'm also really proud of how much I've grown as an artist and writer through developing this. I got attached to this story and this world, with all of its fun, weird and sad details. It's also been really fun, amazing even, to get to know other devs and make friends through being part of this interesting and creative community. I owe some wonderful friendships to it.

Do you find yourself playing other RPG Maker games to see what you can do with the engine, or do you prefer to do your own thing? *Shroomy: I definitely play other games for inspiration, it helps me a lot. Though I try not to make things "just like" other games, but make it a transformative learning experience instead.

Which character in your game do you relate to the most and why? (Alternatively: Who is your favorite character and why?) *Shroomy: I feel like I have been through stages. At first I was Arnika, then Lina, now I feel like I'm turning into Arthur. I guess I put my traits into all of them. (Does that mean that Bernard is the next stage? I'm /so/ ready to transcend humanity, finally learn how to do maths and become everyone's favourite character.)

Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently? *Shroomy: I think the biggest mistake I made was jumping straight into making a game without thinking it through or considering the scope. In the end, the lack of planning set me back a lot. Admittedly, I was young and excitable, so I guess it was a learning experience? I didn't really know how to write stories or plan long-term projects, but over time, I somehow built up those skills. I think it's good to have a clear-ish idea of what you want to make before you start, and maybe start with something small. (So basically, do the opposite of what I did.)

Once you finish your project, do you plan to explore the game’s universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is? *Shroomy: Aha. Actually, yes. I have accidentally started writing two sequels already. They will be small games focusing on other characters' perspectives (as opposed to Arnika). I'm not actually touching them yet though, only making some notes and writing scripts. Perhaps by the time the first game is released I'll have enough material to comfortably work on them.

What do you look most forward to upon/after release? *Shroomy: Fan reaction, I think? To be honest, I'm not really sure. I think I'll just be enjoying the incredible dopamine rush after finally setting this child of mine free to explore the world and infect people's brains with all the shroomy memes it contains. (Also will probably get off the internet for about a week from the anxiety.) Then maybe being free to work on other things, indeed. And posting spoilery concept art >:D

Is there something you’re afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game? *Shroomy: I am a little worried about the reception of the game's subject matter. If you looked at the list of warnings, you might have an idea what I mean. Sometimes it feels dangerous to explore certain themes in your stories, because people misinterpret depicting something bad as promoting it, for example. But that's why that list exists. I'm just going to let people know straight away that I explore dark themes in this project and I'm not going to hold back on how I do it. Creativity should flow freely, I think. (I am also a little worried about the ratio of my free time vs. gamedev time and /when/ I will finally be able to release it, but... Thankfully, I'm the one in charge of that.)

Do you have any advice for upcoming devs? *Shroomy: Take some time to make a plan for your project, start small, fail faster, and aim for something finished before you aim for perfect. Make a system for organising your files. Back up often, and on a different drive/cloud than your game is on, preferably several. Most of all, make something you would love to play! And don't be too hard on yourself.

Question from last month's featured dev @blackcrystalsrpg: What are your game dev pet peeves?? *Shroomy: I dislike the fact that sometimes I want to have made a game more than I want to make a game, but to have made a game you need to go and make the game. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But there's no escape from fate, so... go, go and make that game happen!

We mods would like to thank Shroomy for agreeing to our interview! We believe that featuring the developer and their creative process is just as important as featuring the final product. Hopefully this Q&A segment has been an entertaining and insightful experience for everyone involved!

Remember to check out Shroom Soup if you haven’t already! See you next month!

- Mods Gold & Platinum

#rpgmaker #indie games #pixel games #rpg maker #rpg maker 2000 #shroom soup #gotm #game of the month #gotm august #august 2018 #august #2018 #interview #game making #game dev

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