#i know that he has official stat blocks with magic

[gilearfaeth]

Okay, Edgin is a bard and yet in the High Sun games he doesn’t get a magic suppressing cuff like the other spellcasters do. THEORY: he’s a bard in the literal sense that he performs but class wise he’s a fighter that picked a lute as his weapon of choice.

[stillinthatweirdfaze]

I usually don’t make posts like this bc sharing hobbies and interests on the internet makes me very very anxious for whatever reason but I really really wanna share this issue of the Dragon magazine I found at the thrift store yesterday!!!!!!!!

25th anniversary edition of the official D&D magazine !!!!! It is issue 284 and it came out in June 2001. Unfortunately it did not come with the advertised bonus CD rom when I bought it though :[

I’m gonna use this post to show off some of the stuff that’s in it that I really liked or found interestingggg :]

First off we have a full spread add for baulders gate 2, which is kinda funny considering the third one didn’t come out that long ago. I want to eat this ye oldie early 2000ds generic fantasy font I bet it tastes like burnt shortbread.

A little step by step on how the artist made the cover which I find like. Infinitely charming. Especially since this cover itself is so gorgeous. I hope Todd Lockwood is doing good today.

A full page add for an online anime fantasy rpg called Nexus the kingdom of the winds. OUGGGGEEEEE this art style,,,,,,, it takes me back to places it takes me back to like that one vampire anime and clanad and YouTube anime top tens. Fuck graphic design we should start putting sparkles and radial gradients on everything again.

an add for a series of sound effect cds for your games which I want so so bad I need to know what’s on these.

Two little sections where it seems people can submit photos and stories about themselves or their game members to be published. The Dm of the month one is genuinely heartwarming and cute. The thought of Steve seeing that he won made me smile. Also “Nubile dwarf chicks” and “chaotic secretive” is a great example of how early 2000nds out of pocket this issue can be sometimes. You can fucking smell the energy off the second image.

An extremely funny review of a previous dragon issue.

an add for Gen con 2001 and a schedule of upcoming conventions. If anyone went to these I would genuinely love to hear about them I love convention history a whole lot especially from around this time

A page in, apparently a series, about what ttrpg players value in a game written by Gary Gygax!!! If anyone has any previous or the final issues of this study please do share I really really wanna see them. Also the three genders: males, females, and newbies

Two stat blocks for some half dragon characters

A Draconic to English translation table that I wish I had as a preteen because I would have eaten it the fuck up. Also I cut it off but the last sentence on the bottom right is “please don’t disembowel the dwarf” which apparently is “martiver thric gixustratt tundar”

Add for a brand of miniatures and in what stores to find them. I wonder how many of these places are still open

An add for WOTZ game stores with the tagline “it’s where you play the game” and advertising “Hella Bandwith” and “scantily clad BABES.” I find it unreasonably funny that they are three pictures of the same exact woman, scantily clad babe, one (1), one singular babe.

Spell and magical item themed crossword

A full on campaign setting of the real city of London. I didn’t take pictures of all of it but it has a history section, locations, npcs, adventure hooks, and what even looks like a little blank dungeon layout of a mansion . I feel like putting real places as campaign settings has always been like, a thing, but I don’t see it too often. Its charming I like it.

A stat block and gorgeous illustration for a lesser dragon companion. The gradient circle in the back is my favorite argggg I wanna draw like this sometimes

A section on how to assemble your own monster models. Admittedly I know close to nothing about model making so this was an extremely fun read for me

A bunch of PC portraits of half dragons that are so so cool. You see a lot of stuff about people getting really specific designs about different hybrids like oh a dwarf tyfling looks different than an elf tyfling n that sort of stuff in the modern day but you don’t really see it canonized at all. So it’s really interesting to see that concept in an officially published D&D thing, even if it’s just a magazine. I really like the dwarf one a lot.

Possibly my favorite thing ever is this cartoon that reads like a fucking wizard tumblr shitpost. Like down to a fucking tea this is some shit the evil wizard blog would say and it makes me so so so happyyyyyyyyy. It’s the cadence that amazes me they got the tumblr wizard cadence exactly right. Im posting this shit on its own without shame bc I need people to see it. Pour me something whimsical and arcane bar wench.

A absolutely chefs kiss add for a ????? Pc????? Pc game????? Pc accessory??? I honestly can’t tell anyway enjoy your free ps2 polygonal hotted woman ass

And finally the thing that made me fuckin gasp out loud when I saw it, an add for the original year of our lord 2001 shitty D&D movie with special features and online sweepstakes to win a trip to Prague. Holy shit. God I love this game.

anyway that’s it, I plan to frame this thing and put it up somewhere. Ty for reading all my nerd shit. :,]

[ekuly-lazy-guy]

Succedaneum!Tale Settings & Stories

*These are the settings and stories of my AU Succedaneum!Tale.

*Also collections of drawings and video about Succe I have done before.

*Will help to understand the story of Succe (Maybe).

Characters:

Succedaneum!Sans

Usually called Succe, has a nickname “Big Black Cat”;

It is worth noting that his height was measured when he's hunching low;

Succe can’t die, after his HP reaches 1, his stats turn into garbled codes;

After that, the message “Warning: Character_Sans Not Found” will appear every time you attack;

The damage still exists, just not affecting his HP, so if you keep going, he’ll become ragged since he doesn't know healing magic;

Red light flickering through his body when he uses Gaster Blasters;

He is basically a moving CORE;

Old Theme Song: MegaLOVEnia

Official Fighting Theme: 惊悸失真Litsemer

Flin

Born from the players’ curiosity, wondering through AUs, is the first human in Succe’s original AU;

Doesn’t have gender, can change appearance in free will (but the blue eyes remain the same);

Is able to RESPAWN, which is not the same as RESET. It doesn’t affect the timeline;

He/she is not Frisk or Chara, Flin is just Flin;

Stories-The Past:

In the underground of Succe’s original world (Timeline 8977), there was never a human before, Flin (who said the name themselves) was the first;

Unlike other AUs Flin has been to, the Dreemurr family here welcomed them and treated them as a royal guest, all monsters are friendly;

When arrived exit, Flin felt their curiosity grow, they thought: “there got to be other possibilities, I want to try them all”;

A strong wish granted them with the ability to RESET this timeline, so they started a genocide run;

The monsters here are too strong, they fought hard to finally reach the judgement hall;

Stand there the skeleton who protected them through the last run, his facial expression showed betray and disbelief;

Despite Flin's best efforts, Succe just stood where he was and blocked all the attacks with no effort;

After countless death, Flin finally landed a hit on Succe, they are going to make it, right?;

But then Succe’s eyes glowed and Flin was mercilessly bombed by blasters and died again;

“It’s impossible, he’s too strong, just impossible...”;

“If I can't kill him, then I’ll destroy him mentally.”;

Flin reset the timeline again, killed only Papyrus and left the underground forever.

-

In order to bring Papyrus back, Succe tried millions of experiments to reset, even to the extreme of killing other monsters and experimenting with their souls;

After countless failures, Succe came up with a bad idea. He took himself as the medium and absorbed the magic of the CORE to try to reset;

The attempt was a disaster. Too much magic caused him to go insane;

When he regained consciousness, there was nothing around him except a luminous crack in front;

Succe passes through the crack, and everything in front of him is familiar yet strange. This is a timeline with Pacifist Ending;

Human in this world opened the barrier and lived underground with monsters. Succe met the Sans in this world;

Excessive magic in his body, the disappearance of his own world, all factors caused Succe’s mentality gradually distorted;

“I want my Happy Ending, so you must be gone.”;

He killed the Sans of this timeline and took the soul on the ashes in front of him (so he has two souls in his body, but this change later).

Stories-Now:

After replacing Sans in the current timeline (Timeline 3725), Succe lives in the anxiety of truth being discovered by others every day. He can always hear a voice whispering his sins;

He injured his head during a panic attack and left a terrible crack because he failed to receive treatment in time;

He thought about escaping back to his original timeline (Timeline 8977), but found that the AU had disappeared;

After that, Succe began to integrate into this timeline. Amnesia is a good excuse, and others took good care of him;

In order to better take care of his safety, Grillby proposed to let him work in Grillby's, so Succe works daily as a waiter there;

Everyone cares about their amnesic friend, and his relationship with Frisk is getting better as well. Everything seems to be moving in a good direction, except for his constant headache and the whispers in his ears from time to time;

-

One day, Frisk's class has a transfer student. They became good friends with Frisk and showed great interest in monsters, so Frisk warmly invited them to the underground home;

Here, Flin met the Sans they were familiar with, and this Sans's expression also confirmed his/her conjecture;

They fought once where others could not see, and finally ended up with a draw since neither side can die;

After that, they made an agreement of mutual confidentiality;

However, the agreement doesn’t stop Flin from harassing Succe constantly, and Succe just chooses to ignore them;

Succe is very strong, so it usually ends with Flin being beaten to death by Succe and then RESPAWN;

-

The other Sans’ soul that Succe kept from before began to be filled with hate, which was slowly affecting him;

In order not to be dazzled by hate, Succe finally converted this soul into EXP and absorbed;

He is now LV20;

Unexpectedly, the magic in his body did not go wild because of the increase in LV. On the contrary, his headache disappeared;

But what Succe didn't know was that he began to lose his sensibility and become more and more dull;

Although he would not lose his emotion completely, he is now analgesia (insensitivity to pain), and his feelings such as compassion decreased. So he looks emotionless sometimes.

Ask Succe Series

Some videos:

[wishonastar7]

Timely Fate6

Starting the Paid Service(5)

The panicking started immediately as soon as the clear box hit the floor with a loud thud and the remaining crickets jumped out. Yoo Sangah looked a bit concerned as she watched the commotion, wiping her hands with the wet wipe, while Kim Dokja looked as if he had expected something like this to happen.

Our eyes met. I stared straight at him in the eyes, daring him to question my actions but he stared back and nodded his head. Of course, he would agree, I did almost the same thing that he had in the original novel of 'Omniscient reader's Viewpoint.'

"H-hey why would you do such a thing-"

Some turned their heads to glare at me while the others immediately scurried forward.

"You son of a bitch."

"You better start looking for them quickly, there are only three minutes left." Dokja intervened, crossing his arms as he confronted the small group of people that had started walking towards me.

His words were a signal for the people to start looking everywhere on the subway train. They crouched down to look under seats and in between cracks.

"Yes! I got one! Aaaack! N-no...stop-!"

The joy that the more fortunate ones gained after finding an insect quickly dissipated as they also became targets of the others and their malicious attacks. The carriage quickly became chaotic.

"Hey, why'd you do that? Shouldn't you have just given them the insects?"

Looking back, I saw that Kim Namwoon had directed his gaze towards me and had finally decided to quit being silent. I looked at the silver-haired teen, annoyance creeping up my neck, but I responded calmly.

"There are twelve people left."

"What?" He tilted his head to the side, confused.

"Only three insects were remaining inside the net."

He frowned, quickly mulling over my words, before he quickly put on an ear-splitting grin. "Kekekeke, twelve to three? Not all of them will be able to survive, right? So you threw the net and the lucky ones would find the remaining three?"

"Yea,"

"Don't make me laugh!"

"...." He was starting to piss me off.

"A normal person with common sense wouldn't do that sort of thing without a reason." He grinned, as he looked up at me with a sadistic gleam in his eyes. "Tell me honestly...You just wanted to see this scene, didn't you?"

And there was the question. [Exclusive skill, Character List is activated] a message rang in my ear. Though I was surprised, I made sure not to show it.

[Character Information]

[Name: Kim Namwoon

Age: 19

Constellation Support: None (Two constellations are showing interest in this person)

Private Attribute: Chunnibyou (General)

Exclusive Skills: Unusual Adaptability lv. 3, Knife Fighting lv.1, Blackening lv.1

Overall Stats: Stamina lv.3, Strength lv.4, Agility lv.6, Magic Power lv.4

Overall Rating: A chuunibiyou who was blackened by a special occasion. It is recommended that you don't get involved with him.]

Kim Namwoon wasn't like most chuunibiyous. Unlike the others that had decided to end their own suffering because they couldn't endure the nightmare that had become a reality, Kim Namwoon became know as the Delusional Demon.

He had been waiting for the destruction of the world the entire time and had adapted at an 'unusual speed.'

He looked from me to Dokja and back. "Why don't you two team up with me?" There was a few seconds of silence as Dokja and I met eyes.

[The character 'Kim Namwoon' has a favorable impression of you]

[Your understanding of the character 'Kim Namwoon' has now increased]

I looked at the notification that had popped up in front of me, my face not betraying anything. I closed my eyes, pretending to be mulling through the idea. I opened my eyes to see Dokja was staring at me.

I smiled at him, tilting my head to the side. He stared at me before grinning. We looked at Kim Namwoon, who had been watching our little play, before speaking at the same time.

"No."

Immediately, his face contorted a bit before returning to that annoying smirk. "Ah, what a shame. I mean it. Then can you step aside? I have something to do with that old lady behind you." I could feel Yoo Sangah stiffen behind me. Gilyoung's hand on my hoodie tightened.

"What do you want?" Dokja asked, crossing his arms as he looked down at the arrogant chuunibyou.

The other leaned his head back, "Do you have to ask?"

"You aren't catching the insects?"

I held my breath. "Insects? Why would I catch that? I've already caught one in front of me." He grinned down at the old lady who was struggling to breathe and was bleeding.

Yoo Sangah immediately moved in front of the grandma, fear prominent in her eyes but radiating a protective aura. I couldn't help but feel proud of her.

I looked back at Kim Namwoon. He had a murderous aura.

He was every bit the person I had always imagined him to be.

[The character 'Kim Namwoon' has a slight decrease in favor towards you and your companion 'Kim Dokja']

He stared right at Kim Dokja, his eyes occasionally moving onto me. "Well, aren't you going to move aside?"

Kim Dokja crossed his arms and tilted his head, his eyes closing as he feigned a serious thinking expression. I snorted, turning the other way when Kim Namwoon's slightly confused by slowly reddening eyes turned towards me, oops, he was getting angry.

"Hah...it's really a tough decision." Kim Dokja muttered to himself, yet speaking loud enough for those around him to hear.

Kim Namwoon stared at him. "What?"

Kim Dokja smiled, looking at the white-haired boy as if he was looking at the eyes of an innocent child that wouldn't grow to be a young man obsessed with blood and murder. "I won't move aside." He said in an almost doting tone.

"Haha," Kim Namwoon chuckled darkly, "Are you two going to imitate the Apostle of Justice? Hey, do you have multiple personalities? Fuck you."

He looked at me directly in the eyes, completely ignoring the taller man in front of me. "Who cares what the others go through, the type of place this country has regressed to is nothing that can be saved with a bit of compassion."

He looked at me, his dark eyes seemed to be glowing when he spoke. The words he had spoken weren't in the official novel or the novel based off of the original, 'Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint.'

But there was truth in his words, I knew it. Still, I couldn't think about what he said, my mind was focused on one word.

Regressed.

I knew that Dokja would be focused on the fact that his words hadn't been in the original novel but the fact that, during this life, I knew Yoo Jonghyuk on a personal level only the realization that he had regressed three times already, made my heart stutter. It all felt real now.

Kim Dokja, Yoo Sangah, and Lee Gilyoung weren't just characters from a book. Now they were real. The years of interactions I had had with the 'characters' of a novel felt like years I had gone through in befriending people.

Not that they weren't people before, because they were.

They were all people just like me only, I hadn't thought of them that way. I had thought of them as lesser than what they were.

I felt hot tears prick the corner of my eyes, I hurriedly rushed to wipe them, thankful for the fact that no one had caught me in the act.

Kim Namwoon's cackle brought me out of my musing. "No, wait a minute. It couldn't have been, could it?" He cackled, holding his stomach. "Did you throw over the net just to do this from the beginning? Really?"

His question was directed to me. I leveled myself, fatigued and unwilling to answer him "...".

"You wanted to save the grandma? Hahaha! Amazing! Really fucking amazing! No? Yes?" What the hell was this idiot saying.

"Ah..." He sighed, shuffling. "It turns out the two of you are the type of people I hate the most."

'Hah....you're the type of person I hate the most too, ok?' I thought to myself silently, readying myself to block the first hit sent my way.

[The character 'Kim Namwoon' despises you and your companion 'Kim Dokja']

"What did you say?"

Dokja lowered his head, seemingly casually avoiding the punch that flew over his head eve before Kim Namwoon's words were over.

"Oh? Not bad.." He said as he sent a right cross in my direction. I stepped aside, watching the fist move towards me and back. There was a hint of heat as his fist moved, proving that it wasn't any ordinary punch.

[Blackening Lv.1]

"Oh~ You too?"

"Not bad, not bad at all." The grin that had formed on his face turned maniacal.

A dark aura rose from his body, enveloping him from head to toe. He looked at me in the eye, I stared right back only to be met with glowing pupils. I couldn't help but shiver.

This was an exclusive skill of his 'chuunibyou' trait. It was rare rough to release an exclusive skill before the end of the first scenario, but Kim Namwoon was already showing one. It was expected of him though, after all, there was a reason who he had been recruited by the main character.

Hah... this was really starting to get too predictable. I really didn't want to but-

Peeok! I felt my shoulder spasm where he hit me, with my mixed martial arts experience I might be able to go against him.

[Your understanding of the character 'Kim Namwoon' has increased]

[You and your companion 'Kim Dokja' are close to the conditions of use for the exclusive skill 'Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint' Lv. 1]

Here it was.

[The conditions of use for the exclusive skill 'Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint' Lv. 1 has been reached for you and your companion 'Kim Dokja!']

Kim Dokja sent me a look of surprise, Kim Namwoon struck again.

His fist narrowly missed Dokja, who had been distracted, and came my way once more. I pulled on his arm and sent him towards the ground.

"Haha, what's this?" He turned to look at me from the ground he had been pushed towards and..unlodged his fist from the ground. A faint fist mark remained, he was realizing this newfound strength of his little by little.

Kwang! Kwang! Kwang!

"Haven't I become stronger?" He grinned, the fist that could break bones with a single blow kept on hitting the ground. Kim Namwoon let out a frustrated growl.

"Ah, why can't I hit you?"

Of course, he couldn't hit us. Thanks to 'Omniscient reader's Viewpoint' we could observe Kim Namwoon's attack direction like we were reading his thoughts.

[Right side]

Dokja moved away from the direction of the attack.

[Left eye]

I bent down to avoid the fist and sent a fist towards his gut, his attention immediately moved towards me.

"You're a little different aren't you Princess?" I glared at the nickname, disgust welling up in the back of my throat as his attention.

I held my hands up in front of me and sent a jab towards him, I hit him square in the eye. He grinned at me as he sent a sidekick towards my waist. I caught his leg, and twisted it, he yelped in both shock and pain.

"You-!"

I grinned, grabbing his collar and hitting him square in the jaw and then in the same eye. Dokja came up behind him and threw him to the ground, his head banging loudly against it.

"Are you ok?" He asked me, taking my clenched fists into his hands and rubbing my knuckles lightly.

"Yeah," I smiled. "I'm ok."

Kim Namwoon got back up, a frustrated snarl on his face as he hurriedly sent a punch towards Dokja, face grimacing in pain as he stood on the twisted leg.

I jumped away and towards the grandmother and the others, I pointed to the timer that had been slowly decreasing. "There are less than two minutes left kid, you better hurry." I stood in a protective stance if Kim Namwoon killed anyone he would be able to pass this scenario.

He grinned, knocking himself into Kim Doja and pushing the older man to the ground. He pulled something out of his bag. A blade shone in the fluorescent light. It was-

"-a portable MacGyver Knife." Dammit, I had forgotten. This kid was a diehard military otaku.

Swiiiik-

There was an obvious link between the technical skill 'Knife Fighting' and the strengthening skill 'Blackening'. It was obvious to which direction the knife was pointing.

[Heart]

It was an unavoidable attack but I had to do some quick thinking, I changed the direction my body pointed towards, and instead of my heart, the knife pierced my shoulder. The deep cut on my shoulder immediately spilled red.

I gritted my teeth, pain searing on my skin as my vision shook.

"Ha-Neul!" I heard the voices of others call out as I struggled to keep my attention on Kim Namwoon.

"Hahahaha! Now die."

Less than a minute and thirty seconds left. I pitied the grandmother, I swear I really did, but it was time to use 'that'.

"Chungil High School, 2nd Year, Kim Namwoon. I have one question for you." I stated, reciting the same lines Kim Dokja had said to Kim Namwoon from the novel.

"...What?"

"I wonder....do you think an insect egg is a living thing?" I took out the cricket I had killed earlier from my pocket. Its egg-sac was abundant, then the sound of popping as fluid trailed down my hand. The disgusting feeling spread over my hand and I felt bile rising in my throat as I heard a message.

.

.

.

[You have killed a living thing]

[100 coins have been earned as additional compensation]

[You have killed a living thing]

[100 coins have been earned as additional compensation]

[You have killed a living thing]

.

.

.

Multiple messages bombarded my ears.

He frowned, "Insect eggs? Are you trying to waste time?"

I chuckled, shrugging. "I guess so."

"How would I know something like that? I've always slept during bio." He looked at my bloody shoulder, face contorting into a happy laugh. "But there is something that I'm sure of. Wanna know what?"

"...What is it?"

"You will die right now!" He moved the swiss knife before I could answer in an attack that was hard to avoid.

[A large number of coins have been acquired! Do you wish to check the coin usage tips?]

I snorted, omitting the explanation that entered my ears as I snarled at the teen, there was no need to listen when I already knew the contents.

"Hah! Me dying? No, it's you who will die!" I spat out, muttering something else quietly.

[2.700 coins have been invested into 'stamina']

[Stamina Lv. 20 → Stamina Lv. 30]

I would think about that later.

[Your stamina has increased dramatically!]

[The durability of your body has greatly increased!]

Kim Namwoon's knife penetrated my heart, to be exact, it looked as if it was penetrating my heart.

My skin had turned rock solid, not even a scratch remained. His eyes widened in astonishment.

"H-how?" His eyes moved from the stab wound in my shoulder to the knife that should've been lodged directly into my heart.

"Let me tell you the correct answer to my question: Yes. An egg is a living thing."

"W-what?"

"And in spawning season, female crickets can lay over 100 eggs, sometimes over 200 eggs.

"What are you saying?"

"There's no need to understand. Since there's barely a minute left."

Finally, fear appeared over Kim Namwoon's face. "Aaaaaah! Die! Die! Diediediediedie!"

The knife moved towards my neck, there was no reason to move.

Kakakang

It must've been since the area was more vulnerable than the chest. There was a slight scratch this time, nothing to be worried about though.

"Kim Namwoon."

Behind us, people were crawling around that section of the train, searching for crickets. Some had already given up, others were still searching and once they suspected someone already laying hold of one, they attacked.

"You were right about one thing. I am the same type of human as you."

Maybe I could've saved some of those people.

"Shit! Fuck! Why won't you die?! JUST FUCKING DIE ALREADY!"

50, 45, 40...

The knife barely left any scratches, small beads of blood bled from a few of the scratches. 45 seconds left when Kim Namwoon opened his mouth, dropping the knife and kneeling in front of me.

"S-save me...p-please."

30...

"Save me! Please! Please!"

I grinned, "Why should I?"

[You are close to the conditions of the exclusive skill 'Capture the Target' Lv. 1]

[The conditions of the exclusive skill 'Capture the Target' Lv. 1 have been met]

[Do you wish to 'Capture the Target → Kim Namwoon?']

Oh? What a pleasant surprise.

[Accept or Decline]

25 seconds left.

"People's lives are important! Th-that's obvious!"

"That is the rule of the old rule. This is a new world, just as you said. A new world requires new laws."

20 seconds.

"I don't want to die! Please! I don't want to die!!"

His face contorted as he wailed, tears and snot covering his face.

I smiled down at him, my face gentle and showing a fond look. He continued wailing, closing his eyes.

15 seconds left.

"Then.." He looked up at me, desperation in his eyes.

10 seconds.

"Be a good boy from now on, ok?" He nodded frantically, grasping at the ends of my hoodie. "Accept," I said quietly, a golden light forming like a bracelet on my wrist. A golden 'string' of light trailing down from the bracelet to the neck of Kim Namwoon.

5 seconds.

A notification appeared from my [Companions] 'tab' as gasped sounded around me. Kim Namwoon stared at the golden light that had slowly disappeared into nothingness, a confused look appearing in his eyes before he caught sight of the timer.

He wailed out in fear, desperately searching for his knife that had been kicked away by Dokja at some point.

[The given time has run out]

Throughout the train, the sound of heads exploding came like a chain reaction.

[Paid settlement will begin]

One head, two, three, four...

They were like bloody fireworks introducing us to a new era. I watched the scene with joy, a bit of guilt, and an unidentifiable feeling swarming n my gut.

It was unnerving how calm I was.

[You have killed 156 living things.]

[Kill History: 1 cricket, 155 cricket eggs]

[You have killed non-resistant living things. The numbers of coins you have acquired is now reduced by half]

[7,800 coins have been acquired]

[The number of coins used towards stats level up is automatically subtracted]

[The 'Mass Murder' achievement has been gained through excessive killing]

I looked up towards the mirror and saw a streak of blood on my face, I didn't bother wiping it away, knowing the blood was on the window.

Kkiiiik.

There was a lurching feeling as the train started moving once more, making the familiar sound of the train.

Soon, light-flooded in, and the darkness was finally lifted from the windows. We had arrived at the surface ground section of Line 3 between Apgujeong and Oksu.

From the outside of the window, we could see the Han River and Seoul.

Ahhh, someone let out a moan of relief.

It didn't take long for the moan of relief to change to one of both terror and disbelief. The landscape outside the window was no longer the one of the Seoul and Han River we had all became familiar with as children.

Smoke and dust rose from the ruined city, my heart pierced at the sight of the devastated city.

The Han River bridges had collapsed, its waters dyes red from the blood of fallen soldiers as a monster, while amongst the fallen buildings, trampled on a K1 tank like it was a Christmas toy.

[Main Scenario #1-- Proof of Value has ended.]

[300 coins have been acquired as a basic clearance reward]

[100 coins have been reduced for the channel usage fee]

[Additional compensation settlement will now begin]

One world was destroyed and a new world was born.

Dokja and I looked at each other, our eyes reflecting the mess that the other ad become.

...I was the only reader who knew the true outcome of this world.

[Accepted]

[You have now become 'Kim Namwoon's master, in place of his constellation]

I looked down at the white-haired teen who was looking down at his hands, obvious shock on his face.

There was still this kid to deal with.

[The character 'Kim Namwoon' had a favorable impression of you'

[The character 'Kim Namwoon's favorability had increased]

[The character 'Kim Namwoon's favorability had increased]

[The character 'Kim Namwoon's favorability had increased]

[The character 'Kim Namwoon's favorability had increased]

I sighed. This child.

(3417)

[tigerkirby215]

5e Olaf, the Beserker build (League of Legends)

(Artwork by Phroilan Gardner. Made for Riot Games.)

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Olaf sounds like ProZD’s Archibald voice. Especially Olaf’s voice lines for using his Q it sounds exactly like ProZD’s “Huah! I think that enemy got the point!” Like I’m not crazy right? Please tell me I’m not the only one who hears this.

Anyways Olaf has been on my To Do List ever since I realized that I haven’t made a single champion whose name starts with the letter O. My desire to make Olaf was only further accentuated by the Sentinels of Light event, even if his inclusion in that event could best be summed up with...

But I won’t ignore Olaf just because the Sentinels of Light event was a flop. He’s still a compelling character that I have actually gotten some requests to make. After all: the dual-axe wielding Barbarian is an iconic image!

I mean, Olaf is probably just going to be 20 levels in Beserker Barbarian so I don’t know why you need me to make a build for that.

GOALS

C'mon, I won't hurt you - We’ll need ways to heal when we harm in the middle of combat.

Death by steel! - Swing axe, throw axe; unga bunga me play Olaf.

The might of Lokfar approaches - I didn’t manage to do so with Mundo but Olaf is going to need to have CC immunity.

RACE

Olaf is a human; feel free to pick a different race like Goliath or even Custom Lineage to justify him being Iceborn but Variant Human is still the best option. Increase your Strength by 1 as well as your Constitution, grab any skill proficiency of your choice as it honestly doesn’t matter much for Olaf (maybe you should’ve been Custom Lineage for Darkvision after all?), and the Primordial language because I’m sure you picked up on the language of the wild.

For your feat you have a choice: Dual Wielder will let you wield two d8 Battleaxes (instead of d6 Handaxes) and also increase your AC by 1 while dual-wielding, but the Fighting Initiate feat will let you grab Two-Weapon Fighting which will let you add your Strength modifier to your second axe’s swing. I persually opted for Dual Wielder as it gives you more benefits overall, and we’ll be getting ways to throw axes without having to hold onto them first.

ABILITY SCORES

15; STRENGTH - I mean, you’re a shirtless Barbarian running around with two axes. You thought this would be a DEX build?

14; CONSTITUTION - The reason you can’t die is because you’re so hardy. Sucks!

13; CHARISMA - Despite Riot’s great attempts at writing you as poorly as possible you do still have some sort of Charisma. Remember that Charisma is force of personality, not necessarily good looks or personal hygiene. Charisma is needed for Intimidation as well as multiclassing.

12; DEXTERITY - You need to be quick on your feet to run at your enemies with reckless abandon.

10; WISDOM - If you were wise you wouldn’t be trying to kill yourself.

8; INTELLIGENCE - You stopped caring about education the moment you were born. Battle is the only thing in your blood!

This build is also quite viable with Point Buy, going for a stat array like 15 / 12 / 14 / 8 / 8 / 14 if you want lower mental stats but higher combat stats.

BACKGROUND

The Uthgardt Tribe Member background from the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide is basically the Outlander background but you actually belonged to Freljordian society once. Regardless you do get proficiency in Athletics as well as Survival (”Survival” as in finding food to eat, not as in keeping safe on the battlefield!), a musical instrument or artisan’s tool of your choice (choose whatever you fancy and make your own Olaf, as long as it’s something a warrior would do! I personally opted for Smith’s Tools to sharpen your axes), and a language of your choice (pick whatever language they spoke back in the villages.)

Your background Uthgardt Heritage is the Outlander’s Wanderer feature with extra steps: along with being able to find food and water you are also treated well by nomads and wanderers who have heard of your glorious battles!

(Artwork by Marie Magny and West Studios. Made for Riot Games.)

THE BUILD

LEVEL 1 - BARBARIAN 1

Starting off as a Barbarian because what else would we be? You get proficiency in two skills from the Barbarian list: Intimidation is an obvious must and Perception will help you find good fights to take!

As a Barbarian you get Unarmored Defense equal to your Dexterity plus your Constitution, which is currently a 13... Well Medium Armor is an option if you want to finally put on a shirt. And of course as a Barbarian you can Rage to deal more damage and resist incoming damage! You can’t cast spells while Raging, but that won’t matter, right? It’s not like I’m about to give you caster levels.

LEVEL 2 - FIGHTER 1

Quickly hopping over to Fighter to further your martial skills. You can grab a Fighting Style like Thrown Weapon Fighting to draw weapons in the same action you make to throw them, and also do +2 damage with thrown weapon attacks. See? Told you we’d be able to throw axes easily!

You also get Second Wind for some not-quite-Lifesteal to keep you in the fight to claim even more glory! Certainly not to stay alive.

LEVEL 3 - FIGHTER 2

Well another Fighter level for Action Surge is certainly worth it, as you can push yourself to destroy your foes!

LEVEL 4 - FIGHTER 3

But we need one more Fighter level to be able to get our axes back after we throw them. Eldritch Knights get Weapon Bond, allowing them to always keep two weapons on hand and never lose them. While bonded with a weapon you can’t be disarmed of them, and you can use a Bonus Action to recall a weapon if it’s not in your hands. My suggestion would be to bond to a Battleaxe and a Handaxe, so you can’t be disarmed of at least one of your main weapons and can also call your thrown axe back to throw it again!

You also get Spellcasting as an Eldritch Knight: You learn two cantrips from the Wizard list, and three spells as well. You may be thinking “wait; didn’t you dump Intelligence?” That is correct, but you don’t need Intelligence to cast Light to see with your dumb human eyes (I mean technically you need Intelligence if you want to cast Light on someone else but it’s probably easier just to light up your axe and throw it at them) or Prestidigitation, which is a better spell for creating bonfires than the actual Create Bonfire spell.

Your leveled spells have to be from either the Evocation or Abjuration schools, but thankfully Absorb Elements and Shield are both from the Abjuration school and also don’t need Intelligence. Protect yourself from damage to have a truly glorious death! Because it’s not like blocking attacks will keep you alive.

You can also learn one spell from any school and uhhhh... Pick your poison between Jump and Longstrider, to make it easier to chase your foes. Are there probably better spells? Yeah, but do they fit Olaf?

(Artwork by Xiao Guang Sun and West Studios. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 5 - PALADIN 1

Jumping over to Paladin for a few abilities, such as Divine Sense to find some things that will put up a good fight like Fiends, Undead, or... Celestials? I’m sure they hit hard! You can also find a good desecrated (or consecrated) battleground with this ability, as I’m sure there will be good enemies there! You only know of an enemy’s type however, not their name. And if they’re hiding from you this ability won’t make it any easier to find them.

You also get Lay on Hands, which is like lifesteal you can give to allies! You have a pool of hit points equal to your Paladin level times 5, and you can use it to either heal (at a rate of 1 point per hitpoint) or neutralize a poison or disease affecting a target. (5 Lay on Hands health to neutralize one poison or disease.) Dying to natural causes isn’t a glorious death, brother!

LEVEL 6 - PALADIN 2

We’ll also need second level in Paladin to get a Fighting Style, but since Wizards of the Coast hates fun you can’t can’t take Two-Weapon Fighting, and since we’re running around in our birthday suit Defense also isn’t an option. The best official Fighting Style you can take is Blind Fighting (Blessed Warrior is okay too if you want Guidance I guess) but talk to your DM about potentially letting you take Two-Weapon Fighting? It’s not like it’s OP or anything (in all honesty it’s kinda shit.)

Paladins also get... more Spellcasting?! Disgusting! Well this spellcasting is based on your Charisma modifier instead of your Intelligence, which might be why we have it at a 14. But even so you can’t prepare that many spells: Divine Favor will let you empower all your attacks with more damage for some Vicious Strikes, Cure Wounds will again be acting as life-not-quite-steal, and Shield of Faith will let you or an ally absorb more blows, not that you want to live or anything. Also remember to check the Player’s Handbook to see how many spell slots you’d have after mixing two casters together.

But I still think the best course of action for your spell slots is to use them for Divine Smite! Throw caution and magic to the wind to make a Reckless Swing that does extra Radiant damage (depending on the level of the spell slot used.) The Smite deals 2d8 of damage for a first level slot, and an additional d8 of damage for every slot above first. (The simple way to remember this is that you roll a number of d8s equal to the spell slot used plus one.) If the enemy is a Fiend or Undead the damage increases by a d8! The maximum level spell slot you can use for this is a 4th level slot (for 5d8 damage, or 6d8 against a Fiend or Undead), but I doubt we’ll get spell slots that big.

LEVEL 7 - PALADIN 3

We may as well take a third level in Paladin for a Sacred Oath, and you swore an Oath of Glory in battle! Along with Guiding Bolt and Heroism being added to your spell list (as if you can cast spells lmao) you get two Channel Divinity options: Peerless Athlete turns you into... well, a Peerless Athlete with advantage on Athletics and Acrobatics checks. You can also carry, push, drag, and lift twice as much weight as normal, and to top it off the distance of your long and high jumps increases by 10 feet. This boost lasts for 10 minutes which should be more than enough to give it your all in battle!

Alternatively for some more not-quite-lifesteal Inspiring Smite can be activated after you Smite to give yourself or nearby allies within 30 feet temporary hitpoints. The total number of temporary hit points gained by this ability equals 2d8 + your Paladin level, and you can distribute them amongst yourself and your allies however you wish. Technically the most gameplay-accurate way to split the Temp HP would be to take it all yourself but being helpful has its benefits. A battle is truly glorious if fought alongside an army of companions!

You also get Divine Health, because Glory doesn’t die on sick days!

LEVEL 8 - PALADIN 4

It’s about time to take that 4th Paladin level to finally get an Ability Score Improvement: +2 to Strength for stronger axe swings is an obvious choice!

You can also prepare another spell like Bless, which will make it easier for you and your allies to smite your foes and survive their blows! Wait, what was that about surviving?

(Artwork made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 9 - PALADIN 5

Since it’s so close we may as well take the 5th level of Paladin so you can finally make an Extra Attack. That means you have two attacks normally and a third attack with your Bonus Action thanks to Two-Weapon Fighting!

You can also prepare second level Paladin spells now, and the Oath of Glory gives you Enhance Ability and Magic Weapon as spells you can cast. Believe it or not these are actually useful, even with your low spellcasting modifier!

LEVEL 10 - PALADIN 6

The 6th level of Paladin is honestly too good to pass up: even though Aura of Protection is only adding +2 to all your saving throws (since your Charisma is kinda uhhh... not good?) that’s still +2 to all your saves, as well as the saves of your allies within 10 feet. That’s like, two whole Rings of Protection!

Speaking of rings: Warding Bond was added to the Paladin spell list thanks to Tasha’s and it’ll let you take damage for your allies to die in their place! As long as you don’t mind wearing some platnium rings in your beard, at least.

LEVEL 11 - PALADIN 7

What we’re really here for is the 7th level of Glory Paladin. Aura of Alacrity will increase the speed of you and your allies within 5 feet (not 10, because Wizards of the Coast are weird) by 10 feet, so you can charge at your foes with the might of Ragnarok!

LEVEL 12 - PALADIN 8

But we may as well take the 8th level of Paladin for another Ability Score Improvement: cap off your Strength for the deadliest strikes possible.

You can also prepare another spell but it would be wise to wait for...

(Artwork by JoJo So. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 13 - PALADIN 9

9th level Paladins can prepare third level spells like Crusader’s Mantle to give all your nearby allies the Divine Favor buff to rush into battle with you! But the main reason we’re dipping this deep into Paladin is for the two spells from the Oath of Glory: Protection from Energy perhaps isn’t all that fitting, but Haste is insanely useful and powerful. More attacks, more speed, more... armor? Well, it’s no matter. More glorious battle!

LEVEL 14 - PALADIN 10

10th level Paladins won’t be swayed by magic swaying their hearts! Aura of Courage will let you (and your allies within 10 feet) laugh in the face of death as you gain immunity to the Frightened condition!

You can also prepare another spell like Aura of Vitality: you can use it to heal yourself but healing your allies will lead to a far more glorious story to tell of your death.

LEVEL 15 - PALADIN 11

I promise that we’ll go back to Barbarian levels soon but 11th level Paladins get a huge boost to their damage output thanks to Improved Divine Smite. This ability affects all your attacks (not just your Smites despite the name) to give them an extra d8 of Radiant damage. This has obvious synergy with your choice to swing two axes since your Two-Weapon Fighting attack will also get that extra d8 of damage!

LEVEL 16 - PALADIN 12

Okay but let’s quickly grab the 12th level of Paladin first. You can either increase your Constitution for more health and AC, or your Charisma for better saving throws and spellcasting. I personally opted for Charisma but if you value health and AC then Constitution is good too!

Oh and yeah you can prepare more spells, but there aren’t really that many other third level spells I want.

(Artwork by Alvin Lee. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 17 - PALADIN 13

That’s because 13th level Paladins finally get 4th spells which most importantly means Freedom of Movement! There you go you finally have Ragnarok’s CC immunity! You also get Compulsion which sure would be a good spell if you had any Charisma to actually cast it.

But you can also prepare more spells like Aura of Purity so you and your allies can shrug off whatever your foes might throw at you to stop you from reaching them, or Death Ward which you ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT USE ON YOURSELF.

LEVEL 18 - PALADIN 14

Okay but the 14th level of Paladin gives you Cleansing Touch, letting you cleanse spells without spell slots to cast Freedom of Movement. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Charisma modifier and regain all expended uses at the end of a Long Rest.

You could also perhaps prepare another spell like... Aid? I don’t know really by this point the magic is secondary. We’ll be going back to Barbarian soon anyways.

LEVEL 19 - PALADIN 15

But 15th level Glory Paladins get Glorious Defense, and we can’t pass that up! When you or another creature you can see (technically an enemy if you so desire!) within 10 feet of you is hit by an attack roll, you can use your reaction to grant a bonus to the target’s AC against that attack equal to your Charisma modifier. If the attack misses you can make one weapon attack against the attacker as part of this reaction, provided the attacker is within your weapon’s range. You can do this a number of times equal to your Charisma modifier, and regain all uses at the end of a Long Rest.

LEVEL 20 - PALADIN 16

But since it’s so close one final level in Paladin would be good for one final ASI: again more Constitution means more health and AC, but more Charisma will boost all your Paladin abilities!

Speaking of Paladin abilities you can prepare one more spell before we start taking more Barbarian levels... honestly you can pick your poison as it won’t matter much when your Raging!

...Wait.

WHY NO BARBARIAN LEVELS?

There’s a lot of things that I can’t do as a Barbarian. The most notable option that would be restricted if I went pure Barbarian would be Freedom of Movement, and while crowd control is somewhat rare in D&D being able to ignore it is far more important to Olaf as a character.

There’s also no Barbarian that has lifesteal besides Path of the Beast, and the only Barbarian that can throw its axe easily is Path of Wild Magic. Obviously neither of these fit Olaf.

Ultimately Paladin gave us more of Olaf’s abilities. The only ability that Barbarians have which fit Olaf other than Unarmored Defense and I guess Unarmored Movement would be Feral Instinct. But even the Barbarian subclasses don’t fit Olaf with the only ones which make any sense being maybe Totem Warrior? (Despite Olaf’s title Berserker wouldn’t fit him well, mostly because Berserker is a bad subclass.) But we miss out on so many of Olaf’s actual abilities by making him a Barbarian.

tl;dr Barbarians can’t do magic and Olaf has a ton of abilities that can only be recreated in D&D with magic

FINAL BUILD

PROS

Urge to kill rising... - Two-Weapon Fighting really doesn’t get the respect it deserves by the D&D community. You wouldn’t be able to get three attacks as a level 11 Paladin in any other way, meaning that you can truly capitalize on Improved Divine Smite. Not to mention the general increased DPS of 3 attacks and 3 chances to Smite!

Faster to battle! - It was not my intention but Glory Paladins are surprisingly good team players with a variety of spells and abilities that can keep your team alive and increase their strength in battle.

Obliteration! - You’re fairly hard to kill... oops. But between decently high health, spells to defend yourself, and damn high saving throws no matter how you increase your Charisma you’ll be quite a challenge to eventually take down! Sure your AC might suck... we should probably talk about that.

CONS

The worth of a man can be measured by the length of his beard, and the girth of his belt buckle - Hey remember that one Barbarian level I took pretty much entirely so you could have Unarmored Defense? Yeah honestly it’s gimping you hard, to the point that even Mage Armor would give you more AC. Honestly playing this build as Fighter 4 / Paladin 16 would be far better as you’d get one more ASI at the cost of actually having to wear armor. Hell going full Paladin 20 would give you the Living Legend capstone which is crazy strong, and while the loss of Action Surge would hurt you can grab the Thrown Weapon Fighting Style with a feat. (Or just take Two-Weapon Fighting style with your Variant Human Feat and run around with Hand Axes.)

If you’re really dead-set on going unarmored beg your DM for a Barrier Tattoo: either a Rare one (you’ll still need 14 DEX for something something legally-not-Medium Armor) or a Very Rare one (so you don’t even have to worry about Dexterity.) You can even go the Tahm Kench route and grab Eldritch Adept for Disguise Self to look unarmored if it’s really that important to you.

Well that was a pretty long con to say “Barbarian Olaf bad.” What else is there?

Chop chop! - Who would’ve guessed that dumping both mental stats would make you a dummy? While Aura of Protection saves you to some extent the party won’t be turning to you for any History checks.

Finally, some fun! - You have a rather silly amount of spells relative to your spell slots, and a good number of them are Concentration as well. Throwing all your slots to the wind to Divine Smite with reckless abandon sounds fun but managing both your Concentration and your spell slots will take some effort.

But your choice to go in without armor is just a self-handicap after all: you really want to die, and prove yourself in death! Fight the toughest fights and take down the strongest foes until you finally prove your prophecy wrong and fall before the blade of the mightiest foe! But perhaps you should instead sit down and have a muffin, and think about why you truly want to die die die.

(Artwork made for Riot Games.)

[candyradium]

Finally got around to typing up my Technoblade D&D build!!! I’ve been working on making these for a lot of the Dream SMP characters, and I thought it would be fun to have him in stat block format, so you too can throw c!Technoblade at your players as a final boss! (Disclaimer: I don’t know how accurate the CR level is, I just set it to 8 since the build is a lv8 build PC build.)

Image description and explanation/rambling below the cut!

[Image ID: A D&D stat block for Technoblade. It reads:

Technoblade

Medium humanoid (firbolg), Lawful Neutral

Armor Class: 18 (Half plate, defense fighting style)

Hit Points: 72 (8d12+24)

Speed: 40 ft.

STR: 18 (+4)

DEX: 14 (+2)

CON: 16 (+3)

INT: 14 (+2)

WIS: 13 (+1)

CHA: 6 (-2)

Saving Throws: Str +7, Con +6

Skills: Athletics +7, Intimidation +1, Perception +4, Survival +4

Damage Resistances: bludgeoning, piercing, slashing

Senses: passive Perception 14

Languages: Common, Elvish, Giant, Goblin

Challenge: 8 (3,900 XP)

Innate spellcasting. Technoblade's innate spellcasting ability is Wisdom (spell save DC 12). He can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components:

1/short rest each: detect magic, disguise self

Speech of beast and leaf. Technoblade has the ability to communicate in a limited manner with beasts and plants. They can understand the meaning of his words, though he has no special ability to understand them in return. He has advantage on all Charisma checks he makes to influence them.

Powerful build. Technoblade counts as one size larger when determining his carrying capacity and the weight he can push, drag, or lift.

Unarmoured defense. When not wearing any armour, Technoblade's defense equals 15. He can use a shield and still gain this benefit.

Reckless. At the start of his turn, Technoblade can gain advantage on all melee weapon attack rolls he makes during that turn, but attack rolls against him have advantage until the start of his next turn.

Great weapon master. When Technoblade scores a critical hit with a melee weapon or reduces a creature to 0 hit points with one, he can make one melee weapon attack as a bonus action. Additionally, before Technoblade makes a melee weapon attack with a heavy weapon that he is proficient with, he can choose to take a -5 penalty to the attack roll. If the attack hits, he adds +10 to the attack's damage.

Warrior of the Gods. If a spell, such as Raise Dead, has the sole effect of restoring Technoblade to life (but not undeath), the caster doesn't need material components to cast the spell on Technoblade.

Divine fury. While Technoblade is raging, the first creature he hits on each of his turns with a weapon attack takes extra necrotic damage equal to 1d6 + 3.

Action surge (1/rest). Technoblade takes one additional action on his turn.

Combat superiority (4/rest). Technoblade can apply the following maneuvers using his four superiority die (d8s):

Feinting attack: Technoblade expends one superiority die and uses a bonus action on his turn to feint, choosing one creature within 5 feet of his as his target. He has advantage on his next attack roll against that creature before the end of his turn. If that attack hits, add the superiority die to the attack's damage roll.

Menacing attack: When Technoblade hits a creature with a weapon attack, he can expend one superiority die to attempt to frighten the target. He adds the superiority die to the attack's damage roll, and the target must make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, it is frightened of him until the end of his next turn.

Trip attack: When Technoblade hits a creature with a weapon attack, he can expend one superiority die to attempt to knock the target down. He adds the superiority die to the attack's damage roll, and if the target is Large or smaller, it must make a Strength saving throw (DC 15). On a failed save, he knocks the target prone.ActionsHidden step (1/rest).

As a bonus action, Technoblade can magically turn invisible until the start of his next turn or until he attacks, makes a damage roll, or forces someone to make a saving throw.

Greatsword. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 11 (2d6 + 4) slashing damage.

Heavy Crossbow. Ranged Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, range 100/400 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d10 + 2) piercing damage.

Multiattack. Technoblade can make 2 weapon attacks.

Rage (4/day). As a bonus action, Technoblade enters a rage that lasts for 1 minute, ending early if knocked unconscious or if Technoblade's turn ends and he hasn't attacked a hostile creature since his last turn or taken damage since then. He can also end his rage on his turn as a bonus action. While raging, Technoblade deals +2 damage, has advantage on Strength checks and Strength saving throws, and has resistance to bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage. Technoblade cannot cast spells during a rage.

End ID.]

Okay. Rambling time.

Holy SHIT I loved making this. I tend to play spellcasters or dex based characters, so it was a lot of fun to make a str character for once.

Stats first. As a barbarian/fighter and also as a force of nature, str is his highest stat. I could have made it 20, but I have a weird aversion to writing up characters with maxed out stats for some reason? Anyway, that’s what he has. He can always boost it if he takes another level in fighter. I also decided to give him pretty high intelligence and wisdom, which are rare in barbarian characters, since, y’know, their main point is to hit things very hard. But Techno is so, SO resourceful, and one of the main reasons that he’s so good at fighting is because he does his research and acquires the best items for it and puts himself in the right place at the right time. Hence the high-ish int. I feel a little bad making his charisma so low, but cha represents several things, most notably the ability to talk to people and force of personality. Also known as: how hard it is to be swayed or controlled, magically or otherwise. Remember what happened at the festival? That’s low charisma. Also I had to give him a low stat to balance the fact that he’s insanely good at so many fucking things. Why.

As a side note, when picking his proficiencies, I was using the homebrew rule that you can use your strength modifier when you roll for intimidation. So his Strength (Intimidation) check would actually have a +7, which is MUCH better than the Charisma (Intimidation) check of +1. Big strong characters are absolutely scary, damnit, and I will die on that hill.

Next up: race. I HAD to make him a firbolg. They’re connected with nature and are often portrayed with animalistic features (e.g. Caduceus Clay from Critical Role), and it means we can have both pig Techno and anime Techno, since firbolgs naturally have the disguise self spell. I just think that’s neat. They also get the ability to turn invisible! Which Techno has been doing a LOT recently! Sure, firbolgs can only do it for a turn, but it still fits.

Onto classes. Barbarian was a dead certain for Techno, honestly - his battle prowess, how he acts when he fights, it just fits so well. Even his use of potions - he gets a lot of buffs from them, increased damage and damage resistance being the two most notable and the two that best translate to D&D rage. Even speed potions - barbarians get +10ft movement speed at level 5. And barbarians are made for two-handed weapons, so obviously I HAD to give him a greatsword. The Orphan Obliterator is a deadly weapon. He also still favours swords even when axes are better in the newest version, so a greatsword was a must. Also I just really like greatswords.

I wavered a bit when picking a subclass, to be honest. I’m not really a big fan of any of the official subclasses (they don’t really fir my playstyle, which is why I homebrewed an entire new subclass for my barbarian character, but that’s a post for another day), but looking through, there were a few that could work. Originally, I picked Juggernaut - this was because of how he fought during the Dream battle, moving Dream around the arena into a more advantageous position for Techno, which is the Juggernaut’s 3rd level ability in a nutshell. They also can’t be knocked prone, and both of these things work INCREDIBLY well for skywars/bedwars style combat - staying put on this island and knocking off your opponents.

However, in the end, I decided to go with Zealot. It was inevitable after he REALLY started building his character on the Dream SMP, which is what this is mostly based on. Zealots have two main points: they follow a God, and it’s very, VERY hard to kill them.

Sound familiar?

Techno isn’t just a barbarian - he also has three levels of Battlemaster fighter. The barbarian/fighter combo is one of the best there is for sheer combat power (bested only, in my opinion, by barbarian/moon druid - those characters are actually unkillable) and the choice of Battlemaster specifically opened up so many options in combat. I had debated going with champion, just for the crit probability boost, but ultimately decided that Battlemaster was infinitely more fun. The three maneuvers were picked for a combination of reasons - they’re all incredibly useful in combat, but I also just thought they were thematically accurate and/or funny. I just had to give him Menacing Attack, because one of the few constants in Technoblade’s combat is people running the hell away from him during competitions. Feinting is for pure combat ability, and Trip is just. Really funny to me. It worked better when he was Juggernaut and literally couldn’t be knocked prone, but I just like the idea of someone using their full action to try and knock over this eight foot tall firbolg (they’re so fucking tall! This bitch is massive!) Technoblade just. Looking down at them before knocking them clean off of their feet with one swing of his Greatsword.

And finally, weapons and magical items. The magic ones didn’t actually make it onto the stat block, because I wanted it to be purely basic character building, but I absolutely had some ideas. Some of these were rolled on loot tables, some were completely homebrewed to fit Techno’s canon weapons. Guess which ones lmao.

magical heavy crossbow (use charge to fire 3 bolts simultaneously, using only one arrow, rolling an attack for each. Each target must be within 10ft of each other. 7 charges per day)

explosive bolts (10ft radius, double dice of the weapon it’s fired from, dex save)

mithral half-plate

ring of feather falling

trident of flight (attunement) (30ft swim and flight speed, 120ft flight speed when its raining)

upgraded cape of the mountebank (8 charges, 2 for misty step, 4 for dimension door) (yes it looks like his normal cape)

bag of holding

sword of life-stealing (attunement) (I don’t know why I added this except Techno’s canon sword would be VERY hard to homebrew and also he can do enough damage with a normal one so he could literally just have like a +2 or something. Do what you want)

[racingtoaredlight]

THE DEGENERATE’S GUIDE TO COLLEGE FOOTBALL TV WATCH ‘EM UPS 2021: WEEK TWO, A MUDDLED AND MAUDLIN WEEK OF MAYHEM IN HONOR OF THOSE WE LOST

RTARL would like to extend our warmest holiday wishes to those who celebrate and, even if you don’t, happy 9/11. Now who’s ready for some FOOTBALL!!!!?!?!

So after two weeks of games that combine to count as only one official week even though some teams have already played twice we have only one real question answered: is Alabama still good? Yes, they are. Everything else is still liquefying vapor.

I am assuming everybody is waiting with baited breath for an RTARLsman but I don’t have anything yet. I guess the not-Master Teague RBs on Ohio State are the frontrunners for now. Or that one guy from that one team who was good. You know who I mean.

Saturday, September 11

Matchup    Time (ET)     TV/Mobile

Illinois at Virginia   11:00am   ACCN

Jeff George won Citrus Bowl MVP for the Illini against the Hoos in his last game as a student athlete before becoming the #1 overall pick in the 1990 NFL Draft. Based on this history it is safe to presume that whoever the QB is for Illinois today will be the #1 pick in 2022.

VMI at Kent State   11:30am   ESPN3

I’m not sure on this but maybe this game is cancelled.

WKU at Army    11:30am   CBSSN

Army is favored by 6. I bet this game is boring.

Norfolk State at Wake Forest    12:00pm   ACCNX

I don’t see a line listed but whatever it is bet against Wake covering.

Indiana State at Northwestern     12:00pm    BTN

This game is an act of terrorism.

Alabama State at 25 Auburn     12:00pm    SECN

Real body bag season starts today, huh?

Youngstown State at Michigan State  12:00pm   BTN

The Michigan State running back is the guy I was trying to think of earlier! He’s pretty good. Not good enough to make me watch this but I will check on his stats every so often.

Tulsa at Oklahoma State   12:00pm   FS1

I bet Mike Gundy has some really salient thoughts on the 20th anniversary of 9/11 and I can’t wait to hear them.

South Carolina at East Carolina   12:00pm      ESPN2

South Carolina is a two point favorite against an East Carolina team that is, per my understanding, not exactly good. So I can only extrapolate that South Carolina is likewise not good.

Pitt at Tennessee  12:00pm   ESPN

Look, I’m not going to pretend this is good television but if Pitt rocks their classic yellow helmets and Tennessee wears non-alternates the colors on the screen will at least be pleasing. The thought of the actual football involved hurts my brain but it’s interesting that the points have gone from a consensus pick ‘em to Pitt -3 over the course of the week. Does Tennessee have any players that are good enough that by missing the game they could impact the gambling that much? Or are people just squaring themselves with the fact the the Vols are really and truly a ruined burnt out hole of a football program? Pound the latter.

12 Oregon at 3 Ohio State  12:00pm   FOX

Losing Kayvon Thibideaux certainly isn’t going to help Oregon but he’s not usually on the field as a run stopper anyway and if Ohio State learned anything last week it’s that they can just run until they feel like throwing a pass. Oregon actually has some legit talent on the d-line besides Thibideaux but the Ducks are gonna be hard-pressed to keep things within two scores here.

Miami (Ohio) at Minnesota   12:00pm   ESPN

If Oregon can’t make a game of it in Columbus look out because this time block is an absolute wasteland. There is scant reason to turn the TV on for the early schedule other than gambling purposes.

Kennesaw State at Georgia Tech   12:00pm    RSN/ESPN3

Georgia Tech probably should have closed up shop after Paul Johnson retired. Either that or just absolutely slathered the football program in dollars. The Yellow Jackets being unable to land any big time recruits while playing in Atlanta is a real mindfuck. They aren’t a AA program playing dress up in a “power” conference they’ve got actual history. I don’t mean to give the impression I want them to be good but I don’t understand how they can be such fodder for so long.

13 Florida at USF    1:00pm    ABC

Remember that year when USF was the best program in the state? Wild stuff. Weird, wild stuff. I know the deal with UF is that they don’t go out of state for contract games but it’s actually kind of surprising they even bothered to keep this trip to Tampa on the schedule. Like the area recruits would probably be happier to go see a game at The Swamp than to kick around their hometown for a pile of shit like this.

Wyoming at NIU    1:30pm   ESPN+

I’m not gonna open the ESPN app for this but if it was on ESPN2 I’d probably check in on it during commercials. Aesthetically pleasing trash with an upside for actual entertainment.

Middle Tennessee at 19 Virginia Tech    2:00pm   ACCNX

Virginia Tech’s home crowd scene was the normie story of last week’s games. People that don’t watch college football were either aghast or frantically waving their blue lives matter flags in response. Us in this space just ate the shame and forgot it happened by the time Saturday’s games kicked off. My theory is that VPI is not actually any good but UNC’s 2020 season was a well-timed fluke and the last hurrah of Mack Brown’s storied coaching career. The Hokies are at home, though, and MTSU is almost certainly not on the same athletic level as the Turkey Gobblers so I’d probably take the home team -20 if I were so inclined to wager on this particular game that is being broadcast on the ACC’s new pornography channel.

Rutgers at Syracuse    2:00pm    ACCN

Holy fuck does this game suck. Reuniting former Big East, uh, rivals (??? does Rutgers have any natural enemies?) in a cross-conference classic betwixt the B1G and the ACC.

Duquesne at Ohio   2:00pm   ESPN3

I don’t think I need to explain to you all the national title implications riding on this game.

Toledo at 8 Notre Dame    2:30pm     Peacock

Just remember that if you subscribe to Peacock you are at the very least tacitly supporting Notre Dame. If for some reason you’re watching this please report back on how many of those defensive pick plays Notre Dame runs. They were doing that shit constantly against Florida State last week and it drove me nuts. I think the idea is that you are so flagrantly illegal so often that the refs grow numb to it and just don’t call it at all.

Robert Morris at Central Michigan     3:00pm    ESPN3

Not to be outdone by the early games, the 3 o’clock set is equally terrible.

Purdue at UConn    3:00pm    CBSSN

I bet Edsall still gets bonuses for stupid shit even now that he’s retired or whatever the official designation was for him no longer coaching.

Boston College at UMass    3:30pm    FloFootball/NESN+

I don’t know what FloFootball is but I know it isn’t anything to do with the state of Florida.

Ball State at 11 Penn State    3:30pm    FS1

It surprises me to see Penn State as only -22.5 favorites. That seems very kind to Ball State. Hopefully I’m wrong and the Ball State Lettermans take it to the Sanduskys.

Murray State at 7 Cincinnati    3:30pm    ESPN+

Practice week continues.

Temple at Akron    3:30pm    ESPN+

Pound the under.

Georgia Southern at Florida Atlantic   3:30pm   Stadium

There is really nothing going on this week.

Air Force at Navy   3:30pm   CBS

Middies vs. Fly Boys in the first leg of the Commander’s Cup on the twentieth anniversary of 9/11. I can’t imagine the amount of emotional manipulation that’s going to make its way onto this broadcast. Normally I watch these games but I don’t think I can do it this year.

UAB at 2 Georgia    3:30pm    ESPN2

Georgia may well be absurdly talented on the defensive side of the ball but I’d be surprised to see them make it through the regular season with fewer than two losses.

5 Texas A&M at Colorado     3:30pm     FOX

This is only interesting if the Aggies spring a leak.

California at TCU    3:30pm    ESPNU

Things most certainly are not looking up.

Buffalo at Nebraska    3:30pm    BTN

Nebraska is in an interesting position because if they buck the odds and end up being good after we’ve all been so ready to see a National Championship-winning coach get fired that would be funny but if they end up being really bad it’s even funnier. Go Bulls!

Mercer at 1 Alabama    4:00pm   SECN

I’ll cry a little if Saban pulls the starters in the first half and the Tide beats Mercer by less than they beat Miami.

South Alabama at Bowling Green   4:00pm    ESPN+

10 Iowa at 9 Iowa State    4:30pmABC

This is not the kind of top 10 matchup I can just sit idly by and let it happen. Your silence is complicity in this monstrous display of modernity.

SC State at 6 Clemson    5:00pm      ACCN

Clemson dropped all the way to #6 and they’ll hang around the top of the polls because they don’t have the toughest conference schedule in the world but my confidence in them is not high right now. I think the new QB is just a guy. He’s talented as hell but I don’t see him being great.

Illinois State at Western Michigan     5:00pm   ESPN3

This is either MACtion or MACtion adjacent and I have only one word for this midwestern trash: abhorrent.

LIU at West Virginia   5:00pm    ESPN+

LIU plays football?

Lamar at UTSA      6:00pm    ESPN3

Downside: You’re watching one of the least important games of the year. Upside: You’re really not missing anything.

Portland State at Washington State    6:00pm    P12N

Washington State was a perfect spot for the stupid pirate fuckhead and his leaving has ruined the program and, eventually, his reputation. Not relevant to this game necessarily but this game isn’t relevant to anything else, either.

Gardner-Webb at Charlotte   6:00pm    ESPN3

Oh, yeah, feel the excitement.

Bethune-Cookman at UCF   6:30pm   ESPN+

Go Cats.

NC Central at Marshall    6:30pm    ESPN+

The hits keep coming.

Houston at Rice   6:30pm    CBSSN

I’ve always had a soft spot for Holgo and for Houston football but somehow I really don’t like seeing him coach the Cougs. This is SWC magic but with no magic. UNLESS! Houston can put up 100. I don’t think they even have the guys to do it but this is Rice we’re talking about here.

Nicholls at Louisiana    7:00pm    ESPN3

Keep the energy up.

North Texas at SMU   7:00pm   ESPN+

I bet is MS621 were still alive he’d be at this game giving Spencer’s boys hell. Sadly he died doing what he loved, curing his COVID by eating ivermectin paste out of a horse’s butt. R.I.P., friend. Neigh to you wherever you are.

Southeastern La. at Louisiana Tech   7:00pm    ESPN3

Even the low tier stuff is geared up for annihilation. This is a bodybag week for all time.

Memphis at Arkansas State    7:00pm    ESPN+

Memphis getting less than a touchdown against Arkansas State seems like easy money but I have no real concept of either of these teams just yet. Maybe the end is nigh for the Tigers glory years? I sure hope not but it’s possible.

NC State at Mississippi State    7:00pm     ESPN2

This game should be as fun as a parents funeral.

Southern Illinois at Kansas State   7:00pm      ESPN+

Over the past week I experienced derision for referring the the guys in purple and silver as “Kansas State” instead of “K State” and that stung because it always surprises me that anybody cares about them enough to have a strong opinion about them.

Stephen F. Austin at Texas Tech    7:00pm    ESPN+

Shrugs

15 Texas at Arkansas    7:00pm   ESPN

Let’s see if Texas is ready to run with the big boys of the SEC! Arkansas is given a decent shot to win this game and that makes the “15″ next to Texas appear extremely suspect in my eyes.

Texas Southern at Baylor    7:00pm   ESPN+

This week Texas Southern is the people’s champion.

Texas State at FIU   7:00pm    ESPN+

Oh, Butch, why have you done this to yourself?

Western Carolina at 4 Oklahoma      7:00pm     PPV

All the Westen Carolina fans are buying this PPV to see their guys score 40.

New Mexico State at New Mexico    7:00pm     Stadium

I looked up the historic rivalry last year to figure out why it was played early in the season instead of at the end but I’ve forgotten and don’t feel the need to look it up again. I figured out how to watch Stadium on my TV but I also forgot that and don’t feel the need to look it up again.

Appalachian State at 22 Miami (FL)  7:00pm   ESPNU

My gut tells me Miami is probably legitimately about the 14th best team in the country but I still would never advise you to bet actual money on the Hurricanes. Are they 9 points better than App State? Easily. They should win by 20+. Are they liable to fuck around and lose or scrape out a win in the final seconds? Absolutely. Let’s fuckin’ go.

Morgan State at Tulane    7:00pm    ESPN+

A lot of people learned to love the Green Wave last week but it’s hard to keep that going with their schedule. Don’t forget them later in the year when the CBSSN glow is really shining.

Liberty at Troy   7:00pm   ESPN+

Liberty -4 is maybe my surest advice of the week. If Malik Willis is as good as his press the fake school should have this game on ice early.

Eastern Michigan at 18 Wisconsin   7:00pm    FS1

I find Wisconsin’s losing effort against Penn State last week to be a personal affront against me and all of nature.

Eastern Kentucky at Louisville    7:00pm   ACCNX

I think this game being broadcast at night on ACCNX means they’re playing naked.

Grambling State at Southern Miss    7:00pm    ESPN3

This is the kind of game that belongs on an app.

Hampton at Old Dominion    7:00pm    ESPN3

This is the kind of game that belongs on a well-worn high school football field.

Austin Peay at 20 Mississippi   7:30pm     ESPN+/SECN+

This is a pretty big OOC game for an SEC team.

Georgia State at 24 North Carolina    7:30pm    RSN/ESPN3

One of several GSUs, I think this is the one I most hope emerges victorious this week.

Idaho at Indiana   7:30pm    BTN

Wait, wasn’t Indiana like #10 last week? What the hell happened to them? No, don’t tell me. Seriously, don’t.

Missouri at Kentucky     7:30pm    SECN

When the SEC hits 24 teams the “S!E!C!” chants are gonna seem really stupid.

Howard at Maryland    7:30pm    BTN

There’s no official line for this game but I hope the Bison can pull off the upset in this classic local rivalry game.

Jacksonville State at Florida State    8:00pm   ACCN

Still shaking my head at FSU icing their own kicker. Jesus, Norvell. Get your shit together.

McNeese at LSU     8:00pm      ESPN+/SECN+

LOLSU was my lock of the week last week if you’re considering taking gambling advice from me.

Washington at Michigan    8:00pm    ABC

UDub lost to a 1-AA team last week and now they have to go on the road and beat Michigan. Which seems inevitable, to be honest.

Cal Poly at Fresno State    10:00pm    CW59

The murder rate will continue to increase as the day progresses. I always kind of like it when a local broadcast shows up on the sheet. So pretty much none of us have legal access to this game. It makes it more special.

San Diego State at Arizona    10:00pm    P12N

Pac-12 Network is similar to CW59 in that almost nobody in the country has legal access to their broadcasts. If you’ve read enough of these posts you are aware that SDSU is my weird very deep backup team. I don’t have a reason to align myself with the school or program, I just tend to enjoy watching their games.

Vanderbilt at Colorado State     10:00pm    CBSSN

This is an abomination.

21 Utah at BYU     10:15pm    ESPN

This is a lowkey fun rivalry. I’m pretty sure I write the same thing every year but it’s still true. Go Utes.

Stanford at 14 USC     10:30pm    FOX

I think USC could win a national championship and I’d still be baffled that Clay Helton is their coach. Of course, they won’t win a national championship as long as Clay Helton is their coach but they apparently won’t ever get embarrassing enough to fire him, either.

Idaho State at Nevada    10:30pm    Stadium

This is the lowpoint of the week’s schedule and you have to stay up late to watch it on a network that only exists as an app or as part of a hidden unlockable download-only level of cable subscription. This is the beauty of the college game.

UNLV at 23 Arizona State    10:30pm   ESPN2

Herm Edwards figured out the trick to looking good in the Pac-12 without having a particularly great team and I can’t make up my mind if I’m rooting for him to keep sliding on that rail or to fall off it. I think I’ve come around to rooting for him but it’s a very dynamic and fluid situation.

Hawaii at Oregon State   11:00pm    FS1

Hawaii gets to play at their normal time for a game against the bottom of the barrel of the Pac-12 but they’re an 11-point underdog. If you’re ever going to take Hawaii, this is the stars lining up for you to do it. It’s still a big “if” but I’m saying there’s a chance.

[pechebeche]

castiel??? sorry i don't watch spn or anythin 💀 no pressure!!

sjdfkl i got so excited abt this that i went in and started making like a full stat block and then i remembered how much i HATE estimating crs so now i have that. half-finished. Over There. in the meantime heres ya boy

warforged - aasimar seems to fit because it has the angelic thing going on, but warforged has the whole dont-sleep, functionally-immortal, built-to-be-a-soldier-following-orders shtick going on. plus armblade can be an angel blade! win-win.

class is a little trickier. paladin seems necessary for the smite, especially the banishing smite when you get into level 5 spells, but cas also needs to be able to cast raise dead to justify how he pulled dean from perdition and all that. those are both too high spells to possibly account for w/ multiclassing if we follow official rules.

with that all in mind: i think he starts out with maybe 3-4 levels in paladin, probably redemption paladin for saving dean from hell, and then takes the rest of his levels (~14 at least) as a war cleric. that starts him out on the strict-angel-warrior-rules thing, by level 20 he has access to all of the upper level cleric spells that He would need (ie raise dead [see above], plane shift). and divine intervention to explain how he keeps fucking coming back from the dead! we can either turn banishing smite into just banishment - also a cleric spell! - or we can ignore multiclass rules and just pretend that cas has access to the paladin spells too

cas going oathbreaker when he goes haywire for heaven because Dean Winchester Hot has some serious narrative tomfoolery about it, but mechanically, i dont think it makes sense to switch off redemption; firstly, it’s the only way he can maintain access to the sleep spell, which is a Big Thing for cas, and i dont think any of the oathbreaker spells actually fit him in any way. i also think there’s something very compelling abt considering cas as betraying his organization, but not his fundamental code, and the translation of slowly losing his grace to clinging to his mantra.

its also just very funny to imagine cas, level 3, trying to work off of a charisma score. i mean my god. castiel. good sir. 

teleporting would need to be either a homebrewed ability into the race of ‘angels’ (warforged, except, like, Archangels maybe, who i think would be beyond the char creation system) or would need a magical item that gave them the ability to teleport, if not at will, then a certain number of times per day. variation on the cape of the mounteback comes to mind - i cant remember if there’s a rarer item that uses the teleport spell, but i think functionally that would be the go-to.

cas is so fucking powerful. holy shit. sometimes i forget because this is a bad show that ignores his abilities when inconvenient but goddamn. look at this boy.

tl;dr, cas in 5e is warforged, 4 levels in redemption paladin and 14 levels in war cleric, cape of the mounteback as one of his magic items. also he. can just possess new vessels at will. you know what we’ll work on that another time that’s a different thing

[raeynbowboi]

How to Play as Tokoyami Fumikage in DnD 5e

anyone who knows me knows Raven from Teen Titans is my favroite super hero of all time. She’s a big component of why I really love “Dark is Not Evil” as a trope. As such, Tokoyami is a huge personal favorite minor character because he has a similar vibe to my main home girl. So, I want to see how best to play as him in DnD 5e.

The Jet-Black Hero: Tsukuyomi

I’ve been dying to build a Kenku, and Tokoyami  is the perfect candidate. Kenku are a raven-looking avian race that are completely flightless and can mimic human speech. Crows in real life are actually able to learn to talk, and are intelligent enough to problem solve, recognize faces, and hold grudges. So, this is a great fit for the strategic dark bird boi of Cass 1-A. Kenku get +2 DEX and +1 WIS, the ability to masterfully mimic handwriting and people’s voices, and get 2 bonus proficiencies in Acrobatics, Deception, Stealth, or Sleight of Hand. Kenku however have a bad trait that they can only mimic things they’ve heard, which I’d ditch personally to allow him to speak freely.

Tokoyami is very noble, humble, and honorable. He has no aspirations of fame or glory, and does good just for the sake of doing good. When Bakugou is taken by the League of Villains, Tokoyami is among the ones to agree it should be left to the pro heroes.

For background, we’ll be going with the same as the gay disaster boyfriends as City Watch to be a patrolling super hero that stops crime and catches bad guys.

Seat 14 in Class 1-A

PALADIN     Oathbreaker You get access to Inflict Wounds which you can cast with CHA which makes your Sentinel Raven extremely good at dealing a ton of touch-range damage at longer range, and by level 7, fiends within 10 feet of you become stronger. Your Raven Queen Spirit isn’t technically recognized as a fiend, but Dark Shadow is called a shadow demon, so you could talk to your DM about treating it as a fiend. Sorcerers and Warlocks also get quite a few demon summoning spells to empower Dark Shadow in multiple forms. You can also add your CHA stat to your melee damage, which reflects Tokoyami’s Black Ankh fighting style. It’s also worth mentioning that Tokoyami’s official fighting style is listed as being melee.

Paladin Fighting Style:     Interception While the range may need to be extended because 5 feet is pretty small for Dark Shadow’s amazing range, you can intercept an attack meant for an ally. As Tokoyami’s best trait in battle is his ability to block and defend his allies, this is a great fighting style, reducing damage by 7-16 at level 20. Talk to your DM about possibly extending the range to turn Tokoyami into the ranged guardian of his team.

SORCERER     Shadow This subclass gives you built-in Darvision and lets you summon a hell-hound which you could talk to your DM as reskinning as Dark Shadow flanking you in combat. Later on, this subclass can teleport between shadows and become an intangible shadow.

WARLOCK     Raven Queen the obvious choice for Tokoyami’s main focus, Dark Shadow is an extension of him. Spells like Vampire Touch with a Touch range can be cast through Dark Shadow, allowing Dark Shadow to be the one dealing damage. Dark Shadow can also coat Tokoyami like a layer of armor such as with Armor of Shadows, and Tokoyami can reskin weapons as being Dark Shadow’s umbral claws.

Stats and Proficiencies

Charisma will be number one. Because Raven Queen Warlock is the obvious choice, and both Sorcerers and Paladins cast with Charisma. Dark Shadow makes Tokoyami’s AC very high, so a high Dexterity is important to block damage with your spooky friend. The rest of your stats can be relatively even between Strength, Constitution, and Wisdom to make Tokoyami a formidable hero-in-training.

Arcana Insight Perception

Name: Tokoyami Fumikage (Tsukuyomi) Race: Kenku Background: City Watch Alignment: Lawful Good Class: Raven Queen Warlock (12)             Oathbreaker Paladin (8) Base Stats: Strength: 10 (0) Dexterity: 20 (+5) Constitution: 12 (+1) Intelligence: 10 (0) Wisdom: 14 (+2) Charisma: 20 (+5) Saving Throws: Strength: +5 Dexterity: +10 Constitution: +6 Intelligence: +5 Wisdom: +13 Charisma: +16 Combat Stats: HP: 131 AC: 18 Speed: 30 Initiative: +5 Number of Attacks: 2 Hit Dice: 12d8, 8d10 Proficiency Bonus: +6 Passive Perception: 17 Dark Vision: 120 feet Proficiencies:    Acrobatics (Kenku)    Arcana (Warlock)    Athletics (City Watch)    Insight (City Watch)    Investigation (Warlock)    Stealth (Kenku) Skills: Acrobatics: +11                  Medicine: +2 Animal Handling: +2          Nature: 0 Arcana: +6                         Perception: +7 Athletics: +6                       Performance: +5 Deception: +5                    Persuasion: +5 History: 0                           Religion: 0 Insight: +8                         Sleight of Hand: +5 Intimidation: +5                 Stealth: +11 Investigation:+6                Survival: +2

Equipment    Leather Armor    Shield    Short Sword x 2

Damage Resistances:    Necrotic

Condition Immunities:    Disease, Fear

Paladin Feature: Fighting Style    Interception: When an ally creature within 5* feet is attacked, use your shield to intercept 1d10+ Proficiency Bonus amount of damage.

Warlock Feature: Pact Bond    Pact of the Blade: You forge a bond with a weapon, and gain the ability to summon and dismiss it at will. The weapon counts as magical.

Warlock Feature: Eldritch Invocations    Agonizing Blast: Eldritch Blast deals +5 damage on hit.    Armor of Shadows: Cast Mage Armor at will    Devil’s Sight: 120 feet of normal and magical darkvision    Lance of Lethargy: Eldritch Blast casts the effects of Slow on hit.    Superior Pact Weapon: Your pact weapon deals an added +2 damage.    Lifedrinker: When you hit with your pact weapon, deal +5 Necrotic damage.

Warlock Feature: Mystic Arcanum    Eyebite

Spell Slots 1st (4) 2nd (3) 5th (3)

Tokoyami’s Spellbook

Cantrips                          2nd Level                         4th Level     Blade Ward                     Aid                                    Summon Greater Demon     Eldritch Blast                  Crown of Madness       5th Level     Mage Hand                     Darkness                          Infernal Calling      True Strike                      Locate Object                   Negative Energy Flood 1st Level                             Magic Weapon             6th Level     Arms of Hadar                Shadow Blade                   Eyebite     Detect Evil & Good         Spiritual Weapon     Detect Magic              3rd Level     Hellish Rebuke               Fear     Heroism                          Fly     Inflict Wounds                 Hunger of Hadar     Mage Armor                   Summon Lesser Demons     Shield of Faith                Vampiric Touch

Actions:

Divine Sense Detect Celestial, Fiend, or Undead. Detect Holy or Unholy energy. Lay on Hands Pool of 40 HP to distribute or 5 points to cure poison or disease.

Features:

Aura of Hate You, Fiends, and Undead within 10 ft add +5 to weapon damage Aura of Protection You and allies within 10 ft. get +5 on saving throws Channel Divinity: Control Undead An undead within 30 feet of you must pass a WIS throw or obey you for 24 hours. Channel Divinity: Dreadful Aspect Choose any creature in 30 feet to become afraid of you for 1 minute on a failed WIS throw. Channel Divinity: Harness Divine Power Use Channel Divinity to restore a used 1st Level spell slot. Divine Smite Sacrifice a spell slot, deal (x+1)d8 radiant damage, +1d8 on fiends and undead. Expert Forgery: You have advantage on making forgeries. Interception Fighting Style: Reduce 1d10+PB damage on nearby ally. Mimicry: You can mimic voices, contested by Insight vs your Deception skill. Mystic Arcanum Cast Eyebite once per long rest without spell slots Raven’s Shield Advantage on death throws, immune to fear, resist necrotic. Sentinel Raven Darkvision of 30 feet, Add CHA to perception, the raven gets its own initiative rolls can can wake you as a bonus action. Soul of the Raven You merge with the raven and become small and able to fly. You can only dash, disengage, dodge, help, hide, and search in this form. Watcher’s Eye You can find and recognize guard stations and criminal hideouts.

While the build isn’t perfect, I thought that this was a rather strong build for Tokoyami as Dark Shadow is easy enough to incorporate into his combat with enough flavoring. How do you think I did? Do you have a character you’d like to see me build? Let me know, and I’ll add them to my list.

[opalescent-potato]

magic the gathering: explained. Ish.

I started playing this game when i was in grade 6, and while I never got all that hardcore about it, I have a decent working knowledge of the basics. The game started in the mid-late 90′s and has had a bunch of new editions and updates since then, with all sorts of meta-game and power creep and new types of cards released, and then ‘classic’ versions where wizards of the coast (the company publishing mtg) tried to rein it in a little. I’m not current with the meta and i only ever played casually, so this is a very basic primer.

Two (or more, but we're focusing on 2) players sit down to play cards against each other. The framing device is that each player is a Planeswalker (a powerful wizard, basically). They both have 20 health, and your cards are spells that you’re casting. Each player tries to summon an army of creatures, to defend themselves against their opponent’s army; any attacking creatures that aren’t blocked will hit the player. A player who drops to 0 health loses. Players can cast spells on the creatures, or on their opponent directly, depending on the wording of the spell. Each creature has a casting cost, and attack/defense stats; usually the higher the cost, the better/stronger the creature. You pay to cast these spells with your lands, and they have to be lands of the right element. If you have a vampire that costs 2 black mana to play (aka 2 swamps) and the only lands you've pulled so far are Islands (blue mana) then that vampire has to stay in your hand.

There's five types of basic land, which are colour-coded and have their own themes going on. Plains (white), Swamps (black), Mountains (red), Islands (blue) and Forests (green).  A bunch of the meta revolves around the different playstyles of the different types. Boiled down to the bare essentials: Red = smash hard and fast, Green = smash BIG and slow, Blue = fiddly spell combos and controlling the conditions of play, Black = necromancy, poison, rot, and the only HP i need is the last one, and White = healing, flying (all those angel cards), protection, and big armies made of small creatures.You build your deck yourself, with a limit of 60 cards, so you choose what colour(s) you want to play, the balance of lands vs creatures vs spells. While the players with the money to buy the exact cards they want DO have an advantage, the bigger advantage is knowing how the game works, so you build a deck that works WITH you, not against you.

For example, our player in the example above, with the Vampire card stuck in hand, may not have gotten the right balance of Islands to Swamps when they built their Blue/Black deck. Or, they might just be having an unlucky run, that happens sometimes.  Your lands are a renewable resource, thankfully, so you can build up your lands over the game. When you use them in a turn, you 'tap' them (turn them to the side) to show they've been used for this turn, and at the start of your next turn, you untap them to show they're availalbe for use again. You also tap creature cards when you send them to attack your opponent. Tapped creature cards can't defend, so if you tap ALL your creatures for an attack, you leave yourself open on your opponent's turn.

Spells are subdivided into a bunch of finicky types based on how they work and when you’re allowed to play them; enchantments are spells you cast on a creature or land, and the effect sticks around. You have to cast them on your turn. Think stuff like, “I play the Enchantment Protection from Black on my Knight, now she can’t take damage from Black creatures or spells, permanently” Sorceries have an effect that lasts for the turn, and you have to cast them on your turn (i think). Like, “For this turn, all of my lands count as any colour I want them to, and now I'm going to play my Vampire!” Instants can be cast at any time, and are often played in response to something your opponent did on their turn - like, “I cast Summon Crab” and you go “nuh-UH, I’m playing this Instant, it’s a Counterspell, and your summon spell fails AND you take 2 flashback damage” and the opponent can go “AHAHAHA that’s what you THOUGHT, I knew you would do that so I saved a Counterspell of my own, and your spell reflects back on you!” and so on. Depending on who’s playing, this can go on for a LONG time, especially if it’s two blue players.

So, your basic game, with 2 basic players.You each have your own deck (aka Library) You start by drawing 7 cards each, and if you don't get a single land in your first hand, you get to re-draw, since you can't do jack shit without land. A turn has distinct phases, and I might get them mixed up, so please double check the official rules before you play a game. The first phase of your turn is to untap any lands or creatures that were tapped from your previous turn, if you had a previous turn. Then, if you have less than 7 cards, you get to draw (i think) up to 7..... or you get to draw one card, per turn, I honestly forget. There's also a point where you have to discard any cards you have over 7, but I forget when that happens too. You get to play spells, and attack if you want to, and then there’s some wrap-up phase that i always forget about, and then the turn passes to the next player

If the game goes on so long that your Library is empty (you go to draw a card and there's no cards to draw) then you lose. Discarded cards, defeated creatures, used-up spells, etc, goes in the Graveyard, just beside your library. Some fun strategies revolve around making the other player pull all their cards (card control is a classic Blue strategy) or resurrecting dead creatures by casting them from the Graveyard (Necromancy is fun!).You can play one land per turn, so there's a limit to how fast players can build up their power base, although some strategies revolve around a first-strike playstyle (mostly Red) and can be powerful against an opponent who was looking to build up to a big smash (usually Green). Some players stay in the game by healing themselves incessantly (White, I'm looking at you) and a lot about what colour you choose to play depends on how you like to play, but also on aesthetics or theme. Some folks will build a deck around a theme, instead of around a strategy, or they'll pick a weird combo and then design their deck to pull off that specific combo - I had a friend who didn't mind losing most games, because when he DID get to pull off his combo, it was SO COOL. But he had to pull a very specific group of cards to get it to work. YMMV.If i think of more stuff later, I'll add it on. But that's the basics as I can remember them. I haven't played in like, five years, so definitely look up some real rules, too. And have fun!

@boomvagynamite

[an-oger-in-the-wild]

Children Shouldn’t Play with Undead Things

So here’s a fun little team-building exercise I threw at three of my PCs who met a couple in-game days before the official start of the campaign / meeting of the rest of the PCs. The summary? Three unlikely people meet on a coastal beach and end up hanging out in a coastal town’s tavern, chatting the night away, until they - along with the other patrons of the tavern - start getting attacked by an unknown and unseen source: a poltergeist. The three PCs in question consisted of an aasimar warlock, a half-orc cleric, and a wood-elf druid, so some really cool and interesting social and debuff spells (like Detect Evil and Good, Faerie Fire, and Message to name a few) were available for use that didn’t have to be damage-focused, teaching the group early that you don’t necessarily have to only have combat spells equipped in order to overcome obstacles or solve problems.

If you’d like to use this encounter for your 1st, 2nd, or even 3rd level (like my group was) party, you’ll want to be sure to lay a good foundation of visual descriptions - little things that are actually Easter eggs for the party to remember later, realizing that they were actually clues.

QUEST LEAD:  This encounter takes place in a small tavern called Bottles & Drafts.  You can read this little block of text to introduce your characters to the first NPC in this encounter; or, alternatively, you can use your own tavern or NPC if you already have a place in mind:

You see, as you enter, a pleasantly-lit tavern, complete with a small hearth, two long tables, three smaller round tables, and a neatly-kept bar with stools. Looking around, you notice that the dining area is rather saddlery-themed with things like horseshoes, halters, and old bridles hung on the wall for décor, befitting of the inn’s adjoining stables out back.  Near an entryway to a hall at the far end of the room, you see a physically imposing grayish/green-skinned woman - about 6' 1" - with short, chipped tusks protruding from her lips.  She wears a brown tank top with olive-colored cotton pants, and her light-brown hair is kept short on top and shaved close on the sides.  She's standing on a small ladder, hanging a new item on the wall: a black leather horse whip (or some might call it a crop).  She's mounting it to the wall as best she can, but it keeps falling off the wall each time she gets off the ladder, making her visibly frustrated as she repeats the process three times in the time it takes you to find a seat.

This is Jacoba, a half-orc (use stat block of berserker) - she owns the inn, Bottles & Drafts (named thus as your adventurers can both purchase a night’s stay there or take a trip around back to its stables to purchase a mount, such as a draft or riding horse). Today, your party happens to walk in on her hanging a whip...little do they know that this is the item to which the poltergeist has attached itself. 

Part 1: a Start to an Exciting Evening

Be sure the party knows they are not the only ones in the tavern!  Three other patrons sit in different areas of the inn (each to themselves):

Roberick Zemony, male human (looks visibly intoxicated)

Tawnel Ostoro, male half-elf (dressed in the uniform of the local guards)

Baerla Flaskbraids, female dwarf (has a small rabbit familiar with her)

While the party sits around conversing - probably around a meal or a few drinks - have some strange things happen as the evening approaches:

Random drinks sitting in front of patrons at the bar tip over onto their laps, soaking them.

Patrons go to sit in their chairs...but right before they sit down, the chair is just a little too far from them and they fall to the floor on their asses.

The whip will continue to fall off the wall, usually AT Jacoba as she walks by with a plate of food or a platter filled with drinks.  

She will eventually give up on trying to mount it and will make a scene as her barbarian temper gets the better of her: describe her as being close to raging mad over the “stupid whip,” picking it up (perhaps putting the strap in her mouth and gnawing at it for a moment) then violently whipping a vacant spot at the bar with it a few times before throwing the whip down the hallway and heading back behind the bar.

If the party tries to interact with Jacoba or ask her about the whip, she can explain that the décor is a collection of old pieces that have either been found by patrons who frequent the tavern or are left behind after a rental horse or carriage is returned.  This most recent piece was actually given to her earlier today by a tradesman who came through for a drink (while nothing more has to come of this mention, you could always develop this out into an extended quest).

With a good enough Charisma check, Jacoba may also tell the party what she knows about the other three patrons left in the tavern if they get inquisitive:

Roberick Zemony, male Human (nightly patron; commoner, middle-aged; "dad bod," thinning hair; lazy-sounding drunken voice)

Tawnel Ostoro, male half-elf guard (off-duty but still in his regalities; just got off his guard duty shift and likes to come up for a quick sip or two before he returns to the barracks for the evening; condescending)

Baerla Flaskbraids, female dwarf (a scout passing through on her way back to her guildhall north of here; just finished clearing out a pesky infestation of stirges and is staying the night before heading back in the morning)

Part 2: It Begins

Once it’s officially evening, the party sees Roberick get up to go to "water the flowers" (at which Jacoba threatens to kill him if he does).

As he stands to leave, the flames in the wall sconces all extinguish at once and the sound of Roberick screaming in pain and then moaning fills the room.          

          (HE DEAD, Y'ALL.)

Jacoba will quickly try to relight the sconces if no one casts a spell before this is done.

Once there is light, everyone will be able to see Roberick's dead body on the floor, a knife stuck in his chest.

If no one revives him, proceed to Part 3.

If someone casts Revivify or Speak with Dead, he won't know what hit him or killed him.

Part 3: a Murder Mystery

Before Tawnel (the half-elf guard) allows anyone to move, he will swiftly walk over to the door (the only exit) and bar it shut, stating that "no one will be leaving here until I find out who killed this man."

Investigation checks can begin to be made against the dead body (DC: 13).

On a success, they can tell from the angle of impact and the blood splatter that the attack had to have come from the direction of the bar and that the knife had to have been flung at him from a distance.

If investigating for magic, use the same DC for an Arcana check; however, no magical aura is detected around the body or the knife.

If spells like Detect Magic or Detect Evil and Good are cast, assume that the poltergeist will not be within the 30 foot radius in this one instance; after the party has made some good detective work headway though, feel free to reward smart casting by allowing the undead creature to “light up” as it were.  Those spells last 10 minutes unless dropped, so you can toy with them by having the poltergeist move in and out of the range of the spell occasionally.

Insight checks can be made against the NPCs for added intrigue if the characters are suspicious or on-edge:

Tawnel (the half-elf guard): this is probably the most exciting thing he's ever seen as a guard of a relatively uninteresting city, so he's hoping that getting to the bottom of this murder will help him climb the ladder of success

Alibi: he's "one of the good guys" and just wants to figure out what happened…he was sitting in the corner reading smut (but he won't want anyone to know that this is what he was reading).

Motive: everyone - including Tawnel - knows Roberick…he's the town drunk and tends to get into trouble when he drinks: Tawnel has arrested him on a couple occasions for indecency in front of children and found him no better than the dirt beneath his boots - Jacoba has heard him say before that “it would be a better world without Roberick in it.”

Baerla (the dwarf scout): has only been seen thus far to be talking to her rabbit...plus she has a longbow on her back and a sword at her side - seems strange enough to draw some attention, right?

Alibi: she knows no one here - why would she kill someone?...she was busy scrolling a message to send with her animal messenger (a rabbit) back to her guildhall to inform them of the completion of her job; her rabbit is "gone now though."

Motive: Roberick was being loud and obnoxious and (per Baerla) was making fun of her height earlier that evening.

Jacoba (the half-orc tavern owner / berserker): normal day, just got a new shipment of food today as well as a few new bridle materials, some new tankards, that kind of thing; a tradesman bartered with her for a new item for her tavern - the whip.  

Alibi: she was serving drinks when the lights went out and Roberick dropped dead.

Motive: Roberick was behind on his tab by several months - Tawnel knows that this has really been bothering Jacoba lately.

Part 4: Further Bloodshed

The poltergeist will become enraged by any light-based spells or by radiant damage (clerics and paladins BEWARE!).

It will also get increasingly angry if the whip is in any way touched or damaged.  If someone moves within 30 feet of the poltergeist’s area, it will become aggressive and throw things using its Telekinetic Thrust (+4 to hit, 2d4 bludgeoning or piercing damage, depending on the item); if they get reeeeally close, it will use its Forceful Slam attack (+4 to hit, reach 5 feet, 3d6 force damage).

NOTE: If you really want to freak the party out, try throwing them around with its Telekinetic Thrust by rolling a contested Strength (the PC) versus Charisma (the poltergeist) check to see if the undead creature can “hurl the target up to 30 feet in any direction, including upward,” causing 1d6 damage per 10 feet moved - I wouldn’t recommend this unless your group can handle these amounts of damage though - always playtest before playing!

Part 5: Reclaiming Serenity

There are a couple of ways this can go:

If you have a party who loves to get stuff done by way of combat, you can certainly take the most direct route by allowing them to work through the difficulties of waging war with a creature who never turns visible. As mentioned in my opening paragraph, debuff spells like Detect Evil and Good, Faerie Fire, or See Invisibility are great uses of spellcasting while in combat with an invisible creature.  Additionally, you may have a party member who thinks outside the box and has the idea to try to destroy the item to which the spirit is attached - this is a great idea! A low-level encounter like this is a nice way to condition your party for battles that cannot simply be won by hacking and slashing.

If you have a party or party member who wants to make the world a better place with a more passive approach, you could delve deeper into the backstory of the poltergeist, giving it a history that shaped it into a malevolent spirit. Use the whip as inspiration: did the whip belong to the spirit in its previous life? Was it sentimental? Does it need returned to someone in order for the spirit to find peace? Alternatively, does the whip have a darker connotation - was it a weapon used against the spirit in its former life? Is the spirit seeking an unattainable revenge on innocent victims?  Ponder these things and come up with a flexible and easily improved story in case you have a tenderhearted sorcerer or a righteous paladin with high charisma who want to try to reason with the undead creature.  Allow a series of Persuasion checks to convince the poltergeist that they don’t need to act violently or to help the undead creature to pass on into the next life: this can make for a really memorable role-playing moment that will change the normally black and white outlook most parties have on undead creatures.

Thanks for reading, guys!  If you like this post and would like to get more encounter idea inspiration like this one, let me know by asking to be included on my Enticing Encounters taglist!

[gamearamamegathons]

Dragon Quest VI: Living In A Dream World

Circe here! Time to depart to Reidock. Our peaceful village didn't even burn down, so I think we're ahead of the curve as far as JRPG cliches go. When we arrive in Reidock, our pass lets us get past the guard into the town, but another soldier is blocking the way into the castle proper. Apparently the only way they're gonna let us in is to agree to become a soldier in the royal guard. The guy tells us to come back when the bell rings, so clearly we need to find some plot first, so I wander off to go look for it.

Instead I end up finding something else entirely. There's a woman standing by a well, and she says she dropped her ring in it. So I climb down there to find it for her. Inside, I find a monster guarding the ring, who turns out to be named "Dark Hobbit". How curious...at first I figured this was a joke slipped in by the fan translators, but a bit of digging revealed that, no, this is the monster's name in Japanese, too. I guess the devs were Lord of the Rings fans. On a less funny note, the Dark Hobbit is kinda above my level and he kills the shit out of me. So I decide to forget about him for the moment.

After that I pass by a familiar-looking guy at the church, who introduces himself as Hassan. He looks like one of our companions in our dream. The bell rings after that, so I head into the castle to join the rest of the group hoping to become soldiers. Hassan is here too, as it turns out. Here we meet General Soldi, who tells us that there's a Tower of Trials to the south, and the first person to find the item hidden there will get to join the royal guard. So, off we go. The tower is a fairly standard dungeon with a couple gimmicks; it has a fairly tough miniboss guarding the path upward, and near the top, there's a puzzle where three people are standing in front of doors and you have to figure out which ones are lying. It's pretty simple, as logic puzzles go. Unfortunately, by the time you reach the top of the tower, Hassan has beaten you there, so there's nothing to do but to return to the castle in failure. I mean, we technically didn't want to become a soldier anyway, so all we really need is free reign to wander around the castle.

It looks like the king still won't talk to us, though. After a bit of poking around, it sounds like a lot of people are talking about a wild horse in a clearing to the west, so I decide to head there. As I head out, Hassan stops me to say that he has the same goal in mind, so he joins up with us so we can go catch a horse together. Unlike me, Hassan doesn't have any magic abilities, but he's pretty tough, and it appears that he can learn some physical attack skills, so he should make a good ally. We manage to catch the horse without too much difficulty, and Hassan names it Falshion. We head back to the castle, where we can now go to the royal wagon (which is a thing I guess) and attach our new horse to it. General Soldi is so impressed by our teamwork that he lets me join the royal guard too, which earns me an audience with the king.

Apparently the kingdom of Reidock has been at war with the demon lord Mudo, and the king has been searching for some information to help defeat him. So he dispatches us to go find the fabled Mirror of Ra, which is said to only reflect the truth. He allows us to pass through a gate to the northeast which lets us access a new area of the world map, to go looking for it. We don't have much luck finding the mirror, but we do stumble upon a guy living in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. I go talk to him, and he asks me to go away. I say yes. In the tradition of JRPG protagonists, I talk to him again, he asks me to go away, and I say no. At this point I'm not expecting much interaction, but then he asks if I need to talk to him. I say yes, because why not. He says that he needs to build a second cabin, and will I help him with it? At this point I have no idea why any of this is happening, but I say yes again. Hassan says this is a waste of our time, which doesn't seem inaccurate. He refuses to play along, but I go with the guy to help with the construction. The guy begins talking about how we're going to build the cabin, until Hassan, suddenly gripped by a fit of construction, interrupts him and builds the whole cabin in a matter of seconds.

...so yeah, I'm not sure why any of that happened. Afterwards, the guy says that he doesn't know where to find the Mirror of Ra, but he does know of a secret passage to a place called the Shrine of Dhama. We don't have any other leads, so I find the tunnel, and head off. On the other side, we find another giant hole, so of course I leap down into it, and now we're ghosts in the other world again. We land right next to the shrine, but on investigation, it's completely in ruins. Despite thorough searching, it doesn't seem like there's anything to find here yet. So, I continue on, and find a port town nearby. Being ghosts, there's not a lot we can do, but we *can* eavesdrop on people. We find a man confessing his love to a lady, but she can't because his father, the mayor, wouldn't allow it, or something. And then another woman frames her for poisoning the mayor's dog, so the mayor imprisons the innocent woman. Again, not entirely sure why any of this is happening, but it seems like an injustice we ought to rectify, if it wasn't for the fact that we're still kind of ghosts.

More wandering and attempts to advance the plot find us stumbling across a woman named Muriel. Better yet, she can see us. She says she can help us with our invisibility problem, and leads us to a house outside the town, where an old lady named Granmaz lives. Yes, that is her name. I guess. Granmaz explains that we're only dreams in this world, and in order to become visible, we need to visit a cave of dream-seeing to the south. Unfortunately, a demon has camped out in this cave, so we're gonna have to clear it out. Muriel accompanies us on our journey, although she doesn't officially join the party, sadly. In any case, we finally have some clear direction again, so next time, we're gonna poke around in this dungeon and beat up a demon, probably.

A few other things of note...something I forgot to mention in the last post is that I apparently have a Style stat. I have no idea what it does, although I have since found a "Beauty Plant" that I can use to increase it. So it's gonna be interesting seeing what all this is about. The other thing is a bit more unfortunate...I'm starting to notice that the fan translation I'm using is a bit unfinished. I haven't really been commenting on the translations much, but I've noticed that some interaction text boxes appear to have placeholder numbers instead of text. So far there's nothing plot-relevant missing, but it does concern me somewhat. If the plot text suddenly runs out, I may have to figure something else out. I guess we're just going to have to see what becomes of that.

[yoshimickster]

RWBY Volume 6 Episode 7 “The Grimm Reaper” MicksteRecap-BEHOLD THE NICE BACKGROUNDS!

Hey everybody, last night’s Christmas party was a DOOZY, sorry I’m late-TIME FOR THE MICKSTERECAP!

IT STARTS OFF-

-THE SANCTUARY of the spring relic...which...Salem can just enter any time she wants apparently! Man, maiden powers AND a secret hideout, that’s awesome!

Hell, she can even invite FRIENDS inside! Just get some chairs, a TV and surround sound, you’ll have a chill pad!

Either way Cinder gives Neo the low-down about how Salem ordered Cinder to take Ruby alive NOT dead-ALL WHILE-

2:58 ...she...plays with her knife, like a total creep! I ain’t judging, we all gotta stim from time to time.

Anyway, Cinder tells Neo that while she can’t kill Ruby, NEO hasn’t taken ANYONE’S orders, and then the two become best murder friends forever!

Because we ALL KNOW how well the LAST time Cinder made a deal with a recurring antagonist...also holy crap Neo’s tiny, she’s like a murderous Felicity Smoak!

A THEN CUT TO-

3:38 THE BRIDGE FROM EVERY SAMURAI STORY! Don’t lie, you got Samurai Jack flashbacks to. It is HERE WE SEE-

-absoLUTE cosplay bait! LOOK AT THAT-its glorious!

And you just KNOW what’s comin’ next folks-

4:20 ONE ON ONE MONSTER FIGHT BITCHES!

Maria starts out with a bridge back-flip-

THEN-does a gun-scythe-kama toss-

-AND LANDS THAT SHIT IN THE SHOULDER-but wait-THERE’S MORE!

SHE FLICKS THE PURPLE SWITCH-oh Mauvisto we fear your dark power-WHICH TURNS OUT TO BE-

-MAGNETIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIC SCYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYTHES-bitch! Most likely due to gravity dust! She then uses it to FLOAT HER ASS up to the bird!

“I’M MARY POPPINS Y’ALL!”

She SPINS IN for a shoulder strike-

AND LANDS-in the shoulder! Lot of shoulder strikes with this bird.

She then steers it through the anime mountains-

THROWS-one of her kamas-IN THE MIDDLE OF THE AIR-

-creating what LOOKS like a fixed point of gravity-

-PULLS back her weapons forcing the bird into a quick-stop turn, STEERING THAT FUCKER-

-RIGHT INTO A MOUNTAIN! FUCK YES-pro Huntresses rule! She also LANDS that bitch-

-RIGHT INTO A DITCH! RHYMING!

She then pulls one of her kmas out and everything is fine-OR IS IT?!

Nevermore: Hey.

Maria: Oh...hey.

Nevermore: Whatcha doin?

Maria: OH-I was just going to leave.

Nevermore: That’s nice, but how about I eat you instead?

Maria tries zigging and zagging-BUT-

4:56 It knocks both her weapon-

AS WELL AS HER! She’s only got ONE OPTION-

VAGUELY EXPLAINED MAGICAL SUPERPOWER GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

5:09 DAMN-petrified and then crumpled in MID-air!

After that kerfuffle, Maria than just goes on her merry way-

Tock: SURPRISE BITCH-I’m a crocodile!

We are then treated to one of the shortest...and MOST epic action exchanges of ALL time! Which starts out with THIS-

Maria: I don’t think you know who I am.

Tock: Course I do!

Clock: *Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiind-DING!*

Tock: YOUR the Grim reaper! 

AND YES-there are screws in her croco-teeth, don’t question it, its just awesome.

Tock: And THESE are the last 60 seconds of your life.

*SHING*

6:10*GLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW*

And yes, the action scene ends exactly SIXTY seconds after she starts glowing, AS WELL as the clock stopping sixty seconds after it officially started and its absolutely brilliant-TO THE FIGHT-

6:13-Tock starts with a straightforward slash-BUT Grimm Reaper Maria blocks it like a boss-BUT-

6:16 -TOCK knocks away one of her mini-scythes-BUT MARIA-

-NOT ONLY gravetizes her other scythe back to her-

-BUT WHILE BLOCKING SHOTGUN CHARLIE-damn she was great in her prime. THEN-

-she slashes Machete Jackson RIGHT in the face-

6:27 Knocks away BOTH of these punks-

6:30 While knocking Hammer Armond down-LIKE A BOSS! BUT THEN-

6:31 TOCK comes in with the double slash, grinning like a mad woman.

Jackson and Tock get the jump on her, one zigs, the other zags, PROMPTING MARIA TO ACTIVATE-

6:44 BO-STAFF MODE-now it has DOUBLE the attack power!

She goes in striking Jackson-

-BUT TOCK-gets up close and personal-

6:47

And in a SPLIT second-

JACKSON’S back up and tag-teams Maria with Tock...wait, not like that.

Maria knocks back Jackson again, she zigs, Tock zags, LOTSA ZIGGING AND ZAGGIN UP IN THIS

ALL THE WHILE-the same tick-tick ticking is going on-OOOH-its like a Venture bros scene!

Maria looks like she’s got the upper hand-BUT TOCK-

6:56 BITES THE FUCK THROUGH her battle staff-

6:57 HEADBUTTS AWAY-her mask-

-where it SHATTERS in mid-air, holy SHIT! ALSO-Maria is pretty-HUZZAH!

Either way this LEADS TOCK-

7:01 -to slash her GOD DAMNED eyes open! All. Within. 60. SECONDS! HOLY SHIT!

Tock high off her victory then starts gloating to the no de-eyed Grimm reaper, mocking her as weak while Maria blindly shoots her gun-scythes-WHILE ALSO-

-throwing one of her weapons behind her, which Tock isn’t worried about at all...for some reason.

*CLICK*

*KER-SLASH* Dead...presumably.

Never doubt the power of purple folks.

8:04 FLASH FORWARD to the present, where everyone in the cart being pulled by a SINGLE motorcycle deals with the fact that they were travelling with THE Grimm Reaper this whole time. Seriously Qrow straight up geeks out a little to, admitting he based his scythe on her weapon...well...just the scythe apparently, also his gun is more of a shot-gun where as hers seemed more like glocks AH whatever.

Maria than gives herself a BIG OLD pity party, mentioning that even after she got her new fancy robot eyes she couldn’t bare to go back out into the field, fearing the danger that comes with battle and...I KNOW she’s clearly going to be Ruby’s mentor, but I ALSO hope she bonds with Yang as well, as holy SHIT she’s similar to Yang.

Both lost appendages during battle, both had said appendages replaced with mechanical accouterments, and BOTH are hilarious! HELL for wall we know Maria also had an almost-girlfriend who ran out on her, another almost girlfriend who got shipped off to Narnia, and a little sister who kept battling because CRIME! 

Hell, she PRACTICALLY acknowledges it-

9:11 Maria: Because some of you are clearly stronger than me all ready.

Yang: *Sad ephiphany face*.

DAMN am I glad she’s part of the group!

After Maria avoids Ruby’s plea to train her to use her magical Grimm zapping super eyes-WE GETS A SCROLL CALL-

Jaune: OH MY GOD I WAS SO WORRIED ABOUT YOU ARE YOU ALIVE?!

Ruby: I answered the SCROLL Jaune, the answer is clearly yes.

Jaune: I just miss my friends.

-INFORMING THEM ALL-that they are RIGHT CLOSE TO-

10:20 BASINGSE-I mean-THE WALLED CITY OF ELDIA-wait not...ARGUS-yeah Argus! But FIRST Team RWBYQOM needs to FACE-

-THE STEEPEST HILL ON THE FACE OF THE PLANET! I mean...LOOK AT THAT THING-its huge! Also I love the design of the trees and the grass, its just beautiful!

BUT-through the magic of television-

-THEY’RE ALL READY THERE! Seriously I bet it took them like TWO hours inching down that path. I know construction is always lax in Remnant due to Grimm attacks, but someone NEEDS to make that path safer!

But enough about that-BEHOLD-

-THIS CASTLE WALL-with lots of armed guards on the top! No Titan is gonna sneak up on the city on THEIR watch!

But enough abou that-ITS HUG TIME:

And a billion shippers hearts, just exploded. 

After the love fest, we get-ARGUS SCENERY THROUGH WORLD-BUILDING:

Look at all this, Rooster Teeth’s background budget got WAY bank and they are FLAUNTING that wealth!

This Objects and Oddities lady is my favorite, she’s just SO pissed off, I wander why?

We also see-

-A MOVIE THEATER-showing such brand spanking new films, INCLUDING-

TRYST IN THE MIST-a raunchy tale about a romantic affair that takes place IN THE MIST! Given 4 stars by “Incredibly specific affair based movie” monthly!

...a...MOVIE within a movie apparently...weird.

DEMON IN THE DEEP-one of several monster movies that SOMEHOW exist on Earth-RWBY. I’m just saying, with all the REAL monster attacks, wouldn’t monster movies seem insensitive? SPEAKING of insensitive-

THE FALL...of Beacon...I know I’m not the first to say this but too soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooon.

So bla bla bla, Argus was made to promote trade between kingdoms, bla bla bla, Atlas military has all but abandoned it bla bla bla-LET’S MEET JAUNE’S SISTER!

LOOK AT HER! FEEL-her youthful and adorable mom energy!

And the REST of the episode is PRETTY MUCH just an assortment of adorable images.

Yang playing airplane with baby Adrien(THE CUTENESS).

THE THREE ARMED-flopping Jaune-IN ALL of its glory!

AN INSULTED BOY-

12:56 -and the women who adore him-

AND ALL THE ARC SIBLINGS:

Okay I don’t know HOW many fan-artists are left on Tumblr due to the incoming purge, but I want some ADORABLE web-comics based on this STAT! LOOK AT MINI-JAUNE-he’s so CUTE! And just when you things couldn’t get ANY better-

13:22

Sapphron: Everyone, this is my wife Terra Cotta.

BAM-twenty gay-TEEN mother fuckers!

SUBTLE-Renora sandwich time! Look at these two, YOUNG LOVE mother fuckers!

But more importantly Terra asks THE REAL questions-

Terra: Is that (Bringing students along on dangerous Huntsman missions) even legal?

Qrow: Er, uh, of course!

And I just...LOVE that both Maria and Ruby have the exact same looks on their faces, their both thinking “The closest thing we have to a real chaperone is a bipolar alcoholic...this is what my life has become”.

After a nice little sandwich lunch, and learning that Terra Cotta-Arc is a hardworking radio engineer being unjustly accused of bad mistakes(if there’s ANYONE to blame its Lionheart), while team RWBY decides the best way to GO to Atlas is with the LOCAL MILITARY BASE-which I’m sure will accept them with OPEN AR-

SLAM

Ooooooooooooooooooor not. Hey, its only HALF way through the season, they gots PLENTY of time!

SUMMATION-this easily had one of the BEST action sequences of the ENTIRE season, the backgrounds were BEAUTIFUL and there were just so many cute scenes-TEN OUT OF TEN for me! AND WITH THAT-that’s the end of MICKSTERECAP-if you liked what you read, message me if you want to donate to my Paypal or Ko-Fi. With that I will see you NEXT WEEK-on Mick the Nerd’s a.k.a. Yoshimickster’s MICKSTERECAP! Sorry this one was a bit late!

[chemicalmagecraft]

The Gamer Hero, Deku Chapter 4

A/N: Again, thanks for the reviews. They sustain me. To those of you who gave encouraging words and recommended other works for me to see, thank you guys especially. Even though I don't know where to legally watch Kenichi and NEEDLESS. Just saying, this is, in my opinion, the part where this story is going to start picking up. Also please just pretend that all the math checks out. It'd be way too annoying to calculate the exact HP and MP Izuku should have based on actual math... Did I mention that I hate math? In hindsight, this was kind of a bad fanfic for me to decide to write considering how much I don't like math... too late now! (In all seriousness, though, if any of you could figure out an actual formula for me to use when calculating HP and MP and stuff, that'd make my job SO much easier and I'd be really grateful.)

Shout out to Ryuuji's The Games We Play! Again, go read it if you haven't.

xoxoxo

The next breakthrough came about three months later.

I continued to grind my mental stats and any skills I could without making too much noise in the dead of night. Turns out that part of Gamer's Mind is apparently the ability to stay up all night long without needing to sleep, which was very useful. That night, I was doing some antiderivatives in my head when I heard two pings.

Through rigorous studying, your INT has increased by one!

The skill 'Mana Affinity' has been created through INT rising above 50.

Mana Affinity (Passive) LV1 EXP 0.00%

Mana. A mysterious power that allows people to do extraordinary things. This skill increases the user's sensitivity and control with that power, granting them an affinity with mana.

10% increase in mana recovery rate.

5% increase in total MP.

5% increase to magic attack.

5% increase to magic defense.

30% increase to MP-related skill effects.

I blinked. Then, I slowly got up and silently did the "You Got The Thing!" pose from Zelda. "Dah-dah-dah-daaaaaaaah," I whispered. That was a game-changer. If I got a skill like that for increasing every stat past fifty, and perhaps even other intervals, then that would be very, very useful. I brought up my stats.

Name: Midoriya Izuku

Title: The Gamer

Level: 6

HP: 1550/1550

MP: 2100/2100

STR: 32

VIT: 36

DEX: 34

INT: 51

WIS: 45

LUK: 30

POINTS: 5

MONEY: 0 Yen

SKILL FRAGMENTS: 3500

Definitely something to look forward to. It looked like I had to get the stats above fifty, and not just at fifty. I noted that my WIS was already approaching fifty. I'd ended up using Meditation a lot, seeing as it restored my HP and MP and I could use it anywhere that I needed to wait without drawing too much attention. I decided to just grind WIS at every possible opportunity until I passed fifty. I closed my eyes and began meditating.

A few days of Meditation grinding later, I finally got it.

The skill 'Nature Affinity' has been created through rising WIS above 50.

Nature Affinity (Passive) LV1 EXP 0.00%

The power of the forces of is nature great. The wrath of nature has leveled cities and decimated towns. This skill increases the user's sensitivity and control over those forces, granting them an affinity with the elements.

25% increase to mana recovery rate.

10% increase to elemental attack.

10% increase to elemental defense.

50% increase to element-related skill effects.

I grinned. Sure, I didn't as of that moment have any elemental skills, but I knew I could get some. In fact, I decided to do just that the next day.

xoxoxo

Despite how tiring it was, those long days I spent training with All Might and Kacchan became precious memories to me. Not only was I receiving help from All Might, but I was finally getting to be close to Kacchan again. I hadn't realized how much I'd missed having him as a friend until I got him back. Sure, he was... abrasive... but you could see how much he really cared if you looked closely enough.

The thing that I loved the most about those training days, however, was that I could finally use my Quirk. True to his words, All Might showed off his teaching license and had us sign some forms that said that he'd be officially tutoring us to use our Quirks the ten months before the entrance exam. With that, we were allowed to use our Quirks on the beach so long as he was around and we didn't use our Quirks on anyone that wasn't part of the training.

Kacchan came flying towards me, sparking palm facing me. "DIIIIIIE!" he screamed. His explosion, however, was blocked by a blue barrier that shimmered into existence around me. It shattered, but not before protecting me from all of the damage. "I still think that that's fucking annoying, by the way," he said as he landed back on the ground.

Mana Dome (Active) LV 28 EXP 32.95% MP 45

A spherical barrier made of mana used to protect the user.

Protects against some damage.

Additional 45 MP used per minute.

A useful skill that I'd managed to puzzle out early on from seeing its description in the Skill Grimoir, which I'd been grateful for because I hadn't had to spend Skill Fragments on it. "If it works, it works," I told him, then adjusted my stance. "Now come at me."

"AND FUCKING HOW!" He blast-propelled himself at me, firing a second blast in just his right hand to make him spin for a punch. It would've been a good move... had a small sheet of mana slightly thicker than my Mana Dome not appeared in front of my blocking arm. "FUCK!"

Mana Shield (Active) LV 24 EXP 98.67%

An adaptation of Mana Dome that forsakes full-body protection for efficiency and increased durability.

Has higher durability than Mana Dome.

50 MP used per square meter of shield per minute.

"Again, if it works, it works," I repeated with a cocky grin. This caused him to scream psychotically and charge at me. Kacchan was still so easy to rile up. He threw more of those enhanced punches, and I blocked each one. I then shot a blue rope of mana at him, which bound around his body.

Bind (Active) LV 13 EXP 5.45% MP 5

A skill to tie an enemy with a rope made of mana. Can only be used by those who have a talent in manipulating mana.

I'd made the skill after making a sort of rope with my mana and using it to tie up Kacchan in a spar. Actually, I got a skill called Mana Rope first, but using it to tie up Kacchan gave me a skill called Bind. "You still have too much of a temper, Kacchan. That won't be too good for hero work, even if you've been improving a lot," I said as I snapped my fingers. The Bind dissolved on cue.

Name: Bakugou Katsuki

Title: Lord Explosion Murder

Level: 21

HP: 2800/2800

MP: 1750/1750

STR: 42

VIT: 46

DEX: 55

INT: 37

WIS: 25

LUC: 14

Quirk: Explosion

Emotions: Angry

Fire Affinity: 50

His stats were coming along nicely. I'd noticed that I could see a thing that said fire affinity in his stat screen after I got Nature Affinity, probably from being more sensitive to the elements. "Shut the fuck up, Deku. You of all people don't get to say anything about what is or isn't good for hero work. Now heal me, my fists feel like I just got in a boxing match with a brick wall." I sighed and walked over to put my glowing green hands on his, causing a similar glow to spread to his hands as the bruises faded.

Healing Hands (Active) LV 3 EXP 54.86% MP 50

The power of a charitable soul to channel mana into a target's body to heal them.

55 HP restored, removes minor illnesses, debuffs, and negative conditions.

The second skill that I actually spent fragments on. It'd cost me 1500 and needed me to have 55 WIS before I could get it, but it seemed like it'd be worth it at higher levels. Or I could just spam. I'd immediately tested to see what it'd do to All Might when I got it. Unfortunately, it was nowhere near the level needed to come even close to restoring him to his former glory, but he told me that he felt better and the skill got EXP off of it, so that was a plus. I'd ended up regularly using it on him as grinding.

"Thanks," Kacchan grumbled. "Now let's move on to regular old hand-to-hand."

"Though seriously, why do you know martial arts?" I asked.

"Hey, fuck you, man! Quirk Fist is a good discipline! All the kata are adaptable enough to be used in conjunction with Quirks and it teaches you the kind lateral thinking needed to use Quirks in combat! You've seen my moves! And I've already seen you improve since you started! Now get in your stance!" And so it continued.

xoxoxo

After a long day of sparring and the leveling up of multiple martial arts-related skills (as well as Physical Endurance), I walked over to All Might. "I've decided how I want to spend the rest of my Skill Fragments," I told him as I healed him.

"Very good, young Midoriya! What are you going to get?" he asked, then handed me the Skill Grimoir. I opened to book to one of the bookmarks that All Might had placed.

Summon Basic Elemental (Active) Skill Fragments: 2000

Long ago, man learned of the power of nature and learned to harness it. Some learned to not only harness nature's power, but give it life of its own and summon it at will.

Elemental's power dependent on skill level, WIS, and elemental affinity.

"I'm pretty sure that the ability to make elementals could be really useful, at least from what the skill says," I said. "I'm still not sure why the skill's at such a low price, but I'm not really complaining." I placed my hand on the skill.

You are attempting to buy the skill 'Summon Basic Elemental.' This will cost you 2000 Skill Fragments. Confirm purchase?

I hit the "yes" button. As with the other skills, the words turned into light and flew into me. I frowned. "What's wrong, young Midoriya?"

"What's Deku working on?" Kacchan came up and asked, sipping his water bottle.

"The elemental summoning one," I told him. "It looks like summoning an elemental for the first time is a lot more complex than just using the skill. There's a whole ritual that I have to do get a contract with an elemental."

"Well then let's get started," Kacchan said. "Can't be too hard."

I looked up at the sky. "Yeah, but I can also tell that the ritual will make me unconscious for several hours, and it's getting late. I'd rather not worry my mom by coming home super late."

"Okay, so let's go do it at your house. That way your mom knows where you are."

I thought about it. "Okay. I take it you want to watch?"

He shrugged. Eh, why not? I don't have anything better to do." As we walked home he asked me, "Hey, Deku. What does that elemental-summoning skill even do?"

"I can summon elemental... magic things, I guess... that can control whatever element they're tied to. If I have more than one type of elemental, then for the moment I'd only be able to have one active, though that'll change as the skill levels up."

"So you can make multiple?"

"Yeah, but I have to have an affinity for whatever element I'm using. I gained a skill called Elemental Affinity that gives me bonuses to using elemental powers and other stuff, which allowed me to make an affinity that I can use for it. Actually, my Observe tells me that you have a fire affinity that's five times as high as my affinity."

He scoffed. "Well no shit. I've got a violently pyrogenic Quirk. I'd need it to not blow my hands off. Probably." He was silent for a few seconds, then said, "I've been meaning to ask, a lot of your skills, the way their descriptions read, it almost seems to imply that other people can use your skills."

"Did you read my Gamer journal?" I asked him. "How did you even read my journal? I've kept it in my inventory except for the times I wanted to read or write in it."

"I looked over your shoulder while you read from it a few times, dummy. It's actually a really interesting read. What, didya think I snuck in while you slept and somehow got you to open your inventory and take out your journal in your sleep?"

"That wouldn't work," I told him, then sneakily snuck my journal out of my inventory without anyone seeing. "Though if you want to read my journal you could just ask."

He happily took the journal and started looking through it. "Thanks, but you didn't answer my original question. What the fuck is up with your skills?"

"I honestly don't get it. It... seems like it. Heck, the Summon Basic Elemental ritual has a mention of a contract from ages past, so who knows."

He nodded, then turned the page. "What does it feel like to use mana, then? Maybe it feels different from using a Quirk. Or similar. Or whatever."

I thought about it for a while. "It feels like taking from a well of power, then directing it in the way I need to. When I use the skills, though, it feels like the power is being directed in the way it's supposed to go. If I concentrate enough, though, I can... 'divert' the 'flow' to do something else."

"Huh," he said, then looked at his hand. "That's kinda what Explosion feels like, but it only ever goes to my hands. Weird."

"Hey, are you done with my book? I'd like to put an entry in for Summon Basic Elemental." He grumbled but handed my book over. I began writing the entry down with a pencil that I snuck out of my inventory.

"So what Elemental are you getting?" he asked.

"Huh?"

Kacchan scoffed. "You can only get one at a time, so I'm guessing you're only going to get one, even if you could probably get more."

I smiled and put my finger on my lips. "It's a surprise, Kacchan."

"It's earth or air isn't it?"

I stared at him for a second, then cleared my throat and said, "I will neither confirm nor deny your theory, but what makes you think that?"

"You said that your INT and WIS are both over fifty by now, so you're probably smart enough to know to start out with an elemental that you've always got material to work with. Sure, you could totally figure out some sort of fireball spell, but that'd be more MP used for something less versatile, so that's something you're gonna save 'til later. The only options that you're going to have a lot of are air, which if you don't have it then everyone's dead, and earth, which probably includes rocks, minerals, and maybe even refined metals. Both are more readily accessible than fire and water. Of course, if there're more elements than the four classic ones, then maybe element five is also a good option, so I don't know." Wow, he was putting his high INT score to work.

"I thought about making a cheese elemental, but I didn't think it'd be that gouda," I replied.

"Deku I swear to God."

"We're here," I said. We'd just walked up to my house. "Let's eat dinner before I do the ritual."

Mom was happy to have Kacchan over for dinner. "I'm glad to see you boys getting along after so long," she said as she set curry on the table. "If you don't mind me asking, why did you come here today, Katsuki-kun?"

Kacchan grinned. "Deku's gonna do some sort of magic thing and I wanted to watch." Mom looked at me for answers.

"I got a skill called Summon Basic Elemental that lets me use things called elementals to control the four classical elements. To use it, however, I have to perform a ritual that works as a sort of 'contract' with the elemental, and that might make me fall asleep."

"Oh," Mom said. "Okay... I guess that's okay, just brush your teeth before you do it. Also, you wouldn't mind if I watched, would you?"

"No, go right ahead," I said.

Later, after I brushed my teeth and Mom and Kacchan joined me in the living room, I laid my journal on the table and opened it up to the page on Summon Basic Elemental... or rather, the second and third pages, which were occupied almost completely by the summoning circle needed to perform the ritual. Two concentric circles, one only slightly smaller than the other, and with a five-pointed star in them positioned so that the points were all on the outer circle. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the air around me, how it felt...

Air Affinity: 10

...and on my new air affinity. "I, Midoriya Izuku, call upon the ancient contract of ages past to summon thee," I chanted, blushing at the way it was worded. Kacchan snickered. "I hope you heed my call. Come, Air Elemental!"

"Fucking called it!" Kacchan yelled. Something in the air stirred. Despite the fact that we were indoors, the wind began to pick up. It all swirled into the center of the circle, forming a miniature tornado. The tornado collapsed in on itself, the air solidifying into the form of a young boy with blue robes and short hair and wings that looked like they were made of varying types of cloud. Kacchan started laughing hysterically. "HAHAHAHAHA! HE'S FUCKING TINY!" The boy was also small enough that I could hold him in the palm of my hand. Despite his small stature, I could feel a powerful presence coming from him. He looked at me with piercing blue eyes, making me feel like I was staring into the sky.

"I'll begin in accordance with the ancient rituals. My real name is Midoriya Izuku. You have heard my true name; please tell me yours." As soon as I finished sayning it, I felt myself pull apart, scattering into millions of pieces. I flew away, soaring over hills, mountains, valleys, and even oceans. I was no longer bound to a material form. I was free to go wherever I wanted, even if it meant everywhere. I was as free as the wind!

I was the wind.

I saw the living room again, except I was gone, replaced by a swirling hurricane in human shape. As I watched, the hurricane dissipated, leaving nothing behind.

And then I was back to normal. The air elemental was sitting on my hand. "I am here," he said. "My name is Halitus. You are Midoriya Izuku?"

"Yes."

"We are one, as the ancient contract dictates."

"Our souls are one."

"I am Halitus."

"I am Midoriya Izuku."

"Until our souls meet their ends," he started to say.

"We will be forever one," I finished with a feeling of awe.

"Should you ever need wind beneath your wings, call upon my power," he said with a bow, then dissolved into the air... or back to the air.

"...Okay," I said, and then felt like I was falling as everything went black.

That night, I dreamt of a gigantic storm, ravaging the whole world.

xoxoxo

Katsuki stared at the book sitting on his desk. "This thing might as well be a fucking spellbook with how much detail Izuku put into it." He flipped through a few more pages, soaking in all the knowledge that was present. "Fuck, this thing is a spellbook." He closed it. Ever since Deku had said described his mana, he'd been curious. He closed his eyes, concentrating on the power that lay within him. He'd drawn upon it so many times, using it to ignite the sweat on his hands and amplify the blasts. He'd never questioned it. It was just what his Quirk felt like. But now, now he had a theory. He drew upon the energy, but this time he didn't let it follow the path it normally took when he used his Quirk. It took a few tries, but he managed to make it rise to his hand without interacting with his sweat. He opened his eyes. 

A blue glow was emanating from his right hand. He laughed. "Deku was right," he muttered to himself. He concentrated, and the mana consolidated into a small ball hovering above his hand. He thought for a moment, then concentrated on fire. What it felt like, what it looked like. He looked at the ball of mana and tried to combine it with the fire in his mind. The mana responded to his thoughts, changing from glowing blue energy to a ball of fire. Katsuki grinned. With his free hand, he opened the book back up to the page Deku had used earlier, the one with the magic circle on it. Deku, for whatever fucking reason, had even included the incantation needed to call the elemental. Not that Katsuki was complaining. He placed his right hand on the center. "I, Bakugou Katsuki, call upon the contract of ages past to summon thee," he intoned. He'd probably have been a little bit embarrassed by having to say that if any people were around to watch him. 

Though, at the same time, the fact that he knew it was going to work really helped. "I hope you heed my call. Come, Fire Elemental." The fireball in his hand shifted, then began to change. It shrank down on itself, transforming into the shape of a young girl that could easily fit in Katsuki's palm. The girl had long, flame-colored hair that flowed down her back and glowed softly, with two pointed, yellow-furred ears of some sort of animal poking out the top. She had a yellow sundress with highlighting of similar coloring and glow to her hair, and, for whatever reason, she also had a tail made of fire. The girl looked at him with glowing, fire-colored eyes that made Katsuki feel like he was staring into a roaring inferno. He gulped. "I'll begin in accordance with the ancient rites. My real name is Bakugou Katsuki. I have told you my true name; please tell me yours." He felt himself begin to burn up, but it didn't hurt at all. He didn't become consumed by the fire but became it. He raged and raged and destroyed everything in his path. Entire forests were burnt to a crisp by him. He was fire itself. He saw himself, but he was made of white-hot flames.

And then he was back to normal. The fire elemental was exactly where she was before. "I am here," she said. "My name is Pyra. You are Bakugou Katsuki?"

"Yes."

"We are one, as the ancient contract dictates."

"Our souls are one."

"I am Pyra."

"I am Bakugou Katsuki."

"Until our souls meet their ends," she started to say.

"We will be forever one," Katsuki answered quietly.

"Should you ever need me to light your way, you need only call," she told him with a curtsy, then vanished in a burst of fire.

"Damn right I will," Katuki solemnly swore. He got up, then staggered. He didn't immediately pass out like Deku did, but he felt fucking drained. "Fuck that hits hard," he griped. "But why the hell didn't I wipe out like Deku?" He closed the journal, turned off his light, then went to bed.

That night he dreamt of a titanic monster of fire burning all that was in its path.

xoxoxo

A/N: Oh, snap! Sorry for the repetition, but I felt like elemental summoning is something to savor. Anyone who figures out what the designs of the elementals are supposed to be gets ten points, by the way. I was going to make this chapter a little longer, but I felt like that last bit was excellent cliffhanger material, so here we are! Don't worry, next chapter will be longer. Hopefully. As always, I'd like to say that I'm always open to constructive criticism. Also, if anyone would like to suggest skills, I'm definitely going to include any suggestions that I like enough, so do that if you want. Thanks for reading!

[fictionfromgames]

Book of Void fluff (ATLA/LOK)

Weiyong did his best not to blink or stare into the flashes as dozens of bulbs went off in front of him. Journalists crowded along the path, jockeying for the best angle as world leaders or their notable subordinates made their way through.

“Avatar.”

Fire Lord Oshi’s voice called behind him, snapping Weiyong out of his thoughts.

“Fire Lord Oshi,” he quickly turned and bowed, “How have you been?”

As he righted himself, Weiyong saw two new additions to the young man’s face, slashlike tattoos starting at the jaw below his ears and sweeping up to his cheeks, ending parallel to his eyes.

“I’ve been alright,” Oshi gestured with one hand, “Kinda been on a ‘spiritual retreat’ in the boondocks.”

“Well it looks good, kid,” the Avatar smiled. The Fire Sages in tow, however, frowned.

“Or uh, your highness.”

The reporters flocked as they met, prompting the two to pose congenially. He hadn’t seen Oshi in a few years, basically before adulthood, and even though they regularly corresponded, Weiyong realized he really missed his young friend. They clasped hands and nodded toward the lenses.

“Hey, do you wanna watch from my box?” Oshi inquired, still looking out into the crowd.

“Dunno if it’s the diplomatic thing to do or not, but yeah, I’d like that,” the middle aged Avatar replied.

“It’s not like Kamala’s gonna mind, right?” Oshi was done posing, ready to move on.

So he’d noticed too. The distinctive lack of yellow robes meant a political protest from the Air Nomads. Weiyong frowned. They’d been issuing requests and pleas to stop the launch of Tenshin 1, but to no avail. The overwhelming response from the United Republic, as well as the telecom giants across the world, was that it needed to go up. The world was struggling for another technological surge on the level of Old Republic City, and instant global communication was seen as one of the keys to moving forward. Everyone but Kamala and the Air Nomads had seemed eager. Weiyong had mostly wished they were there in an act of solidarity.

“Sir?” an OWL agent looked to him.

“Oh, sorry, uh, yeah, I’d like to spend a little while with the Fire Lord, if that’s manageable.”

The White Lotus agent mumbled into his radio and issued a curt nod.

One of the Fire Sages had to stand, but for the Avatar, it was an easy deference. It was a little crowded due to the teams of security, but they all fit.

“How’s things back home?” Weiyong asked.

“Eh, same as when I was out and about,” Oshi waved, “Still kinda seeing some problematic employment numbers, but crime is at least not increasing. More reports of Void Spirits, but they don’t really bother anyone.”

“You know I’ve still never seen one?” Weiyong’s brow creased.

“Really? I’ve had one visit anytime I’m studying,” the Fire Lord looked surprised, “You’d think spirits would feel pretty comfortable around the Avatar.”

“Maybe the airbenders are right and something’s off about ‘em,” the elder man suggested.

“They’re harmless as far as I’ve seen,” Oshi shrugged, “I just figure if there’s anyone to be curious about, it’s you.”

“I’m not that interesting.”

*******

More stuff

Intelligence Agencies

The Office of the White Lotus retains its status as an international entity, and offers a Secret Service type force for the Avatar. As a subset of the United Republic, they struggle to stay ahead of the game, having discovered moles from various nation states around the globe. Their strengths rely more on chi blocking, technology, and public relations than on spy games, which means their efforts are more reactionary and investigative than anything.

The Dai Li forms an overarching network of spies, drawn from individual agents from every former Earth Kingdom state. From police, to military officials, to scholars and a few politicians, they form a covert group that manipulates each of the independent states at the highest levels, often instigating border wars to maintain the facade that the Earth States are definitely their own thing and not another rehash of the old monarchies. Effectively, the shadow government that secretly unites them.

The Fire Nation is fairly adept with their own. The Order of the Blue Spirit is an organization that was formed by the Fire Sages that began as an informal group of vigilantes aimed at eradicating nationalist factions dedicated to Fire Lords from the Hundred Years War. They have thus remained removed from the attention of the Fire Lord, and later the Ministry as a way to ensure a power hungry figurehead couldn’t repeat the travesties of the past.

Lately, however, they’ve taken on more subversive roles, both as spies and secret police. Abroad, they clash with the OWL and Dai Li to further Fire Nation economic interests, as the situation at home is getting more precarious. Strike breaking has been one function that has been gaining traction, as society decides what a “functioning modern economy” actually means.

Fire Lord Oshi

Mid twenties, a little less serious than is expected, Oshi came to prominence when traveling with the Avatar. Then Prince Oshi was an endearing, younger brother figure to Weiyong, who as mentioned kept in touch ever since.

Oshi has actually met Blue Spirit agents on these adventures, but neither he nor the Avatar managed to correctly identify them with the group itself.

The scars on his cheeks are gifts of the Sun Warriors, who he studied under for about half a year, in order to understand them in a more personal way than the clinical reports he’d receive from the department tasked with their protection. He met a potentially serious love interest whom he intends to return to, and was accepted as warrior in their tribe.

Master Kamala

Head of the Air Nomads, with degrees in Astronomy and Astrophysics, Kamala is deeply immersed in the science and spirituality of space. An earlier ally of Weiyong, they often differed on priorities, but are longtime friends, and helped shape the goals of Avatar’s Peak. Now a world class scientist, Kamala has actually laid the theoretical groundwork for the satellite program, which would have been fine, until the appearance of the Void Spirits.

For whatever reason, no one listens to airbenders.

Void Spirits

Inspired by the “Mormnock” entry in the Legend of the Elements book, Void Spirits are vaguely humanoid blob spirits who seem to observe and sometimes mimic a lone individual’s habits. They disappear or generally flee when confronted, or even merely observed directly by the target of their interest, and have caused curiosity rather than harm.

Air Nomads are extremely wary of these visitors, as they seem to perturb other spirits, and have an unearthly aura about them. To draw on mid 20th century mass UFO sightings, Air Nomads (and other very spiritually attuned humans) have started speaking out, claiming they’re not from "our”world, or even what we know of the Spirit World-- they’re from space! As such, they don’t vibe with more terrestrially based spirits, don’t understand bending as we do, and are generally curious about what we’re doing here. They have avoided the Avatar entirely, as a beacon of Earth’s spiritual and material forces.

The way I envisioned them arriving is via spirit/electromagnetic phenomena, like the “Spirit Roads” or “northern lights” were in Book 2 of Korra, and that the Air Nomads would see humanity’s reach into space as a potential avenue for these beings we don’t really comprehend. You can flip the script on the Air Nomads as well, saying that their astronomical research and spiritual grasp into the void is equally or more likely for the attention of these visitors. In any case, magical interplanetary travel is an easy way to introduce aliens as opposed to the regular tech based sci fi, and I feel is a bit more in tune with the setting.

If you’d like to use them as Book level antagonists, this could be the “apocalyptic event” that so many ATLA futurists envision for the setting. Void Spirits on both the “street” and “kaiju” levels would probably decimate humanity unless it were united against it, and even if they were, who would be left to pick up the pieces? For giant monster battles, the Deep Spirits could probably be roused in defense of the Earth, because even if they despise what humanity is doing, look at these freaks and what THEY’RE doing, right?

Weiyong and building an Avatar

RAW, multi-bending characters can happen, even willy nilly. You could easily make a tri-bending antagonist if you like, but the way to get all four elements is one of two ways-- switch Playbooks and take new moves from there (a bare minimum of 5 Improvements and 1 Advanced Improvement), or find a Master Shaper character to teach you the basic Moves.

I feel like this doesn’t gel so much with the Avatars we’ve seen, who could kind of figure some small things out themselves, especially Korra, who was bending everything but air as a small child. So for brand new, 0 Improvement Avatars, I suggest the following:

Pick one Shaper Playbook, and have the other three elemental Moves available to use, but the three others all roll at a strict -1 until they either take the appropriate Move or learn it from a Master, at which point they roll from their typical stats.

The Avatar State is a bit different in the mechanics too, having to build up a unique stat  AFTER having accessed the Worldshaper sub-Playbook and purchasing the Move. I say, give ‘em the move, but stick to the fact that they have to wage peace to gain Spirit in order to use it.

For those who haven’t read Legend of the Elements, basically the Avatar Move gives that character a sixth stat, Spirit, and it starts at 0 and can even drop to -1, because the game punishes the Avatar for committing soulless wanton violence. I love that, and see that as fitting given the fact that Raava is the other half of the Avatar spirit. When you enter the State, you use Spirit as the stat for every bending roll, regardless of the element, which I also really enjoy, because it can get up to +3, and it means that whatever your character wasn’t so great at before is rightfully ignored by the power of the Avatar State, even as a brand new character.

It also means that the Avatar themselves has to play peacekeeper more often, so it’s not a character for people who want straight up bending wars. You can be more lenient in cases of constant unavoidable conflict, giving the Avatar kudos for at least trying, or for other reasons entirely, such as in a Void Spirit induced apocalypse and a need for a more active Avatar. It’s up to you and your players to determine how often this is necessary or fun.

Weiyong Character Sheet

Natural +1 Hot +1 Solid +2 Keen 0 Fluid +1 Spirit +2

Moves

Earthshaping Metalshaping Airshaping Fireshaping Watershaping Iceshaping Astral Projection

Sub-Playbook moves Lavashaping Chosen of the World Spirit Sealed

Fortune 2

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List Of Skyrim Wives

Optional Kill Amaund Motierre

Skyrim Husband's List

List Of Skyrim Husbands

List Of Skyrim Wives

Aela the Huntress. Aela is one of the elite members of the mates in Whiterun. She is the best hunter. And that is our top 10 Skyrim best steward list. Either way, let us know in the comments. And if you want to meet someone in Skyrim that could be more than a good hand around the house, check out our Skyrim Best Wife Top 10.

The Divines have blessed a total of 30 female marriage candidates and 37 male marriage candidates in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and official expansions.

You can marry anyone regardless of your Dragonborn’s race or gender, so long as you’ve fulfilled whatever conditions make them your friend. Housecarls will be wiling to wed you as soon as they enter your service, mercenaries must be hired first, and other candidates have fetch quests or other requirements.

You’ll also need to exhaust the dialog options with Maramal, the priest in the Temple of Mara in Riften, and be wearing an amulet of Mara in order to initiate a marriage proposal. It does not have to be an amulet purchased from Maramal, any amulet of Mara will do. There’s a free one in a tent along the shoreline east of Dawnstar. Others appear at random throughout the game.

Skyrim allows one marriage and only one per Dragonborn, even if your spouse is killed — unless you use mods or console commands. There’s a persistent rumor that players can kill their spouses and remarry, but I suspect that’s a feature added by the Unofficial Skyrim Patch that PC players frequently download, or possibly a very early gameplay bug that was patched in subsequent updates, so don’t assume it will work for you. Choose your spouse wisely.

There’s only one Altmer and one Redguard, both female, who can be married. The Hearthfire DLC adds a second Redguard female. There are no Bosmer (wood elves) or Khajiit (cat people) to marry, at all, male or female, unless using mods or console commands.

After the wedding, all male and female spouses will give you a homecooked meal and 100 septims a day. You can live in your spouse’s home or move them into one of your homes, though some spouses may leave — such as Camilla taking over her brother’s shop if he dies or Ysolda taking over the Bannered Mare if Hulda dies. I’ve also read that only spouses from the Dragonborn DLC can be moved to Severin Manor on Solstheim, but I don’t have confirmation of this.

The main differences between spouses, other than appearance and voice, are where they live, whether or not they can be followers, and how likely they are to be killed. I recommend marrying someone who is a follower, even if you don’t take them with you on adventures, because you can access their inventory and give them weapons, armor, staffs, enchanted items and health potions, to help keep them alive. Towns and Hearthfire homes do get attacked, and death does happen, unless your spouse is one of the few programmed “essential,” or unless you’re using mods and console commands.

For more about marriage in Skyrim, see this Elder Scrolls wiki page or this Unofficial Elder Scrolls wiki page.

Let’s take a look at our choices…

COMPANIONS

The Companions are a warrior guild in Whiterun and for many players the first faction of friends and potential marriage candidates you’ll meet. Some are both teachers and followers, which allows you to buy skill training and then access their inventory and take back the gold, essentially getting training — and level ups — for free.

All live in Jorrvaskr, where you can live anyway if you join the guild, so you won’t gain additional housing through marriage. Several players have also reported glitches in which steward or married Companions return to Jorrvaskr instead of living in the Dragonborn’s home.

Aela is Supreme Werewolf Queen of Side-Boob, which makes her almost as popular a wife choice as cranky Lydia. Aela and Njada are both Nords and trainers, in archery and blocking respectively. Ria is an Imperial. All three are skilled warrior women and possible followers, but Aela’s level cap is 50, while the others max out at 25.

Between Vilkas’ tear-streaked emo eyeliner and Farkas’ dumb-yet-endearing-jockishness, the Brothers Werewolf are popular husbands.

Vilkas is a two-handed trainer, follower, spouse and steward. Farkas is a heavy armor trainer, follower and spouse. Both are level capped at 50. Torvar is a potential follower and spouse who is a surly drunk. He’s capped at 25.

All three are Nords. There’s also a Dark Elf in the Companions who can be married, but I’ve listed him with the Dunmer, below.

HOUSECARLS

All housecarls are Nords, except Rayya who’s a Redguard. All begin with the same armor, weapons and stats, except Valdimar who is a spellsword, while the rest are classified as warriors. They live in houses that belong to you, so you won’t get a bonus house through marriage.

All are possible spouses, stewards and followers who will defend you unto death. They are all level capped at 50, so should be able to stick with you through most of the game, assuming you continue to improve their weapons, armor and other gear. Don’t forget to put health potions in their inventories.

From left to right: Lydia (Breezehome in Whiterun), Iona (Honeyside in Riften), Jordis (Proudspire Manor in Solitude). and Rayya (Lakeview Manor, added by the Hearthfire expansion).

The basic game gives us Argis the Bulwark (Vlindrel Hall in Markarth) and Calder with the groovy mutton chops (Hjerim in Windhelm). Hearthfire evens up the score with two more male housecarls — Valdimar (Windstad Manor) and Gregor (Heljarchen Hall).

DUNMER

There are several gray-skinned Dunmer to marry, perhaps because of the popularity of Morrowind?

Avrusa Sarethi is an alchemist with her own farm.

Brelyna Maryon is an apprentice mage at the College of Winterhold (no bonus house there) and she can also be a follower, level cap 30.

Dravynea the Stoneweaver is an Expert Alteration trainer who works in the Steamscorch Mine and lives in Braidwood Inn in Kynesgrove.

Jenassa is a mercenary follower living in the Drunken Huntsman, level cap 40.

Revyn Sadri is a merchant in Windhelm and a speech skill trainer, but will only marry or train the Dragonborn if you help him with his request to return a stolen ring. If you don’t side with him, it is possible to marry Viola instead (see below).

Romlyn Dreth is a bootlegger with a small home under the city of Riften.

Sondas Drenim is a food vendor at Darkwater Crossing, a mining camp.

Athis is a member of the Companions who can be a follower or spouse, as well as one-handed skill trainer, level capped at 25.

HOTTIES

Anwen (Redguard), Orla (Nord) and Senna (Breton). All of these ladies live in the Temple of Dibella, goddess of love, in Markarth. Note: There’s a reported bug with Orla where she refuses to leave the temple to live in anywhere else.

While not devotees of a love goddess, these three seem to be popular hunky husband choices for their looks, personality and skills.

Marcurio the sassy Imperial mage mercenary can be hired at his residence, the Bee and Barb in Riften, and is level capped at 40.

Onmund is a sweet apprentice at the College of Winterhold who is a potential mage follower (level cap 30) and steward, whose Nord family does not supporting his interest in magic.

Vorstag is a warrior mercenary who can be hired from his residence, the Silverblood Inn in Markarth. He has a sweet disposition while also being a badass fighter, and possesses one of the softer Nord voices in the game.

AND MORE HOTTIES

Camilla is sister to the proprietor of Riverwood Trader and the Imperial creamy center of a love Oreo between Faendal the Bosmer archer and Sven the Nord bard. If you marry her, her “friends” will continue to visit her at your home, wherever you live. She may also return to Riverwood and take over the family business if her brother dies.

Muiri is a Breton alchemy assistant who inherits the Hag’s Cure in Markarth if her employer is killed (and who also has an interesting love life, too, which you will hear about while doing the Dark Brotherhood questline).

Ysolda is an enterprising Nord drug dealer with her own tiny house in Whiterun, who takes over the Bannered Mare if Hulda the innkeeper is killed. She was made “essential” by one of the official updates (which are automatically included in some versions of the game), so cannot die, I assume because of her role in the quest “A Night to Remember.”

Sylgja manages to retain her youthful beauty in spite of being a hard-working Nord miner, and her big bust apparently doesn’t get in the way of swinging a pickaxe all day at Redbelly Mine in Shor’s Stone.

Sorexis an Imperial whose father owns the Winking Skeever in Solitude, involved in a love triangle with Vivienne Onis and Roggvir until the latter was beheaded. After marriage, he may continue flirting with ladies who enter the inn and he hates every home except Proudspire Manor.

Quintusis an Imperial alchemist who takes over the White Phial shop in Windhelm when his employer dies. I don’t know if he qualifies as a hottie (maybe if he lost that hat), but he’s young and seems to be kind.

Wilhelm owns the Vilemyr Inn in Ivarstead. While the Nord cannot be a follower, he possesses pickpocket skill and is marked “essential” so he can never be killed.

Roggi Knot-Beard is a Nord miner in Kynesgrove, drunk and in debt, who can be a potential spouse, steward and follower, though his skills are minimal and his level is capped at 20.

MATURE SPOUSES

If you prefer your spouse to be a little older and wiser, we have…

From left to right: Aeri, Nord owner of Anga’s Mill and her own house. Gilfre, Imperial owner of Mixwater Mill and her own house. Temba, Nord mill owner in Ivarstead. Uthgerd the Unbroken, Nord mercenary, level cap 30, for hire in the Bannered Mare and owner of a decent house in Whiterun.

Optional Kill Amaund Motierre

Ainethach is a prominent Breton who runs the Sanuarach Mine and owns a farmhouse in Karthwasten.

Balimund is a blacksmith and smithing skill trainer with a house and forge in Riften, which he shares with his adopted son Asbjorn Fire-Tamer.

Filnjar is a Nord blacksmith with a house in Shor’s Stone.

Stenvar is a Nord warrior mercenary with a decent sense of humor who may be hired from his home, Candlehearth Hall in Windhelm. He has the same voice as Farkas and Balimund. I married him in my first playthrough. He makes an excellent follower but is capped at level 40 and I had to retire him to Proudspire Manor with our kids sometime between levels 45-50.

ORCS & ARGONIANS

If you like the kind of spouse who has green skin and tusks, we have the orcs or “Orsimer” of Skyrim.

Female orcs: Borgakh the Steel Heart is the daughter of the Chief Larak of the Orc stronghold of Mor Khazgur and a potential follower, level cap 30. Ghorza is a blacksmith and smithing trainer in Markarth, who lives with her brother in Understone Keep.

Male orcs: Gat Gro-Shargakh is a miner who lives in Kolskeggr Mine, east of Markarth. Moth gro-Bagol is Ghorza’s brother and also a blacksmith, working and living in Understone Keep in Markarth. Ghorbash the Iron Hand is an Orsimer living in Dushnikh Yal and is the brother of Chief Burguk. He is a potential follower (capped at level 30), spouse and steward.

Or if that isn’t exotic enough for you, the Argonian spouses…

One lizard lady, Shahvee, and two lizard gentleman, Derkeethus and Scouts-Many-Marshes.

Scouts-Many-Marshes is a light armor trainer but not a potential follower, so you probably can’t retrieve your gold from his inventory after training. He and Shahvee live in the Argonian Assemblage bunkhouse in Windhelm, if you marry and move in with one of them.

If rescued from Darkwater Pass, Derkeethus can be a follower (ranger class, level cap 30 and the only Argonian follower in the game) and potential marriage candidate. After being rescued, he will move back to the small mining camp of Darkwater Crossing and might get killed by Falmer who spawn there.

DRAGONBORN DLC SPOUSES

One male and two female marriage candidates are added by the Dragonborn DLC. All are Nords. From what I’ve read, these are the only spouses who can live with you in Severin Manor, but I’m not sure if they are limited to Solstheim or can move to Skyrim, too.

Halbarn Iron-FurandHilund are residents of Bujold’s Retreat/Thirsk Mead Hall and Morwen has her own home in the Skaal Village. Halbarn and Hilund are level capped at 60, but I’m not sure if any of them can be followers or not.

SPECIAL SPOUSES

These are the final three eligible females, but there’s much more to discuss on the male side. I’ll follow up with that in a sec.

Mjoll the Lioness is a Nord who lives with Aerin in Riften. She is a skilled fighter who can be a follower, and while capped at 40, what makes her special is that she cannot be killed. Even after her quest is finished, she will not die. Keep in mind that wherever she goes, Aerin will follow.

Skyrim Husband's List

Taarie lives in the Radiant Raiment shop in Solitude, which is pretty special if you decide to move in with her, but what makes her really special is that she is the only Altmer (High Elf) marriage candidate in the game.

Viola is special because she appears to be the only old female marriage candidate, as well as an Imperial living in Windhelm (Ulfric Stormcloak’s city) with a very large home that rivals Hjerim.

THE BAD AND THE UGLY

Omluag is a Breton who lives in the Warrens (basically the homeless shelter) of Markarth.

Odfel is a Nord who shares a small house with an orc and whose claim to fame is a unique pickaxe called Rocksplinter.

Perth is a Breton miner in Soljund’s Sinkhole who looks like he should be following Dorothy and Toto to see the Wizard. He shares a house with Tuthul (who is kind of hot looking and has a cool mohawk, but isn’t a marriage candidate – why?).

Pavo Attius seems to be the best catch of the bunch, since the Imperial owns the Kolskeggr gold mine and a house outside Markarth, but he will remain in miner’s clothes unless you have a PC mod. Forsworn might also invade from time to time and can kill him when you’re not around, unless you move him to another home.

Angrenor Once-Honored is a homeless Nord war veteran who lives on the streets of Windhelm.

Belrand is an old spellsword for hire in the Winking Skeever.

Benor is a Nord thug who lives in Morthal and has been denied a job with the city guards but still lives in the guardhouse anyway. Beat him up to win his heart.

Cosnach is a drunk whose heart can also be won by a brawl. In my experience, he’s a decent follower with some funny dialog about “aiming for the one in the middle” (since he’s drunk, get it?). He lives in the Warrens of Markarth.

Octieve is a retired old Breton veteran who offers some two-handed training. He gambles, drinks, and lives with his grown daughter Evette in Solitude.

I WISH I COULD HAVE MARRIED

Blazing badass Teldryn Sero fills all top ten of my list. My heart is forever broken that the Dunmer spellsword can neither marry nor become a steward so we could have at least lived together. It might have been nice to marry Faendal, the sweet Bosmer archer of Riverwood, or black leather clad bad boy Brynjolf of the Thieves Guild.

Really, just about any of the Thieves Guild members would have been acceptable partners. Partners for what, exactly? Yeah, I guess they’re not really the marrying type.

Alas, they are all unavailable, unless you’re rocking a mod on PC. I’ve been playing on PS3.

~ J.L. Hilton

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Welcome to Skyrimmagic Today we are bringing you a list of possible spouses in Skyrim, a list I know several people have been looking and asking us for. This tell you all of the possible spouses both male and female, their race, their job, and where you can find them.

Females:

Aela the Huntress – Nord, Companion, Jorrvaskr in Whiterun. ​ -Requirement: You must complete The Companion’s story arc with Glory of the Dead.

Aeri – Nord, Lumberjack, Anga’s Mill in The Pale. -Requirement: Work for her chopping firewood.

Anwen – Redguard, Priestess, Temple of Dibella, Markarth. -Requirement: You must complete Temple Quest: The Heart of Dibella

Avrusa Sarethi – Dark Elf, Farmer, Sarethi Farm, The Rift.

Borghak the Steel Heart – Orc, Warrior, Mor Khazgur, The Reach. -Requirement: You must pay her dowry or convince her to leave her home.

Brelyna Maryon – Dark Elf, Student, College of Winterhold, Winterhold. -Requirement: You must complete of Brelyna’s Practice.

Camilla Valerius – Imperial, Merchant, Riverwood Trader, Riverwood. -Requirement: Completion of The Golden Claw.

Dravynea the Stoneweaver – Dark Elf, Mage, Kynesgrove, Eastmarch. -Requirement: Give her one Frost Salt.

Ghorza gra-Bagol – Orc, Blacksmith, Blacksmith Shed, Markarth. -Requirement: Give her The Last Scabbard of Akrash.

Gilfre – Imperial, Miller, Mixwater Mill, Eastmarch. -Requirement: Also chopping firewood.

Grelka – Nord, Merchant, open market, Riften (Can be married only through console command ).

Iona – Nord, Housecarl, Honeyside, Riften. -Requirement: Become Thane of The Rift. (some bugs with this, she may treat you as thane not spouse)

Jenassa – Dark Elf, Hireling, Drunken Huntsman, Whiterun. -Requirement: Hire her.

Jordis the Sword-Maiden – Nord, Housecarl, Proudspire Manor, Solitude. -Requirement: Become Thane of Solitude.

Mjoll the Lioness – Nord, Adventurer, Riften. (My wife, sexy accent not bad looking and boss warrior, cannot die) -Requirement: Retrieve her sword, Grimsever, from the dwemer ruins of Mzinchaleft. Phoenix point: year one edition download for mac.

Muiri – Breton, Alchemist, The Hag’s Cure, Markarth. -Requirement: Completion of Mourning Never Comes. (You have to kill BOTH targets to gain Muiri’s affection.)

Njada Stone-Arm – Nord, Companion, Jorrvaskr, Whiterun. -Requirement: Completion of The Companion’s story arc with Glory of the Dead.

Orla – Nord, Priestess, Temple of Dibella, Markarth. -Requirement: Complete Temple Quest: The Heart of Dibella.

Ria – Imperial, Companion, Jorrvaskr, Whiterun. -Requirement: Completion of The Companion’s story arc with Glory of the Dead.

Senna – Imperial, Priestess, Temple of Dibella, Markarth. -Requirement: Completion of The Heart of Dibella.

Shahvee – Argonian, Dockworker, Argonian Assemblage, Windhelm. -She may be married by recovering the Amulet of Zenithar and returning it to her. Please note that she may be killed in the quest Blood on the Ice, so it is suggested that you attempt to marry her before starting this quest, or proceed with caution saving often.

Sylgja – Nord, Miner, Shor’s Stone, The Rift. -Requirement: Deliver her satchel to her father in Darkwater Crossing, then return his satchel to her.

List Of Skyrim Husbands

Taarie – Altmer, Solitude -Requirement: Visit Elisif the Fair while wearing the outfit she gives you then return to her and tell her what happened.

Temba Wide-Arm – Nord, Miller, Ivarstead, The Rift. -Requirement: Bring her 10 bear pelts.

Uthgerd the Unbroken – Nord, found in her house, in Whiterun. -Requirement: Best her in a brawl battle.

Viola Giordano – Imperial, Busybody, Candlehearth Hall, Windhelm. -Requirement: Start Revyn Sadri ‘s favor, but then rat him out to Viola.

Ysolda – Nord, Citizen, open market, Whiterun. -Requirement: Give her a Mammoth Tusk.

Males:

List Of Skyrim Wives

Ainethach – Breton, Mine Owner, Karthwasten, The Reach.

Angrenor Once-Honored – Nord, Beggar, Candelhearth Hall, Windhelm. -Requirement: Take pity and give the beggar a gold piece.

Argis the Bulwark – Nord, Housecarl, Vlindrel Hall, Markarth. -Requirement: Becoming Thane of Markarth.

Athis – Dark Elf, Companion, Jorrvaskr Living Quarters, Whiterun. -Requirement: Completion of The Companion’s story arc with Glory of the Dead.

Balimund – Nord, Blacksmith, The Scorched Hammer, Riften. -Requirement: Give him 10 Fire Salts.

Belrand – Nord, Hireling, The Winking Skeever, Solitude. -Requirement: Hire him.

Benor – Nord, Warrior, Morthal. -Requirement: Challenge him to a brawl and win.

Calder – Nord, Housecarl, Hjerim, Windhelm. -Requirement: Become Thane of Eastmarch.

Cosnach – Breton, Drunk/Porter, Silver-Blood Inn, Markarth. -Requirement: Challenge him to a brawl and win.

Derkeethus – Argonian, Fisherman, Darkwater Crossing, Eastmarch. -Requirement: Find and rescue him.

Erik the Slayer – Nord, Barbarian, (( Frostfruit Inn), Rorikstead -Requirement: Hire him. Note: Sometimes, the choice for marriage doesn’t appears in the dialogues. It is a bug.

Farkas – Nord, Companion, Jorrvaskr, Whiterun. (Vilkas’ Twin) -Requirement: Completion of The Companion’s story arc with Glory of the Dead.

Filnjar – Nord, Blacksmith, Shor’s Stone, The Rift. -Requirement: Complete Quest, Mine or Yours

Gat gro-Shargakh – Orc, Miner, Left Hand Mine / Kolskeggr Mine, The Reach. -Requirement: Complete favor to Pavo Attius to liberate Kolskeggr Mine.

Ghorbash the Iron Hand – Orc, Warrior, Burguk’s Longhouse, Dushnikh Yal, The Reach.

Marcurio – Imperial, Hireling, Bee and Barb, Riften. -Requirement: Hire him.

Moth gro-Bagol – Orc, Blacksmith, Understone Keep, Markarth.

Octieve San – Breton, Citizen, Solitude. Frequently found in and around the Winking Skeever. -Convince the gamblers to let him off his debts

Omluag – Breton, Miner, Markath Smelter, Markarth. -Talk to Mulush about the smelters

Odfel – Nord, Miner, Shor’s Stone.

Onmund – Nord, Student, The Hall of Attainment, College of Winterhold.

Pavo Attius – Imperial, Miner, Left Hand Mine / Kolskeggr Mine, The Reach. -Requirement: Complete his favor to liberate Kolskeggre Mine.

Perth – Breton, Miner, Soljund’s Sinkhole, The Reach. -Requirement: Clear Soljund’s Sinkhole of Draugr.

Quintus Navale – Imperial, Alchemist, The White Phial, Windhelm. -Requirement: Complete Quest, Repairing the Phial

Revyn Sadri – Dark Elf, Merchant, Sadri’s Used Wares, Windhelm. -Requirement: Bring back stolen ring from shop’s stock to Windhelm inhabitant

Roggi Knot-Beard – Nord, Miner, Steamscorch Mine, Kynesgrove, Eastmarch.

Romlyn Dreth – Dark Elf, Meadery Worker, Black-Briar Meadery, Riften.

Scouts-Many-Marshes – Argonian, Dockworker, Argonian Assemblage, in Windhelm. -Requirement: Talk to Torbjorn Shatter-Shield about the Argonian dock workers

Sondas Drenim – Dark Elf, Miner, Goldenrock Mine, Darkwater Crossing, Eastmarch.

Sorex Vinius – Imperial, Assistant Innkeeper, Winking Skeever, Solitude. -Requirement: Deliver kegs of rum to Falk Firebeard at the Blue Palace

Stenvar – Nord, Hireling, Candlehearth Hall, Windhelm. -Requirement: Hire him.

Torvar – Nord, Companion, Jorrvaskr, Whiterun. -Requirement: Completion of The Companion’s story arc with Glory of the Dead.

Vilkas – Nord, Companion, Jorrvaskr, Whiterun. (Farkas’ Twin) -Requirement: Completion of The Companion’s story arc with Glory of the Dead.

Vorstag – Nord, Hireling, Silver-Blood Inn, Markarth. -Requirement: You must Hire him

Wilhelm – Nord, Innkeeper, Vilemyr Inn, Ivarstead, The Rift. -Requirement: You must complete Dungeon Quest, Wilhelm’s Scream.

This is the list of any of the wives or husbands you may have in this game. If you see an error or I am missing someone contact us and let us know!