#iced world

[icedfairy]

So you want to stab Angels : RPG setting ideas

One of the very poorly served areas of RPGs is the evil / anti-hero campaign.  Most of the time you get to stab angels it's either because they've been brainwashed or you're running the most cartoon cliche edgy nonsense campaign someone could dream up.

And so this section of the campaign setting is designed to allow people to play all the necromancers, plague shamans, and other evil characters without having to join fantasy nazis or eat babies.  Similarly it can have conflicts between two groups that each feel what they're doing is good, and perhaps even go deeper.  But at the base level the design is to let people be dark while still having at least some morality.

And stab angels.

The Setting : (previous  works)

The Solar's Betrayal :

When the Demon Lord was summoned from the Abyss and used the unique features of this planet to ascend to godhood, there were a lot of people looking for ways to stop his hordes.  One nation, Ysild, considered the obvious.  Summon an angel.  And so the greatest spellcasters were gathered and they opened a gate to call through a Solar.

The Solar arrived and immediately saw the danger presented, not just to this world, but to the multiverse.  If the forces of the Abyss could raise their Lords to true godhood, unbound by the usual restrictions, they could win the Blood War and unite evil against the Heavens.  And so he immediately reached out to the local gods to organize a defense.

However, to his horror, he discovered that the gods not only were skewed towards neutrality, but they were unwilling to accept the need to serve good to defend all reality.  Even the good gods insisted the world needed to stay the same, only changing at the fickle desires of races made to embrace conflict!

And so with a heavy heart the Solar had to take control himself, acquiring Godhood and giving his greatest servitors demigod status.  From the lands he claimed as his own he began his crusade.

But the local gods weren't going to accept that.  They resisted his attempts to grow his power, confining him just as they did the Demonic forces!  Now he works with both diplomacy, cunning, and military might to claim control over this land, for the good of all.

Good as an enemy :

This is going to be a tightrope no matter how you slice it.  The antagonists in this setting are good.  Lawful, but GOOD.  Mistakes are the exception, not the norm.  It's hard to claim a moral ground when objectively the world would be a better place if everyone just let the angels take charge.

It is very very tempting to make Good aligned villains go 'too far.'  Have them kill innocents or commit atrocities.  Again this should be the exception, not the rule, and those people that indulge in those excesses will be prosecuted by their own side as much as the PCs and their allies!

Instead you want to personally challenge the PCs.  It's a Good act to punish everyone who creates undead and summons devils harshly.  But if your PCs have necromancers and devil summoners as friends they're going to look poorly on those laws.  Similarly it's a Good thing to send your armies to defeat the demons.  But if they're marching through your lands, isn't it your right to refuse entry?

Yeah sure the angels are embodiment of all that is good, and they really do want the best for everyone, but you're at war with their nation, your people have been at war with them for a thousand years, and you're gonna be burning down that town built on stolen land.  Thanks.

[time-woods]

ice king pipeline ig

[jacketpotatoo]

is it just you and me and the wreckage of the world?

[saessenach]

What is honor compared to a woman’s love? What is duty against the feel of a newborn son in your arms… or the memory of a brother’s smile? Wind and words. Wind and words. We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory, and our great tragedy.

Jon Snow - and family that haunts him, because sometimes ghosts make for the best love stories.

[idkmybffjillyy]

how i thought i would feel walking out of the theater:

how i actually felt:

[schrutexbucks]

cannot stop thinking about this tweet actually

[batrachised]

one thing that really interests me is the idea of singing as an act of radical defiance and acceptance. You have the examples in media (ie the hanging tree in thg), but I've also read of the nuns in Nagasaki who, while lying in unimaginable pain in the atomic wreckage, died singing. I just read of three men who died in a concentration camp in WWII singing the Canticle of the Sun by St Francis of Assisi. You see it in the Magnificat (although perhaps not technically singing), and you see in it Of Gods and Men. I know these are mostly religious examples, but it's something that stuck with me because beauty, in being inherently dignified, can also be inherently defiant

[rastronomicals]

10:12 AM EDT April 20, 2023:

Brian Eno - "Iced World" From the album The Drop (July 7, 1997)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

File under: The Vertical Color of Sound

[iamtheeggsnake]

ITS THE THEM!!!!!!!

[duplicarto]

hey do you want to go on a date with me tonight

[icedfairy]

Bone Mountain 

Bone Mountain isn't really a mountain.  It's barely 20 feet tall at its highest.  It is however almost purely made of bone, making it a terrifying monument to the rage and determination of the dwarves who live there.

The dwarves of Ferhold didn't really care what was happening aboveground.  The demons were far away, and the city of Ysild could do all the angelic nonsense it wanted so long as it stuck to the lowlands.  Ferhold was a community that worked with stone and steel, and they were going to stick to that.

Unfortunately there was a big problem.  The mountains they claimed were a massive barrier to movement through the Goddess of Agriculture's lands.  Negotiations went for years, but the dwarves held firm.  They would never let the angels through their mountain.

And so feeling her hand was forced the Goddess of Agriculture removed the mountain from 'her' lands.  Shocked, the dwarven refugees fled to the borders of the angelic territory.  The Goddess offered recompense.  The Chieftain responded by demanding the mountain be restored.  When the diplomats protested he proceeded to slaughter them all and declared they'd rebuild their mountains with the bones of the thieves.

That chieftain died in the following battles, but the dwarves held firm, fusing his bones with stone and making him the cornerstone of their new home.  Their losses were replaced by relatives arriving to aid their kin, and the priests of Law answering the calls of the faithful.  The smiths and enchanters became bone carvers and necromancers.  And so the mountain of bone has slowly grown, each death adding to the pile.

Despite the grim scenery, Bone Mountain Dwarves lean towards law and good.  Priests make sure the spirits of their enemies are properly cast on to the outer planes before adding their bones to the pile.  Meanwhile honored dead are mixed in with concrete and stone to live forever in the walls of their family homes.  Ironically there's far more ghosts than skeletons here.  At least in terms of undead.  Bone golems and constructs however are very common.

Campaigns in Bone Mountain : For people who want to do good on good violence.  Or just think living in a mountain made from bones is metal as fuck.  Bone mountain is a great campaign staging point, either temporary or permanent, and PCs working out of here can deal with raids against enemy strongholds, monster hunting to get new bones, or tracking down foreign Necromancers to inform them that borrowing bones is not allowed, and they will need to repay with interest.

[spacerockfloater]

The way people switched on Tamlin the moment Rhys was introduced is diabolical.

“Tamlin never really loved Feyre, it was all a trick from the start”: It is stated that Tamlin was disgusted by the idea of forcing someone to fall in love with him and considered it slavery, but ended up being so in love with her that he ultimately lets her go and choses her freedom and safety over that of his own people. Rhys confirms that Tamlin loved Feyre too much. And he loved her truly. Not because he had to. Tamlin treated Feyre with dignity when she was engaged to him. He introduced her as his lady, to be respected and cherished by all. And she really was loved by his people, too. Rhysand uses her as his lap dog to scare Hewn City and parades her as his whore.

“Tamlin never did anything for Feyre, he just used her”: He improved her and her family’s life in every aspect and offered her everything he had.

“Tamlin had sex with someone else in Calanmai”: Out of duty and responsibility because he didn’t want to force Feyre, who still wasn’t sure about her feelings, into it. All of the High Lords perform the Calanmai. Lucien says so. How convenient that this is never brought up with Rhysand. He surely does perform it as well. All the theories in here, “Lucien doesn’t know what he’s talking about/ This is a SC ritual only/ He probably just passes the duty on to someone else” are just a way for people to villainise Tam and glorify Rhys again. All of them inaccurate. The Calanmai is canonically performed by every High Lord. There’s no evidence that proves otherwise. As the son of one High Lord and the ambassador of another, Lucien would know. He is 500 years old. It’s just more convenient for SJM to never bring this up again because it raises the question of “Who was Rhysand fucking all these years?” and it makes her favourite character look bad. And once he is engaged to her, Tamlin flat out refuses to do it. Let’s be real for a second.

“Tamlin didn’t help Feyre under the mountain”: He literally could not. He was bound by a curse. He was forced to be Amarantha’s consort and a consort cannot oppose you. His powers were bound. Alis warns Feyre that Tamlin will not be able to help her. Stop acting as if he didn’t want to help her. He decapitated Amarantha the moment he got his autonomy back. Claiming that there’s no proof that Tamlin was under the influence of a spell when he literally didn’t break the curse and Amarantha’s magic didn’t allow him to use his powers is crazy. And even if he tried, he could never provide actual help. We see this when he begs Amarantha for Feyre’s life. Him showing he cares about her would only make Amarantha more jealous and vicious towards Feyre.

“Tamlin made out with Feyre instead of helping her”: He couldn’t help her run away. No one could do that. She would never make it, Amarantha would find her. In fact, Tamlin specifically could not help her in any way. He could only assure her he still wants and loves her. And she wanted that just as much. Rhys abused her physically, mentally, verbally, drugged her and much worse. And he enjoyed all of it. If he didn’t want to raise suspicions, he wouldn’t have placed a bet in her favour. Rhys is a sadist, SJM just decided to mellow him down in the next book so that we’d all like him over Tamlin.

“Tamlin ignored Feyre’s wishes and only wanted her to be his bride, he didn’t let her be High Lady”: Both Tamlin and Feyre were bad communicators going though trauma and Tam had a whole court to care for. Tamlin was unaware of how Feyre felt because she barely spoke up once. Rhys knew because he literally lived inside her head and had all the time in the world to focus his attention on her since his court suffered zero consequences during Amarantha’s reign. And Tamlin simply told her the truth: there’s no such thing as High Lady. Even her current title is given to her by Rhys, the magic of Prythian has not actually chosen her to be High Lady. The title and its power are decorative. And she said she didn’t want that anyway.

“Tamlin locks Feyre up and uses his magic to harm her”: He locks her in his humongous palace to keep her safe, after she just came back from the dead and his worst enemy is kidnapping her every month, while he runs off to protect his borders. Rhysand locks Feyre in a fucking bubble. Tamlin loses control of his magic. He doesn’t want to harm her. That’s not abuse. Abuse is intentional. Feyre and Rhysand lock Lucien and Nesta up. They lock the people of the Hewn City up in a cave. Feyre loses control of her magic and harms Lucien’s mother. Double standards I guess.

“Tamlin is a bad and conservative ruler”: Tamlin is such a beloved ruler that his sentries literally begged to die for him. Feyre had to fuck with their minds to finally turn them against him. They were his friends. He was so progressive that the lords fled his court once he became their ruler because he wouldn’t put up with their bullshit like his father did. He loved all of his people. He is against slavery. The Tithe was just tax collection. Rhysand practically rules over just one city, while ignoring Hewn City and Illyria. He treats 2/3 of his realm like shit and everyone except the residents of Velaris hates him. He collects tax, too, but we conveniently never see this. He ranks the members of his inner circle (my 1st, my 2nd etc.) and reminds them every moment that they are his slaves first and anything else second, while Tamlin treats them equally and even gives Lucien an official title by naming him Ambassador.

“Tamlin conspired with Hybern”: He was a double agent and his short lived alliance, two weeks all in all, not only didn’t harm a single soul, but ultimately saved all of Prythian as he was the only one who brought valuable information to that meeting. He dragged Beron to battle. Rhysand’s alliance with Amarantha harmed thousands and only helped save one city, Velaris.

“Tamlin is responsible for turning Nesta and Elain into Fae”: No, that was Ianthe, who got the info from Feyre. Tamlin was fooled by her, just as Feyre obviously was, or she wouldn’t have trusted her. Tamlin was disgusted by that act.

“Tamlin is less powerful than Rhysand”: Rhysand himself says that a battle between them would turn mountains to dust. Tamlin killed Rhysand’s dad, the previous High Lord of the Night Court, in one blow. He is just as powerful as Rhysand. SJM again just wants us to believe otherwise. And he is smarter, too. He was the only one not to trust Amarantha. And he was a good spy for Prythian against Hybern.

All of these takes are cold as fuck. SJM was testing the waters with ACOTAR and she made sure the main love interest, Tamlin, was insanely likeable, so that the book could be a satisfactory standalone story in case she couldn’t land a trilogy deal. She didn’t know it would be such a big hit. But once she realised she could turn this into a franchise, she had to figure out a new story to tell. She may claim otherwise, but there’s just too many plothotes to convince me. And in order to make her new main love interest seem like the best choice, she had to character assassinate the old one. There was no other way. ACOTAR Rhys was too much of an evil monster to be loved by the majority of the audience. But Tamlin was introduced to us as such a heroic and passionate man that is literally impossible to turn him into someone despised by all. Feyre’s relationship with Rhysand reads too much like cheating on Tamlin. That’s why anyone with basic analytical skills is able to realise the flaws of the narration.

[shepscapades]

What if. What if I said I was thinking about them again

[smiggles]

humans are beautiful and i hope someday everyone can see that were not a parasite. were not destroyers and killers and polluters by nature We help each other. We help other species. We continue to fight for better rights and better treatment of others We sing together. We cook together. We create art and traditions and languages and cultures. We save the last bite of our favourite food to share with our friends. We are lovely!

[hedgehog-moss]

Here are 7 little facts about my donkey and how his summer is going :)

1. I received an anon the other day asking if Pirou was still a working donkey who carries my firewood for me, and the answer is yes. I've been cutting some branches from the big cherry tree that fell down the other day, and Pirlouit has been valiantly carrying them to the woodshed—fun fact, for this activity he likes to wear his ears like this:

Probably because this T position is reminiscent of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross, which is how Pirlouit perceives himself as he carries heavy logs for me. He's willing, but his martyrdom should be acknowledged.

Here's Poldine acknowledging it with a nose kiss, because Poldine.

I stopped so they could have their little chat.

2. Pirou has been chatting with a lot of new friends lately—we met these horses on a walk and he was so happy to stop and touch noses with them while making equid noises. Llamas are good with the nose-touching but their llama noises are just less interesting to Pirlouit. He had such interested ears here! "Finally a serious grown-up conversation"

We also met this goose during the same walk and Pirlouit was a lot less eager to go say hi to her. The goose was yelling threats at us and we prudently stayed away, and Pirou was clearly thinking "this bird is doing a better job at protecting her home from intruders than Pandolf ever could" (it's true, Pan assumes intruders are friends until proven otherwise)

3. You'll notice that there are houses in this pic! Our walks got longer and longer until one day we went all the way to the village (it took 1 hour 20min at Pirlouit's leisurely pace). I was so proud of him. I've been trying to convince my friends to go to the village on donkeyback (this requires two people, because you can ride Pirlouit but you can't tell him where to go unless there's someone holding his rope and leading the way)—my friends were reluctant because they still sort of perceive Pirou as the feral animal terrified of everything that he was when I got him. They know he's made a lot of progress but going to town on donkeyback still seemed foolhardy.

So we've been riding Pirlouit in the woods, in familiar environments, and we also went to town with him but without riding him. He was amazingly calm and brave! There's a river that cuts the village in two and the first time we went, we stopped before the bridge, since it's pretty narrow and cars would have to drive very close to Pirlouit, we didn't want to risk it. We just went to say hi to the librarian who lives on the right side of the river, but since Pirlouit was very serene, we did cross the bridge the second time.

He did not care at all about cars driving very close to him (he had one familiar human on either side of him and the drivers were very considerate and went slowly), which emboldened us to stop for a drink on the terrace of the coffeeshop on main street (< also a narrow street with cars driving by quite close to Pirlouit). There was just no problem at all, Pirou let total strangers rub his forehead and was more interested in iced tea than main street traffic.

It was a hot day and we gave him all the ice cubes from our drinks and he chewed them enthusiastically.

4. We made a stop at the pharmacy on our way home because we had another 1 hour 20min walk ahead and I had a blister, and the pharmacist noticed my donkey parked outside his shop and in a determined tone he said, "I want to try something." He took one of the donkey milk soaps from the overpriced-Provence-soaps-for-tourists display and opened the door and offered it for Pirlouit to sniff.

... I'm not sure what he was expecting—for my donkey to go "ohhh this smells like Mother's milk and aloe vera 🥺"—but unfortunately nothing happened.

(4. bis—Sorry, this 4th fact was anticlimactic.)

5. Pirlouit is now the proud owner of a surcingle. Not for equestrian vaulting and not for his log-carrying job because I don't know if it would be solid enough for the weight of a bag full of logs, but I'd like to tie bags or baskets to it to take Pirlouit grocery shopping, now that I know he's okay with going to town :) He even seems to enjoy the adventure, and the attention he gets from children.

And actually I shouldn't write off equestrian vaulting because Pirou is also remarkably chill with weird things happening on his back. I used to be very careful to climb on his back in a quick & fluid way so he wouldn't spook (because he used to! a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil used to spook him!) but now that my friends are riding him I can confirm we've reached a point where you can climb on Pirlouit's back in any way you want and he'll just be like "...... sure"

6. I almost forgot to mention that Pirou turned 15 last month, according to his ID papers :) Donkeys have a longer life expectancy than horses, they can live 30-40 years on average so he's still a young lad really. Happy 15th birthday Pirlouit :)

7. I wanted to conclude with a nice aesthetic pic of Pirou's shadow on the road during all those walks, like I did with Poldine, but unfortunately donkey shadows do not have the chic je-ne-sais-quoi of llama shadows. Pirlouit looks like a hammerhead shark wearing a tiny fez and that's not his fault.