#monk raid guide

[haplogamingchef]

Why Windwalker Monk is the Best Melee DPS in WoW Patch 11.1

Introduction

In the ever-shifting landscape of World of Warcraft, choosing the right class and specialization can dramatically impact both performance and enjoyment. With Patch 11.1 shaking up the meta, few specs have seen a rise quite like the Windwalker Monk. Whether you're a seasoned raider, a Mythic+ enthusiast, or a returning player exploring new options, this guide offers a comprehensive, updated look into why Windwalker Monks are a top-tier choice for 2025.

This Windwalker Monk Guide 2025 will walk you through everything you need to know—from talent selection and rotation strategies, to PvE optimization and survivability tips. You'll learn how to maximize your effectiveness in raids and dungeons using current tools and strategies tailored to this patch. With its combination of high burst damage, rotational depth, and utility, the Windwalker Monk offers players a rewarding, responsive playstyle that is both fun and impactful in any group setting.

Let’s dive deep into this Windwalker Monk PvE Guide, optimized for players looking to make the most of War Within talent systems and the powerful new tools available this season.

Windwalker Monk Core Strengths in Patch 11.1

The Windwalker Monk has seen a strong rise in popularity and power in World of Warcraft Patch 11.1, thanks to significant design adjustments and performance tuning. Here's what makes them a top-tier melee DPS choice in today's PvE environment:

High Burst DPS: Windwalkers excel at delivering large amounts of damage quickly. Their abilities scale well with cooldown windows and provide excellent value in both AoE and single-target scenarios.

Mobility and Survivability: With multiple defensive tools like Touch of Karma, Fortifying Brew, and Diffuse Magic, Windwalker Monks are difficult to take down. Their Roll, Flying Serpent Kick, and Transcendence allow for unrivaled battlefield mobility.

Utility Contributions: They bring Mystic Touch, increasing physical damage taken by enemies—a major asset in many physical DPS-heavy groups. Additionally, Ring of Peace adds unmatched control over mob movement and cast interruption.

Build Flexibility: Thanks to new hero talent tree systems in the War Within expansion, players can tailor their Windwalker playstyle to fit raid or dungeon priorities without sacrificing performance.

Windwalker Monk Talents – War Within Patch 11.1

With the War Within update, Windwalker Monks have access to diversified and effective talent paths. Here are the most impactful choices for PvE performance:

Core PvE Talents:

Fists of Fury – A foundational ability that delivers rapid AoE damage and synergizes with multiple enhancements in the talent tree.

Rising Sun Kick – Critical for maintaining pressure in single-target encounters.

Whirling Dragon Punch – Adds strong burst capability and should be used in every major cooldown window.

War Within Talent Highlights:

Shadowpan Theme: Offers a consistent DPS profile, ideal for players who prefer uptime-focused gameplay without heavy reliance on burst cooldowns.

Celestial Conduit Build: Prioritizes explosive damage windows and excels in raid environments with proper group coordination.

Defensive and Utility Talent Picks:

Diffuse Magic – Removes harmful magic effects and reduces magic damage taken by 60%.

Dampen Harm – Reduces incoming damage from big hits, making it ideal for soaking unavoidable mechanics.

Ring of Peace – Versatile utility used for mob control, skips, or saving teammates.

These talents form the foundation of this Windwalker Monk DPS Guide, but players can customize based on specific dungeon mechanics, group composition, and personal preference.

Windwalker Monk Rotation and Cooldown Management

Mastering the Windwalker Monk rotation is essential to maintaining top-tier DPS in both raid and dungeon environments. Patch 11.1 emphasizes tighter cooldown synergy and precision, allowing Windwalkers to shine in burst and sustained damage scenarios.

Single-Target Rotation:

Keep up buffs/debuffs:

Maintain Mark of the Crane by switching targets during AoE.

Keep Tiger Palm active for Chi generation.

Prioritize big hitters:

Use Rising Sun Kick on cooldown.

Channel Fists of Fury fully when available.

Use Blackout Kick to reduce cooldowns of core abilities.

Execute combo chains:

Avoid using the same ability twice in a row.

Chain abilities to maintain consistent Chi usage and cooldown reduction.

Cooldown Usage:

Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger – Activate during burst phases; synergizes with trinkets and Celestial talent bursts.

Storm, Earth, and Fire – Mirror images replicate your abilities; coordinate with major damage phases.

Serenity (alternative to SEF) – Simplifies rotation; good for beginners or consistent fights.

Whirling Dragon Punch – Use only when both Fists of Fury and Rising Sun Kick are on cooldown.

AoE Rotation Tips:

Open with Spinning Crane Kick when multiple enemies are marked with Mark of the Crane.

Use Fists of Fury and Whirling Dragon Punch as primary burst tools.

Maintain Rushing Jade Wind (if selected) in high-density pulls.

Prioritize generating Chi rapidly with Tiger Palm, then dump with Spinning Crane Kick.

Effective management of cooldowns and Chi separates average players from top performers. Windwalker Monks benefit from rhythm and flow, rewarding those who maintain uninterrupted combo sequences.

Windwalker Monk in Mythic+ Dungeons (Patch 11.1)

Windwalker Monks offer a well-rounded toolkit that makes them competitive in Mythic+ dungeons, especially at mid-key levels where burst damage, control, and flexibility matter most. Here’s how they stack up:

Strengths in Mythic+:

Quick Engagement Damage: Windwalkers bring high opening burst through Spinning Crane Kick, Fists of Fury, and Whirling Dragon Punch, allowing them to dominate short-lived pulls.

Mobility & Skip Control: Abilities like Roll, Tiger’s Lust, and Transcendence offer exceptional repositioning and shortcut capabilities.

AoE Dominance in Small Pulls: In sub-15 key levels, mobs often die before slow-scaling specs ramp up. Windwalker Monks can front-load their damage effectively, staying competitive in short fights.

Utility Support: Through Ring of Peace, Paralysis, and Leg Sweep, Windwalkers contribute significantly to crowd control and pull management.

Situational Weaknesses:

Weaker in Sustained AoE: Against large, long-lived trash packs where other specs ramp up damage over time (e.g., Fire Mages or Unholy DKs), Windwalkers may fall slightly behind if cooldowns aren’t available.

Lacks Group-Wide Buffs: While Mystic Touch is valuable, Windwalkers don’t bring healing, defensive cooldowns, or raid-wide utility spells, making them slightly less impactful in highly coordinated groups.

Despite these trade-offs, for the plus-10 to plus-15 key range, Windwalker Monks often outperform meta specs due to their immediacy, survivability, and control.

Windwalker Monk PvE Utility Breakdown

What further elevates Windwalker Monks in group content is their range of PvE utility tools that extend beyond pure DPS:

Mystic Touch (5% Physical Vulnerability):

This unique debuff increases the physical damage enemies take, making Windwalkers ideal in comps with Rogues, Warriors, and Hunters.

Ring of Peace:

This ability alone can:

Interrupt casters

Push mobs out of AoE danger zones

Enable skip routes by pushing enemies out of the path

Protect teammates from melee enemies or adds

Paralysis & Leg Sweep:

Paralysis can be used to interrupt or isolate priority targets.

Leg Sweep is a group stun that’s crucial in trash-heavy pulls.

Diffuse Magic & Fortifying Brew:

These tools ensure that Windwalkers survive damage-heavy mechanics without excessive healer attention, a key trait for Mythic+ survivability.

Windwalker Monk Raiding Performance in Patch 11.1

In the current raid tier, Windwalker Monks are not just viable—they are performing at elite levels across multiple encounters. Their well-rounded toolkit, combined with recent tuning adjustments in 11.1, has made them a go-to melee DPS for serious progression.

Top-Level DPS Contribution:

Consistent Performance: Unlike specs that rely on specific timings or boss mechanics, Windwalker Monks bring a stable, predictable damage profile, making them valuable in fights with varied pacing.

Cooldown Alignment: Abilities like Storm, Earth, and Fire and Xuen align well with external buffs and raid cooldowns, allowing Windwalkers to fully capitalize on key burn windows.

High Single-Target Throughput: Even with their strong AoE potential, Windwalkers rank highly in single-target damage, making them versatile enough for both add-cleave and boss-focus encounters.

Why They Are Picked in High-End Raiding:

Scalability with Gear: Their damage output scales exceptionally well with gear upgrades and trinkets, giving Windwalkers a high ceiling in endgame content.

Group Synergy: Windwalkers complement physical-heavy raid groups with Mystic Touch, enhancing group DPS with no added effort.

Meta Inclusion: Top raiding guilds have been stacking Windwalkers during Race to World First events due to their tuning, consistency, and utility.

Windwalker Monk Defensive Toolkit

A critical reason for the Windwalker’s rising popularity in both raids and Mythic+ lies in its durability. While many DPS classes require external help to survive heavy mechanics, Windwalkers have a self-reliant defense structure.

Key Defensive Abilities:

Touch of Karma: Reflects incoming damage and offers temporary immunity to high damage phases. Best used preemptively during boss casts.

Diffuse Magic: Reduces magic damage by 60% and removes harmful effects. Highly effective against DoTs and burst magic mechanics.

Fortifying Brew: Provides a large health and damage reduction boost, especially valuable in soak or AoE-heavy phases.

Unique Passive – Dance of the Wind:

Grants up to 90% physical damage reduction via stacking dodge chance. While it resets after taking a hit, its uptime is frequent enough to absorb random aggro pulls or tank failures effectively.

Self-Sustainability:

Windwalkers gain access to instant Vivify casts via talents, allowing on-demand healing in emergencies. This can replace potions in some cases and provide bonus healing between pulls in Mythic+.

Together, this makes Windwalker Monks one of the most self-sufficient melee DPS options in the game, lowering healer pressure and adding reliability to group runs.

Windwalker Monk Talent Builds and Playstyle Recommendations – 11.1 PvE

With the introduction of the War Within talent system, Windwalker Monks have access to deeper customization and specialization options. Depending on the content you're focused on—be it raiding or Mythic+—you can optimize your talent layout to better fit performance needs and playstyle preferences.

Recommended Talent Build for Raiding:

This build focuses on consistent single-target pressure with strong burst windows:

Core Talents:

Rising Sun Kick

Fists of Fury

Whirling Dragon Punch

Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger

Storm, Earth, and Fire

Hero Talent Tree: Conduit of the Celestials

Designed for controlled burst windows with excellent synergy for high DPS uptime during raid phases.

Benefits from coordinated group cooldowns, making it ideal for team-based content.

Strengths:

High burst in priority windows.

Good sustain through cooldown cycling.

Excellent synergy with gear scaling.

Recommended Talent Build for Mythic+:

This layout prioritizes fast-paced AoE damage, survivability, and utility:

Core Talents:

Spinning Crane Kick

Mark of the Crane

Chi Burst (for grouped enemies and healing)

Ring of Peace

Leg Sweep

Hero Talent Tree: Shadowpan

Offers a steady, sustained DPS profile ideal for dungeon pacing, especially when cooldowns are not always available.

Allows for smooth AoE cleave and short-pull consistency.

Strengths:

Minimal ramp-up time, ideal for burst-and-move dungeon encounters.

Strong utility for group control and skips.

Durable in high-pressure moments.

Advanced Windwalker Monk Playstyle Tips

To maximize the output of your Windwalker Monk in real PvE scenarios, you’ll want to master the flow of rotation, movement, and cooldown sync.

1. Prioritize Combo Efficiency:

Avoid repeating abilities back-to-back whenever possible. Rotational efficiency is key to keeping Hit Combo and Mastery: Combo Strikes bonuses active.

2. Use Cooldowns Together:

Try to align Storm, Earth, and Fire with Xuen, Trinkets, and any external buffs. This timing gives you optimal value during high-pressure phases.

3. Maintain Buff Uptime:

Abilities like Dance of Chi-Ji (from talents) or Bonedust Brew (if using legacy builds) should be kept active through proper weaving of abilities, as they significantly boost AoE burst.

4. Target Swapping Strategy:

Use Mark of the Crane strategically to maintain stacks across enemies. Smart target swapping increases your Spinning Crane Kick damage substantially.

5. Defensive Discipline:

Rotate Diffuse Magic, Fortifying Brew, and Touch of Karma across encounters instead of overlapping them. This ensures you always have a survival tool ready.

Conclusion: Why Windwalker Monk Stands Out in Patch 11.1

The Windwalker Monk is one of the most complete melee DPS packages in World of Warcraft Patch 11.1. Whether you're tackling high-end raid bosses or speeding through Mythic+ keys, this specialization excels in mobility, damage consistency, and survivability.

Here's a breakdown of why Windwalker Monk remains a top-tier PvE choice:

Versatile Damage Profile: Equally strong in both single-target and cleave scenarios, Windwalker can handle any fight structure with ease.

Customizable Builds: Thanks to the War Within’s expanded talent system, players can switch between burst-heavy raid builds and sustained Mythic+ loadouts without sacrificing performance.

Solo and Group Utility: From Mystic Touch to Ring of Peace, Windwalkers contribute meaningful utility that makes them valuable in any group composition.

High Skill Ceiling: For players who enjoy skill expression and mechanical mastery, Windwalker offers depth and opportunities to shine through optimization and creative gameplay.

If you're looking to commit to a melee DPS class in World of Warcraft 2025, or want to get the most out of your PvE content, Windwalker Monk delivers on every front. With its current state in 11.1, it is both a fun and meta-relevant choice for any serious player.

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[xxetherealsweetheartxx]

MK characters with a breeding kink (PT. 2)

Yeah… it’s been a while. I wanna thank all the people who stuck by and for those who sent me requests, I will still try and answer them, but I cannot promise writing them all. Anyways enjoy this!! (Breeding duh, reader is female, degradation, kano, pregnancy kink, tell me if I missed anything)

Hanzo Hasashi

I think this one’s pretty obvious. As we know, he used to have a wife and son before they got killed. But with you in the picture, you managed to make him heal from that trauma and move on. He gave love a second chance and that’s where you guys… were at your wedding. Hanzo couldn’t have been happier in his new life. Being by your side, surrounded by all your loved ones.

After the wedding ended you and Hanzo went to your hotel rooms. You were slowly undressing yourself when you suddenly felt warm hands massaging your back.

“Hanzo..”

 “Shh.. I know dear” he whispered into your ear before guiding you to the bed. Scorpion wanted to throw you on the bed and ravage you. He wanted to claim what was his, but Hanzo wanted to treat you right. Give you the love you deserve.

All you could do is moan as your husband kept pounding his cock in you. He was trying to be gentle, but couldn't help but speed up. Scorpion wanted nothing more than to breed you to give him a new heir that will carry on his legacy. You felt dizzy with how fast he was fucking you and it didn’t help that his whole body was getting wartmer by the second. The whole room smelt like sex as he kept pounding until both of you climaxed.

You shortly passed out. He chuckled before kissing your head and dozing off to sleep.

Raiden

In my opinion both Raidens work (That is mk1 and mk11)

I feel like he has a breeding kink, not only because of selfish reasons but also family reasons. Mk11 Raiden has a brother and probably helped raise Liu Kang and Kung Lao with the monks. As for mk1 Raide, he just gives me the vibes that he would want to be a father. No matter the version, Raiden loses his cool with you. Just seeing you vulnerable and putting so much trust in him makes his cock so hard. And he feels guilty thinking sexually of you. But he can’t help wanting to fuck his cum deep inside you and secretly hoping to get you pregnant. Of course he’d be gentle with you, except we're talking about dark Raiden.

While he cares for your comfortability, getting you filled with cum is more on his mind than anything else. He just wants to bend you over any surface and fuck you until you pass out. Like the others he would also hope you give him a heir, so he can pass his legacy along.

Kano

Okay Kano. He’s only into breeding because he loves the feeling of cumming deep inside your cunt. His dick cums so so much and you can only pray that he doesn’t get you pregnant, because you know he won’t stick around. But you’d be lying if you said you didn’t love the way his meaty cock would shoot ropes of cum deep into you. The way he pounds deep into you while he keeps whispering dirty things in your ear makes you dizzy. The alcohol smell on his breath doesn’t help either…

Erron Black

Like Kano, he’s purely doing it for the feeling. There’s nothing that he loves more than to bend you over and fucking you until you can’t even think straight. Not only that, but he’s also a exhibitonist.He likes doing it in risky places, such as at night, on a balcony, open windows and the list goes on.. but he would be lying if he said he doesn’t wanna see you pregnant. Erron was raised with traditions, except he didn’t follow each rule and often rebelled. It doesn’t help the fact that he also lives wild. But hopefully as he gets older and works for Kotal Kahn, he might actually try for a kid. One won’t hurt

[slowcatsisland]

One Piece Thought; Oda’s Aversion to Killing Characters

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Oda wanting to keep a majority of characters alive for the end of One Piece so everyone can still smile n what not is actually a pretty good take, there’s just been some times where I personally found it so draining.

Luffy does have a kill count, even though in a majority of fights he gets in to he isn’t trying to kill his opponent, only destroy them which - there is a difference!! But it doesn’t erase the fact that some people he’s gone up against (Kaido) or bystanders that got caught up in the context of the fight have died.

Idk there’s just some instances where a couple people could have, would have, or SHOULD have died that just..didn’t.

A lot of times characters are introduced to drive the plot or to complete their storyline and once they do, they don’t need to stay alive. Jujutsu Kaisen’s Gege Akutami does a terrifyingly good hob at disposing his characters when they fulfill their storyline, sometimes even before. I’m not saying I want One Piece to be more like JJK, it’s just a difference between the two anime’s based off their creators. Yk ?

Although I am glad Oda wrote these storylines the way they did bc they add to the world of One Piece a lot by defying their mortal expectations and don’t sadden the reality of their world for the straw hat crew or the viewers.

I think my main issue with this is it often discredits whoever dealt them an attack imo. **

These are just my opinions abt who could have died, when, and by whom that wouldn’t have fully changed the story of One Piece, prolly just add to the severity and dread in the arc yk

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Spandam - Ennies Lobby by Robin **

- Spandam is literally such a revolting person and it was deserved for him to die when Robin snapped his spine. The fact he didn’t imo is an insult to Robin’s determination in that moment/annoying because he didn’t have a major purpose after Enies Lobby.

Apoo - Onigashima by Zoro **

- I understand Apoo not dying when Zoro slashed him in the beginning of the raid of Onigashima on the battle floor bc he ended up with that whole plot of him having the antidote to the zombie freezing disease but even then it was drawn out yk. in the anime there was a large emphasis put on Zoro here. It showed his seriousness, his lack tolerance to nuisances and threats to the crew/the alliance, and his ability to deal damaging attacks without going all out/his range of offensive capability. I feel like all of that was undermined by Apoo getting up and surviving the alliance, CP0, and the fire all the way to the end of Wano.

(Controversial) Kin’emon - Onigashima by Kaido (twice)

Kin’emon I love you but I totally thought you died when the captains met you guys at the rooftop and you were bleeding out on the ground. And again when Kaido cut you in two. Both of these moments would have been good moments for Kin’emon to die imo bc even if his story wasn’t finished (reconnecting with otsuru, guiding Mononoke when he becomes shogun) it showed his true character. He was a swordsman putting all his honor and pride and life and energy into defeating Kaido. These moments honored that side of him so even if it would’ve been sad it would have been a good time for him to die. Im glad he didn’t though.

Mad Monk Urogue - Sabaody Archipelago by Pacifista Kuma & Kizaru

- bro got his ass handed to him every fight he got into for his whole showing on screen in Sababody and the New World imo. He suffered some serious damage in Sabaody and it might’ve been a good showing of how dangerous the admirals and the World government are outside of the straw hats. Bc we know they packed up the straw hats to show them they weren’t ready and needed to get stronger but it would’ve been kinda cool to see another crew get almost the exact same treatment at the exact same time imo. I also don’t like him.

Hatchan - Sabaody Archipelago by St. Charlos

- when Charles shot him and Hatchan was apologizing I thought he was going to die. I was even watching it with my friend and when it panned to him getting patched up in Shakky’s bar my friend went ‘he didn’t die?’ Ya ik. Hatchan could have died in that scene and it would’ve been good. It would’ve been another showing of how cruel the celestial dragons are and it would’ve been the first fatal showing of this to people the strawhats care abt I think. Hatchan got his apology, he amended things with Nami, he ended up leading the strawhats to Rayleigh, and ultimately Cami got saved so it would’ve been a good moment imo. Kinda sad tho and def would’ve brought down the post slave auction house sababody vibes but the vibes weren’t good for that long thanks to kuma and kizaru.

Kanjuro - Onigashima by Okiku ** (twice)

- I thought the first fight scene between okiku and kanjuro was beautiful, and it was a good death to Kanjuro. But when he was alive again and made the fake oden I was just like why. It took away from Kiku’s achievement and devotion to the cause in that battle bc it’s her fault (and oda’s) that’s he’s still alive. Imo I would’ve liked it better as an audience member if the fake oden and the kazenbo that kanjuro becomes later in Onigashima was remnants of kanjuro’s devil fruit ability after he died. (Yk think Boa’s Df and how the stone stays stone even if she dies or the concept of post mortem men in hxh) that way those things could have still happened but Kiku wouldn’t have lost and integrity in the fight.

(Controversial prolly) Okiku - Onigashima by Kaido

- kiku losing her arm was scary, but she bounced back. However when Kaido took out her and Kin’emon together, I still wanted her to live. Until she said something! It was like “the dawn will come to show spring and the fallen snow will be gone” idk blah but it was so beautiful and a lovely line written by Oda bc I feel like it was a prophecy-type foreshadowing where Kiku had to be one of the retainers that died in the final battle in order for the dawn to come. Bc her nickname was th e fallen snow! It just worked so well but was ignored in favor of her living and I’m glad she did but ugh imo it would have been beautiful writing.

Pell - Alabasta by Robin (?)

- Pell’s Pell. He got folded by Robin and I feel like he could’ve died there. He did have a major role tho in the battle later so it’s good he came back but there was the other guardian deity aside from him (the dog one) so I feel like alabasta would’ve been okay w/o him.

Conis’ father Pagaya - Skypiea by Enel (?)

- No hate to this guy I only put him bc when he surprised everyone by not being dead everyone was like “ur supposed to be dead” which was funny lol. One of the first cases of people would could die not dying

Wiper - Skypiea by Enel (?)

- wiper served his purpose in Skypiea. He helped defeat Enel and gain back the land that was once his peoples so I feel like if he died a warrior death and succumbed to his injuries it would’ve been a good ending for his character.

Raki - Skypia by Enel **

- I’m only putting her bc she got blasted point blank by Enel and still survived. Like what? It’s moments like these where when the character doesn’t die it messes with the lethality of attacks and characters like now Enel doesn’t seem as fatal of a villain bc she survived one of his attacks. Matter of fact most people in the final battle of Skypiea survived even the native scouts.

Orochi - Onigashima *

- actually fuck this guy bro I hate him sm. At first when he died by King’s hand I thought that was it. Then he came back. And had all the heads that got chopped by Denjiro. Then he survived. And Hiyori waved the fan to kill him for good. At first I hated it bc he should’ve died in the beginning but then I was like no actually this is some pretty good stuff Oda’s making. But denjiro cutting him down should’ve been it, right? I thought that until Kiyori said that line “Kurozumi is charcoal (or wtv) bc it’s made to burn.” It was good bc he burned alive and it was a nod to Oden’s famous line ‘oden isn’t oden if it isn’t boiled/oden was made to boil.’ I just wish now that there was more fluidity thing in his multiple lives to his devil fruit. His serpent form has multiple heads so if Oda paired the heads with a life and made it explicitly shown like oh he died twice now he has like one life left I think it would’ve been a more satisfying and confirmed death for him yk. He isn’t worth all those deaths. Or lives.

Queen & King - Onigashima by Sanji & Zoro respectively **

I feel like when these two fell and Sanji and Zoro were both announced as the winner, the should’ve been the last time we saw them. Both strawhats did everything they could do to win and to see Queen & King hiding out in Wano during the feast before they were attacked by Ryokugyu was so annoying to me. HOWEVER, I do understand that it showed how much stronger the Beast Pirates were in comparison to the Strawhats and that the Strawhats shouldn’t have won and was also the display of Ryokugyu’s immense power and easily put into perspective how powerful he was.

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I do love Oda’s commitment to making OP seem like a bright thing as well as he can, it just stresses me sometimes

Mwah 😽

[nebmia]

Reviewing every rpg book on my shelf: 7, Wolves of God

Wolves of God by Kevin Crawford is a game about adventuring in early anglo-saxon england and its prime virtue is in how thoroughly (and for the most part accurately) it develops that time period and attempts to place players in the outlook of those people. I happen to have a particular love for the early middle ages and for the anglo-saxons in particular, which places me directly in the target demographic for this game, and as far as I am concerned it delivers.

Mechanically Wolves of God is built on the same fundamental system as Kevin Crawfords other ‘without number’ games: So an osr type game with a greater than usual quantity of character build options and a particular focus on sandbox play.

The first thing you notice when you read the book is the framing device. The book is treated as if it was a manuscript written by a monk in 710AD (the rather opinionated Brother Cornix) documenting anglo-saxon gaming practice that has been unearthed and edited by Kevin Crawford. This lends the whole book a very unique and (to me) entertaining voice. For illustration here is a section from character creation:

The rules in these pages will show you how to make your bold adventurer, but do not be a thrall to man-marked ink on pale parchment. If your band of gamesmen has their own thought to the right way to manage a matter, then let it be done as you and your companions think best. Listen, then, and I will tell you how to make an English hero. From the first strong sinews of the mortal body to the crown of reason and high ambition, you will learn what makes a mighty champion of our people.

The styling as a medieval manuscript does, however, mean that many standard features of modern layout are absent, such as bullet points being replaced by paragraphs starting ‘primus’, ‘secundus’, ‘Tertius’, etc and that overall the text is much wordier than most contemporary rpgs. However, there are footnotes and sidebars from ‘the editor’ which summarise important rules or discuss some of Brother Cornix’s biases, and I find that, overall, the writing style is worth it for the level of immersion in the culture that it provides.

There are three classes you can use to create your ‘English Hero’ (plus an option for multiclassing): the warrior, the saint, and the galdorman. These are broadly analogous to the original D&D fighting man, cleric, magic user line up but each has twists to place it in the setting. The big point is that each classes has a set of ‘glories’ and ‘shames, which determine how they gain (or lose!) xp. These do a lot to place your character within the outlook and value system of the early middle ages. For instance the saints shames tie them to follow the law of the church, while a warriors shames relate to oath breaking or betraying your lord or friends. An interesting feature is that, while warriors or galdormen can escape shame if no one knows what they did, a saint always suffers the penalty as ‘God knows all things.’

Which is a good segue for talking about christianity and how deeply enmeshed it is in the setting. The book spends almost as many pages detailing the essentials of early medieval christianity as it does describing the rules for combat, and then goes on to spend twice as many pages describing monasteries and giving rules for generating them. Basically, religion was really important then and also quite unlike how we as modern people understand it.

Among the other things that were important to people then but unfamiliar to a modern audience are: Cattle Raids, Feasting etiquette, a gift economy, and the weight placed on fate. All of which Wolves of god sets out rules and procedures to guide you though. Outside of what is rendered in the rules to book also lays out an expansive description of anglo-saxon england covering the legal system, customs, farming practice, history and the main kingdoms. In contrast to games (D&D) where you play as essentially modern people in an essentially modern world wrapped in medieval aesthetics, Wolves of God is a game where you simply must inhabit the alien world that is the past.

Apart from the areas where is does deviate from history, which is primarily in the transformation of old roman ruins into portals to pocket dimensions (or ‘arxes’) created with ancient roman magic into which the romano-british retreated. What with it being, at its root, a dungeon crawling game I can see why there was a need to add magical dungeons and a treatment of roman ruins is definetly appropriate as the remnants of roman civilisation is deeply important to this time period (see the old english poem ‘the ruin’) but there is still fundamentally something about the inclusion of arxes that does not work for me. I think it is, perhaps, that the existence of dungeons and the delving off them is too big a thing to add without it dramatically changing the setting. A world with dungeon delving adventures is inevitably drawn into the sphere of classical D&D fantasy and away from the early middle ages. Fortunately, I can simply choose not to have any arxes and instead focus on more historical adventures with the odd mythical creature or barrow delve thrown in (don’t ask me why a barrow feels different to an arxe. It just does, ok)

A final note: My copy is the deluxe edition, which is unfortunately no longer available. I think the only difference with the print on demand version will be a less premium binding and printing and not having the red cover with gold

[politetim]

Aurgin and Eileen, Chapter 3

To the Edge of the Jungle

A part of Aileen was sad to see Ankirat dawn and for her to leave this odd city behind. That part was her stomach, so the cleric indulged it with one last delicious breakfast. She enjoyed the solid feeling the Mathuni meals gave her; full but not bloated. She put her mind to the task ahead as she hefted a bulging backpack and idly wondered who would be given her old one. I hope they fixed that fraying strap, it was bound to burst soon.

Aurgin hadn’t stayed at the same inn, insisting she had somewhere else to stay. They agreed to meet at the edge of the city so as to not waste any time. Aileen let the crowds guide her, flowing along the roads like a raft down a river. At one particularly large intersection of boulevards she stopped, intimidated. A small Mathuni child saw her hesitating at the edge of the milling mass, and held out his hand. “Tzzt?” they asked.

She smiled and reached down. The child took her hand and guided her through the mass of bodies, chattering excitedly as their unbraided locks bounced with each step. Adult Mathuni saw them coming, and diverted themselves with smiles and nods. With her tiny navigator she reached the slow moving ��shore’ on the other side, and patted the child goodbye. They were still waving at her when she reconnected with a road heading north and east.

At the perimeter of the city she came across a gatehouse. There were no gaps in the wall here, and it was double thick. Aileen guessed this was because it faced the official road into the city from Turgandy instead of the jungle where she had entered. The guards at the gatehouse gave her serious looks, their enormous bows close to hand, their arrowbags bulging with viscously thick arrows. Soldiers that returned from failed raids on Ogroth refused to return, and Aileen could see why. Mathuni bows looked like they could punch right through chainmail, and bite deep into the wooden shields of the footmen.

A half hour wait in the gatehouse later, and the first lean Mathuni she had seen arrived with her shield and mace. As they were given back to her Aileen inspected them. The shield seemed untouched, but the mace had been cleaned. Who has the patience to sit and clean this thing? Then another thought came to her.

“Did Aurgin pass by here?”

The Mathuni gave her looks, but only their leader responded. “Churrum rumm ra, yes.”

“Excellent, I have an errand with her.”

“She is in a poor mood from being kicked out again.”

What? “What did she do this time?” The gatekeeper shrugged. “Tried to confront Dihamhe and his new lover, got kicked out for a night and a day.”

Aileen groaned and covered her face with a hand. “Why? Nevermind, that’s a question I should save for her.”

“Perhaps. I hope your stay was pleasant, cleric. Have you any divine words for us before you go?”

Aileen looked up. All the Mathuni were staring at her, poses respectful if awkward. “Huh?”

“We don’t often get paladins here. The holy Folk of our own are often out on mission, moving villages further away from Turgandy and Krake’Tiar, or working in secret to sabotage the elves along the Mountains of Twilight.” He gestured around at the Mathuni with him. “It would be nice to feel the peace of the Endless Above, to know we are not forgotten by them.”

Aileen used to perform outreach to peasants with the monks. Then when she struck out on her own, her opportunities to do so dried up. Folk needed help with worldly problems, like wolves or bears or infected wounds or poisoned wells. It could be said they took their close relationship with the Endless for granted, and the glut of clerics and paladins reinforced that closeness. It occurred to her that the Mathuni had no such closeness.

Standing, she reached out mentally. A large part of these ceremonies was the atmosphere. Folk appreciated a flair for the dramatic, especially when it came to the dealings of the divine. She pulled at the wind, imagining it gently gusting in through the open gate, bringing the fresh smell of the jungle and the songs of birds. The clouds that muted Ankirat’s rays broke and the light of dawn swelled. She raised a hand, palm out towards the Mathuni, and filled it with divine power. Her glove began to glow a soft gold, the light of Tain.

Greenish-black heads bowed in reverence. When Aileen spoke, her words were not her own.

THAKUNI MERRAM RUMM RA RUHMM RUNNO. Aileen squashed the corner of her mind that was shocked Tain would speak to the Mathuni in their own language. Obviously, why would Tain speak Turgen to someone who doesn’t know it? Another assumption she didn’t realize she had died: Ogroth took another victim. The breeze died, and the light dimmed once more. Her glove’s glow faded, and the warm, buzzing sensation drained from her hand.

“Thank you cleric. It has been a long time since we have heard the world speak,” the gatekeeper said with a weary smile. “We will remember you here, Aileen of Tain.”

Before Aileen turned to go, one of the other guards held out a massive fist. “Tzzt!” they said with a toothy, tusky grin.

She did not know it, nor did the Mathuni who waved her goodbye, but there were more eyes on Aileen. A dozen pairs of eyes peered out from the undergrowth of the jungle, flashing with the cat-like irises of the Elves. They watched her strike out from a far hill top in total silence. Even when they broke their position to tail her, they drifted between the trunks without disturbing a single leaf. The birds sang on, ignorant to the danger below them.

Aileen came across Aurgin in the worst way. East of Ogroth was a thundering river fed by the snow melts of Solitude’s Peaks in Turgandy. They had agreed to meet each other at the bridge that crossed this river, but Aurgin was nowhere to be seen. Before Aileen could vent her frustration the sickly-sweet smell of fermented fruit surrounded her and a heavy pair of hands slammed down onto her shoulders, driving her to her knees.

Rather than try to stand again she lurched forward into a roll, gathering her mace into her hand as the world spun. Her helmet’s chinstrap dug at her throat. The loose dirt and stones of the road ground against her shield, then her boots as she got her legs under her and slid to a stop. Straightening, she faced her attacker, shield already off her shoulders and into her hand. It was Aurgin, laughing uproariously and swaying on her feet. She wore a brigandine vest, and standing head-down on the ground next to her was a finely made maul. Its head was bigger than Aileen’s two fists set together.

“Tain’s tits!” Aileen swore. “Aurgin you shitty drunk, I almost killed you!”

“Oh peace woman, if I was a bandit I would’ve jabbed you in the back of the neck.” She swaggered a few steps forward before another thought came to her. She turned around to look at Ogroth, barely a mile down the road. “And then outriders would’ve come spilling out of the gatehouse and pincushioned me.”

Adrenaline surge fading, Aileen hunched over to breathe through her anger. “Why can’t you fortify yourself against the impulsive thoughts?”

“Why can’t you hear me, drunk, sneaking up on you? I think we have learned some important lessons about each other.” Aurgin said, still smiling. She let a hand drop to her waist as she inspected Aileen from head to toe. “Such as: I will have to watch your back.”

The Mathuni craned her neck to the side with a pointed look. “Not that I would mind that.”

“You are hopeless,” Aileen said as she pulled herself upright. “Where in the twin hells is this Maker person?”

“Murdoc told me we would meet them out in the field north of Sku Koroth.” She nodded at the jagged mountains on the eastern horizon.

Aileen suppressed a groan. “Why should we go north of the mountains? Surely it would be faster to go south.”

“Can’t, dragon,” was all Aurgin had to say about that. She was already marching away. As Aileen grew calmer she noticed Aurgin had cut her dark, orange-red hair and shaved one side of her head. Whether that held significance or not, she was unsure. As revenge, she gathered her will and imagined a stone jutting out from the road just in front of Aurgin’s foot. Without a sound a stone obeyed, and Aurgin stumbled over it with a curse.

They walked, and as they walked Aurgin talked. She didn’t seem to hold herself to her promise to ‘watch Aileen’s back’ as the pace she set had the cleric struggling to keep up. Aurgin’s long, powerful legs ate up the miles with ease. She kept her deadly maul on her shoulder in a soldier’s way, and her head was always scanning from side to side. Aileen agreed with the Mathuni’s earlier quip, they were indeed learning lessons about each other.

“Who taught you to fight?” the cleric asked, interrupting Aurgin’s constant stream of talking. She had tuned the woman out miles earlier, figuring stories that kept wrapping back around to Dihamhe weren’t important for her to know. Aurgin went silent for a moment.

“My dad. And then my sisters. Then some others.” Aileen noticed the lack of detail.

“Some others? Like who? What else did they teach you?”

Aurgin let out a sigh. “Oh how to use a maul, how to break a man, running and lifting in the dwarven way, repairing my kit and using a forge. We were all taught these things. It isn’t very interesting.”

“Learning how to use a hammer from one of the Seven Companions isn’t interesting? I think not.” Aileen tried to bite back a different question, but couldn’t help herself. “Aurgin, what happened to the Seventh Companion? There are only six.”

Aurgin was silent for a long time. Their booted feet beat a tattoo on the dirt road, giving the bird song a rhythm to match. When the Mathuni warrior finally spoke, Aileen almost jumped.

“My dad doesn’t like to talk about it. His name was Icarus Moldozen, a cleric of Rothgar, and he did not survive their journey.”

Moldozen stuck out in Aileen’s mind like the snowy peaks of Sku Koroth above the canopy. The name came from the Turgen language, not the common tongue that the Endless Above taught to the Folk of the world. It was a reference to the harsh boulders on the shores of the islands of Fortitude, where a great elven invasion came and was shattered utterly. The world remembered the humiliation of the elves at the hands of the tiny archipelago, and stories of those battles became legend for all free Folk. Moldozen. The Obsidian Shore.

“I did not mean to dampen your mood.”

“And yet that is exactly what you’ve done.” Aurgin said loftily. They marched on in silence, their road taking them through a bustling Mathuni town. They stopped only to eat, and Aurgin stayed quiet the whole way through, only breaking her reverie to comment when Aileen gleefully gave up an extra few pennies for more coffee.

“Don’t drink too much, you’ll regret it.”

Aileen scoffed mentally, and enjoyed her warm cup. The town around them seemed more on edge than Ogroth. Children were fewer in number, and the number of guards around the tree-trunk perimeter was enormous. Watchful eyes scanned the jungles to the north, and spare arrows were crammed by the hundred into easy-to-reach baskets by each guard post. The conversation of the crowds was subdued, and fires were conspicuously smaller. It was a town under constant threat of assault.

The alert posture of the town weighed heavily on Aileen’s mind as they marched away from their lunch stop. As a Turgen she was aware of the ongoing contests between the assorted fiefs of her kingdom and Ogroth, but as a cleric she considered the conflict beneath her. Turgandy had rarely been assaulted directly, and the stories that radiated from the affected villages and hamlets were that of brutality and desecration. Having spent three days in Ogroth, a part of her wondered if she should’ve paid better attention to those stories. They walked in silence for a few miles more. Aileen was content with the time they were making, though a growing sense of unease was building with each step.

Aurgin, despite her dedicated scanning of the surrounding foliage, was lost in her own thoughts. Makrus, her father, was a strange figure. In the stories he was either a roving monster of death and destruction or an angelic being of freedom and liberty. Breaking bodies, armies, and heroes; or chains and enslavers. In truth, anyone who met with and talked to the Folk behind the armor would learn just how much he hated his legacy of violence. A warrior turned philosopher, more dedicated to his family and his paintings.

As a child she found his endless droning about honor and morality to be a boring tangent in the otherwise exciting stories of overcoming dragons and the undead. It was almost quaint to hear some four hundred pounds of muscle and enchanted armor discuss the benefits of watercolors over oil-based paints. Once she had matured into a woman and taken lives of her own, she wished desperately for him to tell her again the importance of kindness in war.

He had no more time for her. Mathuni women from every corner of Kyranta had made the pilgrimage to the City of Flowers to give up the children they could not care for and the orphans of their village to Makrus. Mialoth took pity on them, and her close friendship with Makrus inspiring her to create an exception to her harsh rebuke of uninvited guests to her private island-city. Through this decades-long arrangement the Hammerfiend had amassed an entire society of children, all of whom he loved as his own daughters.

They called themselves the Hammer Sisters, and relied only upon each other and their dad. Since Aurgin had left, their numbers swelled above a hundred. In a world that considered seventy Folk an army, they were a genuine force that could shape international conflicts. They choose instead to stick with Makrus, who did not want to lead his own children into war. 

Aurgin’s wanderlust wasn’t unique among the Hammer Sisters, but she still felt guilt at staying away so long.Murdoc’s quest was too interesting for her to quit. Mialoth herself had told Aurgin more about their quest, which was an experience. The elven mage spoke directly and flatly, unlike Ironeyes.

“At the end of the peninsula are two islands, the remains of mountain ranges swallowed by the ocean. The furthest one is where the temple lies.”

“How do we get there? I don’t know how to sail, nor how to build a boat.” Aurgin asked.

“We have hired someone to help with that. Boats won’t be necessary, there should be magic gates somewhere near the tip of the peninsula proper that will take you to your destination.”

“Why can’t you teleport us there yourself?”

“Because that would be entirely too easy.” Mialoth deflated somewhat. “It is a curse to be a Companion. Your father could tell it better, but to be able to help with every problem a Folk could have… I have the capacity to, yes. But it really is the journey that matters most. The Endless Above do not solve our problems because they think it is better for us to suffer. They learned the hard way not to meddle in our affairs, because with so much power they inevitably cause problems they could not foresee.”

“Your quest is to retrieve a letter, which I will need. My quest is to convince a dead god that hope is not gone from this land, that there are Folk worth fighting for, worth coming back for. Teleporting there and taking what I want? That would not be a convincing argument.” She smiled. One pointed ear sticking out from silken hair, the other painfully cropped short by an old injury. “I trust you to prove we are not worth abandoning, and I trust that you understand I simply don’t have the words to explain this whole mess.”

Aurgin’s mind lurched as she realized how dark the day had gotten, and her eyes quickly scanned her surroundings for landmarks. Sku Koroth was almost directly south of them, they were well beyond the border of safety that the Mathuni towns provided. Aileen also seemed lost in thought, or at least focused on putting one foot in front of the other. Her hazel eyes were wide, oddly.

“Aileen!” Aurgin hissed. “How long has it been?”

“Huh? Endless Above! It’s already dark?” Aileen snapped back into focus. They stopped in unison. Aurgin saturated herself with her senses. The humidity had died, replaced by the hint of a salty sea breeze blowing in from the north. It was dark, and the jungle canopy had shortened into the oaken forests of the peninsula. The birds have stopped singing.

“Get off the road! Quick!” Aurgin leaped for a bush, her heart hammering. Well honed senses screamed in alarm that something was wrong. Aileen was a half step behind her when a low curse drifted out from behind the trunks of the trees and bow strings began to snap. Arrows buried themselves into the branches and boughs around them, their accuracy viscous if late.

Her maul was in her hands. Her bag was off of her shoulders. Aurgin squatted behind cover, straining to see if there were any bandits on their side of the road. Her attention paid off when a shadow dropped its bow and pulled out a spear, not willing to risk a point blank shot. Aileen was unaware of the danger just behind her, busy getting her impressive steel shield into her hand. No time to speak. Aurgin stood and swung.

The most important lesson she learned from Makrus was managing momentum. Mauls were heavy at one end, and keeping that weight moving without getting snared or interrupted was important. A moving hammer-head represented a cloud of danger that extended around Aurgin as far as she could reach. Momentum was both the key to swinging at someone and pulling back and into stance before they could retaliate. Momentum was what carried the circular iron head through the bandit’s skull, letting out a chilling crack as the bone of their temple yielded.

Momentum carried their corpse, still upright, over Aileen’s shoulders and into the road. Aurgin’s strike left her open, though. Arrows from across the road zipped by her, one biting into the gambeson-covered steel plates of her brigandine vest, and one piercing her right bicep. Another slammed into her chainmail skirt, not piercing it but bruising her thigh painfully. She staggered back against the trunk she hid behind, adrenaline keeping her on her feet. She swapped her grip; Makrus taught all of them to fight right and left handed.

Aileen gasped at the arrow in Aurgin’s arm. Then she made her move, raising her shield and stepping out into the open. It was instantly beat upon by arrows, and Aurgin closed her eyes to better listen. Thip-thip-thip-thip! Thip-thip, thip! At least four bowmen, two experienced ones. Aileen would be surrounded and pin cushioned, shield or not. Aurgin made to step out behind her, using the shield as cover, but stopped short. The steel shield was burning with holy light, and Aileen’s mace dangled by a strap on her wrist.

The cleric pulled at the air, conjuring a bright bolt of light, then hurled it towards where the bowmen were hiding. It did not hit anybody, but backlit them with a dazzling brilliance. With that Aileen took her wicked flanged mace and charged the dumbfounded archers. After only a second of awe-struck hesitance, Aurgin followed.

[justavulcan]

Backgrounds With Class: Gruul Anarch

I'll be honest: Ravnica has always fascinated me. I was a high schooler when the first set came out, and I was immediately consumed creating characters for the setting. Now that we've actually received my long-awaited crossover, I thought it would be nice to write a love letter to the setting in the form of another Backgrounds with Class series. After all: some guilds have natural class choices tied in, from a conceptual standpoint. Boros and Fighter, Izzet and Wizard, Selesnya and Druid. But guilds aren’t class-restricted, and so I wonder what it would look like if you paired every class with every guild background, even the ones that seem at odds, like Izzet and Barbarian, or Gruul and Artificer.  So I thought about it, and this is what I came up with.  Some character concepts for each class, and each Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica background for each class.

Gruul Anarch

The Gruul Anarch Artificer has broken with tradition, and is hoping dearly that nobody in the Clans notices.  Gifted at making things and possessed of an intuitive grasp of arcane dynamics rather than an interest in basic weaponsmithing, she’s tried to pass off her creations as shaman’s accoutrements her entire life.  That she still favors the physically practical and destructive magic typical for the Clans isn’t a point in her favor anywhere, a fact that feeds in to her increasing concern over discovery.

The Gruul Anarch Barbarian was a shaman’s daughter, before her clan was decimated in a territorial dispute.  Force-adopted into her new family rather than left to roam alone as a trog, she kept with the shamanic practices of her old clan even while being trained as a warrior.  She feels her father’s spirit guiding her in battle as she gives into the rage, and she certainly demonstrates footwork and defensive skill raging that she lacks when she fights with an even temper.

The Gruul Anarch Bard has always thought of herself as a war dancer.  Quick with a blade and gifted at keeping a stamping rhythm even in the midst of battle, she’s one of her clan’s most resourceful members.  Uncannily intense as only the Gruul can be, she prefers to leave her drum at home in favor of a shaman’s bag when it comes to fighting in the field, relying on her natural percussion and throat-singing to bring her performance’s magic to life.

The Gruul Anarch Cleric is a traditionalist at heart, swearing her allegiance to the Old Ways and decorating herself with boar tusks and body paint for the fury of the storm.  Nature at its most destructive has always borne a fascination for her, and her potent shamanic power one day promises to put her at the head of a raiding party of her own, if she doesn’t take in mind to duel for leadership of the clan first.

The Gruul Anarch Druid never felt secure in their own skin.  Born a viashino male, they struggled with what they started to think of as a beast in their skin most of their youth before they were taken in by a trog who recognized the signs of a skinchanger in the making.  The trog counseled them through their dysphoria and set them on the path of the moon, so they don’t have to settle for the beast-rager’s path to let the animal out.  Now they’re at peace, a boar or buck or bird’s body just under their scaly skin for when they’re ready to stop being a person for the moment.

The Gruul Anarch Fighter hasn’t ever met a weapon or two he didn’t like.  Never quite the sharpest knife in the drawer, he makes up for his relative lack of sophistication by being a tempest in battle, axe and hammer whirling like the fury of the storm.  Off the field of battle, he buries a shameful secret- he likes the comforts of the city more than any Gruul is supposed to, especially the soft beds, drinking, and dicing.  If he’s ever recognized under his hood and cloak, his reputation in the Clan might never recover.

The Gruul Anarch Monk marries agility to skill with archery in ways most Gruul would scoff at as cowardly.  Fortunately, among the Slizt these are virtues, and his skill is recognized for what it is: the proof of long practice, sprints and mobile archery alike.  He’s a bit of a braggart, which makes him unpopular on the battlefield with his clan-mates, but when it comes to the ritualized boasting around bonfires, all admit his pride is at least somewhat merited.

The Gruul Anarch Paladin holds for herself a seemingly innocuous goal: earn tattoos all over her body.  Given that each Gruul tattoo is a marker in memoriam of the city structure destroyed under their hammers, though, this goal makes her both an inspiration to her allies and an enemy of the public to the Azorius.  Slipping or fighting her way out of capture again and again, she’s made a good account of herself so far on raids, and her chief is giving serious thought to charging her with a warband of her own.

The Gruul Anarch Ranger has always liked animals more than people.  Among the Gruul, this is not an uncommon trait, as their society is only just that in name.  Working as beastmaster and swineherd for her clan has kept her strong and quick on her feet, and among trackers and javelin throwers she is second to none.  She feels a kinship with the beasts, and her belief in the Old Faith means that every day she looks after the pigs is a day she feels charged with stewardship of the Rage-Boar’s lesser kin.

The Gruul Anarch Rogue does not look the part, as muscular and stout as minotaurs ever get.  Unlike many of their clan’s other scouts, he doesn’t hesitate to mix things up in close combat, where he prefers to bring his horns or a stolen Boros shortsword into play for quick kills.  And yet, when the time comes to break engagement and flee back to the Rubblebelt comes, he’s first in the retreat, guiding his allies to the safest ways back to camp and ambushing any foolish enough to give chase alone.

The Gruul Anarch Sorcerer sometimes wonders if her talent is a blessing or a curse.  After accidentally burning down her old clan’s camp with a wild-surge fireball, she was cast out to wander the Rubblebelt alone.  She would have died in a sudden encounter with one of the ‘belt’s huge solifugids a week later, and she wouldn’t have survived without her talent.  She’s since fallen in with a new clan as assistant to the shaman, but learning how to dock the chaotic surges of her magic is her true concern- before history repeats itself and she needs to go it alone once more.

The Gruul Anarch Warlock was a child when he witnessed the glory of the Old Gods of Ravnica.  As they grew in size and power, rampaging from their secret places deep under the city-plane’s surface, he swore to the one with a vast maw containing legions that he would be as a sword at their side.  He did not expect an answer, but strange powers have settled upon his shoulders, allowing him to accomplish things in ways that the others of his clan cannot or would not.  The price hasn’t shown itself yet, but he knows it will come, and does what he can to prepare for it.

The Gruul Anarch Wizard used to be a member of the Selesnya Conclave.  After getting lost in the Rubblebelt for a week, she started to realize that there was more to nature than the carefully trimmed, pruned communalistic image of it she’d been fed all her youth.  She stole her master’s spellbook and ran the day after she got back and joined up with the first Gruul clan she met to learn their ways.  It's been ten years now and she’s more a member of the Gruul than she ever was Selesnya, weaving the contents of her stolen spellbook into the bladework they’ve taught her since.

[dawn-of-worlds]

The Deluge War

Over the first two centuries of the Third Age, the numbers of Ohmlings dwelling in the Great Desert of Nulat grew steadily. None know why the barren desert of central Nulat became the greatest concentration of the creatures on the face of the world, but in the rocky barrens of the desert and the caves below teemed innumerable hordes of the creatures, their bodies well adapted to the bitter heat, biting winds and dryness of the desert. There they made their homes in sheltered valleys and deep caverns, and formed a hundred petty kingdoms. Over the decades the intensity of their raids on the smaller cities of the Ajuna valley grew steadily; small bands, or sometimes forces large enough to be called armies, would descend into the valley, seize what they could and slay any Mesosnir who they could get their hands on.

In parallel, the Messonir of the Ajuna valley armed themselves. This was no longer the bright dawn of that race, where the wider world was full of distant wonder and their concerns were simple and humble. Slowly, ever so slowly, the Messonir organised themselves for war. What knowledge they had gained of war from exploration of the world was been put into practice. Walls were built; vast stores of weapons were forged; militias were organised; food was stockpiled; and a force of permanent warriors – the Iron Wing - was established. The Council of Eight even appointed a Master of War, Kyllikanak, and eight Undermasters to serve under her.

Ohmlings fight amongst themselves habitually and happily, but in the first decades of the third century of the third age a great warlord amongst them, Ohm of the Cracked Shell, united most of the Ohmlings of the desert under his banner. Long had the Ohmlings envied the knowledge of the Messonir, coveting it in the way a child covets things, desiring to own something simply that others do not. But slowly tales reached the ears of Ohm of the Cracked Shell of the bounty of knowledge within the House of All Things in Tsallosis, and the fire of his avarice was stoked to great heights. Ohm of the Cracked Shell dreamt of finding some secret (to military victory? personal might? divinity? Ohm himself was unsure) in the Hall. And so he gathered his great horde of Ohmling warriors, and led them down into the Valley of the Ajuna. Thus began the greatest war that the world has seen up to that point.

- - -

Two cities burn before word of the invasion reaches the gates of Tsallosis, but the response is swift. The militias are called and the Iron Wing prepares to march from Tsallosis. So do a great many of the Penitent (warrior-monks, blade-oracles, petty gentry and the like), who have come to the Ajuna in preparation for an event like this. As they have distinguished themselves in fighting off raiding parties of Ohmlings in decades past, Kyllikanak has made space for them in the order of battle.

Ohm of the Cracked Shell’s forces arrive in the middle of the Ajuna valley, far upriver from Tsallosis. They begin to head westwards, leveling cities as they go. Some cities hold out thanks to better-built walls or the impatience of Ohm when his forces reach them, but most do not. The Messonir fight bravely, but they are mostly unbloodied in war, where the Ohmlings have been practicing against each other for centuries. However, messages manage to get past the army to the Messonir cities upriver, who gather their own militias. Kyllikanak hopes to crush the Ohmling forces between the Iron Wing and the upriver forces before he reaches Tsallosis.

In Tsallosis, Pesna of Çyot, a Penitent oracle and warrior of great foresight and skill, believes that the war will not be decided on the battlefield. He gathers a small number of his followers, along with several Messonir guides and two Windwhisperers; a Messonir named Arreta and a human named Dama. They set out on a trek into the desert; a few years previously the journey would have been too dangerous, with the number of Ohmlings living in the sands, but now it is survivable. The small party heads east, moving swiftly, and they are rewarded for their boldness. They find that the caverns beneath the desert, which Tepponilamek once hid in to survive the Sun, are far emore extensive than once thought; it is in these caverns that the Ohmlings have been dwelling. And Pesna has an idea.

In the valley, Kyllikanak’s forces finally make contact with the Ohmlings, but they do not seek a pitched battle; instead they begin a fighting retreat back down the valley, bolstering the defenses of individual cities where they are able, harrying the Ohmlings where they are not, and all the while harvesting what crops they can and burning what they cannot. Yet Ohm is cunning, and a skilled commander; he looses fewer Ohmlings than Kyllinkanak hopes, and the Iron Wing proves to be unprepared for the grinding combat. Slowly the retreat becomes less of a deliberate strategy and more of a military necessity.

Pesna leads his small band eastwards, out of the desert and into the valley of the Tulana, one of the two great tributaries of the Ajuna, although the lesser one since the time of the Great Drying. There, the leaders of several small cities are meeting. Word has reached them from there militias, slowly marching down the Ajuna valley, of the devastation left by the Ohmlings, and they are debating fleeing over the mountains, as the Likani did.

Pesna, whose name is known even in these cities far from Tsallosis and Lekesh, is allowed in to speak to them. He speaks of the great hordes of Ohmlings, and his plan to defeat them; divert the Tulana into the desert, and flood the caverns where the Ohmlings dwell. On the journey his followers mapped out the spots where the river might be diverted easily; all they need is the workfoce to make it happen. For a whole day and night the debate rages; but Pesna is an orator without peer, and is successful in persuading them. The workforces head out, cutting through hills and preparing landslides to dam the valleys where the Tulana flows. Arreta and Dama, meanwhile, walk up into the mountains, until they can feel the song from the Great Current, the eternal windstorm that Tepponilamek brought forth in the ancient days to guide the winds around Nulat. Raising their voices, and with prayers upon their lips, they begin to bend it to their wills.

Outside the city of Reshomiss, Kyllikanak makes a mistake. She waits too long to retreat, desperate to preserve the city and ensure the safety of those fleeing it a little longer. Ohm takes his chance, and pins much of the Iron Wing in place while a force marches out through the desert and attacks them from the side. It is not a decisive victory - the destruction of the Iron Wing is prevented by a great force of the Penitent, who fight with an unmatched ferocity - but it renders the Messonir position untenable. The retreat becomes swifter; Kyllikanak now only hopes that the walls of Tsallosis can be held long enough for Ohm to lose momentum and the upriver militias arrive.

She does not hope for long, for several days later her command group is attacked by an Ohmling raiding force and she is slain. Despair grips the Messonir army and their fate hangs by a thread; but Kyllikanak’s thorough planning and orders allow her Undermasters of War to maintain the retreat.

Then, a miracle. Arreta and Dama’s prayers are answered; the Great Current carries hot air north from the equator, and the glaciers and snow atop the White Mountains melt in a few days of brief, intense heat. As Pesna watches atop a hill, a flood unprecedented in the history of Nulat roars down from the mountains, and is diverted from the valley of the Tulana by the skillful work of Messonir engineers. It enters the desert, carving new channels and valleys, racing westwards until it reaches the caves of the Ohmlings. The deluge fills them utterly, and is not slowed in the slightest. The river carries the corpses of thousands upon thousands of Ohmlings through the desert until the curves of the land take it into the valley of the Ajuna proper.

Ohm of the Cracked Shell is at the head of his army, preparing to burn Ippusima, the last great city before Tsallosis, when the flood thunders down through a gully and into the floodplain of the Ajuna. He is swept away in the torrent, and his body is found weeks later in the delta, weighed down with treasures and jewelry stolen from a dozen cities. Perhaps without them, he might have swum, and survived. Or perhaps not. Watching its leader die in such a fashion breaks the will of the Ohmlings to fight and they soon flee into the desert, seeking to return to the safety of their homes. Instead they find a landscape of lakes and winding river channels where the caverns were; many of their kingdoms and dwelling-places now lie underwater.

Fighting soon breaks out amongst the Ohmlings over scraps of this new land, even as it is colonised over the next few years by plants and bugs, beasts and birds. Ohmlings might be able to adapt to any conditions, but even so they prefer to live in comfort, and the valley of the Tulana is more comfortable than the deep desert. The Ohmlings soon cluster in the river valley as they war amongst themselves, and there they begin to change into forms better adapted for fighting in the river. Their yellow-brown hides become green-blue, their hardy skin becomes softer and body shapes adapted for shedding heat become adapted for swimming instead. The site of the great cave systems that once were the centre of Ohm of the Cracked Shell’s power are the most densely settled part of th valley, and the Ohmlings soon start calling the region Krakshull.

Pesna dies soon after word of the destruction of the Ohmling army reaches him, his old body exhausted from the long march through the desert. His body is placed upon a ship which is sailed down the Ajuna to Tsallosis, and every Messonir still living along the river bares witness to his passing before he is entombed with great honour.

The Messonir of the Ajuna slowly begin to rebuild. Many of the Messonir in the upriver parts of the Tulana migrate to the central parts of the Ajuna to settle the devastated lands, and the Messonir as a whole create Windborne at a greater rate than they have for centuries. Tsallosis stands strong, but wounded in pride and prestige for the failure of the Iron Wing and Kyllikanak. The Messonir are held together by the need to maintain their extensive irrigation systems to provide for themselves, and their need to defend against the Ohmlings, for it is not long before the Ohmlings begin to raid the valley once more. This time they cannot march through the desert, and so much follow the Tulana; Ippusima becomes a bastion against them, and the Messonir spend a great deal of treasure fortifying it, for they know that if it falls, the Ohmlings will easily march on Tsallosis.

The spectacular ending of the Deluge War leads, over the decades, into a steady border conflict of raids and counter-raids, low in intensity but incessant. The Ohmlings lack the unity to invade the Messonir lands once more; the Messonir lack the will to invade the Tulana valley and rid Nulat of the threat. The war becomes immortalised in song and story; tales spread across the world of the great battles, the heroism and the defeats, the wisdom of Pesna and the faith of Arreta and Dama. Some of the Penitent remain to keep fighting against the Ohmlings, but many journey elsewhere. The Messonir recover, but are never the same; now they are a hardier, more guarded folk, less interested in the outside world and more given to violence.

[dsandrvk]

Monday, April 14 - Bangaher to Kinvara

We slept really well last night after being up for about 21 hours, and were treated to a full Irish Breakfast this morning by our host, Geraldine. In addition to the eggs, sausage, bacon, tomato, black and white puddings and toast with jam, there was also fresh fruit, yogurt and lots of strong Irish tea. We figured we probably weren't going to need lunch after all that. Unfortunately our schedule didn't allow for a second night (or second breakfast) here, so we packed up, and headed out for a couple of places we wanted to visit.

First up was the little town of Shannonbridge with an historic bridge (naturally). The bridge was built by the British in 1757, and was part of an extensive defense system against invasion by the French. There was a major barracks here for the army, as well as gun emplacements. The Shannon is Ireland's longest river and was a formidable barrier to invading forces, so crossings were few and well guarded. At one time there was a swing bridge that allowed taller ships to navigate up the river in a canal, but the canal is now gone here, and the swing bridge mechanisms are in a nearby park. It's still a lovely wide spot in the river, though

From here we headed up along the river to Clonmacnoise, which is one of the most famous monastic sites in Ireland. It was founded by St. Ciaran in the mid-6th century, and was considered one of the finest centers of learning and religion, and attracted scholars from all over the world. Today, the ruins are preserved and managed by OPW, the Office of Public Works, which actually is more similar to the National Trust in the UK than to a utility. We joined before our trip, and so had our cards validated here as our first stop in Ireland. Not all sites require a fee, but it makes it easier when visiting.

The site consists of the remains of a cathedral, seven churches, three high crosses and two round towers. The towers were used as a place of refuge during raids by marauders (Vikings, other Irish, English - take your pick) and were usually built with the door high up. In desperate times, a rope ladder was used for access and then pulled up to prevent others from reaching the door and the monks would simply wait it out. The larger tower here was actually struck by lightning shortly after construction, which blew off the top half. Those stones were then gathered and a second tower built from them - it could fit nicely on top of the original and actually was built with the traditional pointed roof, while the original tower was left with a flat roof.

There are three high crosses here, and they now reside in the little museum at the entrance to the site. They have been replaced outside by duplicates made in Germany that have weathered well with lichens and look now more weathered than the originals. We were fortunate that we arrived just as the only tour of the day was heading out and we were able to join in. Our guide was both knowledgeable and humorous, and we learned a lot we wouldn't have found out on our own. Clonmacnoise is also located on the Shannon, and they have a dock for your boats. Normally the place is filled with tour buses, but we were lucky and there was only one, as it is still early season.

From here we backtracked to Banagher, since it was on our way to our next main stop. Banagher also has an impressive bridge, and its fortifications also included a Martello tower. We first became aware of these in Dover two years ago, as they usually date from the Napoleonic era, and were lookouts as well as usually having a gun battery on top. Since the first ones we saw, we have also seen them in Quebec City, and now here.

Banagher also has a very interesting swimming pool which is created by floating docks in the Shannon. They have a big renovation planned for this year, but considering it was only about 50 degrees today with a strong wind, it didn't look too inviting. At least it was mostly sunny - we have been so lucky since originally it showed rain for this entire week.

Our last main stop of the day was at Portumna Castle and Gardens. It's another OPW site, and was originally built as a single square tower before 1618. It was later added onto and looked similar to how it appears today. Looks are deceiving, though, as it was heavily damaged by fire in 1826, and abandoned. A newer manor house was built in the French chateau style, but was never completed and it, too, burned. Today the castle is slowly being renovated - they have mostly repaired the ground level, and have done a lot of roof and other floor reconstruction, as you can see from the photo looking up.

In addition to the castle, there are also formal gardens and the largest "kitchen garden" I have ever seen. There is also the remains of an old friary adjacent, and the site also features a little cafe, where we got some very nice little croissant sandwiches as a late lunch.

By now it was about 5 PM, and we still had some distance to cover. One of the roads we were on was almost normal size with real shoulders and we made good time before hitting another stretch of very narrow, winding roads, and we got to our little Kinvara hotel by 7, after stopping at a grocery store to get some essentials.

Our plan had been to have a salad in our room, but we went out for a sunset walk down by the bay, saw a pub a block from our hotel that had live music, and spent the next couple of hours listening to "Old Timey" music and drinking a few pints of Guinness. Old Timey may have also referred to the ages of the musicians - they were mostly our age, and it was just a great get-together of friends who play music. There were eventually 13 playing a variety of fiddles, banjos, mandolins, guitars, a stand up bass, and one ukulele - some instrumentals and an occasional solo song by different people. The place was jammed, and they were still going strong when we decided it was time to head back and get to bed. Tomorrow we plan to explore a bit of the Burren, the unique limestone formation around here. Surprisingly, the weather still looks good!

[janatours]

 Aswan Day Tours

Explore our Aswan Day Tours,  Aswan is a city rich in cultural heritage and history, making it an essential destination for travelers interested in exploring ancient Egypt. The city is home to significant archaeological sites such as the Temple of Philae and the Aswan High Dam. Aswan Day Tours allow visitors to immerse themselves in the vibrant Nubian culture and experience the breathtaking beauty of the Nile River.

Abu Simbel Tour from Aswan is an unforgettable experience. The temples and monuments are located in a remote desert area, but the journey is worth it. The temples are truly impressive and the view from the top is breathtaking.

 Aswan Dam, Philae Temple and Unfinished Obelisk Tour Aswan  The Aswan Dam is a hydroelectric dam on the Nile River in Egypt. The Philae Temple is an ancient temple dedicated to the goddess Isis. The Unfinished Obelisk is an obelisk that was abandoned before it was completed.

Kom Ombo and Edfu Temple Tours from Aswan  The tours include visits to two of the most important temples in Upper Egypt. Kom Ombo Temple is dedicated to two gods, Horus and Sobek, and Edfu Temple is dedicated to Horus. Both temples offer stunning views of the Nile.

Monastery of St. Simeon Tour  in Aswan The Monastery of St. Simeon, dating back to the 7th century, is one of the most well-preserved and significant examples of early Christian monastic architecture in Egypt. It served as a spiritual and cultural hub for Christian monks in the region and played a crucial role in the spread of Christianity in Nubia. Its strategic location and impressive fortifications highlight its importance in protecting the monastic community from desert raids.

Nubian Village Tour Aswan is a vibrant and colorful destination known for its unique architecture and rich cultural heritage. Visitors can explore the brightly painted houses, meet friendly locals, and learn about traditional Nubian customs and crafts. The village also offers beautiful views of the Nile River, providing a picturesque backdrop for an unforgettable experience.

One of our Aswan Tours

Temple of Kalabsha and Nubian Museum Tours

Enjoy Temple of Kalabsha and Nubian Museum Tours and Visit the incredible Temple of Kalabsha, and the Nubian Museum via your Aswan Tours, Temple of Kalabsha and Nubian Museum Tours offer a unique combination of culture, history, and adventure. explore the ancient Temple of Kalabsha, learn about the Nubian history and culture at the Nubian Museum, and more.

Pick up from the Hotel By our guide and start an amazing Tour In Aswan, Explore two of the most iconic archaeological sites in southern Egypt. The Temple of Kalabsha, one of the best-preserved temples of ancient was built by Roman Emperor Augustus, then move to the Nubian Museum houses artifacts from ancient Egyptian and Nubian civilizations. Both sites offer a unique insight into the history and culture of the region. learn about Nubian culture, explore archaeological sites, and experience the beauty of the Nubian landscape. at the end of your tour, A Jana Tours guide will escort you back to your hotel in Aswan.

The suggested 1-day tours will include the following: 

Pick up service from your hotel in aswan and return

English-speaking Egyptologist guide

Entrance fees to the mentioned historical places

All transfers by a modern air-conditioned vehicle

Lunch meal at local restaurant in Aswan

A bottle of water during your trip

All service charges and taxes

The 1-day tours will not include the following:

Visa entry to Egypt.

Optional tours.

Any other items not mentioned.

Tipping kitty.

For more

Aswan Tours: https://bit.ly/3L6vvpX

Website: https://jana.tours/

Whatsapp+201143320224 

[devoutpriest]

whereherloyaltieslie:

Knelt beside the former priest, the Goddess’s stoic expression had softened. Her gaze was steady, eyes piercing as she looked into him. His spirit was shaken by this, his very being seem to be in a trembling state between the gods and the one he knew. “ I am the Goddess of constancy and loyalty. For all other occasions, I would insist you address me as Goddess, but considering your state, you my call me Sigyn.” At his explanation, she sighed , the air in the room seeming to shift as the weight of his issue set in. “ I am not a creature of chance, Athelstan. I am as rooted to my core beliefs as the tree’s to the ground…Yggdrasil, but with age comes wisdom, and even I acknowledge that, sometimes, change is much take place." There were many plants and animals, like the squirrel Ratatosk, living in this tree, as she enjoyed sitting under there and reading a book and having a picnic, sometimes with her friend Idunn. Its branches were large, their trunk thick, so they could sit under there without fear of rain. "I can assure you of out existence because I am here, but just as quickly as I appeared I will take my leave, and you will be left with your thoughts, so I ask you consider this.”

Lifting ivory hands into the air, she gently took his face in her hands. “ If your god is as loving as you claim in your prayers, why must you choose a side? Show loyalty to those who are deserving. Both we and your god have given you comfort in life, why must the existence of one negate the other? Your Christ speaks of love, show love and loyalty to those in your life that would return it, be they gods of people.”

The name sounded vaguely familiar to him, but he had only heard very little about this Goddess, amongst the much more highly lauded Thor, Freyr, and Odin.

Constancy and loyalty… Perhaps, she could truly help him. There is a part of him that wished to address her of her High status. He yearned to respect a Goddess that took time to bless him with her presence, even in his troubled state.

“It is an honour to meet you, O Sigyn, Goddess of Constancy. You are the wife of Loki, correct?”

He is still in awe, when she takes his face into her hands, illuminated she seemed by her ethereal beauty. She looked an angel of the lord, even though knowing she was a norse goddess. Athelstan considers Sigyn’s words carefully.

“God is loving and merciful, yes, for a LONG time He has been.” Until He seemed to close himself off to him & the other monks when the raid of Lindisfarne had happened. There had been no response from him, during the fervent feverish prayers of the monks, including him.

“I do. I am loyal to Ragnar, above all, and my friends.”

“I envisioned Mother Mary, finally a sign from God surely and of REDEMPTION—but later on at night, I saw images of the Pagan sacrifice bleeding, BLURRING, into the Christian rites at High Mass. It has brought me much confusion, and so, my spirit continues to be torn.” The images did however play a huge factor in making him change his mind about eating the bread of Christ. The bread was tasteless, a thin cracker, a slice of the bread Christ and his disciples ate during the last supper.

He had thought that God could guide him back to the rightful path; set him back to his true mission in life and help erase any doubt of which Religion he BELONGED, when he prayed to God to ravish him, breathing harshly, for the Lord to come into his body, as he prayed to the cross. However, His revert back to silence, was becoming difficult to bear once again. Sigyn’s real presence, of flesh and blood, well, her advice spoken to him seemed wise.

“I do not want the existence of one to completely eradicate the other, no. It’s just, the more disturbing VISIONS also keep haunting me, wrecking my peace.”

There had been an especially scary vision of a shapeless monster baring elongated sharp teeth; he peering through the darkness with his candle, it looked truly like some horrific DEVIL. It had frightened him beyond imagining, the fright coursing into the very recesses of his soul.

[summarychannel]

Dalia Ziadeh and a new plan from Israel inside Egypt that has not been implemented since the October War... and the blood of Gaza will be the price

Updates on the Al-Aqsa Flood operation presented in this episode of Samri Channel. In its first part, the episode presents an important opinion article published by journalist Paul Idon in the English version of the Al-Arabi Al-Jadeed newspaper website, in which he recalled the history of Israeli settlements in Sinai between 1967 and 1979, which represented part of the plan of the entity’s Defense Minister at the time, General Moshe Dayan, to create a buffer zone between... Israel and Egypt were its biggest and strongest enemy at the time. Waydon stresses that Israel is today trying to revive Moshe Dayan’s plan in a smaller geographical area in terms of space, which is the Gaza Strip, as Tel Aviv wants to forcibly displace the Palestinians of Gaza to North Sinai, then fill the void in their place inside the Strip with Israeli settlements, in addition to loyal Palestinian human groups. to the Hebrew state. A report published by the Israeli newspaper Calcalist on October 13 revealed a secret document containing a recommendation from Israeli Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel that the residents of Gaza be “forcibly” transferred to Sinai, after the end of the war currently taking place in the Strip. According to the Israeli newspaper, the Gamaliel document ostensibly addresses three proposals for implementation for the post-war period, but the proposal “that will lead to positive and long-term strategic results” is to transfer the citizens of Gaza to Sinai, according to the document.

Based on the document obtained by Calcalist, this proposal includes 4 steps:

Establishing tent cities in the Sinai Peninsula, southwest of the Gaza Strip. Establishing a humanitarian corridor to help the population. Building cities in North Sinai. Establishing a control zone several kilometers wide inside Egypt, south of the border with Israel, so that evacuated residents cannot return.

The Israeli newspaper indicated that the document also calls for creating cooperation with the largest possible number of other countries, so that they can receive the Palestinians displaced from Gaza, as the State of Canada and some European countries, such as Greece and Spain, and some North African countries, were mentioned, among other countries. . Despite the sensitivity of the information, the Israeli newspaper confirmed that the document does not reflect an “official plan” from the Israeli government, but so far, it remains “a proposal from the Israeli Minister of Intelligence.” The Israeli newspaper also reported that, according to former Intelligence Minister, MK Eleazar Stern, “the ministry does not have any ministerial responsibility towards the intelligence services. They can take recommendations into consideration, but do not impose proposals on them.”

The second part of the episode refers to renewed military clashes between Hezbollah and the Israeli occupation army. The National News Agency reported that Israeli forces bombed with white phosphorus shells an area between the towns of Mays al-Jabal and Hula and the Israeli site of al-Manara. The agency added today (Friday) that Israeli forces also raided the outskirts of the town of Aita al-Shaab, the outskirts of the town of al-Abad, and the area between the towns of Zabqin and Tayr Harfa.

Today (Friday), Hezbollah claimed responsibility for about 10 attacks on Israeli sites on the border with southern Lebanon, which included the sites: Trihat Triangle, Al-Marj site, Ramim barracks, Al-Malikiyah site, Al-Dhahira site, Al-Asi site, and Birkat Risha site. The surroundings of the monk site, and the surroundings of the Metulla site. The Israeli army said, in a statement, that during the past hours it had detected the launching of several guided missiles from southern Lebanon, and responded to the sources of fire, adding that it had also bombed what it described as “Hezbollah’s infrastructure.”

 He added that his soldiers monitored the launch of a drone that crossed from southern Lebanon into Israel, before it was shot down. The Lebanese-Israeli border is witnessing escalating clashes between Hezbollah and Palestinian factions on one side, and Israeli forces on the other side, as Lebanese and Palestinian fighters target Israeli positions from southern Lebanon with missiles, and Israeli forces respond with artillery and air strikes targeting Lebanese towns.

#Egypt #Palestine #Gaza

[thetoxicgamer]

You can now one-shot FFXIV’s oldest, scariest raid boss

Do you still play Final Fantasy XIV the way it was back when Bahamut was the main antagonist and eliminating him felt like you had single-handedly saved Eorzea? In the MMORPG, the legendary FFXIV boss can now be one-shot, but you'll need good luck to pull it off. Oh how the mighty have indeed fallen. I remember quivering in my little Monk boots gearing up and getting ready to take on Coils of Bahamut back in the day. It was touted as FFXIV’s hardest raid before it was eclipsed by the likes of Alexander and, in Endwalker, Pandæmonium. The raid is now a Level 50, meaning that a lot of longtime players can now take it on with relative ease – but I never imagined that you’d be able to casually one-shot the elder Primal himself. Looks like I was very, very wrong. Posting to the game’s official subreddit, u/ah0xg0 has managed to smite the creature down on their Blue Mage – using one of the job’s base abilities, no less. Hitting Bahamut with Final Sting, the spell goes critical and deals a whopping 1,432,960 damage, defeating the boss outright. Sure, they don’t live to see their triumph, but it’s right there in the screenshots, and it’s pretty impressive. With FFXIV patch 6.45 increasing the level cap for Blue Mage to 80, as well as adding a slew of new quests and new weapons, it’s a pretty good time to be one of these mysterious spellcasters. Sure, you might not be able to participate in all of the game’s content, but you can, in fact, one-shot Bahamut. I personally think that’s a worthwhile trade-off. I’ve always fancied trying out Blue Mage, but prefer bouncing around as my Ninja at the moment. Maybe I’ll take them for a spin ahead of FFXIV Dawntrail, the newly announced expansion that’s set for summer 2024. Until then, though, I’ll live vicariously through u/ah0xg0. Speaking of living vicariously, we have a rundown of the new FFXIV The Aetherfront Dungeon, which is perfect for testing out what the Blue Mage can do. If you prefer a life of silence and solitude, though, we have an FFXIV Island Sanctuary guide right here to help you farm away the hours. Read the full article

[lizzy-calaxio]

Lizzy's Ultimate Boot Camp

I had a wonderful idea! I'm not good at RP and stuff, but you know what I am good at? High-end Raiding. I'm in the top 200 ninja in the world, top 300 black mage, and top 1000 samurai.

And you know what? I'm always saying, "Oh, anyone can do an ultimate fight."

It's time for me to put my skills to use. I'm going to gear, teach, and drag 7 people who have never touched high-end content (extreme, savage, ultimate) through Abyssos Savage, and then after we clear that I'm going to drag you through the Unending Coils of Bahamut. Yes, bahamut Ultimate. SO! What do you need in order to join this group?

Need to have cleared the normal raids of Abyssos Fifth through Eighth circle. That's it. Clear the current normal raids if you haven't already, I'm even willing to help you through that to unlock the savage fights.

I have 3 weeks until my main static is finished running the savage tier (16 clears of the final fight), so I will be gearing my crafter's and gatherer's so I can craft you high quality crafted gear of the job you'll be playing on if you are undergeared.

I will be teaching you your ABC's (Always Be Casting), I will teach you your opener and your rotation for the entire fight, I will gear you, and I will be doing callouts as well as making my own adjusted visual guides for each fight including UCoB. We will be raiding at least one night per week, ideally two. I will be streaming it for anyone that feels like watching, as well!

The less experience the better! I want to prove that ANYONE can clear high end content! DM me for details! So far we have: Me - NIN/BLM/SAM Scholar We need: - 1 melee dps (Ninja, Samurai, Reaper, Monk, Dragoon) - 1 physical ranged dps (Bard, Dancer, Machinist) - 1 caster dps (Summoner, Black Mage, Red Mage) - 2 Tanks - 1 regen healer (Astrologian, White Mage) (I'll adjust my job if needed, but my static has raided with 2 casters, or 2 melee dps, and I'm sure it's ok if we have doubles, we just need to be mindful of some things which I'll explain)

[worldismyne]

Crest of the Dragon: Jack's Epilogue

Pictured S5 Jack and the new Jin/Heylin Temple Guardian Kamil

Spoilers for Crest of the Dragon under the cut.

Design wise, S5 Jack wears a blend of modern clothes and the Heylin trainee uniform. Much more open and relaxed. He has a scar from the Imperial Jade Dragon breaking in his face. Doesn't bother to cover it up or highlight it with makeup. It just is.

For older Jack, I wanted to play around with him keeping his hair short. We all stan long hair Jacks, but I kind of like the forward combed look. He keeps the same color palate from his younger days, but once again, more open/clean lines. Something that looks striking from a distance, but approachable up close. Hair is tinted darker to more of a rust color, as opposed to cherry red.

Jack's arc for S5: The dragon egg from Fortune's Fool finally hatches (a spoil from when Jack raided Chase's Lair), and it is a metal dragon with a talent for shapeshifting. It instantly bonds with Jack like a baby bird. But Jack is busy looking for new teachers of his own and trying to build a new Heylin side with Katnappe and Vlad. It seems that Jack is falling back on old habits, seeing how the shapeshifting dragon might make a useful tool for evil. It isn't until Kamil sees Dojo that he gets scared Jack might replace him with a more seasoned dragon and seeks validation from Jack. When Kamil asks Jack if he's his 'favorite dragon' Jack realizes almost too late that he's treated Kamil the same way Wuya treated him in S1. He shifts gears just in time and we are given hope that the cycle of bad Heylin teachers is finally broken. Kamil grows to be a sensitive and empathetic guardian.

In the future: Jack establishes the first Heylin temple, with its own teachings based on his experience with the Shen Gong Wu and dragons. His teaching style is very student guided, with more of an emphasis on individual growth rather than what's right and wrong. He takes very few students, and many quit on him do to the lack of structure. Their main goal, destroy the remaining ancient Shen Gong Wu, for fear that the spirits of other dragons are also trapped inside. Katnapppe acts as a curator for the collection, monetizing the powerless relics as 'rare pieces of history'. Vlad takes care of physical training for the students.

Under Omi's advice, they "trick" the future Dragon of Water into switching to the Heylin side. It works a little too well. Shin flourishes in a less structured environment now that they aren't at odds with the more "traditional" monks in training. (*cough*Ayden*cough*)

Contrary to their appearance, they are very quiet and reserved. If Omi is a river carving his own path, Shin is a serene lake.

[supereffectiveartblog]

Ravnica - Guilds, Assemble!

Last time our D&D group had a session for the campaign set in Guild Master's Guide to Ravnica, he informed us that we are in the final arc of the series, and over the next couple sessions, we'd be gearing toward a finale.

A coordinated airship attack is putting the whole city under threat, and so the heroes of this story, who usually work together outside the confines of their guilds, have been instructed to lead platoons of their own forces to take down the terrorists.

So far we've played out Solomon's role as head of a squad of Azorius mages and knights, and it looks like we'll be repeating this for all other living characters in the campaign.

So instead of doing a specific session art for these next few fights, I've spent the last couple weeks putting together commemorative art of all characters that have been in the campaign. To recap the setting of this campaign, Ravnica is a city that spans a whole world, and different aspects of society are organised under specialised guilds, which the majority of able-bodied people sign under.

So without further ado, here's a character and guild recap of our D&D Ravnica campaign.

(×: dead character, ×: alive character no longer adventuring)

The Azorius Senate is a guild of governers and law-makers. They work with the other guilds to enforce peace and order upon the city, but their preference to make change through paperwork has made the general populace tired of their "action" through inaction.

Solomon - Warlock (Pact of the Tome)

Solomon is a Vedalken who gained influence and magic via a cursed book. He was once a pencil pusher, but changes in Azorius' standing in the city demanded him to be sent into the field. He is studious and takes a leadership role in his group.

The Boros Legion is a militant force of glory and brute force. When Azorius calls for the chaos to be quelled, it is usually the duty (or right) of Boros to use whatever means necessary to subjugate disobedience. They are the army and the police of Ravnica.

Shiro Akane - Monk (Way of the Astral Self) ×

Shiro was a Human assigned to the party as a parole officer. He was brash and impatient, and this fighting spirit manifested as an extra pair of fists to make-up for the one he lost in an attack on his family. He joined Boros to protect his sister, last of his kin.

The Gruul Clans are a collection of wild zealots that protect the wilds of Ravnica. Widespread industrialisation resulting in the destruction of nature has angered these guardians of the wilds, and they often clash with civilised society. Raids and destruction of public property are commonly associated with the Gruul.

Eleska - Cleric (Tempest Domain) ×

Eleska was a Minotaur who revered and protected the wilds as a holy woman. Her general misunderstanding of and disdain for doors meant that buildings were left worse off wherever she went. She respected those who respected her.

Gankey - Fighter (Battle Master)/Barbarian

Gankey is a stout and buff Goblin always looking for a fight. While he values the input of others, he believes himself the most valuable member of any team. Gankey may seem scatterbrained, but he is well trained, and committed to (at least his own sense of) justice.

The Izzet League is a guild of inventors and engineers. They are charged with the maintenance and development of Ravnica's cityworks, and its members experiment with unstable machinery and spellcraft. Their short attention spans and curious drive pushes them into wonderful and questionably legal endeavours.

Lavinia Valenco - Rogue (Arcane Trickster) ×

Lavinia was a Human scientist in training. She was less an innovator than a hired hand, as she (off the books) scouted other guilds for their secrets. Lavinia had a excitable spirit, and knew very well what she wanted, be that trinkets or steely eyed Vedalken heart-throbs.

Elaine Blackheart - Artificer (Alchemist)

Elaine is a Human well studied in the arcane who substitutes magic abilities with science. She has a pessimistic outlook on justice, but believes every small kindness counts. Elaine avoids being in the centre of attention if she can help it, but her chemical expertise is second to none.

Boltz - Artificer (Armorer)

Boltz is a wizened Goblin who does machines. Although he is not as physically mobile or tough as he used to be, he has harnessed magical armor in order to do his own research in the field. He tries (and fails) to not look suspicious, and he is unapologetically nosy.

The Orzhov Syndicate is a guild of connections, wealth, and power. Most organised business across Ravnica owes some favour to Orzhov, as their vast wealth lends them leverage throughout. Holy men and undead councillors rule over those in debt to them, and death does not lift this debt.

Algebani - Rogue (Soul Knife) ×

Al was a Wood Elf in service to Orzhov. He shifted between solemn silence and noisy intimidation as he made waves throughout his small part of the city. To repay debts his father left him, Al worked as a debt collector, and used his relationship with the spirit world to hone otherworldly powers of his own.

The Cult of Rakdos is a fanatical collective of entertainers and servicemen. While they do have a functional role as labourers in Ravnica, the cult places a major emphasis on fun, and this often puts them in direct conflict with the more lawful guilds. They follow the demon Rakdos, and by his instruction, sow Chaos throughout.

Ashwin Cinders - Sorceror (Draconic Bloodline)/Warlock (Pact of the Fiend) ×

Ash was a Human with demon blood striving to be Rakdos's favourite. Ash was a pyromaniac first and a performer second, putting his audience's lives on the line all for the thrill of seeing things burn. In a group, he was slightly more composed, but whenever the opportunity for flame is involved, he was front and centre.

Callypso Linebeck - Fighter/Rogue (Swashbuckler) ×

Callie was a Human sword juggler and artist. She had no special allegiance to Rakdos, but was allowed the most fun under their rules. She was very dimwitted, believing in the use of showmanship over any sort of strategy. She and Ash compliment each other's chaos to the detriment of all.

The Selesnya Conclave is a religious collective of nature loving peace-keepers. Selesnya is often described as a cult, seeming peaceful on the surface, but viciously dedicated to spreading their doctrine under the covers. Holy people warmly spread their arms to new followers while trained monks and assassins silence the naysayers.

Bonney - Monk (Way of the Sun Soul) ×

Bonney was a Centaur with a big attitude. She served as somewhat as a bodyguard for her enclave, and while she is well trained in hand to hoof combat, Bonney needed a bit more practice in coordination. More than one window has been broken due to her enthusiastic approach to combat.

Neigha - Druid (Circle of Dreams)

Neigha is a Centaur with a nonchalant, optimistic air to her. Sister to Bonney, she is equally as blunt in her approach to socialising, but less of a violent streak, if only slightly. Neigha is a bit of an airhead, but switched on when she needs to be.

Sister Mira - Cleric (Peace Domain) ×

Mira was a High Elf priestess of Selesnya. Her warm motherly energy made others look up to her, and as such, a lot more responsibility was placed on her than others in her enclave. Mira chose peace over combat where possible, even if that peace was achieved by devious means.

The Simic Combine is a guild of experts on living things. They study the natural world and how to best improve upon what nature has already granted. Although their medical expertise is second to none, their experiments, on people and animal alike, have branded them as mad scientists by Ravnica at large.

Sapphire Nesbitt - Wizard (School of Conjuration) ×

Saffie was a Simic Hybrid Human well versed in supernatural magicks. Her parents experimented on her body against her will, granting her mutant attributes like frog finger pads. Saffie hated all her parents had done to her, even her name, so don't ever call her Sapphire. Saffie was cold and calculating, and very capable of fucking you up.

[scotianostra]

Today is the anniversary of the death of St Cuthbert, who died on 20th March 687AD.

Cuthbert was a monk, bishop and hermit of the early Northumbrian church. Seventh-century Northumbria was a golden era for the Christian church, with a flowering of religious literature and practice following the conversion of King Edwin to Christianity in 627AD. 

You have to understand that during this era there was no Scotland and England as such and borders were more fluid.  Northumbria was part of an Anglian kingdom which long pre-dated the kingdom of Scotland. The borders of Northumbria extended up to the Firth of Forth.

Cuthbert was born around 634AD and grew up near Lauderdale in present-day East Lothian. 

The traditional story of St. Cuthbert concentrates on the failure of his body to decompose after his burial, and is used to evidence St. Cuthbert’s saintliness. This saintliness has been reinforced by the tale of Cuthbert’s life at Lindisfarne, where he worked as a spiritual healer, a guide and a Bishop.

The  legend tells that fearing Viking and Danish raids, the monks of Lindisfarne fled with the relics and body of St. Cuthbert to a number of locations. These included Melrose, Chester-Le-Street and Ripon before a site was reached in Durham which became his final resting place and where the Cathedral was subsequently built.

According to what has been written about  Cuthbert, he was a Shepherd, Soldier, Prior, Saint

So firstly, he helped keep sheep when he was a boy. This task no doubt suited young Cuthbert well, for he was a compassionate soul, showing kindness to humans and animals alike. A foreshadowing of things to come, whenever Cuthbert would tear his gaze away from his sheep, the Melrose monastery was there on the horizon.  It was one night when tending his flock he looked up to the  night sky and saw a light descending to Earth and then return, escorting, he believed, a human soul to Heaven. The date was August 31st 651AD - the night that Saint Aidan died. Perhaps Cuthbert had already been considering a possible monastic calling but that was his moment of decision.

As a soldier, there is some evidence that, in his mid-teens, he was involved in at least one battle, which would have been quite normal for a boy of his social background, and these were troubling times, battles were very much the norm as different war lords tried to make their mark and extend territories. 

And as monk, one story tells the tale of a journey he was making, in mid winter  to Melrose Abbey. He was riding down a long stretch of road with no inhabitants; he and his horse were the only living things wandering the cold land that day. As the weather closed in. He had no more food with him, and there was no house where he could beg for shelter. Cuthbert looked to the distance and saw a dilapidated shepherd’s hut.  As Cuthbert settled in for some much-needed rest, he said his prayers, then took a handful of straw from the thatched roof to feed his horse, his own belly empty and grumbling, legend states that out of the straw a cloth bundle fell to his feet containing freshly baked bread and meat. Cuthbert gave thanks to the Lord for His miraculous provision, then he is said to have split the loaf of bread with his horse, rather than feeding it stale straw.  Cuthbert gave thanks to the Lord for His miraculous provision, then he is said to have split the loaf of bread with his horse, rather than feeding it stale straw.

There are of course other stories of miracles involving Cuthbert, I will leave those for another day though, as you know I like to mix it up a wee bit to keep posts fresh as the years roll by, so next year maybe.........

After his death on this day in the year 687, Cuthbert was buried at Lindisfarne monastery. His monks, who had before been so problematic, were now overjoyed to have his body there, for it comforted them to think that, in a way, Cuthbert was still with them.. 

Cuthbert’s body, exhumed eleven years after his death, was discovered to be undecayed, encouraging many pilgrimages to be made to see the body, in the hope of receiving healing and forgiveness. During Viking raids, the body of Cuthbert was taken to Durham Cathedral for safekeeping, which is the place where his remains lie peacefully interred today, beneath a humble gravestone that would have been to Cuthbert’s liking. It reads only: Cuthbertus.

The pics are self explanatory, the church is St Cuthbert's on Princes Street Edinburgh, as seen from the castle.