#sera was also my first Real dnd character so i was kind of operating off Canon Lore which is cringe

[mollusken]

who are those dnd love clerics of yours? what are their backstories, anyway?

Hiii being a sloth as is my nature!!!!! But thanks for asking so I can talk about them! :] I truly wrote half of this out and tumblr deleted it so just know I’m been THRU it to hand u this essay... I hope u enjoy HERE’S THE SUMMARY:

(art by @camomills)

Seraphina was a cleric I originally played in a game about Gods dying. I made her to be someone who was unknowingly worshipping the wrong god. She ended up switching domains and later doing some introspection(/exploration) I realized she was much better suited to being a Love Cleric following Sune. Seraphina really worked hard to find herself and eventually built a convent where she would welcome other followers of Sune, teach esthetician courses, as well as hold sermons and discuss love and beauty as matters of philosophy and religion. She still struggles with letting people into her life in any meaningful way, and letting herself be truly vulnerable. That's where her story with Valentine really comes into play.

Valentine is a cleric of Sune whom, upon being born, was foretold to sacrifice herself for love. She really wants to fall in love very badly and knows it is her duty more or less to do so, but there's a part of her that's still running away.

The tragedy of her story is that she often gives herself away in little ways; by handing people this unending love and letting that mean she shrinks herself, or lets herself be hurt in the name of it. She's too busy trying to fight her destiny  -- that of a Big Magical romance -- that subconsciously she is fulfilling it with every step she takes.

I think it's a fun dynamic; to have a character that's more or less running from reflection but very open with her love, and one that's found her path but still has to let herself trust, and explore intimacy.

That's really what they boil down to: both being followers of Sune but imbuing different aspects, and having each other as foils. When Valentine comes to stay at Seraphina's convent the two really connect and learn a lot from each other as equals.

They’re narrative foils, they’re friends with benefits, they’re life long friends and partners and confidants, they’re both so sexy and smart and cute, and they’re impossible to color because Val is so gd neon pink lmfao. THATS THE SHORT OF IT IF YOU’VE ENJOYED THANK YOU FOR ASKING AFTER MY GIRLS 💚 And if you want every gory detail the Long is down below!!!

LONG VERSION Seraphina was a half-elf cleric I originally played in a game about Gods dying and being replaced. I made her to be someone who was unknowingly worshipping the wrong god, which I think was originally some war god. After they fell she found out her powers were from Milil, god of music, but later doing some introspection(/exploration) I realized she was much better suited to being a Love Cleric, and follow Sune. She would later on in life become a huge proponent of self love and expression.

She was a non-committal wreck with a hot streak and a lot of baggage to work through. Her elf mother was distant. She had impossible to meet standards and no recognition of her as an adult, being wholly unfamiliar with human life spans. And her sisters who served as her rivals her entire life in a bid for their mother's affection, and they lashed out at each other in any way possible. Elaborate social games, physical fights, competing achievements; Seraphina was usually invested in the latter due to her aptitude with magic, and less of the first due to being considerably younger than her sisters.

When she realized that what she believed didn’t match up to what she was teaching, and having a bad home life and finding herself struggling to keep up in an environment not suited for her, she lashed out. Both at fellow students the way she used to with her more hardy sisters, and at the convent leaders. Thus she managed to get herself banished and excommunicated.

So very much in survival mode at that point. She lived with a few colleagues as much as she could before moving on, strung along some upper class gentlemen to keep herself within her former social class, lied, stole, etc.

It really wasn't until after her real God fell and she lost her powers that she had to do any kind of introspection and realize that hey, maybe she was like. not dealing with her issues by ignoring them and falling headfirst into substances, and maybe she needed to start taking care of herself and correct her behaviour including lashing out at others, and unpack her upbringing and religious programming.

I left the game after her arc (unrelated) which I would add a bit of a rewrite to later because I honestly don't know if she'd ever forgive her family within their collective lifetimes, even if she did still come about saving them. Also smh I curse my past self sometimes because I gave her an old fiance that came to find her - past me got shy & asked the DM to pull it - but that was honestly the funniest fucking thing. It would've been so good. I'm hilarious relationship drama is the SPICE of D&D & I should’ve trusted my gut smh.

Seraphina really worked hard to find herself and eventually built a convent where she would welcome other followers of Sune, teach esthetician courses, as well as hold sermons and discuss love and beauty as matters of philosophy and religion. She still struggles with letting people into her life in any meaningful way, and letting herself be truly vulnerable with them. That's where her story with Valentine really comes into play.

Valentine is a cleric of Sune whom, upon being born, was foretold to sacrifice herself for love. She grew up very modestly and without parents, just an old nursery maid who housed a small orphanage in her village. She was always a fierce lover. Her childhood was pretty stable compared to Seraphina, and she had a supportive community. Nevertheless as a young woman she decided to head out on her own journey to fulfill her prophecy.

Val is emotional, a little headstrong, and imbued with romantic tendencies that means she'll stop to help anyone who looks in her direction. Her kindness is definitely taken advantage of, and she's susceptible to looking past people's flaws for their strengths, but that doesn’t mean she loves less or stops giving as kindly.

She really craves falling in love and meeting her soulmate -- and she knows it is her duty more or less to do so -- but there's a part of her that's still running away from her fate. A part that still believes she’s not enough, she’s not ready, she doesn’t know how to do so.

So she lets herself get sidetracked with whatever - and whoever - catches her attention. This is how she's ended up in all the different little adventures I've played her in.

The tragedy of her story is that she often gives herself away in little ways; by handing people this unending love and letting that mean she shrinks herself, or letting herself be hurt in the name of it. Even just the amount of time she will dedicate to helping others, no matter the outcome. Good or bad, big or small gestures, she gives.

She's too busy trying to fight her destiny -- which she interprets as some huge giving-her-life-for-a-lover moment or Star-Crossed-Fate-Sealed romance -- that subconsciously she is fulfilling it with every step she takes.

I think it's a fun dynamic; to have a character that's more or less running from reflection but very open with her love, and one that's found her path but still has to let herself trust, and explore intimacy.

That's really what they boil down to: both being followers of Sune but imbuing different aspects, and having each other as foils. When Valentine comes to stay at Seraphina's convent the two really connect and learn a lot from each other as equals.

Seraphina embodies the beauty and self love aspect of Sune, while lacking connection to intimacy (although part of that is her being aromantic & not inherently desiring of romance). Valentine on the other hand, embodies romantic love and compassion but can't really accept herself or love herself as she continues to shy away from her prophecy.

They have a physical/sexual relationship alongside this-- I imagine that being a very open topic/concept with Suneites and that develops more organically in a society that views it as beauty, as self-care, as affection and romance. And less controlled by social stigma.

Although Valentine has a hard time separating her romantic tendencies sometimes and has moments of limerence for Seraphina. They speak freely about it - eventually lol, who would I be if I didn't cause SOME drama - and that helps her work through it. They continue to be good friends until the end of their lives.

Valentine ends up staying at the convent longer than anywhere else she travels. I pictured her eventually moving on, still trying to find the end of her fate. But I think strings would pull her back to visit.

I haven't got to play Valentine for a campaign; she was made for one-shots, so that's why she's a bit more open-ended and her story is the way it is. And although I still think Seraphina's story has places it could go, I think I found a pretty happy ending for her. SO THERE YOU ARE LORE DROP x2!!!!!!! I’m sure I can drop even more in-depth shit if you’re curious about anything else.... I know I have Seraphina family developed and can run thru Val’s adventures..... Or Swannie stuff I have so much Swannie lore..... they both meet her at some point too it’s all connected so....... yk what 2 do 👀 Thank u for taking an interest in my girls and have a good fuckin day just for giving me an excuse to scream about something!!!! 💚 WAHOO

[jalopeura]

...I think my meds are making me have real vivid dreams bc man, this is getting to be A Lot last night's first dream was me entering some kind of fancy magic school/sanctuary (in hindsight a ln interesting mix of Hogwarts and Xavier's school, with art nouveau architecture and interiors reminiscent of Sera's room in DAI; also mostly ladders instead of staircases everywhere), finding out that there's an eternal war going on between the good mages and evil mages (who probably had ther own base of operations somewhere and some of whom flew and looked like Skyrim Hags - there actually was a kind or blaring sirens kind of situation where the evil mages were approaching/attacking and nearly everyone else was preparing to go fight them, but since I was a newcomer I couldn't do that), and trying to decide what my magical inclination was (much like the schools of magic in DnD except with a lot more variations) a bunch of my tumblr mutuals as well as some family members, such as aunts, were also housed in the school-castle-thing (this dream then segued into a dream of me moving into a dorm room where a bunch of people already were housed in and I spent the whole dream trying to fit all of my furniture (a Lot more of it than irl) into the small room. interestingly enough the bookcases were already filled but I could move them around by myself with ease, and also I seemed to have bought a lot of trash with me) last night's second dream was me in a bookshop looking at magazines, then buying two B2 pencils and 5 sheets of A4 paper, then getting lost on my way back and encountering an owl and a wolf just chilling in the middle of a road going down a hill. I took some cellphone pictures of them but when I tried to leave the hill was too steep and I involuntary went into a run, so the wolf instinctuallyl ended up chasing me, except instead of running I was making these big leaps forward (these are common in my dreams: I never fly), somehow using the pencils to augment the leaping like miniature pogo sticks held in your hands then at some point the wolf turned into a person and I ended up at my dad's parents house asking them to help me hide... they did, and i was going to sleep in their living room, but the dream had gotten too intense at this point so I woke up... except I was too tired to so I had like four or five almost-wake-ups where the person chasing me always entered the room, ready to murder me or whatever then the dream I just woke up from was me first finding out Ohno was in a non-starring role in a short kinda-children's TV series, I can't remember the series' name but Ohno's character was Pandaman, except instead of the buff OP guy he was just, like, wearing a panda kigurumi? and I wanted to watch the show with mum but couldn't find it online so we had to buy a dvd, and the only place selling them was this pop culture megastore in Tokyo... where we happened to be, luckily. so we go look for the shop, find it, spend ages and ages looking for the dvd, there's like multiple floors of DVD boxes and stuff in there (one floor was completely devoted to Clamp's stuff, especially clamp no kiseki?), but we can't find it - we even ask multiple store clerks, in very basic and broken Japanese, but all they can do is give directions and it's no help in the end were not looking for a dvd anymore, were looking for a very specific kind of food, with equally bad luck of finding it until I accidentally overhead a store clerk explain it to another customer, so I go to her and she explains it to me too: it's a special kind of mochi made of (something I forget, but it looked like glitter stars being folded into a colourful dough) that always ends up being different colour. I buy four sticks - (???) which are about 0,5cm thick and 6cm long, with a pink-blue-lavender marbled colouring - and go off to find my mum to share them with her