#stonemason stuff

[minijenn]

Heads up to all ya'll who are just joining the UF bandwagon and weren't around back in the olden days! I'm going to start tagging things that spoil UF with "UF Spoilers", including art pointing ahead to chapters you may not have read if you never read old UF. Just cause I don't wanna spoil things like Pyrite and RMD and such for those not in the know ;)

[cryptotheism]

who are the freemasons and what do they actually do? i know theyre a real group, but so much conspiracy stuff gets pinned on them its difficult to know whats real and whats not.

They were a sort of Renaissance convention circuit come labor union for stonemasons that became a social club for old dudes to drink and do charity events.

[amygdalae]

sorry if you’ve been asked before n i missed it but do u mind sharing what kind of vampire you made for your vtm game? like what clan and stuff, just curious :-)

ok so hes a very self indulgent character design idk but his name's Billie (full name Willem Steenhouwer) a toreador stonemason from the 1500s who worked on cathedrals in Utrecht in his human days. hes good at carving things and punching things and occasionally pretty social but hes mostly too depressed to do much, spent the last century or two kind of just a bland camarilla drone so he could focus on his art in his free time. but the events of the campaign thus far have awakened his resentment of them and also a bit of his sparkle/sense of self idk. still figuring him out. hes a weird character to embody because hes tall and scary and i can only be one of those things

[mathildeaquisexta]

Military pay and wage range during the Consulate and Empire

Linked post : The price of food, clothing and other stuff during the Consulate and the Empire

Source : forum des Grenadies à pied de la Garde du Consul

The average worker earns 2 francs.

Blacksmith (in Paris), 5 francs

Bricklayer, 1 to 1.50 francs

Stonemason, 2 francs

Shoemaker, 36 cents

Loom spinner, 1.20 to 1.50 francs

Carpenter, 2 francs

Line infantry pay per rank and per year:

Colonel, 5000 francs

Major, 4300 francs

Battalion commander, 3600 francs

Adjutant-major, 2000 francs

Quartermaster, 1200 francs

Surgeon-major (Special rate for medical officers)

Captain 1st class, 2400 francs

Captain 2nd class, 2000 francs

Captain 3rd class, 1800 francs

Lieutenant 1st class, 1250 francs

Lieutenant 2nd class, 1100 francs

Second lieutenant, 1000 francs

Per day:

Warrant officer, 1.60 francs

Mail carrier, 1.66 2/3 francs

Major drummer, 80 cents

Corporal-drummer, 55 cents

Musician, 55 cents

Master tailor, shoemaker, 30 cents

Sergeant-major, 85 cents

Sergeant, 72 cents

Quartermaster, 72 cents

Corporal, 50 cents

Grenadier, rifleman, voltigeur, 35 cents

Drummer, 45 cents

Rifle companies:

Sergeant-major, 85 cents

Sergeant, 62 cents

Quartermaster sergeant, 62 centimes

Corporal, 45 centimes

Fusilier, 30 centimes

Drummer, 40 centimes

Troop child, 15 centimes

[differentsoulsweets]

Hephaestus: Introductory Post

Ἡφαιστος (Vulcan) Greek God of Fire and Metal-working

Epithets: ✧ Amphigyḗeis [Lame-one] ✧ Kyllopodíōn [Club-footed] ✧ Pyrotes [Smith] ✧ Aitnaos [Of mount Aetna] Domains ✧ Smith ✧ Fire ✧ Stonemason ✧ The arts ✧ Ceremony

Duties ✧ Smith gods and heros their own gear ✧ He also made their furnishings and dwellings

Devotional acts: ✧ if you can, carve stuff! Crystals, wood, stone, etc. ✧ Collect rocks ✧ Light a bonfire ✧ Support small businesses and artists, especially those that sell handmade items ✧ Get into mini making!

Associations

Symbol: ✧Hammer & Tongs

Element: ✧Fire

Color: ✧ Orange, Red, Grey, Gold, Silver, Yellow, Metal: ✧ (UPG) All of em but especially forging metals like steel and titanium Crystals and Stones: ✧ Amber, citrine, ruby, garnet, carnelian Fruits,Vegetables,Flower, Herb: ✧ No known association Animal: ✧ Donkey ✧ Crane ✧ (UPG) You know those lava snails? Yeah.

Incense: ✧Frankincense ✧ Dragon's blood ✧ Manna

Food & Drinks: ✧ Red Wine ✧ Olive Oil ✧ Water ✧ Fruit ✧ Honey ✧ Bread ✧ Meat ✧ Spicy things and Hot Beverages

Day, Season, Time of Day: ✧ N/A Tarot: ✧ Judgement ✧ King of Swords

[ink-flavored]

Anthology Blast Prompt 1: Stone Hearted

for the Tales from Athendrolyn Anthology Full prompt list for the Anthology Blast Tips are appreciated! Contains: implied animal abuse, injured animal

The sunny window cast long shadows along the inside of the workshop, a long afternoon stretching ever so slowly into evening. An amateur stonemason or sculptor would have taken nature’s queue to pack up their tools and save their efforts for the following day. All angles go fuzzy in the shadows, after all, how could one hope to be precise? But Ostaeline Darkbraid was no amateur.

Hunched over her workbench, the jeweler’s lamp mounted to the frame ensured that not a speck of dust from her project went unaccounted for. Another cloud of the stuff rained from the cut of stone as she struck her flat chisel across the pale surface with a small hammer, smoothing out a soft curve. She turned the stone and brushed it clean with her thumb, all ten of her stout, brown fingers dusty from her work.

The project itself wasn’t much—for now, just a lump of stone with expertly sketched guidelines along the gray-white block. But it was how all gargoyles began.

A clacking sound, like two pebbles tumbling down a hillside, came from her window. Ostaeline glanced up from her project.

“Don’t clatter at strangers, Beryl,” she chided.

Beryl, a crow-sized gargoyle wearing a dazzling collection of inset gemstones for a collar, shuffled on the windowsill. It turned to Ostaeline and clattered again.

“Yes, I’m talking to you,” she said. “You’ve had your supper already.”

It hopped onto her desk, landing with a thunk. With a sigh, she brushed the dust off her hands with the towel in her lap, and let Beryl climb onto her arm. It scrambled up to sit heavily on her shoulder, clattering into her ear.

“You always want attention at the worst times, don’t you?” she said, with tired affection, and Beryl picked up on her feelings, if not her words. It nipped at the thick braid she wore while working, her thick dwarvish beard tied back into her hair to keep it from catching her tools or getting in the way of her hands. It wasn’t her favorite hairstyle, but it did make her family name, and the name of her shop, all the more apt.

In the next room over, a bell chimed. Ostaeline pushed away from her desk and off her stool. “Let’s go greet our guest,” she told Beryl.

It clacked excitedly and spread its stony wings. Dropping off her shoulder entirely, it glided across the room to land in front of the slightly open door. It tried to nudge the crack open itself, only for Ostaeline to save it the trouble and open the door herself.

“Welcome in,” she called, stepping behind the shop counter. Beryl raced up the ladder of its perch right above the cash register.

The single patron—an elf, tall and thin with their olive-skinned hands folded politely behind their back, and boasting the wide sleeves and long sashes of elvish finery — looked up from where they perused the inventory of dozens of handmade gargoyles. A wide variety of shapes, sizes, and engravements adorned the shelves and statue plinths. Most were perfectly still, asleep, but the ones nearest the elf shuffled around, trying to get their attention. They looked coolly disinterested in all of them.

“Are you the owner of this establishment?” they asked.

“Sure am,” she replied, deciding to ignore the chilly reception, “Ostaeline Darkbraid of   Darkbraid Gargoyle Adoptions & Workshop. It’s been in the family six generations, so I can tell you anything you’ve ever wanted to know about gargoyles and then some.”

“Then I think you’re exactly the person I’m looking for.”

Ostaeline didn’t have time to ask what that meant before the elf approached the counter. They snapped their fingers, and a sketchbook appeared in a puff of smoke. She didn’t have time to ask about that either.

“Do you take projects upon request?” the elf asked.

“I do,” she answered slowly. “You’ll have to provide a reference, and depending on how detailed you want it, they don’t come cheap.”

“Oh, I’m not worried about the price.” The sketchbook flipped itself to a random page and slapped itself on the counter. “Would you be able to replicate this design?”

Shaking off a little whiplash, Ostaeline pulled a stool out from behind the counter and plopped down to review the sketch. Each detail she took in had her eyebrows creeping closer to her hairline.

The elf had given her a lovingly rendered drawing of a gargoyle from all four sides, size estimates, close-ups on details, and even requests about the design of the plinth. The gargoyle itself took inspiration from lions, dragons, bats, and eagles. The engravings requested specific plants, gemstones were noted “optional” but there were multiple placements for insets and requests were detailed down to the cut and carat. It was one of the most complex designs she’d ever seen, much less been asked to sculpt.

“This is very impressive,” she praised. “How long did it take you to come up with this?”

The elf visibly brightened. “I’ve been designing it on and off for a little while.”

Ostaeline found that hard to believe—maybe a “little while” by an elf’s standards. Which is why such a beautiful design made her a bit nervous.

“I can replicate this design, but”—she added quickly, when the elf started to look a bit too excited—"I can’t carve a gargoyle’s personality.”

Their face fell. “What do you mean?”

“A sculptor’s job is to bring the stone to life—whatever life is born from that gift isn’t nearly as malleable. Take Beryl here.” She gestured up at the perch, where Beryl sat happily. “I sculpted this one myself nearly thirty years ago, and fully intended to adopt it out with my others. It wouldn’t take to anyone but me, though, so I kept it for myself.” Beryl clattered happily, and Ostaeline let that happy story sink in for a moment. “A gargoyle is as unpredictable as any animal, and even I don’t know how they’ll act once they’re sculpted.” She tapped the elf’s design. “This is a beautiful thing you’ve done, and I’ll do my best to recreate it as closely as I can. But I can’t promise the life inside the stone will bond with you.”

The elf replaced their cool, unflappable expression. “I see. And if that happens?”

“I usually include the price of adoption in a commission by default, and if the gargoyle doesn’t bond with you, I’ll waive that fee. I can’t offer a full refund, since the work will have already been done, and I’ll have to keep it here with me.”

Until it gets adopted by someone else, was the unspoken end to that sentence. Ostaeline never liked handing out warnings and risks and doubt—but she liked false promises even less. She’d rather this elf, who clearly poured their heart and soul into a design of their wildest dreams, understand what they were agreeing to.

A long hesitant pause later, the elf nodded. “I understand. And I’ll take that risk.”

“Alright, I’ll get you the forms.” Ostaeline produced her standard adoption application form, a form for specially commissioned projects, and a pen. She pushed them on top of the sketchbook and pushed it back across the counter. “Fill these out, and then we’ll talk about price.”

“Of course. Thank you.”

The elf took the pile and stepped aside to the end of the counter near the windows. Several plush stools sat empty for adopters to fill out their paperwork. Even seated, the elf had to hunch over from the height difference.

While she waited, Ostaeline took the opportunity to check on her gargoyles on display. They awoke, one by one, as she stepped over and around them to dust the shelves, adjust plinths, and make note of any fractures. They clicked and clattered, either in delight at her presence, or annoyance at being woken up.

A traditionally sculpted gargoyle on a high shelf—all bat wings, sharp claws, and menace—had a particular ire for her scrutiny. About as large as a parrot, it snapped at her hand on her way up the stepladder, and just barely missed.

“Quit it, Feldspar,” she scolded. Feldspar had no remorse, going for her again as she reached the top. “Don’t get an attitude with me, you literal blockhead.”

Before it could try a third time, Ostaeline snatched Feldspar by the face to keep its mouth closed, plucking it off its plinth for an inspection. It struggled so recklessly that she was able to hold it for all of eight seconds, but she saw all she needed to see. The crack at the base of its left wing hadn’t improved.

“All done, see?” She put it back on the plinth and twisted it to face out the window behind the shelf. “Go back to bed.”

Feldspar gave another angry rattle, hunched over, and went motionless. Ostaeline sighed, trudging back down the ladder. With perfect timing, the elf stood up with their forms in hand as she made her way back to the counter.

“Thank you, thank you,” she said, collecting up the forms and a magically duplicated copy of their design. Skimming over the top of the first page, she read, Name: Myril Genwarin, Age: 170, Pronouns: all, mostly they/them/theirs.

“What was wrong with that one?” Myril asked, gesturing at Feldspar.

“Poor thing has a fracture,” she replied. “It’s been fussy ever since, but Feldspar’s always been a bit of a jerk.”

“Always?”

“Oh sure—came right off the chisel looking for a fight.” She ran through the commission forms, tallying up the cost in her head. “See, if I could carve their personalities to be whatever I wanted, I’d make them all enthusiastic about my check-ups.”

A little smile touched Myril’s face. “I suppose most people would.”

One transaction later, the new project was officially instated onto the list. With a promise to call them as soon as the gargoyle was finished, Myril left the shop, leaving Ostaeline alone with her work again.

Not for long, though. It was only minutes later that she flipped the shop’s “open” sign to “closed,” and went back to the workshop, Myril’s paperwork in hand and Beryl close behind, to clean up before leaving for the night.

The jeweler’s lamp still shone a spotlight down on her interrupted project, and washed the rest of the room with its bright white glare now that the sun had slipped even farther away. Her collection of tools sat patiently in an upright case behind her workbench, organized into perfectly sized compartments. Each of the dozens of shelves underneath it held different gems for decoration, separated by color and cut. In the corner, a massive collection of pale stone blocks, sized anywhere from a minotaur’s coat stand to a goblin’s shoebox, awaited her craftsmanship.

Beryl climbed back up onto its regular perch on the windowsill. Ostaeline put the commission form and requested design on her workbench, intending to leave it for the next morning… but picking out a properly sized block wouldn’t hurt.

She whisked her unfinished project away. On the other wall, it fit snugly between two other projects on her large shelf of unfinished gargoyles, and she muttered a promise to get back to it eventually. Next, she swept her workbench clear of dust and debris, put her tools away, and turned her light toward the back of the room. Now, finally, she could pick her next block.

Myril’s form, and the design sketch itself, requested a height of about thirty standard inches, converted from elvish measurements. Ostaeline plucked a standard unit tape measure out of her tool case, and set the enchanted dial to show elvish units on the other side—just in case. The tool shimmered, humming in her hand. When she pulled the spool, the second set of numbers appeared.

She got to work pulling block after block out of the pile, measuring width, height, length, and the instinctual unit that she couldn’t explain, that none but a gargoyle sculptor could ever truly understand. Ostaeline sat with the block, and tried to feel if it wanted to be carved.

After a dozen dead ends, she found one. It was the exact size she was looking for—thirty standard inches, and almost as wide as she was. It was absolutely too large to fit on her workbench, so this gargoyle would have to be sculpted on the floor. Hopefully it wouldn’t mind.

Ostaeline sat down and leaned against the block, pressing her forehead to the cold stone. She wasn’t there long—it practically sang with the urge to become something else. It was perfect.

Satisfied, she pushed the block to the center of her workshop and placed Myril’s design on top. Tomorrow, she would get to work.

“Come on, Beryl,” she called, holding out her arm. “We’ve got a big day tomorrow.”

Beryl scampered to the end of the workbench and launched itself over. Ostaeline stumbled as it clung to her arm like a weight, before managing to scrabble up, and climb onto her shoulder to perch. It clattered in her ear.

“I should just start picking you up myself,” she said, and turned off the light.

After all her years of gargoyle sculpting and caretaking, Ostaeline found one piece of advice to hold true above all others: the mind should never wander from the task at hand. When crafting something so intricate as a magical creature that would leap to life as soon as it had a body to move in, there was no room for distraction, daydreaming, or idle musing. If she wasn’t entirely focused on the stone under her tools, the tools in her hand, her hand attached to her arm—then she wasn’t really working at all.

But somehow, this commission tested her iron-clad will.

Point chisel in one hand and hammer in the other, Ostaeline carved away a wide chunk of stone, and it collapsed on the floor with a heavy thud. A cloud of dust followed, and she coughed. Her hands and beard were cloudy white, at this point, and she’d barely started carving away at her sketches. Or, rather, Myril’s sketches.

Not for the first or last time that day, Ostaeline turned to reference the commissioned design on her workbench, displayed on a small lectern. It had taken her days to get a sketch on the stone she was happy with, and she thanked every god she could name that her enchanted pencils could be erased from any surface. Even excluding all the detail work she’d have to do to engrave the finished body, the gargoyle had a lion’s head and tail, an eagle’s beak, a dragon’s body, and an extra set of bat’s wings. It was a puzzling combination of animals, pieced together in a puzzling way.

Beryl hopped across the workbench, nudging the lectern curiously. Ostaeline put her hands on her hips.

“I know I shouldn’t judge,” she started, “but who designs a gargoyle like this?”

Beryl clattered, oblivious to her question. Its gemstone collar twinkled in the light of the jeweler’s lamp.

“It’s not a bad drawing,” she continued, turning back to the hunk of stone, “it’s a beautiful drawing, but for a sculptor, it’s complete madness.” She chiseled across one of her sketched lines, forming the shape of the creature’s head. “I wouldn’t have taken the job if I didn’t think I could do it, obviously, and I do believe I can. But why all this—excess?”

It was what had been distracting her the whole time. After working on this gargoyle for barely a week, the extravagance of it all had started to eat away at her. And to know Myril had been working on it “on and off” implied there used to be even more detail that must have been redesigned. Ostaeline would never know how many revisions this gargoyle had seen, which just made her more curious as to how it came to exist in the first place.

“You know what it feels like?” she said, hammering away. “It feels like a child’s drawing. Like a kid who mashed together all their most favorite things in the world and—”

She almost hammered her thumb into the stone. Blessings and curses, she thought, it is a child’s drawing.

With a strange mix of affection and dread, Ostaeline set down her hammer and chisel and went to her desk. Slowly, she wiped her hands free of dust and picked up Myril’s sketch, beholding it with new eyes. The haphazard combination, the odd specificity, the amount of love and care and detail. She remembered how excited they were to see it complimented, how fast that excitement drained away when she couldn’t guarantee the gargoyle would like them. This had to be a drawing from Myril’s childhood, maybe even a dream pet, that they finally had the opportunity to bring to life. And Ostaeline could bring it to life—but she couldn’t promise it would be theirs at last.

“That’s a little more than I bargained for,” she muttered. She dropped the design back down on the lectern, folding her fingers under her nose.

Beryl looked up at her, innocent as any animal. Ostaeline glanced to the workshop door, and the gargoyle shop beyond.

Feldspar was a commissioned piece, intended to leave her shop the moment it was finished. When it woke for the first time, it was a bit snappy, which wasn’t abnormal for a creature brand new to life. The client came to pick it up, confident that they had exactly the pet they’d requested.

Two days later they came back. Ostaeline remembered Feldspar getting dumped on her desk and furiously insulted by her client—they were convinced she’d carved a “broken” gargoyle and demanded a refund. She refused, with similarly colorful words, and kept Feldspar in the shop, confident that someone would adopt it.

That was years ago. Nobody had.

An anxious clatter snapped her back to the present. Beryl swiped the air with its paw, reaching for her. Ostaeline smiled, smoothing her fingers over its head.

She remembered the days she spent sculpting Beryl, as routine a project as any of her other gargoyles. When it finally woke up, as she added the finishing touches, Ostaeline couldn’t help but feel especially proud of the work she’d done. She was especially surprised when Beryl refused to leave her side, attempting to follow her out of the shop so many times she gave up trying to stop it. She set the gemstones in its collar the same night she adopted it, a gift for Beryl, and for herself.

“Nothing’s guaranteed, eh?” she mused, talking more to herself. “This thing could go any way at all.”

Sculpting gargoyles, as rewarding as she found the work, was truly an art without an answer. Nobody knew how this stone was able to breathe life into statues, or why it was only one type of stone. History had long since forgotten how gargoyles came to be before there were those around to carve them—if they existed at all before some ancient creature took up hammer and chisel.

There were plenty of theories: that gargoyles were blessings from the gods, they were curses from those same gods, that they were simply magical wisps finding a magic-porous stone to inhabit, or that the compound sediment of this particular rock was susceptible to magical transformation. Ostaeline never paid them any mind—what mattered was that gargoyles could exist, and she would be the finest sculptor her statues could have ever asked for.

She looked back at the unfinished brick that would soon become Myril’s gargoyle. Often, she wondered if the life inside the stone could hear her voice, feel her hands, maybe even see her chisel working to break it free. Ostaeline would be the finest sculptor it ever knew—the only sculptor, frankly—but what happened when the sculptor’s job was over? Were gargoyles born knowing companionship, or was it something taught to them?

Ostaeline scooped Beryl into her arms. She sat down on the floor next to the unfinished sculpture and placed her palm flat to the stone. Breathing deeply, she tried to reach that mysterious spark of life inside the rock. The potential for more.

“Just between us,” she told it, “there’s someone out there who’s really looking forward to meeting you.”

The rock didn’t reply. Beryl clambered over her arm and mirrored her pose, pressing a curious paw flat against the cool surface. Ostaeline chuckled, scratching behind its wings.

“I’d be excited too, if I were you,” she added. “If Myril is anything like me, I know for a fact you’ll be pampered to death. Beloved more than any diamond. More precious than any amount of gold. And if you’re anything like Beryl, you’ll bring them more joy than you’ll ever understand. That’s what being a companion is all about, after all.” She cradled Beryl’s stone head in her palm. “It’s about taking care of someone, and letting them care for you back.”

Beryl made a sound like stones scraping together, nuzzling into her hand. She smiled down at her lap, but she let her mind wander a little farther.

“It’s not all perfect. Maybe you don’t fit into someone’s house. Maybe you get a chip in your wing, or a crack on your face that people would rather scream about than actually try to fix. Or maybe they gave you that crack themselves. Maybe…” She swallowed thickly, unsure who she was keeping her composure for. “Maybe you feel like giving up on care. Companionship. All that. But there’s always someone out there who wants to care about you. All you have to do is let them.”

Her voice broke and a few stray tears slipped into her braided beard. Beryl turned away from the stone entirely, anxiously trying to climb her shirt. Ostaeline let the rest of her emotions burst out in a laugh instead, plucking Beryl off and setting it on the floor.

“Anyway,” she finished, “keep your mind open to being someone’s buddy while you’re in there.” With a grunt, she pushed up to her feet and swiped her abandoned tools off the floor. “We’ve got a lot of work to do in the meantime.”

Ostaeline went back to work as if she’d never stopped, focus renewed, and more determined than ever to complete this project.

A month later, Ostaeline was finally satisfied.

She called Myril the morning after she completed their commission, and they promised to arrive to pick it up that same afternoon. A few rushed preparations later, Ostaeline managed to clean up her workshop and move the gargoyle to the front of the main shop with the help of an enchanted hovering dolly. It sat proudly at the front counter, a testament to her efforts.

An elegant beak extended from its bowed head, the lion’s mane flowing with an expertly sculpted mane. The dual set of wings were tricky to place, but she managed to place them almost on top of each other—the dragon wings raised to the sky, and the bat wings at a lower angle underneath. Its dragon body had individually engraved scales, from the neck down to the tail, curled around the plinth as requested. The flower-engraved plinth itself was some of her finest detail work in years, if she could say so herself. And finally, the gemstones: brilliant opals set into the head, chest, and front legs. All things considered, the gargoyle was perfect.

Except it hadn’t woken up yet.

Ostaeline inspected the gargoyle one last time and hoped she didn’t look nervous. She had carved gargoyles that slept through their first night alive, but they were always awake the next morning. This one hadn’t so much as blinked since she put the finishing touches on the plinth. She knew it was alive—she’d stake her career on it—but it was sleeping for an abnormally long time. Like it was damaged, or shy, or… something.

“What do you think, Beryl?” she asked. Beryl was too busy chasing a bug around the counter to respond.

Behind her, the welcome bell jingled, and the shop door swung open. Myril bustled in dressed to impressed, somehow wearing an even more extravagant outfit than the one Ostaeline had met them in. They had the stony facial expression of someone trying very hard to hold themself together.

“Right on time,” Ostaeline greeted. Beryl abandoned the chase to crawl forward curiously.

“It’s ready?” they blurted, letting the mask slip a tad.

She stepped aside, presenting it with one hand. “See for yourself.”

The cool façade completely melted. Myril rushed to the gargoyle and dropped to their knees in front of it. They reached a shaky hand out, unsure. “C-can I?”

“Hold on, hold on,” Ostaeline said, and they snapped up straight. She couldn’t help a smile. “I was just going to warn you it’s sleeping. The best way to wake a gargoyle up is with a treat.”

They nodded seriously. “Of course. I—I’m afraid I don’t have anything.”

“That’s what I’m here for.”

Ostaeline produced a handful of colorful landscaping pebbles from her pocket. Myril held out their cupped hands for the offered treat, eyes wide and reverent.

“Just hold them out like this,” she said, guiding their hands under the gargoyle’s beak. “It might take a minute for it to recognize the smell, but—”

She cut herself off as the gargoyle stirred. The dragon paws shifted on the plinth, blank stone eyes blinked for the first time. It stretched both sets of its wings and folded them onto its back. It was alive. Myril appeared to have stopped breathing.

It looked at the pebbles in their hand, head tilted. It lowered its beak, pulling back at the click of stone hitting stone. Then, it plucked one out of their hand, and swallowed it. And then another, and another, until it was eating out of Myril’s hand like it had known them all its life—and, Ostaeline supposed, it had. Myril laughed in breathy disbelief, smiling ear to ear.

Ostaeline finally let herself relax, sighing against the counter. “Congratulations,” she said, “on your newest member of the family.” Beryl crawled up its perch and clattered in agreement.

“Thank you,” they breathed. “Thank you so much, I never—” They choked, eyes shining with happy tears. “I’ve always wanted a gargoyle, but I was never able to convince my parents.”

The gargoyle nuzzled into their hands, now empty of pebbles, and clattered. Myril laughed wetly, petting its stiff mane and the back of its neck. Now that the worst was over, Ostaeline couldn’t help brimming with pride at the work she’d done.

“There’s still one thing left to do,” she said, marching behind the counter.

Myril followed with their eyes, but didn’t move. “What else?”

“I’ve approved your application, obviously.” Ostaeline presented a new form. “Now, you fill out the adoption certificate, so we can make it official.”

“Oh! Right, of course, of course.” They bustled to standing, but had their eyes trained on the gargoyle sitting at their feet.

“Have a name picked out yet?”

Myril beamed at her. “Summerset.”

Ostaeline couldn’t help but return their enthusiasm. “That’s a beautiful name.”

“Thank you.” They looked down at Summerset again, their smile never wavering. “It’s everything I dreamed it would be.”

While Myril filled out the certificate, Ostaeline put together a care sheet for them to take home. It included everything they’d ever need to know about caring for a gargoyle properly, and her shop number, just in case they had any questions. She went over it briefly after the adoption was certified, but she could tell Myril was only half listening. Summerset had every ounce of their attention—and Ostaeline couldn’t blame them.

After another round of profuse thank-yous, Myril left with the plinth under their arm, and Summerset following at their heels. Ostaeline stared out the door, arms folded behind the counter, for a long few minutes after they’d gone.

Was her pep talk all that Summerset needed for this to go well? Was it all useless, and it was always meant to be this way? Could Ostaeline have changed its mind at all, knowing how much she didn’t know about how gargoyles thought?

“I guess it’s another mystery,” she said, looking up at Beryl. “But I did a pretty damn good job, don’t you think?” Beryl stared blankly at her. Close enough.

Ostaeline patted herself on the back for a job well done, and meant to retreat back into her workshop, to continue one of her dozen unfinished projects… but there was something else on her mind.

Instead, she shuffled up her stepladder and grabbed Feldspar off its shelf. It rattled and snapped at her, of course, but she didn’t let go. She tucked it against her chest and carried it away.

“Come on, you little stinker,” she told it. “Let’s see if we can’t fix that wing of yours.”

-

Tales from Athendrolyn Taglist: @foxys-fantasy-tales @auroblaze @thelaughingstag @auntdarth @damageinkorporated

Events Taglist: @foxys-fantasy-tales @thelaughingstag @ceph-the-ghost-writer @auntdarth @damageinkorporated

@srjacksin @wyked-ao3 @alesseia

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[ostrichmonkey-games]

Everything I see from Dark Confluence looks sick, and you should use this as an excuse to talk more about it

I don't think I've actually talked a ton about what Dark Confluence is going to be like as a completed game, so I'll take this as an excuse to do so lmao.

So, I like the souls-borne "series" a ton. But my favorite part of all the games is the world that you're let loose in and get to explore. Piecing together the story through bits and pieces, hidden clues, secrets, implication and interpretation. The goal of Dark Confluence is to do that together at the table.

To that end, Dark Confluence is all about the setting and unfolding story you all put together. It is as much a game as it is a chopped up setting book that never tells you exactly what's going on - because that's the fun! Making it all up! Crafting your own unique crumbling, melancholy universe and then rooting around in it to see what you can make sense of.

Character mechanics draw a lot from my other game Extracausal, so its a lot of tag/trait based stuff, but there's also DNA from games like Wanderhome in there, with how the Realms ("levels") and Lords of the Tower ("bosses") work. I want the game to give the table a bunch of tools for getting into weird and complicated situations, and then stringing it all together into something uniquely cohesive.

Most of the mechanics are mostly done and written at this point, all that's left is just all the other writing lmao. There's 36 character backgrounds (each with their own set of 3 unique items), 12 Realms, 12 Lords, 18 Magical Spells, 18 Artifacts, 18 Major NPCs, 36 Creatures and Wretches (and more!), all of which have embedded within them little "lore sparks" for the table to play around with. Nothing is "canon", but there's a lot of moving parts - building blocks - for the table to play around with.

You're all gonna be wandering around your unique version of the Infinite Tower (the dark confluence of the multiverse), confronting the Lords of the Tower as you shape the universe to come. Along the way, you'll meet weird and interesting NPCs, horrible and dangerous Wretches, and uncover and create your own deep lore and secrets.

As a reward for everyone reading through all this text, here's a new Artifact

Ossifrage Great Bow; tags - ravenous, violent A great bow shaped from many fragments of bones. It glistens in the light, bleeding like an open wound. Effect: The wielder never runs out of arrows, as the bow fires massive, barbed, missiles grown and harvested from the skeleton of the wielder themself. Burden: The wielder’s sternum must be kept pried open, beating heart exposed. Augments The bow can launch a flurry of smaller arrows that darken the sky The bow can steal the bones of another whom it has injured The projectiles fired from the bow leave a burning stream of blood in their wake

And! A new Spell!

Fragmentation Effect: Unleash your manifold soul, allowing the hungry, grasping hands of Fate within you to reach out and unravel whatever they touch. Requirement: Consume an entire age’s worth of Fragments, becoming infinite, fractal, and glorious. Ember Moves Like tangled strands of a knot, all Fragments are secretly connected. All Fragments must take a Curse. The howl of the dying cosmos echoes louder, consuming the dreams of those within the Realm, replacing them with something else. One of your many soul-pieces sloughs off, becoming a Fragment all its own, one with the Fate of bringing about your final Dissolution. They say that souls are the building blocks of the cosmos, and the gods merely stonemasons. From where then, do souls come from?

It's gonna be done eventually. I might be on the lookout for playtesters once I have the text done. So, keep an eye out for that maybe?

[spoonbendersanonymous]

If we're going to keep using the works of historic scientists in this series, Isaac Newton is absolutely perfect for it, especially in association with the Eye.

He literally invented the field of optics in physics, illustrated the color spectrum down to the overlapping wavelengths, finished the debate on color being an intrinsic property of light, created the reflecting telescope, and helped start early debate on the existence of photons. He also helped figure out how the optic nerves work, what rods and cones are, color vision and vision in general.

He was also incredibly reckless and outright stupid sometimes due to lack of care for safety during experiments. He probed the back of his eye with a needle to figure out how to stimulate the optic nerve, deliberately stared directly at the sun and almost blinded himself to figure out after images, and put mercury and shit in his eyes to help figure out tissues. He had a full-on nervous breakdown several different times due to the stress of his studies (and also probably serious mercury exposure).

He didn't care about safety, he cared about knowledge. Very familiar.

He was also the last Western alchemist and cared WAY more about his occult studies than things like helping reinvent physics and calculus. A lot of his occult stuff was unpublished due to expected backlash from other scientists and academics, but he wrote tons of manuscripts on alchemy, finding/creating the Philosopher's Stone, and prophecy regarding the apocalypse.

He was also probably a freemason (though apparently because the society was much more secretive back then there's no actual definitive proof that he was part of anything masonic officially? Either way he definitely hung out with and identified with a lot of freemasons in and outside of academia), which doesn't actually mean anything inherently sinister like it's often portrayed in media (they're basically just a public service/networking org that started out as a stonemason's guild/union and has some religious/philosophical symbolism that they use alongside some occult symbolism - trust me, they can barely organize a charity pancake breakfast let alone take over the world). But still, the Eye symbolism is everywhere in masonic societies in a functional sense via the Eye of Providence/All-Seeing Eye/Eye of Horus. Honestly I'm surprised TMA and TMP haven't used masonic stuff before given how well-known the symbol is and how sensationalized that stuff has become.

Anyway I hope you enjoyed the weird intersection of several of my interests. I like weird science history and TMP so if this comes up again I'm never gonna shut up about it. RIP Isaac Newton you brilliantly weird borderline mad scientist may you live on in this UK horror podcast and also the other stuff you did idk.

[hylianchampionn]

@silaluke thank you! this is my favourite comment/tag by far! the designs of their outfits in my post are heavily influenced by hylian designs. the fashion style likely came from either castle town or hateno village. the style is popular, even 100 years after the calamity.

in “Creating a Champion”, it mentions that lots of ruins and stuff haven’t been rebuilt because all the stonemasons and woodworkers likely died in castles town on that horrible day.

this is interesting because of all elements of Hylian culture, clothing would be one thing very likely to survive the calamity. architecture you can’t take with you, it stays where it stands. unlike clothing, which you wear everywhere.

it’s likely that 99% of Hylians would wear these sorts of clothes on the day of the calamity; so it would be easier to document and remake after they found refuge in Kakariko or Hateno. and we know this because it has survived up to present day!

[thatfooltheycallweaver]

The Stonemason and the Thatcher

Day 6 of @fluff-cember

Prompt: Gingerbread House

Pairing: Rune Arnbjornson [OC] x Natasha Romanoff

Fandom: Marvel [Cinematic Universe]

Word Count: 721

Rune rolled over onto his side, his hands searching to find the bed empty. His amber-gold eyes opened after a moment. He’d hoped to wake up to his lover by his side, but he knew she got busy--Avengers shit, he never minded, just missed her. Sitting up and running his hands through his dark hair, pulling the blanket off of him in an effort to get up, the immediate cold hitting him. He snatched the sheet back over his lap, looking over the floor to find a pair of sweatpants. He dressed and headed down the hall as he heard the door unlock. He smiled, but noticed she was being secretive, keeping the contents of the bag out of sight.

“Good morning, my darling.” He greeted, taking her hand and kissing it. “How fared the…” He looked over the bag, trying to see what she’d been doing. “...Walmart?”

“Walmart was good, found those chocolate oranges I told you about.” She took the box out of the bag. He tore it open, box and plastic within. “Hit it on the table--gently.” She explained, remembering his Asgardian strength. He did as she asked, and she unwrapped it after, showing him the separated ‘slices’. He took one, trying it.

“This is unlike anything from my realm. But I like this. Thank you, my love.” She took a slice for herself.

“Don’t mention it.” She placed the unwrapped foil on the counter, returning to her bag to retrieve more supplies for their weekend in. Boxes of popcorn, packets of hot chocolate mix, those types of things. But there was one thing left in the bag. “I picked up something I thought we could do together.” She shrugged.

“Are you going to tell me, my love?” She stared at him, crossing her arms, like she was waiting for something. He smiled, leaning down to press a soft kiss to her lips.

“Fine. Here.” Natasha smiled, taking the box out and handing it to him. “I was hoping we could try this out. I’ve never done this before. It’s…not like my job can afford much, uh, downtime.” It was a gingerbread house kit. “It’s got most of the stuff in it, already, we’d just need to put it together and decorate it.”

“That’s what you were so secretive about?” He teased gently. “I would be honored to spend the time with you, as I always am.” She smiled, taking the box to the kitchen island and taking things out. “How are we meant to attach the walls?” He asked, looking over her shoulder. “Forgive me, I am not familiar with many Midgardian candies. Or…any of this, really.”

“The icing.” She gestured to the piping bags. “And that’s alright. If we fuck it up, we can just eat it instead.” They set about planning the gingerbread house, getting the knives they’d want to smear the icing, cutting the tips off the bags. “I’ll hold it, you ice it.” She directed him, holding two walls together.

“I am not exactly a stonemason, my love.” He chuckled, despite the slight feeling of nervousness: he wanted to make it perfect for her.

“You like woodworking. You’ll do fine.” He nodded at her encouragement, lightly squeezing the bag to thinly ‘glue’ the two sides together. It stuck together perfectly, and they managed to get the rest of the house together, and began piping the decorations onto the roof. Natasha added the sprinkles, and squished the gumdrops on top of the roof where the two pieces met, but pushed too hard and caved the roof, cracking one of the pieces. They looked at each other for a moment.

“Who needs to be gentle now, hm? I am glad you are not a thatcher.” He teased, taking a piece of the roof and taking a bite of it. “This is incredibly sweet…” Natasha wasn’t paying attention to the question that followed, looking at the bit of frosting that was on his lip. She cut him off with a kiss. He placed his hand on her waist.

“Is it?” She asked when they parted. “I couldn’t tell, but that might’ve been because you’re just as sweet.” She was doing this to fluster him on purpose, to get back at him for teasing her.

“...has anyone told you how truly wicked you are, my heart?”

“Plenty.”

[minijenn]

If you had written it, what would've been your favorite moments from the stonemason arc?

Oh man there's like... so many little moments, but here are some of the bigger ones I had in mind (in mostly chronological order, across the entire arc and even beyond it with stuff tied into it):

EPretty much any confrontation between Dipper and Yellow, especially earlier on when he still has some fight in him

Dipper's initial reaction to losing his arm ahahahah oh no plus adjusting to it being gone (he'd lose it pretty early on into the process)

The slow development of the bond between Dipper and Amber, Amber realizing this human isn't like the zoomans she's dealt with before and coming to genuinely care about him and feeling grief when she realizes she can't bc she's too afraid of being found out and shattered

Bouncing off of that, the two of them bonding as Dipper tells Amber about all his friends and family back on earth, bittersweet af bc he misses them so much

The HBO playing off each other in general, especially Hessonite and Amber, there's a lot of... tension there.

The slow burn effect of Dipper's deteriorating mental state and the impact the conditioning/brainwashing is having on him as he realizes he's losing himself to Yellow's control

Bill was gonna show up and "inspire" Yellow's methods with some fucked up ideas of his own because of course he would, he'd be delighted to see something like this happen to "Pine Tree"

White was also gonna be involved, totally aware of Yellow's little "pet project" and joyfully supporting it, giving her the idea to use the song to control her new assassin effectively

Tied back up into Bill's involvement, he was def gonna give Dipper some nightmares about being back home but being unable to reach Mabel, Steven, and so on bc of what's happening to him ahahah fuck

THE moment when Dipper finally becomes Stonemason christ it would have been just So Much

Stan and Ford's reactions to Steven and Mabel coming back to Earth without Dipper. Wooo boy

Lapis' initial reaction to them coming back without Dipper. WOOO BOY

Fuck, Pacifica's reaction too jfc pain all around

The Gems and the Stan twins basically being at each others throats the entire time Dipper is gone bc christ there would be so much blame being thrown around

Steven just being... insanely guilty during the entire arc, especially once Stonemason is unmasked (more on that later)

Kevin Party would have had a scene where Mabel reunites with Gabe Bensen (puppet guy from Sock Opera) and basically explodes at him when he tries to flirt with her, bc whoops she still feels guilty about Sock Opera even a year later esp now that Dipper is gone/potentially dead

Oh yeah the fact that nobody even knows if Dipper is dead or alive during the entire time he's gone oop

Jungle Moon was gonna see Mabel seperated from Stevonnie, basically lost on her own until she's briefly captured by none other than Stonemason, recently deployed from Homeworld to track down "Rose Quartz" and shatter her; that entire subplot would have been somethin else bc Mabel has no idea who her captor is and the irony that its her brother and neither of them know it? woo baby

The scene where Stonemason is finally unmasked, the reactions to it... lord (it would have been a cliffhanger ending aahah), also bonus points bc Mabonnven was gonna be the one to unmask him so its basically the MK vs the one they thought they lost oh fuck oh no

Literally every encounter between Stonemason and the Pines and Gems after that, incredibly tension filled and upsetting hahah

Scenes of Stonemason on his own, showing signs of Dipper slipping through the cracks of the conditioning more and more as time goes on thanks to all of the encounters Stonemason has with his friends and family getting through to him

Stonemason vs. Maven. Nough said

Steven using his dream powers to finally find and communicate with Dipper inside his own head; it'd be kinda like that one bit in Dimensions but hhhh ya know even more gay and fucked up

Yellow would have had Stonemason attack Gravity Falls to lure "Rose" out; he's unmasked the entire time so that basically instills a lot of fear and mistrust in the townsfolk toward Dipper later on (more on that later)

Basically a redux of this oneshot I wrote a long time ago

The gang finally successfully capturing Stonemason

Steven and Mabel going inside his head to rescue Dipper, encountering Stonemason who tries to stop them; Dipper overpowering him and taking back control of his mind and body

Everyone's relieved, overjoyed reactions to Dipper finally being back golly

Dipper having to essentially get used to living like a human again (bc on Homeworld he didn't actually get food, he got "nutrition suplements" instead and Stonemason's armor probs had something in it to make sure he didn't need to sleep I don't fucking know) so ya know, adjustment period angst

Also Dipper adjusting the metal arm, not knowing how to control its strength at first, being upset that he has it and that it can't be removed, ect.

Townsfolk being angry and accusatory towards Dipper for the destruction Stonemason caused in town; surprisingly enough, Gideon of all people would have stood up for him, bc he understands what its like to have essentially an entire town turn against him too

Raising the Barn being so much more fucking devestating because Dipper begs Lapis to take him with her bc he's so scared of Yellow finding him and controlling him again; Lapis says she will, but ultimately doesn't (both because she doesn't want to take him away from his family so soon after they got him back and because she's worried Yellow might be able to track him through the arm)

Steven being ridden with guilt to the point that he considers making a deal with a certain dream demon to undo all this shit hehhehe

All that ^^ culminating with a Stepper appearence when Dipper assures Steven that he doesn't blame him for what's happened and still cares so much about him

There's a TON more but those are the standouts I have right now. Gotta keep all these fresh in my mind because I may actually end up writing this out after all. Just cause.

[itsbenedict]

From the beginning | Previously | Coin standings

You have to follow the owl! You're sure that following the owl will lead you to your daughter somehow. It's got to!

...Though, on closer inspection, that's not an owl- it's a school of minnows. If you FOLLOW HELPFUL FISH, you might be able to make it safely through this jungle. As natives, they'll know how to evade local predators and so on.

You notice the fish take a detour around the cluster of alluring lights- you weren't sure what those were, exactly, because there's no way that many anglerfish would cluster together. And there isn't! There's just like, two or three screwed-up glitch anglerfish that seem to be made of giant tangles of lures. You give them a wide berth while following the fish- which seem to be following the same trail of stone debris you noticed.

You pick up a letter A off one of the chunks of rock on the ground- there's writing on these?

Indeed, as you descend deeper into the ocean, you find yourself amidst a vast sunken temple. One still-intact archway proclaims these to be the AORETH RUINS, which is a little unusual because stonemasons don't usually declare their work to be a ruin in advance. The fish dart deeper into the wreckage, and you set to exploring.

You feel something strange as you swim through these destroyed and decrepit halls. There's some sort of power here, somehow connected to this place being broken. Designed to be broken, if the sign is any indication. What is this place?

And what's all this other stuff?

There's a pet rock that looks like it might be from space. Its nametag says it's called "Pip", which you think is pretty boring. Is there any use for PIP, BANAL PET METEOROID?

Someone tries to preempt your concerns in an unobtrusive way, but they're pretty obsequious about it. A BAD POLITE PREEMPTION is worse than just being plain interrupted.

There's an AMEBOID PLANT PEEP TRIO- three weird algae masses in the rough shape of those little marshmallow bird thingies people put in easter baskets.

Hanging on a pillar is a cloak that emits a beeping sound. The sound is soothing, almost addictive. You could call it a PART-OPIOID BEEP MANTLE.

Continued

[amygdalae]

Ok ok ok my rough idea for my vtm character is this: Toreador. Used to be a medieval stonemason/architect who worked on cathedrals. But in modern day as a vampire he works as a lighting technician for local music venues

I think there's some interesting stuff to play with because of how gothic cathedrals were designed with light as such a central principle--i like to think my character used to be devout and had a strong appreciation for light, nature, and sunlight etc. and they miss it so the closest they get is designing spectacles for others--personally I'm not religious but I get the rapturous feeling I imagine people must get in church when I see live music. So I imagine my vampire, having abandoned faith a long time ago, wants to light up the night, giving others a transcendent experience, getting a vicarious pleasure from the reveling of mortals. And concerts wld be a good place to hunt for a bite to eat

[ixcaliber]

god you have no time to investigate this murder. i have zero idea who killed this man. i have been dreadfully inefficient with my investigations.

so who are my suspects:

brother frungton (?) (its something like this i'm really bad at the names in this game) (the scriptorium guy) - i spent most of my time investigating this guy. i found his note, decoded it with my love of occultism and then eventually got my good friend regular otto to come and dig up the grave for me. and i'm like oh bloody staff well here we have it open and shut case but in the meantime i'd spent a lunchtime with smokey in the forest and learned brother whatshisname is doing blood rituals in the forest so oops i'm back to square one

sister matilda - i spent some time investigating her only because i really wanted to go into the library not because i actually thought she'd done it or wanted to rat her out. i just wanted to look at the books. anyway yeah she could give me a full confession and i'd pin it on someone else but no for what its worth i don't think she did it.

lucky the stonemason - did an Excellent job shadowing him to his daughters grave and then immediately showed up at his house to eat a meal with him. was kind of convinced for a minute there that he might have done it but lets just check off all four regular suspects before we start going off the rails a bit here

the old widow lady - she would never even speak to me. i don't know what her deal is. i cannot and would not implicate her in this crime.

martin? - where'd this asshole run off to. he's been accused of stealing a bunch of stuff and i saw him fleeing the abbey in a panic. he's probably accusable. idk. i haven't gotten to the presenting evidence portion of this game maybe i'm overthinking it.

anyway so the interesting thing about this case is the little notes i'm finding all over the place that seem to be like someone externally trying to give people incentives to kill lorenz. It suggests that whoever killed him might have only been provoked into doing so by a third party. that sister matilda recieved one as well half makes me suspect sister camilla (?) the head nun lady? its probably like mother something. i'm so bad at the names in this game. it throws so many character names at me i cannot keep up.

if i had to make a guess about who did the actual crime: lucky? maybe? but i don't have the evidence to make it stick.

i'll probably accuse the scriptorium guy just because he seems like a bit of an asshole (everyone at the church is a bit of an asshole i would not mind accusing any of them).

also i really want to know about the 'ghost' - the mysterious cloaked person that both me and paul (the miller's child) have seen lurking around the roman ruins but i don't seem to have options to investigate this.

[honourablejester]

Okay. So. Thinking a bit more about that Remastered PF2e Construction Wizard. Some spitballed ideas.

I do want to just fully commit to the construction thing. Is the wizard effective in combat? Possibly not, or not as much as they could be. I want to give them building spells as much as possible. For the skills I think we build around Arcana, Crafting and Society for our three raise-to-legendary ones. This is a city wizard, a construction wizard, their magic is used to make things.

They’re a dwarf. I’m sorry, they’re a wizard who uses the raw forces of magic to build cities, they have to be a fucking dwarf. That’s dwarfy. It just is. Heh. I feel like either an Anvil Dwarf (legacy) to double down on the crafting thing, or a Rock Dwarf, to double down on, well, the rock. The stones and the building. A couple of dwarven ancestry feats that I might want to pick up include Stonemason’s Eye, Dwarven Reinforcement (strengthen objects and structures), Stonewalker (can cast One With Stone, and builds on Stonemason’s Eye), and March the Mines (gain a burrow speed and take an ally along). Dwarves are so good for construction. I told you this was a dwarfy sort of wizard.

For the background, I wanted something with Engineering Lore. Interestingly, a LOT of backgrounds with that lore are tied to either Alkenstar specifically or clockwork/guns/machinery in general, which isn’t quite the vibe I’m going for. And Alkenstar, given the whole ‘unreliable magic’ thing, might possibly be the worst city for this dwarven wizard to be from. In general, backgrounds with engineering lore are all a bit more mechanical than civic engineering.

Somewhat funny, but one of the few Engineering Lore backgrounds that actually specifically mentions structural engineering is Saboteur, which is coming at it from somewhat the opposite side we’re hoping to. There’s also Thrill-Seeker, for an urban explorer who has engineering so they have a better idea what building’s best for flinging themselves off of. But Athletics and Combat Climber might not be the worst shout here, for a construction worker at heights, if we’re not feeling the classic Junk Collector, Mechanic or Tinker backgrounds.

And then … spells. I really, really want this wizard to JUST be a construction wizard. I want to load their spell list down with everything on from the arcane tradition that you could use to build shit. Or that would be handy on a construction site. It’s an odd urge, kind of building a character for a different game than the one actually being played, but there are lot of niche spells in PF2e that work really nicely for this hyper-specialised wizard over here.

Now. Archives of Nethys hasn’t updated their spells yet for the remaster, so I was picking and choosing inside Pathbuilder, which has also updated for the remaster. So I can’t really link to the spells I’m interested in, but I’m going to mention some of them anyway.

For cantrips, Bullhorn, Telekinetic Hand, and Approximate. If you’re a site foreman, you want to be loud if you need to be, you want an extra hand, and you want to be able to eyeball a pile of materials and get a rough number quickly.

For higher level spells, some ones that jump out are Gentle Landing (feather fall is really handy when building at height) and it’s grown up cousin Soft Landing (feather fall in an AOE, for when scaffolding collapses and you need to catch a bunch of people at once). Also potentially useful for building at height is Bracing Tendrils, which anchor you to the ground, or hopefully surface.

For preparing the ground, you’ve got Pave Ground, which flattens out difficult terrain, Burrow Ward, which solidifies the earth and pushes out burrowing creatures, and higher up we have Transmute Rock and Mud, which turns mud to stone and vice versa.

For actually building by raw magic, you have the ever useful Wall of Stone.

For moving stuff around your construction sites, obviously there’s Teleport at higher levels, but I’m also looking at Airlift, which lets you pick up everyone within 10ft and anything of 10 bulk or less that they’re carrying and fly them up to 60ft. I feel like that could be handy. There might also be a case for Rally Point, which only works for you until it’s heighted to 7th level, but lets you and later up to four other people teleport back to the chosen point once each within the spell’s duration. Might be handy.

A couple of other randomly useful bits of magic would be Cleanse Air, which could be very handy if you’re building underground, digging foundations, or installing anything that might produce contaminants if damaged. Both Safe Passage and Control Water, both on the Civic Wizard’s Curriculum spell list, would also be useful here. And, a slightly random finishing note, Magic Mailbox, which creates a magic link between two containers to allow them to pass contents back and forth, might not jump out on first blush, but could be quite useful on site when you think about it? General communication and divination spells, for site communication and monitoring, could also go in our toolkit.

It is … It’s just a pleasing thought experiment. Designing a PF2e wizard, not for combat or adventuring, but for civic construction work within a city. It’s not the game we’re actually playing, but there is a fair amount of useful stuff in the arcane spell list to make it work. Heh.

This is such a fun arcane school. Useful? Don’t know. But definitely fun.

[daphrona]

Sorry for asking you things again, but it's because of what you said about Taelan's age and now I am confused with the timeline cause in Of Blood and Honor it was 12 years after the Second War and Taelan was 5, so he would be 13 in Classic and That's Not Right, so I don't know if you have any post of the ages for the Third War kids and their dads but if you do please help 😭

I'll always answer any third war questions; don't be afraid to ask anything :)

For the lore, you gotta take some things with a pinch of salt because of a few timeline squishes. I always joke that Genns been sixty for the past forty years because Second War shit got real bungled up, moreso than the Third War stuff. The Stonemasons took ten years to rebuild Stormwind after the First war, but to do so and still line up properly with the Stonemason Riots, it would have to occur while the orcs still occupied the city. Not even mentioning Uther saying to Arthas that Terenas had been ruling for seventy years, though that line in particular was later changed to fifty years.

It's always remember that this stuff was written down in 2000 and then never looked at again, save by Golden. This book predates W3's release and WoW's production. This was before any attempts to actually wrangle the timeline.

Taelan is, for all intents and purposes, supposed to be grown enough to be governing Hearthglen during the Third War, so I always put him at about twenty or so, as he's said to become a paladin at twenty and was in the Silver Hand before Uther's death. How you want to square that with of Blood and Honor is up to you