#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 ;)

[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

[bbygirl-aemond]

reading fire and blood and i need you to know at some point during his reign aegon was commissioning the stonemasons to build like 50 foot statues of aemond and daeron. like it’s batshit but it’s love

westeros is a different world from ours, huge statues of political figures is literally unheard of there. and statues are expensive; they take time, and men, and money, all of which are precious commodities in the midst of a war. as i've now discussed here, aegon ordered for these statues to be the biggest ever crafted. well over 50 feet tall, more like four hundred.

and aegon is out here, alone, diverting resources away from a literal war, going against cultural standards, all because he wants to remember his brothers. all because he loves them, and doesn't know what to do with that love once they're gone.

this is an alexander the great with hephaestion level of mourning; an achilles with patroclus level of grief. their love is the stuff of mythology. do you understand now why i am so feral about them????

[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.

[hylianchampion17]

@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!

[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

[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.

[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.

[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.

[renaultmograine]

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

[sapphicwizards]

How I define terms used to refer to magic users

Mage: since magic in this setting is based around understanding how stuff works, a mage is defined as someone who is very knowledgeable. Wizards, witches, and clerics are considered mages because they can do magic and being capable of spellcasting is evidence of your own understanding of the world. Someone might also be considered a mage if they're a very skilled artisan. Like a blacksmith who makes incredible swords or a stonemason who manages to build houses that never fall down even centuries later. Songwriters are also considered mages because music is inherently a form of magic.

Wizard: someone with a wizarding degree. Mages attend schools where they learn about how the world works and collaborate to acquire more knowledge. They graduate and become wizards when they can demonstrate their own knowledge by casting spells. The focus is actually on knowledge for it's own sake rather than magic. Wizard school graduates receive a special set of robes, staff, and a hat to mark their wizardly status.

Witch: someone who practices witchcraft OR a derogatory term for a woman who can cast spells. Witchcraft is a spiritual practice grounded in service to the community. Witches' magical studies focus strongly on the body, mind, and spirit. They also advise farmers, deal with blight and disease, and take care of sick animals.

Sorcerer: usually derogatory term for a man who casts spells. It implies that he is not skilled enough to be a wizard and/or that he is powerful and dangerous. In some places where it's more acceptable to be a non-cleric non-wizard mage you might hear the term used positively - but usually if someone wants to be respectful they would use the term 'mage'. Doesn't refer to any specific magical practice.

Cleric: nowadays almost exclusively refers to the war clerics. Unlike wizards and witches who study a broad spectrum of magic, war clerics pretty much only know fire. They are indoctrinated as children and kept very isolated from anyone outside the church because their magic requires unwavering faith. It's also important to keep them isolated because it can sometimes only take a few words to render a war cleric permanently useless. It's a quirk of their magical practice that allows them to be trained more quickly.

[shepherds-of-haven]

Hi Lena! You are so awesome to do the questions for Oc game. I can't imagine writing all the reply on top of working in your game. 🥺🥺🥺❤️❤️❤️

If you still have some spare time, could you do question 16, 18, and 22 for Riel please?

16. What makes their stomach turn?

18. What embarrasses them?

22. How does jealousy manifest itself in them (they become possessive, they become aloof, etc)? 

Hi rynna, thank you so much as always for your kind words and support, I really appreciate it! 💖💖💖 And sure!

16. What makes their stomach turn?

Riel is a pretty big germaphobe, so lots of things he perceives as unhygienic give him a nauseated reaction! He does okay with things like mud and dirt (he was annoyed but functional during Chapter 8 when he had to traipse around in the woods in his good shoes and suit) and even to an extent doesn't bat much of an eye at blood, but other stuff, like sitting at the opera while someone furiously scratches their scalp in front of him and he sees dandruff flaking off, finding hair in his food, sitting next to a stranger who coughs or sneezes without covering their mouth (god help them if they happen to cough or sneeze on him) really makes his stomach churn. (I had a flight yesterday and was sitting across from a lady who kept filing her nails at the gate and then loudly blowing the nail-dust everywhere, and I kept thinking about how Riel would have apoplexy if he were there.)

This also goes for asymmetrical things (content warning for people who are also bothered by that kind of thing) like this:

"Stomach-turning" may sound like an exaggeration but he experiences a very real, visceral feeling in his gut when he encounters stuff like this: it's similar to what people with trypophobia might feel when looking at stuff with lots of little holes/pores? While he's learned to forge through it when it's just not possible to fix it, in the past he wasn't able to concentrate because of that feeling and would just fixate: he once quietly hired a stonemason to fix a public walkway overnight because the cobblestones were out of place!

On a more serious note, failure or being bested really makes his stomach turn. I think it makes him physically sick to lose, especially to an opponent in a serious situation (not like playing chess with someone, like an actual high-stakes scenario where he wasn't expecting to lose). The whole conflict with Thieves Guild and Merchants Guild where Chase kept successfully raiding his caravans and eluding the authorities kept him up for weeks! Aerin was convinced he was going to develop an ulcer...

18. What embarrasses them?

Surprisingly, not much, he doesn't care a lot about other people's opinions so he just does what he wants and rarely feels "embarrassed"; if he's taking other people's opinions into consideration, it's because it ultimately serves some ulterior motive for him, not because he's a people-pleaser by nature! If he does feel embarrassed, it's often a second-hand embarrassment by proxy, like if he brings you to a fancy party with a bunch of politicians he needs to impress and you start stuffing your face with canapés and belching; but I think that's a "lack of control over the situation" discomfort and embarrassment rather than "I care so much about these people's opinions and now I want to melt into the ground and die" if that makes any sense!

22. How does jealousy manifest itself in them (they become possessive, they become aloof, etc)? 

I think if we're talking about romantic jealousy, it depends on how the object of his affections is handling the situation! If it's like "my crush has genuine banter and rapport with a friend or romantic rival and I'm jealous of their dynamic/closeness," I think he goes right into denial that he's jealous and tries to act like he doesn't feel anything about it because that sort of emotion would be ridiculous!!! So he'd throw himself into his work with an unusual vehemence and be extra irate and snappy and foul-tempered. If he's, like, in an official relationship with his partner and someone is flirting heavily with them and they flirt back/entertain it more than Riel would think is appropriate, he would become very cold and tart towards them in his jealousy, like "okay cool I don't care" and would essentially give them the cold shoulder and act extremely aloof and chilly, almost like they're strangers to each other, he doesn't care that much. I think he does experience possessive feelings but doesn't show them outwardly by trying to "claim" or cling on to the object of his affections in that way; he'd find such behavior embarrassing for both parties, him and his lover!

[cattimeswithjellie]

Stream Recap, Rendog 07/09/24

Not too many recaps this week, it's a busy week! I was gone all weekend for my 20th anniversary (yes, I have been married longer than quite a few of you have been alive), and now I have family coming to visit, but here's this Ren stream I started before I left and just finished up. In this stream, Ren gathers material for his autosmelter!

00:00 Ren opens the stream in video-with-music mode, running the countdown clock and bopping around the server to do various pre-stream chores. The title for today’s stream is “Gathering Stuff For A New Project” and Chat is happy to speculate as they filter in.

5:40 Ren turns down the music and greets the chat, welcoming them to the Tuesday stream. It’s been a week since he streamed because the Skulk Crane sucked the life out of him while he was building with it. He vastly underestimated the amount of copper required to make 500 copper trapdoors! He starts the day by checking to see if the shop actually made any money. He would be surprised. There have been no sales. Ren remembers that this is actually the worst permit in the world to have because nobody in the entire world (except Cubfan) ever does anything with skulk! It looks cool on its own but does not go nicely with any other block in the game. The skulk enthusiasts in Chat are hurt by this slander. Ren wishes he’d gotten at least one sale. Gem is doing a magic theme, maybe she will buy some in the future. Terrible sales aside, he’s very happy with the build, which is really very pretty and impressive.

9:50 Ren checks the diorite shop (no sales) and beacons (some sales) and thanks subs and donos. Today’s plan is a new project! He showed Chat a preview last week, but he’s going to build an autosmelting facility! His current facility is terrible and he has to smelt _so much_, so it’s time for a newer, bigger, better smelter. He warns Chat that among other things, the new build needs over 900 quartz blocks, so he’s got his work cut out for him.

13:40 A chatter has been subscribed for 11 months. Ren loves the number 11, it’s his favorite sub month number and also his birthday! He reminds Chat that his birthday is 10/11 and he will be seven years old. That is so old! Chat is impressed. ((It is not clear whether this is just a random bit or whether Ren is counting his age in dog years, which would make him 49 on his upcoming birthday.)) Chat encourages Ren to go to Impulse’s quartz shop and save himself a lot of grinding. Ren says that being an adult is 70% boring and 30% awesome, with the 70% subsidizing the 30.

16:00 Ren begins laying out his workspace. He has done the whole thing in creative already and sent it off to get a schematic made. He hopes to be able to show it off soon! Ren remembers he wants to give Cherrifire and Foxxology the Artist Badge, but he doesn’t know how to do it. Chat helps him out. He does it successfully, he and Chat are very proud. He gives one to Sanistratus as well, then realizes he has no VIPs. How has he been streaming so long with no VIPs? He is the worst streamer ever. He tries to make his Hermit friends VIPs, but none of them are watching right now and can’t be targeted. He tells Chat to remind him, then begins collecting quartz in his Gigaplex villager complex.

21:30 Ren is not sure if he wants to show Chat the finished creative mode version of the autosmelter before it’s really built. He sort of wants to in order to get Chat’s help with naming the building. He thanks more subs and donos and talks with a chatter about their new PC. He greets his mods and welcomes in the new chatters still filtering in. He wants to get as much as possible from the villagers, but he also has a ton of quartz tucked around in random chests that he hasn’t sorted well. Ren spent all his diamonds on copper for the Skulk shop, so he does not really have much to buy Quartz with. He needs 15 stacks of quartz, but he has 16 stonemasons to meet the need.

27:30 Quartz collection is going surprisingly well for the moment, and Ren realizes he may need more to do in this stream. He thinks about completing the tunnel to his farmer trading hall, a project he partially completed and then ran out of juice on. A chatter points out that Ren should be selling conduits, Ren remembers he’s supposed to be selling conduits but wonders if anyone will buy. Chat points out that Impulse wanted a conduit last week but had to make one because no one was selling.

29:30 Ren finishes his quartz collecting and waffles about showing off the autosmelter. Chat wants to see it and Ren lets himself be persuaded. He opens his creative world and quickly faces the sky to preserve the surprise, then turns on shaders for maximum effect. He slowly and theatrically pans downward onto… nothing, because he is facing in the wrong direction. He quickly looks back up and spins around, then pans down onto the beauty and majesty of the new autosmelter. Chat stops laughing long enough to admire the new autosmelter. Ren explains that he didn’t want to just make a big square smelter, his design has an interesting shape and lots of moving parts that make it look cool and satisfying. It’s not a huge smelter, 32 furnaces, and needs to be manually loaded for that Gigacorp feel. He shows chat how the autosmelter works, then notices something is not working in the model smelter and fixes it. The most interesting part of the system is that the furnaces feed into a system of droppers that spit the items out and down through an observation window before being collected into chests.

37:40 Ren smelts a bunch of cobblestone to show Chat how the autosmelter will work. Chat very much likes the way the items rain down and fall into the collection hoppers. He does some troubleshooting on locked hoppers and takes suggestions for names from Chat. “Hyper Ore Thermonator” is a strong contender.

42:50 Ren heads back to the server to hunt for the next ingredient, four stacks of light blue concrete. Ren has three stacks already. He greets other Hermits online (Grian, Zedaph, Skizz) and goes shopping for concrete at False’s shop. In chat, Zedaph remarks that Xisuma’s cam account is hot. Skizz agrees that it is likely the best looking one. Ren explores the shop while thanking subs and donos, he finds that there is no light blue concrete available. He buys white powder and decides to dye it. Chat hears background noise on the stream, Ren says his neighbor is mowing the lawn. He dyes the powder and goes to make the concrete in a pond, then takes a break to fly back to his storage room and fetch a cauldron just to point out how much better it would be if throwing concrete powder in a cauldron would make concrete.

48:00 Chat suggests Giga-HEAT as a potential name, the Hyper-Efficient Alloy Thermonator. Ren likes it very much Ren decides it will be the GigaHEAT-1 or maybe the GigaHEAT Facility. He decides that to keep the lore orderly, he should review all his existing names and see if there’s a way to keep some kind of pattern going. He has the GigaCorp Hangar Bay, the GigaCorp Terra-M1, then the GigaPlex, then the GigaTruck. The naming conventions are a mess! He considers the GigaCorp H.E.A.T Station. (Hyper-Efficient Alloy Thermination) Chat likes the Thermonation Station.

52:00 Ren returns to the storage area and decides that corporate rebranding over time is the cause of the naming differences between builds. He collects white concrete and looks around for the wood to make acacia trapdoors. He doesn’t know why False complains about his storage system, he only had to look in two buildings to find his trapdoors! He gets trapdoors and sandstone slabs, then powered rails. He needs more gold and heads for the gold farm, where there is one single block of gold available. Nothing is spawning in the farm at all. Ren is confused until he remembers that Xisuma is online. When Xisuma is online, nothing works! He flies up to the AFK platform anyway, whereupon piglins begin to spawn. Ren apologizes for his aspersions on Xisuma’s good name. He takes the opportunity for a short ad and bio break.

1:00:20 Ren returns from his break and checks in on the amount of gold that has accumulated. He got 11 blocks of gold in 3 minutes, not bad at all! He doesn’t need tons of gold, so that should do. Ren heads home and thanks subs and donos. He talks with Chat about who does and does not get served ads during ad breaks. Advertising on Twitch is not actually very lucrative. YouTube either, really. He finishes the powered rails and goes onto quartz slab. He might charge at the door for use of the autosmelter, but give free use passes to a few select Hermits. He moves on to quartz stairs, then briefly quails at the 107 hoppers. He convinces himself that it’s not really thaaaat many hoppers, compared to what other people do. He can always lagbust it later.

1:07:40 Off to the Gigaplex for black terracotta. A chatter tells Ren to give himself a compliment. Ren stutters for a moment, then says he’s a pretty good cook. Chat offers many other ideas for compliments. They know many good things about Ren! Chat also wants to talk about baked watermelon again, but Ren hates that. Baked watermelon disturbs him in his soul. Grape soup, too. Smooth quartz is next, but that’s the acutal reason he wants an autosmelter in the first place! He hates smelting quartz. A chatter drops subs, Ren thanks subs and donos. He welcomes the new Gigacorp employees, telling them of the many benefits of working for Gigacorp with only the small caveat of being plugged into a Giga-building for the rest of one’s life. The description of how this happens is nothing Chat wants to hear. Chat does want Gigacorp merch though, so Ren takes Chat down a Google rabbit hole of possible merch designs.

1:18:00 A chatter makes a big donation with a Do-Not-Read message, which accidentally triggers the text-to-speech. Ren dives in and catches it before it gets to far and warns chat that Rosie does not understand DNR and will read any dono above ten pounds. He talks with Chat about trainers and retro shirts in Gigacorp colors. Chat is into it. Ren is Googling without a net, Safe Search turned off, but so far so good. He really likes the 80s style knit polo shirt. Chat thinks it looks like a dad shirt. Ren says of course it does, dads are from the 80s these days. Ren doesn’t have the selling power to do a whole line of merch, but he’s pretty sure he can do one or two things successfully. Chat agrees with merch, but think Dads may also be from the 90s these days.

1:26:00 More materials gathering! Ren has most of the next few things he needs, though he has to smelt even more quartz. He does more farmer trades and buys more quartz. Chat is coming up with more merch ideas for Ren. Ren thinks about a Gigacorp tin lunchbox. Chat is into it. Ren thinks about a Gigacorp calculator. Chat doesn’t think calculators are still a thing. Ren thinks about a Gigacorp Casio Watch. It would be difficult, but would be a cool piece of merch. Economies of scale might not be in his favor. A chatter sends a dono with a gently sarcastic message about how often Ren talks about merch without making merch. Ren admits that is true, but he can’t afford to take a loss on merch. He has to be really careful.

1:36:00 Ren smelts his stairs and thanks subs and donos. Speaking of merch, he has a new exclusive preview for something coming soonish! He can’t show too much and he can’t talk about it, but he can show a little, little bit. He shows Chat an image of what appears to be the top 25% of a plush Rendog, which is mostly a Ministry hat with diamond band, some curly hair, and the top of pointed ears. He tells Chat he will not be answering questions, this is all they get. He is nearly done with gathering supplies, good progress is being made! Ren is better about this than he used to be, getting stuff together first makes it so much easier to build than finding something every time you need it. He is down to items he only needs one stack of, so the gathering is going quite fast now.

1:46:00 Ren reorganizes the shulkers and then goes for the last bit of stuff, including the 32 actual furnaces the autosmelter requires. He realizes he may not have enough redstone, and does a time check with the chat. Some chatters are just waking up (10am Pacific) while some chatters are up very late. He realizes he doesn’t have enough lightning rods, but he cannot possibly give even more money for copper to Xisuma! Xisuma already has all his diamonds! Pearl shows up in Chat and Ren tells her to stay put so he can VIP her. He does so successfully and is satisfied, but does not know if VIP actually does anything. Chat explains that it makes Pearl a Very Important Person. (One clever chatter suggests Pearl is a Vertically Inverted Person) and that it’s basically just a free sub but it also allows her to talk in emote-only chat like mods do. Ren thinks that’s an abuse of power waiting to happen and laughs about it. If Chat bothers him he can make them emote only and only Hermits and mods can talk, perfect! He also thinks about who else he needs to make VIPs, and whether some of the OG chatters should be VIPs. That will be for a future stream.

1:55:00 Back to the item collecting! Except Ren wants to show Pearl the crane he spent all his copper on, and Iskall shows up in chat and needs VIPped! Pearl somehow runs afoul of the automod in Chat and gets timed out, then logs onto the server to tell Ren about it. Ren admits that his Twitchbot is very grumpy and decides to just mod Pearl so she’s immune to the bot. He VIPs Iskall, Jono and Cub. Iskall lets him get some copper from his chests. Ren realizes that nobody can be a VIP and a mod, and that Mod Pearl is no longer VIP Pearl. He does not like this. Chat points out that Mods are Very Important by default. Ren decides to keep Pearl a mod so the automod has no power over her. He realizes he also needs to remod Iskall and Jono. Now it all makes sense! He knows why he has no VIPs, because he makes all these people mods instead!

2:04:00 Back again to item collecting! Ren is deeply, deeply pained at the idea of using waxed copper trap doors for anything. He goes back to the creative world in the hopes that maybe there aren’t actually copper trapdoors in the design, but it turns out they are there and they look cool, so Ren cannot bring himself to exclude them. He shows new arrivals the autosmelter, which is broken again, and fixes it. The torches he placed earlier to unlock the hoppers has broken the loader. He hastily backs out of the creative world and decides he will fix that later. He gathers more items while still complaining about the lack of sense in the mod/VIP dichotomy on Twitch.

2:11:00 Ren needs a bunch of redstone blocks that he definitely doesn’t have. He thanks subs and donos and reminds Chat that he has no diamonds to purchase redstone and redstone components. He collects up all the rest of the things he needs, which are generally in his chests. He notices chat talking about court cases and demands to know if he is being taken to court for anything. He should not be taken to court, he insists, because he always follows all of the rules of the server. In fact, he used to be the king of the server! They can’t take him to court! Chat is not sure, but they are somewhat concerned that Doc might be trying to divorce Ren. Ren thoughtfully considers the possibility of divorcing Doc and suing for half his diamonds. The trial was extremely stressful, after all, and Ren has not been the same person since. The press was also extremely critical of his lawyer’s performance! Chat hates the idea of this divorce and thinks Ren should sue Skizz for emotional distress instead.

2:16:00 Ren gets so caught up in court talk that he breaks one of his soul campfires. He replaces it and threatens to sue Chat for their intimations that his lawyer was wooden. He needs hay bales and goes to sneak some from Beef’s fields. Chat points out that Doc doesn’t have as many diamonds this season because he’s only taking payment in sand. Ren doesn’t really want sand. But Ren’s farms are going great, producing so many pumpkins and melons! Ren does replant the wheat fields, claiming this is one of the great unwritten rules, along with not farting in the bank. Chat may have been breaking that latter rule. Ren is appalled to hear that some chatters also break wind in the cinema. Chat is fascinated to hear that Ren goes into the bathroom to fart. Ren doesn’t want to talk about it and changes the subject to the weather. It’s windy.

2:24:00 Ren grows some acacia trees to get the fence gates he needs, still castigating Chat for their farting habits. Ren has some surprisingly complicated rituals for farting in public. Chat is pleased to be appalling. Ren tries to make a detector rail by memory and gets almost there. He has everything except the redstone blocks that he needs for the GigaH.E.A.T Station. He’s going to build it on top of the chicken coop, which is no longer needed.

2:30:00 Ren drops into the Giga-Truck, has a seat in the driver’s chair and goes to F5 mode to address the Chat. He thanks subs and donos one more time and says it’s time to call it a day. He wants to get an episode out very soon, but the smelter build may take longer than he thought. He thanks Chat, raids into SoupForEloise and ends his stream.

[penny-anna]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love 💗

oof only 5 okay!!

i was gonna do 1 per fandom but then i realised that came to 6 so screw it u get 6:

The Engraving (BBC Merlin)

Arthur had somehow got into a situation wherein he had to bugger the man who was – let’s face it – the closest thing he had to a best friend, and unless luck was very much on his side things were going to be awkward forever. Camelot has been stricken by a terrible drought! Fortunately, Merlin has found a magical ritual that can bring back the rain. Unfortunately, it requires group sex - and Merlin is a virgin.

this was one of the last merlin fics i wrote n its a very stupid and silly and fluffy gangbang. really enjoyed writing the 'everyone lives happily ever after' AU on this one. very fun :)

Golden (Doctor Who)

Good gracious, it had been so long since he’d been seduced. He’d forgotten what a delectable experience it was. After an exhausting run-in with the local monsters, the Doctor takes Jamie to a hot spring to relax.

THIS IS ANOTHER SMUT. SORRY. very honest answer here. this is my dw piece i go back to most often. love the atmosphere of it.

And I'll shiver like I used to (LOTR)

He could taste it on his tongue, the salty tang of the sea, fresher and somehow saltier than the sea he knew. He could feel the sand, soft and light underfoot, warm from the sun. 'Sam,' the voice had said, saying his name so tenderly, so carefully, as if it were something precious, something to be treasured. 'Oh, Sam. I’ll wait for you.' Samwise Mason is a junior member of the Stonemason's Guild of Haven City; he works hard, but doesn't stand out. He dreams, again and again, of a beach with white sand and a kiss goodbye. Samwise Mason is making a statue.

tough call here but im still so pleased with this one i worked so so hard and i think it's the most romantic thing i've ever written

Constellations (The Witcher)

"I know how soulmarks work. If a person has two names writ upon them by destiny, then one is to guide them to their true love and the other to their worst enemy. Everyone knows that." / "That’s an old wives’ tale." When Jaskier was fourteen, two names appeared on his skin: 'Geralt' and 'Yennefer'.

VERY tough call here as i wrote a lot of witcher fics i still love but hand on heart this is the one i most enjoyed writing. blasted it out in like a week iirc. great stuff.

the world won't wait till you're older (DCU/Shazam)

Shazam didn’t understand how taxes worked. He always seemed kind of lost when they talked politics. Wally often had the sense that he was nodding along with things he didn’t really understand. He knew what vaping was. Inexplicably he knew what TikTok was. Weird guy. The Justice League try to adjust to their newest member. They know he's hiding something from them, but in their line of work everyone has secrets. Shazam's no different. Is he? Or, the Justice League accidentally inducts a child and then deals with the fall-out.

obvious choice haha!! my most popular DCU fic!! its a banger i hope to match it one day

time to time (Back to the Future)

“Will you shut your damn mouth and listen to me?” his other self hisses. He gulps in a breath, and breathes out; then, resolved, he does his best to shake his head. “No,” he says. “Whatever you have to say, I won’t hear it – having any knowledge of my relative future could –” His other self claps a hand, hard, over his mouth. His palm is damp. Clammy. Emmett makes a protesting sound against it but before he can wriggle free, the other him speaks. “Marty dies.” A cloud passes over the sun. The Brown family are on vacation, taking a break from the stresses of 1986. It's a beautiful summer day. What could possibly go wrong?

hnghh got a lot of bttf fics i love but this one remains the stand out for me. obsessed honestly.

thank u!! i'm not going to send asks bcos im lazy but for once i will tag some people uhh ok @uighean @limerental @bg-sparrow @megamindsupremacy @wromwood

[ryttu3k]

Last time, we were in the depths of the Underdark, having just cleared the Arcane Tower. First, here are a couple of autistic wizards stimming with somatic components.

Onwards to Grymforge, then the last of the Risen Road!

Yeah that potion was nasty. Interesting note with the black veins around the eyes, similar to the Astral Tadpole effect!

Omeluum has unlocked: a headache. Pensive emoji. It's okay, friend, it was worth a try.

There wasn't an option to say, "No, it's alright, you need to keep your protection and we'll work out another way", but tbh this is still a pretty... Gale option anyway.

This was neat, hadn't passed this check before! Faerzress is what sussur trees naturally feed on! I figure Gale would be familiar with it, at least in theory.

Peace-Bringer for dealing with the duergar, Kin Spirit for dealing with Glut!

Into the darkness! I hc that Gale is at least passingly familiar with boats, he does live in the coastal part of Waterdeep.

I hope Stonemason Kith gets out. Dude just wants to study. And he gave us infernal iron!

I have a screencap limit so I won't post the caps, but I like this exchange between Karlach and Gale, immediately following: "Never was much for history class, but this place has me captivated." "It would have been quite something in its heyday. But even now, it has much to teach us." I just dig the idea of Gale helping encourage Karlach's nascent fascination for history! Maybe that's how he gets the idea to teach?

I hope the rothes get out safely too. Good moos. Helped out the two being abused, as well, and helped free Skickpit by poisoning the two slavers. Said a brief word for the murdered gnomes (it's okay, we left Astarion at camp), then went to deal with Nere.

Was this line in character? Perhaps not. Was it fun? Absolutely :D

Not my best battle XD;;

Interestingly, talking to Barcus switched to Shadowheart. Good thing, too, because she had the Baldurian tag and could get some extra info that Gale wouldn't have!

Poor Lae'zel looks pretty beaten up! Still, no glitching this time, we got Barcus at camp :)

Moon lantern: broken. Nere's head: in inventory, so no awkward hacking off XD Gale recognises the masks, too, with a successful Arcana check: "Interesting mask. I quite like the design. It belonged to a merregon. Infernal soldiers."

I hc he eventually gets with Zanner Toobin, who helps him get over his lingering feelings for Wulbren by being a partner who genuinely cares about him instead of being dismissive and entitled like Wulbren.

Anyway.

THE GIRLS ARE FIGHTIIIIING.

Astarion is just like, "Sunbeam :) Tressym :) ...Gnome :|"

Gale's comment on the Dark Justiciar crossbow: "This crossbow was exquisitely designed. No duergar crafted this... its dark grace is most definitely Sharran in origin." And his comments on the dining hall: "An eerily chilling scene, this. I suspect many were present at this blighted Nightfall feast." He has some interesting thoughts on Sharran stuff!

Pop back to Ebonlake to deliver Nere's head, get dubbed Life-Chanter as well as Peace-Bringer and Kin Spirit, and get a mushroom rave!

Back to Grymforge to give it a proper explore!

Shadowheart and Astarion should commiserate some time.

Some fun comments!

Astarion on one of the moving bridges: "Lovely. Held together by rust and hope."

Gale after fighting the merregons: "It's mask after mask in here. Merely merregons, however. Their commander might still be at large."

Gale at the lake with the elemental: "This lava lake boils like a good stew. Lovely."

Gale after activating the forge: "And so we descend into... more madness presumably."

Astarion, not having a good day: "Oh, there are mephits now too? Wonderful! Why not?"

Gale, particularly relieved after beating Grym: "It's done... It's dead... Good gods, never again!"

Back to camp, and helped the baby <3 Same, Karlach, same.

Shadowheart shares a memory, Gale shares an observation.

Back to the village to make Astarion a shiny new knife, then headed north! For some reason, the gnolls aggroed as soon as we got close, so couldn't do the persuasion thing for some extra Astarion approval, alas. Either way, we saved Rugan and got invited over to his place. Over to Waukeen's Rest!

Gale was still upstairs after rescuing the other dude, so the part of the PC will be played by Astarion here. Who got some extra stuff from being Baldurian, too!

Always thought this exchange was interesting. I wonder what, exactly, Ulder told her? As far as he believes, he disowned Wyll because Wyll had pacted with a devil (which... is true, he just doesn't know why, thanks to Mizora). What did he tell Florrick, then, for her both to be sympathetic towards Wyll and to understand that he'd be angry at Ulder? If Ulder had just explained it to her as, "I forced Wyll out because he was getting into infernal worship" or something, I can't actually see her being sympathetic towards Wyll when they do meet, seven years later, with Wyll visibly now a devil.

I don't know. Maybe she did her own research? Connected 'the Blade of Frontiers' with 'Wyll Ravengard' and realised that everything he had been doing was heroic, even if he was doing it with infernal warlock powers?

I adore her.

Met with the Zhentarim. Got our reward for saving Rugan. Went shopping. Killed everyone. Let Oskar go free. Looted everything not nailed down :D

A sweet comment from Astarion, clicking one of the spheres: "Not just a world to explore, but an entire cosmos..." There's almost this awe in his voice that I love. I think he genuinely would enjoy being an explorer - he's over two hundred years old, but all of that time has been in Baldur's Gate in absolute misery. There's so much still to see out there!

Baby <3

Finally dealt with the adamantine chest Karlach swiped. Animation on the amulet was a bit borked, but hey! Gigglestarion.

And finally, best achievement unlocked <3