#the love of all my weird stupid components who loved and healed

[kkoct-ik]

why am i so many people

[mysticstarlightduck]

Magic System, But Badly Tag! (1)

Thank you so much for the tag @cowboybrunch (here)!

Rules: Explain the magic system of your current WIP as poorly as possible. Bonus points if you use bullet points.

Let's talk about the magic system of Song of Thorns (:

Elemental

ATLA vibes but medieval

someone really should keep an eye on the Initiates - these angsty teenagers with a god complex should not be left unattended

Powers range from "Look, I can light a candle with the tip of my finger, isn't it neat?" to "I CAN CONTROL THE STORMS, FEAR ME" and it is complicated

Lesson No. 1 - Don't trust the nice instructors on the weird-looking trial maze or you will die = STREET SMARTS

who cares about reading all those ancient tomes, let's improvise in the middle of an untamed wilderness or ocean brimming with wild magic, now that's a good idea

Animus Codex

soul magic with a celestial's blessing

can weave fates, lives, and entire existences with a series of secret runes on a specific set of cards/tablets

a select group of people know what tf is going on with this magic but everyone is too afraid to really ask

rune casting requires ancient magic components that definitely are anything but safe

either the celestials loved this civilization way too much or hated it with a passion

Sanguinex Arts (human only)

Lazy human royals really wanted to be vampires but didn't want to transform themselves and made it everyone's problem

"Can I copy your homework?" "No, absolutely not -!" "Too late already did it."

A cheap knockoff of something beyond mortal comprehension created by an insane set of human sorcerers who could not give less of a fuck

"I think I understand how they do it" - they did not, in fact understand how it was done

Feast your eyes on the eldritch abominations and trauma inducing shite created by human stupidity at its finest

A distortion of all that is moral and decent, used by the royals to expand their lifespans and oppress those who do not have access to their power

A generally bad time

Traditional Hemomancy (Vampyr/Fey only)

an ancient Vampyr tradition, tied to their very existence (and which was cheaply copied by humans to create the Sanguinex)

"General rule of thumb - do not piss off a vampire who has something or someone to protect, unless you fancy seeing how your insides look on the outsides"

Create & Destroy, Life & Death - this magic can heal or kill and is connected to the balance of nature

Blood Magic mixed with Matter Manipulation

"Roses are red, violets are blue, if the moon turns crimson you'll die soon" - a lesson some characters in this book should've learned before venturing further into this land

generally chill and laid back sorcerers who really don't want to have to use their powers to hurt people and just wanna have a good time

Alchemical Sorcery

Fucked Around and Found Out, Special Edition.

Potions slowly change you to be able to cast magic but it's fine because you know what you're doing. Hopefully.

Chemical components and suspicious magical ingredients create unforeseen creations = chemistry magic

You are cursed with the knowledge you wish you never had

Need to go to an elite academia to get a certificate permission in case you blow stuff up with your alchemy

Let's shape the very matter of existence after chemistry class 101

Melodis Mortem (forbidden)

"The Song of the Dead" - just a fancy name for a bunch of academia dropouts practicing off-the-book necromancy in a cult.

Let's raise your great-grandpa from beyond the grave because what could possibly go wrong- and he is now a murderous ghoul. Yeah, my bad. We'll do better next time.

Necromancer bards

All these books, guidelines and bloodied ritual circles might just be a way of hiding the fact they don't know what tf they're doing and are relying on lucky improv most of the time.

🎶Spooky scary skeletons send shivers down your spine🎶

"Well, well, well if it isn't the Consequences of my actions."

Mechana Ignis (elven only, secret)

combustion magic

steampunk/solarpunk elf society

gunpowder/"Sunpowder" go brr

"Nah, we ain't sharing this with you lunatics, bruv. This is our magic that goes boom and pew-pew on command. Not yours, nuh-uh, you're too fucking crazy to use it responsibly."

elves bored with eternity decide to do cool science stuff to pass the time and the world isn't ready for it

Tagging: @sleepy-night-child, @kaylinalexanderbooks, @smol-feralgremlin, @oh-no-another-idea, @littleladymab, @little-peril-stories

@the-ellia-west, @winterandwords, @cowboybrunch, @eccaiia, @sarahlizziewrites, @illarian-rambling

@leave-her-a-tome, @writernopal, @anyablackwood, @unstablewifiaccess, @forthesanityofstorytellers

@i-can-even-burn-salad, @cakeinthevoid

@lassiesandiego, @thepeculiarbird, @clairelsonao3, @memento-morri-writes, @starlit-hopes-and-dreams and OPEN TAG

[dammitadolfnomorecake]

Once Bitten, Twice Stupid prt.16

Keith was sitting on the front steps when Lance pulled into his driveway. Their meeting for a moment, before Pidge was leaning past him

“Get in, loser! We’re going out!”

Rubbing his ear, Lance didn’t appreciate Pidge’s loud voice abusing his eardrum

“I’m fine right here!”

“Don’t be like that. We’re going ghost hunting, get in the back!”

“Lance was going to drop me in town...”

“Why? Everything’s shut now apart from the bars. Stop being antisocial and come look for ghosts with us!”

That was how Keith ended up in the boot of Lance’s bronco. Lance could feel the tension from the driver’s seat, Pidge having climbed over into the back so she and Hunk could talk with Keith, who’d barely gotten two words in thanks to the pair of them trying their best to make him feel involved. Lance had seen it on Keith’s face when he’d pulled up. Keith looking up at him like he’d kicked him to the curb without good reason. If he stopped to think about it, Keith would fill that hole in the group that his eventual leaving with bring. Plus, Keith would be there to help Matt reconnect with his family whenever that eventually happened... A whole lot of roads seemed to be leading back to Keith, and Lance couldn’t put up stop signs fast enough.

Swinging by Pidge’s so she could collect her beloved camera, Lance stared up at the visitors centre before them. He’d had enough trouble last time they were here, and though there wouldn’t be any drunks this time, he was sure his friends would find a way to make trouble all over again

“‘Sup, Losers?! This is the Garrison Trio, coming at ya with a new video. Today we’re talking another look at arguably Garrison’s most haunted address! Yep, that’s right, your favourite visitors centre, and mine, it’s the old Garrison Hospital!”

Stuck in a silent “staring but not staring” battle with Keith watching Lance out the corner of his eye, he’d missed Pidge passing her camera off to Hunk so she could film her introduction

“Tonight we have our usual favourites, Me, Hunk, and Lance, but we also have a guest tagging along to see the work we do! Pan to Keith”

Hunk moved the camera, Keith not even noticing he’d been recorded. Lance had the feeling Keith wasn’t supposed to be being recorded. Anyone who saw his face online wouldn’t be able to forget him

“Yep! Our little trio has become a foursome! The awesome foursome. Now, if you click the link below this video you’ll be able to read up on the chilling history and the role the hospital played during world war three! Let’s just say, a lot of people died in a lot of not so lovely ways. Let’s head in!”

As Pidge took the camera from Hunk, Lance took her by the arm

“You can’t film Keith”

“What?”

“You can’t film him. It’s something to do with Shiro’s work. He works on things for the government, for like big bad multimillion dollar corporations that are up to dodgy things. I totally blanked on it, but Shiro will get in trouble”

Pidge raised an eyebrow

“I didn’t know you and Shiro were that tight”

“I was taking selfies and he caught me”

The lies hurt, but Keith’s face getting out their in there videos could bring trouble on all of them, not just Keith... Any vampires with a grudge would see their faces with his and they already knew where to come...

“Oh shit...”

Lance nodded, hoping his facial features portrayed the right emotions. Hunk was the one stole the role of genius from under Pidge’s nose

“I think you’ve got a dusk mask in the glove box from that colour run we didn’t end up doing... he could wear that?”

“Perfect. You two go ahead and I’ll get it. Don’t bring it up though, he’s super socially stunted”

Pidge fluttered her eyelashes

“Is someone getting protective of their “not boyfriend, boyfriend?””

“No, but you’ll have to get protective of that camera if you don’t stop bringing that up”

Pidge’s look turned to betrayal, then acceptance

“Fiiiiine. Do what you have to do. Hunk and I will go ahead. Come on, Hunk”

Rifling through his glovebox, Lance found the branded face mask. The colour run had two components to it, first you did a 5km walk/run, then in some weird kind of sales seasonal thing, there was a kind of sideshow at the end with live music, games, and seeing it was around Halloween, a corn maze and a haunted house. They’d paid, skipped the run, covertly let themselves into the corn maze, beaten that, then hit up the haunted house. Pidge deciding they all needed souvenirs, the mask being one of them... not that it was overly spooky. It was a simple black face mask with splatters of neon paint across the front, a few “teeth” on the right side and the fun run logo underneath. It was actually kind of “Keith”. Not that he was going there.

Keith had hung back as Pidge and Hunk unlocked the visitor centre and dealt with security. Forced to do the talking thing, Lance held the mask out to Keith who eyed it

“What’s that?”

“Pidge films these things”

“And?”

“And she puts them online. I didn’t think you’d want your face out there. If anyone saw the videos then you’d have your cover blown in further missions, making it harder for you to help the people who need help. I told Pidge that Shiro did covert work for the government so you needed to keep a low profile. I’m not sure she got it, but with Matt and Shiro being tight I think she was willing to let it slide. It hasn’t been worn, and it should cover most of your face. You can use my jacket too if you want, just keep the hood up”

Keith took the mask, staring down at as he tilted his neck. Lance automatically finding his eyes trying to find where he’d bitten the man. He’d never bitten anyone before so he didn’t know the trick of healing a bite to nothing. His own marks from turning were still there for the most part. Keith’s neck was smooth, Lance unable to see any blemishes. God! What was he doing...?! Nope... Fucking Keith

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because you got dragged along by my friends deciding they’re also your friends”

“I thought you said I was a useless hunter”

“No. I said you had anger issues, like right now you’re getting angry at me. Do you want my jacket or not?”

“No. This’ll be fine. She really believes, doesn’t she?”

“Yeah. That’s probably why Matt has kept his distance. She wants to be part of this world, and I’m not about to let that happen”

“So you sabotage her?”

“No. Most of what humans collect isn’t real or it’s reflections. I come along not only to show I support her and Hunk, but so nothing happens to either of them. There’s death in that place and I don’t want something bad to happen. I also don’t plan on telling her about Matt, you, or Shiro. It’s not fun lying, but it does keep them safe. If she ever finds out the truth, I know she’s going to be angry, and I’m prepared for that. You better come along, both my friends seem pretty keen on you, meaning if you hurt them, I will hunt you down myself”

“I’m not going to harm a human”

“Good. Keep it that way”

Pidge was already explaining various exhibits in the visitor centre when Lance and Keith slipped through the front door. A shudder rolled up Lance’s spine, earning him a jab in the side from Keith. What was Keith getting annoyed about? People shuddered all the time for no good reason

“What?”

“You shuddered”

“It happens”

“Don’t fob me off like that. There’s something here, isn’t there? Where is it?”

“Oh great, so vampires and werewolves aren’t enough for you now? You want to hunt ghosts to?”

What was Keith going to do? Stab it? The mental image of Keith stabbing a ghost was too funny, a snort of laughter escaping

“Look... if there’s something...”

“Relax. Yeah, there’s death here but I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to acknowledge it’s presence”

“But you can see it?”

Lance shook his head. That’s what he had his trust glasses for

“Nope”

“You’re lying to me”

“I’m not lying. And keep your voice down, do you really want Pidge and Hunk to know about us?

Keith shot him an unimpressed look. Lance could have worded that better

“This isn’t over”

It could be, if Keith dropped the subject and kicked away like a bottle cap under the fridge that you couldn’t be bothered picking up, so it laid there undiscovered for another 6 months, when it and another dozen finally popped up to remind you how lazy you were about cleaning

“Oh, goody”

“Lance, come over here, you’re better at this side of things”

Lance rolled his eyes at Pidge. She was doing a bang up job making the visitors centre sound like the must visit spot as it was. Walking over to her, he eyed the shackles in the display case with disgust. He couldn’t really justify the shackling of mine broken soldiers, though some had to be chained down to prevent them from taking their own lives. He’d gone through a stage like that, not that anyone other than Coran knew. He’d had a mental breakdown with the stress of final exams the first time around. He knew too many answers and didn’t want to score a perfect score, that would have made him stand out too much. He aimed for above average on all his tests and exams, but sometimes he slipped up and got too perfect a score that drew everyone’s attention to him when all he wanted to do was blend in. He’d been beaten by a bunch of jealous classmates for his trouble, then broken down, taking himself to Coran who helped piece him back together again. Yeah, Coran would always be his go to guy

“Shackles...”

Letting the narrative of fear roll of his tongue, he talked about the deteriorated mental condition of the soldiers and how things worked when it came to getting them help and the legal issues faced by their families. Lance was kind of sure no one wanted to sit through this, because he was pretty sure he was the only one who nerded out over the law these days. Keith had moved to stand behind Hunk, who was filming, his arms were crossed, feet shoulder width apart, with an amused look on his face that Lance felt like punching.

“And thank you for that Lance, somehow you made all the legal stuff seem that much more boring than last time. Alrighty then, why don’t we go see if we can find us a ghost?”

Hunk was already skittering, letting out a squeak as Pidge motioned for him to follow her, leaving Lance to fall into step beside Keith. Great. He couldn’t just leave Keith in town once everything was over. Not with Hunk and Pidge on a mission to make the man their friend

“Are you usually like that?”

Lance had no idea what Keith meant. Sure, he might get a little technical, but it wouldn’t be the first time, nor the last

“Like what?”

“All technical? Doesn’t it turn viewers away? I mean, I don’t think they needed to know about the bylaws of Garrison”

“Oh, shut up. We don’t get many views as it is”

“You’ll get even less if you spend the whole time ranting”

“I wasn’t ranting, I was explaining. A soldiers mentality doesn’t end on the battlefield. Most of them never wanted to die. Most of them never wanted to wrapped up in war to begin with. They fought for us and for what they believed in, and as a whole, we failed them. If we don’t educated people on the past then there’s not much hope for the future”

“You, like, really believe in this, don’t you?”

“I believe in the belief people hold. If that’s what you mean?”

“I mean this legal thing... isn’t there anything else you’d rather be doing?”

“Like ripping families apart so I can feast on their children?”

Keith groaned at him, Lance internally smirking. Yeah, he remembered and wasn’t going to forget any time soon

“In my defence, your lot are mostly scum”

“And what about me? You listened in this morning”

“I... don’t want to talk about that”

“Why? Does it make me all that much harder to kill knowing I actually care about my clients?”

“As you rob them in fees”

Keith’s comment rubbed him the wrong way, Lance spitting in an angry whisper

“Yep. I’m so horrible that I charged a family a whole $50 for hours of my time. You on the other hand, if I charged at douche prices, would be paying me something like $10,000 for taking up so much of my damn time. I know I’m a monster, you can lay off with the damn mocking”

Starting to jog to catch up with Hunk and Pidge, Lance wanted to go home to bed. His arm was aching, as was his ankle. He hadn’t had the chance to drink since jumping out the window and his lack of routine was really getting to him. Catching up to him again, Keith decided he still wanted to talk

“Why law?”

“Why law, what?”

“You could have been anything”

“I could have, but I don’t think you’d understand”

“Try me”

“Well, I don’t want kids out there to suffer. I don’t want to see them caught up in fights that should stay between parents. I want to stand up for them. Yeah, go ahead and laugh. I’m lame and I know it”

“So your own childhood trauma pushed you down this path. What would you have done if you’d never made it into law?”

Lance didn’t miss the way his words had thrown been back at him. Shrugging it off, he wasn’t letting Keith under his skin

“I could have been a dancer. I did entertain the idea of being a hairdresser, but a vampire with scissors means risking a cut and an accidental turning. I like my job. Can’t say I don’t like the idea of yours, but it wouldn’t be my first choice of career choice”

“Will you two shut up? You’re scaring the ghosts away”

Lance’s eyes accidentally met Keith’s, both of them snorting and looking away from each other. If only they were, then they could all head home early

“Sorry, Pidge. Keith was telling me how scared he was”

“I did not!”

“Shhhh... didn’t you hear Pidge? Your big mouth is scaring the ghosts away”

“Mine? You won’t shut up”

“Both of you shut up, or you’re being sent outside to wait”

Hunk raised his hand

“Uh, can I go wait outside?”

“You’re the camera man, grow a back bone!”

Hunk gave Pidge a mock salute at her snap, which she flipped him off over. Lance made the motion of zipping of his mouth and throwing away the key. Keith gave a shrug. Apparently he didn’t hold a healthy fear of Pidge... well, that wouldn’t remain for long.

No. Keith barely lasted half an hour before he incurred Pidge’s wrath. Like a misbehaving school child, Keith was sent to sit at the top of the stairs, all because he accidentally tripped over the lip of the door frame. Pidge was sure she’d seen some kind of ghostly orb, sent fleeing by Keith’s stupidity. Making the mistake of snorting over Keith being taken down a peg, Lance was sent to sit beside Keith... both of them not looking at each other, to avoid bursting into laughter because being in a time out was ridiculous. There wasn’t anything there. The orb was a reflection of light from the camera, and that’s all that’d been to it. When Hunk moved, the reflected light disappeared, Keith didn’t deserve being yelled at... but fuck it hadn’t been funny.

[thenightling]

Dracula The Vampire’s “Origin”

Now that Hotel Transylvania 3 and Castlevania have popularized two very distinctly different incarnations of Dracula there has been some question to what his origin is.  Well, there are several answers.   This post will discuss some of them, including some favorites and some... not so favorites.

There are many contemporary stories on how Vladislaus Drakulya (archaic: Wladislaus Dragulya) AKA Vlad III (the third) of Wallachia AKA Vlad Țepeș ( Țepeș means The impaler) became the vampire of Bram Stoker’s famous novel.

(Continue reading under the cut.)

First... Vlad the Impaler:

The first implication that Dracula’s backstory is that if Vlad the Impaler comes from the novel itself. “He must indeed be the Voivode Dracula who won his name against the Turk.” - Doctor Abraham Van Helsing in the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker.

Vlad the Impaler never answered to Țepeș as that literally just means ”Impaler.”  He called himself Vladislaus Drakulya (Dracula) because of his and his father’s membership to The order of the Dragon.  In modern Romanian Dracula means son of the Devil but in the fifteenth century it meant Son of the Dragon or Little Dragon.  The root word was the Latin Draco.

This was his chosen surname as a means to distance himself from the cousins whom he blamed for his father and older brother’s deaths. 

The first people to call him Vlad The Impaler were The Ottoman Turks, who were his sworn enemy, as they had held him and his brother, Raduk prisoner as children, and later demanded tribute of gold and boy slaves (which Dracula would not abide). The Ottomans called him Kaziklu Bey meaning (Impaler Prince or Impaler Lord).  This later evolved to the Romanian Țepeș but only after Vlad’s death. 

Though Dracula, the vampire, can grow older or younger (based on how much blood he consumes in the novel) it would seem his “base” (default or youngest) age is about forty-five or forty-six-years-old, the age Vlad the Impaler would have been at the time of his mortal death in late 1476 or early 1477.

Further comment: There is NO lore where the vampiric Dracula’s fangs are “straws.”   Often he is described as not only craving blood and needing it to maintain his strength, but also enjoying the taste. This would be exceedingly difficult to savor if he’s slurping up the blood with his teeth-straws. (God, that idea is so stupid...)   As far as I know he still uses the human digestive tract but burns all the components of the blood and therefore does not produce waste and this is why he “does not sup” (quote from the novel), as his body probably cannot process human food.

Many people got “bored” with the idea of Count Dracula being the historic Vlad the Impaler so they latched on to the historical inaccuracies of the novel, and the fact that the name was chosen late into the writing of the novel, as proof to argue that the vampire was not him, or they would pretend it was another relation of Vlad the Impaler even though Vlad the Impaler is the only Voivode (General or Warrior Prince) who won his name against the Turks.  And he chose his own surname of Dracula because he resented his own cousins, whom he held accountable for his father’s death.  Vlad The Impaler’s father answered to Dracul.  The “a” at the end is important as it implies “Son of”.

The fictional story by Bram Stoker loosely implies that after his death in 1476 (or early 1477) the historic Dracula rose from his grave as the infamous vampire.  There is no specific story in the original Stoker novel explaining how Dracula became the vampire, only a vague reference to his possible attendance of Scholomance (Folkloric school of magic.  Think darker Hogwarts.)

Many recent (within the last thirty years) fictions came up with stories to explain how Dracula became a vampire.

Examples of modern origin ideas:

The 1992 film Bram Stoker’s Dracula claims he renounced God after he was told his wife was probably damned for committing suicide.  He then... stabbed a giant stone cross that bled and during his tantrum he drank the blood that poured out...  I like the movie but I’m not a fan of this origin for the vampire, I tend to ignore that part when watching the movie.

The film Dracula 2000 took another extreme approach and claimed Dracula was Judas.   Claiming that this is why he’s repulsed by silver (since he was paid in silver) and why he’s weaker by day (because he hung himself at dusk), and why he is repulsed by crosses. I don’t really like this version because it ignores all the events of Vlad the Impaler’s very obviously human life pre-vampirism. It’s also weird to imply that a Middle Eastern Jewish man somehow became an early renaissance Romanian Eastern (Greek) Orthodox who later converted to Catholicism.  

 I don’t think this particular origin is clever at all as it’s used far too often.  It became a trend to make Dracula or the first vampire into a Biblical figure.

Note: Dracula is NOT the longest lived / oldest vampire in the lore of the Bram Stoker novel.  That is never claimed.  He’s just a powerful vampire.  The idea that he is the king of the vampires was invented in the films and or is a self-given title.

Anyway, thanks to Dracula 2000 a trend started. DC Comics decided to attempt making Cain the first vampire during New 52, and the 2013 film Dracula: The Dark Prince (2013 film not to be confused with Dark Prince: The True Story of Dracula, which is a far superior film, or even the Hammer Dracula: Prince of Darkness.) had it that Dracula was Abel and only a descendant of Cain could kill him... for some reason...  Honestly, I got tired of the idea of Dracula being a Biblical figure really quickly as this was just a result of people being “bored” with the idea of him being Vlad the Impaler post-Death.     The TV show Dracula (2013) that aired on NBC (not to be confused with the more enjoyable 1990 TV series of the same name), claimed that Dracula was turned into a vampire by The Order of The Dragon after they murdered his wife, to punish him for putting science before religion.   As... You know... it totally makes sense to turn your enemy into a powerful immortal who can rip your throats out...  (I’m not a fan of this show AT ALL!)  

The film Dark Prince: The True Story of Dracula (2000) told a slightly loose retelling of the historic Dracula’s life story and implied that he became a vampire because he was murdered as in many old legends someone with unfinished business or whom was murdered (or commited suicide) might return as a vampire.

The film Dracula: Untold (2014) told an even looser (and far less respectful) version of the historic Dracula’s backstory.  (I feel Dark Prince: The True Story of Dracula did it better).  This one had an ancient vampire hiding out in a cave transform Vlad into his heir by feeding him his blood.  A human victim being fed the blood of a vampire is a common method of vampiric transformation in modern fiction.  Anne Rice uses it, and in the original Dracula novel by Bram Stoker, Mina had described being forcibly fed Dracula’s blood.    

The graphic novel series called Dracula: The Company of Monsters indicated that much like in Stoker’s novel, Dracula practiced Magick during his human life, and that the mixture of honey and herbs used to preserve his head when it was delivered to the Sultan of the Ottoman empire, was actually part of an arcane process (that he orchestrated to bring about his own vampiric immortality.    

The manga and anime Hellsing (and Hellsing OVA Ultimate) gives yet another origin and it’s one of the few to remember he had been decapitated during or after his assassination.  

The Castlevania video game franchise gave yet another origin to Dracula. Also note that Lords of Shadow is considered an AU (Alternate universe).  I’m not a big fan of this origin though I love the current Castlevania animated series on Netflix.   Despite what some viewers have theorized, yes, in the franchise he was originally human.  He was not born a vampire. Don’t expect any historical accuracy in Castlevania but it does have a great portrayal of Dracula, nevertheless. 

   Also note:  He bites a major artery.  No need for illogical and idiotic “straw” (I still can’t get over that there are people on Tumblr who like that idea) teeth.  You rupture the carotid artery and there will be a major torrent of blood and probable death. I’m sorry for harping on this but I still can’t grasp that there are people who “Like” the stupid fan idea that vampire teeth are straws.  Go home, you anatomically-confused children of mosquitos.  

Favorite origin for Dracula:

There are many recent stories invented to tell the origin of Dracula the vampire.   But my personal favorite is the one told in Fred Saberhagen’s Dracula book series.  Fred Saberhagen’s Dracula books (Sometimes called the New Tales of Dracula or The New Dracula, or The Dracula sequence) retell the novel Dracula from Dracula’s point of view and then tell further adventures.  It entails ten novels starting with The Dracula Tape and three short stories.  The sixth book in the series is called “A Matter of Taste” and it includes Dracula’s vampiric origin.

The story covers his death in historically accurate and graphic detail but after his death his body (and severed head) are retrieved by loyalists who spirit away his body and severed head (leaving behind a fallen soldier who resembled him).  They tend to his body for burial and as they do the candles keep going out and the head seems to be re-attaching to the neck.  Growing nervous they hastily bury him at a crossroads with the intention of retrieving him later for a proper burial.  The head of the false Dracula corpse was delivered to the Sultan in 1477, matching the historic record.   

After some time Dracula heals in this grave and rises as a vampire.  Where most vampires are created via a blood exchange in this book series (a human bitten and then drinking the blood of a vampire) Dracula claims to have never been bitten by another vampire, nor did he drink another vampire’s blood, making him unusual to the other vampires of the book series. 

He convinces himself it was a transition of will that he refused to die and so became the vampire but the reality is he actually has no idea how it happened and I kind of like that a lot. 

 It’s an explanation and a non-explanation while being respectful to the history and not undoing or changing any of the events of the human man’s life.  It just deals with posthumous unlife.

Also, contrary to popular modern beliefs, Dracula does have a soul in the original Bram Stoker novel and the heroes even became convinced they could save him (spiritually) after Mina scolded them about talking about Hell.  She said the better part of him might still be saved and ascend and that he should be pitied.  At the end of the novel they were relieved by the look of peace on his face when they destroyed him, implying that yes, despite all that he had done as a vampire, yes, he had been forgiven and had gone on to Heaven.

Fred Saberhagen also had an interesting theory as to why symbols of faith hurt vampires.  He believed it was psychosomatic.  That a vampire is easily influenced by the beliefs of those around him because his is naturally psychic he’ll pick up on the beliefs of those around him and if a believe is strong enough it can plant a suggestion that has a physical manifestation.  This also accounts for why you need faith for the symbol to actually work in such films as Fright Night (original 1985 film). 

An interesting thing to note is that in 1931, when they really dug up where Vlad the Impaler was supposed to have been buried, all they found were animal bones.  

In the book and documentary (narrated by Christopher Lee) “In Search of Dracula” it was suggested that his body may have been relocated to under the altar of the chapel where he had been buried.   This remains unconfirmed.  

[spacecyanide]

hi hi it’s your girl madie bring nebula in the house yo. she’s going to be mostly mcu mixed with tiny 616 details. under the cut is some bullet points on my take on her.

history

she is born a luphomoid and Thanos had adopted her. she had a lot of adoptive siblings and she hates all of them. she only cares for gamora but she also hated her.

this bitch was raised to become a galactic assassin. she was trained by ronan. often times ever since she was a child, she will be pit against gamora and every time she won (which is every time), thanos would pull out her parts and replace it with  mechanical new ones, like an upgrade or something, claiming that he wants them to be equals. that’s how she became a cyborg.

because of that, she swore to kill both gamora then after that, she will kill thanos for putting her through pain and mystery aaaaaaand for making her hate gamora.

she was a space pirate, invading small planets and hijacking space ships and steals from them. nebula made a lot of enemies tbh

she made several attempts to kill her sister, however, during her attempt to kill her at ego’s planet, it was revealed that she didn’t want to win and all she wanted was a sister. also, nebula just wanted to win before because she just wanted for thanos to stop pulling out her parts and tinker her like some kind of machine (even if half of her is in fact, is made of machine).

she help her defeat ego and save her sister from brink of death and became one of the guardians of the galaxy. well, sort of. she left to go on her own adventure to kill thanos. fun.

currently:

purely for the spirit of crossovers, while going after thanos, she was caught by a group of space cops called green lantern corps because she is a freaking space criminal with multiple charges of multiple crimes.

nebula managed to escape and jumped into the farthest planet the juice of her ship could take her ( newsflash, not a lot of it left ). She pushed her luck a little bit and so, it made her landing on Earth go a little less smooth than she intended ( spoiler alert: it wasn’t a pretty landing )

if she wasn’t cybernetically enhanced, she wouldn’t have survived. it would be wrong to assumed she haven’t ended unscathed, leaving her with some malfunctions. And her ship, oh, her ship. it is in terrible condition.

currently, she is just roaming around new york. the only job she knows how to do is to kill so yeah, she is just bumming here on earth. maybe fight some bad guys if she feels like it.

personality

due to her upbringing, nebula is just violent in nature. she is full of hate and and being raised to an assassin, she was thought to always look for the bad in someone and hate them so it will be easy for her to kill.

nebula is sadistic and she was never ashamed of it. she had no regrets or whatsoever.

she could care for people but she had a weird way of showing it like she will probably offer to kill someone for them or call them stupid as an endearment but you’ll never know it probably an endearment.

it was hard for her to trust people especially when the people who were supposed to love her was busy torturing her into becoming cybernetic or defeating. that also makes her hard to give people her loyalty. if she couldn’t you, she will most likely betray you especially if you will hinder her from her goals which is currently to kill thanos.

there’s a streak of innocence in her especially when being social. she just doesn’t know how to interact properly and maybe have a hard time processing positive emotions.

abilities

nebula is genetically stronger, faster and more agile than a regular human being born a luphomoid. she had some cybernetic enhancement which make her easier to interpret mechanic components and functions.

her cybernetic implants allows her to withstands some fatal attacks and healed at a swift rate on her own.

she is a trained assassin so she’s very good handling weapons and hand-and-hand combat. she uses retractable electric batons most of the time.

she’s also an expert pilot and marksman.

hit me up for plots.

[junkyardlynx]

Pt. 6

“Why would I tell you? You were - fuck!” 

Miss Lewis’ words were cut off with her hiss of pain as she attempted to squirrel out under from Sarisa’s malingering foot. Her blood joined that of her associates, and the stench of death began to permeate the room, fresh as it was. I couldn’t stand it anymore. Self-loathing squirming in my stomach, I knelt down in front of Lewis, black mana gathering in my fingertips and running down my palms like a viscous ink. Sarisa took a few steps back, moving behind me.

“W-what are you doing?”

Her fear was justified, really. Most magical spells have an elemental component that tints the mana, and black was the realm of necromancy and bodily change - life reversed. 

“Shut up. I already regret this.”

My voice was thick and heavy, and it seemed to bludgeon the air from her lungs. Nobody seemed to comprehend what was happening until a sound like a wet bandage hitting the floor reached their ears. Sarisa watched, halfway between amazed and amused, as ribbons of flesh began to peel themselves from the dismembered corpses, slowly and almost lazily drifting through the air. They hovered in front of my face for a moment before twisting and melting together into a wet and tumescent mass.

Diane’s face reflected only horror.

“I said, what are you doing? Don’t do it. Don’t do that, don’t you fucking put that in m-”

The mass of flesh leapt from the stagnant air, filling the sizeable hole in her knee and spreading through. Sickening sounds of crunching and squelching filled the sanctum, and Diane’s screams of pain and terror only served to heighten the horrifying atmosphere.

This was the healing side of necromancy, using the dead to preserve life. Considered an ultimate taboo by those outside of the necromantic arts, it allowed the caster to shape and repair most any body part as long as there were...materials around.

It bothered me in the past, but not any longer. Life is life, and the dead aren’t sticking around inside the shells. It seemed stupid and downright disrespectful to not use what was left if it was needed. My dad taught me that.

“Stand up.” 

Sarisa gave her the command, barely hiding her lopsided grin. For some reason she really, really loved watching me utilize that dark magic. Maybe it was the thrill of the unknown, or the bewilderment that ensued. Diane had time to process and deal with the event, but she seemed unsure. I rose, shaking my hands a few times to bleed off the excess mana.

“C’mon, coach. Those that can't do, teach. Those that can’t teach, teach gym. You should be able to stand up and give us some Suicides or some squats, at least, right?”

At Sarisa’s prodding, unsteadily and bracing for pain, Diane Lewis stood. 

It was rather uneventful.

“So what were you saying about Jeal and I?”

“You...were always complacent kids in P.E. You sure turned out to be cruel.” If you asked me, she seemed confused at her own words. Diane had been bouncing between terrified and vengeful so much that I felt exhausted listening to her. She’d screamed at us to stay away. Most people in a death cult under their own will weren’t reduced to hysterics after the loss of their fellow cultists. Something in them was broken. Unfortunately for Diane, her mind remained whole and mostly her own. 

There was just something directing it down the darkest path.

Deciding that this game of torture and treatment had gone on long enough, I fixed Diane with an almost impenetrable stare before reaching my right hand out, placing it on her neck.

I could feel the confusion and annoyance radiating off Sarisa. Was she...jealous? Wh-oh. Oh. I have my hand on the neck and shoulder of an adult woman. That probably looks pretty uh, tender from her point of view. Miss Lewis seemed stricken by confusion and hadn’t batted my hand away. That’s not. I. I better just wrap this up before it turns ugly.

Before she could regain her senses, raw mana pulsed through my hand with an ugly red and black crackle, prompting a new series of screams from Diane as it seared the Mark of Soritoroth off of her skin, leaving an admittedly ugly scar. With heaving breaths, I removed my hand from her skin, sweat collecting on my forehead.

I’d used far too much magic today. It felt like every nerve in my body was on fire. I’d be damned if I showed weakness, though.

Sarisa, having understood after the fact, walked up behind me and slung her arm over my shoulder before addressing Diane, unable to hide her lopsided grin any longer. It felt possessive.

I didn’t hate it.

“This big idiot just freed you from your Mark. No more dark whispers in your ear or weird dreams about fire and a never-ending queue at the DMV. He’s too kind, really. I’d have just left you locked in here with your fellow teachers until the Mark consumed you. Guess he figured it out because of uh, well, how scared you are. Real believers usually aren’t terrified out of their minds.”

We were met with a cascade of sobs. Slipping down to the blood-stained floor again, Diane was reduced to tears as pain and regret wracked her seemingly fragile frame.

“Let me guess. They knew you were a mage of some talent. Told you big things. Scared you, and right after, promised you safety. Then they dragged you into some pit, put that Mark on you and began to twist you. I mean, no one really likes P.E., but we all liked you. Didn’t really think you’d turn evil at the drop of a hat. Mr. Morrison though...man, we should have seen that coming. Haughty english teachers are the worst.”

I wonder how many times Sarisa’s penchant for humor saved me? I always ended up walking down dark lines of conversation, saying the wrong things at the wrong time to anyone but her. She managed to be my voice, and she understood me better than anyone.

Honestly, I don’t think I’d have even made it this far without her. I would have tried to save my parents if she wasn’t around. She was my guidepost.

“I gotta admit though, you made me really mad. So in exchange for all these wonderful things Jeal’s done for you, can you please tell us where our friend Thom is and what he’s told you?”

Diane was quiet for a time as the sobs shriveled up. Her head rose from her knees, and she looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time.

“They’re all dead, aren’t they?”

A barely audible whisper.

“Yes. Mr. Morrison, Mrs. Takao, and Mr. Krenick are dead. So are fifty people your little cabal brainwashed into raiding this place. So I really, really need you to tell Jeal and I what’s going on.”

Sarisa hid no facts, but a sort of warmth leaked into her voice, gently urging Diane on. 

“Please,” I said. 

“Thomas...he, two weeks ago, he came to us. Said he knew we were mages, and that you two were mages and that Jeal was actually a Culaine. Last thing he told us before we stuck him in that hole was...was that you’d be coming back around 7 today. Dunno how he knew that. Guess he was watching you.”

“Where is he, Miss Lewis?”

A long pause, as if everything that had happened since receiving her Mark was finally setting in.

“He’s in hell. He’s burning. He’s burning in hell. He’s gone, I think.” She stopped for a moment, eyes glassy and distant, finally free of that dark passenger and unable to collect herself in the aftermath. We were losing her.

“They already moved him. I don’t know where. Just the shell. Nothing left inside, all empty, ready to be filled up. The materials are still good...”

Lightning cracked on my fingertips, but I gripped my hand tightly. The torrent of images and impulses, no longer channeled and directed by the Mark, began to leak over every thought she had. They’d bleed out like mere bad dreams in time, but time was not on our side. 

“He was in that square hole. Seven feet deep, a tiny prison for a god. The abandoned observatory to the west. From the 80′s. I wonder if they knew? A cocoon as a prison for god. I wonder if we could have seen him...?”

Her voice trailed off as her head lolled to the side, shock finally pulling her consciousness under. I grappled with myself for a moment before flicking my wrist, a lash of red thunder removing the last traces of the three dead teachers. Leaning on Sarisa a little as she kept her arm slung around me, I made my way to the desk in the sanctum. Sarisa seemed to understand what I was getting at and began preparing one of the cots. My shoulder and neck seemed somehow lesser for the absence of her weight and warmth.

Penning a note to Diane on a piece of paper, I gathered a few materials and reagents from the cabinet beside the desk. Setting to work with practiced movements, I began to prepare a tincture using thornblood, the teeth of an imp, water, mint, and ethyl alcohol inside of a reinforced flask. She’d need it, after what she’d been through. For myself...well, for myself, it was going to be less pleasant than anything with alcohol in it. Too bad I also needed it.

Forcing a gelatinous black mass into my dry mouth, I began to chew hurriedly, ignoring the bitter taste and oddly crumbly texture that followed the jelly-like outside as I pawed around blindly for a bottle of water, draining nearly the entire thing in one gulp. I turned around to find Sarisa on the verge of laughter, having just set the bloodied Diane down on the cot.

“Oh my god, did you eat that? You actually ate that dragon eye? What the fuck, Jeal.”

“Everything hurts, Rissa.”

“Oh, c’mon. Don’t sound so annoyed. I mean, I know it’s a really good pick me up, but oh my GOD, that had to have been like, 800 years old! And you just ate it! In one bite!”

“... probably still kiss me.” 

“Hmm?”

“Nothing. Let’s go.”

I don’t know if she actually heard me or not, but it didn’t matter. We needed to check out the old observatory, even though he was probably gone. Thomas had been wrapped up in all of this, somehow. He knew who I was, what I was. He knew who Sarisa was.

Everything hurt. Body and soul.

[maddmuses]

Regarding the current Rosedawn shit

Yeah, turns out Naz was a Nazi the whole time, and lied to her guild members about it. After an entire day of being called a Nazi, and then finding that out, decided I was done with her. I’ll still be around, and I’d still stand by my defenses of Centari (who was equally blind-sided by the screenshots that were sent to him ahead of time, and was then a beautiful enough soul to share with us) which gives me the opportunity to apologize and clear the air before it goes up later.

(I was the second to leave tonight after the mentioned lost officer over a Scion’s blacklist)

I made the mistake of defending someone who was nice to me, and thinking that just because someone is kind to you (to your face at least) that they have no ill will towards you. I didn’t speak to Myro much, and thus was under the impression that many of the issues arising regarding it could have been cultural misunderstanding, and something I could clear up after his hand had healed WITH him. And honestly, for the most part, other members of the guild were willing to take Naz’s word at face value, and my only reason I can present is that I believed that she had no reason to lie.

A lot of us thought Myro was just kinda wacky, and I thought shit would probably subside on that front when Naz took control of the guild, not realizing she was just as bad. A big thing is that the types of people she detests are types of people that a lot of us in her guild were, so I’m unsure of her end-game.

I guess ultimately what kept me in was the idea that we WERE an antagonist guild (with the irony that I was playing a stupid kid who was just kind of naive and along for the ride) and felt that most of what was presented to me (specifically the wheel thing that is a neo-nazi symbol which I even consented the point that it was weird and meant to look into it at my earliest ability to do so) I was able to write off as conjecture for either cultural confusion, or the above antagonist purpose. It was a militant-nationalist-Sin’Dorei guild, which frankly based on the lore SEEMS like the type of shit that would pop up. Thus, the suspiciously (in hindsight where it’s all 20/20) worded ads to me looked like something that made sense for the lore of what they were doing, and formed some type of stupid coincidence.

For all that, I’m really sorry. I was bull-headed, stubborn, and did what a lot of people would have done in similar (not the same because I really f’d up on the nazi component of it, but similar) situations where you take a side with the people you know over strangers who have hurt your friends.

I’ve only spoken to a few people regarding this, and made the brash threat to report folks (the people I threatened to report I never actually did, the only people I ever reported were people who called ME a Nazi directly, personally, over whispers; of which there was a large number of the last couple of days) for which I was an idiot and am also sorry.

There’s a blog I can’t tag that’s named buttart that I need to apologize to, at least for the parts of not listening to you when it came to Myro, and rest assured I didn’t report or do anything to your accounts. It had gotten to the point where I was just saying words to see if they could eventually hurt, and if they did, there are no words to express how sorry I am over that.

So the specifics of the situation:

Myself (A Jewish agender person who loves all genitalia), Elante (a multi-racial bisexual woman), and Centari (a black man.... I don’t know him as well so I can’t put as many things in there) were all fooled by kind words and friendly actions into thinking that we were playing villains, and that it would be a creative outlet.

This whole course of events occurs, and we stick to the people we know, as explained above.

Elante leaves because the stress of dealing with all this, and her Scions blacklist, was not worth such a small-time guild. I left shortly after, because Elante was really my best friend in the guild, and the overwhelming messages of people calling me Nazi (over 30 of them TODAY) was not worth my mental health. I would explain this to Naz who supposedly “understood” but then would immediately block me before I had the opportunity to discuss re-obtainment of anything I had put in the gbank from her (I am told that Blizzard can help me with this), which struck me as odd. Then another guild member would later show up (Xanthrax if you must know) and called me a Nazi Faggot and Jew-Boy, both pejoratively. I would then later find out from Centari, as he had been notified of this picture ahead of time, that Naz WAS in fact a Neo-Nazi.

I have never felt so betrayed, manipulated, and down-right lied to in my whole fucking life.

And I’m sure I deserve it, and in no small amount, the hate that will probably be directed towards this character for the rest of the toon’s existence on this server.

I don’t expect any of what I say to absolve me of any sin I have committed, or any revilement and ridicule of which I am due. This is simply me saying what I need to say, which is:

Sorry.

~Oranthus Dawnblade

[longsightmyth]

Chapter-by-chapter, The Naming, Chapter 12

PELLINOR

My love for the innkeeping couple continues.

“She’s a quiet one, your wife, eh?” said Halifax, shrugging his shoulder in Maerad’s direction.

“She don’t like strangers that well,” said Cadvan. “She’s sociable enough on her own.”

“Well, there’s some as never shut up, so I guess it’s swings and roundabouts.” Halifax rolled his eyes comically, and Marta [his wife] kicked him under the table.

“I know who doesn’t shut up around here,” she said comfortably.

I appreciate that Halifax is clearly joking and that Marta is clearly unfazed and willing to point out to strangers that she knows who’s the real chatterbox around here, and both are presented as having a longstanding cheery argument.

All of this is about to change though, because Maerad and Cadvan are nearing the boundaries of Innail Fesse. They bid farewell to the innkeeping couple (Marta packs them lunch) and start riding. After a while a raven comes down to join them carrying a message from Silvia. In these books, ravens are some of the few animals that can make themselves understood without the Speech, so Maerad can understand Lord Kargan when he tells them that Silvia wanted them to know that two hulls entered Innail and Dernhil is dead. Cadvan asks if Silvia is sure they were hulls, and Kargan says definitely.

“Lord Kargan,” [Cadvan] said. “You have already done much, but I seek your help still. We need to pass through Innail Let, and I know not if the Dark has gathered its spies there. It may be that it is yet unwatched, because they think we are still at Innail. I would be grateful if you could fly there and tell me what you see.”

Kargan agrees. After he flies off, Maerad starts to freak out because Dernhil is dead and because people are now actively chasing her. She doesn’t say anything for a bit though as they ride, and it’s Cadvan who finally says, “Alas, he was my friend, and I loved him, and this is a grievous loss.”

Maerad agrees, and says that she didn’t know Dernhil long but he was her friend too, and remembers her dream. She tells Cadvan about it, and how she didn’t know for sure it was Dernhil that she heard but it seems pretty clear now.

“I spoke of you with Dernhil, Maerad,” [Cadvan] said. “I know he loved you. He was one of those who can see clearly into another’s soul, and his feelings were true. Such things have little to do with brevity of meeting. And in that lies our hope: for the Dark understands nothing of love. And if, as it seems almost certain, the hulls sought news of you, maybe his love protected you as nothing else could.”

The soul in question was sixteen, but I approve of the sentiment. As a bonus, we know where I was at least encouraged in my love of commas (Throne of Glass could take some pointers from Pellinor for the elevated language schtick).

Maerad is sad some more, and so is Cadvan. He talks about Bards being able to kill themselves without weapons if necessary.

“It is unutterably terrible,” said Cadvan at last, “to hope that Dernhil killed himself rather than be murdered by those evil beings; yet that is what I hope.”

Yikes.

Kargan returns and reports that the way is clear for now. Cadvan thanks him, and Kargan leaves to report to Silvia that Maerad and Cadvan are alive and kicking. They continue to ride until they eventually find a Bardhome. They take care of their horses, and Maerad complains of stiffness and soreness from riding all day every day. Cadvan tells her she’ll get used to it soon but has her stand in front of him and “passed his hands around her body without touching her.” Maerad feels better, if still slightly sore and tired.

They set up camp and eat dinner, and Cadvan tells Maerad more about the Speech at her prompting, specifically how you never know when you come into it and Maerad isn’t weird for not being able to understand it yet. We get a cute little anecdote about when Cadvan started to understand the Speech (he was about five years old) and a fish spoke to him. We also learn that neither of Cadvan’s parents were Bards. He talks about the different divisions of Barding (there are three broad categories), which are called The Arts: the Reading, the Making, and the Tending. Reading is what most people think of as magic, though it does include actual reading. Making is exactly what it sounds like plus playing music and dancing and writing and stuff. Tending is “knowledge of growing, husbandry, forestry, childcraft, wilding, herbs, healing, bird lore” etc. There are debates about where particular acts sometimes fall on the scale, but Cadvan gives no fucks about that sort of thing. Cadvan and Dernhil practice Reading the most, and Malgorn and Silvia Tending. “…a Bard who counts power and learning as the highest skill, refusing to understand how all of the Arts inform and nourish each other, is a poor Bard.”

Cadvan makes a lament for Dernhil.

“Sweet fall the rains on the mountains of Innail

Leaping like children down through the pinewoods

With voices of ice like melodious laughter

Seeking the harping of Dernhil of Gent.

But he cannot hear them, his music is ended.

Where has he gone? His chamber is empty

And bright are the tears in the high halls of Oron

Where once he stepped lightly, singing deep secrets

Out of the heart-vault and into the open.

Dark are the Gates that opened and beckoned

And closed on his steps, in the gray twilight fading,

Folding in silence the weft of his barding.

No more will he sing in the glory of autumn

Gilding the birches of lowen and Braneua:

The groves of Ileadh will wait him in vain.

He enters the meadows of music no longer

To gather us with mirth-sheaves and harvests of pleasure.

His harp is unstrung, his sweet voice is silenced:

Sad now are the streams in the Valley of Innail.”

He fell silent, and then he covered his face with his hands and wept.

Maerad cries too, and they grieve quietly for a while.

Then they have a discussion involving fault: earlier Maerad said it was her fault because Dernhil was teaching her, and Cadvan told her obviously not. Now Cadvan feels guilty for asking Dernhil to teach Maerad. Maerad says that that’s stupid, because Dernhil did know, and also that, as Cadvan told her earlier, it isn’t either of their faults that there is evil in the world. Cadvan says that all Dernhil knew about her was that she was Cadvan’s pupil, and Maerad remembers that she hasn’t shown Cadvan the bit of prophecy Dernhil found for her. Cadvan says to hide it: “I am not certain that we shouldn’t burn it, but I wish Nelac to see it.”

Cadvan is basically like ‘welp this proves it, you’re the foretold” and Maerad sort of scrambles around trying to justify why she’s not, including her name not being Elednor (the truename of the foretold, which means fire lily). Cadvan points out that she won’t know her truename until after she’s instated as a full Bard, argument invalid.

“What if I’m not? What if you’ve got it all wrong? What then?”

Cadvan shrugged. “As I said before, then I am simply wrong.”

He muses that the Dark might now know for sure, and that that makes this whole thing even more dangerous, but he wonders if they knew before or after trying to break into Dernhil’s mind.

“Dernhil would not have betrayed us,” said Maerad uncertainly.

…”it is not a question of betrayal,” said Cadvan. “You don’t know…” A spasm of pain passed over his face, and for a while he was silent.

More Mysterious Past hints. Come on Cadvan, fess up! He continues that the hulls would have wanted to use Dernhil as a spy if they could get into his mind, not kill him, and a murder in the school has brought so much attention that the hulls probably can’t stay, since even hulls would have trouble with Bards like Malgorn or Oron actively hunting them. I personally would rather face Oron or Malgorn than Silvia if she thinks somebody is trying to hurt Maerad, but sure, book.

“I think it is likely,” said Cadvan at last, “that Dernhil killed himself so they could not enter his mind, and I think it is not only my hope speaking.” he shuddered. “Believe me, Maerad, there are many worse things than death.”

We learn more about hulls when Maerad asks. They were Bards, but turned to the Dark to try to live forever and/or get more power. They can be killed, but they don’t die of old age. They can pass as mortals if they work at it because they still have Bardic gifts.

[Cadvan] fell silent, looking into his own memories, and then spoke with a vehement anger that took Maerad aback. “I hate them. They betray everything that makes us what we are, and destroy everything that is worthy of love. I hate them more than the Nameless One himself.”

Note to self: Cadvan’s backstory likely involves hull trauma.

Maerad starts thinking about all the Bards she’s never known and whether or not they might be hulls, and starts to worry that nobody can be trusted, “but she remembered Silvia and Dernhil and Malgorn, and Cadvan himself, and quietened her fears.”

You’re missing Saliman, Maerad. He seems like a key component given future events. Just saying.

She falls asleep afraid anyway.

THRONE OF GLASS

Chapter 24 so I didn’t land three pages into the next chapter. Celaena can’t sleep and talks about the moonlight and how night doesn’t mean anything to her, and then goes on about how “it was just the time when she slept, the time when she stalked and killed, the time when the stars emerged with glittering beauty and made her feel wonderfully small and insignificant.”

That seems pretty meaningful to me but I am but a simple fanfic writer, untutored in the ways of high fantasy or YA lit.

That was sarcasm, for those unsure.

Celaena was too lazy to change out of her old fashioned dress (actual words from the text, not me being judgy for once, and also I am hardly the one to judge based on clothing changing). She looks up to see a tapestry blowing and after a moment of investigation realizes it’s because there is a secret door behind it.

Y’all, they put an assassin in a room with secret passages that are found after like three minutes of investigation. Either somebody in charge of room assignments wants people dead, or everyone here is incompetent.

I genuinely wish we had murderous steward on our hands.

Celaena exercises some caution when going exploring, which on the one hand I applaud - nobody wants to get lost in the deep dark of an ancient castle - but on the other hand, didn’t she know exactly where she was going from counting steps and noticing corridors in the first chapter when she had never been in the building before while blindfolded? Why doesn’t she utilize that ability now? Also she has a prince and a captain of the guard popping in and out of her room like there’s a revolving door with an ‘Open - free cookies’ sign on it, so shouldn’t she be worried about discovery?

Celaena held the candle aloft, her cape trailing behind her, leaving a clean wake on the dust-covered stairs.

Y’all. This behavior is excusable in an inexperienced sneaker, but in someone who is supposedly the best assassin in the land this is just sad.

She reaches the end of one passage and realizes it’s probably an escape route for the king and leads to a waterway with a rusted iron gate and rotting boats, which begs so many questions I don’t know where to start. She can see trees and stuff outside and considers escaping through the gate, but she slips while climbing around and freaks out. She goes back and takes a different turn, whose passage she follows to spy holes overlooking the great hall and the Samhuinn feast. Celaena is indignant that the other champions are allowed to attend and she isn’t, and honestly so am I. If they’re worried about Celaena the Braggy Assassin in company, they should be doubly worried about the people who have actually murdered people. They do appear to have left Cain in his room, though.

She spots Dorian and decides she’s just happy to see his “unusual grace, and the kindness in his eyes”.

Stop trying to make me like Dorian, book, I am never going to like Dorian. You can tell me about the kindness in his eyes all you want but until I see that shit backed up with action and him considering women aside from our protagonist to be human beings it ain’t gonna fly.

EXHIBIT NUMBER UNCOUNTED: he enters Celaena’s room without permission to watch her sleep after she’s returned and gone to sleep. I thought we all agreed this was bullshit after Twilight, y’all, why is it still showing up? Why are we still considering Dorian a good guy when he routinely uses the literal power of life and death he has over this woman to show up in her private space without permission and watch her sleep? Y’all. Come on.

Chaol kicks him out, which would get him points except he then chills in Celaena’s room considering whether or not she’s a virgin and watches her sleep for a minute. At least he wakes her up when he approaches the bed? But it’s not on purpose? Y’all, he came by to drop off a ring from the party favors for her, he couldn’t have just waited until morning when he could fucking knock? I hate everyone. Chaol throws another blanket over her and leaves.

COMPARISON

Well Cadvan was basically tailor-made for us, wasn’t he? Mysterious Past, hot, respectful, badass, in touch with his emotions… too bad he’s in his seventies. ANYWAY. I appreciate that Pellinor has people in touch with their emotions being a good thing, and I appreciate that affection and cordial teasing are shown to be hallmarks of a good relationship, thank you innkeeping couple. Other things I appreciate about Pellinor: we’re actually sad about Dernhil. He had an effect on the narrative and an effect on our characters, and he’s on the Ride or Die squad with Silvia, only thankfully Silvia is still in the riding part of it.

In Pellinor this was a lot of exposition relayed in dialogue, but it was interwoven with a discussion of Dernhil and gives us more hits of Cadvan’s Mysterious Past, which obviously involves hulls. Cadvan really doesn’t like them, y’all. Also I appreciated that it was a Tending Bard that was mentioned as being too much for hulls to handle, while a Reading Bard was not. It helpfully underlines the fact that the Arts are in fact equal even if Cadvan is a Reading Bard and we have no idea wtf Maerad is. I’m guessing Indik is a Making Bard (because I don’t actually remember if that’s ever explicitly stated) and he is also later proven to be hardcore. So many books and/or movies pay lip service to everything being equally important while only showing one school/art to be actually effective, and Pellinor actually shows that it’s true even in small ways. I like that. (I also like that later Silvia is acknowledged as Super Hard Core, but I think we have to wait until The Singing to see exactly how hard core our ride or die team mom is. Bad with a sword or a spell she is not.)

I appreciate nothing about Throne of Glass this chapter, not even a single solitary second. There are six purple tabs marking general displays of incompetence in this chapter and a short pondering of virginity that made me angry. Fuck off, Chaol. Dorian can fuck off even harder, jesus christ on a pogo stick.

STATS

Throne of Glass:

Pages: 11

Fragments: 16

Em-Dashes: 32

Ellipses: 10

Pellinor:

Pages: 18

Fragments: 3

Em-Dashes: 3

Ellipses: 15

[operationrainfall]

Title Fire Emblem: Three Houses Developer Intelligent Systems, Koei Tecmo Games Co. Ltd Publisher Nintendo Release Date July 26th, 2019 Genre Strategy RPG Platform Nintendo Switch Age Rating T for Teen – Blood, Suggestive Themes, Violence Official Website

In a way, Fire Emblem: Three Houses is a culmination of the Fire Emblem games that have released over the past decade. It builds upon the previous entries in interesting ways, takes elements from several and generally excels. Three Houses has combat and a magic system that reminds me of Fire Emblem Echoes, without the focus on a Weapon Triangle and a ton of flexibility. Story-wise it reminds me a lot of the mystery and menace of Awakening, whereas the multiple narrative routes distinctly reminded me of Fates. There’s a lot of inspiration in this game, and for the most part they do a tremendous job. Which brings us to the question – is this the best Fire Emblem game in a decade? Or is Three Houses less than the sum of its parts?

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The story starts with a massive battle being joined by two armies. One is guided by the gruff Nemesis, wielding the Soulcalibur-esque Sword of the Creator. The other is guided by the green haired, furious beauty, named Seiros. You’d think she was the weaker of the two leaders, but after an epic fight she comes out the victor, brutally murdering Nemesis with several angry thrusts of her dagger. Then we’re dragged from the scene of battle, seemingly through time to another green haired woman laying at rest in a throne. Without too many spoilers, her name is Sothis, and she’s vitally important to the story and your main character in particular. For some reason, she’s a sort of guardian angel for the hero, Byleth. You can hear her in your head and she’s seemingly able to protect you from harm. But we won’t linger too much on that, for the sake of those who haven’t played Fire Emblem: Three Houses yet. Instead, let’s move onto the larger plot of the game.

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You play as the young mercenary Byleth. Working with your father, Jeralt, you’ve roved the land and earned your bloody keep for many years. But your whole life changes when three young wards, Dimitri, Edelgard and Claude, beg for your assistance in the dead of night. Turns out, they are all students attending the school at Garreg Mach Monastery. Not only that, but they’re all royalty (well, two out of three are), and after you aid them with a bandit problem, they all implore you to come with them to the Monastery. Once you arrive, you’re introduced to the basics and given a choice of which House you’ll instruct. Your choices are the Black Eagles, the Blue Lions and the Golden Deer. Depending on your decision, the flow and narrative focus of the game will change dramatically. My first time I chose Blue Lions, and was made professor of Dimitri’s band of goofballs. Their story is one of duty and adherence to religion and ideals. But no matter which House you choose, you’ll grow quite fond of the students whose lives you instruct. Not only that, but you’ll also go into battle with and watch them grow from fledgling fighters into battle-hardened warriors.

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Before we get too far into combat, we need to spend some time talking about Garreg Mach Monastery. It’s the seat of power for the Church of Serios, and each of the three Houses of the Officer’s Academy therein represents a different faction. Dimitri is set to become King of the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus, Edelgard is princess of the Adrestian Empire and Claude leads the disparate band that is the Leicster Alliance. While they all play together nicely in the first part of the game, some very dramatic events change all that for the second, and final, part of the game. Your goal in the interim is to spend time doing odd jobs and instructing your pupils. In a weird way, it almost seems like Three Houses takes nods from the Persona series. Each month, you can explore, grow closer to your wards, and fulfill quests for the Church. As you do, more options open up, and you’re rewarded with Renown. At first it seemed superfluous, but later on you can spend it at holy Statues to increase the growth rate for your students. You can make it so they learn how to use a Bow or Axe faster, for example. This is especially useful since all these attributes are used to determine which class your students can become.

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Like in previous games, you’ll need Seals to promote units. One way it’s different is that there’s not always a guaranteed chance your unit will be promoted. It depends on how closely you adhere to the class’ recommended attributes. If you want to become a Pegasus Knight, you’ll need a good Lance and Riding proficiency, for example. Quick note, if you liked Archers before, you’ll love them now, especially since they all learn Close Counter early, which lets them retaliate if attacked head on. Another way this game is different is the use of magic. Unlike previous ones, it’s not tied to a weapon. As you level up your Reason or Faith attribute, you’ll learn Black and White magical spells. These have a set number of uses in each battle, but thankfully that refreshes upon completion. Once learned, you can use your magical spells with any class, so long as that class is capable of using magic. I admit this took me a while to wrap my head around, but thankfully there’s a lot of choices for classes that can multitask this way. Though such classes tend to be squishier than physical only ones, they make up for it with a versatility of options, such as healing others with Heal or Restore, putting protective Wards on allies or draining health with Nosferatu. Or if you prefer Black magic, there’s tons of attack spells, such as Wind, Fire, Thoron and much more.

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Since you’re a professor at Garreg Mach, it stands to reason you need to actually teach your students. At the start of each week, you’re given the opportunity to teach them. Depending on their Motivation level, they can get more sessions in. These are incredibly simple to do, you just pick an attribute such as Sword proficiency or Charisma, and the student will improve a bit in that category. Usually they’ll get a Good or Great, meaning they only earn a bit of experience, but sometimes they snag a Perfect, which gives you another chance to teach them. They’ll also get Bad on occasion, but by properly reading the student, and either critiquing or consoling them, they’ll rally through. You can also set Goals for each student, and they’ll focus on improving those stats at the end of each week. If that all sounds too complicated, you can always choose auto instruct, though I preferred just figuring it out through trial and error. As you move through each week, you’ll celebrate student’s birthdays, answer their pressing questions and attend ceremonial events. You can also invite other professors to teach Seminars, helping increase your student’s proficiency in their areas of strength.

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Besides all that teaching, there’s other things to do. You have the option to Explore a few times each month, which lets you wander around Garreg Mach picking up odd tasks and further bonding with students. You’re able to eat with them, sing in choir with them, garden and fish (which is surprisingly fun), and lots more besides. Though your focus is your small group of students, you can also befriend characters from other Houses. If you can impress them with specific accomplishments in attributes they respect, you’re able to recruit them to your House. Just expect a lot of effort to get your stats up to task. As you progress, more areas are unlocked in the Monastery, opening up even more options. Thankfully, you get the ability to fast travel to any location you’ve visited, which makes running around Garreg Mach far less of a chore. You also are able to take on optional quests and Paralogues, which reward you with items and increased Motivation for your students. Frankly, there’s more things to do than I can spend talking about in this review, but suffice to say, you can spend your time in Three Houses pretty much how you choose. The only thing you can’t avoid are the story battles that occur towards the end of each month. They start pretty easy and ramp up slowly. For most of Part I, I had little to no problem winning battles. But the farther I got, the more wrinkles they add, such as reinforcements and blinding fog. There’s other things I can’t mention, so just be wary and never expect any mission to be as simple as it first seems. Oh and if Part I is too easy for you, just wait for the battles in Part II.

More Fire Emblem on Page 2 ->

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Now, let’s touch upon the combat. Fire Emblem games live or die based on their battles, and I can say those in Three Houses are very satisfying. While I will always miss the Weapon Triangle, I also don’t feel its loss too keenly. Maybe that’s because the last Fire Emblem I played was Echoes, but regardless the tactical component of the game is no joke. While your weapon choice won’t dramatically affect your performance, there’s tons of other factors to keep in mind. As you grow, all your units will learn new abilities based on their class. You can also learn budding talents unique to certain characters, usually by having them focus on a weaker attribute. Proximity to your students will also improve their efficiency in battle, more so if you’re emotionally close with them. One of the coolest new mechanics in the game is the Divine Pulse. Essentially it lets you rewind the clock in battle, undoing a stupid mistake or saving a character who suffered an ignominious defeat. There’s a limit to how many times you can do this per battle, though that can be increased over time. Most importantly, it gives older Fire Emblem fans who are used to resetting their games anyway a more seamless way of doing so.

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As far as the interface, that’s also wonderfully efficient. You can rotate the camera, as well as zoom in or out on any map, and by zooming out completely, you get a full view of the area. It displays enemy positions, numbers, you goal and factors which cause you to fail the mission. You are even able to enter the Marketplace or your Convoy before you start the mission proper, which is a nice touch. Pretty much the only thing you can’t do is take Certifications to change your class, so make sure to do that before you accept any mission. Also a nice touch, you can use the shoulder buttons to both toggle the enemy’s entire attack radius as well as shifting between units. One nice new feature is that you can see a glowing red line which indicates which units enemies will target for attack next turn. You can even see a preview of how much damage you’ll receive, which is a life saver. Another new feature unique to Three Houses are Battalions. You can equip these like weapons, and they���ll provide the equipped character boosted stats and the option to use Gambits. These are powerful attacks involving hordes of soldiers that usually inflict a status effect, such as poison or freezing a foe in place. Battalions level up with your characters, up to level 5, and they can be pretty helpful. Similar are Adjutants, which lets you support one of your units with another that isn’t taking direct action in combat. Adjutants will sometimes attack with their ally, and other times support them with special effects, such as healing them, or deflecting an attack against them. Finally, there’s Combat Arts, which lets you sacrifice item durability to utilize powerful attacks. You’ll learn these as you get more proficient with any weapon, and they directly parallel how you learn spells. I liked the give and take of Combat Arts, but found most of them somewhat underwhelming. Especially since when you’ve used up a weapon, they don’t disappear entirely, and can be repaired at the Blacksmith, which hurts the urgency of using them for Combat Arts.

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There’s one last thing I need to mention regarding battle, and that’s the demonic beasts in the game. These reminded me fondly of the many monsters in Sacred Stones, though these tend to be much more powerful. For one thing, each demonic beast has multiple layers of armor you’ll need to slice through to finally kill them. For another, they get more dangerous the less armor they have. There’s a wide variety of these creatures in the game, and they’re massive and terrifying in equal measure. To beat them you’ll usually need to surround them with units and pray they don’t kill anyone in the process. Around the time you first encounter them in the game, you can expect things to get a lot more challenging.

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The plot in Three Houses starts strong but ends on a weak note. Part I seems very well organized and purposeful, giving players a glimpse of the world of Fódlan and the secret machinations happening on the shadowy periphery. I quickly grew very suspicious of the Church of Seiros’ motivations during the game, but there are other more immediate threats you face, such as the Flame Emperor, the Death Knight and Those Who Slither. I liked the how the game kept you constantly guessing as to who you could trust, and had dramatic unmaskings for certain characters. There are great aspects such as magical Crests passed through bloodlines which determine nobility. What I liked less was how the story dropped the ball towards the end of the game. Several mysteries were left unaddressed, such as the character of Sothis, the identity of the Death Knight, the story behind the Flame Emperor’s creation and much more. Frankly, I was a bit shocked there wasn’t a part III to the game, cause I truly felt there were too many unresolved dangling plot threads. While it’s certainly possible these will be clarified by playing through the other two routes, I can’t help but feel the plot was somewhat incomplete for not addressing them. Also, fun fact, while you can romance and marry your own waifu or husbando, you literally don’t get married til the very end of the game. That struck me as incredibly awkward and anticlimactic. Having said that, there’s still a lot to enjoy here, but you’ll mostly be invested for the characters, not the story. Which is a shame, since it initially seemed like it was going to be an incredible one.

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On the point of aesthetics, this is a very pretty game. They have a cel shaded visual style, and animation during combat is very fluid and fierce. Each character also has a great design, though that can change dramatically after the time jump you’ll encounter. Some characters age well, others less so. I personally loved the design for the demonic beasts in the game. Some are scurrying rat-like creatures, others are winged fiends and some are even heavily armored titans. Likewise, the villains in the game all look dramatic and eye-catching, from the least important to the most significant. A good example is Cornelia, who is dressed like a Victorian call girl, and who I would gladly make my waifu if she wasn’t such an evil bitch. Another cool and very distinct artistic touch are the illustrated scenes that display at the start of each chapter, which all look like they could have come from a beautiful old book. Musically, this is a very enjoyable game. The music differs wildly depending on the the tone of the scene, and it’s always catchy. The voice acting is wonderful as well, though the faceless narrator can be a bit mechanical at times. Put together, this is a very attractive package.

This happened way too late in the game.

While there’s very few serious complaints I have about Three Houses, I want to address some minor inconveniences. While it’s true the user interface is mostly pretty helpful, there are some areas it’s less than intuitive. Such as how you need to press X before you can move the cursor over menus to get a more clear view regarding details about abilities or stats. Another is that Unique classes, which are only available for certain characters, can be hard to find on some menus. Furthermore, it wasn’t clear at first that the star by a class meant it had been mastered. I was a bit disappointed that, in such a big game, the pleased animation while instructing characters is the same for all boys and all girls. It felt strange to see an older woman like Manuela leaping for joy just like the sprightly young Annette. Mostly I felt this hurt their individuality somewhat. Also, if you liked visiting villages and homes to acquire items and save villagers in other games, you’ll be sad to hear that feature is absent here. Which is strange, since supposedly the Church of Seiros’ primary goal is to help those in need. Also, there are significantly less playable characters than in previous games, only about 8 per House compared to Awakening, which had around 40 playable characters, or even Echoes which had around 15. That said, this does make you care more deeply about your students and work harder at keeping them alive, as well as making recruiting other characters far more important.

At first, I honestly thought Fire Emblem: Three Houses was going to get a perfect score. There’s a lot of great stuff here, both old and new. Unfortunately, a few minor issues coupled with an ultimately disappointing story kept it from those lofty heights. That said, I’m still very impressed with the game. I spent about 48 hours to beat my Blue Lions campaign, and you can multiply that by 3 to fully beat the game. Then there’s New Game+ which lets you get through the game faster and bring over hard to get items with you. If that wasn’t enough, there’s cool features such as finding spirits that provide weapons and extra experience when you play the game while connected to the internet. And that’s not even talking about the DLC and amiibo functionality. When you factor all those in, you get a lot of game for $59.99. I’m happy I was able to play this latest Fire Emblem, even if it stops short of being perfect. Even then, this easily might be the best Fire Emblem game in a decade. If you’re a returning fan or just like strategy RPGs, you owe it to yourself to check it out.

[easyreview cat1title=”Overall” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”4.5″]

Review Copy Provided by Nintendo

REVIEW: Fire Emblem: Three Houses Title Fire Emblem: Three Houses

[impurelight]

Far Cry Primal - I Hate Immersion

I have mixed feelings for Far Cry Primal. It’s one of those games that doesn’t have a very good ending. When I thought I had beaten the game I didn’t get any ending. So I looked it up online (Online! For an ending! Ridiculous!) and apparently you have to complete a bunch of what I thought were optional quests to get the ending.

It’s sort of like in Arkham Knight (1 ending for beating the game and 2 endings for beating optional missions) but you didn’t actually get the first 2 endings and it didn’t tell you how to get the third ending. Could you imagine how confusing that would be? Well, that’s how I’d explain Far Cry Primal’s late game content. Confusing.

My second problem with the game is immersion. You know the modding communities and they’ll say, ‘here’s a mod but it breaks immersion’? Yeah, it’s like a cult. And it feels like those people making ‘immersive’ mods made this game. Yeah, some things are good but most of them are bad.

For example the dialogue in Far Cry Primal is made up of a made up language based on what actual people would speak in 10 000 BCE. And the only way to understand what’s going on is to read subtitles. It sounds like a good idea but it really isn’t. In fact as the game progressed I started liking it less and less.

The characters in Primal are your normal Far Cry characters. Meaning very expressive and a little crazy. That just doesn’t translate well to the subtitles. I found myself reading a subtitle in 2 seconds and waiting 10 seconds for the character on screen to actually say the line. And it makes the plot hard to follow. I frequently found myself learning something that I could only assume was stated earlier that would have cleared some stuff up but I guess I missed because of the terrible subtitles. They should of just used english. It’s OK, it’s not like people are going to believe humans spoke fluent english in 10 000 BCE. We were all forced to read Shakespeare; we get it. And I read on forums some people recommend disabling subtitles to get more ‘immersive’. Insanity. Absolute insanity.

Also I believe ‘immersion’ was a factor in many other decisions. There’s this new quest type that involves following highlighted footprints or paw prints or whatever. Sort of like following footsteps in the Arkham series. Except it’s not because the footprints like to disappear and reappear. Why Ubisoft? Why?

I know what they’re going to say. Immersion. And I say, “I don’t care, just make my game more fun!”. Something else. You have the grappling hook in this game. It makes no sense. It’s the most technically advanced tool you use in the game and it feels out of place. Why? Because immersion of course. You think 10 000 BCE had the same terrain as us? Oh, hear that? That’s the sound of immersion cultists laughing at us.

I’m not sure these are the reasons these last two things happened. I’m not an expert in history but I hope they’re not.

So you may think otherwise but Far Cry Primal is a pretty good game. Yeah, it has it’s problems. The end game isn’t good. The story is poor. But I managed to finish it and enjoyed it and I can’t say the same for a lot of other games.

Let’s start with the most obvious change: the Owl. The Owl basically functions as a UAV. In the beginning you can use it to scout the environment much like you could scout it with the camera in previous Far Cry games. It’s a neat idea and one that I expect to see in future Far Cry games. I imagine in Far Cry 5 we’ll use drones to mark enemies instead of the owl. Imagine if you used one of those drones you throw like a paper airplane to start flying. That would be so cool. Also they could always just go with a Watch Dogs 2 style drone. That would be cool too.

Later on you learn skills with your owl. You can dive bomb enemies and drop grenades. My favourite is the berserk bomb. It makes enemies go crazy and kill their friends. I had so much fun using this. Just drop a few berserk bombs and watch the fun from your owl. And berserk bombs effect all non-boss enemies so they’re a little overpowered.

Speaking of being overpowered in previous Far Cry games you were definitely overpowered once you got a suppressed sniper rifle. In Primal I wouldn’t go as far as saying your underpowered but it’s definitely different. A lot of the media around this game focuses on headshots and your bow and arrow.

But surprisingly it doesn’t play a huge role. Headshots are fine but they’re not the way to take a camp undetected. For one thing if you miss they’ll detect you, if someone nearby dies they’ll detect you, if you hit them but they’re wearing a mask or something they’ll detect you. In the previous games you could just snipe from like 100 meters away so if enemies know where you are it’s no big deal. In primal when enemies know where you are it is a really big deal.

Sometimes you can see the silhouette of an enemy moving towards you and you know he knows where you are and you start freaking out. Also AI is really quick to spot you. If you’re just minding your own business it’s not that bad but I was caught by surprise multiple times when someone just happened to spot me without warning.

You really have to take advantage of all of your weapons to remain undetected. Like berserk bombs and takedowns and use your beast to pick off stray enemies. Might not be how you want to play but that’s how you stay undetected. Also you can throw rocks too in this game but it’s not as effective as before. Until you get the slingshot then you can just spam rocks at enemies until they die.

And your beast, that’s new. Far Cry gets more in love with animals every release and Primal is no different. You can now have a pet. I’ve heard it compared to Fallout 4’s companion system. Not really. For one you can command your pet to move so no more having your companion stuck in a doorway and your only option is to slowly push him out of the way. And it’s much more stream-lined. You can command your pet to attack, you can command it to move, you can feed it, you can pet it (yes, seriously), and for some pets you can even ride them when you have the right skill. You won’t be navigating through menus or anything to select the right option. Although I did have a problem when the feed/pet button ‘e’ was also the loot button. Stupid consoles and their limited controls. Am I right?

Also I definitely recommend using your pet if you plan to take a camp stealthily. As when your pet is discovered it doesn’t blow your cover so you can keep sending your pet in to kill enemies and then calling it back. There is one problem that I ran into that your pet likes to run into battle. It’s not that bad if your careful. It’s one more reason that Far Cry Primal doesn’t play like any other Far Cry game. Oh, and I did get a bug where my pet, upon being recalled, immediately returns to combat despite not being attacked. It’s a bug, I guess.

I also encountered a bug where after doing something like healing my weapon would switch to the bow regardless of what weapon it was before doing said action. At least I think it’s a bug, it’s pretty annoying. Also the lock on is a bit on the aggressive side. Especially when you’re too close to an enemy that circles around you really quickly. Then your reticle just follows it like it has a mind of its own. I blame consoles.

Another interesting new mechanic is the village. You can upgrade the important NPC’s huts. The way this happens is unfortunately disappointing. I was hoping for some Mad Max style cosmetic changes from upgrading. Sadly this was not the case.

Another village component is villagers. After beating certain missions you get villagers. And sometimes if you fail a quest you lose villagers, although this only happened I believe twice in the entire game and those two times were early on before I had my weapons upgraded. Unfortunately this feature doesn’t feel very well implemented. It’s not clear what, if anything, the villagers do except give you a nice pat on the back. And it’s pretty weird. I have over 200 villagers. Where are they? The ‘village’ in the corner of the map must have like 100 tops. Where’s everyone else. Although I have to say it would be cool if villagers were a replacement for exp. How cool would it be if things were like ‘8 more villagers to unlock’? There is one thing cool about the villagers. You know those missions where you have to save hostages in Far Cry 4? Well, they’re back. And the number of villagers you earn from those missions is determined by the number of hostages you save. It’s pretty cool.

Also there are now villagers everywhere. There can be enemy villagers that won’t attack you and run at the first sign of danger. Sometimes I accidentally kill them (it’s easy to perform a take down before you know who they are) and I feel bad afterwards.

Also it’s surprisingly difficult to determine who your allies are. It’s not like they’re wearing the neon team jerseys from the previous Far Cry games. I liked them.

For quests there’s a few different kinds. There’s important quests that are given by important NPC’s, some of these are ’story’ quests if you can call them that. There’s orange quests that generally have you doing random quests for people. And there’s random quests which happen randomly. They’re like the karma events from Far Cry 4. You get this beige indicator on the map, you run there, and it tells you to do something, usually kill two enemies and save one hostage. Also the orange quests are a bit weird. There’s actually 3 types. Village which start in the village, cave which start in a cave, and the normal ones. The normal and village quests appear to have to talk to someone and then move somewhere else to actually do the quest. This means you have to start the quest twice. Also you don’t get told which indicator goes to which quest. It’s a little weird. I thought it was a bug.

Another new big addition to this hastily put together list that I didn’t know I was doing until I got to this sentence is darkness. Darkness is a huge part of Primal. When I said I hated the immersion I only meant immersion that makes the game frustrating to play. Darkness is one of the immersive properties that’s genuinely good. Now in my game I had the brightness way too high. So I didn’t need fire to see in the dark. Good thing I changed that.

The darkness is not perfect dark. It’s a nice compromise. And when it’s dark such as at night (yes, there’s a day night cycle now) or when you’re in the cave it’ll usually be so dark you can barely make things out. So you’ll need to set things on fire. Fire has always been a really great part of Far Cry (since at least 3) and primal is no exception. You can now set any weapon on fire and when you do and it’s dark it’ll give this really nice illuminated by fire lighting. Although it appears the light/dark is on some sort of binary scale because there was this one cave that lighting my club on fire didn’t do anything and I think that was because the game thought it was supposed to be bright. Well, it only happened once.

Speaking of caves there are a few caves scattered around, not to be confused with the cave missions which require to ‘explore’ a cave (and by explore they mean enter and then immediately leave and for some reason you can’t leave the same way you came in). These are only for completionists because they only give you collectables and exp. You follow footprints to find the cave painting. But there’s also a thing called a dasha hand somewhere in the cave too. Sometimes it’s pretty easy to find but sometimes it’ll be so tough the only way to find it is to look on youtube. Think of these like the Tombs from the Tomb Raider reboot just with all the fun sucked out of them.

Oh, and these footprints are only visible using an alternate vision mode. It’s just like the survival instinct from Tomb Raider except no cool sound effect and animation. I have historically never liked these alternate vision modes. I always thought there’s no real reason to have them and they just get you to look away from the pretty graphics. Even Watch Dogs 2 has an alternate vision mode which I think really subtracts from the experience. Oh well.

Speaking of Tomb Raider this game has quick time events. When you get attacked by an animal sometimes you have to quickly mash W/A/S/D and if you fail you die, as usual. I really hate these quick time events because they’re unpredictable.

Also animals are tough. I don’t mean when you attack them. That’s easy. But when they sneak up on you they’re really hard. If a mammoth sneaks up on you early on the game you’re dead. Or worse. Your pet. Then your pet is dead and there’s nothing you can do but spend herbs to revive it.

So that’s Far Cry Primal in a nutshell. A really interesting new experience that isn’t as fun as I wanted. In fact, I don’t think the previous actually illustrates just how different this game is. It’s not just Far Cry with a bow and arrow and a beast. It might as well be it’s own game.

Let’s start with cars. There are none in this game, obviously. But this really shakes things up. Without cars you have to walk everywhere which means things are really close. I’m starting to think of most open world games as driving sims. It’s games that don’t have a very strong narrative and a lot of roads. Mafia 2, GTA 5, Watch Dogs 2. Like in GTA 5 I drove across town to a mission and the guy told me to put some pants on so I had to drive across town to change and drove back. If that’s not the definition of a driving sim I don’t know what is.

Primal carefully skirts around this issue. I originally didn’t like walking everywhere but it’s not too bad and started to really like it towards the end. Especially with fast travel. Nothing is too far away.

There’s also a new ‘previously’ section. I really like this. Only a few games did this before like the Arkham series and Life is Strange. Unfortunately it only updates after certain key missions so it can be a bit bland. And, of course, the aforementioned subtitles hurt it a lot.

Also there’s fog. In the settings they call it ‘volumetric fog’. So, yeah, it’s fog for the volumetric lighting effects. Personally I think it’s overdone. Some times it’s OK but others, especially at night, there’s way too much fog and you can’t see like a few meters in front of you.

Finally Far Cry Primal is the most cinematic Far Cry game I’ve ever played. The forest is so detailed with trees topled over, tons of vegitation, and animals hunting each other. When you’re walking in the jungle you can hear animal sounds all around you.

When you feed or pet your pet you get a nice animation and when your beast hunts you’ll get a snazy animation as it strangles the prey to death. Once while playing 2 rhinos burst into where I was and I killed both of those.

Far Cry Primal is not a traditional Far Cry Game. Some of the improvements are good, some not so much. But overall it’s a welcome change to the series and represents the next evolution of Far Cry.

3.5/5 Enjoyment 5/5 Quality -> 86%