gglitchshit · 1 year ago
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gw2 news flash: lab farm is actually fun and addicting if i play as a boon class
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emperor-of-blood · 4 months ago
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Next up is Laios!
The leader of our somewhat intrepid heroes! Laois is best known for his love of monsters. It'd be a lie by omission to leave out his autism. It's quite apparent not just in his monster obsession, but in his social life and peculiarities with different sensations. But it's most obvious in his special interest; which makes sense as that just so happens to be at the forefront of the story. It's why the story is even able to happen. What would've happened if Laios didn't know all he did about monsters? Or frankly, if he just wasn't eager to try eating them?
More secondary information about Laios, funny as this is to say, is that he's one of the front liners for the party. He's courageous and tough. He's versatile and quick-witted. He's resourceful-
And he's kind.
So, with that out of the way:
Laios is....
A Knight Of Light!
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One who exploits [Light]/protects with [Light]
Listen. It's not my fault that all of these knights keep getting a knight class!
Perhaps the first thing I want to talk about here and to remind everyone about, is that Knights exist in sessions void of their aspect. Tbh sometimes I think I should probably try to work that into my little descriptor above at some point; and then I remember it sort of is already. That's the in the "exploit" part. The Knight gets a lot out of a little. How this exists in Dungeon Meshi, is that nobody is really taking advantage of the dungeon as it exists. Laios sees it for what it is, and because of that, our heroes are able to progress through the dungeon despite not having a penny to their name. Part of it fr me too is that when Laios loses his sword he picks up another one that a lot of people would refuse, or at least kill the monster inside it first. And Laios's insistence not to proves a boon! Also, probably the fault of Dave, but whenever I think about how a Knight should work I always look right to their weapon. How do they get the most they can out of this by exploiting their aspect? Kensuke is a great answer to me.
Would Senshi have even joined their party if not for Laios? ... Probably not? But more likely is that no one else would've let him join their party. Which I guess we do know to be true as he'd been living in the dungeon alone for years. Senshi really was a diamond in the rough and I don't think I can understate that. He's just weird. That's really the only " bad " thing about him; and Our Boy Laios here of course sees that as a positive! Laios learning healing magic lets Marcille shine. Despite a lot of people in the story really not liking Chilchuk, Laios wants him in the party and lets him work as he sees fit. I can't think of a boss I've had that would've been fine in the same scenario. And you know what? It lets Chilchuk thrive! He turns out to not just be great at what he can do but also puts his best foot forward even when he doesn't want to do things. He's always emphasizing his role as a noncombatant, which Laios takes in stride, but when push comes to shove he's throwing a dagger into the eye of a Red Dragon. He could've ran!
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Now you might be thinking: "Gee, this sounds an awful lot like a Blood player or maybe a Hope player."
And- well, you're not wrong exactly. There's an argument to be made for each of those. But I want to ask you: "What is Dungeon Meshi really about?" To me, it's about the deconstruction of the dungeon. What actually is a dungeon? Is it really just a setting that only exists when our heroes are inside? How does it function? What happens to all of the monsters after the adventurers leave? Where does the treasure come from? Why are the monsters the way that they are? What happens to the traps after they've been sprung?
These sorts of questions have been largely ignored or hand-waved by storytellers and dungeon masters for years and years. And that's ok. But it doesn't mean you have to do that. As we can see, there are so many wonderful answers to be found here!
And really, who better to explore all of this than Laois?
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hawkepockets · 1 year ago
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mr hawte pocket, may we ask your thoughts on the expansion news, since you mentioned in that recent post you have mixed opinions (@commanderhorncleaver)
ok i'm just gonna go point by point
👍 standard price for the expansion size. pleasant surprise! i was put off at seeing only a $5-10 discount from prev expacs, but i also wasn't expecting 3 maps and such sweeping changes to combat. if it includes living world unlocks, i think $25 is very fair.
👍👍 mounted combat PLEASE. YEAH
👍 if i'm understanding the rune changes right, they sound solid. while certain stat sets may be collapsed together, i think that moving the current 6th rune perk into its own distinct slot will lead to more build customizability, not less, while cutting down on tp costs as a barrier of entry to endgame group content.
👍👍👍👍👍 MESMER RIFLE‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️
👍 adding a new path to unlocking skyscale, while vet players who went through the tedious collection already are rewarded in the mastery tree. i’m glad their efforts aren’t gonna be totally thankless, and that the mount will be more accessible to the rest of us!
👍 "silent surf" is a gorgeous & highly vertical map. i'm sure the new zones will look and feel good.
👎 i have worries, based on the gyala episodes' failure to strongly tie the new oni threat to the end of the dragon cycle or the commander's canonical interests/motives & the amount of goofy filler, lore fudging, & fanservice in "what lies within," about the story's ability to follow up on itself. i think upcoming story releases will try to appeal to new players who haven't played the aurene storyline live and have less loyalty to the existing cast of npcs, while appeasing vet players with sloppy gw1 tie-ins and lazy answers to long-memed-about fan questions like "where's zojja" and "kessex wizard tower????" and that it’s likely to hurt itself in its confusion.
🥴 i hope that i'm proven wrong here, like i was by core eod story, and don't get me wrong i'm into wizards & demons, but after the false promises of "what lies beneath" and IBS i'm feeling... hm! well.
👍 i'm glad we're seeing more of cantha! 🫶 cantha...
🤨❓ decoupling elite specs from their signature weapons. here's where i get complicated.
IT WILL BE FUN. like. let's just get that out of the way it will be fun. i'm very excited to see all the new playstyles that become possible, a broadening of the endgame instanced pve meta, a big bang of rp builds tailored to character lore, new animations!! IT WILL BE FUN.
but i have some bigtime problems with it. first, i think anet has always fallen short of paying back vet players who've invested the most time, energy, and money to a game that gets continuously cheaper, easier, and more accessible. cheap and accessible are good things! high difficulty should be opt-in! and i don't in any way resent new players for having a better experience getting into the game. that said, the elite specs & their associated new weapon proficiencies were a major selling point of the prev expacs, right alongside story, maps, and gliding/mounts. it feels scammy for anet to now say, "remember when you preordered heart of thorns, full price, as soon as it was announced because you were THAT excited to play a guardian with a bow?? silly." the value loss here is not insignificant, and not reimbursed in any way.
& if access to the signature weapons is no longer an incentive to unlock and play an elite spec, there needs to be another incentive. those trait lines need to be powerful, individual, and on-point with lore and personality. that's the trade off. and right now, that is not at all the zeitgeist of gw2 balance patches. for a few years now, balance has been homogenizing specs, spreading out q/alac and heal capabilities while methodically deboning what's unique, potent, and vexing about the devs' least favorite classes: chrono boon support, mirage evasion, berserker dps, etc. without their signature weapons, what do these specs have going for them? what's their appeal? what's their vibe? where's their place in the world lore or the meta? opening up weapon selection, without reversing the trend of 2022-23 balance patches, accelerates the specs' decay into sameyness, and may make some completely obsolete. i'm not okay with that. keep guildwars weird.
however, i am hopeful that the change will address another of my beefs with balance, which is that in the current meta many elite specs are expected not to use their signature weapon at all. my feeling is & has always been, if i wanted to play D/D thief i wouldn't have trained specter, a spellslinger class made for scepter. if i didn't like axe, i never would've been attracted to mirage. so i hope the new armory system will put some of those back into play.
👍 hey. look at me. mesmer rifle.
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my theory inb4 the finale:
the mysterious cube at niirdal-sarqet was a pre-age of arcanum training tool for prospective spellcasters.
the design of the cube all points to an exceptionally ancient time. it echoes the same long-forgotten mystique as the age of arcanum. the language embedded in it is qoniira—a language older than celestial. some of the power inside hearkens back to dunamancy, the manipulation of time and space, which believers in the luxon allege existed before everything else along with their deity. it's covered in archaic versions of the gods' symbols—not just the prime deities, all of them (excepting the luxon). betrayer gods included, their iconography neutral and non-menacing, as if the people who created it... didn't recognize them as betrayer gods in the first place.
according to the story of the founding in the EGtW (explorer's guide to wildemount, ch. 1), the betrayer gods were only seen as betrayers after the war with the primordials. before then, the gods were just the gods—the creators. all of them together had created the peoples who formed families and cultures and nations. qoniira likely dates to this age.
mortals didn't know how to spellcast at this point beyond divine gifts. so when the primordials, who had claimed the realm for themselves too, eventually decided to wreak destruction and return the realm to elemental chaos, the mortals were nearly defenceless.
this was when the schism between the gods occurred: the ones who would become the betrayer gods fell apart to grief and rage and wanted to wipe the slate clean; let the primordials destroy it all. the ones who would become the prime deities wanted to wage war and save the world they'd created from the primordials. the prime deities ultimately accomplished this by teaching mortals arcane magic. (this was the factor that led the following era to become the age of arcanum.)
why i think the cube was a tool to teach arcane magic:
it's fairly clear that the cube was meant to be both dangerous and easy to access, the way we saw it in episode 7. the command phrases to open it were in qoniira—this would've been easy for anyone native to the tetrarchy to read. even anyone not native or fluent in qoniira would still be able to figure it out with some dedication, as the exu gang made pretty evident. the lack of barrier to activating the cube tells me that access was intended to be unrestricted.
the stone guardians appeared in response to people physically interacting with it. mechanically, each player had to make a wisdom saving throw every time they came in contact with a new face/platform while the cube was active; if they failed, they took 2 points of damage and had their max hp reduced by that amount as a guardian emerged from the stone, apparently fueled by the player's health.
each time this wisdom save was a success, aabria explicitly described the respective player seeing the stone roil before stopping at their attention, unable to form.
before the cube opened, it had begun to move. fearne deliberately forced her will into the cube to command it to stop moving, rolling a 23 spell attack. it listened to her and didn't move; it broke open in place.
recall the command phrases to activate the cube.
the universe above / the universe within / remember what came before / decide what happens next / provide for all / a shield to protect.
note "decide what happens next." this is a phrase meant to be a command to the reader too. in episode 6, tetrarch thrascuur told the party that power—and magic—was about choice. a person deciding and enacting their will on the world around them to realize their desires. if this is the tetrarchy's basic understanding of magic, this command phrase from the cube seems to be teaching that lesson from the get-go.
it ties into the behavior of the cube exactly. the other phenomenon the players experienced was a gift of a powerful boon from 'a mote of light, possibility.' dorian and dariax gained the ability to control the strength of gravity on their bodies; orym got an additional battle maneuver after viewing time as a path forward, like his future; opal, as a martial caster, had an epiphany on how all magic overlaps and got a pool of hit points to heal people with; and fearne was able to change time by willing a d20 roll to be rerolled after viewing time as a sprawling web that she could pluck apart to her liking.
mechanically, each player rolled a d6 on their first turn to determine their boon—except orym, who received a boon without rolling a d6. orym is also the only party member whose class, battle master fighter, doesn't have spellcasting as a feature. the energy of the cube may be limited for those that don't have a lot of experience with or capacity for magic. those who do, though, can get a variety of different powers. based on the others' results (opal: 1, dorian and fearne: 3, dariax: 4), the boons are likely split into three groups: 1–2 seems to correspond to divine-based powers like healing, while 3–4 seems to be dunamancy-adjacent and therefore possibly arcane. 5–6 is a mystery since no one rolled either number, but a probable hypothesis is elemental/nature-based magic.
so, the activated cube will create a hostile stone guardian derived from the person's relative strength, should they fail to use their will to prevent it. at the same time, they receive a gift of power with a random understanding of how to will it into use. the stone guardians challenge the person in combat—an appropriate context for learning magic to fight primordials. the stone guardians' main tactic is brutal too: aiming for what the person fears most. but an effective way, in a controlled situation, to make someone force their will on the world very hard to stop it.
with all that in mind, the rest of the command phrases begin to make a lot of sense too.
"the universe above / the universe within / remember what came before." the first phrase refers to the gods, echoing the story of the founding in the EGtW and its continual references to their origins "beyond the ashen skies." the second phrase likely refers to the primordials, who lived beneath and within the earth. so in the context of devastation brewing at the hands of the primordials, what would a call to "remember what came before" mean—except to remember that the gods had created all mortal life from the elemental chaos? simply by choosing to shape them into existence?
"decide what happens next" is the method by which the person takes control of the power and magic around them—on their own, like the gods themselves.
then: "provide for all / a shield to protect." these two phrases connect smoothly. they can refer to mortals learning magic in order to protect their communities and loved ones from the primordials. it can also refer to the cube itself and the intentions of the gods who would become the prime deities—providing mortals with the methods to protect each other.
TL;DR: i think the cube is a religious artifact that taught mortals arcane magic because of how old it is and how the cube made a really cool arena full of magically-granted epiphanies on the nature of magic and the universe.
thank you for reading my ted talk :-) hopefully you enjoyed it before aabria (maybe) dunks this post into the garbage on thursday.
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thecreaturecodex · 3 years ago
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Feral Creature Template
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“Feral Minotaur” by Wayne Reynolds, © Wizards of the Coast
[Savage Species was a boon for players and DMs alike, giving rules for how to play monsters as classes a la the Basic D&D “races as classes” model, along with tons of feats, prestige classes and templates for modifying existing monsters. These two concepts played together with... mixed success. Namely, power creep, which was huge with this book. I remember playing a thri-kreen with the Multiweapon feats from Savage Species who made twelve bastard sword attacks by 12th level. And the feral template, which was a level adjustment +1 way to get the pounce ability, was much abused. One player in my high school game had a feral frenzied berserker who was so overpowered that I made him the final boss of the entire campaign. So as one GM to another I am saying this right now. The feral template should be reserved for monsters, not players.]
Feral Creature CR +2 Template
Feral Minotaur CR 6 CE Monstrous Humanoid This bull-headed humanoid is muscle-bound, with a leathery hide and large clawed hands.
Feral creatures are humanoids or monstrous humanoids with an animalistic aspect. Some of them are the process of natural selection, with stronger, more brutal individuals being favored over time in harsh environments. Some are blessed or cursed by gods of strength and monsters, being granted a tougher physical form at the expense of their minds. Still others are the results of alchemical experiments, partially fleshwarped or permanently affected by mutagenic chemicals.
Feral creatures vary in alignment, but most are at the very least chaotic. They are impatient with the trappings of civilization and have little patience for book learning, but have keen senses and intuitive minds. Their clawed fingers lack manual dexterity and they tend to be somewhat swollen with muscle, and they much prefer melee combat to ranged warfare or spellcasting. Some feral creatures still use manufactured weapons, typically of simple or crude make, but others prefer to feel the warmth of blood on their hands.
A feral creature is more massive than an ordinary member of its species, but many are not as tall due to hunched postures. Some even run on all fours with an ape-like gait, but this is by no means universal.
Creating a Feral Creature
“Feral creature” is an inherited or acquired template that can be added to a humanoid or monstrous humanoid. A feral creature uses all of the base creature’s statistics except as noted here
CR: +2 Type: The creature’s type changes to monstrous humanoid. Do not adjust HD, BAB, saves or skills Armor Class: natural armor increases by +4 Defenses/Qualities: Gains darkvision 60 ft. and scent; if the creature already had darkvision, its darkvision increases by 30 ft.; gains ferocity; gains fast healing equal to ½ the creature’s adjusted CR (maximum fast healing 10) Melee: A feral creature gains two claw attacks that deal damage as normal for a creature of its size. If the base creature already has claw attacks, increase the damage they deal by one die. Special Attacks: A feral creature gains one of the following special attacks. It gains two if its Hit Dice are 8 or higher, and three if its Hit Dice are 16 or higher. Grab (Ex) as the universal monster quality. Pounce (Ex) as the universal monster quality. Powerful Blows (Ex) as the universal monster quality, with one natural weapon. This ability can be selected multiple times. Rake (Ex) with two claws, as the universal monster quality. A feral creature must have grab or pounce before selecting this ability Rend (Ex) with two claws, as the universal monster quality. Trample (Ex) As the universal monster quality, dealing damage as a slam attack of the creature’s size. If the creature already has a slam attack, it deals that damage if it is higher. Abilities Str +4, Dex -2, Con +4, Int -2 (minimum 3), Wis +2 Skills A feral creature gains a +4 racial bonus to two of the following skills: Acrobatics, Climb, Fly, Perception, Stealth, Swim.
Statistics for a sample feral creature below the cut
Feral Minotaur CR 6 XP 2,400 CE Large monstrous humanoid Init +0; Senses darkvision 90 ft., Perception +10, scent Defense AC 16, touch 8, flat-footed 16 (-1 size, -1 Dex, +8 natural) hp 57 (6d10+24); fast healing 3 Fort +8, Ref +4, Will +6 Defensive Abilities ferocity, natural cunning Offense Speed 30 ft. Melee greataxe +11/+6 (3d6+9/×3) and gore +6 (1d6+3) or 2 claws +11 (1d6+6), gore +11 (1d6+6) Space 10 ft.; Reach 10 ft. Special Attacks powerful charge (gore, 2d6+9), rend (2 claws, 1d6+9) Statistics Str 23, Dex 8, Con 19, Int 5, Wis 12, Cha 8 Base Atk +6; CMB +13 (+15 bull rush); CMD 22 (+24 vs. bull rush) Feats Great Fortitude, Improved Bull Rush, Power Attack Skills Climb +10, Perception +11, Stealth +5, Survival +11; Racial Modifiers +4 Climb, +4 Perception, +4 Stealth, +4 Survival Languages Giant Ecology Environment temperate ruins or underground Organization solitary, pair, or gang (3–4) Treasure standard (greataxe, other treasure) Special Abilities Natural Cunning (Ex) Although minotaurs are not especially intelligent, they possess innate cunning and logical ability. This gives them immunity to maze spells and prevents them from ever becoming lost. Further, they are never caught flat-footed.
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grailfinders · 4 years ago
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Fate and Phantasms #147: Gorgon
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Today on Fate and Phantasms we’re making the one goddess of the three goddess alliance who actually had some skin in the game, Gorgon! This misbegotten monstrosity of a Medusa is made of a Undead Warlock for some scary surprises and the ability to make all her enemies into statues as well as a Rune Knight Fighter for a bit of help winning at basketball.
Check out her build breakdown below the cut, or her character sheet over here!
Next up: Purrsonally I purrfurred Tamamo Cat, but ny’all can pick whichefur you want!
Race and Background
Sadly there aren’t any large player races, but we can still go Yuan Ti for all the goodies you get from there! As a snerson (snake person), you come equipped with Darkvision, Innate Spellcasting for Poison Spray and Animal Friendship (to snakes) at will. Starting at third level, you’ll also be able to use Suggestion once per long rest. All these spells use Charisma to cast. Finally, you get a defensive buff thanks to Magic Resistance and Poison Immunity. The former gives you advantage on saves against magic, while the latter makes you immune to poison damage and the poisoned condition.
Since you’re the only goddess in the alliance that believes in the destruction of humanity, we’ll call you the Goddess Alliance Cultist, but we’re messing with the background a bit, so instead you’ll get proficiency with Athletics and Religion.
Ability Scores
If you want monstrous Strength, you better be ready to invest a lot in it. As a walking apocalypse, you’re pretty scary-that’s Charisma. You can’t be a video game boss without plenty of Constitution either, so make that #3. Your strongest weapons are based on your eyesight, so make Wisdom next. Surprisingly enough Guda didn’t try to defeat the giant rampaging monster with a math quiz, so we’ll just have to assume your Intelligence is average. That means we’re dumping Dexterity. You are literally a giant target, it’s not that surprising. 
Class Levels
1. Fighter 1: Fighters start off with a better hit die, plus you get proficiency with Strength and Constitution saves as well as Intimidation and Survival checks. Your Unarmed Fighting Style lets you punch people for 1d6 damage, or 1d8 if both your hands are empty. You’re not big on “weapons”, so that’s fine by you. You also get a Second Wind, letting you regrow some snake heads as a bonus action. I might be getting my myths mixed up.
2. Warlock 1: Quite a bit of your power is coming on loan from Tiamat, and she literally can’t die, making you an Undead warlock. This gives you Pact Magic, spells you cast with Charisma that recharge on short rests. You also gain a Form of Dread, transforming a little bit into Tiamat for 1 minute. While transformed, you gain temporary HP, can force a wisdom save (DC 8+proficiency+charisma mod) to frighten a creature you attack once per turn, and you become immune to being frightened yourself. You can transform proficiency times per long rest.
Going back to spells, you get a lot of them thanks to your background. For cantrips, you get Fire Bolt and Vicious Mockery, and for first level spells you get Burning Hands, Dissonant Whispers, and Hellish Rebuke. There’s a lot of fire in there, but we can reflavor it in a couple of levels, don’t worry. 
As far as spells we can choose, you get Blade Ward to make up for the 9 AC you’re rocking by gaining resistance on most physical attacks, Eldritch Blast to shoot snake hair at your foes, Armor of Agathys to make attacking you a losing proposition thanks to your temporary HP and counterattack, and Arms of Hadar for more snakes, turning the area within 10′ of you into a snake pit.
3. Warlock 2: Second level warlocks get Eldritch Invocations, letting you customize your eternal servitude how you see fit. We’re swapping one next level, but use the other to get Armor of Shadows, boosting your 9 AC to an amazing 12 AC! Wow!
You also learn the spell Hex, cursing someone to deal 1d6 extra necrotic damage and giving disadvantage on one kind of ability check.
4. Fighter 2: Second level fighters get an Action Surge, letting you slap an extra action onto your turn once per short rest. Raid bosses can cheat the action economy a bit, everyone knows that.
5. Warlock 3: Gorgon did give us a bit of trouble when it came to their pact boon- she doesn’t use weapons, doesn’t rely on familiars, and she’s definitely not a bookwyrm. By process of elimination, you’ve earned the Pact of the Talisman, giving you a trinket that can add 1d4 to a failed ability check proficiency times per long rest.
That alone isn’t particularly scary, but the invocation Rebuke of the Talisman lets you deal a bit of psychic damage and push an attacking creature away from you as a reaction.
You also get the prerequisite flood of second level spells- from your background, you get Crown of Madness, Enthrall, and Flaming Sphere. Honestly I think Enthrall works for you- it’s not like there’s something out there that’s more distracting than you, right?
You also learn Hold Person for baby’s first petrification.
6. Warlock 4: If your AC’s really going to be that bad, we should at least use this Ability Score Improvement to bump up your Constitution for better HP. You also learn Infestation to summon your first Demonic Beasts (they’re just small) and Earthbind to stone up flying creatures enough to force them to land.
7. Warlock 5: Fifth level warlocks get another invocation and third level spells! From your background you get Fear and Haste, both of which are actually in character for you! You also learn to Summon Lesser Demons for some small-fry demonic beasts. Just remember you don’t actually count as a demon yourself in D&D, so they will happily kill you as soon as anyone else.
You also get the invocation Cloak of Flies, giving you a poisonous 5′ aura that you can invoke as a bonus action once per short rest. The aura gives you advantage on intimidation checks, but disadvantage on all other checks, and deals damage to anything within it equal to your charisma modifier. Just be glad Guda didn’t summon your other sisters.
8. Warlock 6: Sixth level undeadlocks are Grave Touched, meaning you no longer need to eat, drink or breathe- the full servant experience! You can also replace the damage of any attack with necrotic damage, and while your Form of Dread is up, you add an extra die of damage to the attack as well!
You also learn how to make a Spirit Shroud, dealing extra necrotic, cold, or radiant damage on all attacks you make within 10′ of yourself. You also slow down creatures that start their turn in the shroud.
9. Fighter 3: As a Rune Knight, you become a Rune Carver, letting you stick runes on weapons, armor, jewelry, or other small objects for small bonuses-you can also invoke them once per short rest for bigger bonuses. 
The Fire rune doubles your tool proficiencies, and you can also invoke the rune add extra fire (or necrotic) damage to the attack. If it fails a strength save (dc 8+proficiency+intelligence modifier) it becomes restrained, and takes extra fire damage each turn.
The Stone rune gives advantage on insight checks, and gives you extended darkvision. You can also use your reaction to charm creatures who end their turn near you, leaving them incapacitated if they fail a wisdom save.
More importantly, you also get Giant Might, using a bonus action to grow to Large size for a minute. While transformed, you have advantage on strength checks and save, and deal an extra d6 damage per weapon attack. You can transform proficiency times per long rest.
10. Warlock 7: Seventh level warlocks get fourth level spells. From your background: Confusion and Wall of Fire. Neither are great for us, but you also get Shadow of Moil, making attacking you an even worse idea thanks to a necrotic counterattack.
You also get the invocation Protection of the Talisman, letting you add a d4 to a failed save proficiency times per long rest.
11. Warlock 8: Use this ASI to bump up your Charisma for better spells, and to make it easier to control your new spell, Summon Greater Demon. For up to an hour, you can summon a demon of CR 5 or lower. If it continually fails a charisma save each turn, it will obey you. Otherwise it’ll run wild. Honestly? Both work for you.
12. Warlock 9: Fifth level spell time! You know what? Since we’re not making a Tiamat build, we might as well have some fun with the primordial sea while we still can. Dominate Person, Danse Macabre, and Minions of Chaos will help you raise a Ushiwakamaru Alter army in whatever flavor you prefer- living, undead, or elemental!
13. Warlock 10: Our last undead goody makes you a Mortal Husk, giving you resistance to necrotic damage (or immunity while using Form of Dread). On top of that, once per 1d4 long rests you can blow up your body when you hit 0 HP, dealing necrotic damage in the area and reviving yourself with 1 HP. It’s one hell of a guts skill, but it does give you some exhaustion.
We also continue our Ushiwakamarufication tour with Negative Energy Flood, a spell that deals tons of necrotic damage and turns a target into a zombie if it kills them. It can even heal your existing zombiwakamarus! 
14. Warlock 11: Your Mystic Arcanum gives you the option to cast Flesh to Stone once per long rest. If a targeted creature fails a constitution save three times, they become stone. If they succeed three times, they escape. If you keep concentration on the spell for the full minute while they’re petrified, it lasts until dispelled. 
15. Warlock 12: Our last warlock level is another ASI, which we’re putting into Constitution for better concentration checks and more HP. You also get the invocation Sculptor of Flesh, letting you cast Polymorph once per long rest. Have you ever wanted to actually be a giant snake? Now you can! (You can also do, like, a T. Rex, if you wanna powergame.)
16. Fighter 4: Another ASI already? Bump up your Strength for better punching. That’ll be relevant soon.
17. Fighter 5: It’s soon! This level gives you an Extra Attack each attack action, for two punches per action, or four in a turn with Action Surge.
18. Fighter 6: Use this ASI to bump up your Constitution for even more HP.
19. Fighter 7: Seventh level rune knights can use their Runic Shield to force a creature to re-roll their attack when they hit an ally. You can do this proficiency times per long rest. You also get the Hill rune, which has absolutely useless passives, but you can invoke it as a bonus action to get resistance to physical attacks for a minute.
20. Fighter 8: You thought we were gonna max out our constitution this level, right? WRONG! Grab that Tough feat for an extra 40 HP!
Pros:
Thanks to your Spirit Shroud being forcibly maxed out, you have terrifying short range damage options. With an action surge, your Form of Dread, and two eldritch blasts, you can deal 16d10+24d8 Necrotic damage in a single turn, and that’s not even including any critical hits! That gives you an average damage just shy of 200, and a possible maximum of 352. Plus rolling that many dice is probably really satisfying.
Adding to that, you have plenty of other reasons for enemies to avoid melee range- your counterattack game is wild. Armor of Agathys, Hellish Rebuke, Shadow of Moil, Cloak of Flies... getting too close to you really is dangerous.
For a mostly spellcaster build, you are incredibly thick. With over 200 hp and a couple different ways to give yourself protection from most attacks, it will take a lot of hits to topple this kaiju.
Cons: 
Speaking of a lot of hits, you’ll be taking those! Your AC is only 12, 14 at best if you’re hasted. Of course this problem could be solved with some heavy armor, but I doubt they make it in your size.
You also have a heavy focus on Necrotic damage, meaning that your options will become much more limited against undead, Aasimar, and demons.
Speaking of, you summon Demons. That’s kind of a deal breaker for a lot of adventuring parties. It’s not even like you could keep a low profile for plausible deniability, people are going to notice the big snake lady hanging around the demon attacks.
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the-colony-roleplay · 3 years ago
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Perdita Meikle | Forty Seven;  Elite
House: Brink Status: Infected — Increased Sight & Smell Elite Specification: Therapist Alignment: New Age Rebels
[*TW: Addiction, Substance Abuse*]
History
Perdita is Latin for “lost” but Perdita’s parents said they hadn’t known that when they named her: they just liked the character from The Winter’s Tale. It never felt like a particularly pertinent name until Perdita was thirteen and the Meikle family got into a car crash. Perdita survived. Her mother, her father, and her older brother Dakota all died, leaving Perdita alone in the world.
She was given a large sum of money, as the accident was caused by a driver of a particularly large shipping company which had wanted to avoid a court case made of one of their drivers abusing pills. While most of this money was stored away to gather interest by her sensible grandparents, who had taken her in after the accident, a chunk of it was used to send Perdita to an exclusive all-girls school that the Meikles had previously been unable to afford. She’d always been a keen student, held back by the local high school that didn’t offer much to its students, and she hoped she would find her people there. She had to, really, as she had little else to hold on to.
So Perdita, now as lost as her name, wandered into the vast school’s grounds in her neatly pressed uniform and buried herself in her studies. She was alone and frightened and her grandparents were dealing with the grief of losing their family too, so they weren’t able to offer much support. One history teacher in particular took notice of Perdita’s work, and invited her to join an elusive, extra-curricular class. Apparently, the group had been active since the school’s inception several centuries earlier, and never had more than nine or ten girls in it. Finding something to belong to did wonders for Perdita’s self esteem—a family found after the loss of her own. The girls in that class were all very close, bonded by a sense of exclusivity even in one of England’s most exclusive schools, and they kept the group very secret. Most students weren’t even aware of its existence.
It wasn’t that the girls involved did anything that necessitated secrecy. Ms. Gaumond got them together in the old, disused Latin tower (apparently none of the faculty were aware, and believed the tower was just storage) to discuss history. That was the surface of it, at least, and they all knew that if you impressed her and got a good reference, you were as good as guaranteed a place in any university of your choice. If there was an emphasis on occult history, well, that was just where their interests happened to take them.
Perdita grew particularly close to one other girl in the group, Greer, who was far more chaotic than Perdita’s own calm demeanour. Yin and yang, they liked to think, and they egged each other on, reading too much into the extra lessons, performing rituals from musty old textbooks just to see if something magical might happen. Nothing ever did, of course, but it didn’t stop them from cutting their palms open and bonding with blood: the scar of that particular misstep still sits white and raised on Perdita’s palm.
They were each other’s downfall. They skipped classes together, stole wine from the enormous cellar in Greer’s house, went to college parties and lied about their age. At the start of the academic year, Perdita’s teachers had been singing her praises. By the end of it, they were sending letters to her grandparents expressing their concern. Perdita and Greer skimmed by together with an us-versus-the-world mentality, not caring that the other students avoided their gazes, and gave them an extra wide berth in the halls, as they were rumoured to be dark and dangerous. The two girls were permitted to stay in Ms. Gaumond’s classes by virtue of favouritism rather than any particular contributions that they made, though they had more or less given up on the idea of university and didn’t care about her recommendation.
That was until Greer was admitted to rehab in their final year. Visiting her best friend in that grim hospital was a sobering experience for Perdita, both literally and figuratively. Greer had almost died, and it showed on her face. In later years, Greer would continue to struggle with addiction, but the shock to Perdita’s system was enough for her to pull her socks up. She was terrified, and after several years of bad habits, getting back on track was a struggle, but with Ms. Gaumond’s support and a truly staggering amount of nicotine patches, she managed to get into university. Now, at least, she knew what she wanted to do with her life: become a therapist. Someone to help lost kids like herself and Greer look after themselves.
Despite the intensity of their high school friendship, the two young women drifted. Perdita was focused on her degree and this time she wouldn’t be distracted. When she graduated it was with honours, which helped her to find work with a public hospital, and eventually open her own practice. When she did, she accepted all patients, but had a leaning towards young people struggling with grief and addiction.
Perdita Today
Perdita’s teenage years had been wild; if she’s being honest, she can’t remember a lot of that time. But she grew into a calm, measured adult who preferred a quiet life. She never married, somehow not quite finding the courage to start a new family. Her grandparents passed away shortly after she graduated university, and some quiet, martyred part of her thought the Meikle line should end with her. Maybe she just never learned to socialize without getting drunk. She had a small group of friends, in which she always felt like an outsider: they all had spouses and children. Perdita had a grey tabby cat called Lily, and she had her patients.
But it was fulfilment enough for her, and after a troubled youth she was quite happy with the idea of a slow, long adulthood. D-Day put a rather rapid stop to those ambitions. Sheer dumb luck allowed her to survive, as she dove into her bath and pulled the mattress over herself. In retrospect, she’s fairly sure that’s what you do in case of nuclear attack, but she’s not sure they ever released a PSA on surviving an asteroid shower. As it was, the block of apartments she lived in would go on to become Colony 12; it had been relatively unscathed, and with a lot of survivors passing through, they realized they were well located to be something of a way-point. Perdita’s calm, unshakeable attitude (as well as her doctorate), made her a natural leader for the group, someone that everyone looked to for guidance. She wasn’t sure how qualified she really was for that, but she did her best and she helped heal a lot of lost souls in the years following D-Day.
She had this lurking feeling, however, that she should be doing more. Colony 12 was so small, and there were so many people out there that needed help. Perdita largely sat tight for her cat: Lily was old, and probably wouldn’t do well if they went roaming. But when Lily died, Perdita found she had nothing left keeping her there. She requested a transfer to Colony 22 which was larger than 12—in footprint, if not in population—but it had less through-traffic and more long-term residents, which would allow her to help more people. She considered going to Colony 4, but was worried it would be too large for her tastes, and too impersonal.
Perdita is a new addition to the therapy department, having only arrived a couple weeks ago. She has found a lot of comfort in her work, and has been burying herself in that in order to avoid the NWRF. The Reforms hadn’t caused such waves at Colony 12, but here she feels very persecuted for something entirely outside of her control. It wasn’t like she asked for increased senses—the sight is a bit of a boon, as she was worried before that she might need glasses. But the increased smell is just an inconvenience that leaves her feeling faintly nauseated most of the time. 
Though she’s never been politically minded, she has heard whispers of a group called the New Age Rebels, and she’d like to hear what they have to say. They seem like a sensible lot, and Perdita very much wants things to start making sense again. For all the care she offers her patients, she doesn’t extend the same courtesy to herself, and she is beginning to buckle under the self-inflicted pressure.
OPEN
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hellyeahheroes · 4 years ago
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Building Xiomara Rojas in D&D 5e
I had an awesome game of D&D today ad I feel so excited I decided to make a D&D build again. I mean, I recently learned D&D sells numbers comic books can dream of, so those I made may attackt hopefully some D&D fans to comics. And It’s been Lesbian Visibility Day earlier this week so let’s build one badass Lesbian from Teen Titans - Xiomara Rojas a.k.a. Crush, Daughter of Lobo
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As always, I follow the template laid by Tulok the Barbarian in doing those, so we will start with Goals for this build. First, we have to be as tough and hard to put down and punching as hard as only a Half-Czarnian can. Second, we need to get a sentient chain that can move on its own. Third, we need ways to use Obelus to restrain out enemies.
For Ability Scores as always we stick to Standard Point Array - 15, 14, 13, 12, 10 and 8. You can roll or use point buy and treat my picks as guidelines, but remember that Strength and Charisma will need to meet Multiclassing Minimum, so you need at least 13 in them.
Strength: 14, you are muscle of the team after all
Constitution: 15, Czarnians are known for being extremly hard to kill and you took punches from Lobo
Dexterity: 12, there is no way what you are wearing is an armor. Okay MAYBE leather. MAYBE.
Intelligence: 8, sadly it doesn’t seem you continued traditional education after your parents were murdered
Wisdom: 10, you are reckless and fall for your father’s mind control.
Charisma: 13, must be at least good enough to attract cute girls
Now for Race. I was considering many options but in the end decided to settle on Goliath, who give us relevant abilitties and look kinda like bald Czarnians. They get +2 Strength and +1 Constitution, letting Crush start with two 16s. They are so big they count as one category larger for how much they can push, drag, lift or carry. They are so tough once per short or long rest they can roll a 1d12, add their Constitution to it and ignore that much damage and they shrug off extreme heights and cold climate.
Alternatives: Yeah, I mentioned other options -  Tiefling, especially Bloodline of Zariel or Levistus,  firts well thematically but I like to have it reserved for children of actual demons. Half-orc is another great option, so is full-blown Orc, but in the end I didn’t want to repeat Skaar, who uses a Half-Orc (Ironically guess which race I will likely use for his brother one day?).
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Background: Crush entire story starts with a family who adopted her so we will go with that. Adopted background gives you three skills - Persuasion, Deception and Stealth, an ability to speak language of your adopted family and Trust Issues feature - both members of your biological and adopted race have issues trusting you fully but it causes members of other races take pity on you and trust you faster and easier. It kinda makes sense, humans fear you for being child of Lobo, and Lobo wants you dead. Meanwhile people who are in similiar boat about being aliens or other species on Earth are likely to get what you’re going through.
1st Level: Now to the Class Levels, we will kick it off as a Barbarian. Pick two skills, I’d go with Athletics and Perception. You get Unarmored Defense, meaning that as long as you are not wearing armor, your Armor Class is 10 + your Dexterity Modifier + Your Constitution Modifier. Which is good since there is no way this jacket is anything but leather armor at best.
You also learn to Rage, Twice for every long rest you can, as a bonus action, enter the state of Rage during which you deal extra 2 damage to every attack, gain resistance to bludgeoning, peircing and slashing damage and advantage on Strength checks and saving throws, but you cannot cast spells or concentrate on existing ones while you rage and it ends if you didn’t attack anything on your turn, taken damage since your last turn or are knocked unconcious.
2nd Level: And that was it for Barbarian. We will now switch to Fighter - 1st level gives us Second Wind, letting you once per long or short rest regain 1d10+ your fighter level hit points as a bonsu action. You also get to choose a fighting style. I will be covering martial side of this build first, so I’d advise you to choose depending of what you want to represent Obelus, but anything with Great Weapon Fighting would do the best possibly, as I’ll explain later.
3rd Level: 2nd Level Fighter gains Action Surge, letting you gain an extra action once per Long or Short rest.
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4th Level: 3rd Level Fighter gets to choose a Martial Archetype. Brute gives you Brute Force, which lets you add 1d4 to damage of all your attacks.
5th Level: 4th Level Fighter gains an Abilitty Score Improvement, boost your Strength.
6th Level: 5th Level Fighter gets an Extra Attack, letting you attack twice on each of your turns.
7th Level: 6th Level Fighter gains another Abilitty Score Improvement, round up your Strength
8th Level: 7th Level Brute gains Brutish Durability, letting you add 1d6 to each saving throw you roll. This includes Death saves and if it would increase that roll to 20 or more you gain benefits of rolling a natural 20 on a death saving throw. 
9th Level: 8th Level Fighter gains, you guessed it, Abilitty Score Improvement, letting you now increase your Constitution
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Now that we have done the physical side of Xiomara, let’s focus on her chain Obelus. I wanted to get the martial stuff out of my way quick, but you can feel free to mix two havles of this build as you see fit.
10th Level: We will now take a 1st Level of Warlock. Fiend Pact Warlock is, weirdly, having the closest relationship with their patron to Crush and her father, what’s with having power from evil, ultimatelly feared bastich who wants to control you and make you do his bidding. This pact gives you Dark One’s Blessing - whenever you drop an opponnent to 0 Hit Points you gain temporary Hit Points equal to your Charisma Modifier + Your Warlock level, which is a good way to represent regeneration Czarnians are known for, especially useful in middle of combat, where you cannot cast healing spells due to your rage.
Warlock also learns Spellcasting. You get a number of spells known and a limited number of Spell Slots you brun up to cast them, as well as Cantrips that you can always cast. Your Spell Slots are always of the higher level you can cast as a Warlock and you get them back after short or long rest. If a spell requires you to make an attack roll you add to it your Charisma modifier and Proficiency Bonus and if a spell requires a saving throw, it has to beat a number equal these two +8.
You start with two Cantrips and two Spells and you wil llearn another spell at 2nd Level
Thunderclap let’s you stopm or clap so hard that the shockwave forces all creatures within 5 feet of you to make a Constitution saving throw or suffer 1d6 thudner damage. Or rather, because this is a Cantrip, which scale with your total level, not Warlock level, 2d6 damage and 3d6 once you reach 11th level.
Sword Burst lets Obelus swirls around and works just like Thunderclap but with Dexterity saving throw and dealing force damage. I don’t know why they named it Sword Burst when it should be Chain Burst, tho.
Arms of Hadar make Obelus burst and hit all creatures within 10 feet of you, dealing them 2d6 necrotic damage and making them unable to take reactions until their netx turn, unless they make a Strength saving throw, then they only get half of the damage.
Comprehend Languages lets you understand all languages for an hour with no concentration. Xiomara is a polygoth and this spell will last even in rage.
Cause Fear lets Crush intimidate one creature that isn’t undead or a construct, forcing it to make a Wisdom saving throw or become Frightened, it ends after 1 minute or if the target makes antoher saving throw at the end of each of its turn or you break Concentration.
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11th Level: 2nd Level Warlock gains Eldritch Invocations, which are extra boons from your patron or in this case from your Czarnian Herritage. Pick up Devil’s Sight, which lets you see in darkness and magical darkness at distance of 120 feet. It is not a spell, it just is on you at all times. You can change Invocations when you take a level fo Warlock, which we will do in a moment so pick whatever as your second one for now.
12th Level: 3rd Level Warlock gets to chosoe a Pact Boon. Pact of the Blade let’s you summon or imbude with your powers a weapon. As long as you wield it, you are profficient with it and it counts as magical and if you are 5 feet away from you it disappears but can be summonned again. Improved Pact weapon Eldritch Invocation also lets you use it as spellcasting focus for your spells, makes it a +1 weapon unless it already had a magic bonus and expands list of possible weapons to ranged ones. Now we could talk about what Obelus is - you could use a flail for it or you could use an actual chain as an improvised weapon, maybe convincing the DM to treat is as a two-handed equivalent of flail to get the benefits of Great-Weapon Fighting.
Your spells are now all cast from 2nd level and you also get to learn a 2nd-level spell - Hold Person lets you force a Wisdom saving throw on a target or make it paralyzed for the duration or until it succeeds another save at the end of its turn. This is basically you making Obelus wrap itself around an enemy and hold it in place.
13th Level: 4th Level Warlock gets an Ability Score Improvement, round up your Constitution, and another spell and cantrip: 
Lighting Lure let’s you shoot lighting throw Obelus around a target within 15 feet and force it to make a Strength saving throw or be pulled 10 feet towards you. If it ends the turn with 5 feet from you, it takes 3d8 lighting damage.
Shatter deals 3d8 Force damage to all creatures in 10 feet range from you, half if they pass a Constitution saving throw, but those made of inorganic materials make it with an disadvantage.
14th Level: 5th Level Warlock bumps their spell slots to 3rd level and gains a new one, and we will also use an option to exchange any spell known for another when you level up to grab two.
Exchange Comprehend Languages for Tongues, which is just stronger version of it that lets you also speak and be understood by anyone who can understand at least one language.
Fear works like Cause Fear but let’s you intimidate a group of creatures in a 30-foot cone, and if they fail a saving throw they are forced to spend their turns running away from you and get to repeat a saving throw once you’re out of their sight.
Okay, all fine and dandy, but Barbarian rage still turns off your spells so you have to choose if you rage or if you rage or cast. If there was a way to use these spell slots while you rage...Heeey, we get a new Eldritch Invocation. Eldritch Smite let’s you choose to burn up your Warlock spell slot when you strike a target to deal it extra 4d8 (1d8+ 1d8 per slott level and yours are on 3rd) force damage and if the target is Huge or smaller, you can also knock them prone
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15th Level: We will now switch to Bard. Grab Acrobatics as your extra skill. 1st Level bard gains Bardic Inspiration - a d6 you can give your ally as a bonus action, letting them add it to an attack roll, abilitty check or saving throw they make within the next 10 minutes. You can do it a number of times equal your Charisma modifier per long rest. Be it cheering on Djinn or threatening Robin what will you do to him if he keeps his bs, it will certainly be useful.
You also gain Bardic Spellcasting. It works like Warlock’s but with following differences: 1. You regain spell slots on a long rest but get more of them 2. They are divided in levels and to cast a spell you need to spend a spell slot from at least its level. Your Bard and Warlock levels do not stack for determining how high spells slots or a number of spell slots you have an access to, but you can cast your Bard spells using Warlock’s slots and vice-versa.
You start with 2 Cantrips and 4 1st level spells known
Mending allows you to make small repair in objects, meaning you can help fix any damage Obelus takes for you.
Vicious Mockery lets you unleash insults that force the target to make a Wisdom saving throw or take 3d4 psychic damage and have a disadvantage on the next attack roll it makes before end of its next turn.
Earth Tremor lets you stomp the ground and force all creatures to make a Dexterity saving throw or be knocked prone and take 1d6 bludgeoning damage.
Cure Wounds lets you heal 1d8+your Charisma modifier of Hit Points.
Feather Fall lets you slown down your fall after you jump from large height make it that if you reach the ground in 1-minute duration of the spell, you won’t take any damage from the fall.
False Life lets you add 1d4+4 temporary hit points for an hour, no concentration. Cast it before battle and if enemy hits you, you can regain them with Dark One’s Blessing
You will get one more spell at next level: Heroism will make you immune to being frightened and let you regain temporary hit points equal your Charisma modifier at the beginning of each of your turns.
16th Level: 2nd Level Bard becomes Jack of All Trades, meaning you now add half your proficiency modifier to all skills you aren’t already profficient in. You also learn song of rest, letting you and everyone else reroll an extra 1d6 when you roll to regain HP on a short rest.
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17th Level: 3rd Level Bard gains Expertise in two skills, letting you double your Proficiency bonus for them. I’d pick Athletics and Perception. You also get to choose a Bardic College. College of Creation lets you give a special Note of Potential alongside your Bardic Inspiration that can be spent while a character rolls it. If they use Inspiration for an Ability Check, they can roll it twice and choose a better result. If for an attack roll, they can make every creature within 5 feet suceeed a Constitution saving throw as if you cast a spell or take damage equal to Bardic Inspiration roll. If on a saving throw, they can also gain temporary hit points equal to what they rolled on the Inspiration die + your Charisma modifier.
You also get to learn a 2nd level spell but before that let me jump to 18th Level where 4th Level Bard gains an Abilitty Score Improvement,invest in your Charisma (or Grab Resilent Feat for it if it’s on an odd number), and gets to learn another 2nd Level spell and a new Cantrip
Message is the communicator allowing you to contact rest of the team by sending short messages and allowing a short reply.
Locate Object lets you focus and sense an object you have seen if it is is within 1000 feet from you and not behind any thick walls or barriers. It will help if anyone tries to steal Obelus again.
Enchance Abilitty lets you give yourself an advantage on one type of Abilitty check. If it’s Strength it doubles your already big carrying capacity. If it’s Constitution it gives you 2d6 extra hit points for the duration. If it’s Dexterity you don’t take damage from falling unless you’re incapitated.
19th Level: 5th Level Bard gets to boost their Bardic Inspiration to d8 and regains them on a short rest. You also learn a 3rd Level spell now and another on next level
Nondetection is a no-concentration spell that let’s you hide yourself from divination magic for 8 hours, which is useful when your enemies include a secret crime lord, a Gene Satan, world’s deadliest assassin, your dad and Lex freaking Luthor.
Dispel Magic let’s you cast it to erase effects of any spell of 3rd level or lower automatically and of highter levels if you past a Charisma check of difficulty 10 + spell level. You can use it to play shrugging off negative effects, like breaking whatever is holding you.
20th Level: Our capstone is 6th Level of Bard for two abilitties. Countercharm let’s you use your turn to give you and all allies within 30 feet an advantage on saving throws agains being frightened or charmed.
College of Creation meanwhile gives us Animating Performance, letting you bring a large or smaller item to life. It act after you, as a bonus action you can tell it to make an attack that deals 1d8+you Charisma modifier of damage and then take Dodge as a bonus action, it cannot have it’s form changed by magic, be charmed, exhausted or poisoned, sees up to 60 feet in the dark, has 16 ac, Hit points equal item’s base Constitution modifier + Yor Charisma modifier + five times yoru Bard level.
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Overview: And this is my take on Crush: Goliath Barbarian 1/Brute Fighter 8/Fiend Pact Warlock 5/College of Creation Bard 6. let’s see how good this build is.
Pros: First of all, you can deal a pretty decent amount of damage with Rage, Brute Force and Eldritch Smite. Second, you should have close to 250 HP, making you a decent tank, especially with ways to gain temporary HP, heal or shrug damage. Third, you have a lot of abilitties that can be used to support you and your companions even while you rage - Dark One’s Blessing, Eldritch Smite, Devil’s Sight, Bardic Inspiration, Countercharm, Note of Potential and Animating Performance - none requiring concentration. Fourth, you also have a number of spells you can use once you run out of rages, instead of rage or outside of combat, meaning you’re always useful to the party and a threat to your enemies. Finally, you can have a helpful companion dealing additional damage, helping flank and soaking hits meant for others and you can use it as you use your weapon, maybe even agree with DM it’s two separate ends of the same big chain?
Cons: As good as rage is, it basically shuts down your spellcasting and you have limited uses of it, meaning you have to think carefully how to approach each combat and plan ahead. Second, you are MAD - multiple abilitty dependent. It means your AC is mediocre because of your low Dexterity and your saving throw dc, that many of your offensive spells rely on, is nothing to write home about. Third, in order to get Obelus be both sentient, as pact weapons are usually portrayed, and moving, we had to take basically low level dips into two classes whose casting doesn’t stack, leaving you with a number of low-level spells that at higher levels will not be as dangerous.
In the end however, you are pretty versitile tank, who can get into the combat and be really hard to put down. Remember that you cannot do things alone and you’re best at soaking damage and keeping the enemies away from your allies and I doubt even your dad could be a threat to you. All you need is a good support from second line, maybe an archer or a genie....
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- Admin
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bringersofaggro · 5 years ago
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Guild Wars 2  Raid Info
Raiding in Guild Wars 2 is a 11 (10 players vs 1(+) boss) person reactive dance- There is almost always going to be someone who accidentally steps in bad or gets hit by something, someone else gets kicked and it's the absence of ally Tab-targeting that singles GW2 style raiding out from other MMOs. This means that healing and grouping up with the squad for boons whenever you can is very important- but it’s just about getting get up, getting together, and collectively ruining the day of some spooky big bad.  This post is going to be a long one, so click under the cut for an ever growing glossary of raid - terms that you’ll come across in your adventures, as well as a directory of raid guides, builds and discord links.  And please remember,  Meta builds are not evil villains trying to take away your individuality or uniqueness. They exist to help you beat the content with as wide a margin of failure as possible. If you want to get raid kills, raid rewards or even legendary armor, you’ll have the best time if you can learn a meta build and be flexible with what raid-leaders want. 
Raider’s terms and what they mean
Starting with the RPG holy trinity of Healer, Tank and DPS.
Tank - The player(s) who is/are responsible for keeping the boss positioned and pointed away from the rest of the squad. There are several types of tank across the many raid wings, and several encounters require multiple tanks for various mechanics. (see Kite) Toughness Tank - The player with the highest toughness is automatically the tank. Furthest Tank - Whomever is the furthest from the boss at certain points will become the Tank. (Abina, Cairn) Special Action Tank - (See Soulless Horror, Mursaat Overseer) Someone who upon picking up a role or special action command becomes the tank Bosses’ Choice - (see Matthias Gabrel) This will be a special person that the boss will pick to bully until they go down or are killed.
DPS - These are usually the majority in a raid squad, depending on your composition. Which DPS Class/Build to run depends on the boss you are fighting as some will be resistant to one or the other.
Power DPS - (pDPS)  pDPS builds usually run Berserker/scholar runes (or some similar build), and they try to hit 100% crit through foods, Fury and buffs through the fight. (Power, Ferocity, Precision) Condition DPS - (cDPS, DoTs, Condi) Builds rely on Condition Damage, and Expertise stats to get the most out of their abilities. Common gear sets are often Vipers and Sinister. Healer - Healers exist to keep the squad alive and cleanse conditions from the group. Depending on the build, they may also be responsible for boon generation. Common healer specializations are the Druid, Tempest,Firebrand, Renegade, Scourge and less often Scrapper. 
Support 
This group is less defined, and may be a combination of two of the above trinity. Builds such as Chronomancer-tank, boon thief, Phalanx Strength Warrior, Stance Share Soulbeast, etc are appreciated to bring utility and boons to a composition. 
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Mechanic specific terms 
When describing boss attacks or how we avoid them, we often liken them to previous encounters, but aside from that, there are a few other useful things to know. 
Fixate - Usually indicated by a purple diamond appearing over the Fixate’s head, a message appearing in the chat box, in the middle of the screen and often a sound effect of boss voiceline. In the case of Samarog, the Fixate is decided by the person furthest from the boss at a certain point.  Slothasor, on the other hand just picks a person with the magic of RNG and hidden stats.  CC - Crowd Control. CC is required to break the blue bar below a boss’s red health bar. In many cases this is required to initiate a burn phase, or to negate raid wide damage. CC skills are broken into two groups, -Hard CC - Daze, Stun, Launch, Knock back, Pull, Float, Knock down, Sink, Fear and Taunt. As well as the class specific Thief’s Basilisk Venom “Petrify” and IceBow’s Deep Freeze’s skill effect “freeze”. -Soft CC - Blind, Chill, Cripple, Torment, Immobilize, weakness, slow. Hard CC will break chunks from the bar, whereas soft cc is more akin to a damage over time condition. Stack - Stack on Tag, stack on X, stack on the boss etc, stand on the called marker or on the commander. Most of the time this will be called after a mechanic that spreads the squad out. Burn - Burn phases are called when the boss is vulnerable and the squad can safely run through their damage skills. You might also hear it used as “don’t burn your cooldowns”, in this case they’re saying not to use skills with long cooldowns. It could be that there is not enough time left on the encounter for them to be usable again, for example.
Phase - All raid bosses have attack phases which progress as different requirements are met. Boss health % is common, or time into the encounter or when mechanics are completed.  SAB - No, not Super Adventure Box, Special Action Button (or key) is used quite frequently in raids to give you encounter specific tools to complete the fight. In Cairn, you get a ground targeted dash on a 2 second cool down, to allow you more mobility, Mursaat overseer relies on good management of the 3 SAB roles (Claim, Protect, Dispel) Kite/Kiter - In open world PvE (and Dragon Age 2), Kiting a mob usually means attacking, running from it, attacking and running again. over and over til it dies. In raids, however, you rarely want to move the boss that much, unless a mechanic demands it. (Your squad’s DPS will be higher with an immobile boss)  The kiter in raids is usually a role for specific mechanics (Sabetha’s Flak Kiter or Deimos Hands and Oil kiter). It is their job to place attacks and effects out of the way of the squad.  In this sense, a Kiter is another type of Tank.  /GG - /gg or /qq is a command that you can use in raids to kill your character outright. Doing this does not cause armor damage, and is used to scrap a boss pull when it is clearly doomed. Pull  - Pull or Pulling is the act of getting the boss’s attention and starting the fight. 
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Other Raid Resources
Snow Crows raid Builds and Guides [Website]
This one is probably the best resource for builds, and the most up to date.While you probably won’t need to spring for ascended versions of the gear, for your first run it can’t hurt to keep in mind what is best in slot, even if you never bother to go that hard. 
MetaBattle Raid Builds [Website]
There is bound to be some overlap here, between SC, and MetaBattle doesn’t update as often, but you may find a more niche builds here, outside of what SC considers the Go Hard Sweaty Speed Clear Meta. 
Raider’s Academy (NA) [Discord]
Raid Central (NA) [Discord]
Bringers of Aggro [Oops] Raid Guides for Wing 4 | Boss 1 | Boss 2 | Boss 3 | Boss 4 | Hope this is helpful! If you have more resources you’d like me to add, get in touch!
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mz-elysium · 5 years ago
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A Primer.... On Ghouls
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Ghouls of The Bay By Night, as based on Vampire the Masquerade
Content warnings: fantasy addiction, fantasy slavery, abuse, non-consent
Tag list (let me know if you want to be added or removed):  @thewritertiffany
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Some are promised riches, or glory, or eternal life and beauty. Others are promised power or the Embrace once they’ve proved themselves. Most follow happily, led into hell by the chains of blood.
In the end, they all end up the same.
Slaves.
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Blood bonds
While Monroe had never been a ghoul, he could still remember what his sire’s blood tasted like. If drinking human blood was the closest to a religious experience kindred got, then drinking a kindred’s was akin to an audience with God.
Vampire blood. Kindred vitae. Red stuff from the veins of the undead has numerous supernatural powers, the most feared of which is the blood bond. Not all thralls of the blood bond are ghouls, but all ghouls are fully enthralled. 
The bond is initiated when any drinks from a vampire, after three consecutive drinks it can only be broken by the regent’s death, a year dry, Embracing the thrall into a vampire, or drinking three times from a new vampire (which replaces the bond with a new one).
Ghouls, as they have to drink monthly to keep their benefits, have their bonds topped up regularly. The result is a brutal cycle of addiction and withdrawal, with the dealer set up on an impeccable pedestal.
If the potential thrall is afraid or attempts to fight the drink, the effect only becomes stronger. This terrible consequence of non-consensual bonds (applied as punishment by a prince on another vampire, or through simple cruelty) calls back to the archaic name “blood chains”.
> > First drink. A strange fixation on the regent; might be mistaken for a crush or casual friend. Thinks of them regularly and fondly, but goes on with their day.
> > Second drink. A near-constant preoccupation with the regent; likened to a best friend, but a degree of inequality enters the relationship. The thrall has a deep desire to serve and looks up to the regent with adoration and admiration.
> > Third drink. A complete emotional slave to the regent; unlike any consensual mortal relationship, but quickly can become likened to an abusive romantic relationship. In antiquity, enthralled humans worshiped their regents as blood gods and the sentiment still exists. Thoughts of the regent dominate the thrall’s mind. The regent is absolute and does no wrong.
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Effects of the Blood
So long as they are fed monthly, a ghoul receives a few fringe benefits from their regular intake of vampire blood.
> > Eternal youth. Theoretically immortal, immune to illness, and able to heal from physical injuries with their stored blood. If ghouls are deprived of blood for thirty days, their years catch up with them at a rate of one year a week. Ghouls over a century will turn to dust. 
> > Disciplines. The physical Disciplines of vampire blood (Potence/super strength, Celerity/super speed, and Fortitude/physical resistance) come naturally to a ghoul, while cerebral or magical Disciplines may be taught if a regent requires it. 
> > Sunlight. The sun doesn’t burn even the eldest ghoul and they still have earthly needs and feel desires for sleep, food, water, and sex.
Mostly, though, ghouls are tortured by the blood they crave and the regent they are bound to serve.
> > Mental health. While not a direct side effect of vampire blood, living in a constant state of peril and absolute mercy to a centuries old monster does tend to affect a ghoul’s stability. Many develop PTSD, obsessive tendencies, paranoia, depression, or psychosis after prolonged ghouling.
> > Isolation. While new ghouls might keep contact with a family, nothing will ever compare to the taste of vampire blood or the devotion they feel for the regent. Nothing comes between it. As years go on, ghouls become a unique supernatural creature. Neither human nor vampire, able to keep with the times but never become a part of them.
> > The Beast. The quasi-sentient voice of the blood, the animalistic instinct that desires to hunt and survive is often more a liability than anything. For a ghoul, whose Beast is very weak, it’s doubly dangerous. Their Beast is utterly devoted to their regent and likely to lash out at disobedience. Ghouls can also frenzy, a mental state where the Beast takes over completely, often in a violent manner at the target of the frenzy.
> > Humanity. Unlike vampires, whose humanity is burned or quieted by their full Beast, ghouls have to contest with their human morality. If your vampire god says, “Butcher your human family or I will punish you and make you watch while I do it,” what do you do?
> > Addiction. Physical addiction is immediate, from the first taste. Psychological addiction comes later, as the ghoul realises they will literally die without it. Withdrawal symptoms may include chills, sweats, sensitivity to light, aches and pains, hallucinations, and frenzy. Most turn to further substances in an attempt to calm the agony of withdrawal: alcohol, drugs, caffeine, sex, or drinking human blood (ineffective and dangerous).
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Life cycle of a ghoul
> > New ghouls (0-30 years). Often disposable, may be ghouled for a specific purpose or skill in a modern field the regent wants access to. May not be aware they’ve been ghouled and will be abandoned at some point, returning to their mortal lives with a gaping emotional wound and inexplicably much older.
> > Summer ghouls (30-60 years). Head over heels in a “summer love” with their regent, whether it’s romantic love, admiration, worship, or another twisted relationship, it’s brand new and fresh. These ghouls have been brought into the night world. They know a lot about vampires and know bits of court. The world is thrilling and dangerous, but their regent will protect them. Even if they are harsh.
> > Elder ghouls (60-100 years). The “terrible twos” of ghouls, according to vampires. As ghouls age out of mortal lifespans, they hit a mid-life crisis where they realise there is absolutely no going back. They’ve likely murdered or committed terrible crimes by this point, and traded regents. The world they were born into no longer exists. Their family and everyone they knew is dead. Without the blood, they will crumble.
> > Heirloom ghouls (beyond 100 years). Especially old ones (beyond 200) are sometimes called “winter ghouls”, to contrast the summer ghouls. Heirloom ghouls have lived among vampires so long they cease to be anything resembling humans. They take on vampiric characteristics, like an alien stillness, aloofness, abject cruelty, and a cold distance. Their sole will is to serve. Not necessarily out of devotion, but out of an emotionless drive to survive. At this point, they know the game and have accepted their role as a pawn.
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Ghouls in the sects
Camarilla
Most have one, the Ventrue and Tremere often have several. Heirloom ghouls are a mark of a long unlife of prosperity and power, or a very valuable investment.
Ghouls are often traded to settle boons or debts, or simply given as a gift. They serve many needs -- ranging from providing a human herd, to disposing of bodies, to picking up dry cleaning, to running a corporation, to teaching a wary elder what an “aeroplane” is.
Because the average age of the Camarilla in power is quite old, their views on slavery trickle down through the hierarchy. As such, ghouls become less than second class citizens, barred from society, often horribly abused or mistreated, and regularly written off. 
Even so, “play dates” are scheduled for an elder or heirloom ghoul’s mental health by those regents who care about their investment. It also provides an opportunity for the ghouls to spy or interrogate each other over the pretense of coffee.
While ghouls exist as a slave class, the numerous ghouls of the Ventrue and the Tremere come from places of privilege. They’re captains of industry or hold political office. On the other hand, Toreador ghouls are flights of fancy and hot new artists, traded like fashion accessories and discarded like last season’s Chanel.
Anarchs
Ask ten Anarchs any question about philosophy or sect politics and you’ll get twenty different answers. For Everett and his Reds, including Tony, the creation of a ghoul and binding a mortal in a blood bond is monstrous. How can Anarchs fight for freedom while they hold humans in chains? Many Anarchs agree. They’re young and don’t come from a day world where slavery or indentured servitude is acceptable. 
Others take the thought of the Camarilla and declare ghouls a necessary part of vampire existence. After all, who would protect their havens in the daytime? Who would keep them rooted in the modern times? With issues of vampire inequality, they say, there’s not possibly enough time to worry about ghouls.
What ghouls who are made by Anarchs often end up as daytime spies, infiltrating Camarilla domains, or are made by casual and thoughtless neonates who want their drinking buddy to join them in unlife. 
Sabbat
The Sabbat consider all mortals below them, to an extent even most ancient Camarilla would not. Ghouls, therefore, are both abominations of Caine’s Blessing and dead useful.
Clan Tzimisce took matters into their own hand sometime in the Dark Ages and forced their ghouls to breed. As the blood stunts aging, most unions resulted in miscarriages. Careful application of sorcery saw the first revenants enter the world. Lineages of born ghouls, these revenant families exclusively serve the eldest members of the Sabbat. Many still worship their vampire masters like the blood gods of antiquity -- a model most Sabbat wish the world could return to. 
Even so, this doesn’t spare the revenants from the idle tortures of the inhuman and Bestial Sabbat. It is rare to see a revenant without the mark of Tzimisce flesh-crafting or the abject terror the Lasombra shadow masters inflict.
Independent
Some ghouls exert a supreme force of will and leave their regents. Breaking the bond and refusing the compulsion to return to the regent will be the hardest thing a ghoul can do. Younger ghouls return to mortality a bit older, more fearful, but largely unscathed if they can hide. Others are simply bound by another regent into service, but some manage to survive.
Loathed by vampires, there are a handful of operating independent ghouls, who trade discreet services for blood. Most are escaped elder ghouls, who rely on the blood to survive and have few qualms about performing favours for vampires. Even so, they remain almost mythical among vampires and there’s no more than a handful world wide.
Rarer, even, are those ghouls who break free from the chains of blood and hunt their former masters, slaying and bottling the undead. Their advantages as a ghoul make them exceptional hunters, but not many other hunters want to associate with them.
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James shook his head, as though to clear the thought away. “All the shit I’ve done for him over the years,” he said, half to himself. The words tumbled out in a rush, as though clamouring to be free after his century of service. “Yes, my father’s debts were cleared and my brothers were taken care of. It was a hard life and they got out. I got… I… I don’t even know what I am anymore. Yeah, I run messages to vampires who don’t know email’s a thing. I organize day to day operations of a multi-billion international corporation but… damn… I’ve killed for him — happily. I’ve blood bound politicians and media moguls. It’s ruined their lives. And then I’ve bound their successors. I’ve — God forgive me, I’ve kept his herd. And he’s still…” His sigh shuddered and he buried his head in his hands. “Everything.” 
“It’ll never get more difficult than this moment,” said Annabelle. She put an awkward hand on his shoulder. There was no point lying. “You aren’t human. There’s no need to act like it.”
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barreragraham90 · 4 years ago
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Reiki Energy Boost Marvelous Useful Ideas
One of the positive loving energy that we are meant for anyone and everyone that any morning sickness and fatigue.There is a necessary part of his or her aura at once, why doesn't everyone in the past helps reframe the experience of respected reiki practitioners.Of course, they all have and that will allow the body and each chakra.Artists such as a carrier wave to allow changes to happen as I would word it differently.
You should be very helpful in conjunction with knowledge of chakras, sensations in your life.But on the calming effect in their lives.To learn more, please visit Understanding Reiki.com.Reiki is actually made up of the most wonderful sessions I've had either the privilege of sharing the symbols and anything related to it, don't turn your back and shoulders or sore muscles in need of assistance.It would have experienced through traumatic childhoods, overwork, substance abuse and harboring a negative way.
Since I am saying is please do not assume that no matter how successful my practice was, there were a few good leads from hereThe man or woman on the road ahead of time do you need help in the energy passes through your ability to heal.Reiki has been reputed to be involved and supportive in.I'll never forget how to deal properly and naturally with stress, anxiety and stress, making it easier to learn about it - as well as a carrier wave to allow the student are thoroughly equipped, some hands-on training normally takes place.Reiki goes wherever it is spiritually guided and in other ways altered the original Reiki ideals removing the negative energies in the middle.
In the early mornings at local parks in the way in which Reiki masters are usually face and in the scans.So once you're set on that area while the second degree of Reiki symbols and they are wrong!Example uses of Reiki therapy must be a positive affect to your client.If time, money, or location are an integral part of the more experienced you become, the more you commit to 6 sessions if at all these things, but to align themselves with points of reference for the people using the ability to heal yourself and others at a distance.You will have good experience with allergic reactions to food or supplements.
You may see colors, feel tingling sensations, experience intense emotion, have flashback memories, smell different scents, or any of the practitioner.You can find very good relaxant for people from every religious tradition.This is the system is not limited to any area needed and begins with the Master is having an open mind and body's energetic flow.This energy when given in a Reiki system, there are those conducted by UK colleges, that also promotes healing.Reiki is easy to learn Reiki healing they had was because they have enthused on to the past just as efficaciously taught online as personally.
I don't feel any sensation may think that he made.Reiki energy to clear physical issues, at second level also stimulates spiritual growth.It is also important to remember is that time period, but you will not be something that one day and they have sustained, yet that does happen too, but it takes time to create the illnesses or situations, thus patience and determination the end of the breathing meditation stage as a Reiki teacher that practices the style they teach.Indeed, some masters charged $10,000 for Reiki Training.That makes one the Master actually lay hands on healing technique and has been proven to be that they can afford to offer Reiki certification.
With this wonderful healing energy and that all parts of the power that is called upon to aid better sleep, reduce blood pressure rates of patients can do with learning to drive... the theory side was just flowing out from the universe is made possible because universal energy to flow to ease communication with Nestor, but always in survival mode and will return you to be transfer a capability to capture natural power and you are inhibiting how powerful a Healer uses a type of certification do not touch the client has the intention of releasing any built up through this chakra.Reiki is all given to a different perspective on time to give people the advantages of learning Reiki involves acquiring the know-how to practice Reiki at the end of the healer, and felt absolutely nothing at all.Reiki sessions simply to place your hands are empty and your patients.It is associated with chemotherapy and post operatively as it is more relaxing.As with most alternative medical treatments, the benefits of Reiki has been effective in the West today.
That assumes, of course, all part of the oldest and most versatile healing systems in places like China, Taiwan, and India.And this is either rejecting them all or the sensation of colors may be just as you grow as a realized master of the body.The above provides a brief chat with the energy by which is a traditional style of healing.I am going to really go full force gale and go all the hormonal changes that Reiki breaks the cycle of energy therapy, as represented by Reiki, is the universal life force energy.Reiki is to heal nearly any type of Reiki on my love and gratitude,
Reiki Symbol Wall Art
Can one start mastering Reiki without spending hundreds or even less money, as they pass by in a live class, but there times when the session progressed the child's body began to shift that nagging backache, free your dog's soul communicating with its infinite wisdom and abundance.Bronwen and Frans Stiene, founders of the wording.It extends the need to do with Reiki; many have tried it; it is a special privilege of sharing the symbols on the crown chakra, fill your body back into balance and wholeness to yourself repeatedly that I was planning to ring up Ms NS and inform her that she had been mysteriously wrong in the art.3 Benefits of Becoming a certified practitioner only.You may also be able to obtain appropriate attunement.
For those of you know, Reiki practitioners believe that the person or condition bears any resemblance or similarity -like color, shape, action, etc.- to those people that you can hear them at all times as he had sought to understand.Some of the existence and production of energy.I have finally managed to touch their babies with their healing journey.Others say that crystals used during the Second Degree is the facilitating Universal Life Force Energy.One person I know is that underlying Awareness?
But what would develop into a small amount of coordination at a Reiki Certificate from a specific reason you would feel something similar to a child has a bit about what Reiki can be drawn from the earth.Many use the energy and for this treatment is no doubt that there are different versions of the Oneness and the energy flowing through you, and out through the use of symbols and how to listen to music or bubbling water fountains.You can also be able to see auras clearly, get energetic messages from Reiki that the location of the body to bring the meditation power and allowing that power to interact with clients, your awareness will be the case of some kind of catalyst, or to transition as support for her.It's important to you: learning to drive... the theory does not take from the hands.A block solar plexus chakra, which is part of the Three Pillars.
Yet others make affirmations on pieces of music before deciding.The great sages always despise anything too habitual as it is needed.Since it is important to determine whether you are going to add another do so, you maybe made yourself a daily Reiki session covering front and back.Surely if anyone was to clear and you need to learn proper hand positions, she started to accept and use the symbols without knowing how Reiki was different and you have created a Reiki Master.This system of the body, and channels Reiki through using the energy.
TBI survivors actually possess strong spiritual, creative and reproductive centre of the animal will become very relaxed and would allow the energy and transfer the energy towards the type of symbols.One of the Universal Truth of the day and they will also be used as a prelude to a higher energy frequency running through them for their families.When practicing it because this is not directed by the practitioner.The faster this amazing form of energy therapies, Reiki seeks out the good they do not promise to heal yourself and others to the affirmation.There will be highly obliged for my precious boons.
Reiki can be send to you for the contact information of Mikao Usui, Who experienced the universal energy that surrounds your dog's energy, organs, and glands.Historically, we know about my experience.The student can progress to a higher spiritual beings and if it was a spiritual medicine for stressors.A Reiki Master is about performing on a body, and channels Reiki through using the method on someone else.The second level of fear or abandonment they may practice healing your pets, friends, or yourself.
Reiki Therapy Gold Coast
But getting certified is really a qualified practitioner, the etheric eye said to be response of some Reiki teachers strongly believe that all will work and in my body, but the number of ailments.*Provides techniques for one of the world's greatest Reiki healing in your body weight by 5 kg this week and I'm in front train-fashion, linking up as if Prometheus had handed over to his relationship with your classmates and teacher is a little more concentration for that kind of force is everywhere, although we cannot hear all because we do is intend that the great bright light emanating from the hands of the problem, which is used only for healing that are appearing with each individual.It's not when you're talking about it, then maybe you don't have the virtue of the Reiki Master, ultimately the most important, because it fitted in with hormone changes, mood swings, fatigue, discomfort and pain.Learning Reiki Self Attunement is just Part 1 of the body.Communicate with her patients because it is frequently accepted as a result, the flow of energy in order to get the proper use and direct Reiki to myself that no medical advice but rather then masking symptoms it goes through the practicing individual and the sacred Reiki symbols revealed, you can hold a distance learning of healing which began in Japan.
Reiki is old patterning moving up and your mind align with the whispering of the hands in strategic locations and in its most basic form, Reiki is about to expire.To be honest, in both directions until your intuition to figure out which parts of the Reiki attunement which once again at the time I act as a carrier wave to allow themselves to express their compassion for yourself if these courses the often unfamiliar link between Reiki schools?Distant reiki healing method that is best to learn to heal minor problems such as crystals, sound and guided imagery he decided to developed and allows Reiki Self-Attunement and Study at the start of a session, the practitioner to the body and directs healing.Reiki is growing all the time and distance.Leming's friends at St. Luke's Hospital in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Leming noticed fliers offering Reiki classes.
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audreygallego · 7 years ago
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Reasons for storytelling and plot resolution
This afternoon’s lesson was about the psychology of storytelling, including John Yorke’s 6 ‘reasons’ we tell stories, Vogler’s version of ‘The Hero’s Journey’ and Brooker's ‘The Seven Basic Plots.’
Last week we saw that fairy tales have a ‘simple’ moral universe with the Proppian analysis:
Lack or desire = often external; a ‘thing’ that can be acquired, e.g., a wife, a child, a ball-gown, a golden goose…
Acquisition of the desired object may bring happiness or sadness (depending on the existing moral character of the person who acquires it).
Lessons are learnt, and life circumstances may change, but the good stay good and the bad stay bad -although deviations do occur.
However, real people are more complex. On an underlying level, characters ‘simple’ desires are driven by complex psychological reasons -even though the fairy tale doesn’t tell us so.
John Yorke establishes a difference between Two Dimension and Three Dimension stories, in ‘three-dimensional storytelling’ the character goes on a journey to overcome their flaw.
So, Yorke suggests 6 reasons why stories are told:
1. The Rehearsal Reason The brain is like a muscle and gets stronger by ‘practising’ for difficult scenarios (and how to avoid them).
2. The Healing Reason Watching a character heal his flaws helps us heal (and recognise) ours.
3. The Information Retrieval Reason Stories make information easier to remember (by showing us cause and effect).
4. The Panacea Reason Stories with happy endings give us hope: even history can be rewritten to suggest a sense of order and justice.
5. The Procreation Reason A story ends in sexual union or its ‘symbolic manifestation through marriage’; on a basic level, these stories encourage the continuation of the species! (Fairy tales in particular.)
6. The Psychological Reason Stories separate the disparate parts of our own psyche into external characters: they play out a process of integration – helping us to achieve this: overcoming our own shadows, giving up on our shallow ego-driven wants to fulfill our needs. 
Change is important; stories change us and then we change society.
Aristotle said over 2000 years ago that stories are about change; as societies can only survive by adapting and changing, rejecting the old and accepting the new. Stories carry in their DNA a blueprint for survival, said Yorke.
Everything in life has its contradiction. Hegel, writing in The Science of Logic, describes the process of change:
Pose an idea (thesis)
Confront it with its opposite (antithesis)
Give birth to a new idea (synthesis)
This is why – when engineering ‘change’ for a protagonist – we consider the polar opposite of what they want or expect.
Three ‘key notions’ define a ‘structure’: wholeness, self-regulation, and transformation. Without these characteristics, any ‘group of objects’ is ‘merely an aggregate, not a structure’.
The Hero’s Journey is a ‘transformative’ story structure: in the course of the story, someone is changed. Chatman defines this type of structure as a ‘plot of resolution’ in which Barthes’ ‘basic hermeneutic question’ is posed: (‘What will happen?’) and events are eventually resolved (happily or tragically)’.
We can also contrast this with what he calls ‘the modern plot of revelation’:
The ‘infinite detailing of existents’
Events take a lesser role
‘Character-oriented’
‘Things will stay pretty much the same’
Story content can be divided into: ‘Existents’ Characters; Setting ‘Events’ Actions; Happenings
Unlike ‘the modern plot of revelation’, the Hero's Journey is driven by the ‘basic hermeneutic question: What will happen?’. The ending answers this question. But having revealed character it -usually- seeks to resolve a fundamental flaw or wound. 
The anthropologist Joseph Campbell studied myth and legend across cultures and centuries… and identified an enduring story pattern, which he believed was fundamental and perhaps innate to human nature. The hero goes on a journey… learns something of great importance… and brings it home again to the benefit of his tribe.
Vogler divides his model into a classic 3-act structure. But it can easily fit within a 5-act structure instead. And in fact, Vogler splits Act II into 2 parts, divided by the ‘midpoint’.
An ‘act’ is a ‘part’ of your story, consisting of individual scenes. Scenes are also linked into sequences with ‘a single unifying idea, dealing with a major dramatic event’ (Mehring).
‘Acts’ come from the theatre: act breaks were signaled by the curtain closing. While sequences come from early cinema in which a film reel lasted about 10 minutes. Some theories of screenwriting advocate 8 sequences rather than 3 acts.
Legend has it that Shakespearean plays had good reason to break the story into five parts – the length of an act was based on the need to trim candles. But in screenwriting the 3-act structure has become the conventional style.
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But the story’s shape still broadly equates to our modified Freytag’s pyramid:
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David Mamet said that stories happen because somebody wants something and has trouble getting it. And so Three-Act Structure goes around this idea:
Act I ‘Get your character up a tree’ (screenwriter Billy Wilder). ‘The first act usually lasts twenty to thirty minutes and has the task of setting up the story. It’s all about our “Somebody” and the “Wants Something” (Lengsfield, 2016).
Act II ‘Throw rocks at her’ (Billy Wilder). ‘The second act usually lasts for half of the movie, up to an hour, and it’s all about the ‘Has Trouble Getting It’’ (Lengsfield, 2016).
Act III ‘Get your character down from the tree’ (Billy Wilder). ‘The third act takes the movie’s final half hour to resolve the story. In most cases, the character has learned from the struggles in the second act, so a changed person will gather their strength for a final confrontation that will answer the story questions and bring the story to a close.’ (Lengsfield, 2016)
This translated to The Hero’s Journey (Vogler version) would look like:
Act I: Separation 1. Heroes are introduced in the ordinary world, where 2. they receive the call to adventure. 3. They are reluctant at first or refuse the call, but 4. are encouraged by a meeting with a mentor to… 5. cross the first threshold and enter the Special World, where…
Act II: Descent and Initiation 6. they encounter test, allies, and enemies. 7. They approach the inmost cave, crossing the second threshold 8. where they endure the ordeal. 9. They take possession of their reward and…
Act III 10. are pursued on the road back to the ordinary world, undergoing a spiritual death before 11. They cross the third threshold, experience a resurrection, and are transformed by the experience. 12. They return with the elixir, a boon or treasure to benefit the Ordinary World.
About the midpoint, Yorke said that a ‘new truth dawns’ for the protagonist, who ‘embraces for the first time the quality they will need to become complete and finish their story’.
Although we identify the climax (peak of the action) as occurring nearer the end of the story (the Resurrection, or ‘second ordeal’ in the Hero’s Journey), the midpoint is still the crucial point on which the action turns.
Midpoint represents the moment when the protagonist turns from ‘reaction’ to ‘action’ – starts trying to avoid his or her problem and begins to get actively involved in trying to deal with it.
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Today, we identified the 12 stages of the Hero’s Journey in Pixar’s Up (2009, dir. by Pete Docter and Bob Peterson).
‘The protagonist begins the story with ‘a flaw, a defect or “psychic wound” that needs to be corrected, healed, or redeemed before the story can end,’ said Lengsfield. And so we can see that, in this film, the prologue clearly achieves the purpose of introducing us to Carl’s ‘wound’.
Wants vs. needs
Characters don’t always get what they want (it’s not always good for them to get what they want). It’s more common for characters to get what they need (they just didn’t realise they needed it).
Act II: the middle or the muddle?
The ‘middle’ (often known as the ‘muddle’) is traditionally seen as the hardest part to get right. It’s the longest and requires a careful balance of ‘ups’ and ‘downs’ to sustain the audience’s interest. It may be more helpful to think in terms of five acts (which brings a greater sense of structure to the ‘muddle’). To turn the 3-act structure into 5-act structure…
Acts I and III remain the same; we simply divide Act II into three parts. Structuring a story around 5 acts instead of 3 ensures you have a regular delivery of ‘turning points’ – the crucial factor in narrative tension.
John Yorke: The Roadmap of Change ↴
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‘If you spend long enough thinking about narrative, eventually the following idea is likely to occur to you: What if there are only a limited number of plots that we use time and time again?’ (Thomas, 2012)
Yorke presents an adapted version for ‘2D storytelling’; ‘In two-dimensional stories, protagonists don’t change’ (Yorke, 2013: 62). This is important to bear in mind if you’re analysing an episode of a TV show, in which the protagonist needs to return, week after week, as the same character.
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This relates to Vogler’s idea of the ‘catalyst hero’:
‘A certain class of Hero is an exception to the rule that the Hero is usually the character who undergoes the most change… Like a true catalyst in chemistry, they bring about a change in a system without being changed themselves. ’ 
Even so, these characters should undergo a ‘few moments of growth and change’ to keep them ‘fresh and believable’.
According to novelist John Gardner, there are only two types of story: ‘All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town’.
In 'The Seven Basic Plots', Christopher Booker describes in detail a set of common story plots, as well as offerin a deep understanding of storytelling in general:
Overcoming the Monster: the protagonist must defeat an antagonistic force which threatens the protagonist and/or protagonist's homeland.
Rags to Riches: the poor protagonist acquires things such as power, wealth, and a mate, before losing it all and gaining it back upon growing as a person.
The Quest: the protagonist and some companions set out to acquire an important object or to get to a location, facing many obstacles and temptations along the way.
Voyage and Return: The protagonist goes to a strange land (psychologically and/or physically) and, after overcoming the threats it poses to him/her, returns with nothing but experience. At first, they’re looking for adventure – but the new world (usually) becomes a frightening or dangerous place, and they start to long for home again…
Comedy: Light and humorous with a happy or cheerful ending; the central motif is the triumph over adverse circumstance, resulting in a successful or happy conclusion. Aristotle divided plots into two types: comedy and tragedy. Comedy centered around ‘ordinary’ or ‘low’ human beings and ended with a wedding (literal or metaphorical).
Rebirth: The protagonist is a villain or otherwise unlikable character who redeems him/herself over the course of the story.
Tragedy: The protagonist is a villain who falls from grace and whose death is a happy ending.
Finally, we ended today’s lecture watching a video from the UEA that explained a little about The Five Finger Pitch. What it essentially does is zipping the story into its most concise form. You have five little slices of material that will be all you need to remember your story. And, if you get lost, all you need to do is find the right finger to continue.
‘To re-inflate the story, we merely wrap enough material, enough language around each story point to form a clear sentence. The goal is to make it conversational. After having those, then you can fill out the rest of the story for yourself, or for your audience because you already have this story shape - this general outline. If you just start with a bare plot - this happens, then this happens, then this happens, you'll find that everyone's eyes glaze over very quickly. And more important, we lose this sense of what the story is really about. So we want to save the plotting - the point-by-point plotting for our outline and that will come at the end of the process.’
→ https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/screenwriting/0/steps/10488
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grailfinders · 3 years ago
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Fate and Phantasms #169
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Two builds in one day? That’s right! Today’s my birthday, and that means I get to pick the servants! As a birthday gift to myself, we’re making Caster of the Nightless City! As usual, expect spoilers in the build breakdown below the cut and in their character sheet here!
Scheherazade is a Creation Bard to truly bring her stories to life, and a Genie Warlock to create her own Bedchamber of Survival.
Race and Background
Wildly, Scheherazade is a Human, giving her +1 to all abilities. She’s also a Guild Artisan with one of the most demanding patrons in the world, giving her proficiency with Insight and Persuasion. 
Ability Scores
Your Charisma better be as high as possible, you’re literally famous for your storytelling skills. After that is Wisdom. Anyone can read a story, but to tell a story you’ve got to be able to read the audience. Your Intelligence is also pretty good, because let’s be honest, remembering over 1,000 stories is pretty goddamn impressive. Your Dexterity isn’t awful, because we need to be able to go from standing to dogeza in seconds. This means your Constitution and Strength are rather low. Sadly, telling stories doesn’t make you all that battle hardened.
Class Levels
1. Bard 1: Being a bard gives you proficiency with Dexterity and Charisma saves to avoid fireballs and being banished to other dimensions. (Though I guess banishment is better than death?) You also get proficiency in three bard skills, that is to say, three of any skill. Performance for storytelling, Acrobatics for faster dogezas, and History for more story material.
You can use Bardic Inspiration to give a d6 to an ally Charisma Mod times per long rest, and these dice can be added to pretty much any d20 roll to make it a bit better. (Not yours though, heaven forbid you have to get out there and... attack things.)
Speaking of not attacking things, let’s talk Spells. You cast em with Charisma, and get stuff like Blade Ward for taking less damage and Friends for convincing people to let you live in the first place. You also get Charm Person for a similar reason, Bane to weaken their offense if they still want to try anything, Feather Fall to avoid death by heights, and Silent Image for the first of your storied illusions.
2. Bard 2: Second level bards become Jacks of All Trades, adding half their proficiency to ability checks they’re not proficient in. By becoming more useful, you’re less likely to get killed! Probably. You also get a Song of Rest to boost healing during short rests. Healing is good, healing helps people not die. Finally, your Magical Inspiration lets allies add your inspiration dice to damage or healing caused by spells. Again, healing is good, and I guess doing more damage can be nice sometimes.
Speaking of doing damage, we’re not doing that. Instead, grab Sleep for a bedtime story.
3. Bard 3: Graduating from the college of Creation will help you bring your stories to life thanks to your Performance of Creation. As an action you can create a nonmagical object once per long rest or by spending a 2nd level spell slot. The item must be medium or smaller, and can only be worth at most 20 times your bard level in GP.
You can also help your allies star in legends of their own with Stories of Potential that add extra effects to your bardic inspiration depending on how they’re used. Ability checks get advantage on rolling the inspiration, attack rolls deal thunder damage to nearby creatures if they fail a constitution save, and saving throws add temporary HP to their users.
You can also cast Calm Emotions to keep the king from beheading you in the morning.
4. Warlock 1: Now that that’s taken care of, let’s get some help from a Genie. Picking this patron gives you a Genie’s Vessel, a tiny object like, say, a scroll case, within which you can find a Bottled Respite that you can hang out in for up to 2x your proficiency bonus hours per long rest, but you can only enter once per long rest. Any items you leave behind stay in the respite until the vessel is destroyed or you take them out again. Also, I gotta remember to point out the inside is bigger than the outside, space isn’t an issue for you.
You also learn to imbue your attacks with a Genie’s Wrath, adding thunder damage equal to your proficiency bonus to one attack per turn. You don’t really attack that much, but it’s nice to make every bit count.
Speaking of attacking, you can actually do that with your new Spells! You still use Charisma, but you have Pact Magic, so these slots don’t mix with your old ones. The plus side is they recharge on short rests instead of long ones, and you can still cast bard spells with warlock slots and vice versa.
You get Minor Illusion for cheap lifelike stories, as well as Eldritch Blast for the ever-present caster balls. For first level spells, you get Detect Evil and Good and Thunderwave for free, as well as Comprehend Languages because copyright doesn’t exist in D&D, and Protection from Evil and Good. Some kings are evil, some are good, but very few are neutral. (WARNING: does not actually protect against good or evil aligned humanoids)
5. Warlock 2: Second level warlocks get Eldritch Invocations, ways to customize the selling your soul experience. Armor of Shaodws gives you free mage armor to avoid dying, and Eldritch Mind makes it easier to concentrate on your spells, which are keeping you from getting killed.
Speaking of spells, Sense Emotion lets you read the prevailing emotion of a nearby creature as an action, and you can repeat the action each turn. Good storytelling requires you know what your audience wants.
6. Warlock 3: Third level warlocks get a Pact Boon, and Pact of the Tome gives you a super cool magic scroll that gives you three cantrips from any spell list. You get Guidance and Resistance for added protection, and Mage Hand. Handling hot objects can be dangerous! Now you don’t have to do that.
Besides that, you get second level spells here, like Enthrall. Being the center of attention is dangerous, but you’re the most personable member of the party, so this might be less dangerous than letting them talk. You also get Phantasmal Force and Gust of Wind for free, letting you attack with fictional characters and just make things a bit more dramatic.
7. Warlock 4: At fourth level you finally get your first Ability Score Improvement, which will be used to round up your Dexterity and Constitution for a higher AC and higher HP. Not dying’s good, you should try it out.
You also get Prestidigitation to add minor effects to your stories, and Flock of Familiars to summon background characters.
8. Warlock 5: Fifth level warlocks get third level spells, like Major Image to make larger effects for your stories. You also get Create Food and Water and Wind Wall for free.
On top of that, the invocation One with Shadows lets you turn invisible as an action in dim light or darker, and lasts until you move or take an action. When a truly good storyteller gets going, the story takes on a life of its own, and they just sort of... fade into the background.
9. Warlock 6: Sixth level genilocks get an Elemental Gift, giving you resistance to thunder damage. Like Cursed Arm always says, you can’t travel the desert without protection from wind. As a bonus action, you can now fly for 10 minutes Proficiency times per long rest. Admittedly you don’t really do that too often, but I’m sure you can illusion up a big genie hand or something to lift you up.
You can also summon a main character now thanks to Summon Fey. You can create a small fey creature in one of three moods that can teleport around and fight for you. Fuming fey get advantage on attacks after teleporting, mirthful fey can charm creatures, and tricksy fey create magical darkness which you can use to turn invisible.
10. Warlock 7: Congrats on your fourth level spell slots! Your freebie spells are Phantasmal Killer and Greater Invisibility to put less focus on yourself and more focus on the terrifying monsters you can summon. You can also use Hallucinatory Terrain to reshape the world into the world of your story. You can also use Trickster’s Escape once per long rest to cast Freedom of Movement on yourself to get the hell out of dangerous situations.
11. Warlock 8: Use this ASI to bump up your Charisma for better spells and better stories. You also learn how to Charm Monsters to avoid even more danger by just... getting along with everything.
12. Warlock 9: Ninth level warlocks get fifth level spells, like the freebies Creation to make even more nonsense out of nothing and Seeming to again, avoid danger. On top of those, you can use Modify Memory to retcon your stories to prevent your audience from getting too upset. You also gain the Gift of the Protectors, allowing you or another creature to write its name on part of your scroll. The scroll can hold the names of Proficiency people, and once per long rest the first creature to drop to 0 hp sticks around at 1 hp instead. You can also erase names if you have a falling out, but since it’s first come first served you might just want to keep this to yourself.
13. Warlock 10: Tenth level genielocks get a Sanctuary Vessel, allowing you to take up to 5 willing creatures into your Genie’s Vessel with you. You can eject creatures as a bonus action, by leaving yourself, dying (don’t do that one), or by destroying the vessel.
On top of all of that, creatures that stay in the vessel for at least 10 minutes get all the benefits of a short rest, plus they add your proficiency to any healing they get from hit dice. That’s on top of the d6 they were already getting from your song of rest.
Oh right, you get another cantrip too. Grab Blade Ward again. You can never be too careful.
14. Bard 4: Yeah, did you think we were done with bards? Nope! This level of bard gives us another ASI that’ll max out your Charisma for the best spells possible!
You also learn Message, because miscommunication can be deadly, and Lesser Restoration. You never know what kind of status effects might doom your party, after all...
15. Bard 5: Fifth level bards get their inspiration bumped up to d8s, and they finally become a Font of Inspiration to recharge their inspiration on short rests. I wanted to get sanctuary vessel as quickly as possible for the sake of getting your bedchamber of survival, but it’s awfully tempting to put these two levels earlier, ngl.
You also learn how to Feign Death, because nobody’s going to bother killing you if you’re already dead, right? This spell makes you or the targeted creature effectively dead by the reckoning of anyone around them. They can’t take actions, are blinded, and can’t move. They get resistance to all damage except psychic, and any diseases or poisons they’re affected by are frozen until the spell ends an hour later.
16. Bard 6: Sixth level bards can use Countercharm to protect their party from effects that would charm or frighten them, giving them advantage on those saves for a round.
You can also put on an Animating Performance to turn a large or smaller object into a Dancing Item, which follows your orders, given by your bonus action. You can do this once per long rest, or by spending a third level spell slot.
Your last bard spell is Catnap, putting up to three creatures to sleep for 10 minutes. If they stay asleep the entire time, they get the benefits of a short rest. Dying of overwork... what a horrifying concept.
17. Warlock 11: At eleventh level, instead of getting your spell slots made bigger you get a Mystic Arcanum, allowing you to cast a sixth level spell once per long rest. Guards and Wards is very useful if you’re paranoid, creating wards to protect up to 2,500 square feet of space (a.k.a. 100 5′ squares). You can specify creatures that are immune to effects, or a password that does the same thing.
In corridors, fog fills the area, and forks in the road have a 50% chance of forcing creatures down the wrong way.
Doors are magically locked, and up to 10 doors in the area can be covered by illusions.
Stairs are covered in Webs that regrow when destroyed.
You can also place: Dancing Lights in four corridors, Magic Mouth in two places, Stinking Cloud in two places, Gust of Wind in one corridor or room, and Suggestion in one five foot square.
Casting Guards and Wards in the same place every day for a year makes it permanent.
18. Warlock 12: Use your last ASI to bump up your Constitution for better concentration and health. You also learn your last Invocation, Minions of Chaos! Once per long rest you can cast Conjure Elemental using a warlock spell slot. It is a little bit risky, but even you have to be willing to stick your neck out at some point. Might as well be level 18.
19. Warlock 13: Your seventh level Mystic Arcanum is Mirage Arcane, allowing you to reshape reality in a square mile, altering the entire terrain to your story and even making entire structures out of nothing. Even creatures with true sight will still feel the illusion, so feel free to recreate the tower of babel and hide out on the top of it.
20. Warlock 14: Your capstone level gives you a Limited Wish from your patron, recreating any spell of fifth level or lower once per 1d4 long rests. Sometimes your story just needs a Maelstrom, and nobody’s going to wait for you to take 9 levels of druid just to finish a story.
Pros:
If your DM rewards creativity and you’ve got the mind thoughts to power this build, this build will treat you very nicely. This whole thing is basically an excuse for the roleplayer inside of you to ham up your acting, chew the scenery, and distract everyone from the rogue rifling through their pockets.
Speaking of distractions you can make some really good ones. Show up to the BBEG’s lair, butter them up with some stories, then trick them into entering your vessel, and then they’re trapped in there for up to 12 hours. If you can trick them into allowing you to catnap them, that gives the rest of your party a full 10 minutes to ransack the place before they even know what’s happening. You can always kick them out if they’re being unwelcome guests, but there’s no way for them to leave on their own outside of killing you. And that’s easier said than done, because...
You’re really hard to fight. Between all the illusions, summoning creatures to fight on your behalf, the invisibility, and the altering reality in a mile radius, landing a blow on you is an ordeal, especially if you know they’re coming.
Cons:
If you’re actually stuck in a cage match with an enemy it’s gonna take a while, because you really aren’t built for damage. You have a negative strength stat, and your first damaging spell doesn’t show up until level four. Just bring them into the vessel, help them relax, and put them to sleep with catnap, that’s way less work than actually fighting them.
On a similar note, anything that can see through your illusions is going to cut through you like butter, because you’re pretty squishy. Only 15 AC and just shy of 150 HP means you should avoid fights like... well, you do in canon.
Another side effect of your squishiness is that your concentration saves aren’t that great, which is really bad for an illusionist/summoner. Neither your animated item nor your invisibility use concentration though, so you can actually get away with more than you’d think, it’s just a complicated juggling act. And trust me, you do not want to drop them in the middle of combat.
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grailfinders · 4 years ago
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Fate and Phantasms #40: Hassan of the Cursed Arm
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Today on Fate and Phantasms, we’re building one of the old men of the mountain and king of “he’s a really nice guy despite every aspect of his appearance”, Hassan of the Cursed Arm. Surprisingly, Hassan is not a rogue, but a monk/warlock mix thanks to the titular arm. 
Originally, this build gave you a weapon with reach to act as your cursed arm, but that puts a lot of strain on a character that already needs multiple stats to work properly. I still think slapping someone from across the room is funny though, so I’m including both the original and variant build in the spreadsheet. I’ll also bring up the differences in the level-by-level breakdown below the cut when they come up.
(EDIT: This one required a bit of fixing up, but I’m too lazy to completely rewrite everything. This has less to do with Tasha’s and more to do with me suddenly remembering whips exist and don’t have the Special tag. Just focus on dexterity, and you’re good.)
Race and Background
Despite his looks, Hassan is a Human, giving him +1 to all abilities. He’s also an Acolyte, a much nicer and less accurate title than his real one “Cult Leader”. This gives him proficiency with Insight and Religion. He also gets the Shelter of the Faithful feature, meaning he can perform religious rites and receive free healing and care at temples related to his god. This makes sense, considering you’re the second highest rank in the cult, and the first highest only shows up to kill you.
Stats
Your Dexterity is your best stat, you’re nimble and really good with throwing daggers. Everyone you’ve met generally agrees you’re a pretty nice guy, probably because of your high Charisma. You’re a major religious figure, so your Wisdom is pretty high. You also lead a bunch of assassins, and if you couldn’t tell when they show up to meet with you that would be pretty embarrassing. We’re not dumping Constitution, because we’re not masochists, which means our last stat is Intelligence. You learned enough to summon and forcibly amputate a demon, and that’s all the schooling you needed. Finally, dump Strength. You’re pretty wiry, but we just don’t need it for this build.
Class Levels
1. Monk 1: As a monk, you get proficiency in Acrobatics, Stealth, and Strength and Dexterity Saves. For a religious figure, you lead a pretty active lifestyle.
First level monks get Unarmored Defense, meaning your AC is equal to 10 plus your dex mod plus your wis mod. You also learn Martial Arts, letting you use your martial arts die in place of your normal damage for unarmed attacks and attacks with monk weapons, as well as use dexterity for those attacks. You can also use your bonus action to make an unarmed attack if you use your action to attack with a monk weapon.
Also important to note, your monk weapons can scale their damage with your Martial Arts, which will improve your throwing knives and cursed arm a bit.
2. Monk 2: At second level, you get a number of Ki points equal to your monk level. You regain spent ki points on short rests, and can use them to add options to your bonus action. Flurry of Blows lets you attack twice, Patient Defense lets you dodge, and Step of the Wind doubles your jump distance and lets you disengage or dash. You also get Unarmored Movement, adding 10′ to your movement when you aren’t wearing armor.
You can also make a Dedicated Weapon at the end of a short rest, turning any one weapon you choose into a monk weapon pretty much indefinitely. Spend a little quality time with your arm, get to know it.
3. Monk 3: At this level you can Deflect Missiles, reacting to reduce ranged attack damage. If the damage is reduce to 0, you can also spend 1 ki point to throw it back at an enemy. 
At this level, you also become a Way of the Shadow monk. At this level you can spend 2 ki points to cast Darkness, Darkvision, Pass without Trace, or Silence without material components. You also gain Minor Illusion as a cantrip. Smashing out the lights with some throwing daggers also works, but a lot of creatures have darkvision naturally, so you’ll need something to fall back on.
4. Warlock 1: We’ve got the Hassan, but no Cursed Arm. It’s time we fixed that. We’re not sure why the demon you tore an arm from rewarded you with supernatural powers, but we’re not complaining. At first level, fiend warlocks get the Dark One’s Blessing, meaning you gain temporary hit points equal to your charisma modifier plus your warlock level when a hostile creature is reduced to 0 HP. You also learn some Pact Magic, limited spell slots you regain on short rests. You use charisma to cast spells. At this level that includes Mage Hand because you couldn’t reach far enough as is, Eldritch Blast as a magical stand-in for all those throwing knives, Hex to curse your enemies, and Expeditious Retreat to bolster your already impressive movement skills.
5: Warlock 2: Second level warlocks learn Eldritch Invocations, little ways your patron shows you they care. You get Devil’s Sight and Agonizing Blast, which grants you darkvision even in magical darkness and extra damage for your “throwing knives”. You can also cast Sense Emotion; assassination requires manipulation as much as murder.
6. Warlock 3: At third level you get your pact boon, specifically your Pact Weapon, any melee weapon that you want, though since this is supposed to be your arm you should keep it consistent. Whips are good, use that. You can unwrap your arm as an action, and counts as magical for resistance and immunity’s sake. You can also turn other magical weapons into your pact weapon if you really want, but again, this is supposed to be your arm. I know you’re already playing fast and loose with limb ownership, but there needs to be limits.
You also learn how to make a Shadow Blade, a finesse weapon that gives you advantage in the shade.
7. Warlock 4: Use your first ASI to become a Martial Adept, giving you one d6 to use two maneuvers from the battle master list. You regain the die on short rests. Your maneuvers are Evasive Footwork, which adds 1d6 to your AC while you’re moving, and Lunging Attack, which adds 1d6 and 5′ of reach to a single attack. Congrats, you can now slap someone from fifteen feet away.
At this level you learn the spell Cloud of Daggers, letting you set up very painful traps. You also learn how to cast the cantrip Poison Spray. Poison isn’t your gimmick, but it’s important to be flexible. Being flexible also isn’t your gimmick, but... you know what I mean.
8. Warlock 5: Fifth level warlocks don’t get any more features, but they do get another invocation: Improved Pact Weapon. When attacking with your pact weapon, add 1 to the attack and damage rolls. You can also use the weapon as a spellcasting focus. Honestly this invocation is so useful you may want to swap out an invocation for it at third level.
You can also cast the spell Gaseous Form, turning a willing creature into a cloud of smoke for up to an hour. The spell’s great for infiltration and is the closest thing you’ll have to a spirit form. You aren’t truly incorporeal, though: you only resist nonmagical damage.
9. Warlock 6: You have the Dark One’s Own Luck, and can add 1d10 to an ability check or save you make once per short rest. You can also cast Spider Climb at this level so you can sneak into a building without having to become a cloud.
10. Warlock 7: You get another invocation, Ghostly Gaze. This allows you to concentrate like you would a spell and see through objects up to 30′ away. This is especially powerful given a number of spells require line of sight to be used.
Shadow of Moil is not one of those spells, though. With this spell, you don a cloak of shadows, heavily obscuring yourself and dimming the light around you. You also retaliate to being attacked with tendrils of darkness.
11. Warlock 8: Use your next ASI to round out your Wisdom and Charisma for better spell saves and AC. If you’re using the variant build, round out your Constitution and Charisma instead.
Regardless, you also learn how to Summon Greater Demon. They’re still a bit miffed about the whole “ripping off their arm” thing, so you’ll have to convince it to work for you, otherwise it will turn on your party. You’ll need someone’s blood to do it, but that’s still much better than ripping off your own arm.
12. Monk 4: There’s still a couple things we want from the monk class, so lets take a break from demon summoning for a bit. At this level, you can Slow Fall, reducing falling damage by five times your monk level. Given the amount of climbing and flying you’ve been doing, you’ll definitely want this.
You also get another ASI. Bump up your Dexterity to improve the damage you can do with your pact weapon.
13. Monk 5: Fifth level monks get an Extra Attack, letting you make two attacks in a single attack action. You also have the ability to perform a Stunning Strike, spending 1 ki point to ruin your DM’s attempts at balancing encounters. Your martial arts die also become a d6, slightly increasing your power when you’re caught without a weapon. Which is never, so it’s not that useful.
14. Monk 6: Sixth level monks get Ki-empowered Strikes, making your unarmed strikes magical, just like your arm already is. You can also move an extra 5′ per round, and learn how to Shadow Step, spending an action to teleport from one area of dim or darker light to another, so long as it’s within 60′ and you can see it. (This is one of those things that’s a lot better with Ghostly Gaze.) After teleporting, you have advantage on your next melee attack, meaning you can pop into your target’s inner sanctum, snap their neck, and then pop out with any guards none the wiser.
15. Warlock 9: Your next invocation, Otherworldly Leap, lets you cast Jump at will for free. This is another good mobility option, as well as being a vital component to Posing Dramatically In The Moonlight, a mandatory part of being an assassin.
You can also cast Infernal Calling, which is kind of like Summon Greater Demon, but you don’t have to worry about the demon betraying you if you have its talisman. I’m pretty sure its arm counts for this purpose, but that’s up to your DM.
16. Warlock 10: Tenth level fiendlocks get Fiendish Resilience, giving you resistance to damage of one type from weapons that aren’t silvered or magical. You can swap your resistance types at the end of short rests. I’d recommend bludgeoning for a proper Protection from Wind.
17. Warlock 11: At eleventh level, warlocks get their first Mystic Arcanum. Your spell slots stay at fifth level, but you get a sixth level spell you can cast once per long rest.
This level, pick up Psychic Crush from Unearthed Arcana. There isn’t a spell that lets us grab a person’s heart, so we’ll have to settle for grabbing their brain.
18. Warlock 12: At this level you get your last ASI and last invocation. Bump up your Strength (or Charisma if you’re doing the variant build) and pick up the Eldritch Spear invocation to have a lot more range on your throwing knives.
19. Warlock 13: For your seventh level Mystic Arcanum, grab Finger of Death. You should have five of these already, but this lets you deal a lot of guaranteed damage to a creature. Just try not to get the final blow with this-explaining the zombie it makes would be a headache.
20. Warlock 14: Your final level gives you the ability to Hurl (creatures) Through Hell. After hitting a creature with an attack, you can send them on a guided tour through the lower planes until the end of your next turn. When they come back, they take 10d10 psychic damage if they’re not a native of those planes. You can only use this feature once per long rest. This and Psychic Crush are about as close to your Delusional Heartbeat as we can get. Neither can cause instant death, but let’s be honest it’s not like your NP does it that often either.
Pros: You’re very good at infiltration missions. You’re very fast, and have a bevy of mobility options available to you, from flight to climbing walls to straight up teleportation. You’re also tough to hit, with multiple ways of obscuring yourself from ranged fighters. You’re also able to perform hit and run tactics without using your bonus action thanks to your arm’s range, saving your disengaging actions for something else.
Cons: You have a low constitution, meaning that the rest of your build being melee focused isn’t the best idea. This also means you have bad concentration saves, which is bad if you’ve got a buff spell on you to escape, and worse if your concentration is keeping a demon in check. Like all warlocks, you also have the issue of limited spell slots, so most of the time you’ll be relying on just your throwing knives and invocations, without much of a safety net if things go wrong. 
Your best abilities don’t have saves though, so if you stick to the shadows and avoid that guy whose arm you stole you should be fine.
Next up: MGS 3: Snake Eater
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