#there is no fate on earth horrible enough to befit all the ways they have destroyed us

[hussyknee]

THIS FUCKIN???? TURD????? HAS STILL NOT??? RESIGNED??????

His house has been taken over. His office is overrun. His private residence is surrounded. He had to leave the fucking country. He can't set foot in here even with an armed escort because the people will set on him like dogs. His own party is demanding he step down.

AND HE STILL HASN'T FUCKING RESIGNED???

[goldenvoicedminstrel]

realised after posting it’s actually @feanorianweek and even day 2, so have some Maglor

The sun was hidden from the sea that day, the rough waves turned murky grey in a perfect mirror image of the dull clouds overhead, both divided only by an endless pale horizon. All around, the colours had disappeared from the earth and Maglor wondered, if perhaps this was what the void looked like. An endless space devoid of colour, sound and feel. 

An endless nothingness to isolate one from one’s own existence and drive one mad. 

It was a far more frightening thought than any darkness or torture. 

Is that what my brothers feel? he asked the only person still listening. 

Does it matter? he answered his own question. He would never join them now, it had been much too long since he had failed to follow his brother’s example and throw the Silmaril into the waves with his body still attached to it. Too many years of wandering and suffering had passed, that had made his next step and the next note of his lament as unescapable as the passing of the hours and years. He had woven the mourning resonance of the Noldolantë into the music of Arda itself and himself with it. 

Even if he did not care if he lived, he had been surviving for so long he thought he might not know how to die anymore.

The coarse sand and stones were biting into the soles of his bare feet as he walked, having long since discarded his worn through boots. Now the quiet crunch of his steps in the sand formed an imperfect metronome for his song. 

“I fixed it.”

Curufinwë stands before him, hands outstretched and in them a little box, ticking away with the steadiness of his own heart beat.

“It was easy, Atar did not even have to show me how. Now you must not be cross with me anymore.”

 Again his feet lost their rhythm, one sinking a little deeper into a puddle of water that had been hidden under the wet sand. Around his foot he could feel the pull of the waves towards the sea, dragging the sand with them and hollowing out the ground he stood upon. He stepped aside instinctively, onto a sharp shell that cut through his skin.

“Careful, Laurë!” Maitimo calls and the white towers of Alqualondë glitter behind him, shining with the colours of the Mother of Pearl fragments inlaid in their walls. 

“Let me see that. Where was that head of yours again?”

He picked up the shell. Its hard, curved form was broken and the white edges ragged, now tinted pink with his blood.

“Káno, look what I found!” A smudge of silver races towards him, so fast, that his light hair whipping behind him in the wind blends into the pale morning light around him. When Tyelkormo opens his small hands they reveal a cone shell and, emerging from it, the scarlet claws of a hermit crab. “Can we please take him home with us?”

He thought his hair might be turning pale too. Grey, like that of the Edain, when their spirits and bodies started to wane after long years of sorrow and grief. His skin seemed grey as well, and sometimes he thought it was because he could see the grey sky through it. Perhaps he was just becoming a part of that greyness around him, fading into a lament on the waves, his song lost under the cry of the gulls and raging of the sea. Another gull flew over his head, so close this time that he could feel the gust of wind from its wings in his hair. 

A shrill scream comes from the other side of the beach, followed by a bought of laughter.

“You sound like the gulls, Moryo!”

A dark haired elfling’s face is turning an impressive shade of red as he scowls at his brother.      

“I do not!” he cries and crosses his thin arms, but when his indignation shows no effect, he quickly ducks down and picks up a handful of wet sand, hurling it towards his still laughing brother. 

“Stop laughing at me, Tyelko!” he insists and the blonde’s face immediately turns grave, as he bends down in an exaggeratedly somber manner to pick up his own lump of sand. 

“If this is how you want to play…” he says, and the scene quickly dissolves into childish screams of laughter.

Little wet droplets were running down Maglor’s cheeks. Ah, he thought, it must be raining.

There was an opening in the high basalt cliffs, nothing more than a crack in the dark structure looming over him, a comfortable shelter for a child perhaps, but not enough to hide a grown adult. He walked past and let his scarred hand trace the stone. It was as rough and blackened as his own scorched skin and its sharp edges seemed detached from under his unfeeling finger. 

The wind blew sharper now and the dark strands of his dirty hair tangled before his eyes, obscuring his sight. He listened instead to the desperate howling of the wind trapped in the small cracks and hollows of unmoving stone.

Two red-haired children cling to him, the vibrant colour of their hair burning with the curb’s fire behind them and their identical faces are flushed with excitement and the only recently abandoned heat of the flames.

“Tell us a story Káno! About why the wind howls so. Does it sing like you do? What does it sing about?”

His hair was whipped away from his eyes again by another violent gust of wind, but the darkness stubbornly remained. Was it night already? There were no stars he could distinguish, not even in the West was his father’s creation visible to the hopeful eye. He clenched his hand and walked on, the howl of the wind lost beneath his own.

He walked until the path before him rose away from the soft sand and up on uneven stone, crumbling away under his feet as he climbed, the small pebbles falling endlessly into the abyss beside him. He would not sleep, only make one step after the other until he would drop from exertion, too exhausted for even dreams to find him, may they be horrible- or worse- good.

He stumbled.

There was a bird at his feet, the white feathers making it visible to him even in the night- no, that was the dawn breaking over the horizon.

One of the creature’s wings was twisted and its neck broken, overstretched into an unnatural position on the ground, his honey coloured beak turned away from its body as if pointing out the way ahead.

Did the storm do this to you? he asked, but the dark eyes gave no answer.

He touches the impossibly soft feathers with a trembling hand and suddenly, for the first time since he has been born into these immortal lands of Aman, he understands that even here nothing lasts forever. He thinks of his grandmother, lying as beautiful and lifeless as this little bird while his father strokes her soft hair. The bird must have a mother too, or little nestlings screaming for it, and if it doesn’t, how lonely it must have been.  Perhaps it is a silly thing to anguish about, but he has a vivid imagination and a soft heart and has never seen death before.

Through his tears he sees his father hurrying from his forge, alarmed by his young son’s despairing wails.

“What is it, Makalaurë? What has happened? Are you hurt?” his father’s face is tight and pale and his hands are running over his child’s small form, trying to find the cause of his hurt, to fix it as he always does. “Please, tell me why you are weeping,” he asks again and spots the lifeless bird in the same moment. His shoulders drop in relief and his features relax into a sad smile as he pulls his sobbing son into a tight embrace. “It is alright ‘Laurë,” he whispers to him. “Everything has its time.”

He turned away from the bird and walked on as the sun rose higher into the clear, blue sky.

His father, who then had been so much younger than he must be by now, and so anxious about any sadness befalling his newly formed family. 

Maitimo had been an easy child in that regard, and really in any other regard as well. Happy and content, with the sure confidence of someone who had grown up with all of his parent’s praise and attention and who, deep down, believed he deserved it. Kind and courteous to everyone and widely loved- and later admired- in return. When he had been quiet, it had been with thoughtful consideration or the comfort that needed no words. Maitimo had never been despairing.

He himself however, befitting the poet he would become, had been much more volatile. His joy had been delightfully loud but his sorrow even louder. How unsettling these first fits of despair must have been for his father, who had always lived under the shadow of his mother’s fate.

His brothers had shed tears too, of course, but they were easily quietened. Tyelko had cried in pain after falling out of a tree and Moryo often in anger. Curvo had sometimes teared up in frustration and the Ambarussa had sobbed in fear the first time they had heard the tale of their father’s mother and discovered that there might be a force in this world that could separate them after all. But Maitimo…

The hard stone under his feet had softened into dry earth and the narrow path was being overtaken by yellow and green patches of grass and finally a thick carpet of heather, the sea of small green leaves parted by spots of rose and purple flowers. A twig snapped underneath his weary feet.

The air is filled with the fragrance of blooming petals as he wanders through the labyrinth of thick green hedges and thorny bushes heavy with blossoms of every colour. Even now, thirsty and irritated as he is, he marvels at the beauty of it all, his parched throat aching to burst into a verse of song in celebration. Yet first he needs to find his brother, as his father had sent him out to do hours ago. But today Maitimo seems to have disappeared from the face of Arda entirely and his grandfather’s rose garden is his last hope. There is a spot there his brother had shown him when he had been but a little boy- his secret hiding place he had called it. 

He ducks under the low branches of a young tree and carefully pushes away some of the dense shrubbery before he stills.

He hears their laughter before he sees them, sitting in the grass, a bottle of what must be grandfather’s good wine lying forgotten next to them.  They are leaning against each other and speaking in hushed, excited tones, and suddenly his brother is throwing his head back and is laughing, laughing until there are tears running down his cheeks and he has to gasp for breath. He is still holding onto Findekáno’s arm as his giggling cousin wipes away his tears of mirth. 

Quietly he turns away and leaves, reporting to their father that Maitimo is nowhere to be found.

 The sun was high in the deep blue sky and the sea glittered faintly beneath it. 

Maglor’s path lead him down again, away from the heather, towards the waves where the smell of salt perpetuated the air he still breathed. He did not hear the gulls anymore and the light breeze that seemed to caress his cheek was too weak to drown out his lament.

When his feet sank into soft sand again, the sun was already setting and suddenly the sky was set aflame in the same shade of red he had loved and hated and grieved more than anything else.

And again he walked on. Was it raining again?

And when Maglor walks the shore alone, his brothers walk with him, and on the wind his father’s voice whispers: “Why are you weeping, Makalaurë?”

[thementalattic]

The stars align, the cosmos arranges itself, the portents cry true and whispers seep into the minds of faithful and weak-willed alike. The Great Old One rumbles in sleep in sunken R’lyeh but soon enough all will hear The Call of Cthulhu.

How’s that for a review intro?

Call of Cthulhu blew my expectations out of the water. I expected something like the previous first-person Cthulhu Mythos game I played, Dark Corners of the Earth, but what I got was a first-person RPG based on the classic Chaosium tabletop RPG ruleset, with deep storytelling and ways to influence encounters based on the elements in your character sheet. I expected action, but got deductive problem solving. What I’m trying to say is I’m impressed, which doesn’t happen that often.

I also played the game and went straight to order the Chaosium Call of Cthulhu RPG books, ‘cause I couldn’t resist.

Call of Cthulhu stars Edward Pierce, a private investigators arriving on Darkwater island, investigating the deaths of the Hawkins family, particularly Sarah, a rather famous painter with something of a bizarre style, her paintings almost otherworldly. Soon things take a turn for the bizarre, as Edward delves into the hidden secrets of the island, the cults that make it their home and just how alien Sarah’s paintings really are!

Let’s get to the finer points:

The Good

Read a Damned Book: As I mentioned, Call of Cthulhu uses tabletop RPG rules, and as such you have a character sheets with attributes/skills. You can use experience points gained by completing objectives in the story to increase their effectiveness, with certain conversation or interaction options locked out unless you have a minimum rating. But the two knowledge skills, which help tremendously in uncovering truths, Medicine and the Occult, you can’t raise with experience. You have to find books, scrolls, diagrams, treatises and so on, each found advancing your growth towards the next rank of these skills. It’s a wonderful way to promote exploration and replays!

Sweet Skills: Your character’s skills aren’t just for use in conversations or contextual interactions but on every aspect of gameplay. For instance, Strength will help you do certain things quicker and if you must wield a weapon, your accuracy is deadly at higher ranks. But my favourite aspect of skill use is with Investigation, which will let you know if there are hidden items in the environment, such as a note hidden under a table and behind a burnt doll that holds key information about the next puzzle or about the characters in the story.

Professional Gumshoe: Call of Cthulhu has a pretty good story, with enough twists to keep you interested and a myriad of characters with their own motivations who you may trust and then regret. The story even plays with your perceptions at times. Best of all, it’s not just a game of picking up evidence and talking to people. There are wonderful deductive puzzles and some crime-scene reconstructions that beyond being awesome, also blur the line between reality and insanity. I was never sure if this was just the character’s deductive reasoning in at play or if he really hallucinated those reconstructions.

It’s all in your head…until it isn’t: A staple of the Cthulhu mythos and Eldritch horror is the loss of sanity and hallucinations and there are so many wonderful and hideous ways to lose your mind in Call of Cthulhu, from looking too intently into the abyss to willingly immerse yourself in the Mythos and learn its secrets. In fact, the Mythos as a whole is part of the story as an entity, forbidden knowledge that consumes you as you explore it. The coolest thing about going mad is that new conversation options open where it’s just Mythos script gibberish, with the character saying some rather ominous things.

Creeping Terror: The Call of Cthulhu has an amazing atmosphere, constantly keeping you on edge. There is a wonderful mix of visuals and audio to unnerve you at all times, even when nothing is happening. This is not a game that relies heavily on jump scares, instead using that oppressive atmosphere to unnerve you.

Paths of Damnation: Because of the RPG system that powers the Call of Cthulhu, you have a myriad of approaches to the game’s challenges and in doing so create a fair amount of branching paths, making the game incredibly replayable, as you can try different approaches and skills. After publishing this review and finishing another title, I will run this game again on my Twitch streams, with different skills and approaches. I’ll try this time to avoid the occult and learn all the medicine, instead of the balanced character I took on my first trip into the Cthulhu mythos.

The Bad

Fateful Binary Choice: The entirety of your time on Call of Cthulhu you’re making choices and using your skills to create a unique narrative path. Some people talk to you, others refuse to help you and you may even get into trouble with yet another group of people. Yet even so, it all boils down to a binary choice in the final confrontation. The options are wonderful in their consequences but I would have liked something more organic and befitting the narrative you build throughout the game, instead of a “Light” and “Dark” side equivalent.

Sneak Attack: In Call of Cthulhu there are several instances where you must engage in stealth, to hide from a hideous creature whose very visage will drive your psyche to horrible corners in your mind, or to escape from an insane asylum as deranged in staff as the patients it houses. The problem is that the stealth mechanics are too shallow and simple, and thus the challenge is not there in these sections. It feels forced and lacking the same polish as the rest of the game, especially when only one of these sections manages to keep the tension up. The rest of them disrupt the atmosphere and when, like me, you walk almost

Gallery

I played and managed to keep my sanity with @cyanidestudio’s #CallOfCthulhu, and loved every minute of it! Our review!

The stars align, the cosmos arranges itself, the portents cry true and whispers seep into the minds of faithful and weak-willed alike.

I played and managed to keep my sanity with @cyanidestudio's #CallOfCthulhu, and loved every minute of it! Our review! The stars align, the cosmos arranges itself, the portents cry true and whispers seep into the minds of faithful and weak-willed alike.

[aestreus-archived-blog]

SERVANT INFORMATION

True Name: Medusa Class: Rider Height/Weight:  172cm・57kg Source: Greek Mythology Region: Greece Alignment: Chaotic Good Gender: Female

FAMILY MEMBERS

Father: Phorcys Mother: Ceto Siblings: Aegle, Erytheis, Hespera, Stheno, Euryale, Deino, Enyo, Pemphredo, Thoosa, Ladon, Echidna, and Scylla Children: Pegasus and Chrysaor

SERVANT PARAMETERS

Rank: Three Star Strength: B Endurance: D Agility: A Mana: B Luck: E Noble Phantasm: A+

PERSONAL AND CLASS SKILLS

Magic Resistance:  B - As an Earth Goddess in the distant past, Medusa herself naturally has a high Magic Resistance. However, being summoned under the Rider vessel, which is inferior in comparison to the Three Knight Classes when it comes to Magic Resistance, had lowered its effectiveness. The fact that it is still highly ranked is a proof that a trace of her divinity and former glory remains.

Riding: A+ - Befitting of her Class, Medusa is capable of operating vehicles and mounts of any kind, including Phantasmal and Divine Beasts, being Dragons as the only exception to this. She is highly skilled in riding that she can perfectly mount the winged horse Pegasus, fight and move as one with it—a difficult feat for any other Rider-classed Servant.

Mystic Eyes: A+ - Medusa has Mystic Eyes of Petrification, easily labeled as Cybele—the highest order of Mystic Eyes that the modern era has yet to replicate. Those with Magic Resistance ranked C or lower are easily subjected to be petrified, or turn into a stone as her legend depicts. While those with high-ranked Magic Resistance can still suffer its effects, albeit in a slower rate.

Independent Action: C - It grants Medusa the ability to retain her form as a Servant even when a contract has been nullified or if she is not tied to a Master for a day. She can prolong it by consuming blood of humans and convert them into mana to avoid dissipating.

Monstrous Strength: B - Medusa is given this skill due to being widely recognized as a monster in life. Because of this, she excels in close combat in spite of her Noble Phantasms not being suitable for that kind of fight. She can amplify her strength, but this leaves the possibility of her turning into the infamous Gorgon so she limits its use.

Divinity: E- - She should have gotten a high rank in divinity as a former Earth Goddess. However, since she later on became a monster her divinity decreased. Even so, she still retains a good portion of it enough to not obscure with her having monstrous traits.

NOBLE PHANTASM

Breaker Gorgon: Self Seal, Temple of Darkness Rank: C- Type: Anti-Unit

Since her Mystic Eyes of Petrification is always active, Medusa uses Breaker Gorgon to seal its effects. It is a suppressor Noble Phantasm that takes the form of a visor, which covers Medusa’s Mystic Eyes to prevent harming her allies and own Master. However, its real function is to control one’s mind.

With Breaker Gorgon, she can induce dreams and thoughts to her target. In the dreams, she can take the form of anyone and subject her target to sexual and taboo scenarios, which is one of her methods to gain mana provided that she has a steady supply as well. It easily becomes a lucid dream to those with high Magical Resistance, or much more prevent it, but those that do not can never avoid or deflect it. She can drain them till there’s nothing left.

Bellerophon: Bridle of Chivalry Rank: A+ Type: Anti-Army

It’s a set of golden harness and a saddle that does nothing on its own. However, when used on Rider’s heavenly winged mount Pegasus, it increases its attributes by one rank. The Pegasus that Rider has is not her son, but more so depicted as a gift from Poseidon himself. Since Pegasus in general are docile creatures and refuses to fight, Bellerophon is required to have it act and function on Medusa’s behalf but it’s not because of Bellerophon that she can mount the Pegasus.

Before using Bellerophon, she must first summon the Pegasus.

In order to do so, she has to use her nail weapon Nameless Dagger to slit her own neck. Her pouring blood will create a magic circle which appears to be an eye-like field wherein the Pegasus will spring out. With Bellerophon, she can charge through her targets with ease and cut through flesh from the shockwaves that Pegasus alone brings about. Its impact is strong enough to destroy an entire skyscraper. Pegasus is, after all, a Phantasmal Beast with many years on its belt.

Blood Fort Andromeda: Outer-Seal, Blood Temple Rank: A+ Type: Anti-Army

Named after Andromeda who was the Princess whom Perseus, the slayer of Medusa, married – Blood Fort Andromeda is a bounded field which traps its targets and makes escape horribly futile, although its main function is to accumulate mana. Humans within its dome-like range are dissolved into slurry of blood or organic ooze which Medusa converts into mana. It was the Temple of Blood that turned the Shapeless Isle into a place of crimson and darkness.

Unlike her other Noble Phantasms, Blood Fort Andromeda requires a preparation.

She has to set up numerous sources around her location of interest with her own blood. Medusa can complete this process without leaving a single trace. While the sources can be destroyed, they will still restore over time, or Medusa can easily make more. Destroying the sources does nothing but delay its activation. It can be used at any point of time. However, its full capacity can only be demonstrated after ten days. Once activated, it destroys the leyline of the area which makes it impossible to use Blood Fort Andromeda on the same location repeatedly.

The barrier cannot be seen from the outside and inherently cuts itself off and materializes as a different plane of existence. The surroundings are tinted in crimson, resembling blood in every angle. While Servants and Magi with high enough Magic Resistance can survive or only feel a certain heavy uneasiness in the air, those who do not are instantly drained. If it did not accumulate enough magical energy upon activation, it will take a few minutes to drain someone. Another factor to be considered is the caliber of the Magus who is wielding her.

It cannot be deactivated by others through any means. Only Medusa is capable of disabling it— be it through her own will, or once her Servant body dissipates.

ABOUT THE GORGON

Medusa is the Earth Goddess born from the Sea God Phorcys and his sister Ceto. She was created alongside her Gorgon sisters Stheno and Euryale. They were made to be youthful, divine and beautiful to be worshiped and seen as idols. Because of this, they did not age and were basically immortal. However, Medusa was an abnormal case and a failure. Although she should have been a clone of her sisters, her body grew older. In spite of this, the people and the God Poseidon loved the Gorgon sisters, especially Medusa’s hair which later led him to raping Medusa inside the temple of the Goddess Athena, who happened to be Poseidon’s wife. To her wrath and jealousy, she banished Medusa to the Shapeless Isle.

The worships towards her name were later turned into curses. The love of the people became blind hatred. Those who had faith in her as a Goddess came to loathe her. This caused her to be frightened, turning the Shapeless Isle as a place of comfort although it was a prison in comparison the luxurious life she’d been leading. She wept for her life and for the fact that she did not know what led to this misfortune. However, it was better to be alone than face the unwarranted hate of humans. This, of course, prompted Stheno and Euryale to be with her out of genuine concern for they cannot leave their little sister alone.

Since her sisters were not exiled, people still loved and worshiped them which eventually destroyed the peace in the Shapeless Isle because of their endless appearances. It threatened Medusa’s only place of comfort, as warriors came and arrived. They ventured into the Shapeless Isle to steal the Goddesses Stheno and Euryale from the ‘monster’ that is imprisoning them while some of them were sent off to fulfill prophecies and commit acts on the behalf of unreasonable Gods. After some time, they decided to target Stheno and Euryale as well which gave Medusa a reason to be protective of them both, feeling that she owes them a big deal for not leaving her on her own to suffer in loneliness and seclusion.

She began to slaughter humans who would invade the Shapeless Isle instead of merely using her Mystic Eyes of Petrification, which was the thing that made her special from the rest of the Gorgons for she had abilities as compensation for her mortality. While she was advised not to take pleasure from all the killings, her curiosity got the best of her and she plotted several ways to make each killing different and far quicker than the last. Eventually, her bullying and harassing sisters have come to fear her for she started drinking the blood of the humans who came to the Shapeless Isle.

But due to being mortal, her body disfigured and decayed over time. She was becoming more of a Gorgon each day that she felt too ashamed to show herself to her sisters. She kept herself hidden from view and lamented how hideous she appeared. Her sisters have found her after some time and regretted having let their sister to suffer. By personal choice, they sacrificed themselves to the Gorgon and became one with it.

And like all monsters and those who are victims of the Gods’ whims, she was fated to be killed by a hero. The son of Zeus arrived to the Shapeless Isle and had slain the Gorgon with the use of the five Noble Phantasms granted by the Gods.  After using Kibisis to make Medusa look upon herself, Perseus severed her head with the scythe-like shaped divine sword Harpe.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Medusa is a Rider-classed Servant who wields a Nameless Dagger that can be accurately described as nails instead, laced with metal chains. Although known as a Monster in life, she is summoned during her prime as a Goddess, therefore making her ‘too beautiful for any human to possess, and could either be art the gods admired or a nature they cursed’ according to Shirou Emiya.

Medusa’s parameters as a Servant changes in accordance to her Master. It is, however, proven that she is more effective as Sakura’s Servant than Shinji’s.

Because of her abnormality as a Gorgon which resulted in her aging and growing overtime, she developed a complex towards her height. She believes that she is not deserving of any affection, as she is not cute and short like her sisters.

If her Master cannot supply her with enough magical energy, she is not above killing humans and drinking their blood for consumption.

She is an avid reader. A great lover of literature. Except she is not very fond of Greek Mythology.

When leading her daily life, she is usually seen wearing eyeglasses or contacts to suppress the petrifying effects of her Mystic Eyes of Petrification. Although she would still need Breaker Gorgon for a time and cannot ever go for long without it.

When leading her daily life, she is usually seen wearing eyeglasses or contacts to suppress the petrifying effects of her Mystic Eyes of Petrification. Although she would still need Breaker Gorgon for a time and cannot ever go for long without it.

She is very fond of bikes. Although she is only given a granny one, she would like to have mountain bikes that can handle her speed as she usually breaks granny ones for she cannot control her speed that much.

She is not above seducing people for fun or mana purposes.

Most of the time she keeps to herself and is a woman of few words. This, however, does not mean that she is irrational.

She is so logical that she can maintain her composure even amidst anger or emotions.

She is a devoted and loyal Servant, although this would not obstruct her duties.

Blinding speed is where its at.

Her high-ranked Magic Resistance, knowledge of spells and how to avoid them makes her very suitable to fight against Magi and magic wielders.