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fbfh · 3 years

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light up the dark [VI] - leo x reader

genre: mid adventure domestic fluff overture, romance, smutty lemony bit towards the end

word count: 3k

pairing: Leo x gothy!child of eros!fem reader

requested: very much so, yes

warnings: magic manipulation powers, feelings are hard and weird and scary, some innuendos, the phrase hot gusher out of context, the word dirty talk, trying to "proposition [someone] in front of two for one cookie crisp", brief credit card theft, jason thinks ketchup is spicy and gets clowned on for it, one use of the word lube in reference to mechanical lubricant, shirtless leo remember that one piece of shirtless leo viria art?????? remember the caption?????, your facade is beginning to crack, deadpan joke about being dead in space, making out, whole lotta sexual tension, brief mention of a boner, teeny tiny bit of grinding, getting interrupted, c*lypso

summary: after an extensive shopping trip, you, Leo, and Jason settle into your airbnb and wait for the others to arrive. Jason takes a nap, and Leo helps you dye your hair. You return the favor by helping him make dinner which leads to two things; a well timed boner, and a poorly timed visitor.

listen to: power and control - marina, 100 bad days - ajr, all I ask - adele

a/n: let's play spot the zack and cody reference within the first paragraph

also surprise the series isn't dead!! a shock to all but mostly me!!

as with all smexy smutty nsfw content, all characters are aged up to 18+

Standing in front of a wall of hair dye taller than you are should have been exciting. It would have been, except for the fact that all the colors were various shades of honey mist auburn. You really don’t want to have to make a separate trip to a beauty store for hair dye. Your eyes land on a firetruck red box, and gratefully, you realize you won’t have to.

“Perfect,” you muse, throwing it into your cart, along with the other stuff on the list you’d divided between you. You grab a few other things from the beauty section while you’re there; some makeup, eyeliner, a glass nail file, and a tiny pair of oil slick cuticle scissors.

Nearby is a guy a little older than you in a varsity hoodie and sweatpants squinting at a two in one shampoo label.

Perfect, you think, beginning to approach. You work your magic - literally - and within a few minutes you have his credit card. It takes way less time than it used to. You also didn’t have to smile and flirt nearly as much as you used to. You’re relieved that you don’t have to fake enthusiasm around rich douchebags the way you used to, and a new inky drop of fear begins to stain the corners of your mind. You can’t even bear to admit it to yourself, but you’re kind of scared. Before you can begin to question if you know what love is and if you’re capable of experiencing it without the influence of your divine heritage, you shove it all away. Not the place, not the time. You speed up a little, passing an endcap of candy, and knock a box into your cart.

On the other side of the store, Jason checks off items from their half of the list as Leo tosses items in the cart, talking along the way. Of course, you came up in conversation rather quickly.

“She’s… a real piece of work.” Jason says, treading lightly.

“You said it, man,” Leo agrees, sliding a pack of coke onto the bottom of the cart. Jason thinks for a moment before continuing.

“She seems to,” he tries to figure out how to phrase their dynamic, “not hate you as much as everyone else.” Leo laughs at the accuracy of the statement. He can tell Jason has something else to say, so he’s quiet while putting paper plates and napkins into the cart.

“Hey, Leo?”

“Yeah?”

“Just… don’t let her hurt you, okay?”

He stops for a second. He’s so lucky to have a friend like Jason, one that will genuinely look out for him, but sometimes people caring for him still catches him off guard. Really off guard. With no idea how to begin to verbalize that complicated mess, he takes a split second to collect himself.

“Thanks, man.”

His smile is sincere.

Don’t let her hurt you. Can he just do that? Not let someone hurt him? Especially someone like you. He’s only had a few long term crushes before, all just out of reach and only getting further away. Only one had amounted to something - not that he could call what he had with Calypso ‘something’. She certainly wouldn’t. He looks around, trying to shake off the sting. He starts to get that unsettled, itchy feeling when he focuses on stuff like that for too long.

‘At least I got some good stories out of it,’ he thinks, messing with the back of his hair and fixing his hoodie strings.

“Here.”

He turns around, coming face to face with you, holding out a box very close to him.

“Hot gusher.” You say softly. What? His cheeks heat up, pulse speeding up suddenly. He glances at Jason, who’s at the other end of the aisle asking an employee something. Are you implying something? Are you trying to proposition him in front of two for one cookie crisp? He’s unable to look away from your gaze, intense and striking. You couldn’t possibly mean what he thinks you mean. Your fingers brush and he’s struggling to find an elegant way to say ‘hey, maybe the grocery store isn’t an ideal place for dirty talk’.

“W- uh, sorry, what?” he says, laughing in an equally hushed tone, needing to make sure you meant what he thought you did. You glance down, then back up.

“They’re spicy gushers. I thought you’d like them.” the feeling is gone in a split second, the same time it took to arrive, and is replaced with relief. He looks down at the box, realizing he’d taken it from you at some point. He laughs at the ridiculousness of his previous panic.

“Thanks,” he says, a reflective smile on his face.

You realize how comforted you are to see him smile, really smile, when you catch yourself having to keep a neutral face. One of the first times your resting bitch face has been intentional. Before you can say you’re welcome, Jason comes back over. You hand him the card.

“Pin number’s 0401.”

They both stare at you, skimming the label of a granola bar, completely unperturbed.

“How…”

“Credit card theft.”

The logical part of Leo’s brain starts to speak up, telling him to raise his guard, that his stomach should be twisting. If you can just take someone’s credit card without a hint of remorse, who knows what the hell kind of damage you could do to him if he got closer to you? And he really wants to get closer to you.

“Oh,” you pull a small pop top tube out of your cart and hand it to Leo, “this is for you too. You know, since you don’t like coffee,” you trail off as he reads the label. Caffeine and electrolyte drink tablets, red berry rampage flavor. He looks up at you, feeling warm and… something else, something ineffable, at the gesture.

You stare at each other, eyes locked, surprised at the strangely intimate feeling stirring in both of you.

“What are those?” Jason asks, snapping you out of whatever that was.

“Spicy gushers,” Leo says, smiling again, “I didn’t even know they made those.”

“Hot mango,” Jason reads from the side of the box, “that actually sounds pretty good.”

“No way dude, you can’t handle spicy food.” He starts to protest, and Leo continues, “You think ketchup is spicy!” He looks shocked.

“Okay, that was one time! It was a weird brand and there was way too much pepper in it!”

You bite back a giggle at their bickering, taking note of how much better Leo seems to be doing and finding surprising comfort in their banter.

It doesn’t take long to get to the airbnb and get set up. You all dump your bags in your rooms, bring in the groceries, and shove everything into the cabinets in a reasonably organized manner.

Jason heads upstairs to unpack and call Piper, announcing a few minutes later that they should be here in less than two hours.

“Perfect,” you pull out your hair dye from the last bag. It’s not exactly the manic panic wildfire red you’d initially wanted, but it’s definitely better than nothing. You stare at the box for a second, then up at Leo who’s trying to get one more bag of chips to fit in with the others.

“Hey,” you say, just loud enough to get his attention, “do you… can you get the back of my head?” He looks at you, questioning, and you hold up the box dye. He smiles, once again noting your softened edges around him.

“Yeah,” he agrees, and minutes later you’re in the bathroom, adorned in a big tee shirt covered in all your previous hair colors. He’s staring at your shirt, eyes dancing over the swirls and splatters of color. It reminds him of a painting he’d seen once, unable to remember the name.

You shake the bottle, skimming the instructions again, then start speaking to him, eyes still on the box.

“Take a section of hair, about this much,” you demonstrate, holding out a section of hair, “rub in the dye like this…”

You hand him the second bottle of red dye, and he starts on the back. His fingertips start separating out a section of your hair, and you still, a shiver running up your spine. He hesitates for a moment, then continues, and you hope he hadn’t noticed. His breath fans your ear, and you can feel the heat radiating off his chest. Your lungs are shallow suddenly, squeezed tight like a bouquet clutched in a shaking hand. You find it almost impossible to focus on dying the front half of your hair.

You don’t want it to stop, you realize. His fingertips dancing along your hair, the glimpses of his incredibly focused face in the bathroom mirror, the way he’ll gently turn your head to make sure he didn’t miss a spot.

“Shit,” he leans back, hunching forward. You look behind you, eyes landing immediately on the spot of red dye on his shirt.

“Shit,” you echo. He looks back at you, waiting to see how he’ll react.

“Oh, it’s all good - no worries. I already have a ton of motor oil and lube - lubricant… machine grade, petroleum based engine lubricant-” he laughs, “stains on this shirt anyway. Don’t sweat it.”

You almost laugh. A giggle bubbles up from your chest and stomach, but catches in your throat. Before it can come out, he slips off his dye stained gloves, and tugs off his dye stained shirt from the back. It seems to happen in slow motion. In a mere moment, your eyes engraving every detail, every line and curve and freckle to memory.

There’s really no delicate way to put it; he’s fucking jacked. Deceptively so. You’re frozen in place, cheeks flushed. You suddenly wonder what it would be like to be wrapped up in his arms, held so close to him.

You snap yourself out of the thought, all of that occurring in just a few seconds. He leans past you, setting the dye stained shirt carefully on the counter, glancing at you intensely.

“Are you checking me out?”

You make yourself roll your eyes and turn away, replying, “I’m sure you’d love that.”

Angled away from him, you momentarily reprimand yourself, squeezing your eyes shut and mouthing oh my god. You turn back to him, not recalling the last time you had to deliberately keep up your aloof front around someone like this.

“So, are we finishing my hair or just gonna leave it like this?” you ask rhetorically, motioning to your half done hair.

He watches you do this, confirming his suspicion that you’re really not as cold as you let on. A smile blooms on his face, and he doesn’t think he’s ever seen anything as… cute as that.

“Yeah,” he replies, slipping his gloves back on. The things you do around him seem to mean more now. He notices the way your eyes flutter closed for a moment when he plays with your hair, working in the dye, or the way you still for a split second when he gets a little too close to the side of your face, checking that he didn’t miss a spot.

He doesn’t want this to end either. But eventually, your hair is fully saturated with dye, the timer on your phone counting down slowly. There’s still some dye left. He sits on the closed toilet.

“Your turn. Do me.”

“What?” you laugh.

“Yeah, a little streak - up here.” He leans forward, sectioning off a part of his hair.

“Seriously?” you ask.

“Yeah. Unless you don’t want to match…” he muses. Your eyes get this dreamy look for the briefest second, then you’re turning back to shake the bottle some more.

“I guess… I mean there’s too much dye to throw out, we might as well do something with it.”

It’s his turn, now, to feel the warmth from your body, your hands running through his hair. His eyes want to close, and bask in the feeling, but he refuses to miss out on the view of you so soft, so close to him. It doesn’t last nearly long enough for either of you, and much too soon you’re pulling away and throwing away the gloves and empty bottles.

By the time you finish cleaning up and throw out the garbage, it’s time to rinse your hair. Hanging your head over the tub, you let the water flow over your head until Leo tells you it’s running clear. He does the same, and you point out too late that he only had to rinse the dyed part, not his whole head.

You both laugh as you wrap a towel around your hair, teaching him how to do the same.

“Sweet, I’ve always wondered how to do the spa snail towel thing.”

“The spa snail towel thing?” You try in vain to fight another laugh.

“Yeah, you know… cause it looks like a snail, and they do it at spas…”

“Oh… my gods…” you laugh, exiting the bathroom and heading down the hall, “I”m going to get changed.” you call.

“Am I wrong?” he asks after you, and you bite your lip to stop yourself from laughing. He heads to his room to do the same.

A few minutes later, you’re carefully pulling on your top, when he calls through your door.

“Hey, I’m gonna be in the kitchen, come down when you’re ready.”

“...Okay,” you agree.

You check your outfit in the mirror. You can still feel his fingers brushing your neck. Your head tilts at the memory. Snapshots of him pulling off his shirt in slow motion flash in your memory.

You realize how much of an affect the last hour has had on you. Your stomach drops.

You can’t possibly be falling in love. No way. Not a snowball’s chance in hell.

You’re not the falling in love type. At most, you’d hook up with someone a couple times on the rare occasion you thought they were hot, too.

Oh, you decide, that must be what’s happening. I just think he’s hot. I mean, duh. Of course he’s hot. Did you see him in there?

That’s all you have to do; hook up with him once, maybe twice, then you’ll get over it. It’ll make his ex jealous, and they’ll get back together. It will go just like it always has. Then you can move on to whatever the next crisis is.

You take a breath, resolving to follow the plan, exit your room. You throw yours and Leo’s old clothes and towels in the hamper, and head down stairs. He greets you, and pulls you into the kitchen.

“I have something to ask you.” Your brow furrows.

“...Okay.”

He takes your hand in his, the other behind his back.

“Will you…” he looks at you, gaze piercing, “...be my sous-chef.” he finishes, holding out an apron, matching his.

You study him, a hopeful, surprisingly confident look on his face. His hair is still damp. You’re sure yours is, too. You wait a beat, before replying slowly.

“Yes. But I’m not wearing that.”

“That’s fair,” he says, setting the apron on the counter, “I will have to dock your pay for being out of uniform, though.” You let out a puff of air from your nose, biting back a laugh. He pulls out a skillet, bowl, and oil, and begins preheating the pan. You watch him pull out more ingredients, and begin to set things up.

“Right now we’re waiting on that,” he says nodding at the stove. You nod, inspecting a bottle of seasoning he’d pulled out, and settle into a comfortable silence.

He thinks back to the last time you had time like this - playing twenty questions at your apartment. A pit forms in his stomach as he remembers the conversation veering to Calypso, as it always seemed to. He shoves it away. Not this time. He steadies his nerves. “So, you want to play twenty questions?”

You agree, coming closer to him.

“If you could go anywhere, where would you go?”

Your eyes flick over to the clock. You have a solid hour, hour and a half before the others are supposed to get here. You stare at him, brushing hair out of his face.

“I’d be dead in the endless void of deep space.”

He cracks a smile at how on brand that response was. Your fingertips trail down to his neck, rethen shoulder. The smile doesn’t leave his face, not completely. Your heart beats loudly in anticipation.

“My turn. Do you want to make out?”

His head snaps up, eyes locked with yours, trying to tell if you’re serious or if this is another example of your distinct sense of humor. But he can tell it’s not - there’s something a little too close to the surface in your eyes.

“Yeah. Yes, totally-”

You grab his collar, pulling him in for a kiss, and leaning back against the empty counter.

His lips are soft and warm, moving gracefully with yours. You barely register that the first kiss ends before you dive back in. You angle your head, deepening the kiss. He plants one hand on the counter, the other making its way to the small of your back. You flick your tongue past his lips, and his grip on your waist tightens. You clutch his collar tighter, other hand moving through his hair, still damp at the ends.

You can tell he’s enjoying what you do by the way his mouth quirks up ever so slightly at the corners, and by the way he starts to harden beneath you. You roll your hips into his, and he falters, sighing, breath fanning your lips. Not quite a moan, but you’re getting there.

The front door opens before you can.

Leo pulls away reluctantly, very reluctantly, and turns off the stove.

“That was fast,” he says, panting slightly and still very flushed. They’re not supposed to be here for a while, still.

A tall girl enters the kitchen, dark strawberry blonde hair pulled over her shoulder. She looks between you and Leo with a sour expression on her face.

“Calypso,” Leo says.

"...Hi."

115 notes · View notes

jq37 · 5 years

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The Report Card – Fantasy High Sophomore Year Ep 17

Then Perish (in which the Plot is Happening No Matter How Many Nat 20’s you Roll Ally Beardsley)

Strap in my dudes. It’s a wild one.

Last ep, we’d just entered the forest of the nightmare king and things went sideways pretty quickly. All of the non-familiar NPCs have been poofed away and Kalina is currently fully killing Kristen. Riz, recently cured by Kristen (something that seemed to genuinely distress Kalina), can hear Tracker getting further and further away from them in wolf form. He gives Kristen his flare gun, tells her to run, and looks for the pollen they need to make the Kalina vaccine. Kalina disappears and in comes Sandra-Lynn with a weird mandrake-y plant for Kristen to bite. But, with a nat 20, she realizes that she’s seeing an illusion and Kalina is trying to get her to bite and reinfect Riz.

All of the Bad Kids try to find each other, using all the tricks at their disposal to move faster (Fly, Jump, Dashing, etc). Fabian gets the Hangman to meet them at the edge of the forest with Gilear. Kristen shoots up the flare (presumably to alert Gilear of her position?) and cures herself as she runs, trying to buy time. Kalina tries to make a deal with her so she and her friends will destroy the photo of her and their crystals but Kristen is not about that at all. She just tells everyone to run. Once Fig catches up with her, she does her one better and Dimension Doors with her almost all of the way out of the forest (after Fabian hits her with some Heroism which gives her regening temp HP to help combat the constant damage Kalina is doing). This cuts down the rounds needed to escape from 44 to a much more manageable 12. She manages to just get out alive after 24d6 of damage and Kalina is stuck at the edge of the forest with a threatening, “Get you next time.” The rest of the Bad Kids also make it out without too much trouble due to all their speed buffs.

After everyone takes a tight five to be like, “Welp, that sucked,” they head to the Tinkerer’s Hall to enlist help with making tinctures. Overnight (together with Riz--since Kristen has quarantined herself) they’re able to make six doses of the tincture. Meanwhile, Fig learns more about her bass and Gorgug gets a new Ax from the very grateful tinkerers. Fig’s bass does a lot to help her be effective while she’s being attacked by all sides but--most importantly (imo)--gives her a +5 to performance checks, something I think Brennan is gonna live to regret. Speaking of regret, Fig is beset by whispers of guilt for her “fault” in the disappearance of their friends. Let’s put a pin in that. Gorgug gets a choice between a sick lightning ax and a dope gravity ax. He picks the latter, which, among other things, gives him auto-crits on objects (which seems like a plot tease for sure). While this is going on, Adaine makes two days worth of progress on a spell for Ayda. Kristen, who is being understandably sad in the van, prays to “not knowing” and gets her spells back, clearly (to us at least) missing something as she rolls a Nat 1 perception check.

The gang cures Kristen with a dose of tincture then they upload the video of Kalina Riz took with his tie cam (which, btw, can scan for good and evil while recording and only pings Celestial magic from Tracker and Kristen, Kalina doesn’t ping as either). To my immediate delight, they post the video (respectfully clipped to not include Tracker) as sort of a fantasy version of The Dress, and it very quickly goes viral as people try to figure out why some people can see the tabaxi in it and some can’t.

Back to Fig for a bit, Fig realizes the whispers in her head berating her aren’t external. They’re internal. She says she’s better than being loud than quiet and attempts to drown them out rather than ignore them. Fig realizes that, now that she’s out of the forest, Ayda’s feather is glowing again. Using that connection, Adaine tries to Scry on Ayda and sees that she (along with Zathriel) are caught in a horrifying web with web going into all of their face holes. Ayda’s eyes are clear because the fire of her eyes burn out the webs but she's full on weeping. She’s also trying to use the bloody earring Fig gave her to teleport back to her (knew that was gonna come back, at least for flavor) but her restraints won’t allow it. This absolutely lights a fire under Fig’s ass and she is ready to go back into the forest immediately. Before they do, Gorgug gives his Van to the gnomes (since it was bought with KVX money) and Riz makes one of the potions into a tranq dart for Tracker.

The journey to the temple Adaine saw in her Scry is two days away which means a bunch of sleep and navigation checks (without the Van or Tracker there to cast a Moon Haven). They sleep in shifts with Kristen, Fabian, and Fig sleeping first. Kristen rolls and 19 and Fig gets a 17 with Adaine’s Portent. Fabian is the low man with a 10. Even though Fig seemingly made the check, we still get dream narration for her as she is met by a pre-horned, 13 y/o version of herself who berates her. But Fig (who has made the check and can leave the nightare at any time) says she’s so much happier now than she’s ever been and boom! She loses her College of Whispers subclass and becomes a College of Lore Bard (gaining the Cutting Words feature). Whispers banished, she finds she’s able to communicate with Gorthalax who tells her being a devil doesn’t just have to be about being “evil”. At its core, being a devil is about rebellion. It’s about flipping off the universe, something Fig can very much vibe with.

When Fabian wakes up, not having had a dream, he sees a familiar, tri-cornered hat a little ways away. As soon as he steps away from the group, he is possessed and starts attacking his friends--brutally as per DM’s orders. Luckily, Adaine has a low portent roll to give him, Riz has a net gun, and Gorgug now has a super heavy axe which he simply lays on Fabian, restraining him. They snap Fabian out of it and Adaine can tell it wasn’t an ambient effect of the forest. It’s something that was actively cast on Fabian (the same thing that was cast on Fig when she gem’d Gorthalax). However, it’s probably stronger in the forest. They also realize that when the Baron thing happened, Riz was attacked but not possessed and he also didn’t go to sleep. So, if they go through the forest not sleeping, they’ll be safe from possession at least. The next three are able to sleep without problem (even Riz who rolled a 7) but, in the morning, they don’t do so hot on their navigation checks. Instead of losing time, they decide to push through to the temple.

When they get there, they see that it’s basically surrounded by skeletons, like people just showed up to lay down and die. Something above the entrance has been moved and they also see (from much more recently) three sets of footsteps joined by a fourth set halfway (boots, not talons or paws). Adaine casts Locate Creature on her mom but doesn’t sense her within 1000 ft. Riz takes point and decides to scout the temple and report back. On a Nat 20 for a total of 30 Investigation, he fully cases the joint in less than ten minutes. He sees a brick of Dusk Moss and a bunch of spooky books which he realizes means a ritual happened to take the casters almost further into the forest in some kind of non-euclidean direction. He sees a skeleton of a unicorn filled with webs and egg sacs which died looking at a portrait of a woman in a black robe with black hair but the face is destroyed.

Riz reports back all of this to his friends and Adaine decides that she’ll shoulder full responsibility for looking at the potentially evil books, trusting her friends to snap her out of it if she gets possessed or something. Equally supportive in their own ways, Fig plays a countercharm for her off to the side and Riz points a gun at her. From reading the book, Adaine is able to piece together a lot about the mechanics of what’s going on. There is a tree in the center of the forest (the broom that was turned into a tree) which helps to boost all the illusions in the forest. Because of this, illusions are all more real. For example, illusory wings created with Disguise Self would actually grant you flight. The Dusk Moss used in the ritual was probably to give them some measure of control over the insane nightmares (as in, “I know this is a dream sorta, therefore I can’t be hurt”). Brennan says Adaine would probably be able to do the ritual with some time and study. Siobhan Galaxy Brains and scours her spell list for spells involving illusions for what she calls, “some fuckery” (“Give me the fuckery,” Brennan says, even the game DM). Adaine wants to use Illusory Script to write a spell that will allow her to do the ritual with the hope that it will become real. Brennan looks directly into the camera like it’s The Office and asks for a DC 30 Arcana check. She doesn’t get it but she does get the sense that the principle behind the idea is solid. Anyway, back to the other transubstantiations. The Familiar to a Plague is, as we all already knew, Kalina who is controlling the illusions in the forest. The Spellbook is the KVX coin and is (1) aligned with the Enchantment school of magic and (2) responsible for the possessions that have been happening (ie: Fig, Ragh, and Fabian this ep). The Sanctum to Cottage is aligned with the Abjuration school of magic and basically a trap for Celestials coming into the forest and also will prevent certain levels of spellcasting as they get progressively deeper. And now back to the tree (he doesn’t say the school of magic it is and also he says there are four when there are actually 8 so I’m not sure which school it’s supposed to represent--Divination maybe since that’s Adaine’s school?). The forest becomes alive the further in they go. The more safe they feel, the more the paths will move around. The only way to get they can get to the center is by feeling fear and uncertainty--which has got to be simultaneously great and terrible news for someone with major anxiety to get.

All of that is all going on in the main chamber. Meanwhile, Gorgug is in the hallway and Fabian is in the chapel with Kristen who is checking out the picture of the goddess. Kristen, on international DM’s day, rolls a nat 20 religion check because of course she does. She hears the goddesses’s voice in her head. “Why do you search for me?” Kristen says she’s really into the praise through doubt thing. Brennan makes her roll a Con check with disadvantage--13.

He says, “I’m gonna describe what Kristen sees and then I’m going to describe what Fabian saw,” instantly activating my Fight or Flight.

Kristen feels a wave of spite, rage, and betrayal from the goddess and then she feels blinding pain as the unicorn skeleton runs over and gores her through the heart from the back.

“What praise will you have in death?” the voice in her head says, as she collapses, fully lifeless.

The unicorn turns to a panicked Fabian (who is only not driven mad by his immunity to Fear) and says, “You should not have come here.”

In conclusion, AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Detention

Brennan for Killing Kristen on a Nat 20

Using a Nat 20 to kill a player is such a power move and please do not let this placement make you think I don’t respect the unmitigated gall.

Honor Roll

Adaine for An Incredible Piece of Fuckery

The fact that it didn’t work doesn’t change the fact that this was a Galaxy Brain connection that she made instantly and will almost certainly end up saving their asses. Mark my words: Before the end of the season, some Looney Tunes-ass painting a black circle to make a real hole type nonsense is gonna happen.

Random Thoughts

Emily’s constant awe at Ally’s dice rolls is so funny to me. She’s like head parishioner at the church of Ally’s dice.

“Don’t bite the baby your mom gives you.”

Adaine taking pics of Fabian on Gorgug’s back while running out of the forest.

The teamwork shown during Kristen’s rescue? *chef’s kiss*

“It doesn’t protect you from losing all your friends in a forest.” Ow.

Emily going, “Thank you Brennan,” like a little kid when she got her new bass’s stats.

“All of our girlfriends are in there!”

Brennan, upon being denied a wisdom save from Emily: You have to! I asked.

Ice feast?????? Ally, what????

There is very much a world where the Bad Kids immediately leveraged Fig’s social media presence to get a better sample size on what was going on with Kalina. I wonder what would have happened if they’d gone viral with it much earlier.

Ayda was drawn to the cottage with Zathriel because she’s part Celestial apparently. Are Phoenixes Celestial? That’s news to me.

Also, on the topic, very Concerned about where the remaining NPCs are.

The fact that Ayda had Fig’s earring in her hand while bound and unable to move much or do a spell that would allow her to get it into her hand implies that her split second reaction when captured was to reach for it and that was the one thing she could do before she was incapacitated which is A Lot.

Kristen keeps asking Riz to hold the tranq gun because she wants to look out for Tracker, which is sweet but you have -3 Dex girl. The kindest thing you can do is never touch that gun and toss Riz some Bless.

The break they took between leaving the forest and going back Concerned me as it was happening. I was like, y’all literally anything could be happening right now. I had no sense on the amount of tie they realistically had to spare before something unreversable happened.

Lol at Brennan clearly trying to throw some levels of exhaustion at the party and them just rolling out of it, no problem.

I feel like Brennan knew Kristen was dying this episode no matter what and I gotta say: (1) I think it’s a great skill as a DM to keep our story on the tracks while also having the players actions matter and have meaningful consequences and (2) I wonder if she hadn’t gotten a Nat 1 when she got her spells back, if we’d get some information that could potentially contextualize what happened.

I do not remember what the unicorn’s deal is but I remember it was mentioned specifically at the top of the season and I don’t trust anything about it--separately from the fact that it gored our girl. Was it speaking independently or was the goddess speaking through it? Or was it just the unicorn the whole time and Brennan was lying--not for the first time that episode?

Fig being asked by her younger nightmare self what all the people in her life who had bad stuff happen to them have in common: Aguefort Advenuring Academy?

The image of an angel falling out of heaven and then rising up to flip off God and go, “F You,” is so cinematic that it makes me upset there aren’t animatics for this show.

I am dying to know whether Brennan thought about the implications of making a setting where illusions are hyper-real in a game where Emily Axford is lousy with illusion magic. Did he consider it? Is there a mechanic to limit this? Or, next week, is Emily gonna say, “I cast disguise self on myself and I disguise myself as a super buff version of me with sick devil wings and I also create a minor illusion of a tiny, fairy, cleric.” What could stop her? Minor Illusion is a cantrip, guys. It’s a CANTRIP. I feel like either Brennan wildly miscalculated and made himself a double edged sword which Emily and Siobhan are gonna use to make him eat his dice OR he’s about to throw some absolutely unfair nonsense at them that even he doesn’t know the way out of and he’s trusting them to harness the power of the fuckery to figure it out. Either way, there are only 3 episodes left so I guess there’s only so much they can break the game in 3 episodes (she said, fully expecting to be proved wrong).

“Crunch it up bro.”

When Brennan was talking about the ritual, he said, “Your parents and stuff” with regard to who did it, which makes me think Anguin was the fourth figure. But the “and stuff” is vague hedging language which makes me think we’re still being played. Brennan, tell me what’s going on in Abernant-Land, I’m begging you bro.

One thing I didn’t mention in the main recap because it was getting long is the 4 transubstantiations were done on 4 gifts from the 4 tribes who worshiped the goddess The cat was from the wood elves. The sanctum was holy to the centaurs. I think the sprite was the spellbook which would make the broom from the treents.

Partial credit to @camwritery for this: Brennan gave Gorgug a weapon that, among other effects, insta-crits on inanimate objects. Which is a random ability unless a future plot point involves destroying some items--a la the pylons they destroyed earlier in what feels like a tutorial level in retrospect. And camwritery is the one who pointed out, hey, isn’t there a super important tree in the middle of the forest? Magic axe? Magic tree? Feels connected y’all.

Everyone getting new gear and spells the past two eps has felt like that scene in Lion/Witch/Wardrobe where Santa shows up and is like, “Here are some weapons kids. Shit’s about to hit the fan!”

The fact that Riz escaped possession on a 7 seems to be explained by the fact that the cursed money is linked to possession and he gave all of his away. Which means Fabian and Adaine are still in danger, along with I think Fig since she kept her tour money which is likely infected.

Anyone else get Wrinkle in Time/The Boy Who Reversed Himself vibes from all the dream travel talk this ep?

OK, I guess we gotta talk about Kristen dying for the third time in her life. Poor girl. She’s just trying her best to be a good person and earnestly trying to find meaning in the world. And what has it gotten her? Killed three times. And yet she keeps trying! The fact that it’s her makes me kinda more and less worried at the same time, you know? Because she is currently the sole healer on the team which is BAD--if Fabian went down, it wouldn’t be as big of a deal because Kristen would presumably just need to make her fright check and then cast Revivify. K-girl doesn’t have anyone to heal her (barring some illusion shenanigans from Fig or Adaine). However, Kristen’s motto might as well, “Whatever does kill you makes you stronger.” She basically has an at least 1 death per season clause written into her contract. If anyone can face death with grit and come out singing (and prob with some sick new powers) it’d be her. What an absolutely brutal way to end the episode.

She was mentioned in this episode for a hot sec I think--that racist ranger from earlier in the season--I don’t trust her. She could just be a one off NPC but I feel like there’s more to her.

So I guessed correctly that the photos of Kalina would end up being a bargain chip potentially but somehow it didn’t occur to me that they could just...leave. Lol, I was like, “I guess they’re in it,” and they were like, “Yeah, bye.”

Kalina didn’t come after the gang in the forest the second time except maybe to possess Fabian if she did that directly. I wonder why that was. She had plenty of time.

I don’t like this spider motif. I don’t trust this spider motif. My spidey sense is going off re: this spider motif. I just want that on the record.

This episode, Adaine rolled 1 Nat 20, Riz got 2, and Kristen rolled 3 but one was cancelled out by disadvantage. Meanwhile, Fig, Kristen, and Gorgug each rolled one Nat 20 each.

#fantasy high #fantasy high live #dimension 20 #fantasy high spoilers #dimension 20 spoilers

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szopenhauer · 4 years

Text

When was the last time you wore your favourite article of clothing? I like most of my clothes

Do your parents smoke? no

Do you live close to a park? forest

Is your favourite animal endangered? raccoons aren’t but elephants are :(

How many pens can you see from where you’re sitting? 6

What language do you think you’d fail at? french and asian ones

Do you still have a landline phone at your house? but we don’t use it

Do you carry pain relievers with you at all times? nope

Where is your mother right now? in the living room with my dad

What was the last thing to make you smile? not sure what was last

What would you do if you got home and you saw your house had been destroyed? omg don’t feed my paranoia :o

Would you slap the last person you talked to for twenty dollars? nah

Do you know anyone who gives way too many hugs? they give as much as they need

What are some positive things, realizations or habits that came out of quarantine for you? long story, it’s complicated

How do you feel about people who are “workaholics”? Would you consider yourself one? I don’t like them, most of them only care about money and not at all about health or loved ones, I’m not ambitious or a workaholic

What could you spend less money on? trinkets

How would you describe yourself as a friend? What value would you say you bring to your friends? it’s up for them to say/judge

In psychology they say that our romantic relationships are an extension of our relationships with our parents, and that we tend to choose our partners based on whatever was lacking in our childhood, or that we are attracted to traumas and sufferings that are familiar to us rather than the unknown. Can you relate to this? umm...

Can you tell when you are not well-liked? What do you do when you feel someone is not particularly fond of you? I’m not surprised, I’m used to the fact ppl don’t like me that I assume they don’t until they tell me, repeteadly, that they actually do (which rarely happens and doesn’t last long), I avoid/ignore those who hate me most

How would you say your preference in movies or TV shows changed from when you were a teenager vs. now? used to watch only movies for kids at first

Apart from price and location, what are some deciding factors when choosing a house for you? smell, bath and balcony mostly

What emotion is the hardest for you to express? how grateful I am if that counts - when it comes to gifts and/or compliments etc.

How do you feel about job interviews? Are you good at negotiation? I do well but I still don’t get a job because of lack of experience; I only failed one interview in my life but I didn’t even want to work there, UP sent me to call center and boss asked me questions about the job I was going to get but they didn’t tell me what it’s about so I didn’t know much and I was in my snow boots (as it was winter) to my elegant clothes so I looked dumb and I forgot that I can’t leave the building on my own as they had special card keys and I tried to open door like crazy until someone saved me - that was awkward...

How many cars have you ever owned? 0

Can you do math in your head well? I need my fingers

What’s your least favorite chore to do around the house? laundry and cooking, not that I like chores in general haha

What’s your favorite flavor of potato chip? salt, also liked becon in the past

Do you ever read the weather forecast? pfft

Do amusement park rides make you sick? I worry they would so I don’t risk it

Have you ever cheated on a test? in high school, especially math, elseway I would fail

Is your next birthday coming up soon? next year

Do you have any bumper stickers on your car? I’d buy some if I had a car but I don’t drive

Do you leave good tips when you eat out at restaurants? I don’t tip, why? we don’t tip postmen and/or nurses etc.

What’s your favorite thing to eat at bbqs? not a BBQ food person

Do you still own any VHS tapes? we still keep ‘em

How many jobs have you had? I tried some jobs but never really had one

If there was a real Jurassic Park, would you visit it? no thx

How many friends do you have that are married? from all of my ex best friends only Ula, Sandra and John are married, Dorota was already divorced when I met her

Did you have a swing set in your yard when you were a child? didn’t trash it, used it this summer

You’re making a fruit salad: what kinds of fruit do you put in it? I don’t eat fruit salads

Do you prefer to drink from glasses or mugs? mugs, glasses are dangerous, I remember them breaking from heat like they were exploding or smth - scary

Is it weird to hear your name in movies or TV shows? it is, when an evil or stupid character has my name it makes me mad

What kind of kid were you when you were seven? very good student, angel, clumsy, naive, wearing “ugly clothes”, the only girl with long hair at the point, petite, wanted other kids to like me so I tried to impress them (but didn’t blindly followed everything they were doing though), not as shy as my mom tought, didn’t know how to tell jokes, still happy but slowly becoming depressed due to family issues, bullying, money and health problems

Is there a subject you know so much about that you’d be able to teach it? sigh... Where did you purchase the computer you’re using right now? Media markt Do you think it’s fair to compare Family Guy to The Simpsons? The Simpsons are better, I dislike Family Guy, wasn’t there an episode where they mixed both of those shows?...

Do you have pockets in anything you are wearing currently? I do not usually

How loudly can you burp? I’m more of a quiet burp/fart person

How many different letters are in your full name? 12

Do you like making bets? occasionally

Have you ever had a ‘falling’ dream? I don’t wake up, I just fall and crash on the floor then I lay there and it hurts

Do you do anything weird in your sleep? possibly

How long are your fingers? my longest finger is 7 cm and my shortest is 4 cm

Do you like bumper cars? whatever

What color is the book nearest to you? dark colors - black, purple, red, grey...

Can you lick your elbow? I can

How old were you when you said your first word? ask my parents

Can you sit the way people sit when they meditate? yep

Do you like the autumn? if it’s not too cold and snowy

Would you rather have a hippo or rhino dropped on you? doesn’t matter but at this point in 2020 I can expect that to happen

Have you ever cried in front of a teacher? in elementary, in high school I cried but she didn’t notice as I tried to hide that - it was one of two moments through all high school that I cried - to było wtedy kiedy Pepe zabrał mój temat na maturę, na który przygotowywałam się od 5 lat i dostałam w zamian jakieś gówno, a drugi raz płakałam bo musiałam zapłacić za brak biletu w autobusie mimo, że go miałam tylko legitymacja szkolna nie była podbita bo akurat wówczas byłam w szpitalu i nikt mnie nie powiadomił, że powinnam to nadrobić i strasznie się zmartwiłam, że nie mam kasy i staram się jak mogę, a i tak coś zawsze się spierdoli (bo czemu ludzie sobie jeżdżą bez biletu serio cały czas, a mimo to “złapali” akurat mnie?), jeszcze musiałam pojechać przystanek dalej przez to jak mnie spisywali i prawie spóźniłam się na zajęcia :(

Have you ever cried BECAUSE of a teacher? who haven’t? srsly

Do you do a :) or a (:? :) (: is creepy

Are paper clips fun to play with? meh

Do you prefer mechanical pencils or regular pencils? regular

Is your alarm clock set right now? good idea :o

Are you itchy right now? slightly which is normal to me

Do you have anything on your wrists? not right now

Why are you so awesome? :) I’m not...

so how are you today? I thought I will feel worse before going to hospital so won’t complain

when was the last time you had a cup of tea? long time ago

who’s the most recent person on your Facebook feed? (if you have it) my annoying sister >.<

when (if ever) was the last time you saw that person? week ago

how do you feel about wolves? great animals

do you use pinterest? started new account this month

should you be doing something else right now? packing but whenever I pick up one thing to put into the bag I get a panic attack

bye :) bye...

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fallintosanity · 5 years

Text

so I just re-read Nevermore, the unintentionally final book in the Cal Leandros series by Rob Thurman. Mostly I was rereading it on the hopeless crossover nerd whim of “Noctis Lucis Caelum and Cal Leandros look remarkably similar but are basically polar opposites in terms of personality and it would frankly be hilarious if they somehow got switched and Niko had to deal with Noctis, and Ignis (or better yet, Ardyn) had to deal with Cal”.

But I’d forgotten how much I dislike the last couple books in the series despite what should be Sanity-flavored plot crack in Nevermore in particular (Cal time-travels eight years to the past to save his younger self from an assassin), and I’ve been thinking about why, and what went so terribly wrong with a series I love so much. I’ve been able to isolate three main reasons why the ending of the series frustrates me so much and why, I think, interest in the books dropped off so badly that the planned eleventh book was never published.

Cut for long ramblings about writing and storytelling (also spoilers for the entire Cal Leandros series).

The first reason is purely technical: Nevermore appears not to have been edited for spelling, punctuation, and grammar (SPaG). At all. I’m talking glaringly obvious mistakes like effect instead of affect, ‘Goodfellow grin, sword out, “I’ve been looking forward to this...”’, run-on sentences galore, and sentences just straight-up missing subjects, verbs, or objects; or which otherwise make no grammatical sense.

Thurman’s writing style has always had a bit of a... rhythm, I suppose, to it - characters tend to speak in long complex sentences with entire asides in the middle. It’s part of the appeal of her books, normally. When properly edited, her almost lyrical sentences give her books a unique and enjoyable flow. But in Nevermore, at least once a chapter and frequently more often, I had to stop reading, go back to the beginning of the paragraph, and re-read the sentence only to discover, yes, it really is missing a vital part of its structure, or its tense doesn’t agree with the sentences before and after (or occasionally with itself). Being thrown out of the book that frequently makes it very hard to read. You can’t get deeply invested in what the characters are saying if you can’t understand them.

The second two reasons are more complex, and fairly tightly intertwined. One of them is the entire issue of Robin Goodfellow. A good pass or three by an editor would have been helpful here, too, not just for SPaG, but also because Robin goes from straddling the line between “overbearing yet charming” and “obnoxious third wheel”, to straight-up puck ex machina. The plot of Nevermore is quite solid and enjoyable for the first half - but then Robin shows up. From there, it’s a downhill plunge of hand-waving his vast yet utterly unexplained network of “connections” or “minions” to solve half the problems they encounter.

How did he find the Leandros brothers overnight when Caliban was incredibly careful to make himself untraceable? Something something text-recognition software in his mailbox, and vague “informants” who pointed him directly to the apartment. Where’d he get the sword that’s too long to actually hide in the suit jacket he’s wearing? A shrug and a “it was hidden up his ass” joke. Where’d he get the credit card and “wad of cash” he uses later, after said suit (and everything else he was wearing) gets destroyed and he’s walking around in a stolen bedsheet toga? Another shrug/ass joke. How does he hide the four of them from Lazarus? A mysterious “client” with a conveniently empty, ultra-protected penthouse never before mentioned, and more minions who not only manage to stock it with clothes and other necessities in the space of roughly an hour, but mange to do so with clothes and medical cocktails perfectly fit to Robin, Cal, Caliban, and Niko.

There’s “this guy is insanely wealthy and unbelievably well-connected”, which is how Robin has always come across in past books; and there’s “this guy is a walking plot device who barely resembles himself from previous books”, which is Robin in Nevermore. And speaking of walking plot devices: on the flip side of solving half the problems they encounter, Robin “conveniently” creates a completely different problem seemingly just to set up a chapter’s worth of angst. He develops a phobia of Auphe gates so severe that he would rather die than allow Caliban to use one to get them out of a trap by Lazarus. A phobia never before mentioned in any book, despite Cal’s gates being a massive plot point in nearly all previous books (and Robin being yanked through them repeatedly).

Which is where the third massive problem with the book comes in, a problem whose roots are in the previous book, Downfall. In Downfall, the ninth book of the series, we learn out of the blue that apparently Cal and Niko are the latest version of two guys who have been reincarnating every hundred years or so for the last few millennia. Every time they’re reincarnated, they’re reincarnated together as brothers or best friends; and every time they’re reincarnated, Robin finds them and becomes their friend.

Up until this point, there’d been no mention of reincarnation in the books at all, nor any hint that Robin knew the Leandros brothers before. Downfall tries to “solve” this by adding some flashbacks of Robin meeting the brothers as children and recognizing them, but this doesn’t change the fact that his reactions when he first meets them in book 1 (or in any of the books beyond that) do not make any sense if he either met them before as children, or recognizes them as the reincarnations of his friends.

On top of that, Downfall begins and Nevermore continues with the idea that the Leandros brothers’ previous reincarnations were always famous historical figures. They were Achilles and Patroclus, they were Little John and Will Scarlet (to Goodfellow’s Robin Hood, of course). They “rustled Genghis Khan’s harem”. Name a historical figure or event, the Leandros brothers and Robin were there and probably involved up to their eyeballs.

I don’t want to say that this kind of resurrection plot, on its own, is bad. Done well, it can be quite interesting. The problems with it in this series are due to execution, not the premise itself. The reason the execution falls very, very flat is twofold.

First, like I said, the Leandros brothers were always important historical figures or involved in the business of them. If reincarnation as a thing was more prominent in the series, if we had a reason for why this is the case other than “because protagonists”, then I might buy it. As it is, it smacks unpleasantly of the “Raven Dark’ness Dementia Way” flavor of self-insert that’s fine for self-indulgence, but a lot harder to tolerate when it comes out of left field in the ninth and tenth books of a New York Times bestselling series.

It’s the author trying to make her characters awesome by making them have been all the awesome people in history, rather than allowing them to be awesome on their own merits. It’s also the author trying to force a closeness/brotherly bond between her characters that 1) doesn’t need to be forced as it’s already there, and 2) is actually weakened by making it be their ~reincarnation destiny~ rather than something they spent the last eight and a half books earning.

Second, and closely related, is the fact that there was no foreshadowing whatsoever of the reincarnation thing. If this had been set up since the first book - if Robin’s reactions to the Leandros brothers in book 1 had had even the slightest hint of this, if there had been subtle clues dropped in subsequent books - it would be a lot easier to swallow. As it is, the lack of foreshadowing gives it all the subtlety and effectiveness of an “it was all a dream” ending.

The tendency to just make up something that’s “always been there” isn’t a new one for Thurman; she’s done this repeatedly throughout the Leandros series, and does it for other things in Nevermore as well. The “coming of age” ring Caliban gives to Robin was supposedly given to him by Niko, but it was never mentioned prior to that scene. “For real and for true” is likewise something that Caliban claims was always in his and Niko’s life, but is mentioned for the first time in Nevermore. (There are other examples in previous books but I don’t remember them off the top of my head.)

The difference is that all those are relatively minor things. As a reader, I’d have loved to see the scene where Niko gives Cal the ring (where’d Niko get it? was he emotional? how did Cal respond?), but I can accept that it happened off-screen. The “for real and for true” line would have had a hell of a lot more emotional impact if it had been used in previous books, but I can buy it being a childhood thing Caliban hadn’t thought of until now.

But an entire reincarnation plot, complete with handwaved “racial memory” thanks to “Auphe genes” that allows Caliban to remember his previous incarnations? Something that big has to be set up, foreshadowed, from the very beginning. Otherwise you leave your readers distracted by the mechanics of it, the gaping plot holes where characters’ reactions don’t line up. (Don’t get me started on the hilarious lack of hard science in any mention of Cal’s Auphe heritage; that’s a whole ‘nother rant.)

In my entirely amateur opinion, both Downfall and Nevermore would have been much stronger books with the entire reincarnation plot ripped out. By our ninth book with these characters, we don’t need a convoluted reincarnation plot to either prove that Cal and Niko are awesome, or to convince readers of the powerful bonds of friendship and brotherhood between the two of them, and between them and Robin. It fails to make them seem cooler in any way, for one (this is a separate rant about how to write tricksters, but essentially, if Cal suddenly legitimizes every one of Robin’s outlandish claims about his involvement with historical figures, by remembering his past reincarnations where they did whatever thing it was, it makes Robin’s claims considerably more boring and uninteresting).

It also makes the bonds between the three of them a lot weaker. They stop earning the bonds on their own merits, and fall back on “hey we fucked our way through Roman whorehouses together in a past life, let’s be besties now”. In Nevermore, Caliban struggles to earn past!Niko’s trust for very good reasons, making for interesting, painful drama and angst as he deals with the fact that the one person who’s trusted him his entire life suddenly doesn’t. But when Robin shows up, he and Caliban swap a couple raunchy memories from a past life and suddenly Robin is willing to die for Caliban (except for the aforementioned Auphe gate phobia, which frankly feels even more forced given how fully Robin trusts Caliban after the reincarnation discussion). I would have much rather seen Caliban have to earn past!Robin’s trust the way he did in the early books in the series, the way he did with past!Niko.

So, to fix Nevermore: scale back on the puck-ex-machina - it would even be possible without changing the story that much. Cal and Caliban would both bitch about having to wear fancy clothes instead of their preferred snarky t-shirts. The boys would have had to work a bit harder to find a safe place to hole up for the night, and would have been on watch not just to wake Caliban when the nightmares started, but to keep an eye out for Lazarus. (Which, frankly, would have added another layer to Cal’s failing to wake Caliban, if he was legitimately distracted or could simply claim to have been.) Rip out the reincarnation plotline entirely. Let the boys earn each other’s trust and friendship organically, and let them be badass on their own terms rather than by borrowing historical figures’ awesomeness. And get a SPaG editor.

...all that said, if Everwar ever does come out by whatever miracle of publishing, self- or otherwise, I’m totally buying it. I miss my emo-angst-amoral-jackass and his impossibly-good asskicking older brother.

(maybe someday I’ll write that crossover too.)

(no Sanity you have too many fics already)

(but what if niko and ignis bemoaning their respective charges--)

#cal leandros #the cal leandros series #rob thurman #meta #writing #sanity talks a lot

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5ecardaday · 6 years

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I'm new to homebrewing, and I want to know if you have any tips or tricks on how to make monsters, items, magic, classes etc. Any help is appreciated!

Sure, I’d love to help. I’ll go ahead and put all of the advice under a read more though, since it’ll be kind of long and I don’t wanna clog up uninterested dashboards.

For making monsters, the best place to start is absolutely page 274 of the DMG. Contrary to the obvious, I would actually recommend tossing out the rules for determining the CR of your monster based on its attack, damage, etc. They’re long and difficult to use, a full 20 steps, and may leave you feeling locked in to using only the abilities provided in the chart it gives, rather than trying to branch out and design your own. Instead, use the table on pg. 274, meant for quick monster stats- it’s all I’ve ever felt the need to use.

As some people have pointed out, the chart isn’t spot on, but it’s not meant to be, and it’s just close enough. When making a monster, I start with the CR, then try to make sure what I end up with lands near those ranges. If some fall a little bit, or even a lot, above the recommended values, decrease other ones instead. If your monster has a high AC, consider reducing its health a bit, or keep its health high but make it slow, with few attacks and lower damage output. I rarely use the chart anymore, and instead found overtime that I basically internalized the ranges I kept working with.

When designing a magic item or spell, it’s back to the DMG again. If you have an idea for an item, check the abilities it gives against some spells with similar effects, then compare the levels of those spell(s) against the chart on pg. 284, which says what levels of spells match to what rarity of item. It also works in reverse, and if you want an item of a certain rarity, you can determine some basic ideas using the effects of spells that match to that rarity level.

Spells themselves have a “damage per spell level” table on the next page, pg. 285, that I use all the time still to check the range of a damaging or healing spell. Non-damaging spells are just best compared to other spells of levels close to what you want, to see how similar in strength such an effect might be. Beyond that, you just have to consider the balance a given spell might have on any type of campaigns and parties. If you make a spell that acts as a roleplaying tool for finding clues in an investigation, consider how strong the given effect would be in a campaign focused on dungeon-delving adventure, and then how the same spell might work in a noir-themed campaign focused on detective work, and try to strike a balance between the two.

No matter what you’re designing though, consistency in flavor is the key to making it shine. If you make a monster, don’t redesign the wheel. How many times have you seen a large, armor plated hulk who swings with his claws/fists, and has a secondary focus on grappling? How many monsters of that type can you pick from the 5th Edition Monster Manual alone? But take away the grapple-focus, and give it a reaction that let’s it curl into a ball instead, increasing its AC and giving it resistance to damage. Given you’re likely pairing such a creature with a spellcaster anyway, give the caster some basic healing spells, and now you have a unique threat. Or keep the grapple-focus, but lower its armor, and instead give it a reaction to puff spikes from its body. Now when creatures hit it, it can use a reaction to turn the tables, dealing damage to them in turn, but also immediately damaging any creature it might be holding. Your players may think twice about rushing in to use physical attacks, and now they need to think through the challenge the monster presents.

If you make a spell or an item, the same rule applies. You know what item I hate from the 5e DMG? The circlet of blasting. I made the mistake of giving one to a player once for an important personal quest as a reward, and they never used it. Why? Because it’s boring, both mechanically and flavorfully. I later had another quest alter the circlet, breaking it and causing the jewels to fall out. A blacksmith the players helped offered to reforge it, and made it into a pair of glasses with the jewels at the edges- same effect, stats no different, but now they’ve used their “Cyclops eye beams” several times.

Make sure what you design, either a spell or a magic item, feels unique from other items in the game, and that it’s ability is something you’d want to use given the chance. Spells are hard in this way because they have a wide design space when you first look at them, which becomes more narrow as you realize 5e tries to make sure casters can’t do anything and everything- a drastic change from older editions.

This “uniqueness factor” is the single most important part of a class or subclass. If it ends up unbalanced, the people who playtest it or users in places such as r/unearthedarcana will let you know. But only if they look at it first- and they won’t give it so much as a glance if they don’t fall in love with the concept. Because of this, don’t just copy-paste abilities from other (sub)classes, because you’ll wind up with a boring, muddled concept with no clear direction or identity.

If you struggle finding a concept that feels interesting, don’t despair. Take a moment and look at the world around you for inspiration. My (very obvious) go-to is Magic cards- I’ve turned them into a whole concept of their own at this point, with rules I follow, both on a mechanical and flavor level, based on the rules inherent in the design of both 5th Edition and Magic. I’ve also got another blog, @powerattackpublishing, where I’ve made content based on other pop-culture, from video games to books. The real world and all its history can also be a powerful inspiration. My friend @kor-artificer recently made a Highwayman Rogueish Archetype for DM’s Guild, based on the local history of where they live, and it’s full of fantastic flavor. Even other RPG’s can offer great inspiration- games such as Shadowrun and Pathfinder seem like obvious choices, but other less-likely games can be full of hidden gems.

Identifying these concepts and deciding where to take them can be difficult and intimidating at first, but the more you do it again and again, the easier it becomes. My skills as both a writer and a game designer vastly increased when I began reading and studying games other than D&D and look-alikes, and even more so in the 8 months since I started producing content every single day. No matter what, keeep making things, and if you get stuck on a concept, be willing to move on. No matter how much you like the idea- move on. No need to abandon it entirely; just come back later. But once you’ve made something else, or several other things, you might discover some strong ideas to use for the things you moved on from that make them work better.

This turned out to be incredibly long, now that I’m looking at it, sorry for that. If you’ve read all the way through it though, and you’ve found it the slightest bit helpful, then I’m glad for that. Hopefully this gives people some advice on not just where to start, but how to keep going, and even some advice on how to make things that aren’t D&D-related at all. The concept of being unique and fun to play is definitely not restricted to one roleplaying game.

#sierra-fujin #5e card asks #dnd homebrew #homebrewing tips #5e homebrew

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allhailbolas · 8 years

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What are you looking for?

When thinking about commander's philosophy, we identified that one of the most important things when sitting down for a game is making sure that each player can get the experience they're looking for. For that to work, we have to know what we ourself are looking for. Identifying our goals and the anticipated experience can be quite tricky but we'll try to tackle it here.

There are many motivations for playing magic. To break them down and analyze them, we'll look into the main psychographics, as described by Mark Rosewater here:

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/timmy-johnny-and-spike-revisited-2006-03-20-2

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/vorthos-and-mel-2015-08-31

The psychographics

The basic breakdown is into Txmmy, Jxnny, and Spike on the motivation side, and Mel and Vorthos on the appreciation side; the three original psychographics are about why you play, and the other two about in which way you enjoy the game's aesthetics.

Txmmys want to experience something, they are looking for fun and enjoyment, which can be found in hilarious and big, swingy plays. They want to see fun interactions in the game and between the players. They embrace variance and randomness, going with the flow of the game and the hands they're dealt.

Jxnnys are looking for a way to express themselves. Expression can be about cleverness, creativity, personality, and uniqueness. Jxnnys love deckbuilding, potentially even more than playing. Their decks can be very thematic and weird, including unusual cards and subtle synergies that (hopefully) no-one has ever thought of before them. Convoluted combos are their jam, as are constraining themes and exploring out-of-the-box ideas.

And then there is Spike. Spikes want to prove themselves, which is mainly done by winning. They are very self-critical and judge their own abilities, which is why others' recognition of their skill is important for Spikes. Spikes can enjoy analytics; figuring out what is good and why it is good. Evaluating cards and decks and tuning lists to make them as efficient as possible. Some are always trying to improve their own play-/deckbuilding skills.

Vorthos enjoys the flavor of the game. Names, types, artwork, flavor text, and characters are what is aesthetically pleasing to Vorthoses. Flavor is beauty to them, beauty which can be found in decks and gameplay.

For Mels, beauty is found in magic's mechanics. Interactions between cards, rules and different lines on the same card are like multiple tiny gears in a big machine. Mels love observing these machines and enjoy its functionality and intricacies. When the machine is running smoothly with all parts fitting together, Mels are happy.

All of these psychographics are compatible. It's best to imagine all of them as traits of a player's personality, with each trait varying in degree of intensity.

Armed with knowledge of these traits, one can now try to identify one's own influences and the goals they lead towards:

Mel and Vorthos are not influential when it comes to gameplay, but rather big factors when building a deck. Remember, commander as a format encourages themes and embraces flavor, and that's an area where Mel&Vorthos's fancies are tickled.

If you enjoy building your deck around characters, stories, artworks and similar, you show strong aspects of Vorthos.

If mechanical interactions and constraining themes based on game elements intrigue you, your Mel trait is showing.

I believe Txmmy and Jxnny are self-explanatory when it comes to figuring out how these traits are influencing you in gameplay and deckbuilding. You just have to ask yourself: What kind of expression am I seeking and what do I find most enjoyable?

But now, let's talk about the elephant in the room, Spike.

Being spiky is a pretty controversial trait when talking about commander. As we concluded last week, commander is, contrary to most other formats, about more than winning. In tournament formats, you can be 100% spiky and this won't be problematic, as this formats' goal is to win the game so you won't be scorned for trying as hard as you can to achieve this goal. But commander is different; it has a social spirit. We described a game in line with this spirit as:

‘All players are actively working together to create a game in which each of them can meaningfully participate and everyone gets to experience what they were looking for so, in the end, each player had fun and can take away a lasting, enjoyable memory’

For this to work, we have to answer the question of which sought-after experiences are compatible and what can take away from compatibility.

Compatibility

The first thing that comes to mind is, that all psychographics need a certain environment to get what they're looking for.

Txmmy can want fun/big plays, swingy games, high variance, huge numbers, crazy turns and similar. These can be enabled by expensive cards, lots of mana, multiple amplifying effects, chaos inducing cards, and large board states. This can only happen if there is enough time to deploy these and the game goes late enough to play expensive spells. Additionally, there need to be enough resources available for Txmmy. Ending the game very early and taking resources away from other players, which can already start in the form of playing lots of removal, prevents Txmmy from calling the game a success. Another thing that Txmmy hates is feeling bored. If you have ONE big combo turn that takes a long time or if you take many turns in a row while others have to watch, Txmmys will be annoyed by the time monopoly you created. The same is true if you prevent Txmmys from doing anything that can advance the game, by locking them out of the game and denying them the ability to participate. On the other hand, if you make plays and play cards that will make the game more fun or chaotic and enable new game states that are unique and interesting, you can make Txmmys at your table happy.

Jxnnys are about expressing themselves and want an environment where that is possible. In general, that can be similar to Txmmys’ needs, as Jxnnys who like convoluted combos with many pieces need time to have a chance of assembling them. But mostly, they want you to notice and recognize what they're expressing. The smart synergies in their deck, the constraining theme that they could make work, the unusual card that had a surprisingly high impact on the game. What they need is other players who are interested in more than their own deck and plays and are open to new things and weird choices. It's devastating to them if you tell them that their choices are bad and that they should be playing other things, because by saying such things you show them that you didn't notice what they were expressing, or even worse, don't care. Jxnnys are happy if you ask them about their choices and reasons, appreciate and acknowledge when their deck works, and it's very satisfying for them if they can show you something new and you show your appreciation for that. The tricky thing is, that it is very unusual for magic players to not care about winning at all. Most players want to at least have a realistic chance to win the game. Jxnnys can handicap their ability to win the game by a lot, because for them expression comes first. So for them to still have a shot they need others to play decks which are not too strong, too consistent or have a focus that is on something else than winning as well.

And Spikes? What Spikes need is players who have at least a similar degree of spikyness, so that the competition is tough for them and they won't get handed an easy win. If your main, and highly dominant, trait is spikyness, you want to win, at any cost. This can be problematic when playing with people who are less spiky than you are because they have different motivations which make them make decisions that are at odds with maximizing the ability to win the game. If your only focus is on winning, you'll make decisions in deckbuilding and playing which will destroy the environment that Txmmy and Jxnny need.

Therefore, the experience’s characteristics that players are looking for can be:

variety

entertainment

social interaction

participation

competition

With the premise, that every player has aspects of all the psychographics' traits, but with different degrees of intensity, everyone is at least a little bit of a Txmmy, Jxnny, Mel, Vorthos and also Spike. The intensity of the Txmmy, Jxnny, Mel, and Vorthos traits can be ignored, as their goals are compatible without much trouble; in the end, the one thing we need to focus on when trying to achieve compatibility is the degree of spikyness in a player.

The less spiky you are, the more willing you'll be to make decisions that'll make you lose win-percentage to enable other goals, and the more you will agree with the statement:

Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should do it.

At the top of spikyness are players who are unwilling to compromise and try to win above all else. Descending from there, more and more other factors and motivations are added, and players are freely giving away more and more percentage points because winning matters less to them.

This can be in many ways:

-Including cards in your deck because they are fun or you personally like them (pet cards) although more efficient or powerful options are available

-Constraining your deckbuilding by sticking to a theme that you enjoy building around rather than just optimizing your deck to be as powerful as possible

-Avoiding certain cards because they are too good and make winning 'too easy' or 'too boring' and could lead to repetitive gameplay

-Making a play that is not the best one available, but one you find fun and enjoyable

These, along with similar things, are all decisions based on personal factors that decrease win-percentage. But thinking of the format's spirit that we established, one can freely give away win percentage as well, because one is empathic and cares about the other players. You might avoid certain cards because they don't lead to the environment that other players need or are actively unfun to play against. You might not play certain styles of decks because you know that others won't enjoy playing against them. You might not make a specific play because it will make someone unhappy, although it might be the best play available. Understanding these interpersonal reasons to give away win-percentage is the secret to successfully embracing the format's spirit.

You have to be willing to diminish your own ability to win the game, to enable others to enjoy the game. That’s what the pre-game communication is for. It's for figuring out if all players are willing to lessen their own ability to win the game by a similar amount, to enable the other players' enjoyment, to avoid an imbalance of experiences.

So if someone asks 'What is your deck's power level?' or 'How long do you want this game to go?' or 'How competitive is your deck?' what they are actually looking for is the answer to the question 'How much do you want to win, and to what degree will you be able to compromise about that?'. If that is the question that we're actually trying to get an answer to, maybe we should change how we approach pre-game communication. Why not actively ask others how strongly they want to win and if they are willing and able to adjust that based on how you and the other players answer this question. The big problem here is that the abstract concept of degree of spikyness is hard to put into words or numbers. I would advocate for a different approach. Try to explain, what needs to happen for you to enjoy the game and see it as a success. For example, do you want to: Make as many tokens as possible? Cast an X-spell for a large amount? Surprise someone with an unusual effect? Assemble a specific synergy? Draw lots of cards? Use a particular card in your deck? Show of some flavorful cards? Make political deals, maybe betray someone? Or would you just like to win?

The thing is, that empathy is really hard and so is figuring out what others really want, so make it easier for everyone and just tell them what you're looking for.

I hope we all are now able to identify our own motivations and sought-after experience, are aware of potential problems with compatibility and know how to communicate these motivations before a game.

#mtg #magic the gathering #mtgcommander #edh #social contract #spirit

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drkungfus-customs · 5 years

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Mtg Custom Card Competition Round 2: Phyrexians on Ixalan

Hello everyone and welcome back to the second week of I and Alyssa's custom card challenge. Just a quick foreword to thank everyone for the warm response we have had to the last round of judging, it is always nice to see people throw feedback back at us for running it. This weeks prompt was provided by Alyssa where participants were asked to present a theoretical Phyrexian corruption of Ixalan. As always submissions were gathered through discord and were judged by myself and Alyssa.

Michael says: So our first submission of the prompt, this card is a powerful reanimation and board control effect stapled onto a phyrexian corrupted dinosaur. However the power level, especially for a rare, is what has me most concerned. The colour pie is fine and the card feels very black, there are no problems in that regard. The part that has me worried is that the reanimation is instant, comes at a low cost, and is a replacement effect. Once Corruptosaurus is on the battlefield, and if itself gets a -1/-1 counter, it becomes almost impossible to deal with as traditional measures such as rest in piece or leyline will do nothing to prevent this effect. Additionally because the return is instantly rather than at the end of turn as with Marchesa, the Black Rose it opens the card up to some silly loops with persist cards or anything that has -1/-1 counters built in. While the card is slow to distribute -1/-1 counters, their existence on this card implies they exist elsewhere in the set which will make this card much stronger. Especially in limited this card would be a nightmare as -1/-1 effects your opponent controls will be useless against your creatures and your own also feature as a steal effect. In order to make this card feel a little less broken and more fair I would restrict the resurrection to either only your own creatures or only your opponents. The potential value engine of this card seems a little above the curve as-is, especially when considering older formats with access to things like black sun’s zenith. There isn’t a single factor that pushes this card over, its just a confluence of factors that would make this card just not fun to play with and too warping in the limited environment.

Alyssa says: Formatting is mostly fine. The third ability shouldn’t be a replacement effect, because as written it inappropriately uses “return”. (Because the word return requires a card to be in the graveyard, and this replacement effect means that you gain control of the creature instead of it dying, it never enters a zone it can “return” from.) As written now, it resurrects friendly things with -1/-1 counter on them, meaning anything that has a -1/-1 counter either endemic to it (Bloodied Ghost, Grief Tyrant) or has permanent persist can be infinitely looped by it. You’ve accidentally prevented some abuse like Disciple of the Vault and Blood Artist by replacing the death trigger, but you can still benefit immensely from the infinite sacrifice. Furthermore, it just makes immortal creatures.

Balance-wise, it’s doing a bit much. The endemic wither is fine, giving it a way to damage stuff and get it back, and it would tie well in with the third ability like a souped up Necroskitter. The second ability is completely unnecessary, though perhaps more novel. You really only need one of these for the card to be useful for Limited and narrow Constructed applications (which is where this thing feels like it belongs.) It would be so much better if you went with only one of these abilities: I prefer the second one, as the incremental infection-based effect, perhaps through infected bites or claw injuries, seems much more “dinosaur” than a resurrection effect.

Flavor-wise, it’s okay, but it’s a bit bland. It’s a zombie dinosaur that does vague infection stuff. There’s not much of a story to the card, and a bit of flavor text with the space freed up from the above changes would be just dandy. I want to see how it fits in with the set around it, how Ixalan responds to its new apex predators. You have no art credit. We wouldn’t have noticed that “Mr. J” wasn’t an art credit if someone else didn’t use that art and credit it correctly.

Possible improvements:

- Focus on one of the two passives and cut the other. If you wanted to focus on the incremental blight aspect, then perhaps make it asymmetric and only affect your opponent’s creatures.

- Fix that malfunctioning third ability if you decide to stick with it.

- Flavor text never hurts.

- Drop a reminder text bubble on Wither for easier reading comprehension.

Grades:

Formatting – 4/5

Function – 3/5

Flavor – 2/5

Michael says: This card appears to have a serious flavour issue which really hurts the mechanical execution of the card. The flavour text indicates a phyrexian merger of Ghalta and Etali, something I would expect to have a similar importance as Brisela from Eldritch Moon, however the rest of the card appears to instead by an Ixalani call-back to Phyrexian Obliterator. This card feels like two excellent ideas combined to a less effective whole.

Judging by the perspective of an Obliterator call-back this card feels like a very good way to make a dinosaur version of the card, using enrage as an in theme way of simulating the desired effect. However in this case the card doesn't feel very green at all, outside of the dinosaur tribe and enrage there is nothing mechanical to make this card green. Given the enrage effect is symmetrical and only sacrifices a single land, if you had to keep the green in the mana cost rather than making it BBBB you could probably improve its power and toughness. Additionally if we assume this card is representative of the rest of the set, it is important to note that Wither and Enrage really do not play well in the same environment as wither -1/-1 counters will not trigger any enrage abilities on blocking. I personally would look to replacing wither with another ability, preferably one that is more green to help reinforce the colour requirements.

Again the card isn't particularly bad by any means, but the foremost improvement I would make is replacing the flavour text. The combination of Ghalta and Etali shouldn't be as small as a 5/5, should certainly be a legendary, and should at least cost red. The dissonance of these two ideas harms the card severely.

Alyssa says: Wither shouldn’t be capitalized. In a list of keywords, only the first one is capitalized. When you’re writing quotes in flavor text, make sure you put a shift line break in between the end of the quote and the beginning of the speaker’s name. The card feels barely green at all: in fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this as red/black. The only bit that really strikes me as possibly green is the trample, which is secondary in black anyway. Enrage is also really hard to trigger intentionally in black, making abuse of the ability in its two intended colors very difficult.

The enrage ability is beyond busted. I understand you want to reference Phyrexian Obliterator and its extremely powerful on-damage ability, but remember that ability can only be as strong as it is because there’s very few ways for you to abuse it, since the controller of the source sacrifices the permanents. There’s tons of enrage enablers that would allow you to use this to repeatedly Armageddon the board. You may think its symmetry compensates for it, making it a “risk vs reward” play, but if you’re building around it the play will never be symmetrical. If you have one of the many ways to reliably damage this each turn you can just pop every land your opponents play consistently, and you’ll have a giant 5/5 that can wear down literally anything over time provided it doesn’t die. There’s a reason people play Armageddon despite the “this includes your lands” line, and making a repeatable version on top of a strong creature isn’t a good combo.

But it’s the flavor which really grinds my gears. The implication is that the Obliterator is some kind of Brisela-like chimera of Etali and Ghalta… which completely doesn’t gel with the card itself. It’s not legendary, it’s less than half the size of Ghalta, it has none of Etali’s lightning stuff or draw power going on. It looks like a generic compleated dinosaur, which would honestly be completely fine if it weren’t for that flavor text implying this was an amalgam of two of Ixalan’s Elder Dinosaurs. It would be similar to Brisela being, like, a 3/3 Eldrazi with a card draw ability.

Possible improvements:

- You need to find a way to make it green. Perhaps play on the legendary Phyrexian resilience and have it punish by getting bigger when it takes damage. Or perhaps have it dredge its way out of the graveyard at end of turn if it would die from combat damage. Who knows?

- Figure out a new enrage ability. This one is ridiculously easy to turn into Armageddons For Ever.

- Use some new flavor text. If you’re dropping story characters, then you need to reflect their abilities, roles, and legendary status.

Grades:

Formatting – 4/5

Function – 2/5

Flavor – 1/5

Michael says: A compleated Azor is a very interesting concept from a lore perspective, and his card would surely excite players to see printed. This card however I am not sure would accomplish this feat. His mana cost is highly colour intensive meaning he is very difficult to cast in any normal game, therefore I would expect to see a reward equivalent to the effort I put in to cast him. In addition to possessing no built in way to protect himself, his effect feels incredibly weak. While seeing your opponents hand is noteworthy, in the vast majority of games when you cast Azor you are likely to be in the later stages of the game. At this point your opponent has likely already cast most of their hand and if not you are playing against control in which case Azor is never resolving let alone actually attacking. And even if the effect does trigger you are only likely to draw a single card at most given the opponent will play around the effect as much as possible. In order to make this card playable its effect needs to be tuned into a specific niche; given Azor's previous identity as a control piece I would want to see an effect that works well against control to help tie the flavour into the mechanics. I and Alyssa came up with giving him "this card cannot be countered" to help give him an anti-control niche along with changing his effect to be an enter the battlefield trigger. Allowing you to look at an opponents hand, pick a card type, and producing a static draw effect whenever your opponent casts one similar to how Archon of Dawn's Reach is worded we believe would be the best way to give him a specific use worth the extreme mana investment to cast him as well as being more relevant in multiplayer.

Alyssa says: Some small formatting changes. It’s “…look at defending player’s…” rather than “the defending player’s”. You need to add a “Then” before “Choose a nonland card type” to help sequence the effect (basically, so you know you look, then declare.) Make sure you install the M15 Mainframe layout for MSE, so you get the M15 card style, holofoil stamp, legendary crown, flavor bar and text chopping.

Woah, that’s a restrictive mana cost! This gent would be underpowered at 3WUB, so making him six mana of specific colors is a bit too much. I get that it’s acknowledging Azor’s original 2WWUU, but he had two strong abilities, one with instant payoff, that necessitated four color pips. This card doesn’t, and should be priced accordingly. I doubt you’ll ever get value off of his ability. He needs to survive a turn to use it, and by that time you not only have to attack an opponent with a brimming hand, but choose a card type they’ll play loads of. It also only triggers from that player casting that card type, so if Jimmy jams all the enchantments that you just disincentivized Bimmy from playing you dont get any cards. Even so, he doesn’t stop your opponents from comboing off, and the fact it isn’t a “may” means in fringe cases he might mill you out. You might get, like, one card off this guy every two turns, and that’s far too weak. Just play Cloudblazer. This ability isn’t black at all. Becoming Phyrexian doesn’t just jack black onto your mana cost, as New Phyrexia demonstrated, and his vague lockdown/card advantage ability doesn’t do much.

Flavor-wise, I’m not sure what Azor is doing here. He’s evidently compleated, and is doing vague law things, but I just don’t see what the ability is meant to indicate. Does he demand tribute from those who would transgress his twisted law? It just doesn’t have an immediate, strong flavor resonance for me. There is also an Incorrect art credit, which also is already in use. This is the art for Sphinx of the Steel Wind, by Kev Walker, from Alara Reborn. (It’s also one of the five first Mythic Rares! The more you know.)

Possible improvements:

- Make him 3WUB. Or just make him 4WU. He isn’t strong enough to need all of that color.

- He needs protection, or a stronger ability to justify the risk. Perhaps make his ability also trigger off entering the battlefield, a la Arashin Foremost. You could also retool it into an effect that names a card type that can’t be played, a la Archon of Valor’s Reach. If you make it stronger, tick up the mana accordingly.

- Make him scale to multiplayer scenarios.

Grades:

Formatting – 3/5

Function – 2/5

Flavor – 2/5

Michael says: Ok so I really enjoy this card. Its a silly win the game condition with a really crazy activator. These sorts of cards are almost always popular and incentivize weird brews in both the standard environment and in eternal formats. Also I do appreciate the effort you put in to photoshop this yourself, good job on that front. While there is nothing wrong this card in its present incarnation, I think it needs to be improved from where it is now. Phyrexia in general often has an identity of using -1/-1 counters, and so if those exist in the environment it will stop a significant +1/+1 counters theme from being present which would be a key tool making this card workable. In addition while the precedent for win the game effects has been established for the upkeep step this particular card would struggle significantly with such a timing window, as many cards that buff or double power last until end step. If we assume this set cannot use +1/+1 counters the main pathway for this card would be effects that double in power, and therefore I think you can change this effect to an end of turn trigger without much concern over power. If you have a creature with power 40 or greater you are probably winning anyway. In order to avoid confusion with the cleanup step and to improve flavour I would suggest an end of turn trigger where if you attacked with a creature with 40 or more power you win the game.

Alyssa says: You need a comma between “more power” and “you win the game” as they’re two separate clauses. You spelt “versus” wrong, and you want to add a shift line break after the quote finishes before the speaker’s name. Make sure to get the M15 Mainframe card style to add a flavor bar.

Funky, fresh, and Green! The problem is that it’s way too hard to pull off. Placing the win trigger at the beginning of the turn means you need a creature with static power 40 or more, plus instant boosts/abilities, which is really hard because it and the creature both need to survive a full turn to trigger outside of some abstruse circumstances. This just feels like it’s been made too safe out of power level concerns.

I appreciate the need for some counterplay in win conditions, but I feel it’s pretty telegraphed anyway, and if you’re getting the beefy boy that you need to win with this there’s some other enchantments for similar cost that will make your beater so ferocious it’ll probably just win you the game anyway. I feel that it’s perfectly fine to make it an end of turn effect. One variant that we like is for you to attack with a creature with 40 or more power to win the game on the end step, really playing up the flavor of the card.

That flavor is really nice, and I appreciate the photoshop. It’s really cute! I would really prefer to have the artists who made the art you’ve edited credited too (the people who painted Ghalta and Vorinclex.)

Possible improvements:

- Make it an end of turn effect to better synergise with creature buffs.

- If you want to keep it at upkeep, add an activated ability that boosts power or whatever. It’s hard to use counters in a Phyrexian set (which is going to be a -1/-1 counter set nearly all the time) but temporary boosts still work.

Grades:

Formatting – 4/5

Function – 4/5

Flavor – 4/5

Michael says: This card I find somewhat disappointing in all honesty. To give credit where it is due the templating is correct, I love the flavour text, and the card works. But it is far too safe, and that safety really hurt the card. This is obviously a call-back to the original Mavren effect, but creating 2/2 horrors with deathtouch instead. This really does impact the card in a few ways. Firstly the tokens you make are not vampires, one of the benefits of the original Mavren is that he did not need to attack, and the tokens he made would fuel his ability further so you could always swing in with a single vampire every turn and remain even on tokens. This Mavren requires a significant amount of other vampires in the deck, or to swing with himself which opens up a lot more vulnerability to the card getting blocked and killed. And this plays into my other concern as well as the creatures have deathtouch instead of lifelink. While a more powerful mechanic it promotes a slower and more defensive playstyle, which conflicts with the precedent of the vampires being the white weenie deck, in addition to meaning that if Mavren does swing it is more likely there will be creatures available to block him. Finally and this is the most important concern, he is a white card that creates deathtouch tokens. Yes he is tied to vampires, a tribe mostly in black, but he needs to have black in the mana cost or otherwise this card is a colour pie break.

Alyssa says: The formatting is just dandy. The full art is nice, but it does reveal the Legend of the Cryptids watermark and copyright information below, which really takes you out of the card. You also spelled Mavren Fein wrong! It’s a small quibble but it really, really hurts the card’s aesthetics and is something that could be easily fixed with some proofreading. Unless compleation made him shuffle his name around a bit.

This card puzzles me. For one, it’s not remotely white: Mavren Fein does produce tokens but they’re white tokens with lifelink rather than black ones with deathtouch. I don’t like the fact that mono-W can break the color pie and make deathtouch creatures relatively easily with him. For another, unlike Mavren Fein’s initial form which produces aggressive tokens with a keyword that incentivizes combat and attacking each turn, Mavren Fien’s ability produces defensive tokens instead. I’m therefore confused as to what exactly his game plan is: attack in every turn, or hunker down? There’s also balance considerations in that he does make 2/2’s, which is fine perhaps on a multicolored card but a bit much for a monocolored one, especially when it’s a color bend like this.

I also don’t like that it lets token vampires make tokens. Small thing, but the Torrezon vampires traditionally make lots of tokens so I worry that might kick it over. The flavor is fun, if a little lazy. It’s literally just Mavren Fein again, but with a slight change in some knobs. I want to see something a little more exciting.

Possible improvements:

- Proofread! So close to being perfect.

- He’d be perfect if he just cost WB. No color breaks there, and a neat compensation for being two colors.

- Is deathtouch really the best keyword for his token? Possibly look to making the tokens more directly incentivize aggression

Grades:

Formatting – 4/5

Function – 3/5

Flavor – 3/5

Michael says: Another odd infect card, this time a compleated siren with the ability to steal creatures. Firstly I really, really love that flavour text. Definitely one of the best I've seen in a while from a personal perspective, it resonates just right. My opinion on the mechanics however is that this card is pulling in two directions. Its raid effect wants it to sit back and block attacking creatures to distribute -1/-1 counters, and this would inevitably be very powerful in limited. However on Ixalan I expect to see bigger creatures than normal thanks to all the dinosaurs, which means it can be very difficult at times to block with this creature. The card really wants to both attack to activate the raid safely as well as remain untapped to block incoming attacks. While this dissonance helps to balance what can be a very potent steal effect, it would also make the card very unfun to play as you cant play in the way this card wants to. Yes a board presence and other infect creatures help to mitigate this, but by itself it will not have a good gameplay loop. Additionally this card uses art that already exists on a magic card. I'm not particularly bothered by that but it can lead to a bit of confusion so if you can avoid that it helps.

Alyssa says: You forgot the “on it” part of “with a -1/-1 counter on it.” You don’t capitalize the “The” in “the Stormwreck Sea”. Otherwise, formatting is good!

I feel mixed things about this card. On the one hand, it’s mechanically sound, on the other I’m not entirely sure how well it will play. It’s a seemingly very powerful trigger, but I worry that its implementation is internally competitive. You want to steal big stuff here, which is good, but as a 1/5 infect on its own you can only steal things that have 4 or less power that attack into Ichorfleet Despoiler. You aren’t going to be taking any Colossal Dreadmaws with this thing. Similarly, anything it can safely block will probably be worthless when you get it: it’ll be out of the way, sure, but I want more for 5 mana. If the surrounding environment supports putting -1/-1 counters onto creatures, then this could have applications, but it’s really, really bad at triggering its own ability and I think that should be taken into account.

I’m always awkward about putting infect onto things. Once again, this exposes another internal competition within the card. Its 1 infect damage means it’s going to kill people at the speed of a Coral Eel, but I don’t like that you’re incentivized to steal your opponent’s stuff, which probably won’t have infect. You want to win in infect by dealing 10 damage as quickly as possible, but because “not having poison counters” isn’t a resource, you don’t really gain much through incremental, slow upticking. If you’re stealing creatures without infect it’s like the damage this deals doesn’t even matter. In effect, it’s kind of like giving this infect has reduced its power to 0. Just give it wither, like several other entrants have twigged.

It’s a good card, but it just doesn’t sit right to me. The potential line of “attack with my dinky infect rat, get blocked by a gigantic dinosaur, play Despoiler main 2 and steal it” is really fun but once you’ve seen it once you’ve seen it all. This is a card that’s so hard to evaluate outside of set context.

The flavor is lovely, but this art is in use! It’s the art for Siren of the Silent Song from Born of the Gods. Reverse image search your images before you use them just to make sure.

Possible improvements:

- Give it wither, so it can actually attack well.

- Swap out the art for something that hasn’t been used.

- Consider making the card better at activating its own abilities, so it doesn’t rely on the context of a set that doesn’t exist.

Grades:

Formatting – 4/5

Function – 3/5

Flavor – 4/5

Michael says: So because of the nature of this card as a goblin piker I am less reviewing the card as I am the mechanic, and to be totally honest I am not super keen. The mechanic is clearly a riff on explore, providing a poison counter instead of a +1/+1 counter. My concern with this kind of mechanic is that it would struggle to exist in an environment with infect already present as they compete with similar design space and infect is often easier to get to 10 counters thanks to how it scales and is repeatable. With this mechanic you would need to trigger it and hit a non-land 10 times to win and that is almost impossible in limited if we assume the mechanic is seeded like explore was in Ixalan. Another issue here is that these poison counters are functionally useless until you hit 10 meaning that there is no real benefit for the first 9, whereas with explore the +1/+1 counters can be supremely relevant to the board. Encroach would need to be significantly pushed in how often you can activate it in order to see any amount of constructed play and in doing so could produce a harmful standard environment as these counters would be more difficult to interact with than creature damage through infect. In addition seeing this effect on a BB goblin piker at uncommon is very below rate, while this effect existed in Ixalan the explore trigger was significant in that it existed on both a 1/2 and a 2/1 while also costing one coloured and one generic mana. This card is seriously underpowered in almost every circumstance except when the opponent is on 9 poison counters and I am unsure as to how the mechanic could be tweaked and still keep the flavour of phyrexia while also working similar to explore.

Alyssa says: Formatting wise, this is completely fine. It wants to be a Soldier, though. Or perhaps a Horror, with appropriate art?

Mechanically, I don’t really have that much to say. Encroach is a very weak ability because it really doesn’t do anything to alter the game state aside from when your opponent has nine poison, which, if that is only being spread through encroach, means the first nine activations that don’t hit a land basically do nothing. With explore, both times you’re getting something, whether that’s a land card or a counter plus a surveil, but with the Conquistador you just give a worthless poison counter. It also feels very lackluster as a concept. It’s literally just explore, but with a tinge of Phyrexian spice that ironically makes it weaker. I can’t think of a set that would want this as one of its 3.5 mechanics. The card wants to be 1B rather than BB. For BB you’re getting a 2/2, or perhaps a 3/2, with that basic effect, especially at uncommon.

A big problem I have is that it’s ripped wholesale from Vraska’s Conquistador, which is also a black uncommon 2 mana 2/1 Vampire with the same art (which you didn’t credit, by the by.) There’s nothing spooky or Phyrexian about the art that tells me that this thing is encroaching on Ixalan, and there’s no flavor either. It just feels like it was slapped together in a couple minutes from Vraska’s Conquistador, even down to the name, with a mechanic that’s just Explore covered in Phyrexian graffiti.

Possible improvements:

- It needs to be overhauled from the top.

- Encroach needs some genuine thought to turn it into an incremental poison/value generation mechanic, with a benefit on top of just giving them a single poison counter.

Grades:

Formatting – 4/5

Function – 2/5

Flavor – 1/5

And finally we have our winner for this week:

Michael says: This is a safe design, but I think it checks a lot of boxes for a good call back design while still having its own unique effect. Here the original value engine of kumena is replaced with an infect strategy which supports itself through a token creation ability that also possess infect. I also enjoy how in order to fuel his unblockability, it requires a sacrifice instead of just tapping merfolk, an elegant way of powering down the card in a very flavourful way thanks to the addition of black to his mana cost. While infect can be scary I think the limiters on dealing combat damage to players to trigger the token making definitely helps to mitigate the potential of the card. In order to break this card you would need a lot of tribal investment and synergies, which means he would probably make a strong commander but his standard impact can be well measured. In addition to this the formatting has no problems and the art was well picked for this card. Honestly it makes me sad I cant say much more about this card, its just a really good example of linking old and new flavour. The power level may be a bit suspect but I think it is correct to err on the side of caution for infect cards, especially with built in evasion.

Alyssa says: The formatting is superb. You even got the rules for multiple instances of a legendary creature’s name in a text box right! I also appreciate that you provided the token it produces.

I always get leery of infect, but I can honestly see it working here. The stats are about right (considering it attacks players as a 4/4) especially for a 3-color legendary creature. It’s not Boltable, but it has no inbuilt protection, which I feel compensates. The combat damage trigger is a little uninspired, and perhaps a little weak. I’d like to see something sexier, maybe a card draw? I can’t help but look at Phyrexian Swarmlord as a point of comparison. But I suppose incremental infect production is a decent enough compensation. Either way, I feel it’s a good implementation of infect on a creature that is its own game plan.

You could probably dink the sacrifice condition for his unblockability down to two merfolk. Going in on a -3 to then get, I dunno, Divine Arrowed or whatever is really sad. I like it being free on mana but high on card disadvantage to really sneak infect hits through.

Flavorwise, he’s a real treat. Lovely to see a Phyrexian card with a bit of personality, especially with him being all shouty up in the card art. Flavor text is actually unnecessary on this, in my opinion. His charisma and influence is demonstrated by the Merfolk he summons, his cruelty by how quickly he disposes of them for his own benefit. It’s a shame he’s not a Zombie too but the typeline is packed to the gills (ha) already.

Possible improvements:

- I want to see either the combat damage trigger a bit sexier or the unblockability trigger a little cheaper.

Grades:

Formatting – 5/5

Function – 4/5

Flavor – 5/5

So thank you to everyone who submitted a card and to Hyperviper for his winning design of Kumena, the Tainted Tyrant. As always feedback on this would be greatly appreciated and hopefully the next prompt should be provided shortly.

As a bonus please see our take on the prompt with Azor the Mad, unable to intervene in the conflict thanks to his oath limiting simply to providing a passive sanctuary on Useless Island.

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tlatollotl · 6 years

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From day one after the release of Imperial Settlers I was openly saying that we have a 3-year support plan for the game – and by saying that I meant that we had three more factions already planned and would release them. And then we would see what happens.

Today, after releasing two expansions, I must say that none of them – Atlanteans and Aztecs – were in my initial plan. Both of them were born later, after the game was released – and both of them surprised me and gave me a lot of joy.

The story behind Atlanteans is widely known, I talked and wrote about it in many interviews and articles. One of my employees just approached me and said something like: ‘That would be cool if you designed Atlanteans and they would sink at the end of the game.’ A few months later he had his Atlanteans on the table.

What’s the story with Aztecs?

It all started with reviews of Imperial Settlers.

***

When I was designing the game, Imperial Settlers was always an engine building game, pure and simple. You have your cards, you build your combos, you create synergies, and – boom, you crash your opponent 82 to 47. Production buildings, feature buildings, and action buildings – all were like small cogs to build a perfect scoring machine.

Never thought about Imperial Settlers any other way that just another engine building game. With cute artwork. With four factions. With awesome components. But still, just a simple engine building game.

And then I read the reviews. It turned out that a very strong theme that came with the game, the fact that we played with four very thematic factions, took the game from an engine building card game and put it in a ‘simple civ game’ basket. That was unexpected. I was debating with reviewers … in my head. ‘There is no technology tree. There are no religions. There are no leaders, culture paths … It is no civ game, for God’s sake!’ I was saying that … in my head.

Seriously, though, I was not going to tell them that my game is not that awesome as they say and it does not deserve to be put into the civ games basket.

Rather than opposing all this for the sake of my own view, I started to wonder if I could perhaps make Imperial Settlers more civ-like and if this was possible to truly make it a cute and simple civ game.

And then the Atlanteans happened.

***

Civ games have a technology tree. There was no place for that in the game, but with the Atlanteans, I was able to add at least a bit of this cool theme and feeling. Three simple tokens that worked on the existing cards and made them work better. Simple and add a civ flavor.

That was the first step. That made me think about the second step. Religion.

Adding temples, gods, monks, priests was a very intriguing idea. Lots of vivid images in my head, lots of ideas for cards and abilities. Egyptian gods, Roman gods, mythology at its best. That was a very tempting second step. And a very risky one…

*** Issue number one. Religion itself.

I didn’t want to offend players and let’s be honest – people get very easily offended when we talk about religion. It was a risky ground. From the very beginning, I wanted rules that were somehow similar to rules governing religion in an old RPG called 7th Sea. Let me quote the chapter about Faith:

‘You aren’t really sure what this Advantage does. In fact, it may not do anything at all. Is it worth it? You’ll just have to exercise some faith and find out.’

I decided to use the push-your-luck mechanism as the religion mechanism. I wanted to try to make it random, to make it one of those ‘you never know’ things. On the one hand, I found it super thematic and cool, that using a Prayer action will always have an unknown outcome. On the other hand, I was afraid that it might offend somebody’s feelings. It’s just a game, these are just cute little Settlers, but I knew I was really walking on thin ice.

Merging religion with the push-your-luck mechanism was a risky move.

***

Issue number two. Aztecs, altars, and human sacrifice.

To be honest, I don’t remember how I stumbled upon Aztecs. Was it the idea of a fan? Something one of my playtesters suggested? I honestly don’t remember. What I know, what I remember is the fact that I very quickly realized they matched the idea of religion. They were the faction that would bring altars, temples, ceremonies, and prayers.

And blood. Lots of blood.

I didn’t want blood in Imperial Settlers.

We spent an insane amount of hours discussing what to do. Asking illustrators for sketches and their ideas for cute Aztecs. We were desperately looking to making these rituals look cute and remove any blood and gore scenes from the game. And although many Aztec buildings have a worker as a cost (which is sort of a human sacrifice), although the faction does not produce shields (the Aztecs are easy to raze), although I put many small details and pieces to make this faction sort of true, we put just as much work to keep the game family-friendly and preserve the spirit of the Settlers universe.

***

Finally, the Aztecs were released. None of the issues I was afraid of became a case. It looks like we were delicate enough to not tread on anybody’s toes. This is – as I needed it to be – a cute and funny faction that merely introduces a new mechanism to the game and doesn’t hurt any feelings.

And me? I have the Technology in Settlers. I have the Religion in Settlers. I have … Well, I have another step to make. A great adventure awaits, again.

#imperial settlers #aztec #mesoamerica #board game

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sweetimagines · 6 years

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Rebellious Passion

Gif source

Pairing: Armitage Hux x Poe Dameron

Description: Gingerpilot week - Day 7 - Orange appreciation.

Warnings: None I can think of.

Word Count: 1787

A/N: This was supposed to be a super quick fic but the details just kept coming.

It’s an unusually quiet day on the Finalizer’s bridge. Even though it’s war time, the galaxy still feels it’s necessary to celebrate Valentine’s Day, meaning there’s no X-Wings to blast down and it would be insensitive to plan an attack on the Resistance base while they’re unprepared - leaving out the fact that the First Order has no clue to where their new base is located.

If it weren't for the third cup of extra strong caf General Hux had this morning, he’d be blinking sleepy eyes from boredom.

Surprisingly, “Supreme Leader” Ren is taking part in the nonsense festivities, locked in his chambers with his - invisible - scavenger girlfriend.

Poe had informed Armitage beforehand that even the traitor - FN-2187 - has a date with the Otomok biter. Apparently, he doesn't want to be the only one alone.

Hux assured him that there would be plenty of people lonesome for the holiday. That earned him a hard hang up of their comm call. He later learned it’s rude, if you have a partner, to not spend Valentine’s with them.

However, he can’t have anyone knowing he’s involved with rebel scum. He’d be executed, or worse. Dameron doesn’t seem to understand that.

Despite the fact that he rejected the unscheduled meeting, Armitage can’t stop thinking about letting Poe down. The monotony of the bridge isn’t helping him keep his mind busy, but that’s just about to change in an epic way.

One of Hux’s officers arrives at the bridge, carrying a gigantic bouquet of flowers. He only recognizes the man when he speaks.

“These are for you, sir.” Lieutenant Mitaka hands them over.

The General scoffs, his eyebrows raised as he holds the bouquet to the side. “What is the meaning of this, Lieutenant?”

“Oh... They’re not from me, sir. There’s a card.” Mitaka points at the piece of folded flimsi and gets back to his station before Hux has a change to investigate further.

General Hux has a feeling he knows who they’re from and is just about to confirm when he notices all his officers are staring at him. “Have you no work to do?” Immediately, everyone gets back to their duties.

He squares his shoulders and strides out of the bridge, leaving behind the fruty fragrance of Everlily on the air and a few peach hued petals on the ground.

Armitage loosens up only when he’s inside the concealment of his chambers. He takes a seat on his ice blue couch, settling the bouquet on the caf table and retrieving the card. He chortles at the bad poetry but smiles at the fact that it’s handwritten - even if Poe’s letters are sloppy and difficult to read.

Roses are red,

My flight suit is orange,

And so is your hair.

Happy Valentine’s day, Hugs.

Of couse Dameron wouldn’t let anything stop him from being a good boyfriend. Undoubtedly he’s been planing this for a while because a bouquet of Everlilies is very expensive and he’s probably not earning much on a Resistance Commander salary.

Hux is aware of how harsh it was to deny a hopeless romantic a date on Valentine’s Day. He hasn’t got the first idea how to fix that, though, since he has never had a Valentine before.

The thuds of someone knocking on his door interrupt his line of thought.

“What is it?” Hux questions irritated, getting back to his cold, autocratic self.

“Apologies, sir! We have received another package for you.” Mitaka shouts as the door slides open.

The General takes the small, medium weight, mysterious box with a bow on top and dismisses his assistant.

The box contains two carrot cupcakes with bitter chocolate frosting and a bottle of ginger ale.

Armitage feels specially guilty now as he reads the small heart shaped card.

Enjoy your breakfast.

Hugs and kisses from your Flyboy!

It’s simple and sweet and absolutely something that would normally sicken Armitage. Instead he’s charmed. Poe really is a master at romantic gestures.

Hux doesn’t want Dameron to think he doesn’t care so he’ll follow his boyfriend’s actions to try and make things right. He summons Lieutenant Mitaka to his quarters with flimsiplast and pens.

His assistant turns up with the required items and another gift. At this point, General Hux is not surprised anymore.

“Lieutenant, how would you make a Valentine’s Day card?” Armitage asks reluctantly in a low voice - in case anyone is eavesdropping. After all, he needs every bit of help he can get.

“I wouldn’t know, sir. I can research people’s preferred methods if you’d like.”

“No. I better do that myself.” Hux can’t have “Valentine’s Day card how to” on the First Order net database.

Mitaka nods before getting back to work. The door to General Hux’s chambers shuts closed with a thump as he sets the new present on his desk, reading Poe’s card in hopes to find some inspiration there.

I am the spark that will light the fire in your pants!

That’s not exactly the kind of enthusiasm Armitage was expecting to find, an involuntary blush tints his cheeks red and a shy smirk curls his lip.

He wonders how a single sentence from Poe has more effect on him than an entire meeting about military strategies or finally finishing the design to a modified Tie fighter after long hours of work.

Maybe Poe is right and he’s misguided in his passions. He’s already sick and tired of having to bow to Kylo Ren’s petty revenge crusade. Being constantly humiliated and abused is most definitely feeding his doubts.

Perhaps it really is time to consider other ways to put his specialties to use. Just not this exact second, now he has to receive his boyfriend’s extreme affection and then find a way to retribute.

Hux lets out a single high-pitched giggle as he opens the package to find not only a pumpkin spice scented candle but also two short plush coral Porg. Ever since the Wookie adopted those creatures, Dameron is obsessed with them.

Armitage comms Dameron from his personal encrypted commlink. There’s no way he’ll allow his boyfriend to spend Valentine’s Day alone anymore.

“Changed your mind about celebrating, Hugs?” Poe’s voice is cocky. Hux has no doubt that was his plan all along.

“Congratulations, rebel. You have successfully coerced me into inviting you over.”

Dameron chuckles proudly, making Hux roll his eyes.

“Don’t gloat or else I’ll change my mind.” An empty threat and they both know it. “I’ll have Phasma escort you safely to my chambers while Lieutenant Mitaka erases your landing from the records.”

“I know the drill, Hugs.” They’ve done that one too many times and Armitage can feel from Poe’s voice that the dirty secret is starting to take a toll on him.

He fears soon his boyfriend will start to weigh the pros and cons of their relationship and realize he made a mistake. Hopefully tonight he can score on the pros.

“I didn’t have time to buy you a gift, though.” Hux already let him down enough for one day so he might as well be honest.

“I wasn’t expecting one. See you in a bit, Ginger.”

“Don’t be too long, Pilot.”

Captain Phasma delivers Dameron safely to General Hux’s chambers. She’s not on board with the relationship but knows it will happen with or without her help and she’d rather see Hux in one piece, so making sure no one spots a Resistance Commander walking freely around the Finalizer is now part of her job.

Armitage regard Poe’s appearance and is awestruck. He’s surprisingly not on his flight suit, but a nice leather jacket over a cream shirt and BB-8 is not trailing his every step. He even shaved and doesn’t smell like engine oil.

“You look nice, Dameron.” No matter what he’s wearing, Hux always fancies him.

“You don’t look too bad yourself, Hugs.” Dameron kisses his cheek and Phasma leaves. It’s not visible through her mask, but she most certainly rolled her eyes.

“What are your plans?”

“I thought we could holonetflix and chill.” Poe guides Armitage to the bed. “I brought snacks.” He hands him a clear plastic bag.

It contains peach flavored and colored sour gummy X-Wings with black liquorice details, bittersweet jellybeans with cantaloupe essence, dyed soft orange and sweethearts candy shaped and tinted to match his astromech with the words “BB MINE” stamped on it.

“You’re so corny.” Armitage teases as a defense mechanism to how he really feels - warm and fuzzy.

“And proud.” Poe sighs. “Oh, and I have one last gift for you.” He winks and hurriedly strips his shirt, tripping over while taking off his pants.

“Orange underwear?” Hux raises and eyebrow as Dameron rubs the back of his head embarrassedly. “You have a problem, Dameron.”

“I’m just honoring the origin of our love: The Orange Lady, Nar Shaddaa, Corellia.”

Armitage gasps at the meaning behind all the orange items he received. “That’s...” He’s at a loss for words.

“Mushy? Sappy? Silly?” Poe jokes.

“More like charming, endearing, honorable.” Hux sometimes doesn’t believe he scored such a wonderful man, specially from the opposite side of the war.

Dameron kisses him the same he did when Hux first said “I love you.” and he’s left breathless.

The holoshow Dameron chose isn’t exactly to Hux’s taste but after everything that man did for him, watching a bad show is the least he can do.

“Did you like my cards?” Poe snuggles closer to Armitage’s chest.

“That poem was epically bad... but... sweet.” Hux admits reluctantly. Dameron has been able to soften him up to physical contact but emotional demonstrations of love are still hard for him.

“That reminds me. I made you one after our comm call.” Armitage stands up and retrieves the card from his desk and watches as Poe reads it.

I love you so much I’d defect the First Order.

Happy Valentine’s day, Dameron.

PS: My last name is Hux.

“Do you mean it?”

“Yes.” Hux doesn’t possess the kind of humor needed to make a joke like that. “I undoubtedly love you more than anything and I don’t want to lose you.”

Poe stays silent, enjoying that moment for as long as he can. “I love you so kriffing much, Hux.” The use of his proper last name expresses that more than anything else ever could.

“I know.”

#gingerpilotweek2018 #Armitage Hux #Armitage Hux x Poe Dameron #Poe Dameron #Gingerpilot #Armitage Hux Imagine #Armitage Hux Imagines #Poe Dameron Imagine #Poe Dameron Imagines #fanfic #imagine #Gingerpilot Imagine #Gingerpilot Imagines #Star Wars #Star Wars Imagine #Star Wars Imagines #Pux #Damerux #gingerpilot week

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Why Marvel’s Midnight Suns Gameplay Has Fans Worried

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Marvel’s Midnight Suns arguably stole the show during last week’s Gamescom Opening Night ceremony, but the reveal of the upcoming strategy title’s gameplay has already caused a bit of a divide in what recently seemed to be a pretty enthusiastic fanbase.

If you’re watching that gameplay reveal for the first time, you may be wondering what the big deal is. After all, most people assumed that Midnight Suns was going to be a strategy game set in the Marvel universe, and that’s pretty much what it seems to be.

However, much of the controversy surrounding Midnight Suns‘ gameplay at the moment is based on a brief line in that preview regarding the game’s use of a “card” system. It might not sound like much, but that one piece of information has already triggered a heated discussion regarding the game’s potential, its potential association with some especially unpopular ideas, and what all of that means for the considerable expectations fans had for this project.

How Does Marvel’s Midnight Suns Card Gameplay Work?

The video above offers a fairly comprehensive look at Midnight Suns‘ gameplay, but it does gloss over some of the specifics of the upcoming title’s card-based elements. Whether the developers are trying to hide something about that aspect of the title is really the heart of this particular controversy at the moment.

However, the team at Firaxis has shared additional details about Midnight Suns‘ card-based combat system that do help explain how the whole thing will work. Here’s what Jake Solomon, Creative Director at Firaxis, had to say about the game’s card-based combat mechanics in a recent press release:

“In Marvel’s Midnight Suns, you aren’t learning how to fight or gradually grow stronger – you and your fellow heroes are already legends, and must combine everything in your arsenal to stop Lilith. Cards provide a new and refreshing way to approach tactics, allowing us to really go all-out in designing a combat system that makes every hero feel, look, and play differently.”

Elsewhere, IGN expands upon the specifics of Midnight Suns‘ combat system by clarifying it is not a CCG game in the style of titles like Hearthstone or Shadowverse. Instead, Midnight Suns is closer to a deckbuilding roguelike game like Slay the Spire or even a card-based RPG like Baten Kaitos Origins.

Some of the gameplay specifics have yet to be revealed, but it basically sounds like you’ll be dealt a random hand of ability cards at the start of combat. You can acquire new cards and build your own deck through gameplay and story progression, but it seems like part of the game’s strategy will be based on your ability to make the most of the cards you’re ultimately dealt.

On top of that, Midnight Suns allows you to weaponize parts of the environment and use special “team” moves that will maximize your squad’s damage potential. Again, it’s not entirely clear how much randomization will ultimately impact the combat experience, but it does seem like the idea is to add a little variety to every encounter by requiring you to manage different abilities/environmental opportunities. It’s also not entirely clear how movement in the game will work, though it does sound like it will be relatively limited and not nearly as important as it is in Firaxis’ XCOM games.

Basically, Midnight Suns appears to be a squad-based strategy game where your combat actions are determined by “card-like” abilities that you’re dealt at the beginning of combat. Those combat sequences will also seemingly emphasize managing your abilities over positioning/movement, but the game’s environmental damage mechanics and team-building features may add a little depth to the experience.

So what’s the problem with all of that? Well, I’m glad you asked…

Marvel’s Midnight Suns Has to Overcome the CCG Genre’s Bad Reputation

As digital CCGs have become more and more popular over the years (or at least as they’ve become more successful), they’ve also acquired a negative reputation for perfectly representing some of the shadier elements of the modern gaming industry. Specifically, some gamers have been trained to see cards in a video game and think of two potentially major mechanical turn-offs: randomness (RNG) and pay-to-win features.

There’s a degree to which randomness is an unavoidable part of any card-based game. After all, the entire CCG genre is based on playing the hand you’re dealt. However, most fans are ok with that RNG element of the genre as there’s something satisfying about building the best deck possible and trying to outthink your opponent with the help of the cards in your hand.

The problem is that some card games take randomness too far. The prime example of this problem has to be Hearthstone: a CCG that has piled random mechanics on top of random mechanics in recent years to the point where victory can sometimes feel like a roll of the dice rather than the result of being the one who best played the hand they were dealt. While Hearthstone has gotten better about that level of randomness in recent expansions, it’s clear that CCG developers are still resisting the urge to tap into that sometimes addictive “gambling” quality that comes with such wild randomness.

That brings us to the dreaded topic of pay-to-win mechanics and CCG “loot boxes.”

Many CCG titles require you to build your own deck of cards, and most CCG titles require you to buy packs of cards in order to expand your collection. The problem is that you often don’t know which individual cards you’re going to get in a pack. That means your best “strategy” is to buy as many packs as possible in order to help ensure that you eventually find the specific cards you’re looking for.

It’s an unfortunate element of the CCG genre made that much worse by the rise of loot boxes and the many ways that card packs perfectly represent how frustrating loot boxes can be. While you can win those games without spending a small fortune, it’s hard to deny that spending money makes things a little easier.

Will Marvel’s Midnight Suns Have Loot Boxes and Card Packs?

Thankfully, the definitive answer to that question is “No.” In fact, the Midnight Suns team was quick to address this particular concern via Twitter:

Hey folks, regarding our battle card system, there are no loot boxes in Marvel's @MidnightSuns or related microtransactions to get more cards (i.e. Gamma Coils). We will have purely cosmetic character skins for purchase that do not affect game balance in any way https://t.co/lHhdwbMpSZ

— Marvel's Midnight Suns (@midnightsuns) September 1, 2021

That brings us back to the idea that Midnight Suns is closer to a deckbuilding roguelike/RPG than a CCG game. While there’s always a bit of wiggle room here when you’re talking about microtransactions, it at least sounds like you shouldn’t expect to have to buy a bunch of packs just to be able to play Midnight Suns.

While that’s obviously a good thing, that tweet doesn’t exactly address all the concerns fans currently have about Midnight Suns…

Marvel’s Midnight Suns Already Reminds Some Fans of a Mobile Title

Mobile games are undeniably popular, and mobile games are becoming much more complex/interesting, but it’s hard to fault anyone who thinks of microtransactions, shady mechanics, and generally simplified gameplay when they think of mobile games.

It’s the “simplified gameplay” concern that many are applying to Midnight Suns at the moment. Between Midnight Suns‘ use of a still somewhat vague card system and the title’s seemingly limited free-roam mobility mechanics (at least in combat scenarios), some fans are already worried that Midnight Suns is being developed to eventually become a mobile game or, at the very least, represent the more mainstream mechanics that typically make mobile games more accessible to wider audiences. For what it’s worth, no mobile version of Midnight Suns has been confirmed at this time (the game will instead launch for PC, Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S).

While that may prove to be a gross oversimplification of what’s actually happening, it’s hard to deny that what we’ve seen of Midnight Suns‘ gameplay so far does feel a bit closer to what you might see in a mobile game than what you’d typically expect from a modern strategy title made specifically for PC or consoles. That doesn’t mean that Midnight Suns won’t be strategically engaging, and it also doesn’t mean that it will be “bad.” It just means that the first impression many people had about Midnight Suns‘ gameplay seems to be based on what kinds of games the project currently resemble as well as the games it doesn’t resemble.

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Ultimately, Some Fans Are Disappointed that Marvel’s Midnight Suns Isn’t XCOM

One of the first things that Firaxis did after Midnight Suns‘ reveal was make it very clear that this will not be an XCOM-style strategy game. However, reactions to Midnight Suns‘ gameplay reveal have made it clear that not everyone got that message.

Actually, that’s a little unfair. It seems that some people do understand that Midnight Suns isn’t supposed to be an XCOM game, and they’re just not happy about that. There are quite a few people out there who seemingly just want to play an XCOM game set in the Marvel universe, and I sympathize with that desire. Those certainly sound like two great flavors, and it’s easy to imagine how such a game probably could have ended up being a lot of fun.

This is ultimately the burden of introducing something even a little bit different, though. Maybe Midnight Suns‘ will leave us all wishing it had just been an XCOM game, but it’s certainly interesting to see that the Midnight Suns team has had to spend so much time explaining what kind of game it “isn’t” as opposed to really talking about what kind of game it is. Some of the blame there lies with the quality of the initial reveal videos themselves (which didn’t do the best job of properly explaining how the game will actually play), but this might be a bigger sign of how brutal gut reactions can be at a time when having a gut reaction to nearly everything is becoming more of an expectation. In this particular instance, it doesn’t help that the game instantly reminded people of the gameplay/monetization sins of others.

Midnight Suns could be great, could be terrible, or it could fall into that dreaded middle-ground that is hard to make memes about and is therefore useless to a good chunk of the internet. Much as we saw in the case of Saint’s Row, though, first impressions are indeed worth a lot when they’re all we really have, and there’s a degree to which Midnight Suns already faces an uphill battle on the way to its March 2022 release date.

The post Why Marvel’s Midnight Suns Gameplay Has Fans Worried appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3gVQzjE

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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inventors-fair · 1 year

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A Happy Ending - The Power of Friendship Winners

Ben, the Bellringer by @spooky-bard - Toontown Corporate Clash

Starting off strong, I love it when a submissions sends me down into a rabbit hole of CR rulings to make sure it works- and this one does, and comes out of it with a very neat effect, too. It’s such a clean way to care about how much something was buffed, and partners well with the anthem ability. Manager is an interesting ability- allowing you to put nonlegendary creatures in the command zone seems a tad odd, but I suppose it makes sense as a lackey-esque thing. The creature type combo was a good call, since there’s no existing card with that combo; and I assume it uses the newly-revealed tech to ban changelings from being a commander. Or maybe not, who knows. Anyways, very fun card, that’s all I got.

Franky, Cyborg Shipwright by @lanabutnotdelray - One Piece

So I have a passing familiarity with One Piece, but even without that, you made the flavor so clear and mechanically synergistic that the card just pops (heh) off the screen. Of course pirates care about artifacts- treasures, food, junk, whatnot- and soda counters represent this guy building up pressure until he explodes! Flavor ability words also lend themselves very well to anime-style attack names and catchphrases, so good call there. The partner ability is obviously nothing groundbreaking, but it doesn’t need to be- the card is cool, the potential synergy with other artifact-generating friends is clear, and all in all makes for a very cohesive and flavorful design.

Stan Lee Cameo by @nine-effing-hells - Marvel Comics

First things first, the idea of sagas as commanders is VERY fun. They lend themselves well to being recast, they allow you to cycle through a few different simple effects, blah. But beyond that, origin stories is such a flavorful take on “story that gets repeated a bunch and has a tie to a specific character”. It meshes wonderfully. The main ability seems a bit strong, but I suppose you have a chance to whiff, and even a cheap Origin is gonna rack up in cost quite quickly. Stan Lee is an interesting choice for a character, rather than an “actual” superhero, but he’s the guy who likes telling stories, so it makes sense.

#mtg #magic the gathering #custom magic card #inventor's fair #winners #power of friendship

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askkrenko · 7 years

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On Animals vs Animalfolk

The conclusion makes me realize: I don’t think you ever took an explicit stance about animal/human hybrid races.

Obviously, the current situation is a mess, with Leonin and Aven being Cat and Birds respectively, but Snake-people being sometimes Snake sometimes Naga, Lizard-people being their own things, Siren and Harpy mostly not Birds, but sometimes Birds, and this is only those we talked about recently. I don’t even remember what Loxodon and Rhox are tagged as…

So, what do you think would have been an good solution, if we didn’t have to deal with all the inertia of history? Are you strongly in favor of one or the other? Or do you think it should be decided on a case by case basis? Based on what other factors?

~ @death-burst

A very good question was asked in response to my Krenko’s Guide: Birds, and rather than just continually reblog that, I thought this deserved its own thread for people to answer.

The question of whether animal-people are their animal types (Like Leonin and Aven) or their own types (like Minotaur and Naga) is a pretty major one, and there’s multiple ways to deal it out, each with benefits and drawbacks. I’ll get into them below the break.

Option one: All animalfolk are the same type as their animals.

That is, Minotaurs would be Oxen, Nagas would be Snakes, and Harpies and Sirens would both be Birds. Now, the big benefit here is cutting down on creature types and letting it be easier to make decks of those types. “Cat” deck is easier than “Lizard” deck because cat people and cats are the same race, while lizard people and lizards are not. Oxen sharing a type with Minotaurs would give them the benefit of all that Minotaur tribal. It should result in the best gameplay response, but it’s also going to wind up looking the weirdest when you try to make sense of it.

First off, as we see with Leonin and Aven, it creates this weird flavor option where a Leonin is happier to work alongside a housecat than alongside a Loxodon, which is just... a bit odd. Should Brimaz feel some sort of primal unity with a saber tooth tiger? Or a Leotau? Does it even make sense for a Siren like Malcolm (who needs a card ASAP) to think of a Bird of Paradise as one of “his people”?

The second problem with this option is that not all ‘beast men’ as they are have a unified equivalent animal. Viashino are spread among Lizard, Crocodile, and Dinosaur. Most Merfolk are Fish, but Shadowmoor has the Seal-like Selkies. And then are Dryads and Treefolk supposed to be creature type “Plant?” Are Gorgons Snakes? Some of them certainly seem to be, but not all.

The third problem is that it makes a few creature types less immediately understandable. While people are accepting Leonin as cat people, declaring that Satyrs are actually Goats feels a bit off, as does seriously calling a Merfolk a Fish. We do it as a joke, sure, but actually writing Fish on the card would feel... off. Minotaurs as Oxen are more forgivable, but calling a Centaur a Horse just feels like a downright lie, even though a Centaur is more Horse than a Minotaur is Ox. It creates a disconnect where you actively feel certain things are mislabeled.

Option Two: All beastmen get their own race

That is, anything that uses the race/class style gets its own type. The big benefit here is that everything is clearly labeled and it makes perfect sense what works in tribe. Avens like Avens, but not birds. Minotaurs like Minotaurs, but not Oxen. Everything is exactly what it says it is. This is probably the most reasonable from a flavor perspective... but is awful for gameplay.

The first problem here is type splitting. Splitting Rhino from Rhox takes you from one type underused at 27 to two races under used at 11 and 16. Splitting Aven from Bird is more comfortable, as both can survive on their own, but now you have an issue of future cards that care about them need to choose one or the other, no longer hitting both. This gets especially weird for one-offs.

The second problem here is that some beastmen are one-offs. Scandalmonger is the only boar person. Wishmonger is the only unicorn person. Amphin Cutthroat and Pathmage are the only Salamander people, and that creature type is already tiny. There’s likely other instances here as well, but it certainly raises a question for the future. Would a lone turtle-person need their own type?

Option Three: Mythological creatures get a type, invented ones do not

This tends to be the trend current Magic has stuck with, though there are a number of exceptions. If the creature is one from actual mythology and has some sort of expectation that the audience has heard of it before, it gets its own type. Otherwise, it uses its animal-men type. This is designed to be the easiest on the audience, as creature types are then what people instinctively think they are. When someone sees an ox-man, they know it’s a minotaur. When someone sees a cat-man, they don’t have anything else to call it, so it’s a cat-man. Magic can call it a Leonin, but that’s Magic’s made up word for it.

The major problems here come when invented races border mythological races. Orochi are Snakes because Wizards made them up, but Naga are also snake-men who are not snakes because they’re from mythology. This means we have two groups of snake-people who do not share a creature type, which is made all the more egregious by the fact that Orochi have a huge amount of tribal support as Snakes. A similar problem hits on Harpies and Sirens not being the same type as Aven. Further, a bunch of Dryads are clearly trees, but not Treefolk, which is a supported creature type. Wormwood Dryad, Gnalrwood Dryad, and Dryad Arbor, specifically, are just trees shaped like women.

Option Four: Purely case by case

Purely case by case is a reasonable idea, and would allow for the best mechanical and flavor balance for each type as it needs it, but this still results in major inconsistancy as a result, with players having no idea what’s what. Magic’s done a lot of this in the past, which is why we have Viashino and Cephalids.

This gets really messy really fast, and its biggest problem is that when deciding whether to make a new creature type for something is necesarry, one thing that should be asking is “how often do we plan to use these?” Lets assume a new world has a race of turtle-people. We can either label them as “Turtle” or as “Kappa.” The set’s got eight of them, because they’re a decent part of the world but not so big as to be planning a deck around them. A big question as to whether to give them their own creature type or not is if they’ll be iconic and memorable, and it’s really hard to know that until after the set has come out. If people really like them, they’re going to come back on many worlds, and as their forms change for different planes, it’ll be nicer to have the freedom to make different Kappa than just “turtles.” However, if people don’t attach to them, having their own creature type that most don’t immediately get will just be offputting and weird.

Option Five: Pipe Dream: Complete overhaul with wider types

So, I’m going to throw out first that I know full well a complete overhaul is unreasonable. I’d like one, but it’s just too much in a game that’s mostly physical. That said, here’s how I’d do it:

All Beastmen are of a Beastmen type... But those types are wider. We’re starting to see this with Minotaur, which includes a number of rams on Amonkhet, and Zedruu, Having other suites of beastmen share typings would be a complete restructuring, but I think it’d work best for everyone.

Minotaurs would include all Ungulates here. This means Rhox, Scandalmonger, Wishmonger, but also easily opening the door for Elk-people to just randomly show up somewhere under the tag Minotaur. This would still only apply to bipeds, though, so Centaurs are still Centaurs (but a Centaur could include something with the lower body of any Ungulate.)

Aven would split from Bird, but absorb Siren and Harpy, and include any humanoid that has feathers and flies.

Ainok, or another name, would include Ainoks, Khenra, and Kitsune, as well as any other Caniform Beastman. Possibly also Feline beastmen, but I think Leonin are getting big enough to have all catfolk just be Leonin. Werewolves stay as Werewolves because they’re really not the same as other animalfolk.

Merfolk would absorb Cephalids. I don’t expect us to see enough different aquatic races that we need more than one type for aquatic animal-person. Homarids are inhuman enough that I think we just want to tag them as Crustaceans.

Amphin for any Amphibious Humanoid.

Reptilians would get Viashino and Naga, because we really do recognize a difference between snake-people and lizard-people, and any turtle people would also become Viashno if they showed up. Orochi would become Naga.

And while I’m at it: Kobolds, Orcs, and Ogres are all Goblins.

This is more of a “if starting over” approach, of course, as too many gameplay effects exist to really encourage splitting pre-existing creature types. Adding Siren and Harpy to Bird would be obvious and clear, but splitting Avens from Birds would be a logistical nightmare, and would require fighting for custody of old Bird tribal rewards.

Final Notes:

My actual suggestion at this point is, because they’re riding history, just... try not to make any new creature types, and fold in the old ones that didn’t get traction. Homarids can be Crabs now. It’s okay. We get that Homarids aren’t coming back in force, even if we still want to see a few. And when you introduce something like Naga, well, you’ve already got so much snake tribal sitting around, just let them use it.

You’ve got Viashino. Make use of it. Seriously. Viashino are inherently cool.

If you want to use a thing and really can’t find a proper type for it, like say deciding you want to do a set with lots of dinosaurs and not feeling right calling them lizards or beasts, or a set with lots of werewolves, or just needing Pilot as a new class because nothing else fits right, okay, but introducing the type Naga instead of using Snake or adding in Sirens that were visually very similar to Aven but were not Birds just doesn’t do anything because now you have a new type that you’re not even giving us the tools to use.

At least Aetherborn and Servo had lords.

I think “tools to use” is the real key here. I want the tools to use any creature type that exists, so if you’re adding a new creature type it should either be a clear label of mechanical similarity, like Processor or Pilot, or come with a card that lets me take advantage of that word.

If you put a word on a card that does LITERALLY NOTHING, not even remind me how that card works, you’re wasting my time.

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overseer2020 · 4 years

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Mo' Skills, Mo' Problems

I... may have said too much in my last two posts.

I don't mean I revealed too many secrets, but rather that I may have exhausted what I have to say about my most important mechanic in just two days.

I mentioned how they came about (I needed a way to make casting magic spells feel more like activating superpowers).

I talked about the many ways I could have realized this ideal (ultimately making sure creatures were involved in almost every kind of effect).

I even postulated on a potential tweak to this mechanic I might actually make in the future (the variation in question would feel a lot more like flashback than buyback).

Hol' up! I had been struggling with the implications of potentially allowing Skill cards to be cast from the graveyard. In writing down the idea that doing so would liken these cards more to flashback than buyback made me realize a few things.

First, I don't like the idea of Skill cards being forgotten about in the graveyard by the acting player (allowing the opposing player to forget about the acting player's potential is okay, though). By making Skills recoverable at a specific point in a player's turn, the fact that their turn is ending should be a good way to ensure that they remember to check for any cards they can get back in their hands.

Secondly, the flavor of flashback feels like playing with dead things. "I'll use that thing again if I have to." Meanwhile, buyback feels a lot more proactive. "I'm going to use this thing again." I've already toyed with the idea of making Skills exile themselves instead of returning to hand and allowing them to be played from exile, but that feels somehow even less like an elegant reset and more like, "I'm going to dig this old, dead thing out of my graveyard so I can squeeze some extra juice out of it and bury it again." Not very heroic.

Thirdly, I kind of... don't care if returning Skills to a player's hand violates some unwritten design rule about not giving discard strategies ammo (on both sides of the table). I don't see giving Madness effects a companion mechanic as an inherently broken thing -- Madness-type effects already have a whole slew of "draw X cards" spells available to them in almost every color. And forced-discard strategies could use a broader reason to exist. One of the constraints of design (and deckbuilding) is that in the late game, players rarely have cards to force out of their hands. Skills can help with this by providing a steady stream of potential targets since they only get returned at the end of a player's turn.

Hunh. Well, what do you know? I managed to fulfil my quota by admitting that I didn't know how to fulfill my quota. Cheers!

Next Time: We try not to be late again. Aaand I think I'll try to round up some of the ways Wizards has inadvertently taken some of the wind out of my sails along the way.

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disabledpaladin · 7 years

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some world-building bits i’m super proud of ! this is for miscellaneous npcs, rps & tabletop rpgs, flavor text, and the like from the past 2 years

(from a homebrew D&D 5e game)

You come across a curious man, talking excitedly to the donkey pulling a merchant’s cart. Strange herbs and baubles are tied to the posts and to the sales counter on the side, as well as around the donkey. As he spots you, his elven ears perk up and he grins widely.

“Hello, my friends, hello! You’ve come from many places, and you must have a need to unload your wares and worries, right? You’ve found just the man!” He goes behind the cart and suddenly appears inside, bending over the counter at the window to beckon you closer.

As you approach, you can see a large variety of items crammed into the cart. Earthen pottery, beautiful jewelry, and toolkits for unfathomable professions line the walls. A large bookcase behind him only holds trinkets- a glass smokey orb, a golden ticket, and what may be a mummufied hand, and much much more. Before you can examine more, the merchant’s hand is thrust just in front of your face, awaiting a handshake.

“My name is Digiornos, and I am here to serve! How may I help?”

(hireling from a current Dungeon World campaign, with consent of players)

Meredith Hellswing: An excitable and slightly clumsy gal. She's young and impressionable, especially eager to go out and shape the world. Meredith works at the Green Acres Inn (Anstead) as a waitress to save up for good gear before adventuring fulltime.

(location from the same Dungeon World game)

Serendale: A prospering city that is a central trade hub for the many strange territories it borders. Many unique and interesting goods can be found through the market. Many products by the local Guild furnish stores with handcrafted furniture and weapons. The city itself is fairly antiquated- old buildings form the town, some dating back to a century prior with crumbling stonework. The government hosts a royal family rather than the usual council other cities have. Though none of the members have royal titles, their lineage is often cited as their rite to rule.

(various items/trinkets made for a game I was working on & scrapped)

Natalia’s Tears: A small glass vial of a floral and translucent pink liquid. While it looks beautiful, it is one of the most dangerous poisons in the realm. Once ingested, the victim’s body sprouts pale pink crystalline growths all over their body, until they are weighed down and crushed under the weight.

Amulet of Gods: An ugly, heavy brass necklace with a chunky and misshapen pendant that resembles a glassy eye. The wearer can store small items inside by reaching into the eye, revealing a hot, humid and moist chamber. Sometimes the walls and floors quake when something is taken out.

Tent For Two: The easiest tent to assemble in existence! Just throw it on the floor and watch it magically transform into a cozy abode for two. This comes with ASSEMBLY DUST*, poles, tarps, and a complimentary snack to share with your partner. (ASSEMBLY DUST does NOT disassemble, DISASSEMBLY DUST sold separately.)

Wand of the Ocean: It looks like a fish, and smells like a fish. A sea bass, specifically. Imbued with the very essence of the sea, your Mana will be channeled effortlessly through this wand. Also, it will leave your hands covered in salty brine.

(from a current Monsterhearts game, with consent of current players)

Dillard's Farm Fresh Beef was once the heart of the city in the early 1900s, bringing in new workers who often uprooted their families to live here. Anyone capable of working at the packaging plant was hired, especially because of the high rate of injuries caused by large machinery. Children often worked alongside adults in these harsh conditions.

Due to poor infrastructure and poorly surveilled land reports, in 1922, the blood that had been drained from the meat and under the factory floor had opened up a massive sinkhole underneath the building. The building crumbled into the earth on one fateful night. No one had been reported injured or killed in this incident, though the factory's loss was devastating to the local economy at the time.

The sinkhole is now filled in, though the former grounds and remaining structure serves as a historical marker and symbol of tragedy.

(from the same Monsterhearts game)

Gregory Grimaldis was the head librarian of the Lennox Achibald-Elswood Library before the Univerisity bought the building. The University offered Gregory a job to stay on and work for them, but only as a janitor. Gregory refused and left. Gregory now runs the Bookmobile, an old school bus with the original high school’s name blacked out. Instead, white, dripping paint on the sides reads simply “The Bookmobile.” Seats have been ripped out in place of bolted-in bookcases, books held in by belts of strong elastic. He makes runs through the city's residential district, and makes stops at a few of the preschools and nursing homes to exchange books (and promote literacy in the case of preschools.) While Gregory is all smiles, the look in his eyes is vacant and a little dead as he tries to move on from losing the best job he's ever had.

(from a mystery puzzle Storium game; this was the opening scene)

A rainstorm is passing overhead, and thankfully most of Mrs. Miles’ guests have made it into the house before the torrential weather has come down. Luna had welcomed these visitors into her house personally, leading them into the parlor. Unfortunately, the early bird turn out for this event was just a mere six people. Perhaps more would arrive before the first tour began.

The fireplace of the parlor is lit, despite it being a summer evening. The parlor holds its seven occupants without much crowding, though seating is another situation- a couch and two armchairs can sit five, six if everyone squeezes. Personal photos of her and Solomon sit on the mantle, and there’s two large bookcases lining the wall for literature if one was very bored. Naturally, one of them has a large section dedicated to Solomon’s work.

Luna Miles constantly weaves back and forth between the parlor and entryway, making sure everyone will be in order. She looks like a nervous woman on a mission, so maybe it’s not the best idea to talk to her right now. However, it would be a great idea to get to know everyone else, if you were a friendly sort of person.

(from a cyberpunk Storium game that was never released due to illness)

Robots and AI*: Artificial personalities in artificial bodies, and seen as tools by most humans. With artificial personalities becoming more complex, and robots seeming more human-like, sometimes it can be hard to discern they’re a robot… except for their designation card, that is.

AI* exist largely as the virtual version of robots, assistants to users of the Internet, Intranet, and MentalNet. It is very rare their programs get moved into a mechanical vessel (and becoming a robot), but sometimes “cracked” AI programs find themselves in highly illegal parts of the Internet for hacking, putting into a body, or anything else possible.

Some robots and artificial intelligences can be classified as androids or gynoids when they seem “human” enough, which is determined through a series of tests done by the original manufacturer. While it’s an uncommon occurrence, there have been cases of newly classed androids/gynoids being dismantled for holding vital information.

#dp's writing #world building

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