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the-official-account · 1 year

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Do you love detective stories but hate cops?

Do you love gay detective stories and hate capitalism?

Like disabled main characters who's disability actually comes up?

Like characters of color but not in the mood for stories on racism?

Tempted by the thought of romance at ages of 30+?

Does the idea of stories so queer you'll hesitate before calling any character a "man" or a "woman" make you think "Ah, yes pronoun shenanigans, just like my discord used to make"

And you into an abundance of strong, diverse female and nonbinary characters?

Do you fight for women's wrongs?

I know rep-only recommendations can be annoying, but I'm trying to grab your attention to promote some Indie media. Luckily, though, this post isn't rep-only!

To read my full reccomendation and review of Three of Hearts, click below. ♦️♥️♣️♠️

And if you aren't in the mood for a new thing right now, consider reblogging! Maybe even ping a friend who might be into this! You love supporting queer indie creators!

Note: I am not involved with the making of the show or the game space Kings. I just really like this podcast.

The story

♠️♣️♥️♦️Three of Hearts♦️♥️♣️♠️ centers on two paragovernmental agents in a fantasy, post-war, queernormative 1950s.

Roughly 20 years before the opening, a set of heroes purged magic from the world to turn the tide of the war. But scraps of this thaumaturgic energy still remain. S.U.I.T.S (securing unpredictable injurious thaumaturgic situations) is an agency founded to deal with everything left behind.

When two of the longest standing employees at S.U.I.T.S, Agent Vellum and Agent Felspar, are called onto a new case involving stone crops and a missing person, Felspar isn't surprised (Though Vellum, who's injury had him doing desk work most of his career, is). Things devolve quickly when the Agents realize this case comes from Felspar's home town of Cloven heart, an idyllic magical village that prefers to handle justice on it's own.

Answers yield only more questions, as the Agents realize almost everyone in town has something to hide, and Felspar isn't the only one whose past keeps catching up to him:

How much magic is still around? What's Vellum got sloshing around in there that people think is so juicy? What is Diamond, elven pop star and queer icon, doing in such a small town? Just how big is this case, and how can the Agents balance their legal responsibility, with promises they've made to Cloven Heart?

WHEN. WILL. THEY. JUST. KISS?

(if you're skeptical about central romances, I get it! See notes on aro/aceness and platonic relationships in the rep section for more info)

The combination of magic and newfangled war tech — think telegrams and radios — is somehow just as charming as a rotating cast of characters who will each stake their claim on your heart, but betrayal is imminent and mistrust is rife. The story strikes a wonderful balance between slice of life goodness, and edge-of-your-seat high drama, culminating In a show I highly recommend.

But are they just reskinned cops: my answer has got to be no. While they are technically law enforcement, the main two are entering a commune-like space, where that isn't so welcome. It's a situation they treat with caution and respect. The classic cop-plot of "Should I make myself judge, jury, and executioner because The Bad Guy™ deserves punishment" just isn't a problem. The justice system isn't perfect, in our world or the show's, and the story acknowledges that. But in a social, cultural way, they don't act like cops. They DO act like detectives. But the rules they choose to break and the ones they choose to follow will hopefully satisfy my fellow cop-haters who crave a good mystery

The format

♠️♣️♥️♦️Three of Hearts♦️♥️♣️♠️ is an Indie actual play — this is not DnD, hear me out — podcast in the game Space Kings. All the tension of dice rolls, without drawn out combat or clunkiness, it's a breeze of story-forward listening, even if you've never listened to actually play podcasts before!

If you've tried dnd actual plays, and haven't like the flow of them, I would recommend trying this. A few encounters that may feel random (though they're not) get the story kicked off at a fast pace, but it quickly settles into a story with a tight plot, great pacing, and impactful character development.

The use of a playing card deck to see the outcomes of risky actions means that no matter what happens, success or failure, the tension keeps rising. And the hosts do a wonderful job of explaining mechanics in the show, so it never interrupts the listening experience.

Actual-play connessuires who want to primarily see people playing a game might not be satisfied, as bonuses are given liberally, and I would describe the podcast as more story focused than game focused, But the risks are ALWAYS real, sometimes (often) with thrilling, shocking outcomes.

Also concerned AP listeners should know there's some chaos magic involved! I was surprised when it first came up, and doubtful about how it might affect the story, but it ended up weaving into the rest of the plot really well, and I feel neither like it had no affect, nor like it shook up everything the party was building in an unsatisfying way. Personally I would have preferred to go in knowing it was there, but I also don't think it's major enough to belong in the main synopsis. Now you know, though!

The hosts make a real effort to blend stats and story, and I think the pull it off wonderfully without spending too much time on mechanics. If you want to see that though, session 0 and other details are on the Patreon (where you get the same content no matter how much you pay, at a minimum of a dollar a month).

The pod has all the lighthearted fun and banter of a "friends around the table" show, but never once have I had that "oh my god, I'm not a part of your inside joke, shut up and play!" Feeling.

I think it's a delight for AP and non-AP fans alike.

The episodes: roughly 45- 75 minutes long, with a midtro and some post-end music scenes, so listen through the end music, or check that there isn't extra content by seeing how close the play head is when the end music starts. It's not too long and quite pleasant in my opinion! The midtros always come at a nice moment to step back from the story, and are not too long and not irritating. I enjoyed listening to them! At some point, a midtro starts getting reused, and I was slightly disappointed I wasn't hearing new jokes every episode, but it's a small thing. I skip the repetitive ones with my 30 seconds forward button, and while I haven't timed the Intro, that's worked really well for me. I don't have to fiddle with my play head to make sure I don't skip forward too far. Super convient.

Trigger warnings: the show is pretty lighthearted! Listeners sensitive non-graphic mentions of needles, blood, and/or guns might want to skip on this one, but most episodes don't get heavy. The few that do have pre episodes notes that warn you things get dark, how they get dark, and how to skip the darkest bits. Personally, I listened through them and enjoyed those parts a lot! But if that's not your thing, I agree with the warning that they're very skippable, and I think trigger-sensitive listeners will be pleased. As an indie pod, there are no fan made, super specific lists of triggers. However, my DMs are always open if you have particular concerns, and I'll answer to the best of my ability.

I try to emphasize the balance between lightheartedness and drama, but if you mental health is sensitive to grim & dark media, i think this one is pretty safe. Please always exercise caution! But I'd describe 30♥️s as emotionally restful.

Transcripts: transcripts are in the works, but do not currently exist. Three of Hearts is a non-scripted show, so those are also unavailable

The rep

Don't you hate when someone raves about rep and you go in expecting something good and get like. One dog-boy described as having "chocolate colored skin"? Or when people make a "watch for rep" post and then mention like. Gay and maybe trans people and that's it, even when shows DO have disability and POC rep? Yeah that's not me. Here's the spoiler free rundown, race is at the bottom because I get into more detail with it, not because it isn't important:

Edit: For more on some of these topics from a hosts perspective, see the reblogged addition by @/citrusandsalt

MLM characters: Main characters, one confirmed bi the other unknown

Wlw characters: Reoccurring side characters (present or mentioned in every episode I think) Married. Orientation unspecified.

Enby love: LOTS. It's actually hard to really categorize mlm and wlw stuff because almost every character is nonbinary. Anyways— it's VERY queer

Women: I...I don't know exactly which characters are women 😂. But there are many feminine characters, and they're badass as fuck. Some are compassionate, some are cold, some are chaotic, most are a mix! The two main characters are...masculine...(I say with much hesitation) but you will not feel robbed for your woman-ly content.

Non-traditional family structures: All of the families in the story, pretty much, are non-traditional. Adoption is super common. (You want some wlw who just KEEP adopting kids? You got em) Found family is a MASSIVE force in the story. Also, It's a post-war story.........which is to say almost everyone's parents are dead.

Edit: an MC had poly parents, which may not be obvious but is true!

Polyamory: to my knowledge so far, there are polyam characters, and it is definitely present in the world! But no poly relationships in the forefront. I am about 2/3 through the current episodes, so there may be a present polyamorous relationship later, but also if I confirmed it that would be a spoiler. This may be that "playing it by ear" thing that happens with ttrpgs. I wouldn't listen for the hope of polyamory alone, but I don't tell you it's not there/won't happen.

Trans characters: almost all of them. Might think "oh there are only a few!" And you are wrong. You are so wrong.

Neopronoun users: yup! To my knowledge, minor characters. A handful who use at least he/she/they or they/them and may also use neos in a manner im forgetting

Plurality: no system characters yet, but the creators are friendly, I asked ;)

Platonic relationships: YES. As an aro person who hates so many romance tropes this one gets my stamp of approval. There's no real jealousy drama, exes who communicate and are supportive, and romance doesn't kill friendships. There's a central sibling relationship and non-familial platonic ones that have conflict, drama, resolutions, and a deeply satisfying significance in the story. If you don't like romance at all, this one might not be for you. If you just don't like stories exclusively about romance, I think you'll enjoy this. Genre wise, I'd definitely describe three of hearts as a mystery primarily with a strong romantic subplot, not a romance itself, and that comes through in player and character's additives and priorities.

Aro/ace characters: none confirmed yet to my knowledge. Romance is very central, sex is joked about on occasion but it isn't at the forefront of the story at all. There are many, single characters who are thriving.

Edit: Actually! There is one character who discusses demiromanticism in cannon that I forgot, and another confirmed out of cannon character who is ace. Both are non-main major characters!

Age diversity: the youngest characters in the show are older to middling teens, and the oldest are in their 400s. Okay but the oldest in human terms are roughly 60-70. The most common age range, and the ones the central characters are in, is 30-40. The second most common is that 60-70, then some ~40-50 folks here and there, with people in their 20s being probably the rarest (no named ones off the top of my head?) And there are a small number of teens. This is not a story about youth and youthful beauty. Generally, the older a character becomes the most bad ass/spooky powerful they are, and older characters are very involved in the plot.

Mental illness and neurodivergency: to my knowledge so far no characters are in cannon confirmed to have a specific mental illness or ND, though I wouldn't be surprised if it was part of a character or the main characters, and just hadn't come up. Listeners with cluster b or "scary" disorders, or with conditions that may cause them to lash out, will find satisfaction with how compassionately the narrative treats werefolk. To say more encounters spoilers. I would also say that depression, while the word isn't used and it is not central to the story, is present as a narrative force, and also treated wisely and with compassion. Still, as is usually for a good story, all of these bitches need therapy.

Disability: LOTS. There's a lot of "different, not broken" themes that disabled listeners are likely to love, but both of the main characters are disabled! One is a cane user, the other experiences migraines. These have a genuine, pressing, mechanical impact on the story. It's COMES UP. It's a real joy. For a magical world, there is no magical healing! Or there is, but it isn't a perfect solution, which in my opinion is just a magical version of real healing, though yours may differ! Also, there is a minor, reoccurring character who's a wheelchair user, and I think he's really fun.

Disfigurement: Excuse me if I am not prepared with the most sensitive way to speak about this, but I'm doing my best! There is a character with no eyes or nose, who is central and lovely. To my knowledge, there are no amputee characters or characters with limb differences (of the wheelchair user I'm not sure if it's specified whether or not he has legs). There is a character of questionable morality who has significant facial and bodily disfigurement. In as few spoilers as possible: this was not injury or genetic related. The disfigurement is treated with a firm compassion, and does not exist as a "this character is evil" signal. It's a long arc, but I imagine people who relate will be satisfied, though I cannot speak for anyone.

Characters of color: many! The main two are Hispanic and Asian. Terms like "dark skinned" are used for characters, but in the fantasy world race doesn't exactly translate, and I wouldn't call it "important" in this story. Read more about race below:

Fantasy racism: sort of! The word "race" is used to mean "humanoid species" and I know some folks don't like that? None of these fantasy races are oppressed, but specific people (Magic versus non-magic people) have conflict about that aspect of their identity, and policing is a related concern. I would place the allegory more in the space of transness and disability/neurodivergency if pressed to choose, but it doesn't feel like it's trying to tell a story about real-world oppression, primarily. I have more complicated thoughts on exactly what I'm trying to communicate here, but they involved some spoilers. DM me for more info!

Hosts/creator identity: out of three hosts, two are white, one is not! They are very queer, and disability is also...a thing! These are real life people, so I'm not going to get into detail, but check out their twitters plugged in the show for more on how they self-identify.

Okay but are they racist: Real talk! As a black person who thinks I keep my ears sharp, I would say no! Not at all! This is one of those situations where I was like "YOU'RE WHITE?" And shocked about it, (if you listened to TSCOSI, same vibe) which is a very good thing in my books. The hosts are open and sensitive, and I have no complaints, however, this is just one perspective! This isn't coincidental, race is an active consideration in how the story is told — just not a central theme.

Edit: One of the hosts, Essay (@/citrusandsalts) discussed more on hosts identities in a reblog! If this concerns you, and you want less of me walking on eggshells about other people's identities, read her addition too!

Edit 2: Jordan, the GM also has commented additions!

Minor but worth mentioning: A minor character has a name with what I believe is the Nahuatl "tl" sound in it, which is not pronounced correctly. It's a really hard sound! I can't really do it! But if that really irritates you this might not be the podcast for you.

People who might be interested in this post, as always let me know if you don't want to be pinged (I rarely ever do this) and it won't happen again: @citrusandsalt @fyeahaudiodrama @boombox-fuckboy

#my posts are never sponsored i am giving them MY money #tpp #the penumbra podcast #because i think ex penumbra fans would like this a lot #audio drama #actual play #indie podcasts #podcasts #edil chats #edil makes reccomendations #three hearts cast #okay to repost anywhere please repost this #ttrpg #actual play podcast #indie ttrpg #indie role play #indie #uhm. uhhh. uhm. are those enough tags???#listen to three hearts cast

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masterangst · 6 months

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General Headcanons that play a part in Post!game long fic of mine

This could also could just be seen as random headcanons I have of the characters based on my playthrough

For starters, Wyll became a Paladin in my playthrough, and I actually think it fits his character very well. Oath of the Ancients, to be exact.

He's in the Hells with Karlach in the beginning, but he still comes and checks on things above

He has no problem living up to the Ancients tenants, and the powers he gained are quite helpful to him in the Hells.

The reason I chose to do this, is because Wyll embodies what a Paladin does. He strives to inspire others and beat back against despair and to help others. He preaches hope and wishes to inspire it in others. He loves his friends and cares deeply about his father and his city and isn't afraid to voice it/do what it takes to protect them.

Though, he struggles with his belief that because he's still tied to Mizora, that he's unworthy of the position, but believes he can do more good than he could before. Considering it's a very powerful combo.

He's also come to accept being a warlock under Mizora, deciding to see the powers given to him because of it as a gift instead of curse.

He's main focus is helping Karlach at the beginning and may develop into something more 👀

Astarion

Him and my Tav, Axel, have become bounty hunters of sorts. It's a great way for Astarion to find people to kill and drink from. "Nobody actually cares about murder, as long as you murder the right people"

He's grown a lot more comfortable with his body and with sex. He still likes to enchant people with his charm, but now he does it cus its fun sometimes

He forces Axel to sleep in luxury and not in a bedroll every night. Also, it is the one that keeps Axels' appearance in check and repairs both of their clothes if they get damaged.

They created a technique together to take down their enemies. Sometimes treating it like a dance as seeing themselves in battle turns them both on. (I can make another post that goes into their relationship a bit more)

Now that he's not malnourished, his eyes have turned less red and his teeth are now not constantly pointy. In other words he appears more human/elfish to others now. He uses that to his advantage

He also has discovered a few abilities that spawn have that Cazador hid from him. Such as spider climbing, though he struggled with it at first. Only Axel knows of this.

Bg3 has almost it's own rules than just normal DnD. Because of this, and based on what is stated and shown in the palace. There is no evidence that the spawn were bound by their coffin like normal dnd. So in my story, that isn't a thing. And I stick with the notion that Astarion isn't forced to sleep during the day, but must at least trance once a day

He also is not the best as writing letters to everyone, but he's always watching over Axels shoulder and butting in to make corrections or add something

Shadowheart

She has a little cottage where she homes Scratch and the Owlbear.

She's not very good at gardening but she's trying. She's determined to have a small garden by the beginning of spring (story is set in winter)

Also went on a few trips to find her connection with Selune

She struggles with overcoming her trauma with her parents and with Shar and feeling worthy of being a follower of Selune

Mostly been traveling and learning more about her parents for now. Has evaded Shar assassins and has a small map of locations she's knowledgeable about of Shars followers. She intends to use it someday, but not yet.

I imagine she gets lonely and wishes to be with the others again. Though she sleeps with Scratch every night and the Owlbear sleeps on the floor by her bed.

Scratch accompanies her on her travels and makes sure she's eaten and lifts her spirits when she's sad

Her and Axel write to each other all the time and she sees him like an older brother even though hes younger (she's 48, he's 39)

The only other person she's spent time with is Gale. She stayed with him when she went to the temple of Selune in Waterdeep. They also write occasionally.

Gale

Gale is quite content with being a professor. He feels like he doesn't have that dying need to prove himself all the time anymore

Though he still wishes to be recognized by his peers at the academy

Also has tried to rekindle his relationship with Elminster, but hasn't seen him in person yet

He still feels very lonely, however, and frustrated he's having to rebuild his career in a sense. He misses being on adventures and the people he considers his real friends

He keeps in regular contact with Wyll and Axel the most. Gale helps keep Wyll informed of upstairs news and gives him new things to read to keep him company. Also has decided that Wyll must be his invite to the Blackstaff ball.

Wyll forces Gales to practice his dancing and they exchange recipes as well

Gale considers Wyll his best friend, but won't say it aloud or admit to it. It's like a mother who says she doesn't have a favorite child but clearly does.

Wyll also considers him a best friend, but also besides Karlach

Karlach

She didn't want to go back to the Hells. She was terrified and was ready to die, but having someone there helps.

She's tired of constantly fighting, I mean it's fun and all, but it's also tiring

She wants to settle down in Baldur’s Gate and have a place big enough for all her friends to visit her

The reunion party reminded her why she's still fighting. So she can come home and go on adventures again

Her and Axel are the closest. Axel was the first leader Karlach ever fully admired and didn't grow to regret it. She's also the only one who knows things others do not about him, and she takes pride in that.

She loves the color Pink and she can't wait to wear pretty dresses at the Blackstaff Ball no one tell Gale she's coming too

Sneaks away to relieve her sexual tension and lies about it. She lives with the guilt.

Is much like Astarion when it comes to letter writing. She looks over Wylls shoulder and makes comments about what he should write and how dumb the companions are sometimes.

Lae'zel

She won't be in my story very much, because she's off trying to fight/negotiate a war, since Orpheus was sacrificed.

To be frank, Lae'zels arc is my my favorite one. Especially if you choose the route to go against her queen. She's a beautiful character. Anyways.

She's a bit busy with the rebel forces but she holds onto a memento given to her by Axel to remind her that peace sometimes works better than violence.

She misses her friends on the Material plane and fully intends on seeing them in the flesh once her battle is done.

Also checks in a lot with the hatchling Xan

She can't write to her friends, but she knows they are rooting for her

By the end of the game, her and Shadowheart had made up their differences and actually became friends

In terms of everyone together. I like to imagine that a permanent side effect of the worm is that now everyone must rebuild their stats.

I'm sure I have more, so maybe I will make another post. But I was thinking of the things that play into my long fic as well.

#i just love all the characters #also im half asleep so excuse the mess #astarion #Lae'zel #wyll ravengard #bg3 gale #karlach #shadowheart bg3 #bg3 tav #bg3 spoilers #post game #my thoughts #baldur's gate 3 #astarion x tav #Karlach/Wyll #bg3 headcanons #gale of waterdeep #astarion ancunin #shadowheart

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dextixer · 1 year

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What Vtuber Ruby and Miles cameos say, matter (kinda).

So, a day or so ago we have had people discuss about Rubys Vtubing appearances and the things she has said on video. People have had mixed opinions on what was said, some people think its not a problem, others think its a problem, some others dont care. So, i wanted to chime in on this entire discussion and why in my opinion this, and the cameos that Miles makes matter and are not "irrelevant".

Disclaimer

Before i start, i will note. I dont really think that these things are HUGE problems and "OH NO, THIS RUINS THE SHOW" or any other nonsense. Some people have seen these things way too negatively. But i also think that people who say that it doesnt matter at all are taking 2 way too extreme positions.

Lore Swiss Cheese

One of the main problems of RWBY has, for a long time, been the very vague concepts of what is canon and the in-show lore. From the very start of the show, it had commentary tracks, the creators talking about the show etc. Despite not being in the show itself, we have had many tidbits of information (such as Rubys favourite food) and the like given to us in outside of canon content. And it has not just been some minor things either. Ironwoods semblance basically does not exist in the show, and yet it seems to exist in lore, and it was shared with us from outside the show.

And later on, after V3, RWBY has received a lot of different media that expands on its lore and are considered canonical, despite sometimes never appearing on the show, or even creating very weird situations where something is conspicuous by absence in the show itself. For example, we have a very often discussed topics of V7-8 of the defense of Mantle/Atlas. One of the discussion points have always been how weirdly weak the defenses of the kingdom are. While one could chalk that up to people having an "inflated" view of Atlas military, but we have been canonically told and shown a lot of Atlas tech that is conspicuous by absence in the show.

Automated turrets, different versions of Atlesian Knights etc, which were said to be canonical in Amity:Arena. Or for example stealth tech. Yea, Atlas has stealth tech, like, genuine stealth. Its in one of the books. And yet nowhere in the show.

We have two canonical games, Grimm Eclipse and Arrowfell, with characters and concepts in them that have never been seen in the show. Has anyone ever seen team BRIR in the show? Heard of them? Maybe the tech from Arrowfell would kinda be useful, even if outdated against the Grimm invasion? What about the outlying Atlesian villages? Are they just dead at this point? Where the heck is Thornmane? He gets captured and hes nowhere in jail even as a cameo? And why does noone talk about Grimm Eclipse? Tech enchanced Grimm seem like a bit of a topic that kinda should be discussed sometime, no!?

We also have the comic books with various questionable canonical decisions including Raven turning into a bird to fuck with child Ruby. Blakes involvement with Adam which is somewhat weird because the comic books try to humanize Adam while the show demonizes him.

And let us not forget the whole "Canon Adjacent" nonsense where RT cant even come out and say that its obviously non-canon stories like Ice Queendom and even crossovers with DC are not canon. They cant even come out and say that!

Oh, and of course, i just remembered, the Grimm DnD campaign which is also apparently canon!

The reason i am listing all of these summarized versions of the multiple lore issues that the show has is that the lore of RWBY, is swiss cheese. It has lore that is given partially in so many different places, including in out of universe that its almost impposible to follow it properly, and if you do try, you are only going to get more confused because the main show feels like completely separate from it all, despite being in the same lore.

Vtubing and Cameos matter

And this brings me to of course the very simple claim, that due to the fact that the lore is already swiss cheese, these statements made in Vtubing and Cameos actually matter. Because even if they are not stated to be directly canonical, the lore is already so incredibly fucked and unclear (To the point that some people cant even decide if DC RWBY comics are even canon or not!) that adding these examples to the mix? Its just bad practice. Because at the end of the day, Vtubing Ruby, IS Ruby. She is played as in-universe Ruby, by the same Voice Actress, hosted by the SAME company.

And it matters especially because these things DO affect the FNDM. People who say that these things should be easily ignored are missing one key aspect. A lot of the FNDM are affected by these. BB being a key example. No, im not going to argue that the FNDM forced RT to make it canon. What i WILL argue is that the toxicity of BB community and its rabidness was intentionally cultivated AND enabled by RT. Does it matter that the BB song is not canon? No, it did not. Its not canon in the show and yet it made pro-BB and anti-BB crowds hysterical. Same for the song that was made for Blacksun. These songs directly contributed to the shipping wars. The various moments of people like Barbara also indulging the shippers just further fueled that entire movement.

Hell, the same can be said for Qrow x Winter shippers. While it was never a big thing one of the main "fuels" it had for a long time was because Vic and the VA for Winter interacted in a single panel. Or lets remember the whole "Vibrator function" which is OBVIOUSLY not canon, yet has become a part of often referenced and established fanon.

RWBY does not have a stable FNDM, i know, im a part of it. It does not matter if something is or is not canonical when not only are the lines of canon/noncanon blurred to barely existing, but the FNDM can often take things very far to fuel their expectations, wishes, and behaviour.

Especially when it can fuel what i will refer to as simply exploitative behaviour.

Cameos. Cameos, in my opinion are a fine way for VA's to make money. Such as many other things like, for example, music producers reviewing songs, voice coaches evaluating singing etc. Such content has cropped up maybe 4-5 years ago now and imo, is a fine thing.

But like any thing, imo, there are good and bad ways to do this kind of content. When for 40 bucks, one can ask one of the main WRITERS of the show questions about the shows world and opinions about things like ships. That is, imo, a bit far. Not only does that give an incentive for people to pay money for extra snippets of lore, but also, a way for people to validate their beliefs of ships and other such things. Because that is what his Cameo is all about. Its not VA work, its his words, in relation to his work as a writer for the show. And considering the earliest cameos and Ironwood discussions, that in my opnion is NOT a good thing.

The BB Onlyfans thing is ALSO an example of that, that i think was bad. Once again, disclaimer. I think that OF is fine, you want to do it? Go ahead, i paid for Markipliers photos, i aint ashamed, hes hot. I think it becomes at least slightly concerning however, when the VA's of a controversial ship decide to do an underwear photoshoot together with the same theme as their character in-show relationship.

Because...

Parasociality

A parasocial relationship is feeling a connection with a persona/thing that does not know of your existance or only humours you. Celebrities, sports teams etc.

RT has, for a long time cultivated a STRONG parasocial relationship with the FNDM. There is a reason why they pretend to be down to earth, why they pretend that they are not a corporation and why even to this day, some RT fans STILL believe that RT is some kind of "indie company". There is nothing inherently wrong with having it. Its kind of even unavoidable.

But what RT does is Cynically abuse that relationship. Just like any other corporation. Overworking animators for example? Part of that has been parasociality, people willing to work for their "loved" company etc.

Things like Miles Cameo, the BB photoshoot? The Vtuber Ruby? They are meant to encourage parasociality. To make it seem like the people, the watchers are "closer" to people performing or related to the show. Its all a cynical ploy to get people to pay money, to watch RWBY etc.

There is a reason why even after the RT expose not too long ago, people just went ahead and forgot about it. There is a reason why RWBYTubers that have previously condemned RT for their BS are now shouting at people to support RWBY, supressing those who criticized V9 and are encouraging people to buy merch.

Its all parasocial BS. BS that leads to extreme behaviours.

Such as, but not limited to - Biphobia, Homophobia, calling people facists for liking characters, calling people abuse apologist, groomers, Stalking. Just to name a few.

Also... On an ending note

Its just shit Vtubing

Consider this an unrelated tangent. I watch Vtubers relatively often, usually clips but sometimes i catch streams. Vtuber lore is usually irrelevant even in corporate settings. What people come to watch are the streamers themselves who usually partially play a character but mostly just act like themselves. Not really being lore accurate is not really of importance.

The thing is, those Vtubers usually dont have really established settings and they stream Multiple hours a day, so it all makes sense.

Why in the fuck is the Vtuber Ruby Rose, not acting like Remnant Ruby Rose!? Im not expecting deep lore drops here. But for crying out loud, why make statements that Rabbits or magic dont exist? Ruby Rose being visiting Earth is an AMAZING roleplaying set-up!

There is no dust, no aura, no Grimm! So many differences between the worlds that Ruby Rose can notice and act out! "Oh anime? We have our own version of that! One of the most watched shows is Sailor Sun! (Because the moon is broken)".

Its just a concept that can pay-off so much! Its an isekai in Vtubing form! As far as im aware Vtuber Ruby Rose doesnt even stream daily so its even easier to stay in character! So why in the bloody hell are we getting Dora of Explorer levels of childishness?

Anyway... Here are my thoughts. Peace out.

#rwde #rwby

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fels-fantasy-hoard · 1 year

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A general reminder to gms to never turn a recurring or tag along npc into a plot device as your players will notice and it will piss them off (rant incoming)

The last dnd game I was in as a player I wound up leaving due to this exact thing. My character’s whole deal was protecting and caring for a child npc that shared their tragic backstory. Unfortunately for me, this npc became the gm’s favorite new toy and not only did they make this npc more powerful than every one of the players and more intelligent than all of us, the dm used them to facilitate literally almost every plot point from the moment I joined the team.

I spent so much in game time dealing with this npc’s bullshit that I barely had any time to actually get to know the other characters or make any meaningful bonds with them. This npc was constantly dragging me away from them and derailing the story because the gm used them like a carrot on a string to create drama. I don’t even know what our goal as a party was other than collect the macguffin and take down the government because every plot after I joined revolved around finding this npc because they ran off or protecting them from their own idiocy or having a crisis because this npc wants to kill themself.

I cannot describe to you how annoying it was walking into every session expecting this npc to act in any consistent way. One session they would be moping about how they don’t belong in this world because they are too smart for their own good and the next they are being manipulated and kidnapped like a normal 5 year old by someone plot convenient so the party gains plot relevant information. One session they don’t want to use their insane power because it’s too much and the next they want to practice by torturing people and animals and the next they leave the fortified base to go flower picking to drag the party to learn more plot relevant information. Every single session I was dealing with an entirely different character whose levels of intelligence and emotional maturity changed on a dime to suite the gm’s needs. It was exhausting and this on top of a few other things made me leave the group.

If a player hands you something like this, show some restraint. Please. Especially right after they join the crew. I’d say restraint is one of the most important aspect of being a story teller in general.

I gave this gm two big red buttons with my character and they pushed both of them immediately. The dm brought in my characters personal antagonist session 2, before I had any kind of bond with the crew and was at the point where when I had the option to have my character lose their memories of this antagonist I took it just to remove that button because I could immediately tell this gm has zero restraint.

I talked with the dm out of session and asked them to tone it back because ever since I joined literally every single plot had my character at the center and she kept pushing me/my character to drastic measures that were preventing my from actually interacting with the rest of the crew or even learning what our goals were. For fuck sake I removed my character’s memories of their antagonist because they were nearing the point of saying fuck it and leaving the group just to escape this person.

Did the gm listen? No. Not only did they continue dragging my character’s antagonist into the plot, they kept using this npc to create drama and push the plot forwards in inorganic way.

If you have to use an npc as a plot device, then at least keep their characterization consistent. If story is the main focus of this campaign, it’s like watching the gm reach into the game and tell you directly: hey, hey, players, go here for plot. It breaks the immersion. If it happens on occasion, that’s fine it’s bound to happen eventually. But when it’s happening every session… oh boy is it extremely annoying and hits one of my biggest pet peeves in writing: seeing the hand of the author. There are a million ways to make a plot hook feel in congruence with the story and the world. If you need to take an npc out of character to make it happen, your players will notice.

Tldr. If you are running a long form campaign- use restraint. I promise you that holding back and waiting to push the big red buttons your players give you will be so much more rewarding for everyone if you wait. Don’t force the story. Let it breathe.

#thoughts I fall asleep to #it’s 5 am #I’ve been awake since 3 #I keep think about this so blah #out it comes #maybe I can get some sleep now

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capillaryspice · 5 months

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Unpopular opinion rant incoming:

I did not enjoy Baldurs Gate 3

Before anything else I will admit I am biased, as strategy turn based games aren't something I'm usually into to begin with. I mostly ended up playing it because my partners and a friend are SUPER into the game and wanted to do a 4 player run. I do have 30 hours on a solo run I tried to get used to the game with, so I have a decent bit of experience with how it's supposed to run as a single player but I'm not judging companion stories or anything because I haven't completed them.

I do understand why people like BG3, and I don't wanna rain on anyone's parade for a very critically acclaimed game, but I do have some thoughts that I just need to get out of my head, so if you like the game and don't wanna hear me complain about it just scroll on ahead. If you do want to hear me complain, I'd love to hear if anyone else has had the same thoughts, because genuinely I've not really had anyone to talk to that hasn't been head-over-heels for it. (Actual thoughts under the cut)

-----------------

With that out of the way, for starters BG3 is a very impressive game. From a technical perspective, from a voice acting quality perspective, the sheer amount of tiny tiny details, etc... it is IMPRESSIVE. Too impressive, I'd almost have to say. Because, despite being impressed by it, I did not have FUN playing the game. For all its details it doesn't draw me in. For all the technical marvel, it's just too janky. It's all of the rules of DND and none of the immersion or fun

I would love to have had a functioning camera position that didn't give me whiplash whenever a new character in the combat of 20+ NPCs decides to do so much as shuffle to the left. It feels like pulling teeth when trying to select/interact with anything, god forbid a reaction happens while you're trying to attack and you just completely lose the action bc the interruption to movement pauses everything and screws u up. I'd love to be able to jump without going through two menu screens and a map to just hop over a gap(I'm never complaining about the Dark Souls jump being too complicated ever again). Also everything moves so slow, I would kill for a fucking Sprint button.

I would have liked anything approaching a streamlined combat system that didn't take a long ass time to set up a move that takes six seconds to play out, and then wait for ten minutes literally doing nothing while the rest of the NPCs in initiative whip the viewpoint around and get it stuck in walls and corpses so I can't even see what's happening while I can't do anything for the rest of the round

A lesser gripe, but just a bizarre choice to not do: Id like to hear the character voice I chose in character creation for cutscenes, instead of just background ambient lines. Like, if the last dragon age game (from 2014 mind you) can have a voiced main character with multiple voice options, this new game that has unique voice lines for every goddamn squirrel on the map and ALREADY PAID VOICE ACTORS TO VOICE THE MAIN CHARACTER TO BEGIN WITH can probably afford to do so. Hell, I'd like some background music that isn't just the tenth rendition of Down By The River in a different key. The bard music is all gorgeous, why couldn't they have reused some of those compositions as ambient music for different locations?

This is a MASSIVE game, and what they've put into it is definitely admirable, but like. Not in the ways that make a game breathable or immersive? The choices in where they've decided to dedicate the anal level of detail seems misguided from a just general player standpoint; There's some gorgeous settings in the game, but I was distracted every time by getting frustrated that I couldn't even get a more-than-vague look at any of the scenery I actually enjoyed because the camera is so limited in its angles. So I can't take a good look around what should be a beautiful temple that I'd love to see closer, but I can individually inspect every moldy apple and tax form on a random dinner table instead. It's a vast open world, but the character models have very clearly defined paths they have to stay within. The amount of unique NPCs is insane, but the mechanics themselves TREAT them as NPCs(i.e., resurrection rules), and they don't react to PCs unless ur doing Violence or Crimes (even og skyrim had NPCs have comments on if u weren't like wearing clothes, for instance). Every shelf and bag and nook and cranny are searchable, but that gets overwhelming very quickly as you have to choose between taking like an hour of real time to clear a cluttered area and possibly find something important but more likely just end up with a bajillion rotten carrots, or move on but have the anxiety of knowing you've possibly missed something vital. There's a million options you can take at any moment with any object or character, but there's rarely anything indicating what will be vital later for general world stuff. But then with the main plot (the Emperor, Raphael, the crèche) it felt very railroaded in the sense that TECHNICALLY you could try and choose between outcomes, but your choices don't actually matter because you die if you choose The Wrong Option (or end up in effectively death sentence combat) and will end up where they want you to go regardless.

BG3 isn't a game I want to spend time playing; it's not a world I can wander around and appreciate the beauty of and get lost in the soundtrack or the environments. The whole combat system is incredibly frustrating to manage, and just feels like Hurry Up And Wait. I'm not gonna knock the romance parts of the game, I've heard good things and haven't gotten far enough in any of em to have an educated opinion on, so really the only thing the game has to offer in spades OTHER than romance is replayability. Which normally I would say is a good thing, but for how long of a game it is and how non immersive the gameplay and world feel, it really just ends up being a game of fucking around and seeing how many things you can get an alternate dialogue for or create new stats around. Like, this is great for completionist folks who love collecting achievements and making the most busted crunchy math-based builds possible, but Baldurs Gate 3 to me just isn't a game I can sit down and have Fun(TM) relaxing and playing.

It's a game that I feel absolutely missed the forest for the trees.

So anyways, essay complete. I've only slept like 6 hours total in the last three days so a lot of this may or may not even make sense. But on so much sleep deprivation finishing this game and realizing I was just frustrated with it instead of actually feeling accomplished for having finished it, it was the final straw and I just needed to get the thoughts down somewhere

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk

#it's 6am I still haven't slept (thanks work and insomnia) and I may delete this tomorrow #I'm probably being unreasonable with my frustrations but they have frustrated me nonetheless #and it's my blog so no one can stop me from going on a silly little videogame rant #anyway thanks for listening yall

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folansstuff · 11 months

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The X-Terminators (+ Illyana) playing DnD

(yes i am just cribbing the idea from the new mutants playing dnd post i rb'd, i just couldnt get the thought out of my head.)

Alison is the one who organised the whole thing, since she had been a big roleplaying fan for years before she became a big star and has been desperate to play with the others ever since she impulse bought almost every book currently available. She talked the others into playing, which mostly amounted to plying Jubille and Tabitha with drinks, and offering Laura the chance to stab people. She invited Illyana, but didn’t get a reply until Illyana just sorta… turned up five minutes before the first session. She’s the DM, which means she is constantly in a panic as she tries to tell her gigantic and grand story that she planned out while the others are trying to intentionally or unintentionally drive the whole thing off the rails. She’s happy regardless, but she does scream a little when Illyana kills another NPC.

Jubilee is completely game, if only because she knows if she goes along with it she gets free drinks. She’s playing a Rogue, mostly because the idea of stealing things sounded cool to her. She’s probably the most ‘properly’ into it other than Alison, she’s completely absorbed in every part of the game, the roleplaying, the combat, etc. Will still get completely blasted, but she is the least likely to drag the game into the void on a whim.

Tabitha is still on the ‘DnD is for nerds’ train, but Alison gave her the puppy dog eyes and how could Tabitha say no? She’s playing a Bard, which actually means she’s actually flirting with every. Single. NPC. Alison had to beg her to not to try and sleep with the main villain of the campaign every time she showed up. Despite how much she doesn’t act like it, she does enjoy goofing around with her friends and she does kind of start to get into it by the end.

Laura has absolutely no idea what DnD is, and also does not care. She still turned up because she doesn’t really have any other friends, but she spends the whole time barely paying any actual attention to anything that doesn’t let her stab things. She’s playing a Warrior, specifically the one that came from the starter kit since she didn’t bother to make her own character and Alison had to improvise. Over time she does slowly get more involved, but she still pretends to be completely disinterested when pressed, only for her to reference a plot point that she was supposedly ignoring, when she does this Alison loses her mind with joy.

Look Illyana is kind of weird. She has a character, a chaotic evil (obviously) Warlock, and she seems to be super into the plot, but she will also randomly murder a NPC ‘because they looked at her funny’. Despite this she is genuinely excited to play, since she hadn’t played since she played with the New Mutants back at Xavier’s and she gets into it. She’ll yell, laugh, the whole nine yards, and then act like she never did any of it when the others point it out. When she gets to be dive deep into the ‘chaotic evil’ part of her character she really lets loose, and it usually ends up the best part of the evening, even if it is usually in service to her murdering an important NPC again.

#four queer ladies and their adopted russian daughter playing the ttrpgs #x-terminators #alison blaire #dazzler #jubilation lee #jubilee #laura kinney #wolverine #tabitha smith #boom boom #magik #illyana rasputin #x-men

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bladesmitten · 6 months

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ok so i'm going to ask: is pwotr worth playing? i'm asking as a huge bg3/da fan - what's the character creation like (if any), how is the story and are the npcs good? is the battle system comparable at all?

hello ^_^ if you like CRPGs, it's likely you'll enjoy pwotr too! the game often goes on sale on steam so i'd advise you to wait or perhaps visit fitgirl if you wanna try it out first. i wrote a spoiler free Gamer Review™ here but i'll also answer your specific questions:

compared to da and bg3, the character creation in pwotr is massive. there's sooo many choices from the class selection alone! that might be overwhelming, but there's also indicators for which classes are beginner friendly and there are pre-generated builds/characters you can use so you don't have to think about all that.

pwotr is isometric in graphics, like hades and disco elysium, so your character's appearance is more simplified than bg3/da. you'll also choose one of the provided art portraits to represent your character or you can use your own.

the game is text heavy with minimal voice acting so there's definitely a lot of reading. the story itself is compelling to me. the main premise is: you gain mysterious powers and become in charge of an army to close an interplanar rift called the worldwound. you don't need to know much about pathfinder lore to understand what's happening, and there's also a feature where you can hover over certain terms in dialogue and it'll give context as to what it means.

there's 5 acts and a prologue. act 4 has a tonal shift which i personally like. act 5 kiiiinda falls off in terms of pacing, but it's still not as egregious as bg3's act 3 lol.

the companions and NPCs are great! i like most of the companions, they're all complex to me. i might not care for maybe one or two of them but there's also like 12 companions so that's still 10 out of 12. the companion quests are done well imo (except for nenio's, but that's a problem with puzzle design and not her story), and your choices and actions actually matter and have consequences throughout the game. decisions made in earlier acts can and will impact later acts as well as companions' endings :-)

as for the combat -- it's a mix of real-time with pause (dragon age) and turn-based (bg3). you can switch between the two modes with the press of a button, so if the battle is going too slow, just go real-time, and if a fight is too hard, go turn-based for better strategizing. pwotr is based on the pathfinder system, and it has some similarities with dnd so certain terms may already be familiar to you if you played bg3. it's still worth reading what the spells do because they can be different at times.

the enemy encounter/level/puzzle designs leave much to be desired though, and that might be my biggest criticism of the game. there's quite a lot of random encounters that don't really matter. some encounters are way too strong for the current party level so i got into the habit of saving before entering a room just in case my party gets fucked by some optional boss mob 😭 i played on normal difficulty and i fared well up until the end of act 3 where there's a difficulty spike and i turned it down to casual. it might also be helpful to look up guides on youtube so you don't end up like me lol.

this got long so uhh i'll wrap it up by saying i enjoyed pwotr and like i said, if you like CRPGs you'll probably like this one too! :-)

#ask #Anonymous

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myhusbandsasemni · 3 months

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Warlocks - Part 1: Endless IKEA

Author's notes: I am so excited to be sharing this! This story is the comedy horror I've always wanted to have a try at writing! Keep in mind, that the kind of sort of main character is the first non binary character I've ever written so I will be working out the kinks for how to write about Them. They/Them pronouns can really mess with the flow of stories so it's going to be a thing and a half working it out. Enjoy!

Masterlist

................................................

“Keesha! Come ooooon! Let us level up before we get there! Please!?”

Keesha snorted, watching the road as she drove her DND party to the nearest IKEA, Tori working on her knitting in the passenger seat while Puck, Elio, and Leo sat together in the back.

Puck huffed, flopping back into Their seat and folding Their arms. “Whatever. Can you at least tell us a bit about what the plan is for DND today?”

“I’ll explain it when we get there,” Keesha replied simply.

“Put your seatbelt on, Puck,” Tori said, not looking up from her yarn as she tapped her finger along the stitches to count them.

“I can’t. It’s against my religion.”

“You should,” Elio said. “You’re right in the middle. You’ll go through the window if we crash.”

“Skill issue.”

Leo snorted, reaching out and getting Puck in a headlock despite how quick the smallest member of the group was. “Don’t worry. I got ‘em,” Leo said, ruffling Puck’s hair.

Puck whined and complained, twisting and turning to try and escape the older man’s grasp as Keesha said, “Well, what are your guys’ plans for the week?” It was a feeble distraction, but one that usually worked.

“I have a craft fair I want to go to on Tuesday, and I hear there’s a public auction of an older widow’s things going on so I may see if I can gather some more vintage clothing and jewelry,” Tori replied, putting her knitting in her bag to watch out the window as they drove.

“I’m putting together more of my cosplay,” Elio replied, tapping his fingers over the strap of his bag. “I should be done with plenty of time for the convention next month.”

“Nice! I can’t wait to see that when it’s done. Let us know if you need any help. Leo? Any plans?”

“Oh, you know, bingo at the old folks home,” he said with a grin, flashing a look at Keesha through the rearview mirror.

She rolled her eyes. “I was joking, Leo! Don’t make me suffer!”

Leo chuckled, shaking his head. “Nah. I just have work to do. Might catch up on this show my mom has been going on about.”

“Oh! How is your mom?” Tori asked, turning to see Leo better from the front seat.

“Doing very well. You should come over sometime. We all know you’re her favorite anyways,” he said, finally releasing Puck who gasped and clawed at the air dramatically.

Tori snickered.

“What about you, Puck?” Keesha asked.

“Going to my sisters’ recitals,” Puck replied, combing Their hair carefully back into its messed up coif. “They’re pretty excited about it. They aren’t too bad, either.”

“Awww, recitals? Would I be able to get a ticket?” Tori asked, hand over her bosom.

“And let you find out my age and how many sisters I have? No way.”

Tori rolled her eyes good naturedly. It had been a bit of a long shot to ask anyway. Puck was defensive about Their childhood and a lot of Their personal details. As a group, they were all really good friends, the closest friends they all had to each other, but Puck was just weird like that.

“Are we going to the IKEA?” Elio asked as he watched out the window.

Keesha clicked her tongue. Leave it to Elio to figure it out so quickly. “Yeah, we are. That’s where we’ll be playing today’s session. I checked with the employees that this would be okay and they said it would be fine.”

“Oh! Are we doing that maze puzzle game I saw on tik tok?” Leo asked, excited.

Keesha nodded. “That we are. My own version of it, of course!”

There was a general call of excitement and interest in the group as they pulled into the parking lot.

Soon they were inside, taking a moment for Keesha to explain the rules of the game. It took a few minutes for the group to get used to the new environment for their game, but Puck broke the ice, going all in on the wheezy voice Their warlock had. Soon they were working their way around the IKEA, laughing and looking at the puzzles Keesha had brought along with her. Keesha led them back and forth through the maze where sphinxes looked to kill the group of warlocks, but the warlocks, as always, proved to be just cunning and charismatic enough to get away with their shenanigans.

“Now! Brave Warlocks, if you think yourself as such,” Keesha called in the booming voice of a sphinx, checking her watch to see what time it was as they hadn’t seen anyone in the aisles around themselves for a while. “You have walked all of this way! And for what? What purpose do you seek?”

The four players crowded together and whispered together for a moment. Elio stepped forward, fidgeting with his small jedi braid. “We had come seeking a challenge and fun. To learn more than we knew before. Knowledge is more priceless than any wealth we could have found in this maze, O Sphinx.”

“The sphinx regards you, now more thoughtful than annoyed. ‘You would do well to keep on this path, dear adventurers. There are many that forget the way in this world. I grant you leave.’ And with that, she steps back, and for the first time you see the exit out of this maze.”

“Man, I kind of want to stay here,” Tori said, voice pitched up for her character, Cleo. “There were so many paths we didn’t take.”

“Will we be able to visit?” Leo asked in the tone of his character, Kylo. “Ah, but we need to get Joseph home.”

“I have had more fun here than at home,” Joseph/Elio said hesitantly. “Though I do miss my sisters… would it be allowed for us to return one day, Sphinx?”

Keesha smiled, waving her hand to the group to get everyone walking back towards the entrance to the IKEA. “That you might, travelers. We have never had ones such as you desire to return.”

“This seems like a good place to rest my weary bones when I am done learning what there is to be known here,” Puck said in Jasper’s voice. “My patron would not mind if I took a bit of a retirement.”

“That’s if you die, old man,” Tori said, amused.

“Aye, if I die. I-”

The IKEA will be closing in five minutes. Please make your way to checkout.

“Is it really that late?” Leo asked, surprised as he pulled his phone out of his pocket to check the time, his silver and brown pony tail falling forward over his shoulder.

“It is. I’ve actually been trying to find the exit for a while now. That last puzzle was me trying to put that last bit off till we could get to the entrance,” Keesha replied, bemused. “Worse comes to worse we can pick a wall and follow it.”

“The exit was that way,” Elio said, pointing.

The group turned to where he was pointing and followed in an instant. Elio had a flawless sense of direction. One did not question his ability to get unstuck from any situation.

At least, normally.

They walked for the full five minutes, checking their phones and watches nervously as they went.

“I hope we get locked in the store,” Puck said, a huge grin on Their face.

“Don’t say that,” Keesha groaned. “I have work tomorrow.”

“Come on, it would be an adventure!”

“I don’t want to be fired. I was sick a lot last month and I’d rather not push my luck any farther.”

“Skill issue.”

Still, Puck ran ahead, looking around. They rounded a corner up ahead just as the lights shut off.

“What the heck?” Leo asked, getting his phone out and turning on the flashlight as Elio fished an actual flashlight from his bag. “I thought they cleaned up for a half hour or whatever after people left the store.”

“I guess not?”

“That is how places with food courts typically operate,” Elio said. “I do think we are being locked in, though. Perhaps we should find one of the bed sections for the night so Keesha can be rested for work?”

“I’d rather try the doors first. I-”

There was a yelp from up ahead and they saw a dark figure pelting back down the aisle from where Puck went. There were several things behind Puck. Shambling things.

“What is that!?” Leo yelled, horrified.

“RUN!” Puck yelled. “NO, WAIT! CLIMB!”

The group quickly moved, looking for shelves to climb. Keesha and Leo were up first, Leo helping Tori out while Keesha tried to shine her phone light so she could see what was chasing Puck.

Puck climbed up like a cat, turning and to see the things stop chasing Them and going for-

“ELIO!” Leo yelled.

Elio had chosen a shelving unit that was much trickier to climb than previously thought, and whatever was down there, blurred shapes in the moving light, caught him by the ankles.

He yelped, struggling, but he kicked whatever it was in the face, adrenaline sending him the rest of the way up.

“Are you okay?” Tori asked, but Elio was pale staring down at the monsters.

They looked like people at first, but their pure white fingers were clawed, their faces smooth and blank, their clothing seeming to fit but hanging… strangely over where their stomachs should be.

“What is going on?” Keesha asked, watching the creatures trying and failing to climb up to them.

“We’re not in Kansas anymore,” Puck replied from where They were standing on Their own shelving unit. They judged the gaps and quickly leapt across to where Elio was so he wouldn’t be alone on the shelving unit away from the others.

“We should look at your ankles.”

Elio nodded, looking away from the monsters and to his pants. He rolled it up, showing the scrapes and bruises in his skin.

“Yikes, man. Got anything in your bag for that?” Puck asked.

Elio nodded.

“Course you do. Hand it over.”

The monsters didn’t stay for long, but there were just enough soft sounds and shiftings in between the shelves to convince the group that it would be a very bad idea to come down until the lights came back on. If they ever did.

Part 2

#writing #warlocks #horror story #endless IKEA #puck #keesha #elio #leo #tori #scp #EEEEEEE #I really hope people see this and read it #It's a good story for sure #I have such plans!

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takaraphoenix · 2 years

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I’m currently watching a DnD campaign. And, I’ll admit, I didn’t expect to get through the first episode.

That’s not even meant as a judgment on DnD, that’s a judgment call on myself. I don’t have a great attention-span for long videos. I do good with the 45 minute TV show model, but I crap out on movie-length. I struggle with that even with things I love; I have to be really in the mood for the movies I love to watch them

And each of these videos is two to two and a half hours long. And the entire campaign is ten videos long. So it’s not a one time ask for me to pay this kind of attention, but a ten time ask, on top of it.

Knowing this about myself, I really didn’t think I’d get through the first video.

But @kimmycup applied a very solid life-hack, actually, by introducing me to Game Changer first and making me watch all of that. So I got invested in the team of College Humor - which got the first requirement in; now this was something I am invested in and care about (even though I know jackshit about DnD, I am invested in these players). Turns out this was probably the perfect way to introduce me to DnD, honestly.

Oh, this is fun. I gotta say, I was a bit skeptical about the whole concept of watching other people play games, because, well, the whole fun of games is the social interaction of playing them yourself. But this is actually less like a game and more like watching a play.

Watching a finely crafted story, with characters and arcs and plot-twists, but with an additional layer that is uniquely added by DnD. That the actors don’t know what they’re getting into. And that the narrator/writer can be thrown a curve-ball too, depending on what the players roll.

This is so much fun. There’s of course the fun of the main story itself unfolding, but the players and their interactions and their reactions to the campaign and the brilliance (and at times sadism) of the DM are just as much fun, which yeah is all elevated by the fact that I’ve binged Game Changer before and am already familiar with these people and their dynamics, so this was the perfect introductory choice, I’d say.

Though I gotta say, the math and dice stuff still super goes over my head.

#DnD #Dungeons and Dragons #College Humor #Mice and Murder #Dimension 20

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thesixthplaneteer · 1 year

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Day 3 OC-tober - Old OC!

This is going to be a rambling personal story post. OC stuff under the break. The first DnD character I made was Groglag a half-orc fighter but the people I played with instilled the feeling of cringe in me about getting too attached to your own characters. They were pretty old school DnD players and this is before crit role and other shows so the idea of being super into your character to make stories about them or grand self serving plotlines was shunned. So in some sense Groglag is the first OC because thanks to getting over the cringe of playing DnD and enjoying it I've been able to get into an amazing creative hobby and head space. That's also a lot thanks to my wife. She's the one that showed me the comic shop that I eventually started playing DnD at and she's the one that helped release me from my shell and not baulk at doing things because others look down on it. She's helped me become who I am now and create the amazing characters and stories I/we have. I think the character where there was a turning point for all this was Derrick Kendrick, The Boy King. I'll share more about him below the break but he was an NPC in a DnD game I ran with my wife and some friends. Her interest in him and genuinely wanting to know more about him and the world when I thought he would be just a quest giver made him into a main stay of my OCs.

Derrick Kendrick - The Boy King

Derrick is the first born son of the third born son of the king of the Moon Shae isles. War against invaders and war amongst the islands themselves weighed heavy on Derrin, Derrick's grandfather. Tragedy brought him low as he lost his two eldest sons to the seemingly endless campaigns before they had children of their own. When Derrick was fifteen, his parents grew ill and died of a sickness the druids of the Moon Wells could not cure. Now all that survived of the Kendrick line was Derrick and his grandfather. His grandfather was old, the wars he fought had wrecked havoc on his body, and the loss of his sons had wrecked havoc on his mind. He abdicated to Derrick at the behest of his advisor Kell. Kell was a new but promising addition to the court, helping Derrick rule as a good king and eventually bringing many of the conflicts to a resolution.

Lots of adventures and chance meetings later

Derrick is married to a Triton named Coral (wife's OC) who was brought ashore in a fishing boat during a Sahuagin invasion and they now have many many children as they rule over a united Moon Shae Isles until their second eldest is ready and Derrick hands down the crown to his daughter.

Fun story facts,

Their eldest child is a druid so he didn't become king

Derrick and Coral were forced to flee the isles after Derrick's grandfather was revealed to be a terrible terrible man and a werebear. They eventually came back and kicked his butt though.

Derrick is also a werebear although it took a while to manifest

Kell is actually an Elf in disguise and is Derrick's great great great great grandfather

The Kendrick line is technically human but they got just about everything but demon and dragon mixed in there.

The first Kendrick that made landfall on the islands was married to a frost giantess and they brought with them a sapling from the tree of life.

In the courtyard of the castle is the Rainbow Tree. The sapling from the tree of life with a menagerie of transplants from fruit bearing trees all around the world. The druids on the island will bring back a limb of a fruit bearing tree when they return from being off island.

#oc-tober #bweirdoctober #personal #dungeons and dragons #oc #Derrick #Coral #crownedinmarigolds #dnd #dnd oc

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disasterdrvid · 1 year

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What are your top 10 video games?

Thank u @shift-shaping for the tag!

I'm tagging @localfruit @star--nymph @wardenrainwall @full---ofstarlight @perfectblve @sneklesbian @magic-space-games @notebooks-and-laptops and anyone else who wants/I may have forgot to tag <3

These aren't in any particular order tbh

Dragon Age: Origins

Genuinely this game has some of the best writing in the series and really wants players invested in their characters as character origins intersect with the main plot. Inquisition was my first DA game but Origins rewired my brain chemistry.

2. Pokemon Soul Silver

Not my first Pokemon game nor my most recent but it was the one that came at a pivotal moment in my life. Many weeks of coming home from middle school and ignoring my homework to run around in the game.

3. Stardew Valley

Absolute classic and one I consistently go back to. Sometimes I need to turn off my brain and yearn for the mines.

4. Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

I was never a Zelda person growing up, but I picked up BotW this year in time to play TotK. Oh my god, this game made me cry multiple times with it's lovingly-crafted story. I love the act of exploration in this game and it's encouragement to find multiple solutions to the same problem. Truly one of the best games of the last decade.

5. Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

This game is such a mess and I love her dearly for it. It's character creation and leveling system is one of my favorite in any game and I'm very glad traces of it exist in Starfield (I'm not playing but my brother is and there's a lot of Oblivion love in it).

6. Cult of the Lamb

A very fun gameplay loop and roguelike combat make this super fun to replay. I don't come here for in-depth story (I've compared it to Happy Tree Friends in that regard), but I love the cult creation and maintenance.

7. Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

Underrated game of all time. It shows it age and there's elements of the story that don't work great but dear god I love it and I'm forever sad no one plays it. Lots of Irish folk inspiration, which I think would draw more people if they knew that was there.

8. Baldur's Gate 3

For context, I haven't actually been able to play but I've been consuming a lot of content for it so I know its up my alley. (My PC would explode bc I don't have the specs and it's not coming to Xbox for a bit 😭) But I love the characters and the DnD aspect so much.

9. Mass Effect

I'm not huge on shooters but the first Mass Effect really drew me in with its story. Not a perfect game by any stretch. However, it still feels fresh and new even now.

10. Tetris

Finally, original Tetris. Love me some shapes. First game I ever played because my mom had an old school Gameboy from before I was born that she handed down to me as a kid. Sadly can't play it on the original hardware (I still have it and it still runs!) because the screen is dogshit and I can't see, but luckily there's more places to play it now.

#this was fun!#also yes i almost exclusively play rpgs/jrpgs im aware

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maphel-n-doodles · 6 months

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Blog Maintenance & News

What's up everyone it's me ya boy. That guy who draws naruto n' shit. Anyways.

Here's a quick run down of my current projects for the year and what I hope to be doing in the last quarter of it.

COMMISSIONS

The que is currently six (6) pieces deep, in varying degrees of progress. (I opened Discord-only comms briefly in February as I was cycling through my work-load.)

I do not foresee any slots opening back up to the public until this work load is 100% complete. The household is relatively stable financially so I can allow myself this.

That said, the estimated time range is around late July to early August.

I aim for two commission batches before my next price update in December. However, given how things have been unfolding this past year, and how my pace has slowed dramatically after a few near run-ins with burn-out, I may only open slots once before then. (If this is the case, I will push off the price update until next year.)

COMMUNITY PROJECTS

To avoid over-promising and running into the same issues that I did middle of last year with near burn-out, I will not be participating in any Character or Ship Week related events.

I've also limited my involvement in larger scale projects down to two separate ones.

PATREON / KO-FI

I honestly don't know when this is going to happen. There's been a few set backs, and I would like to have some of the equipment I need before I even start setting up for the bi-yearly bundles and such, and also I am aware that my recent turn-out for projects is probably a bit of a turn-off for those who seek a machine.

I have a physical retail job. Like that's it I just have a life I can't be cranking out whole drawings every few days and I gotta figure out how I want to balance this with my other responsibilities if this comes to be.

Estimated launch would be beginning of next year— a whole year later than I originally wished to launch it.

PERSONAL PROJECTS

Boy howdy have I got a few of these cooking. It is a little rough working on wholly original works at times simply because I have an unhealthy fear of rejection when it comes to my art, but we are entering an era where Maphel will do as he pleases and post it as he pleases and it will not always be 100% anime men boinking.

My personal projects rn are:

Character Concepts and Designs for Vidja Game development

A small booklet of various DnD one-shots (This will not be available to public sowwy)

Super secret funny thing that will require a whole separate blog.

Working on outlining main story beats for a novella I want to write.

GENERAL

There's not really a lot going on.

Late April/Early May will be when I drop a forklift worth of wips, sneak peeks, and concept pieces in one massive post (or maybe two if it gets too big.)

There will be very little activity until then. See ya.

#blog maintenance #not art #text post

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calextheneko · 11 months

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Season of the Villains: The Forgotten One

Ok, going to admit it's pretty depressing that the idea I came up with to talk about villains all month and the series only has two posts. Will have to try again next year. Just, health has been a real struggle to do anything and most of the time I lay around just wishing the pain would stop.

But enough about real life things that suck. Time to get to fictional things that suck in a fun way!

So a bit of background before I introduce this villain. I'm a Forever GM when it comes to things like DnD and Pathfinder. Anyway after having run a lengthy Pathfinder campaign we were in the mood for something different. And not DnD of any edition cause it would be the same thing. Basically, we wanted to run a campaign in a setting that wasn't swords and sorcery. I wanted to run Mouse Guard, which I should have just used my GM override to say that's what they're playing. The rest of the party wanted to play Star Wars d20. So... Anyway, I bargained with them, and agreed to GM Star Wars under three conditions.

I got four sessions of Mouse Guard before we began Star Wars and they had to give it an honest chance. Lo and behold, even the guy who considered himself to manly to play Mouse Guard (lol at the fact that he's any kind of manly) admitted he enjoyed the game a lot and it was really good. So yay, if the game group had continued might have gotten a full campaign down the line but there were some problems with the group I can go over another time, mainly centering around two players who really hated each other that led to me just yeeting this group out the window eventually.

2. I would GM Star Wars, but I refused to set it in the modern era. If I was going to do Star Wars, I wanted to do the Old Republic. I found the setting infinitely more interesting than the modern era stuff and I really love that even the Sith Empire has a bit of nuance to it.

3. We're doing a primarily Sith campaign, because I wanted to do a campaign that involved Sith politics and power plays and not just 'You are destined to go defeat the bad guy.' I did say that after a certain point in the campaign they'd be given the freedom to leave the empire if they want and go see out the Republic to become jedi instead if that was what they wanted or become bounty hunters or anything, but the campaign was starting with all the force users as acolytes in the Sith Empire and the non-force users as mercs who had work in the Empire or were there for some other reason.

Anyway, that campaign is a heck of a story, but we're not here to recount the entire thing today, but instead talk about a villain meant to be a one off character who wound up taking the role of Main Villain for the entire campaign after a party member made some... Less than smart choices.

Introducing the Forgotten One

"I am the Forgotten One. My knowledge of the force and technology made me too dangerous to my people to be allowed to live but too valuable to kill. Instead, I was stripped of my name and identity and trapped in this prison for an eternity."

I sadly don't have any art for this guy.

BUT ANYWAY! When the party made a trip to Illum as part of their questline to build their lightsbabers. Or in the bounty hunter's case to get a crystal to power up his sniper rifle. They discover an old factory for mining crystals that has a strange structure built from force crystals, that turns out to be a powerful weapon that could be set to self-destruct and take out the planet. A bit of arguing here... See... The Star Wars party only had three people.

The Sith: Goal, become a Sith Lord, get a Dark Assembly set, master sith politics.

The Jedi: Despite being a sith campaign one person insisted no rolling a jedi. I allowed it under the condition he be flexible with his character since this was a sith campaign. After their original master is killed in the first section I also had them gain a new master through a holocron, someone who believed in balance in the force in life, and was willing to train them only under the condition they work together. His idea was that the light vs dark battles were tearing the article apart, and if he could train a jedi and a stih who could work as a team it would mean there was hope for peace for the galaxy if he could prove the two weren't incompatible. The Jedi will be the one ruining this guy's dreams and making all the bad decisions.

The Bounty Hunter: Non force user, wound up involved in the plot for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and having a kill order put out on them with the rest of the party's original mentor when he was killed off at the start of the game by a sith lord named Darth Umbra trying to make a power play for the Dark Council by eliminating "traitors" and "heretics" within the empire. Naturally said traitors and heretics were always found among the people who opposed her ascension.

Sith tried to set the thing to blow the planet up because knew about another research time that was researching force crystals and to see if there was a way to make force based technology that non force users could use. Jedi got super upset about this and wanted to undo it but I pointed out he didn't know in character the sith had sabotaged the Force Crystal Engine. Meanwhile unknown to them both the Bounty Hunter had witnessed the sabotage and already warned the researchers about it so they could fix it. Ah, such a healthy party dynamic this is.

But that's beside the point, on Illis, they found a Rakata Mind Prison. Now anyone familiar with the Rakata know that they're bad news, and Mind Prisons are bad. Anything inside a mind prison is SUPER BAD NEWS. Especially when the thing inside is a Rakata Force Ghost.

And so enter the Forgotten One. No one in the party is smart enough to pass their knowledge check to recognize what they're looking at so the Jedi touches it and his mind is ripped out of his body and transported inside where he meets the Forgotten One, who immediately assaults the Jedi's mental self so that he can try to steal his body. This ultimately fails because... And get this... The sith, despite how much he hated the jedi out of character realized something was wrong when the jedi completely stopped moving after touching the mind prison, and went inside the mind prison on purpose to back him up. Together they were able to stop the Forgotten One from taking over the jedi's body.

So... The Forgotten One changes his tone, talks about how he was robbed of his identity by the other rakata who feared him for his knowledge. Leaves out A LOT of information about the actual why and how he was imprisoned. It wouldn't fit the narrative of trying to make himself out as a victim. And claims that he's basically gone insane after being stuck in this void for years and that he knew it was wrong but tried to take the jedi's body because he was driven to desperation to get out of this void and see the world again.

And he makes an offer to both the sith and the jedi.

"I know secrets of the force that are all but forgotten to both the jedi and the sith." This should have been a red flag that he was already able to probe the jedi's mind for enough information to find out some things about the jedi and sith and current world that he should have had no way of knowing and show that he wasn't trustworthy as was literally already chowing down on the jedi's memories for information from the battle they had before the sith rescued him.

Anyway... The rakata offers a deal.

"Take me with you. Let me ride as a passenger in the back of your mind just so that I might see the galaxy again through your eyes. I just don't want to be stuck here. In exchange I'll grant you access to all the secrets of the force I know. I can make you more powerful that you dreamed possible."

NOW! Here's the fun part. This whole force ghost Rakata thing was intended as a trap for the sith. Tempt him with the dark power he wants to become a mighty sith lord and get him possessed.

But here's the thing about the Rakata. They went so hard dark side they basically made the sith look like cuddly puppies. Want to know why Tatooine is a desert and the Sand People hate outsiders and technology? Because the Sand People were slaves to the Rakata, tried to fight back with tech, and rather than come down to the planet in person and put the rebellion down, the Rakata decided to glass the entire planet turning it all into a desert and just leave. The Sand People now live in fear of the outsiders bringing in outside technology and bringing back the wrath of the Rakata who this time will not stop at just leaving the place a desert.

It's wroth noting, that all Rakata who were still alive and active and not ghosts or inside mind prisons also got severed from the force. It's unclear why at least from the old republic games. I'm sure there's a novel spin off that explains it. But it seems to be that they went so hard dark side they broke the balance of the force to the point the force just severed their entire species as a result to stop them from using those dark powers.

So... Rakata are bad news. Rakata in Mind Prisons are even worst news.

So anyway, the party fails their knowledge checks. Seriously, none of you invested points in Int? And don't recognize what a Rakata is and the level of threat they're facing. But the sith listens to this and recognizes this as a clear Faustian bargain. And is like, yeah I'm not letting a ghost into my body that's just asking trouble for down the line. And so he refuses and since the Forgotten One has already been defeated inside the Mind Prison and can't take their bodies by force now I'm like and that's the end of that character.

And then the jedi asks a stupid question.

"Will these powers make me stronger than the sith?"

Me Mentally Out of Character: Wait is he really considering this?

The Forgotten One In Character "Of course, you'd be the strongest force user alive."

Jedi "But is this going to be dark side stuff, I don't want to use the dark side."

The Forgotten One "Light and dark are such naive ways of looking at the Force. The Force is the Force. Light and dark are illusions you come up with. It is a tool and what matters is how you use the tool."

RED FLAG WARNING! Surely there's no way after the Forgotten One dodges the question about dark side powers that the jedi would

Jedi "I accept."

Me Mentally: *gears grinding to a halt as I realize I now have to rework the entire campaign storyline to deal with the jedi being possessed by an evil Rakata force ghost because he wants to be stronger than the sith character due to their out of character rivalry.

So... The Forgotten One enters the Jedi's mind and rides in the back of his head, and they all leave the Mind Prison. The Forgotten One is now free from his prison. The Sith checks out what the jedi looks like under Force Vision and discovers two auras... And the second one a super heavy dark side aura that something about it is wrong that it makes even the dark side heavy sith uncomfortable to examine it.

SO YAY! Mistakes have been made!

Now that we got to how the Forgotten One got released... Let's talk about his goals and abilities.

The Forgotten One was imprisoned instead of destroyed because his knowledge was considered too important too destroy and thus they couldn't just kill him. But there was also a secondary reason. They didn't want this guy returning to the force either. Also, it turns out that he tried to take over the Infinite Empire (The Rakata Empire that ruled the entire galaxy, same one that glassed Tatooine) through the use of forbidden force techniques and slaying all rivals. Through a great battle with many other Rakata and they finally managed to trap him in a mind prison and left it on Ilum where they thought no one would ever find it and hoped that the need ever arose to consult him about his knowledge because he was considered that dangerous.

Why is he dangerous? Well... KOTOR2 fans are going to appreciate this one. He ate people. Not their literal bodies. But like the Exile and Darth Nihilus he possessed the ability to consume people through the force, absorbing their power and making himself more powerful. This was how he became such a large scale threat by consuming more and more Rakata in the past.

And of course, he still has that power now. He's patient. He's waited thousands of years in his prison so he's patient enough to wait for the right time to tempt the jedi further. Waits for the jedi to be in a dire situation where the risk of character death exist. The player is kind of a wimp and freaks out anytime their character is actually challenged in combat, complaining about the CR being too high forgetting that combat is supposed to challenge them not be a cakewalk. I adjusted the CR to fit the strength of the party rather than their level. Anyway... When the jedi feels threatened and fears for his life in a battle against an apprentice of Darth Umbra (who you may remember as the original big bad at the start of the campaign) the ghost offers to save the jedi. Asks to be unleashed just for a few minutes so he can win the battle.

RED FLAG

The jedi agrees. The Force Ghost takes complete control of the jedi's body, makes a single gesture and the sith apprentice just falls to the ground and stops moving. Then the Forgotten One surrenders the body back to the Jedi, knowing now is not the time to make the power play to take control for real. And instead pretend he's keeping his part of the deal.

As for the body of the now defeated sith. It's still very much alive. It's breathing. Pulse is normal but slow as if they were asleep. They basically come off as asleep or comatose. Until the party sith checks out what the enemy sith looks like under force vision. And he learns two things. The enemy sith is just gone as far as the force is concerned. There's no aura at all. The body is alive, but the force that should run through all things is just gone. And the sith is naturally disturbed by the fact someone could basically just do the Star Wars equivalent of eating someone's soul, and do it so effortlessly. Then he checks force vision on the jedi and the Rakata again, and find that the Rakata aura has grown bigger. The Rakata didn't give the power he consumed to the jedi. He kept it for himself.

This would become a running theme, anytime the Forgotten One was allowed to let lose. His methods were cruel and the fates he gave arguably worse than death. When interrogating someone for information, he forcefully entered their mind and forced them to relive their worst most traumatic memories, with injuries from the day that traumatized then reappearing on their body as they rexperienced the memories till they broke and told him everything he wanted to know. And of course, he ate a lot more people, growing stronger and stronger... Until the Forgotten One's Aura looked like a massive dark aura surrounding the jedi with what appeared to resemble marinette strings as part of his aura running from his aura to the jedi's aura. It's pretty clear at this point he believes and treats the jedi as his puppet. Also every time the jedi unleashes the Forgotten One he gets a dark side point. You'd think this would be enough to make him realize the guy isn't his friend. BUT NOOOOOPE! And since the Forgotten One is inside of him he can't clearly examine its aura and see what is happening, and the Forgotten One has at this point began secretly influencing his mind with me making secret rolls for things so that the jedi would be blind to the darkness growing inside of him.

And here's the thing about how the Rakata worked manually. It could attempt to take over the jedi's body, manipulate his mind or force him to do something. If it did so the jedi got a will save. But the more people the Forgotten One consumed the higher the DC became to resist him. And... Each dark side point the jedi gained gave him a stacking -2 penalty to his will save. The Forgotten One is playing the long game, and allowing the jedi to think he's in control. When the Forgotten One tries to come out in a battle under the justification of 'self-defense' and the jedi doesn't want him to he makes a will save to suppress the rakata. He thinks he made his save because wisdom is his best stat and will his best save. In reality, the Rakata is pretending to lose to his willpower to give the jedi the illusion he's in control. By this point the Rakata has become so powerful because the jedi refuses to stop letting him off the leash, and as a result the jedi has been tainted by so many dark side points it's virtually impossible to make the save with anything other than a nat 20. All he had to do was STOP LETTING IT EAT PEOPLE and he wouldn't have had those dark side points or had the DC shoot so high up.

So we've talked a bit about the Forgotten One, and how he's gaining power and manipulating the jedi, but not his end goal. So what is it he wants? Well, he sees in the modern day (Well Old Republic era) that the Rakata are basically gone from the galaxy as a force. So, he wants to complete what he originally started. Become the ruler of the Infinite Empire that rules the entire galaxy. So his plans are basically to ride out the jedi until he's ready to take the body for himself so he has a body, infect others with a dark side mind control plague to become his followers, create a new Infinite Empire under his control and conquer the entire galaxy and become the sole all powerful rulers.

So world conquest. A basic, but always fun goal for a villain to have. And once he conquered the entire galaxy he would then turn his attention to outside the galaxy.

Also, I mentioned a Dark Side Mind Control Plague. So anyway, the sith and the bounty hunter recognize that this ghost is a problem and needs to be dealt with. And so outright tell the jedi this and that if he won't get rid of it they will. Which means the force ghost here this.

So what does the Forgotten One do? Well at this point he's powerfule enough to split his essence in two. Remember the body of the sith apprentice to Umbra? The party had it in their med bay for the entire campaign. One night while the party is asleep he splits a part of himself off and has it use the escape pod to run off in that sith's body since it's completely empty and nothing there to fight back. Doesn't need as much power to manipulate it so can basically keep it as a secondary body he can operate remotely while keeping the jedi as his main body. But if the jedi dies he has a secondary body with his essence installed in it to immediately travel to and make his main host.

Now... The Sith and Bounty Hunter are having none of this once they realize what happened. They track the escape pod and realize it was picked up by a space station. As they had been building a power base for a war with Umbra they had built up several pirate connections to use in place of lacking a proper Sith Empire Armada. So they sent their pirates to lock down the space station and make sure no one gets in or out until they can get there to deal with the escaped force ghost.

The jedi misses a session and we have an excuse he's gone for special training. So, the sith and the bounty hunter take this chance to go to the space station themselves while the jedi is away and they won't be observed by the Forgotten Run. Things are strange when they get there, and the station is literally on fire.

First off, they find the body of the sith apprentice. And this time it's not only empty but the body is dead again. They correctly deduce that it moved on to another host. But they run into a problem.

Force Zombies.

Basically a bunch of the random citizens of the colony act as if they're in a daze and don't understand anything said to them. But then all start trying to kill the party. And despite the fact they should have all been non force users, they were throwing out things like Force Lighting.

And when the party examines them on Force Vision, finds basically a little seed of darkness planted in them that matches the Forgotten One's Aura.

Dark Side Force Mind Control Plague.

The party meets up with the resistance inside the station still fighting back, and is told not to go to sleep. Because when you sleep is when it gets you and you change. The leader of the resistance helps them track down the current host body, who is inhabiting the body of a small girl and building some kind of antennae that the party figured out would actually allow him to extend his force powers to broadcast them to far away planets and influence them from afar to repeat what he's doing here.

Party kills the host body even though it's a little girl as basically learns the hard way these people are already dead. They're just hallowed out shells to be used as puppets by the Forgotten One. Then they destroy the antennae and make sure it's destroyed to a point it can never be rebuilt.

At that point, the Sith, who is now a Sith Lord with some political standing, forcefully recruits all the survivors of the event into his power base. To which there is surprisingly little push back from.

RED FLAG!

He thought it was because they were grateful. In reality, it was because the little girl was not the real host body. It was the leader of the resistance who was. But also knew they wouldn't leave till they thought they had destroyed the secondary Host Body and so created a cover story. In addition, the reason people change when they fall asleep is they've already been infected with the mind control plague. Once they're asleep they lose the ability to fight back being unconscious making it the opportune time to take over. So, the secondary Host Body AND a bunch of infected civilians join the Sith's power base.

And naturally, they start to secretly spread the infection among as many people as possible. Considering multiple stations on different planets each with their own population and them not limiting the plague to just the sith's power base. It's not long before they have millions or even billions infected. But, they keep the mind plague inert, waiting for the opportune time to activate it. After all, if they activate it right away, the party will realize they failed. Better to activate it when they have enough people to recreate the Infinite Empire in numbers. But this time, the empire shall become a single person who has complete control of all the bodies and minds of its members.

So how does this go for the jedi? Well the Forgotten One knows the sith and bounty hunter will tell the jedi what happened. So before that can happen, he tells the jedi that he needs to tell him something, about the atrocities committed by the rest of the party. He shows the party gunning and cutting down civilians at the colony including children. But edits the vision he shows the jedi to leave out the part they were all puppets to make it look like they just killed random innocent people. Something that would be even out of character for the sith but

Jedi: Ok I believe you.

Wow, I almost feel bad at this point cause he's making it too easy for this villain to just take over. The Forgotten One then explains that all he wanted to do was create a secondary host body and hide it somewhere away from the party and that's all he did. Just hide. A blatant lie. But he points out the party was planning to try to find a way to destroy him, which was true because he's freaking ridiculously over the top evil, and so he had only made a spare body as a safety measure and definitely hadn't done anything evil or questionable with it.

Jedi: Ok I believe you.

The party and the jedi meet up again, and the party tells the jedi what really happened. He refuses to listen to them because the party sith is a sith and therefore he can't trust him. No instead he's going to trust the obviously evil dark side force ghost inside his head. Even after at this point having caught it in a lie multiple times about various things it said it was doing or not doing.

So... Anyway the party encounters actual jedis at one point who freak out upon seeing the party jedi because they've never felt so much darkness before. The jedi insists he's light sided and a jedi. With the amount of dark side points he has being in the teens... That's laughable. Might have even hit twenty. Jedi demand if he's really a jedi that he disarm and come with them to be healed of whatever darkness is in them, ghost isn't having any of that, and fully take control of the jedi's body to defeat and consume all of the jedi.

So you know you'd think at this point it would be really obvious he needs to get rid of this thing. But no, that's not that makes him finally decide to get rid of it. It was the amount of darkside points. See, in order to be consider a fallen jedi your dark side points have to exceed your wisdom score. Since he had been pumping wisdom all campaign he was able to get like 20 dark side points without turning. That means 20 times he committed an evil action beyond redemption. This isn't even counting the times he did something screwed up like shoot an unarmed party member who he randomly decided was evil cause said party member killed an enemy unit that was fleeing to get reinforcements in which I let things slide and often with the "I'll withhold the dark point you should get with this action if you stop arguing about it." So he honestly should have already fallen but I was lenient when I really shouldn't have been.

But he finds himself in a troubling situation. His dark side points are now equal to his ridiculously high wisdom score. This means a single dark side will render him as fallen and block out all the light goodies he wanted. So... He finally... FINALLY! Considers that maybe it might be time to get rid of the ghost. Purely for meta reasons of not wanting to ruin his light side build instead of the 50 million in character reasons he has.

Luckily, I had a whole redemption plot planned where he could get rid of the ghost. The party was advised to go to Voss for healing. Now, he was told the ghost was so ingrained into him removing the Forgotten One would permanently de-power him. Chasing power is what got him into this mess. He had to be willing to take a loss of power in the form of -2 con in order to get rid of it. Then, he would have to do a ritual where he would enter his own mindscape, be confronted by his internal demons before finally facing off against the Force Ghost itself and trying to kill it in his mind to be rid of it.

There were a couple of fun twists planned here. One of them, was that if he killed the Forgotten One inside of him, the Forgotten One would survive by making Darth Umbra its main host. She was of course attacking the party's power base and occasionally capturing people and the backup body had used this as a chance to infect her. So the two villains competing for main villain would have become one.

The other twist, was I told the jedi he could get weaker for doing the ritual. What I didn't tell him is he would also get stronger. I had a reward for him, where he would learn a special Force Shield technique that would effectively make him immune to all mind effects. It was also going to be very important in the ending... Because he would have been able to use the Force Shield on the Forgotten One in whatever host body they were in, trapping it there and cutting it off from its connection to all the people it had mind controlled and made into part of him, saving them and trapping teh Forgotten One in a body he can't escape from thus killing the body would kill him.

Now it's very important I didn't tell him about this reward in advance. The point was he had to be willing to let go of power to complete the ritual and defeat the Forgotten One. He had to believe there was no reward beyond being free of the ghost. As a result, if I had told him about the Mind Shield in advance he would have known he was getting an awesome new power and had that be his motivation instead.

Anyway... This is where our Jedi's story ends. Because he's stupid.

He's told he will not survive his mindscape alone and quickly be overwhelmed by his personal demons unless he brings friends with him that he can trust. His other issue in this campaign is refusing to trust his fellow party members even when they're helping him despite him acting more evil than the sith. Also I'm not spending 6 hours running a solo adventure for him. The entire party gets to come.

He refuses to bring the party. Is told both in and out of character if he goes into the mindscape alone he will die. Literally told over ten times counting both in and out of characters being told.

But he says he can't trusts the party so goes in alone, and dies. And then gets mad at me for not balancing the encounters right and I'm like no the encounters for balanced fine. For the entire party to be there. You went in solo to take on a dungeon intended for the entire group despite being told it would get you killed.

So, the jedi's spirit is destroyed. The Forgotten One takes full control of his body and steals the party's starship and flies off to finish his plans.

He would later return as the final boss after Darth Umbra was defeated, revealing that he had been using Umbra as a pawn after her infection to rebuild the antennae on an old Rakata station after the party destroyed the last one.

The party and the Forgotten One fight, and with all the power it absorbed over the cmapaign while living in the jedi, and then even more power absorbed once it had the body to itself to be free to do what it wants it's a powerful foe that would put the entire dark council to shame. The party is now facing a threat that is on par with the Emperor itself.

Somehow, the party turns the tables, and starts to squeak out a win. But the Forgotten One then warns them. It's still connected to everyone that it infected including the ones that the mind plague is inert in. If the party strikes him down, his final actions will be to activate all the inert mind plagues joining everyone with him so that billions of people die, including people the party cares about and much of their own power base if they strike him down.

The party considers briefly, but decides that they have to do it despite the cost. Because those people are already basically dead if he lives as soon as he decides to activate the inert mind plague and chooses to strike him down. Sure enough, true to his word, billions throughout the galaxy instantly drop dead. But the nightmare is finally over.

The party blames the deaths on Darth Umbra, and the super weapon she was building. Which was only a half lie since the super weapon was the force antennae that would allow him to project his powers to a much greater range. And they are forced to dispose of the body of the jedi that the Forgotten One had been riding in, putting the body of their former friend to rest even if he never treated them like friends.

But though the Forgotten One is dead, the impact he left on the galaxy will never heal. Billions dead. Several traumatized, and entire worlds with their infrastructure in tatters things to the people in charge of running things dropping dead. The party has won a victory, but one that came at a heavy cost.

And all because a single jedi refused to turn away from power.

#Halloween #Season of the villains #Star Wars #StarWarsd20 #DnD #Rakata #Forgotten One #Force Ghost #Mind Prison #Jedi #Sith #Bounty Hunter #Table Top RPG #RPG #Sometimes Players Make Really Stupid Choices And You Can Do Nothing But Let Them Play Out

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