#watch oxventure presents!!!

[molly-yasha]

Episode 7, the first time somebody thought to go to cover.

[victorluvsalice]

AU Thursday: Valicer In The Dark (the Blades In The Dark AU)

Yes, finally, actually doing a PROPER POST on this AU that I’ve mentioned in passing a couple of times! How it came about is like this:

1. I’m a fan of Outside XBox, Outside Xtra, and their DnD stuff, Oxventure

2. While perusing the Funny Moments section of Oxventure on TV Tropes one day last year, I found that they had a side series where they play “Blades In The Dark” (where you and your friends play a daring criminal gang in a world that used to be a fun fantasy setting, but then the apocalypse happened, the sun exploded, most of the continents got sunk/flooded, the seas are now like liquid space full of whale-demons, there are ghosts everywhere because something happened to the afterlife, and they hunt the whale demons because you can make electricity out of their blood).

3. Intrigued, I read the TV Tropes page on BitD, then went over to the official website, and eventually got so into it I ordered a PDF of the book so I could get to know the setting and the mechanics properly and do what I always do in these situations -- stat up Victor and Alice, and in this case Smiler (as I was getting into that around the same time as the Valicer stuff took off in my brain)!

And yeah, this has been a little side project I’ve poked at from time to time ever since! It’s a fun little AU, and I’ve been enjoying adapting the trio to the setting of the RPG. Here’s the basics of what I’ve come up with so far:

Alice was the daughter of Dean Arthur Liddell of the prestigious Doskvol Academy (located in Whitecrown, THE fancy bit of Duskwall, the central city of the setting -- the Lord Governor lives there, away from the riffraff) and his wife Lorina, and the younger sister of Lizzie. The family had a happy life living in Brightstone (the next-fanciest district) -- up until one Angus Bumby entered Doskvol Academy and became obsessed with Lizzie. When she rebuffed his advances, he broke into the house, had his way with her, and set the place on fire to both cover his crime and try to destroy the bodies so they couldn’t let out ghosts. Alice was the sole survivor, and after a year in hospital spent convalescing from her burns, got sent to Rutledge Asylum, here situated right next to Duskwall’s freaking PRISON. This Alice is probably the only one who had a WORSE time in there than in canon, as psychiatry is basically an unknown art in Duskwall, and I imagine a lot of lunatics are just locked up to rot or have their souls ripped out so they can become slave labor -- a fate Alice avoided solely due to being a minor. She still had her Wonderland in this world, though, and was able to use it to lever herself out of her catatonia and eventually deal with her grief enough to join the waking world. . .and promptly ended up sent to the Hounsditch Home in Charhollow (one of the “poor but honest” districts), where she was to help the owner, Dr. Bumby, as general dogsbody. As per A:MR, after about a year here, Wonderland kicked her in the pants and helped her realize Bumby was the one that killed her family -- but unlike canon, by the time of the main action of the AU, she has NOT pushed him onto any train tracks. Mostly because that would likely result in him leaving a ghost, and a spectral Bumby is the LAST thing she wants to deal with. Her playbook is the Cutter, the fighters and heavy hitters, and she starts with the Not To Be Trifled With special ability, which allows her to push herself to perform superhuman feats of strength and fighting prowess (including taking up to six people at once!).

Victor is the son of William and Nell Van Dort, fish merchants living in Nightmarket (one of the main shopping districts, and where the “new money” tends to live). William invented canned fish when Victor was young, which the public pounced on, and his canneries easily made the Van Dorts the wealthiest family in Nightmarket. Nell wanted to eventually make the transition to Brightstone, though, and thus when Victor came of age, she started trying to arrange a marriage with one of the noble families living there. She got lucky shortly before the beginning of the AU, as the Everglots (an old noble family whose fortunes were on the downswing -- noble families control the ships that hunt the whale-demon “leviathans” in this world, and their ship was coming back dry more often than not, meaning their power, prestige, and most importantly coin was running out) consented to let Victor marry their daughter Victoria in exchange for some of that sweet sweet Van Dort fortune. As per canon, Victor and Victoria met right before the wedding rehearsal, and while they liked each other, it wasn’t enough to calm Victor’s nerves. Three hours of failed practice, one dropped ring, and one burn on Maudeline Everglot’s dress from a forgotten candle later, and Victor was banished into the streets to learn his lines. He wandered around for a while, trying to get them straight in his head, and eventually got them right down an old forgotten alley. . .only for the wandering ghost of a bride, Emily, to hear them and think they were meant for her. Victor was promptly dragged into the “ghost field,” the spectral echo of the city where ghosts live, and held captive by Emily (whom he did feel sorry for, but ghosts are bad news in Duskwall -- they tend to lose their minds quickly due to not being able to pass on, and Emily was showing a few signs of “going feral,” as it were). The main AU is actually kicked off by him finally escaping her and finding his way back to the material plane by falling out of a wall in front of Alice and Smiler. . . His playbook is the Whisper, the arcane and magical ones, and he starts with the Ghost Sense special ability, which allows him to sense the presence of all supernatural things in his area and have an easier time getting information on them.

Smiler was the “son” of one Dr. Kellard Kelman, owner of The Sanctuary, a refuge for people who have “lost their smile” -- in actuality, a horrible hellhole of a “mental hospital” where Dr. Kelman conducted experiments on the patients and threw failures in the basement. Smiler and their father clashed about a lot of things (including Kelman’s brutal methods for ensuring “social compliance” and his refusal to accept Smiler as nonbinary), and eventually Smiler just ran away at about twelve years old, rather than be a part of Kelman’s nonsense any further. They ended up in Silkshore (the “red light” district), where they encountered Carol and Matthew Alton, members of the Advocates cult, who worship Mar-Mal, the Unending Smile. Matt and Carol took in the young Smiler and told them what the cult was all about (basically, maximizing happiness however possible, from genuine kind acts to straight-up selling drugs and hypnotizing people) -- Smiler thought it all sounded better than Kelman’s deal and joined up, changing their name from Marmaduke Kelman to Smiler Alton. They proved to be a very eager little cultist, developing a knack for hypnosis and -- as they got older -- a talent with chemical concoctions, eventually making a drug that induced a heavy state of bliss that they called Joy Serum. The invention of this drug caused Mar-Mal to mark them with its favor, turning their previously green eyes a glowing yellow (Matt and Carol were so proud!). At the start of the main AU, they spend most of their time brewing up and selling Joy Serum in Silkshore -- not far from The Mangled Mermaid where Alice’s old nanny now plies her trade as a prostitute, meaning Smiler and Alice are at least somewhat acquainted just from her visits to see Nan there. Their playbook is -- well, it’s mostly the Leech, the tinkerers and chemists, but they also share some stuff with the Slide playbook, the smooth-talkers and manipulators. They start with the Alchemist special ability, which gives them bonuses to any alchemical concoctions they craft and a free recipe (like their Joy Serum).

How they meet -- Well, as indicated, Smiler and Alice were already acquainted from Alice’s trips to see Nan in Silkshore, with Smiler being a friendly presence who’d helped Alice out a couple of times in the past (spotting her money for meals and suchlike). As a result, when Alice fled the Houndsditch Home looking for help with her Bumby problem (either a way to bring evidence to the Inspectors, the only members of the police force known to be incorruptible, or at least not subject to bribes, or a way to kill him and make sure he didn’t come back as a ghost), her first instinct was to go to Nanny, and along the way she encountered Smiler. Her attempt to tell them what was going on was interrupted by Victor’s attempted escape from Emily, however, and the two ended up helping him over to the Mangled Mermaid to just get some food and water in him and help him calm down after his experience. Unfortunately, Emily managed to follow them there and got rather annoyed at finding her husband in a brothel -- fortunately, before she could do any damage, Smiler managed to talk her down (mainly by reminding her that humans gotta eat). Victor took the opportunity to finally explain to her what he’d been doing and that he was already engaged --

But when he mentioned Victoria’s name, Nanny commented that she’d heard that she’d already gotten married that day, to someone named “Lord Barkis.” And Emily recognized the “Barkis” name, as that was the name of the man who killed her. She and Victor agreed they had to go see Victoria for her own good, just in case she’d gotten married to a murderer, and Smiler and Alice chose to come along as back-up. The three took a gondola over to Brightstone (as Duskwall is part Venice as well as being part Victorian London, and is cut all over the place by canals) and crashed the Everglot-Barkis wedding reception, where Emily did indeed identify Barkis as her murderer. Barkis attempted to take Victoria hostage as the guests fled, but the group was able to free her -- Victor sending her away to get help or at least find a safe place to hide -- and Emily ended up destroying herself to possess Barkis and kill him, thanking Victor for at least helping her get revenge on her killer. The local police, the Bluecoats, finally arrived once the deed was done, and searched the corpse while the trio tried to explain what happened --

And then one of the Bluecoats found a fancy brass mask on Barkis. Marking him as one of the Spirit Wardens, the group that goes around collecting corpses and burning them in electroplasm to make sure that the city isn’t entirely overrun by ghosts. A group of people bankrolled by the Immortal Emperor himself.

Yeah, that’s not good. The Bluecoats, already not really believing the gang’s story, decided they’d murdered Barkis (or, at least Alice and Smiler had -- Victor got added to the list when he refused to just run off back home or bribe them) and were prepared to take them in, but Alice managed to hold off the entire gang with a butcher’s knife just long enough for them to start running. Through various means (like Smiler just straight-up injecting a purser with joy serum and using a homemade flash bomb, and Victor managing to accidentally lead a couple more into a very angry, very electric ghost by using his new Ghost Sense to help his new friends avoid it), the trio was able to escape into Six Towers, a previously rich neighborhood fallen to ruin and squatters in recent years. They found shelter in an abandoned building, which proved to be the old home of one Elder Gutknecht, a former Whisper who had managed to keep his senses after death and become a genuinely friendly ghost. The three began wondering what to do next, and Alice finally told Victor and Smiler the full story about Bumby. . .

And either Victor or Smiler was like, “Well, we’re already accused of murder. . .”

And so the group became a crew, with their first scores being to take care of Bumby and to get Victor’s stuff back from his family house! I picture them as a group of Shadows, spies, thieves, and saboteurs, though there’s a bit of a Hawker element because Smiler is of course still selling Joy Serum (and is working on an inhaled drug called Giggler Gas). And even though they are criminals, they’re trying to help where they can -- Victor, after figuring out how to infuse insects with ghost stuff to make glowing moths and stuff to help plants grow, wants to make a community greenhouse for people; Alice still looks after the kids at Houndsditch as best she can from afar, and is only too happy to kill other people hurting children for free; and Smiler of course does want to spread happiness, even if it’s in a bit of a bizarre way sometimes. They’re my chaos crime morally gray group and I love them. :p Hopefully I’ll be able to flesh them out even more for you in the future!

[leftmysoulbythesideoftheroad]

i am forever grateful that i learned to love beer while i was buying it for myself because it means that my taste is so goddamn cheap. i got a 12 pack of miller high life for $10, and that’s at least two nights of getting comfortably tipsy without feeling guilty about spending money we don’t have

[the-last-teabender]

I've seen (and heard about) a lot of Oxventure posts that are talking about how Oxventurers Guild was bad but Wyrdwood is good.

One - I hate to see two bad bitches pitted against each other.

Two - Speaking from experience, you can't be a table like Wyrdwood without having been a table like the Oxventurers Guild.

Did people not know the rules? Yes. Did people play suboptimally? Yes. Did Johnny bend rules and consequences to move things along? Yes. But people seem to forget that the first Oxventure campaign started with basically zero previous experience. We were watching people learning.

Yesterday I was talking with @randomthunk about this, and I compared watching Oxventure from beginning to present like reading The Dark Tower. Reading The Gunslinger and watching that story progress over seven books gave me confidence as a writer. You can start imperfect. You can make mistakes. You can be less than your best as you're getting your feet under you, and a willingness and enthusiasm to do that will take you to greatness. Plus, it's a story of an author evolving as much as it's a story of Roland Deschain going to the Tower.

I think many many other actual plays have given people unrealistic expectations, where Oxventure (as I've said before) brought me back to gaming. And as much as I think a person could come to Wyrdwood new and love it, the Oxventurers Guild campaign makes what comes next so much more meaningful. We've seen what each player does well across the original and side campaigns, and we got to see that because of the freedom the first campaign gave them. Now we get to see those natural talents paired with an understanding of the system (which we were already seeing in Blades and Deadlands, but now we have a 1 to 1 comparison).

In my first stint in gaming 20 years ago, I didn't have the freedom at my original table to learn and make mistakes. You got it right or you got mocked. I have good tables I love now because I began seeking out tables that reminded me of Oxventure: willing to go on tangents, willing to help each other, okay with fudging things on the fly if it preserved our good time. I'm a better player now because I had those experiences.

tl;dr your taste is your taste and some things are naturally gonna hit you better than others, but writing off the Oxventurers Guild because the mechanics weren't as tight is missing the entire point of how this group has evolved.

[officialgleamstar]

im so so close to caught up to oxventure d&d like SO close, and i wanna finish it asap so i know im ready for the new season, but god i wanna watch oxventure presents blades in the dark gjfhghfbdhjgbfdhjbj i wanna know what the fuck is going on with those guys ...

[blternative]

I know Blades in the Dark is in the same timeline as Oxventure but what if Deadlands is too? By the time Blades is taking place magic is largely non-existent and ghosts plague the world because of the unnamed and unknown cataclysm, Luke has said they're going to continue the series eventually and the end goal is bringing magic back, so what if it is brought back but isn't the same as it was? The corruption is reestablished but isn't as strong as it was before and what is present has become corrupted, humans have forgotten the ways of their ancestors because of the technological advancements which has brought its own new evils into the world that have become manifest in the various monsters that now roam the dark corners of the unsettled frontier. There's very little to no writings on the previous magical era of Geth, that time only existing in tales that become taller with each generation and artifacts that lose more and more of their magical properties with each passing day. Magic is now supernatural events and freaks of nature that can only appear in bursts or through the manipulations of creatures strong enough to have a presence on the material plane (like the devil Garnet plays cards with in order to use magic). Just a random thought I had when watching an episode.

[taggedmemes]

SENTENCE MEME ⟶ OXVENTURE PRESENTS: DEADLANDS / ch6 always feel free to tweak the sentence to fit your muse.

'his understanding of what a fancy person is is pretty far from what a fancy person actually is.'

'we killed it, but at a cost.'

'my chest feels tight.'

'this is a medical office, right?'

'we might not be immediately made. at a distance. perhaps.'

'at least we know there's a dark room we could hide in if we need to.'

'was it that zombie guy that tipped you off?'

'i think we need to be super duper careful.'

'we should hide. quick.'

'how heavily armed are these doctors going to be?'

'regular dudes? we can take these guys out.'

'stop the machine!'

'you better listen to the lady.'

'he likes the cut of your jib.'

'still got a bloody cough!'

'yes i'm aware. he's a human without ten thousand dollars.'

'i didn't vote for ya!'

'i mean, i've heard rumours...'

'if you're gonna go round intimidating people...'

'if he wasn't a terrible person this would be adorable.'

'it's like watching a melting candle. it's not great.'

'please come up here for... normal things! please come up here please!'

'do you think i am stupid?'

'i guess it was a rhetorical question.'

'goddamn! who keeps turning off the lights!'

'let's get out of here before he does anything panicky.'

'my dang ego!'

'oh, you ask about him first, not me!'

'you caused it, you get second dibs.'

'you uppercut him out of his shoes.'

'lockdown's over you old bastard!'

'i don't know who you are sir!'

'he's too sweet to become like you is sir!'

'i'm changed! i saw a guy melt!'

'MY MAMA PACKED IT FOR ME!'

'it worked, didn't it?!'

'get out of my security office you dang owl hoot!'

'he was a pillar of salt!'

'he was so rude to the staff and he tried to assault one of the staff!'

'i voted for that man...'

'he's on the other side.'

'he's dead, honey.'

'he did not respond well to treatment.'

'how much exactly have you seen here in the hospital?'

'i don't suppose you could be persuaded to look the other way?'

'what we do here looks monstrous to some...'

'really, it is for the greater good. for example, you have a trolley...'

'the money is... pleasant, but not important.'

'i don't think he felt like much of a hero when he was stuck in that tube.'

'no offense to your friend, but these people are not doing anything with their lives.'

'what if we put you in the tube?!'

'i'll give you a choice: either you get out of my office, or i kill you.'

'i'm lookin' like a giant porcupine out here!'

'i'm not a vampire you idiot.'

'what are you?!'

'love is the higher power, right?'

'i'd like to see less of that, to be honest.'

'shall we see if we can bring him back to life or whatever? i dunno, i'm not a real medical guy.'

'if it works it works. if it doesn't, well... he's dead.'

[thevalicemultiverse]

OOC: Valicer In The Dark Verse Officially Open!

Here's the pertinent details, copied from my official Verse Google Doc:

~V: Valicer In The Dark (VITD)

It is a world of darkness — literally, in this case, because the sun exploded eight and a half centuries ago. In this land of eternal night, the city of Duskwall has established itself as both the premiere port of the Imperium of the Immortal Emperor, with hunters bringing in the gallons of living leviathan blood that powers the lightning barriers that keep the horrors of the deathlands around at bay...and as a vicious hub of crime and violence, fueled by the vast inequality between rich and poor. Within said city, Alice Liddell was dealing with the demons of her past as she battled hallucinations both beautiful and grim; Victor Van Dort was preparing for an arranged marriage that would elevate his nouveau riche family to the status they felt they’d deserved; and Smiler Alton was just trying to sell happiness in a syringe in the name of the cult of the Advocates and their god Mar-Mal. But then, one foggy “day,” a chance meeting between the three changed everything...

Premise: You can blame the folks over at OXBox and OXtra for this one. Specifically, you can blame their two seasons of “Oxventure Presents: Blades In The Dark.” Even MORE specifically, you can blame their “funny moments” pages for Oxventure and other RPG campaigns on TV Tropes, which happened to mention “Oxventure Presents: Blades In The Dark” and provided a link to the page for BITD for me to read through and decide “well, I want to know more about this.” And after perusing the official website, purchasing and reading the PDF of the official book, and watching both seasons of the Oxventure series — yeah, it was kind of inevitable that I’d end up making my own AU set in the city of Duskwall for my new OT3 of Victor, Alice, and Smiler. I highly recommend going to John Harper’s official BITD site for more information about how the actual RPG itself works, and the book is a real fun read, but here’s the basics to keep in mind regarding the world:

As stated in the blurb, the world is pretty much always dark — there was a cataclysm AGES ago that shattered the continents and blew up the sun, leaving only weak embers that flare up a tiny bit at dawn and dusk (I imagine the sky turns vaguely purple for a little bit, then that’s it). Hand lanterns are a popular accessory in the city!

That same cataclysm also made it so the dead no longer pass onto the afterlife, so the entire world is EXTREMELY HAUNTED, with feral ghosts trying to possess people and feast on their life essence being both a feared fate and a fact of life for the people of this world. The mysterious and anonymous Spirit Wardens collect the bodies of the dead to burn them in special fires to prevent ghosts from escaping (if they can get to them in time), and every city is surrounded by a powerful lightning barrier to hold off the hordes of ghosts, demons, and other unknowable horrors in the lands beyond (aka the mentioned “deathlands”). 

The basic aesthetic of the world is dark, grungy steampunk — except instead of steam, the power source of choice is “electroplasm,” the raw essence of life most often harvested from the blood of leviathans — vast demonic creatures in the ink-black seas around Duskwall. Electroplasm, as the name suggests, is what fuels anything electric in the city, from humble street lamps to the giant lightning barriers. It also allows them to grow food without sunlight, as certain creatures (mainly sea life held in giant aquariums) and plants can be infused with the stuff to turn them into “radiant energy” generators, which glow brightly and allow the plants around them to grow faster and better. Every noble family in the city has a leviathan hunter ship, and fortunes turn on the amount of blood they bring back.  John Harper himself said it best at the end of the book (Blades In The Dark, page 308): “This was once a storybook fantasy world of magic and wonders, which was destroyed and an industrial civilization was built on top of the ruins. Don’t expect scientific realism here.”

As for our main characters and their places in this world. . .

Alice was the daughter of Dean Arthur Liddell of the prestigious Doskvol Academy (located in Whitecrown, THE fancy bit of Duskwall – the Lord Governor lives there, away from the riffraff) and his wife Lorina, and the younger sister of Lizzie. The family had a happy life living in Brightstone (the next-fanciest district) – up until one Angus Bumby entered Doskvol Academy and became obsessed with Lizzie. When she rebuffed his advances, he broke into the house, had his way with her, and set the place on fire to both cover his crime and try to destroy the bodies so they couldn’t let out ghosts. Alice was the sole survivor, and after a year in hospital spent convalescing from her burns, got sent to Rutledge Asylum, here situated right next to Ironhook – Duskwall’s freaking PRISON. This Alice is probably the only one who had a WORSE time in there than in canon, as psychiatry is basically an unknown art in Duskwall, and most everyone with some sort of mental trauma is just locked up to rot or has their soul ripped out so they can become an empty Hollow zombie to be used as cheap slave labor – a fate Alice avoided solely due to being a minor. She still had her Wonderland in this world, though, and was able to use it to lever herself out of her catatonia and eventually deal with her grief enough to join the waking world…and promptly ended up sent to the Houndsditch Home in Charhollow (one of the “poor but honest” districts), where she helped the owner, Dr. Bumby, as a general dogsbody and girl-of-all-work, and received his special hypnosis-based therapy to help her forget her past. As per A:MR, after about a year there, Wonderland kicked her in the pants and helped her realize Bumby was the one that killed her family – but unlike canon, by the time of the main action of the AU, she has NOT pushed him onto any train tracks. Mostly because that would likely result in him leaving a ghost, and a spectral Bumby is the LAST thing she wants to deal with. 

Victor is the son of William and Nell Van Dort, fish merchants living in Nightmarket (one of the main shopping districts, and where the “new money” tends to live). William invented canned fish when Victor was young, which the public pounced on, and his canneries easily made the Van Dorts the wealthiest family in Nightmarket. Nell wanted to eventually make the transition to Brightstone, though, and thus when Victor came of age, she started trying to arrange a marriage with one of the noble families living there. She got lucky shortly before the beginning of the AU, as the Everglots (an old noble family whose fortunes were on the downswing thanks to their leviathan hunter ship coming back dry more often than not, meaning their power, prestige, and most importantly coin was running out) consented to let Victor marry their daughter Victoria in exchange for some of that sweet sweet Van Dort fortune. As per canon, Victor and Victoria met right before the wedding rehearsal, and while they liked each other, it wasn’t enough to calm Victor’s nerves. Three hours of failed practice, one dropped ring, and one burn on Maudeline Everglot’s dress from a forgotten candle later, and Victor was banished into the streets to learn his lines. He wandered around for a while, trying to get them straight in his head, and eventually got them right down an old forgotten alley…only for the wandering ghost of a bride, Emily, to hear them and think they were meant for her. Victor was promptly dragged into the “ghost field,” the spectral echo of the city where ghosts live, and held captive by Emily (whom he did feel sorry for, but ghosts are bad news in Duskwall – they tend to lose their minds quickly due to not being able to pass on, and Emily was showing a few signs of “going feral,” as it were). The main AU is actually kicked off by him finally escaping her and finding his way back to the material plane by falling out of a wall in front of Alice and Smiler… 

Smiler was the “son” of one Dr. Kellard Kelman, owner of The Sanctuary, a refuge for people who have “lost their smile” – in actuality, a horrible hellhole of a “mental hospital” where Dr. Kelman conducted experiments on the patients and threw failures in the basement. Smiler and their father clashed about a lot of things (including Kelman’s brutal methods for ensuring “social compliance” and his refusal to accept Smiler as nonbinary), and eventually Smiler just ran away at about twelve years old, rather than be a part of Kelman’s nonsense any further. They ended up in Silkshore (the “red light” district), where they encountered Carol and Matthew Alton, members of the Advocates cult, who worship Mar-Mal, the Unending Smile. Matt and Carol took in the young Smiler and told them what the cult was all about (basically, maximizing happiness however possible, from genuine kind acts to straight-up selling drugs and hypnotizing people) – Smiler thought it all sounded better than Kelman’s deal and joined up, changing their name from Marmaduke Kelman to Smiler Alton. They proved to be a very eager little cultist, developing a knack for hypnosis and – as they got older – a talent with chemical concoctions, eventually making a drug that induced a heavy state of bliss that they called Joy Serum. The invention of this drug caused Mar-Mal to mark them with its favor, turning their previously green eyes a glowing yellow (Matt and Carol were so proud!). At the start of the main AU, they spend most of their time brewing up and selling Joy Serum in Silkshore – not far from The Mangled Mermaid where Alice’s old nanny now plies her trade as a prostitute, meaning Smiler and Alice were acquainted just from her visits to see Nan there (Smiler in fact just straight-up gave Alice some money to buy lunch one day, making them about the closest thing she had to a friend there). 

So! With all that in mind, the actual meat of the AU starts with Alice having fled the Houndsditch Home looking for help with her Bumby problem (either a way to bring evidence to the Inspectors, the only members of the police force known to be incorruptible, or at least not subject to bribes, or a way to kill him and make sure he didn’t come back as a ghost). Her first instinct was to go to Nanny, and along the way she encountered Smiler, packing up after finishing their sales for the day. They asked her what was wrong, and she decided she could trust them enough to let them in on what she’d found — however, her attempt to tell them what was going on was interrupted by Victor’s attempted escape from Emily, as he fell out of the ghost field in front of him. Concerned, the two ended up helping him over to the Mangled Mermaid to get some food and water in him and help him calm down after his experience. Unfortunately, Emily managed to follow them there and got rather annoyed at finding her husband in a brothel – fortunately, before she could do any damage, Smiler managed to talk her down (mainly by reminding her that humans gotta eat). Victor took the opportunity to finally explain to her what he’d been doing and that he was already engaged –

But when he mentioned Victoria’s name, Nanny commented that she’d heard that she’d already gotten married that day, to someone named “Lord Barkis.” And Emily recognized the “Barkis” name, as that was the name of the man who killed her. She and Victor agreed they had to go see Victoria for her own good, just in case she’d gotten married to a murderer, and Smiler and Alice chose to come along as back-up, and to talk to the Bluecoats (nickname for the local police) about Alice’s recent revelation over her family’s death not being an accident, but instead murder. The four took a gondola over to Brightstone (as Duskwall is part Venice as well as being part Victorian London, and is cut all over the place by canals) and crashed the Everglot-Barkis wedding reception, where Emily did indeed identify Barkis as her murderer. Barkis attempted to take Victoria hostage as the guests fled, but the group was able to free her – Victor sending her away to get help or at least find a safe place to hide – and Emily ended up destroying herself to possess Barkis and kill him with an electroplasmic bomb he had on him for some reason, thanking Victor for at least helping her get revenge on her killer and tossing a spare bomb to Alice to help with her own issues. The Bluecoats finally arrived once the deed was done, and searched the corpse while the trio tried to explain what happened –

And then one of the Bluecoats found a fancy brass mask on Barkis. Marking him as one of the Spirit Wardens, the group that goes around collecting corpses and burning them in electroplasm to make sure that the city isn’t entirely overrun by ghosts. A group of people bankrolled by the Immortal Emperor himself.

Yeah, that wasn’t good. The Bluecoats, already not really believing the gang’s story, decided they’d murdered Barkis (or, at least Alice and Smiler had – Victor got added to the list when he refused to just run off back home or bribe them) and were prepared to take them in, but Alice managed to hold off the entire patrol with a butcher’s knife just long enough for them to start running. Through various means (like Alice practically leaping over a carriage in her way double-jump style, Smiler just straight-up injecting a purser with Joy Serum, and Victor managing to accidentally lead a couple more into a very angry, very electric ghost by using his new ability to sense hidden ghosts to help his new friends avoid it), the trio was able to escape into Six Towers, a previously rich neighborhood fallen to ruin and squatters in recent years. They found shelter in an abandoned building, which proved to be the old home of one Elder Gutknecht, a former occult researcher who had managed to keep his senses after death and become a genuinely friendly ghost. The three began wondering what to do next, and Alice finally told Victor and Smiler the full story about Bumby…

And then Victor and Smiler were like, “Well, we’re already accused of murder…”

And so the group became a crew of criminals, ready to take that bastard Bumby out of the picture, before moving onto more traditional scores. I picture them as a group of Shadows, spies, thieves, and saboteurs, though there’s a bit of a Hawker element because Smiler is of course still selling Joy Serum (and is working on an inhaled drug called Giggler Gas). And even though they are criminals, they’re trying to help where they can – Victor, after figuring out how to infuse insects with electroplasm to make glowing moths and stuff to help plants grow, wants to make a community greenhouse for people; Alice still looks after the kids at Houndsditch as best she can from afar, and is only too happy to kill other people hurting children for free; and Smiler of course does want to spread happiness, even if it’s in a bit of a bizarre way sometimes. They’re my chaos crime morally gray group and I love them.

Character tags include:

~C: Victor Van Dort (a kind-hearted if not always clear-thinking new-money noodle of a young man, whose anxiety has NOT been helped by being kidnapped, however, briefly, by a ghost bride. He’s doing his best to cope, though, and train his new powers. He is the group’s Whisper (who are the ones who develop a special affinity for the ghostly and demonic in the city) and has the ability Ghost Mind, which allows him to sense every ghost in his presence no matter if they’re visible or not)

~C: Alice Liddell (a young lady with a tongue as sharp as her favorite blade, she nonetheless tries to do the right thing by the people around her, and has a soft spot for cats, rabbits, and her newfound friends. If only she could do something about those damn hallucinations… She is the group’s Cutter (the ones who are best suited to solving a problem with violence), and has the abilities Not To Be Trifled With, which allows her to push herself to perform a feat of great physical force, or to take on up to six people at once on equal footing, and The Devil’s Footsteps, which allows her to push herself to perform a feat of great athletic prowess or maneuver in such a way that she tricks her enemies into attacking each other)

~C: Smiler Alton (a cheerful nonbinary person always ready with a smile, a friendly word, and, if necessary, a needle full of Joy Serum to make people happy. They genuinely want to make the world a better, brighter place — just their ideas of how to do so are strongly informed by growing up in a happiness cult. . . They are the group’s Slide (the ones who are the smooth-talkers and master manipulators) and Leech (the ones who are the chemists and tinkerers), and have the ability Alchemist, which makes them better at crafting anything alchemical (like their Joy Serum))

This verse has no time period or subverse tags.

This verse may touch upon such subjects as rape, murder, burglary, weird mind control stuff, cult activity (though intentionally made kinda silly), and other things that you might expect to find in a horrible crime-ridden city.

This verse is open to everyone!

[melsrainpod]

so my partner and our mutual friend are watching Idle Champions Presents: Fury of the Black Rose together, and they're catching up, so right now they're on episode 3

for those who don't know, Johnny and Ellen are playing their characters Rust and Merilwen of Oxventure fame, and the whole cast is amazing, go watch it if you haven't

(spoilers for the first major plot point of that episode under cut)

we have an agreement with my partner that they'll text me if they feel like they have some emotions to spill or something to say, and right now I got the following message on discord: "they fucking leveled up // during a session"

so I reply with a simple *yup* and start writing something to the tune of "they probably talked about what they would take in case of a level up before the game even began" to justify how quickly it happened in the relative timeframe of the episode, but before I manage to finish writing my sentence they send me the following, verbatim:

Johnny, take notes

so now I'm a little broken and if anyone asks for me I'm silently laughing on the floor

hashtag give the oxventurers the level up they deserve!!

[transienturl]

I have watched/listened to, I dunno, a small to moderate amount of actual play tabletop campaign series... serieses? What is the plural of series?

Okay, before we get distracted: while I do so, I'm constantly thinking about what I would and wouldn't want to emulate from them if I were a player or GM in my own campaign. I have a couple of mostly-unrelated thoughts on this topic:

I actually have no idea how close these things are to a typical home tabletop roleplay game; I have been in... a little bit of one... once? Doesn't seem like a big enough sample size. Obviously, it's clear to me that there's a big difference between the ones where there's a set output format and in some sense it's heavily preplanned/"scripted" (live stage shows with a time limit; shows with elaborate physical props like dimension 20) and, you know, the shows that don't have those, but I'm sure there are much more subtle things that you do only when you're recording something for an audience that I wouldn't easily pick up on.

Even though the amounts of each roleplay group I've experienced besides the one I've watched hours of are like [two episodes, four episodes, about 10 minutes, one season], it's really obvious that everyone's strengths and weaknesses are different, to the extent that "actual play D&D" really doesn't fundamentally describe the same thing. Some groups seem, besides the DM, actively bad at the D&D part itself and the "rules" are more of an inspiration source for some professional-tier storytellers/roleplayers who are really using that skill. Contrast, I guess, with critical role, who seem to more actively be playing the game itself (neither of which is better or worse, obviously; it's just different).

My biggest pet peeve, that I'm really curious about the prevalence of, is when the GM presents the players with a problem, multiple players come up with ways to solve it that don't really engage with each other, that's kind of the end of the thought, and they say "okay each of our characters does their plan" and they all roll separately. I dunno, like... I guess when you say it that way it sounds fine. But it doesn't lend itself to, I guess, stuff like narrative drama? I thought I had a better way to describe this in my head. But, I guess, coming up with a plan that involves everyone's idea makes the successes or failures dictated by the device create a coherent narrative that everyone can contribute narrative ideas to, while everyone splitting up to (let's say) sneak into an area and one person getting caught usually just leads to the invalidation of the potential storylines of all of the other potentially clever ways to get past the challenge.

Related to that, and more generally: I like to think I would run tabletop in a very specific way: that of "the best, most compelling story is the one we're trying to create." For example, I would actively want my GM to decide how many wolves are around the corner based partially on the current state of the party, not necessarily because they wrote that down beforehand. To me, that's not a betrayal of the system we decided wherein the better my character is built the more successful they are! I would want to play tabletop more as a collaborative writing exercise than as a video game, I guess. I find "clever ways to skip boss encounters" actively annoying unless the clever way is cool, and makes a cool story, and feels good, which it often does but often doesn't! If not, it's just wasted story potential, wasted emotion potential really. The goal is to feel something. I'm not saying de-weight the dice, to be clear; the dice are also a way to feel something! I'm saying, engineer the scenario so each time you roll the dice, you have the maximum chance of feeling something because of it.

Yeah, I think about this a lot for someone who will likely not experience these things any time soon.

(If you're looking for recs: I don't think Oxventure is the sort I'd do a specific rec for since a lot of the draw is enjoying the people and just how they interact, but I do really like all of them and have watched it by far the most; the early bits of TAZ I've listened to give me similar vibes but I hear the worldbuilding gets pretty good later; I don't like how crit role does combat descriptions and I don't have the time to commit to understand the melodrama so I passed on it; I haven't gotten into friends at the table but I bet I would find them the most compelling if I did; their creative abilities seem off-the-charts but I have trouble parsing the voices...

...and I watched the first dimension 20 season and that one does get a straight up recommendation, because wow they are good at what they do; I would say the high-energy style is not actually my style but if you're gonna do that they do it in a way that I bet almost no one can

Still looking for a show that feels like, "oh, this is me." Not actively looking, but.).

[oxventure-text-posts]

I've been watching oxventure (currently on quiet riot) and I was wondering if there's any lgbt+ rep. I'm enjoying it so far but I don't know if I can fully invest in it without any gays present.

Yeah there is a bunch actually!

Here are some examples I can think of off the top of my head if you don’t mind spoilers (these arent in chronological order btw)

Corazón falls for a rouge while on an Egbert adventure and during the fight Egbert commands the rouge to disrobe and so Corazón can get a better look at his muscles. The girls gave audible rebuttals and Dob was indifferent.

There is a non-binary Paladin that helps Egbert get his Paladin license

There is a gay couple who owns and runs a bar

There’s a himbo Tabaxi pirate who seems to have a thing for Corazón and Corazón at first doesn’t doesn’t like him but the Tabaxi pirate wins him over

There’s a cult with Davey, Chet, and the boys who at the start are bullies, and when the guild needs a distraction Egbert blurts out that hes in love with Chet, and Dob says its complicated bc hes in love with Egbert but Chet is in love with him

Dobs sister is definitely not straight

Egbert kinda charms a rich guy to try and get a cursed coin Corazón needs

Theres also a bunch of shippy moments between the pcs too

[outsidexboxofficial]

Oxventure Presents: Literally Everyone Else in the World by The Oxventurers Guild

Watch the music video! https://youtu.be/_gZmP3wcuiU

Donate! https://justgiving.com/oxsong

[workingonit-currently]

Sometimes I hear the whispers, the hushed voices as we pretend to go about our day as we have always done but what was done was done and no one worked anymore, we only whispered.

I don’t think there was a point to the stories, the whispers. Some may say they were for the children, for our children and many others but that always brought the question, why do we never tell them the stories then? 

The simple answer is, the whispers, the stories are to terrible, to horrific, we would never see our children again, lost to fear.

But I hear the whispers, after what happened how can their not be whispers, voices on the wind telling tale of what the recent visitors were.

Most often it is said there was five all together but some have said two, some have said eight. We shush those people. They say they laugh at the smoke, dance in the flames and hypnotise all those they interact with.

They say the first you often meet is the spirit of a kraken, shown by their sharp features, like a kraken’s beak with eyes that pierce into souls. Rumors say his hair is always wet, constantly showing his lineage. They say if he offers you a place on his ship you are soon found floating in the belly of a whale. They say curses follow him like seagulls, surrounding him and circling, ready to strike those who come close. The signs don’t stop there, for stories tell, on his chest is a seemingly innocent tattoo, a kraken but if you look close enough at the tattoo it moves, almost seeming alive. The nightmares all show that tattoo, the kraken burnt into our child's minds. What the rumours do not say is how, if you follow the kraken to sea you hear the calls and wails of is victims, the beat of his heart still inside his chest, they don’t say that if you get close you feel no breath from him and if the moon shines down just right you can see his face, rotted and shaded with the shadow of a past life, of a curse that was never lifted. The curse of the kraken, that is what the rumors fail to convey.

The second you meet is far deadlier than the kraken but seems less so, that is the danger of the snake. Although no indication is present, apparently, the snake has the ability almost inhuman to hypnotise his victims, luring them in and tearing them away from their true path in life. Like a moth to flame the snake becomes the flame and you the moth, following him. Whispers say destruction follows the snake as it does with all five of the visitors but this destruction is never ending, lives forever changed. The snake is liquid metal, slipping and sliding up and through buildings, like a shadow in the night, his abilities of acrobatics only matched by his abilities of hypnosis. The eldest guard says that he encountered the snake once, approached him and woke up five days later with no indication of why or how, just with the knowledge that the snake and the visitors had left and his house was on fire. White foam arises from his mouth if you get close enough, his pupils wild and quick to dart in the night, on the wind we still hear his singing, the howls at nothing and no one, the laughter as a bear roars and something inhuman mimics it. The snake...What name is that for one so similar to a wolf.

The third visitor is that of forest. Of tree and wild animal, in tune with the grass and bird as much as a orchestra is in tune with each other. The scent of dirt and blood indicate her but that is not a guarantee you will see her before you fall. In the forest that surrounds us the elders say she hides, watching us, stalking us for she is the hunter and unlike the kraken or the snake she does not play with her food. The hunter, able to step as silently and lightly, able to kill someone with one swing, able to have claws and able to fight multiple of us at once. Whispers would say she is recognised by her blood, stained clothes and smell but I rumours would argue that the only sure way to recognise the hunter is by her laugh. It’s the laugh you hear inside yourself after your first kill, the laugher of insanity and innocence, the laugher of all animals as you wander into their domain and when you stand still, near the forest it’s the laugher you hear blowing through their, the trees echoing it and singing. They say the hunter does not play with her food but I believe that is a lie, we are the hunters food and we are still alive, why if not to be played with.

The fourth and fifth are as opposite as forest and sea but both born of fire and flame. The devil and the dragon, both dancing in fire and both coated in blood. A raging hellfire in the devil, wild and untamable but attractive and agonising, a smouldering flame in the dragon, smoke and mirrors. The devil is recognised by the colours of blood and burning, black and red, but the smell of evil is something you notice before that. Some younglings say evil has no smell. We thought the same before the devil came, her hair like the shadows of oblivion, her eyes like a god but her scent, that of fresh and old blood, of nothing and everything, of sickness and health, of burnt flesh and dried wood. That is the smell of evil, it is not what you though it would be but it is the smell you hoped it would not be. Rumor says that the devil became a god once, danced in magic and burn to a crisp all in her path, some say the devil and hunter are the only things that can control the snake, dragon and kraken but I’sd say the devil is dangerous, not because of her power but because of her ability to talk without talking. The devil is dangerous because she makes you think she is, in fact she is less deadly than any of the other visitors mentioned but she is also more deadly as she knows how to use the other visitors, she knows how to ride the krakens waves, she knows how to freeze the metal in the snake’s veins, she knows how to satisfy the hunters lust for blood and she knows how to arise the dragons flames.

The dragon, the last visitor you will meet, the second to have fire in their veins but the last to use it. Why is the devil dangerous because she can arise the dragons flame while she is known for making the other visitors lose their fight? Because to the dragon the flame is the fight. To the dragon the containment of the flame is what makes him deadly. In smoke dances the history of the dragon, the grey waves showing his past if you are able to read them. The dragon, some say, is the most deadly but others say he is the least. In fact he is both. Like the devil he is powerful but weak, he is a contradiction but a mirror contradiction to the devil. The devil is powerless but uses power while the dragon is powerful but uses no power.

The story told is of horror but I can't help but think what horror these travelers, visitors must be in to be able to place such horror into our lives. Truley they must have a most horrible life and a dark day.

Poor, poor Oxventurers...

[alexandriteobscuraarchive]

~"That’s a weird and personal question." (for Danny!)

DND OXVENTURE Heist Society! Part 2

The urge to counter with ‘And THAT’S an evasive statement!’ is tough but somehow he manages, said impulse only present in the dimming of his generally ever present smile into an expression of false concern if only for a moment. It's far more interesting if they FIGHT, if ripping them apart mentally is a challenge.

“I apologize if that bothered you.” He’s not. Not at all. His head tips to the side as his smile returns with full force, the perfect contrast to his narrowed gaze. Trying to look apologetic. Looking for cracks. Looking for weaknesses. “My profession is rife with questions like that and yet, while uncomfortable, it’s an undeniable part of the process to recovery. Remember that I’m here to help you.”

Danny closes the folder containing the files and notes on the patient seated in front of him and then folds his hands together on top of the desk. “Let’s start with something simple, shall we?” What are you hiding? What are you so afraid of? Why are you avoiding the truth like your life depends on it? “Do you know why they had you visit me today?”

It was a simple question but their face twists in response---it’s the same dark expression that answered his first question. It was as if he’d punched them in the gut or they were resisting the urge to vomit. It was a delightful expression. “Do you...not remember? That’s quite concerning indeed...!” The smile present on the doctor’s features dims slightly, eyebrows furrowing over his spectacles as if in consideration. “I can help you remember, if you’d like.” Daniel’s finger taps against the folder he’d momentarily moved aside, tapping the bloody, ghoulish contents therein with a kind of impatient glee.

Running away isn’t an option.

Lying isn’t an option.

Looking away isn’t an option---not from him.

And already their eyes were changing, trying to avoid his own as they darkened and they cast them to the side. Irritated. Nervous. Desperate. ENTICING. Daniel slides the folder back in front of him and shuffles the papers inside."Let’s see now....” He’s not even looking at the folder---he’s staring at their face in its agonized profile with an intensity that they could no doubt feel on their skin.

The papers meant nothing---they were like a prop in a play. Much like his concern was a well put on act. All Daniel needed was sitting right in front of him. All Daniel needed was for those eyes to lock onto his own so he could watch them drain themselves of the useless things they clung to. All Daniel needed to do was give them the proverbial knife and watch as they cut their own throat right in front of him. And then a real one, if they wanted, so long as they asked nicely. "It’s not uncommon for traumatic events to cause blackouts or gaps in one’s memory and, oh my, you’ve certainly had your fair share haven’t you?” The proverbial knife was now in hand. He could almost feel turning their head back in order to face him before gently setting the weapon into their hand and guiding it to their throat. “Tell me why you did it. Tell me what made you hate your sibling so much that you’d do something like that to them.”

[daasbavel]

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Liked on YouTube: Oxventure Presents: Literally Everyone Else in the World - D&D Music Video, Raising Money for Mind https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gZmP3wcuiU

[countstex]

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Liked on YouTube: Oxventure Presents: Blades in the Dark - DEAD MAN'S DEBT! Chapter 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znzX-SK5pms