#zaul’nazh

[auteurdefeu]

I know Bloodkeep is old news but hear me out

Trans Leiland who didn’t even really stand a chance for the throne as he’d been born a girl, and one of the very very few good things Zaul’Nazh has ever done was give him a masculine body in rising him to undeath, creating him sort of in his own image. I’m sure there was some selfish fucked up reasoning behind why he would have done so but Leiland would’ve seen it as an act of kindness, and devoted himself fully to his ‘savior’. Yada yada you know how it goes, Z would’ve been very gross about ogling Leiland and this poor knight would’ve been completely unaware and blind to all his bad deeds because he was hopelessly in love.

But anyway I’m transmasc so I think he should be too because those are the rules. Thoughts?

[masculinepeacock]

so i just finished escape from the bloodkeep, and i couldn’t get this idea out of my mind? set fifteen years after the mini epilogue, everyone comes together to give Leiland Jr. his birthday gifts, fairy godmother style.

It was LJ’s fifteenth birthday, and all of the people in The Bloodkeep were excited about the party for the Lord of Shadows that his mother and the Queen Regent had planned. Everyone knew that little Leiland Jr. would be a much better ruler than Zaul’Nazh ever was or would be, especially with all of his aunts and uncles teaching him how to be their version of evil.

On the day of his actual birthday, Lilith allowed him to sit on the throne. His crown rested on his head, and he looked nervous. Despite being a truly massive fifteen year-old, the throne enveloped him. His mother was able to see how nervous he was, so she gave him a kind smile from his side and placed a hand on his shoulder, “It’s going to go just like we practiced, I promise. I’ll make sure it does.”

The sight of his mom’s fiery war hammer being strapped to her him comforted him enough that he was able to take a deep breath. In some places, fifteen year olds were allowed to rule, and some people in the keep thought that he should take over. He knew he wasn’t ready for that though, he saw the way that power sat on the shoulders of his aunts and uncles, and he wasn’t ready for all of that. So he had suggested this whole...ceremony...to appease some of the orcs who really needed to learn how to keep their mouths shut. Aunt Lilith had been so happy when he suggested it, proud of his forward thinking, and proud of his ideas on what they should do to the orcs.

So now Leiland Jr. temporarily sat on the throne, and his aunts and uncles and his dad waited to give him his gifts. His mom had come up with the idea of each of them giving him a gift they would have to teach him how to use, and he wouldn’t take the throne until he had mastered all six. His mom was so smart, he wish more people realized it.

Speaking of his mom, she had moved from being beside him to face him. Aunt Lilith announced to the room, “Now, for the ceremony to begin! The Lord of Shadows will be blessed with six gifts, each for him to master to become the best Lord of Shadows he possibly can. The first to give him a gift, the mother of the Lord of Shadows, and her own woman, Maggie.”

His mother approached him, still smiling. Beaming would probably be more accurate. Her hair was a weird mix of actual hair and flames, just like his own. It felt weird for his mom to take a knee in front of him, but he knew she had to do it for this whole to “look legit”.

“Leiland Jr., today I gift you with this,” two servants stepped forward to hand her a giant greataxe, they were struggling to carry it but his mother handled it easily. “Not only do you need to be able to defend your people and yourself, but you your infernal legacy will serve you well as you fight against the forces of elves and men.” Her speech was clearly rehearsed and he almost missed the way Aunt Lilith nodded in approval.

His mother mumbled a few words in Infernal, her eyes glowing with flames, and the blade of the greataxe alighted. Leiland stood and bowed to his mother, he walked forward and accepted the gift from her, having to lift it with two hands. While he was still bent to her, his mother placed a kiss on his forehead and whispered just loudly enough for him to hear, “Soon, you’ll be able to carry it one-handed, I’m gonna train the hell out of you kid.”

LJ smiled at his mom as she stepped away and his dad, Leiland, was up next in the order to give him gifts. He took a knee and said, “Lord of Shadows, today I gift to you this,” and he held out a scimitar, “to protect yourself, and your people.” LJ laid his greataxe against the throne and walked forward to accept the sword from Leiland, smiling at him.

There were times when his dad could get super serious, and this was one of them. It was okay, as LJ got older he could understand why, and he knew later he and his dad would actually talk about why he chose to gift him this particular kind of sword.

Uncle Markus was the next one to approach, taking a new he held out a rope, which confused LJ. How the hell would a rope be useful? Or teach him anything. “Today I gift to you, this rope, which symbolizes the airship I have brought with me from Cael Stuppe, yours to name.”

If LJ wasn’t seeing things, Uncle Markus seemed to smirk at the rest of the gift givers. Of course he did. Uncle Markus liked to be flashy, and the best at things. Accepting the rope, Leiland Jr. whispered, “This is gonna be cool as hell.”

“It always is, kid.” Uncle Markus winked at him and walked to the side, Uncle Sokhbarr stepping forward. It looked like someone had gotten a hold of Uncle Sokhbarr and cleaned him up. It was probably a concentrated effort of everyone.

With a safe collar around it’s neck, one made of cloth instead of something that would hurt it, was a scream beast, different looking from J’er’em’ih, but definitely his child. Leiland Jr. smiled widely, he’s always wanted a pet! His mom cooed off to the side.

“And I gift to you this creature of nightmares, also yours to name.”

Leiland Jr. approached the scream beast and took the leash from Uncle Sokhbarr, he pet the horrifying animal and smiled at it, “JJ. J’er’em’ih Junior.”

“Oh,” Uncle Sokhbarr said, “you’re a good, evil kid.”

This is usually when Aunt Efink would gift him something, but she was stuck in the blood boat at the bottom of the keep, Aunt Lilith approached with two gifts in her hand instead.

“On behalf the keep of the blood boat, I gift to you this book of ancient runes and magic. So you may understand the source of your evil power.”

The Queen Regent and Lord of Shadows bowed to each other, and LJ could feel his plan working. “Now, for a gift of my own, as Queen Regent I give you this.”

Aunt Lilith raised a scepter, “I will teach you the skills you need to know in order to rule this power with evil justice.”

Leiland Jr. once again bowed to his Aunt Lilith and accepted the scepter. After he stood fully back up he addressed the room, “I am grateful to you all for the gifts, they will serve me well in my quest to learn how to rule the lands of Gorgar.” He looked to Lilith who nodded in approval, he said his line right. So he raised his arms, “Now let’s party!”

[bloodkeep-escape]

obsessed with the fact that bloodkeep set up this love triangle of leiland having this un-reciprocated crush on zaul’nazh and how that could have so easily turned into him hating maggie for having a relationship with him and it really almost was that but INSTEAD. the two of them realized together that zaul’nazh was toxic and neither of them had a good relationship with him and they found a way to work through that trauma together and become best friends and i just. think that’s great.

[hereticshadowhand]

Snarling ball of flame… Zaul’Nazh?!??!?

[ambassadorquark]

i was very interested in pok being evil or something but now i am just Thinking about whatever his job is. my headcanon is still that one of the goblins in bloodkeep is pok gukgak deep undercover as a minion of zaul’nazh so when he was alive there WAS a bomb inside him

[jq37]

hey hey hey!! have u seen the new bloodkeep episode, and if so..... thoughts?

**spoilers for avanash and double pants the caged elf and the crown**

(I have another ask that I’m going to use to talk about the airship ambush ep)

Rekha on Fantasy Spelling: “J, apostrophe, O, H, Umlaut, N.”/ “An umlaut over the H???”

I love that this episode starts with them arguing politics with an eagle. Brennan takes every opportunity to start talking philosophy.

“Please don’t call it seed.”

I love than no one calls Leiland by his goth name at all. I don’t even remember what it is right now. He’s just Leiland, the giant mess of a Walmart ringwraith.

So the Vingury show up and everyone makes a point to be as unnatural and creepy as possible for the drama of it all instead of acting natural.

Leiland doing a full of Mice and Men on poor Deckland. That’s just what I was thinking before Matt made the reference.

I think Barbarian is such a fun class for a new player. Not a ton of of complications. Just messing people up.

I wonder what would have happened if they had tried to persuade one of the Vingury into making a sacrifice instead of ambushing Deckland.

OK, what did Deckland do to Leiland? Or vice versa?

Efink Skype calls Maggie’s dad who beats the tar out of Zaul’nazh when he finds out he knocked her up without putting a ring on it. “SHOW ME YOUR HANDS.”

Anyway, lbr. This episode is only important for two reasons: Avanash and Double Pants.

Based on the character image, I thought Avanash was going to be a straight Gollum expy but y’all. Y’all.

Sidenote, since the players know this is a LOTR game, I wonder how much meta-gaming they have to stop themselves from doing. Like, “OK, this is this character so I know they can be corrupted.”

“This dude is full crazy.”

“Oh hey.”

“Don’t make this gesture at him.”

“I guess the only query I would raise here is how are you going to keep my bones.”

The comedic brilliance of Avanash truly is the completely even and normal sentences that melt into complete nonsense. 

“Are you them? What?”

This is just going to turn into me quoting everything Avanash said if I don’t rein it in now. 

“What does this lady think she is? A river? HELP.”

Lilith going off on being sensitive about mental health terminology, even though she’s a full evil general of the magic empire trying to genocide like 3 races. 

“WHAT IS CRAZY ABOUT WANTING YOUR BONES?” I want that on a shirt so bad. 

Everyone just breaks down. No one can handle Avanash. Not even DnD vet Matt who has sat through some insanity. In terms of just pure humor, Avanash is Bren’s best NPC ever. 

Markus’s question about the first five things he would do was a really smart move I think. Like, within this craziness, a very smart PC move. 

Not even Brennan can keep a straight face. “I’m gonna be very clear.” He has to stop to crack up. 

Maggie’s go to move is to just promise people shopping trips. 

Good on Brennan for being such a cool DM. Bargaining for spell slots. Giving Jessa advantage on the pants roll to reward the, “She was a design major” improv. I would love to play at his table. 

And then Leiland going off about child sweatshops. Sohkbar, “That’s where you draw the line?”

Lilith started making the “Where do eagles wear their pants” point and at first I was like, “Girl what?” but then, as she went on, I was like, “Hmm, she might be on to something.” Anyway

DOUBLE PANTS, DOUBLE PANTS, DOUBLE PANTS

Jessa coming in CLUTCH. A 19 and a NAT 20. Top of her class! What a wild roll on such a plot irrelevant thing. I love DnD so much. 

 For such a mercenary guy, Markus is kind of nice. Trying to give Leiland a morale boost last ep. Paying Jessa in this ep and offering to give her a commission for his crew, even though she would have done it for free to help her mom most likely. 

The rest of the party is overseeing this very important plot point and Maggie is like, “Shopping episode!”

I was trying to figure out Efink’s name the other day and I didn’t so to find out in this ep that it’s KNIFE BACKWARDS and I didn’t notice murdered me instantly. 

Also, I spent 2 hours trying to reverse that, “What do you have there?/A knife!/No!” gif  for a post after this ep but tumblr wouldn’t let me post it. But I want you to know that I tried. 

Efink and Lilith’s friendship is so funny to me.

“Stop saying mean things about my friend!”

Also, I forgot to mention before, Stalker getting covered in spiders and being like, “AHHHH. Eh, not so bad.”

“I don’t use this word lightly. This guy is a Goober.”

Brennan’s happy DM face right to the camera set me on edge until the reveal. You never wanna see your DM make that face.

Markus and Leiland have a heart to heart. Leiland lightly flirts with Markus. I am here for it. 

HAMHEAD HAS THE CROWN.

THIS IS WHY YOUR GUARD THE PRISONER YOU GUYS. THERE ARE SO MANY OF YOU.

Pushing Avanash in the lava was in character but I would have kept him around. There are still 3 non-Leiland Vingury. They could hypothetically made another crown. 

Good on Erika for enlisting Stalker’s tracking skills. These PC’s really make use of the story elements to help them out. 

All of the snapping and hand punching and stuff Brennan does is hypnotizing to me. 

Cut back to Maggie who is still shopping. Wild.

Oh, wait. There’s one more important thing in this episode. Maggie using Power Word: Kill on the torture dude.  Like, not the actual spell, but that’s basically what happened. 

“Cool. Maybe next time that will be the first thing out of your mouth instead of your fucking tight five.”

Truly brutal.

I didn’t know dire bats were a thing before now but I love them.

Olag is back because of course he is. 

“THE KICKED DOWN AND MADE THE DOOR HAPPEN.”

“mISTRESS? You asshole!”

“How do you become the villains of the villains?”

Efink being, “Y’all, I can be queen of the good guys and get us all hall passes. We’re good.” She’s selfish but she’s also gonna get everyone out w/ her so there are layers here. 

“GHOSTS ARE OUR THING. THEY’RE SPECIFICALLY MOST OF WHAT WE DO. THAT’S BULLSHIT!”

“You’re a large bird.”/ “You’re a large asshole.”

Efink kills Stalker which is another short sighted move I think but also very in character.

Anyway, they escape on Markus’ ship but are ambushed by his brother’s ship which is the lead in to next ep’s airship battle, which I’ll cover next!

Anyway, very curious about where this story is going to end seeing as we want the PC’s to succeed but a success for them means, like, straight genocide. 

[a-salty-alto]

Favorite Bloodkeep character?

Gotta go with the disaster-gay anxiety Ringwraith (though Lillith is a close second). I have a soft spot for Matt Mercer, but even beyond that I just love watching him try so hard to be cool and just failing? Also like, pretty sure boy was willing to die to revive Zaul’nazh until he remembered Declan existed and also sucked, and I gotta appreciate that

[bloodkeep-escape]

"i don’t think that relationship would take off right away for exactly this reason, but that’s a whole other post" 👀 i fully agree and am Listening

fjkdfjkd WELL . i must of course self-promote the fic i wrote, which deals with this concept a bit...

but going more into it, i just think. that leiland got really messed up because of his relationship with zaul’nazh! he’s going to have a hard time figuring out what love is supposed to be like, and obviously his friends are helping him to realize things and feel better about himself (we even see that over the course of the campaign), but it’s going to take time

leiland was in a relationship with a man who used leiland and his feelings for personal gain, who didn’t respect leiland as a person, who tried to change him and mold him into someone different, someone who “deserved” his love, and then he tossed him aside when he found something better. and that’s rough, and leiland is gonna need some time to recover from it!!

and i think that markus figures that out pretty quickly- maybe leiland tells him, but i think it’s more likely that maggie sits him down for a talk and is like, “hey. i know you’re into leiland. but this is what happened and he’s going to need some time.” and i absolutely think markus respects that. and they probably start spending more time together, but leiland needs a chance to learn what family means and what friendship means before he can work out what love means

and i like to believe that markus gives him that chance and helps him to figure it out and so do their other friends, and leiland heals and figures out who he is, and eventually they have a wonderful relationship .. just not right away :’)

[jq37]

So I can totally see how Brennan was trying to lead into pvp (Maggie and leiland with the whole Zaul’nazh situation, Markus being a contractor with no loyalty to the group, Lilith having been the rightful lord of evil etc) but the way he presented these conflicts vs the way the players reacted were literally all from a place of putting their friends first over their personal feelings, like if Lilith decided to say fuck this I’m taking the crown from this baby for myself and my own kids, or if

(cont) Leiland and Maggie took Zaul’nazh’s intentions as a way to split them up instead of being them closer together, if Efink stayed selfish and self serving, Markus didn’t put his loyalties with the group instead of his ship and his home, I can totally see how on paper pvp would make sense, but the players clearly didn’t react to their personal conflicts the way he expected from an evil campaign and instead we got the purest and overall most wholesome ending that a group of villains could offer lmao

_______________

OK, as much as I’ve enjoyed dunking on Brennan for this (love ya, man) you’re right.

Because, we got this narrative as 6 chunks over 6 weeks. But for them, this was just 2 back to back days of D&D. 2 Long days sure, but just 2. It is very fair to not expect PCs to bond so much in 2 real days and like 12 hours in game. And ostensibly evil PCs nonetheless.

There for sure were character hooks that could have snowballed into justification for some mega PvP throwdown.

But, you’re right again on the second half.

I think every player at the table individually at different points in their lives came to the conclusion that D&D is at it’s core a game about unlikely allies, coming together to work towards a common goal. So they didn’t come in looking for reasons to fight. They came in, looking for reasons to bond and grow and all that warm and fuzzy stuff.

I don’t think they took the “evil campaign” thing as a cue on how to act. I think they took it almost entirely as set dressing. Like Trapp’s Bowser/Chimera skin over a half-orc. It looks different, put it still plays like a half-orc. And these players talked a lot more about killing tons of people than the average D&D party (although, not much more depending on the party tbh), but they still fundamentally played it like a sincere D&D game. They wore evil like a skin hat and hugged it out. I love it.