#and i went to my dm and went. hey. so. i'm sending those documents to my country.

[digitalcactusblog]

oh man finally gotten to bed after packing hell so IT'S TIME FOR OPAL

opal. is my most MOST dnd pc. by a massive margin. my god. i love them to bits, but they are so much in every possible direction at all times

to summarize them in one quick phrase, you can think of opal as a barbie sephiroth powerpuff girl winter soldier. none of these words belong in one phrase together, yet we've gotten it there anyway!!!!

under the cut bc i expect this to get quite long 😂

god, where do i even start with opal. imagine the platonic ideal of a manic pixie dream girl, add in a touch of airheadedness, then give the entire creation the attention span of a magpie on crack.

that's what opal is like.

opal is also the clone of the princess of the enemy country to the country the party is currently traveling through.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!!!

opal is a top secret government project created as a gift to the royals of that country, a tribute to wizard hubris, and a proof of concept for a devastating military weapon that will win this country the war.

because opal isn't just a clone of the princess (her name is vasya). opal is a marble statue of the princess, carved into shape, then engraved with the magical principles and equations to bring that statue to life. opal wasn't just made to be a genetic clone of vasya. opal was made to be vasya. a complete clone, down to the skills and memories of the original vasya.

imagine, if you will, an army. there are people in it. and people die. people have families they'll never return to, loved ones who'll miss them, and, quite frankly, they're pretty freaking expensive to keep as functional soldiers!

now, i must copy paste the description block for the spell True Polymorph.

"Choose one creature with at least 1 hit point or nonmagical object that you can see within range. You transform the creature into a different creature, the creature into an object, or the object into a creature (the object must be neither worn nor carried by another creature). The transformation lasts for the duration, or until the target drops to 0 hit points or dies. If you concentrate on this spell for the full duration, the transformation becomes permanent."

imagine, if you will. a quick, easy, and cheap way to mass produce True Polymorph, without the need for a high leveled wizard to cast a level 9 spell every time. all you need are a handful of pebbles, and boom, you have sentient, sapient, competent soldiers.

this is what opal was a proof of concept for.

SO, to summarize so far:

peppy, sunny attitude! that's the barbie part

devastating military superweapon person: sephiroth

entirely artificial being, yet extremely cheerful about it: powerpuff girl

devastating SECRET military superweapon. is also from a russian empire-inspired fantasy country: winter soldier

also we named opal's creator after rasputin. yeah, that rasputin. yeah, like ra ra, russia's greatest love machine? yeah, we thought it'd be funny. her name is grigori and she has a lot of problems (opal is the cause of most of them 😊)

anyways, so opal gets created, and is, for all intents and purposes, a carbon copy of vasya. but as a prototype for this weapon, there are still some kinks to work out, one of being that, to maintain the same memories and whatnot as vasya, they need to essentially get regular software updates. but otherwise, perfect vasya clone!

except grigori starts noticing little discrepancies. little anomalies. the clone isn't a perfect vasya clone. the clone is developing a nascent personality—a nascent personality that keeps getting overwritten with every download.

the clone isn't a hollow clone.

the clone is alive.

"my god," grigori says, horrified, "what have i done? i have created life; not in the mundane, mortal way. i once posited myself on par with the gods, and now i have created life, just like they do.

"...i am so fucked."

and so, with that religious and moral crisis in her pocket, grigori decides to steal the clone and scram.

it's time to be fugitives!!!!!

grigori is a genius, if, at this point, a genius with extreme anxiety. and so, grigori has several contingencies ready, on the off chance she needs to bail. the one she goes with now is a classic wizard tower, hidden from prying eyes by magic and a beautiful grotto where no one goes. think tangled, the tower in the grotto that rapunzel lived for most of her life

and during this entire fugitive road trip, without regular downloads from the og vasya herself, the clone's vasya memories start to fade, but their new mannerisms start to stick. and now we have opal, who could not be more different from vasya in demeanour if they fuckin tried

also now, after much work on grigori's part, opal has been true polymorphed (even more) to look like someone entirely different! vasya is a magenta-y purple-y tiefling with tall horns, whereas opal is now a lanky purple drow around the height of vasya's horns. they got to customize their Look heavily (perks of having a high level wizard who can cast ninth level spells regularly).

oh also, chronologically, opal is only 6 years old 😊 when they were 'born,' they were created as the then-teenaged vasya, and while the memories of being vasya has mostly faded (not everything), the rough mental age and whatnot remained the same, so technically opal is like 22? but chronologically 6, so you bet your ass i'm so ready for the day i get to drop that bombshell 😂

OH YEAH and most recently, much to grigori's distress, opal has broken out of the secret wizard tower to go explore the world. it'll be fine grigori i'll be so careful!!!!!!!!!!

(they were not, in fact, careful)

mechanics-wise, opal is an echo knight, and while i'm not yet privy to all the deets (there are discoveries to discover and i can't wait :3) their echoes are like, something something potential versions of opal? mechanically, this just means that every time i summon an echo, i roll on a random table to see what form the echo takes, with some dnd species having higher probabilities to show up. and yes, if i roll tiefling, i then roll a d4 to see if vasya herself shows up. EXTREMELY NERVEWRACKING AND WONDERFUL!!!

also the first time i described how opal looked to the entire party, and that they were wearing a long, black coat with silver buckles all up the front, everyone was like "..............hey olive? is this sephiroth?"

and that was the first time i realized that opal dresses like pirate sephiroth. they even have a scarlet macaw familiar. shoulda named it genesis, methinks. (her name is actually ariadnoula)

GOD WHAT ELSE THERE'S ALREADY SO MUCH

opal is so freaking much i love them. last session they gave the other pc (vae) a minor religious crisis by asking too many questions about the logistics behind death rites. they tried to ambush-slam a flower crown on vae's head and ate shit when he dodged. they impulse-held a woman's hands as she went nuclear and died because they didn't want her to die alone and afraid. one of their life dreams is to swing on a chandelier.

oh also opal may have just started ww2. maybe.

#minty don't look #opal alesya #ocposting #WW2 CONTEXT: we found classified government documents last last session that described the current country we're in breaking treaty #with the country opal's from #SECRETLY breaking treaty because the treaty is essentially about a ceasefire btwn the two countries #but now this country is doing military stuff in places there's not supposed to be military stuff #and as soon as my dm described all of this it was like kill bill sirens started playing in opal's head #and i went to my dm and went. hey. so. i'm sending those documents to my country. #i'm sending them straight to the top. #i'm sending them to vasya. #SO WE'LL SEE HOW THAT GOES!!!!!!!!!! #i also sent her a postcard. opal is and always will be a Little Bit Weird 😂