#more eldritch horrors with a fantasy bent)

[mthollowell-writes]

Writeblr Introduction

Hello! My name is MT (she/her, in the twilight of my 20s) and I'm a writer looking for other writers to connect with! I'm a bit of a Tumblr dinosaur (first account circa 2014) but I've been away from Tumblr for a number of years. This is my first time making a Writblr introduction so without further ado...

About my Writing:

I write mostly speculative fiction with a bent towards horror and the weird though I love to experiment with other genres every once in a while. I've spent the last year focusing on one long-term project that I would classify as a horror thriller (though it keeps evolving). I'm just about out of the outlining stage for its second draft. In between that, I work on a number of short story projects in various stages of drafting.

Common Themes/Tropes/Things I Like:

I like a light touch of the fantastical. Ghosts, magic, the potential for the strange.

I also like to toe the line between what's real and what's imagined. The psychological and the existential. The fluidity of time and the absurdity of existence. Most of the time, my characters are battling something within themselves that's manifesting as something strange outside of themselves. To put it simply, I like messy characters.

Monsters, eldritch horrors, and the things we cannot name.

I love a good mystery. Long buried secrets coming to the surface, a strange death without cause, detectives solving puzzles. I've been working this more into my current WIP

I love history. I've been recently obsessed with the American frontier circa 1850s-1890s, the counterculture and social movements of the 1960s/1970s, and most things Victorian. Cultural and social histories are my obsessions and I like exploring concepts in my fiction

Genres I Read:

I try to read widely but my go-tos will always be mystery/thrillers, speculative fiction, horror, and a good nonfiction book that explores a historical or true crime obsession. I'm also partial to fantasy and romance when I'm in the mood for it.

That's about all I can think of to write at the moment! If any of you want to connect, feel free to say hello!

This is a blog solely dedicated to writing. My main blog is @missaddledmiss.

#writeblr #writerscommunity #intro #writeblr intro #hello

[scaevolawrites]

A WRITEBLR (RE)INTRODUCTION - @scaevolawrites

Hello there, It's been a couple of years since I've been properly active on here - so it's high time I reintroduce myself. I'm Scaevola (or Scae for short), he/him and am 26 years of age. Currently busy with a triple major in Journalism and Film & Literary Sciences. If I'm not working on that you can find me either engrossed in my writing or lost in a Wikipedia rabbit hole somewhere - it's a known weakness. I mostly write fantasy across a number of sub-genres, but historical fantasy tends to be my favourite one.

CURRENT PROJECTS;

Captured Lightning - Historical Fantasy with Horror Elements

At the tail end of the Industrial Revolution machines, factories and their fumes are becoming a permanent fixture in lands across Europe. The hidden inhabitants of the wilds that still sprawl over the continent feel the need to act. But with the fae locked away, the dryads afraid to leave either forest or lake, and the witches' plans continuing to fail, the future of the wilds seem uncertain. And what is with these odd lightning strikes that are occurring more and more frequently? [Tag] // [Old WIP Intro] (New one coming soon)

The Lightbringer Sessions - Contemporary Fantasy

Ophelia is a first-year Psychology student when she one day has the urge to visit the local park, where she encounters a strange fellow. He somehow convinces her into a therapy session, and she finds herself sitting on a park bench, jotting down everything he says. The cryptic man turns out to be Lucifer himself - and Ophelia has unwittingly struck a deal with him, to be his therapist. With all the strangeness that comes from being Satan's shrink, Ophelia tries to focus on the mundane parts of her life, until even those become alien to her. [Tag] // [WIP Intro] (Coming in December)

FUTURE PROJECTS;

The Sacred Disease - Mythological Fantasy with Eldritch Elements

During a battle Damokles, a Spartan soldier, is assaulted by terrifying visions from a vengeful and blind Appolo, the Sun God. As a result, he has been branded an ill omen and is exiled from the city. Damokles resolves to find out why this fate has befallen him and what Apollo's plans are. All while Damokles' former allies are hell-bent on vanquishing him.

More info on these projects will be coming in the future. If you'd like to be added or removed from any of my taglists, do not hesitate to shoot me a dm or send me an ask!

TAGLIST [Send me an ask to be +/-]

@lazy-bumblebee @endymions @inky-duchess @ladywithalamp @talesofnetline @seomarshalls @veneritia @seasteading @raven-ink

(This taglist will be a one time thing, and consists of people who were interested in my work in the past. This is just to get the word out. My taglists are wiped clean, so if you're tagged above, and are still interested please let me know.)

#wtwcommunity #writeblr #writeblr introduction #writers on tumblr #wip; captured lightning #wip; the lightbringer sessions #wip; the sacred disease #I'm stoked to get back into writing #new wip intro for captured lightning will be posted sometime next week (and I'll update this post accordingly)

[honourablejester]

Domain of Dread: Harrow’s Rock

A homebrew Domain of Dread, because I’m in raptures about Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft. I. LOVE. HORROR. FANTASY. Ah. You may have noticed. I went for a more classic New-Englandy, Lovecraftian sort of nautical/cosmic horror, because the two suggested cosmic horror domains lacked a little something for me. LONG POST, to warn you. I got carried away. So:

Domain of Dread: Harrow’s Rock

Domain of Salt and Sleeping

Overview:

Darklord - Aloysius Carroway

Genre – nautical horror, ghost stories, gothic horror, cosmic horror

Hallmarks – maritime ghost stories, cycles of vengeance, eldritch dreamers

Mist Talismans – glass floats full of strange mist, tarnished bronze discs, strange whispering shells

Rage, bitterness and despair endlessly ebb and flow like a wine-dark tide against the salt-stained, hard-bitten coastline of Harrow’s Rock. Ghosts sail the frigid waters around this small, dismal island, and haunt the crumbling manors on its cliffs. Bobbling marsh-lights lure unwary fishers, travellers and smugglers into the depths of Loney Marsh. In the grim hamlet of Harrow Cove, ancient grudges mire the native islanders in endless feuds that not even death can finish. Island legend tells of an ancient, unknown entity that lies slumbering in a vast, flooded cavern beneath Harrow Cliff, its dreams washing out across the island from time to time, bringing fear and horror in their wake.

Harrow’s Rock is a battered island domain of ghosts, blood feuds and grudges, ruled over by a man whose vengeful determination to protect his family resulted in the sacrifice of an entire town, since resurrected by the Powers for his torment. Hope is in short supply here, and welcome even shorter.

Cove Characters – Characters from Harrow’s Rock tend to have a distinctly nautical bent, with few lives that have remained untouched by the waters in some way. They tend towards hardy, weather-beaten folk, stubborn and superstitious, with humans, half-orcs and dwarves being particularly common. Other, more otherworldly lineages (such as genasi, tieflings, and sorcerous lineages) are viewed with fear and superstition, but are more common than most Covefolk would like to admit. Naming conventions on Harrow’s Rock often follow old-fashioned/18th and 19th century British and North American patterns.

Noteworthy Features:

Those familiar with Harrow’s Rock know the following facts:

The four founding families of the island, the Carroways, Merricks, Redmarches and Whitmarshes, control everything of note on Harrow’s Rock.

Pretty much everything on the island or around it is haunted one way or another.

Loney Marsh, Lorn Point Lighthouse and Redmarch Manor are widely considered the most haunted locations on an extremely haunted isle.

The only true settlement on the island is the fishing port of Harrow Cove, where the ‘Harrow’ of Harrow’s Rock supposedly landed. Harrow’s Cove is notably grim and unwelcoming to outsiders, though it’s safer than some of the other areas on the island.

However haunted the land might be, the sea is even more so. It is not safe to sail the waters around Harrow’s Rock. Fisherfolk are the hardiest breed on a hardy island, and ghost pirates are the least of your worries out there.

Islanders do not talk about their dreams. Ever.

Settlements & Sites:

Harrow’s Rock is a grim, rocky island, roughly seven miles by seven miles, with large rocky cliffs to the east of the island and the low expanse of Loney Marsh to the west. Sunshine is rare on this windswept, dismal isle, with mists, rain and furious storms being far more common. The islanders tend to be insular, clannish and deeply suspicious of strangers, a suspicion only surpassed by their abiding and long-entrenched mistrust and hatred of each other.

Harrow’s Rock was known on maps for a good hundred or so years before it was first settled, associated with a person or entity known as ‘Harrow’, but it lay uninhabited until a ship commanded by four adventurers in search of a new home laid anchor there. Those four adventurers were Noah Carroway, Erasmus Merrick, Ervina Redmarch and Loney Whitmarsh, and their families became the four founding and controlling families of Harrow’s Rock.

Harrow Cove:

The port town of Harrow Cove lies nestled in a small bay beneath Harrow Cliff. Historically, the town was controlled fairly evenly between the Carroway and Merrick families. After the death of Ezekiel Carroway, Aloysius made a concerted effort to claim it wholly for his own family, and so it remains today. The town is the heart of Aloysius’ domain, and the Darklord himself still resides at his family’s ancient townhouse on the hill above the docks. Although he keeps largely to himself, having no interest in interacting with the townspeople he loathes, the town is wholly under his control. No one walks the streets and docks of Harrow Cove but that he is aware of it, and no ship enters the port without his permission. Life is grim in Harrow Cove, under the hateful, paranoid eyes of its master and once-destroyer.

Church of the Salt:

Near the docks in Harrow Cove, facing the sea, the stone bell-tower of the Church of the Salt rises above the surrounding buildings. The great double doors of this once proud church have been closed and viciously nailed shut, and while there is life within the walls, it gives a distinct air of a building under siege. The acolytes, priests and priestesses of the Salt know beyond doubt that the Darklord hates them with all his heart, more than anyone else in the town, and only an extremely precarious network of sewers, smugglers and ‘parishioners’ allow them to live and continue their ministry as much as they can. The Church of the Salt fully believe that Aloysius is tainted and empowered by the Dreamer beneath Harrow Cliff, and that as long as the Dreamer and its spawn, the demon child Ambrose, remain alive, no one can truly destroy the Darklord.

Redmarch Manor:

The ancestral home of the Redmarches, one of the founding families of the island, Redmarch Manor overlooks and controls what little arable land Harrow’s Rock can lay claim to. Secure in their control of pretty much all food on the island that doesn’t come from the sea, the scions of the Redmarch Clan are content to stay out of the machinations of the rest of the island. They have, after all, a myriad of their own problems. It takes a lot for anywhere on this island to be considered more haunted, but Redmarch Manor is certainly in the running, the apparent product of an unspecified family curse that may or may not involve the Dreamer. No Redmarch who grew up in its confines comes out entirely sane. The current heir, Rowena Redmarch, more than proves the point, being widely known as a drunk, a vicious fighter who would put Estelle Merrick to shame, and a woman haunted by her ancestors in ways that would also put Estelle Merrick to shame.

Loney Marsh:

Loney Marsh is roughly fourteen square miles of saltmarsh along the western edge of the island. Named for Loney Whitmarsh, the family matriarch who claimed the western half of the island at the founding (and largely wasn’t contested for it), and currently presided over by Eurydicia Marsh, Loney Marsh is known for smugglers, sinkholes, and being the source of roughly every ghost story on the island that doesn’t directly tie to Aloysius or the Dreamer. Of course, that being said, Loney Marsh is also the only place on the island that an enemy of Aloysius’ could conceivably hide, as not even the Darklord with all his powers can fully pierce the mists and morass of the marsh. There are several smugglers in Loney Marsh with ties to Harrow Cove, and perhaps to the Wrack of the Isle as well, and is one of the relatively few safe places to land boats outside of Harrow Cove. Loney Marsh is extremely difficult to navigate without a guide, and is home to any number of haunts and monsters.

Wrack of the Isle:

The Wrack of the Isle is a small islet about a mile and a half offshore on the northeastern side of Harrow’s Rock, wreathed in wooden docks, shacks and shanties, and festooned with the wind-tossed lights of storm lanterns. All the flotsam and jetsam of Harrow’s Rock winds up here, including exiles, outcasts, pirates both living and dead, and more or less the entire remnants of the Merrick family. The Wrack of the Isle is the private fiefdom of Estelle Merrick, so-called ‘Pirate Queen’ of the Wrack, and all who survive on the islet pay their dues to her. It is rumoured, though, that Estelle in her turn pays her dues to someone else. Her cousin, Elias Merrick, the fearsome ghost pirate of Harrow’s Rock and the scourge of all living who sail her seas.

Lorn Point Lighthouse:

High on the cliffs on the northeastern side of Harrow’s Rock, facing out across the waters towards the Wrack of the Isle, stands the ominous tower of Lorn Point Lighthouse, also known locally as Ghost Point Lighthouse. In the early days of Harrow’s Rock, when the Carroways and the Merricks were still on friendly terms, Eochbard Merrick built the lighthouse on Lorn Point to help guide shipping into Harrow Cove. When the Merricks were driven off the island, the lighthouse was abandoned and fell into ruin. Until the night the Mists claimed the island, when a ghostly green light abruptly started shining again from the top of the cliff. Nowadays, it’s widely known on the Rock that the light at Lorn Point does not guide living ships, but ghosts upon the waters instead, and travellers through the mists.

Harrow Cliff and The Dreamer’s Cavern:

Towering over Harrow Cove, dwarfing the town, is the great black face of Harrow Cliff. The highest point on the island, higher even than Lorn Point, the cliff glares balefully out to sea and coldly cradles the town below. The cliff is riddled with caves and carved passages, some by the sea, some by smugglers and townsfolk, and some by the powers know what. Before ever the island was swallowed by the Mists, rumours and legends about Harrow Cliff abounded. It is said that if you follow the passages deep enough, if something guides you through the right twists and turns, you will emerge eventually into the Dreamer’s Cavern. No one knows who or what the Dreamer is, if it might be the ‘Harrow’ for which the island is named, but very few want to find out.

Aloysius Carroway:

Aloysius Carroway was born, the elder of a set of twins, to one of the founding families of the Rock. He and his twin brother Ezekiel grew up in Harrow Cove, at a time when the Carroway and Merrick families were vying increasingly over control of the port, and bad blood had grown between them.

Not that Aloysius and Ezekiel particularly cared. They were focused on their own endeavours. Aloysius, his studies, and Ezekiel, the pride and adventure of the fishing fleets. Though Ezekiel in particular clashed with the Merrick heir, Elias Merrick, a grudging respect soon grew between them, and life was good. Aloysius took over his father’s position as harbourmaster, Ezekiel as captain of the fishing fleet, and between them the brothers earned the respect of Harrow Cove.

Then, one day, a terrible storm swept the seas around Harrow’s Rock, and Ezekiel’s ship was announced lost at sea, with everyone aboard. The Cove was shaken, but Aloysius was devastated. There was nothing in the world he loved more than his twin, and he refused to believe that Ezekiel was truly dead. He dreamed repeatedly that Ezekiel was alive and would return to him, and his adamance, particularly on the subject of dreams, began to make people around him nervous. Harrow’s Rock had long had legends of the Dreamer in the Cavern, you see, and dreams were never a safe subject on the island.

And then Ezekiel did come back to him. In the aftermath of a second terrible storm, nearly two years after the first, a man washed up on the rocky beach underneath Harrow Cliff … with a newborn baby wrapped in seaweed in his arms. It was Ezekiel, and he introduced the child adamantly as his own, as his son Ambrose. He would not say who (or what) the mother had been.

Aloysius was overjoyed. His brother, the other half of his soul, was returned to him, and he had brought a tiny addition to the family along with him, something Aloysius, being not romantically inclined, had never hoped to see without his brother’s help.

No one else on Harrow’s Rock was overjoyed, however. To anyone with even an ounce of superstition, and no one on the Rock would be content with an ounce, everything about Ezekiel’s return reeked of ill-omen. From Aloysius’ dreams, to Ezekiel washing up beneath the Dreamer’s cliff, to the child’s increasingly obvious otherness, it all stank of the Dreamer. Nor did it help that Ezekiel himself was changed, grown as quiet and reticent as his brother after his experience. Rumours and superstition ran rampant in Harrow Cove. Spearheaded, with growing alarm and anger, by Elias Merrick, who could not find the man he had grudgingly grown to respect in this new Ezekiel.

Aloysius would hear none of it. His brother was returned to him, and his nephew, though a little odd, including such details as being able to breathe just fine in the bath, was a cheerful, friendly baby. He would hear no word against them. Not from anyone, for any reason.

Dreams stirred across the island in the wake of Ezekiel’s return. Strange, salty visions, never the same between one person and the next. It could have been nothing more than superstition itself, excited dreams thrown up by paranoia and rumour. But sentiment stirred against the Carroways regardless, and neither Ezekiel nor Aloysius himself were any help.

And then, a year to the day from the moment Ezekiel Carroway had washed up on Harrow Beach, on the day he had claimed for his child’s first birthday, another storm lashed the Rock, fierce enough to dwarf anything the island had seen in a hundred years. And the growing fear and superstition on the island finally flashed to violence.

No one would admit afterwards to having been there when the mob, lead by Elias Merrick, smashed down the door of the Carroway townhouse, while Aloysius was still working in the port, and dragged Ezekiel Carroway out into the street. They searched for the child as well, young Ambrose, but couldn’t find him. Their bloodlust would have to be content with an oddly calm, placid Ezekiel.

And he was calm. Utterly serene. It was said he looked Elias Merrick in the eye, no trace of fear or of the man he had once been as he faced his former friend, and eyed the boathook in his hand with nothing but a small smile. He made no sound and offered no words of protest, even as they beat him almost to death. And no one was there, no one would admit to being there, but still the rumour went that his eyes had been wide open and his mouth still smiling when Elias shoved him angrily off the dock and back into the watery embrace of his ‘lover’.

Aloysius witnessed this. He had been working in the port. He couldn’t miss a mob marching down the Cove’s docks. It took six men, at least two of them Merricks, to hold him back from trying to leap to his brother’s defense. He was almost insane with desperation, with rage. He fought them like a madman, but nothing he did could get him close enough. Ezekiel slipped away.

And when it was done, when his brother had been taken from him, Elias Merrick looked him in the eyes. Elias told him, with the barest hint of remorse, that he ‘did what had to be done’. To protect the island from whatever unnatural force Ezekiel had brought back with him.

There had been no one in the world that Aloysius loved more than his brother. Not a single soul.

He went back to the townhouse. In the midst of his grief and his fury, he found his nephew, Ambrose. His brother’s infant son. Alive, gloriously alive, and hidden in a water tank. Breathing away quite happily to himself, in the gentle quiet underwater. He’d slept through his father’s death. Aloysius, still lost in the serene white seas of rage, could only be glad of that. He retrieved the child. Swore on his brother’s name that he would protect him with his life from that day forth.

And swore, too, that he would not rest a single day of that life until he had driven Elias, the Merricks, and anyone else who might ever be a threat to his family, off the island.

It took almost twenty years. It took every trick and trade, every scrap of fortune and alliance, old and new, that Aloysius possessed. But he drove the Merrick fleet into the ground. Broke their finances. Took Harrow Cove, inch by inch, house by house, back for the Carroways. He took control of vital trade and supplies. Starved the lighthouse at Lorn Point. Drove the family to beggardom or to the sea. Fortune was incidental. The prosperity of Harrow’s Rock as a whole was beside the point. Everything he did from that day forth was to bring Elias Merrick to his knees.

And he succeeded. Beggared and battered further and further back, the Merricks left the island and went to their boats. Went to the sea. And the sea remembered Ezekiel too. Something in it. Whether it was a curse or something else, no Merrick ship could prosper around Harrow’s Rock. Many of them sank. One of them … was Elias’.

Perhaps that on its own would have been enough to draw the attentions of the Powers in the Mists. That single-minded devotion to slow, starvatious vengeance. But grudges were a way of life on Harrow’s Rock, blood feuds as common as bloodlines. One man slowly driving a family into the sea was nothing all that special on the Rock.

But Aloysius loved his brother’s son as well. He loved his nephew. He had taken that oath to Ezekiel’s memory just as firmly to heart. And as Ambrose grew and grew, into a fine, gentle, and terribly shy young man, so the rumours around their family grew in step. Ezekiel had been given back to his lover, whatever monstrosity that might have been, but his son still walked the island, and his brother bent all his powers to protecting him. And Aloysius was different now. He had learned from that day on the dock. He had learned to pay attention. The older Ambrose got, the more desperately paranoid and aware of rumour Aloysius became.

And the dreams swept the island even still. More and more as the years went on. Paranoia. Superstition. The Dreamer in the Cave. Or maybe Ambrose or Aloysius himself. Some taint, of Ezekiel or of the Carroway bloodline itself. Aloysius’ dreams predated the storm, after all. Ezekiel had been his twin. Perhaps the taint had carried, the moment Ezekiel’s ship had first been lost.

Either way, it came to a head once again. The terror on the island, and the fervour of Aloysius’ promise to his brother in response. The Church of the Salt had sprung up, its adherents agitating against the taint of the Dreamer, and Aloysius could see it coming once again. The worst day of his life. The loss of his family and his soul all over again.

He wasn’t going to allow it. Before any man, woman or child on the island dared lay hands on his family again, Aloysius Carroway was going to stop them.

Even if he had to kill each and every one of them to manage it.

There were no dreams, the day a priest of the Salt stood on the docks and loudly denounced Ambrose Carroway as a demon from the deep to be destroyed. Everyone on the island remembered that afterwards. That the night before it all ended, no one dreamed. Of the sea, or of anything. A sleep as deep and dreamless as the dead.

The next day, Aloysius calmly locked his tearful, pleading nephew away. Somewhere safe, somewhere no one on the island would know to look for him. And then he walked back down into town. Down the docks to the Church of the Salt, where he stood patiently waiting until the priests and priestesses came out to meet him.

And when they did, he gave them one chance to repent their words and threats against his nephew. One chance, to stave off his wrath. If they did not, he promised quietly, he would do as Elias had done to his brother. He would return Harrow Cove to the sea. All of it. Every man, woman and child. If they did not leave the island and renounced their threats against his family, then in his brother’s name, for his nephew’s protection, he would sink this town into the sea.

They didn’t listen. Much as the Merricks, twenty years earlier.

That night, for the first time in more than a year, a light appeared at Lorn Point Lighthouse. A green, ghostly light, shining out across the waters. The bells of the Church of the Salt started ringing, moved by no human hand. A thunderous crack echoed beneath the town. A hideous shudder and rumbling shook the island.

And the Mists rolled gently and inexorably across the Rock, as the town of Harrow Cove slumped forward into the sea.

Aloysius Carroway woke up in his townhouse. Exactly as it had been the day before. He stumbled out, dazed, into a Harrow Cove that looked exactly like the town he had just destroyed. Full of the townspeople he had just murdered, though they didn’t seem to remember him doing so. On an island exactly like Harrow’s Rock.

With just a few small differences ...

Aloysius’ Powers and Dominion

Aloysius has statistics similar to that of an Inquisitor of the Mind Fire, though his psionic abilities are either inborn or a potential influence of the Dreamer. His personal prowess pales in comparison to his control over his island and the influence of his dreams, however.

Paranoid Whispers: Aloysius’ awareness of his domain has been heightened by his paranoia. While his perception grows foggier the further from Harrow’s Cove it goes, and holds no dominion whatsoever over the sea and little over Loney Marsh, within Harrow Cove and most of the eastern side of the island, he is aware of all newcomers, and echoes of his dreams inform him of harmful intentions on the part of the islanders.

Wrathful Dreams: Whether consciously or not, Aloysius’ dreams now touch those of all who dwell in his domain. When he dreams of his brother, so do they. When he dreams of his hatred for them, so do they. And if his dreams visit harm upon them, that harm may manifest when they wake. Denizens of Harrow’s Rock do their best to avoid drawing the Darklord’s attention to them, lest he dream of them that night.

Closing the Borders: When Aloysius wishes to close the borders of Harrow’s Rock, great storms whip around the edges of his domain. Those who attempt to sail into those storms are affected as detailed in “The Mists” section in Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft.

Aloysius’ Torment

Since the stormswept night when Harrow’s Rock and every soul on it were transported to the Mists, Aloysius has been tormented by the following circumstances:

Since entering the Mists, Aloysius’ dreams of his murdered brother Ezekiel have grown stronger and stronger, tormenting him with the dual convictions that his brother might have survived that day, as he survived the shipwreck before it, and that his brother is furious at his failure to protect his son. Aloysius longs to reach out to and find his brother, but the seas are now controlled by his enemies, and there is no known way to enter the Dreamer’s Cavern, if that is where Ezekiel now resides.

When Aloysius awoke in the newly remade Harrow Cove, he immediately rushed to check on his nephew, but found the locks broken and his nephew nowhere to be seen. He has no idea if Ambrose escaped and hates him too much for his actions to seek him out, or if Ambrose was found and taken by his enemies. None have come forward claiming to have done so, but Aloysius lives in feverish terror that he has failed despite it all and allowed his nephew to be captured or killed.

Aloysius does not and cannot trust a single person on the island. He remembers destroying Harrow Cove and murdering everyone in the town, though he is unsure to what extent it truly happened, and he remains uncertain how many, if any, of the islanders remember that too. His fears whisper that all of them do. They may be right.

While the island and particularly the town of Harrow Cove are his, the waters off the island are a much different story. The seas around Harrow’s Rock are more haunted than they have ever been, and there is one ghost in particular that gladly torments Aloysius by his presence. Elias Merrick sails the seas around the island, and would love to welcome his old friend, should Aloysius ever attempt to leave the safety of the town and his island behind to search for his brother, his nephew, or for freedom. From the light at Lorn Point, Aloysius is convinced that Elias is trying to lure outsiders to Harrow’s Rock to destroy him, and again, he may not be wrong. But outsiders may also be the only people Aloysius could convince to seek the Dreamer’s Cave and Ezekiel.

Roleplaying Aloysius

Personality Trait: “Everyone is out to get me and mine, but not if I get them first.”

Ideal: “Nothing is more important than the protection and memory of those I love.”

Bond: “I will find and keep my family safe, by whatever means necessary.”

Flaw: “Nobody and nothing can be trusted except my family.”

Adventures in Harrow’s Rock:

Harrow’s Rock is the domain of ghost stories, cycles of vengeance, petty feuds, dreaming horrors, and oceanic terrors. It is hostile for reasons both human and otherworldly: the hatred and paranoia of a superstitious populace and a man who watched his family die and seeks to emphatically prevent any potential repeat, and the otherworldly influence of the sea, the caves, and the ‘Dreamer’, whatever the Dreamer may be. If the Dreamer is anything, and not just the frothing superstition of the islanders and the subconscious telepathic powers of some of the island’s bloodlines.

When visitors follow Lorn Point’s light through the mists, or wash up in Loney Marsh or on the rocky beach beneath Harrow Cliff, they are faced with a wild, rocky island inhabited by sullen, paranoid, mistrustful people who want to either get rid of them before they attract attention, or use them for their own ends while trying to hide their own sins in the process. Characters born on the island face nights full of foreign dreams, perhaps vague memories of a great disaster that something tells them they shouldn’t have survived, and the deep conviction that there is a dreaming force on the island that deeply loathes them.

If the characters arrived by ship, they may find that Aloysius has closed the borders and will not let them leave until they help him find Ezekiel, Ambrose, or the way to the Dreamer’s Cavern. Or until they help someone else, the Church of the Salt or the Merricks, to destroy him and end his control over the island and the borders. If they washed up unwillingly on the shore, they may seek out a ship in Harrow Cove, Loney Marsh, or among the pirates of the Wrack of the Isle in an effort to escape again, any of which may embroil them further in the machinations of the Carroways, the Merricks, the Whitmarshes, or the Church of the Salt. Perhaps they might wish to investigate the mystery of the Dreamer themselves, or help individual islanders to avoid Aloysius’ notice, destroy the Darklord, or deal with their own private feuds or hauntings. Or perhaps they might stumble across a shy, fearful genasi youth who is somehow immune to the Darklord’s dreams …

Harrow’s Rock Adventures

d8                         Adventure

1                            In order to be allowed to leave the domain again, a man in Harrow’s Cove named Aloysius Carroway wants the party to search Loney Marsh for his missing nephew, without broadcasting to all and sundry that the youth is missing at all.

2                            Outside the Church of the Salt, a ragged figure implores the party to help her find out what has happened to a shipment of food and medicine destined for the beleaguered faithful inside the walls.

3                            While sailing into Harrow’s Rock, following the ghostly light of a strange lighthouse that isn’t on any map or chart, the party’s ship was captured by a spectral vessel, whose ghostly captain demands that they find some way to lure or trap a man named Aloysius Carroway onto a vessel and out to sea to meet him.

4                            Waking up bewildered and lost in Loney Marsh, the party are found by a shy young water genasi youth who will not tell them his name, and is adamant that they should leave the island immediately before his uncle realises that they’re there. At all costs, he reiterates desperately, they must avoid Harrow Cove.

5                            Landing in Loney Marsh, the party are taken to meet Eurydicia Marsh, who says that of course she’ll help them off the island, if they’ll just do a few little things for her first. Make a few deliveries, to some faithful in Harrow Cove, or her dear friend Estelle on the Wrack of the Isle. A few things like that …

6                            While the party attempt to buy supplies in Harrow Cove, the shopkeep’s terrified son rushes downstairs, saying that he dreamt that Mr. Carroway was very angry with him, though he didn’t know why. To the party’s surprise, the shopkeep takes this incredibly seriously, and immediately tells the son to write a letter of apology to Mr. Carroway and deliver it post haste. And to not be seen doing so.

7                            Delivered by the mists to a rocky beach beneath a great cliff, the party find that the nearest town distinctly does not welcome them, calling them ‘Dreamer’s get’ and either avoiding them or blackly cursing them off the island.

8                            The merchants of the town in Harrow Cove approach the party and ask them to venture further inland, to Redmarch Manor, which controls what little farmable land exists on the island. Deliveries of produce have been delayed lately, and they would be grateful if the party would find out why.

The Dreamer’s Cavern

One of the central mysteries of Harrow’s Rock, the legend of the Dreamer’s Cavern is bound up in the founding of the island, the influence and curses of the families who settled there, potentially the return of Aloysius’ brother at least once and perhaps twice, and perhaps also the origins of Aloysius’ dreaming abilities, if those were not wishful thinking once and an influence of the Dark Powers now.

Who or what the Dreamer might be, or even if there is a Dreamer at all, is something you can decide before running an adventure in Harrow’s Rock. If you choose to have the Dreamer exist and be an active influence on the island, you may wish to draw more heavily from cosmic horror influences as much as ghost stories or nautical elements. If you choose instead to have the Dreamer’s influence simply be a facet of the deeply superstitious nature of the islanders, you might draw more from gothic or psychological horror. If the party seeks an endgame for Harrow’s Rock involving the reveal of the Dreamer, you must decide what influence that will have on Aloysius, the inhabitants of the island, and the potential solution to the Darklord’s curse.

Use the table below to help decide what the Dreamer might be, or come up with your own ideas:

The Dreamer’s Nature:

d6                         Nature

1                            The Dreamer is an aboleth or a kraken seeking escape from a watery prison beneath the island, and attempting to manipulate visitors or islanders into seeking it out to accomplish this. Slaying it will have no effect on Aloysius or his curse.

2                            The Dreamer is a star spawn emissary, the ‘Harrow’ which landed on the island so many centuries ago, and it seeks nothing more nor less than to untether everyone on the island from reality altogether, influencing their dreams, passions and perceptions to shatter their understanding of the world. Revealing its nature may cause Aloysius to question the nature of his actions and his ‘awakening’ in the Mists, but might exacerbate rather than help his curse by further damaging his senses of reality and responsibility for his own actions.

3                            The Dreamer is a sleeping atropal, an unfinished, stillborn god, whose wordless, noisome dreams infect everything in its vicinity with hateful emotions. It has infected many of the oldest family bloodlines on the island with its influence, leading to odd powers and a propensity towards violence among them. Slaying it may help Aloysius regain some clarity regarding his willingness to slaughter a town to ‘save’ his nephew, or it may cause him to surrender to his ‘bloodline’ and double down on his actions.

4                            The Dreamer does not and never did exist. Aloysius’ dreams were his own powers and attachment to his twin, and Ezekiel’s change of personality was simply trauma from the shipwreck and his imprisonment at the hands of Ambrose’s marid mother. Revealing this may drive Aloysius deeper into his sense of justified power and retribution, highlighting that his brother’s death really was for nothing more than superstition and only Aloysius’ own power stands between his nephew and the same fate. It may have the opposite effect on Elias Merrick.

5                            The Dreamer didn’t exist before Harrow’s Rock was drawn into the Mists, but it does now, as a facet of Aloysius’ curse. It is an empty shell, a puppet of the Dark Powers, embodied in the form of Aloysius’ dead brother, Ezekiel. If Aloysius personally encounters this embodiment, he may become completely enthralled and controlled by this puppet, willing to do anything it asks to protect his ‘brother’.

6                            The Dreamer is Ezekiel himself, watery and undead, bound to the Aloysius and the island after death by his unquiet death, his bond with his brother, and the oaths Aloysius took in Ezekiel’s name. His death, and the destruction wrought upon Harrow’s Rock as a result of it, echoes psychically back through time to the island’s founding, manifesting as the Dreamer’s dreams. Depending on whether this Ezekiel approves or is horrified by what his brother has done, it may influence Aloysius in either direction, towards further vengeance or redemption. Destroying this version of the Dreamer will have a very personal and dramatic effect on Aloysius.

Finding Aloysius’ Family

If characters wish to gain Aloysius’ aid and approval to leave Harrow’s Rock once more, he will almost certainly either ask or attempt to trick them into doing one or more of these three things:

Find Ambrose for him on the island, likely searching into Loney Marsh and other areas where his perception is limited.

Go to the Wrack of the Isle and seek evidence of whether Ezekiel has been seen in the waters off the island, or if the Merricks have captured, imprisoned or murdered Ambrose.

Find some way to enter the Cavern of the Dreamer in search of Ezekiel.

If the party successfully finds Ambrose and chooses to bring him to Aloysius, or finds reasonably satisfactory evidence that the Merricks at least have not seen or captured either Ezekiel or Ambrose, Aloysius will open the domain’s borders and give them a mist talisman that will grant them passage out of Harrow’s Rock. If the party chooses to seek entrance to the Dreamer’s Cavern instead, the end result of that will depend on what you have decided the nature of the Dreamer is, and what effect that will have on Aloysius.

Destroying Aloysius

If the party wishes to attempt to remove Aloysius instead, in order to leave the island or after learning more of who he is, there are several parties in Harrow’s Rock would like nothing more than to see Aloysius killed, no matter what effect that might have on the domain of Harrow’s Rock.

The Merrick family want nothing more than revenge on Aloysius for what he did to them. If the party can find some way to distract or blind Aloysius to their approach, Estelle Merrick would be more than happy to lead an invasion of Harrow Cove to cut the bastard’s head off herself. Her cousin, by contrast, the spectral Elias Merrick, would prefer if Aloysius would be tricked or bludgeoned onto a vessel and brought out to sea to meet him, that he might ‘return him to his brother’. Whether or not either of these plans would work is a matter for you to decide.

The Church of the Salt would also like Aloysius destroyed, but they firmly believe that the true evil on the island is the Dreamer, and that all of Aloysius’ powers and abilities stem from this creature. They believe that Ezekiel bore the creature’s infection to his brother, that his demon son sustained it, and that Aloysius cannot truly be killed nor the island freed unless some way is found to destroy the Dreamer’s tools, breach the Dreamer’s Cavern, and destroy the dark entity there. Their goals, therefore, surprisingly align with Aloysius’ at least in some part, in that they want the party to find Ambrose and to find some way into the Dreamer’s Cavern. The divergence lies in what they want the party to do with Ambrose and/or the Dreamer afterwards. To that end, they are perfectly happy for a party to also appear to be working for Aloysius towards those goals, as long as they are sure that the party’s final decision will turn their way.

The Townspeople of Harrow Cove, if they do remember, either partially or fully, what Aloysius once did, might be more than motivated to help destroy him also. However, they more than anyone exist under Aloysius’ direct thumb and are more at risk of drawing his dreams down upon them, so the party would have to find some way to ensure their safety and ensure that the destruction of Harrow Cove will not be repeated before the townspeople would be moved to overtly help.

If the party truly wishes to destroy, rather than attempt to redeem, Aloysius, then the main things they will need to find a way around are his psychic awareness of every stranger in the vicinity of Harrow Cove, his knowledge through his dreams of island natives with ill-intent against him, and the terror that most islanders have of acting against them when he can potentially kill, curse or grievously harm them in his dreams.

Inhabitants of the Island

Once the party has landed on Harrow’s Rock, there are several factors and factions that might complicate any mission they might have, from escape, to aiding or destroying Aloysius, to exploring any of the mysteries of the island. Harrow’s Rock is a domain of ghosts and nautical horrors, nightmares and blood feuds. Getting anywhere on this island will not be an easy task.

Eurydicia Marsh, in Loney Marsh, controls almost all of the hidden travel and smuggling on Harrow’s Rock. Any party hoping to avoid Aloysius’ notice, keep certain secrets from him, or get materials to other allies without his notice, will almost inevitably wind up seeking an audience with her. And Eurydicia is always happy to help, for a price. Nothing comes free, darlings. She is a scion of one of the four families herself, and she has ventures across the island, and echoes of old family pride, that she would like the party’s help with as well.

Rowena Redmarch, in Redmarch Manor, seems the most disconnected of the four family scions from any of the driving plots of Harrow Cove, but the fact remains that she controls all land-based food supply to everyone else on the island. If the haunting of Redmarch Manor, her family curse, or the influence of the Dreamer on her, affect the delivery of those supplies, she will rapidly become relevant once again, even to such powerhouses as Aloysius or Estelle Merrick.

Ambrose Carroway, Aloysius’ nephew, may be the one person on the island, if his father is truly dead and gone, who might have a hope of redeeming Aloysius, but that depends entirely on what has happened to Ambrose since Harrow’s Rock was swallowed by the mist. If Ambrose is still alive, he may be a captive of the Merricks, Eurydicia Marsh, the Church of the Salt, or the Dark Powers. He may have no memory of who he is or what happened to him. He may remember all too well, and want nothing to do with the man who locked him up for his own ‘protection’ and then walked off to slaughter a town. He may want to reach his uncle, but be aware that there are influences on the island, such as the Dreamer or the Dark Powers, who would make any successful intervention difficult at best. He may simply be too traumatised and afraid to know what he wants to do without a little help and guidance.

Ambrose’s mother, if she (/it/they) was not the Dreamer and if she has access to or was trapped within the mists, might also wish to intervene on the island, for either Ambrose or Ezekiel’s sake. Or she might firmly respect Aloysius for his response to Harrow Cove, and wish to support him. She may also have been the force which sank Elias Merrick’s ship and killed him, all those years ago.

Feuds and horrors. The inhabitants of Harrow’s Rock tend towards the sullen, the superstitious and the bloody-minded. The party might encounter any number of hauntings, ghost stories, petty feuds or bloody murders simply by nature of the environment on Harrow’s Rock and the kind of people that inhabit it. Undead and aquatic monsters are common on the island and around it, and if the Dreamer’s influence is more real than not, also psychic influences, aberrations and madness. Even those islanders who want to help or be helped might not show it readily, for fear of Aloysius, the Dreamer, or just an islander mistrust of outsiders.  

#d&d #homebrew #van richten's guide to ravenloft #domains of dread #long post #cosmic horror #lovecraftian #maritime horror #ghosts #feuds #i had too much fun with this #and yes it is based on that dream I had one time

[firebrands]

stevetony fic recs

BUCKLE UP MY DUDES THIS IS GONNA BE A LONG ONE

here are my recs for steve/tony fics that i seriously think need a ton more love! (aka, have less than a 1k kudos lol)

starts w angsty recs, then fluff, then pwps

Pyriscence by @nostalgicatsea, 6.9k, MCU

written pre-release of endgame, but damn. so good. i cried.

She also knows this: Tony handed over his heart to Steve—to all of them but most of all to Steve—along with the keys to his house the day he recruited them.

Even if Steve knew that, Natasha isn’t sure he would keep it anyway. She knows he thinks himself undeserving.

She knows it’s because he loves Tony.

A Long, Lonely Time by asktheravens, 58.5k, MCU

holy SHIT, this was a WILD FUCKING RIDE. totally unique. 

Author’s summary: Steve returned from the war injured in body and mind- and able to see the dead. At loose ends and desperate to get out of New York City, he accepts a fellowship through the Stark Foundation and retreats to a quiet lake house on the grounds of the Stark Mansion. He's supposed to be there to paint, but he quickly realizes that the house is more than he bargained for. Anthony Stark died here a decade ago, but was it an accident? A suicide? Or a murder? Obadiah Stane still lives in the main house just up the hill, and the past casts a long shadow.

A Cabin in the Woods by nightwalker @onemuseleft, 26.7k, MCU I really don't want to spoil this but this fic has it ALL - fluff, funny dialogue, and ELDRITCH HORRORS

Author’s summary: It was supposed to be a relaxing vacation, a chance for them to spend some time as a couple and work out some of the kinks in their relationship. That was before everything got weird.

Steve Rogers is a Tactical Genius by @swankyo0, 2.6k, MCU

I love when Steve is assertive and knows what he’s doing (in terms of romancing Tony)

“What’s up, Cap?” Tony’s voice is light but Steve can tell it’s forced.

“Tony Stark, you and I are going out,” Steve starts, his voice a bit more commanding than he had planned. “We are going to get dinner at a nice place, and I’m going to open doors for you and let you pay because you are a stubborn ass. I’m going to bring you a gift and you are going to accept it because I am a stubborn ass. And at the end of the night I am going to walk you to your door and there will be a kiss good night, because I’m gonna do this right, damn it.”

when i run out of road, you bring me home by @quidhitch, 18.4k, MCU

Tony buys a farm. Steve lives in the farm beside Tony's. (Featuring: Riri Williams!)

“It’s no use trying to keep him out, Tony supposes. He learned a long time ago that he could plaster his whole body with signage declaring ‘WARNING: HAZARDOUS MATERIAL’, and it would only further tempt Steve Rogers’ self-immolating tendencies.” 

call me, maybe by ohmyloki @bootycap, 1.8k, MCU

Tony hums, bouncing up to the balls of his feet for a second as he looks around the gallery. “I’ve got an idea.”

Steve narrows his eyes at him. “I’ve only just met you but I get the feeling that phrase tends to get you in trouble.”

Tony laughs, and Steve’s heart does what feels like a little pirouette in his chest.

“You have no idea how right you are, Steve.”

There’s a deep sense of satisfaction in the way Tony says his name. He wants to hear it again. Which is partly why he can’t be blamed for what comes out of his mouth next.

let me be the one (who never leaves you all alone) by ohmyloki @bootycap, 11.7k, MCU

It was Tony’s wide, brilliant eyes, the rare full-blown smile when he’d accomplished something he’d struggled with, the way he couldn’t seem to stop himself from talking when he came up with a new idea and wanted to show off. Like an excited little kid, ever at odds with the man who drank too much and thought too little of himself. These thoughts of Tony’s kindness, generosity and brilliant mind ran an undercurrent beneath the fantasy of Tony’s slick, tanned skin, and perfectly shaped upper lip. That was when it struck Steve.

Maybe he could have this. Maybe he could have Tony... if Tony would have him.

Get Down On Your Knees And Tell Me You Love Me by @heartsandmuses, 5.1k, MCU

Author’s summary: When Steve opens the page to this month’s calendar, he freezes as he catches sight of a reminder in the space for next Friday, exactly a week from now. PROPOSAL!

Motherlode by nanasekei @elcorhamletlive​, 6.8k, MCU

Author’s summary: After Steve returns, though they've made up, his relationship with Tony remains distant.

“Great,” Steve says, smiling brightly, and Tony can’t, he just can’t handle that smile. It makes him want to float and giggle and dance and do all sorts of crazy things. It makes him want to kiss Steve.

He clutches his hands, giving in to one indulgence over the insane, dangerous other. “Awesome. That’s, that’s awesome.” Then, out of sheer despair, he reaches for another salmon roll, popping it in his mouth.

On the plus side, it gives something to busy his mouth with that isn’t, you know, Steve’s lips. On the down side, he’s now awkwardly chewing with a full mouth in front of Steve.

That seems to remind Steve of the forgotten pig-in-a-blanket on his hand, and he hurriedly eats it, cheeks flushing a little.

So now they’re both chewing. It’s great.

if I time it right, the thunder breaks (when I open my mouth) by nanasekei @elcorhamletlive​, 11.9k, MCU

Or: Five Times Steve told Tony he loved him, and one time he didn't need to.

“That is the most ridiculous thing anyone has ever done for me.”  He pauses for a moment, winded, and Tony looks at him now, mouth curling to fight back what Steve knows would be a self-satisfied smile. “I love you.”

Tony freezes.

Steve… Steve wonders for a second what the best course of action would be, going through all the options, including running to the garden and asking Thor to drown him in the pool for good. He has no idea why it slips out now, exactly, but at this point he has no idea what tiny thing Tony is going to do that’s going to cause a fluttering feeling in his chest.

Strategic Thinking: Armor Wars Edition by Annie D (scaramouche) @no-gorms, 1.8k, Avengers Academy

Tony tries to pull his hand away, but it’s half-hearted. Tony’s neck is flushed pink, which Steve finds far more charming that he probably should. But that’s all right – it’s Tony, who makes Steve think all sorts of things he’d never before.

Every True Thing by @dirigibleplumbing, 3.9k, MCU

Author’s summary: After escaping captivity, Steve and Tony go to a safe house. Ordinarily, it would just be boring. But they’ve both been dosed with truth serum…

“You like it, then?”

“Of course I like it, it’s you.”

“But, I don’t want you to like it just because it’s me, I want you to like it because I’m good at it. You’re good at it, you—know what you’re doing.” Steve blurts this into Tony’s neck, glad that he doesn’t have to look Tony in the face while he speaks.

Mission: Improbable by @cptxrogers, 5.6k, Avengers Assemble Author's summary: Tony is called on to investigate strange events which have been occurring in the upper echelons of society recently. There's just one small issue - he needs Steve to pose as his date for the evening.

Tony glanced around. “I think they’ve moved on. We can get back to work now.” “Are you sure?” Steve asked, a little too quickly. Perhaps the men might still be around. Perhaps might come back. Perhaps they’d need to hide by kissing some more.

Steve Rogers Does (Not Do) Marriage Counseling by Neverever @captainneverever , 6.4k, MCU

Tony stared incredulously at Steve. “Are you that dense?” “No,” Steve replied miserably. “Basically, you’re telling me that you wouldn’t know what to do if someone made a pass at you.” “I wouldn’t know what a pass is or was. That’s what I’m saying.” “So you wouldn’t call shoving your hand on my ass a pass?”

The Fear of Consequences by @keptein, 4.5k, MCU Author's summary: It really isn't a problem. Then one day, Tony looks at Steve and thinks, shit. It might be mutual.

“Cap,” Tony says helplessly. The tomatoes roll around on the brown tile, barely visible in the tower's automatic night light settings.

Steve looks angry, and Tony's suddenly reminded that shit, this guy fought in World War II. It's not usually something you can see on his face. “Why are you avoiding me?” he asks, without preamble, eyes never leaving Tony's face.

“I.. haven't been?” It comes out a question, which really wasn't what Tony wanted at all. “I mean, I haven't been avoiding you, of course I haven't. I've just been busy, you know, Iron Man maintenance, and just because Pepper's CEO of Stark Industries now doesn't mean I don't have to do shit, unfortunately.“ He bends down to avoid Steve's stare and starts to pick up the tomatoes, until he feels Steve's large, warm hand on his shoulder. It startles him into looking up, still bent down with his hand reaching for a tomato. “Cap,” Tony says, and is absurdly proud when the name doesn't lose its warning tint.

Together, At Dawn by RoseGoldAmpersand, 8.1k, MCU

Lingering in his past and missed opportunities, Steve was overcome with the urge to check in on his teammate. As team captain, it was the right thing to do. Nobody would know he had taken a detour. Nobody would suspect he lingered because he ached to see Tony look at him again with eyes bright with friendship. If he couldn't help his Tony, he was making damn sure this Tony knew that Steve Rogers would always be there for him.

a properly scholarly attitude by goodmorningbeloved, 2.9k, college AU

“You were thinking of something. I knew that look, what was—”

“You,” he answers without hesitation. “I was thinking of you. How good you look with those on, how—” He bites his own lip hard, angling his head away from Tony’s kiss in shame. “I— Tony, you’re tired, and we’re in the library—”

Wash That Man (right out of my hair) by @mizzy2k, 7k, comics - 616, sorta pwp?

Holy shit. Holy shit. He'd assumed when Tony said he had a brand new body that it was a metaphor, a dramatic exaggeration, not a completely new unrecognizable-as-Tony-Stark body.

“Hey, Cap!” Tony beams widely at him, his mustache twitching with the smile. “Fancy meeting you here!”

“Haha,” Steve says, “yeah.” Smooth. That’s Steve Rogers for you. Eloquent under pressure.

Nicotine Hit by @festiveferret, 7.5k, MCU, pwp

The idea of Steve smoking in secret wormed its way into Tony’s brain and wouldn’t let go. It was the worst kind of craving, vague and misdirected, because it came in the shape of Steve instead of the nicotine hit he knew he really wanted. He associated Steve with the ritual of smoking and it got so bad he couldn’t look at the man without starting to feel antsy and wound up.

voglio sentirti by lackluster_lexicon @usenecessaryforce , 4.2k, MCU, bdsm

Tony closed the distance between them, unwound his arms to grab hold of the front of Steve’s shirt. Steve hissed in surprise, wrapped his hands around Tony’s wrists, but when Tony put the full force of his body into pulling Steve forward, Steve willingly dropped to his knees. Tony released Steve’s shirt, moved one hand to Steve’s shoulder and grasped Steve’s hair with the other, pulled Steve’s head back and forced him to look up at Tony.

“You’re going to beg,” Tony growled.

Side Effects by @elimymoons , 29.2k, comics - ultimates, bdsm

"You… what?" Steve's breath caught. He felt off-kilter, out of time, like he'd just woken up again and found everything flipped on its axis, but this time it felt good and right, and he just wanted to take Tony in his arms and never let go. "You love me?" he asked, soft, reverent almost. Tony Stark loved him, Steve Rogers, who— who swore too much, whose best friend wore dentures because his teeth all fell out, who talked better with his fists than his words most days. Steve Rogers, a ham-handed, bumbling oaf a man, and sweet, suave, wonderful Tony Stark loved him. "You love me?" he asked again, and Steve could feel his lips pulling back into a wide, beaming grin.

#fic recs #fanfic writer appreciation day #stevetony #stony #steve rogers #tony stark #stevetony fanfiction #stevetony fanfic #i tried my best to find everyone's tumblrs! #THANK YOU ALL YOU HAVE BROUGHT SUCH JOY TO MY LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! #fic rec list

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Movies and TV Shows in the Book

While the series is close to reality, there are a few movie and TV series that exist in the book’s universe. Here they are for all your background information needs!

The Handy & Ydnah Show

An odd show centered around two talking hands with googly eyes, one named Handy and another named Ydnah. Ydnah is characterized as being able to only speak in reverse and being the crazier and more unhinged brother, while Handy is the brains and the voice of reason. The two get into many comical misadventures, many of which rope in their friend and neighbor, the fairy cat Blue.

With its absurd humor, cheap-looking special effects, and goofy voice acting, the show has become popular with both children and stoners alike. Oddly, very little information about the production of the show is available anywhere, and nobody knows who even plays Handy, Ydnah, or Blue, let alone the numerous other characters.

The Journeys of Arya Mournblade

 A series of films starring  actress Maggie Fair that began in the early 80s. they are centered on the eponymous Arya Mournblade, a wandering warrior woman in the fantasy land of Urgonn. The following films were made:

The Lair of the Serpent King: Arya goes to stop a strange cult that wishes to resurrect an ancient and powerful serpent god. Despite its low budget, it managed to win over audiences with the cheesy script and solid special effects for the budget. Released in 1986, it has a solid 6.8 on IMDB.

Hellfire of Dagoth: Arya faces an evil warlock bent on releasing demons from Hell. Here it was noted Iris’ acting was greatly improved, and the plot was tighter and more original. Dagoth is widely regarded as the least interesting villain in the series in terms of characterization and motivation. His actor, Gordon Brand, makes a valiant effort to make up for it by chewing the scenery, but to no avail in the eyes of the fans. However, Fair’s better acting combined with the better effects and a decent supporting cast, including a beleaguered henchman and a sensual bard, helped to make this a well-liked movie. Released in 1988, it holds a 5.9 on IMDB.

The Ebony Tower: An evil overlord wages war on the land from atop a mighty tower, which Arya promises to scale, not knowing all the dangers inside. This one was the first critical darling of the series, gaining good reviews from critics and audiences alike. A big help was getting Dane Grayson of the Dick Kicker: Ace Detective series to play the villainous overlord Celsior, who is widely regarded as being the best antagonist of the series. The clear inspiration from kung-fu movies combined with the tightest plot to date and a cast of colorful oneshot assassins populating the titular tower led to this movie getting great reviews. It was released in 1989 and has a 7.4 on IMDB.

Starchild of Avalor: Beings from beyond the stars beg Arya to help them stop a coming invasion which threatens to wipe out all life on Earth. This is widely regarded as the lowest point in the series. The addition of UFOs and sci-fi elements really soured a lot of fans, with them finding it did not mesh well with the series. However, it is widely agreed the villain, Xendru the Conqueror is one of the most fun villains the franchise had to offer. The special effects in this movie were shockingly subpar, and the story was rather confused in a lot of parts. Still, the fun villain as well as Iris’ seasoned acting did end up being praised, and the movie does have a small cult following WITHIN the cult following, with most fans viewing it as a “So bad it’s good” movie. Released in 1993, it has a 4.9 on IMDB.

Marked in the Stars: Released in 1996. This entry was the first one in the series to go direct-to-video. It’s viewed as a step up from the previous film, which isn’t really saying much. It has a 5.8 on IMDB. 

The Final Crusade: Released direct-to-video in 2000, this was intended to be the grand finale of the series, but it was met with overwhelmingly poor reception due to its lackluster plot and unsatisfying conclusions. It holds the lowest rating of the franchise on IMDB, at 3.6.

The Demon’s Head: After a decade in limbo and Fair constantly talking about how she’d love to return to the role, the franchise returned to theaters with this first entry in the Arya Reborn trilogy, as it would come to be known, and it was a resounding success among fans. Released in 2010, it holds a 6.8 on IMDB.

The Wrath of Mouurnblade: While seen as a bit of a fanservice stunt as it brought back almost every antagonist in the series to fight Arya again, most fans agree the movie is a lot of fun and has great performances that redeem even the weaker villains. Released in 2014, it holds a 7.0 on IMDB.

With Strange Eons: The finale of the series. Arya must fight against the apocalypse as the Great Old Ones are awakened from their eternal slumber. This movie is the second film in the franchise to win great praise from both audiences and critics alike, and is widely hailed as a swords and sorcery classic. Fair is at the top of her game, and the story is excellent and finely woven, with the Lovecraftian influence working wonders after the divisive use of aliens. It helps eldritch horrors mesh better with fantasy settings than UFOs. The villains Ktulu, Yargog, Nephilethet, and Azeroth are some of the most frightening special effects the series had ever achieved, using all sorts of techniques from animatronics to stop-motion to bring the monsters to life. The film ends with Arya dying while sealing the Great Old Ones away forever, with Arya becoming a legend on Earth and having a constellation put in the sky, with the strong implication the gods granted her some form of divinity so she may watch over Earth for all time. It is widely considered the best film in the franchise. Released in 2017, it has a 7.9 on IMDB.

Dick Kicker: Ace Detective

A series of tongue-in-cheek hard-boiled detective movies from the late 60s/early 70s starring Dane Grayson as the eponymous private eye, a hardboiled badass who plays by no one’s rules but his own. Five films were made:

Dick Kicker: Ace Detective: The first film in the series. It featured Dick investigating the mysterious disappearance of a mayor’s daughter. Things were obviously not as they seem. It’s widely regarded as the best entry of the series, though most of the sequels have fans. It was released in 1968 and has a 7.5 on IMDB.

The Rain Falls Hard: A string of murders during a rainy spring rife with flooding, and Dick is on the case again. This one is seen as a bit of a step down from the first film. Released in 1971, it has a 6.7 on IMDB.

Time and Time Again: A rich, eccentric clockmaker is found murdered in his mansion at a dinner party, and it’s up to Dick Kicker to figure out who the killer is. This is the most highly regarded sequel of the bunch. Released in 1974, it has a 7.0 on  IMDB.

The Hardest Nut to Crack: A factory worker and union leader turns up dead, so Dick Kicker is on the case to get to the bottom of this. Very good ideas and a solid message, but the execution lacked any flair and some find the film hamfisted. Released in 1978, it has a 6.0 on IMDB.

The City Sleeps Tonight: A death during a severe power outage is investigated by Dick. Usually regarded as the weakest entry in the series. Released in 1980, it has a 5.8 on IMDB.

Mercenaries

A series about, you guessed it, a group of mercenaries. It is a trashy, crazy action series well known for two things: The immortal lines “There’s nothing better in life than the feeling of a woman’s tongue coiling around the tip of your dick” and “I’m going to make you sorry you ever slid out of your mom’s vagina” (both uttered by the main character, foul-mouthed Max Viper) and the single fight scene involving Venus Crowley (under her pseudonym Scarlet Love) in which she performed unscripted combat moves whilst riding a motorcycle. 

#The vampirino story

[dlkardenal]

A new project! Lovecraftian gothic horror sold as adult dark fantasy

Hey there, traveler!

Dar here with exciting news: we started a new project! First, let’s see if I can entice you, then we’ll do a deeper dive into the how’s and why’s.

A lovecraftian horror / adult dark fantasy in a land that sunk beneath the Earth’s surface around 1000 A.D., and a curse turned half the people into vampires. The order of the day is gloom and despair, human kingdoms are stuck in a perpetual war while the vampire clans toy with powers they barely understand, threatening to unearth an ancient eldritch entity hell bent on consuming the world. 

Are you on board? Good, here we go!

I. Prelude (skip forward if you’re only interested in the WIP) The story of this WIP starts back in 2015, when me and a good friend of mine we shall call Niel got out of high school and into two distant universities. We still wanted to keep in touch somehow, so instead of chatting on facebook like normal people, we created a play-by-post roleplay forum in a dark fantasy setting. This was a land of many races, among these the aforementioned vampires and human kingdoms, but also elves, dark elves, half-angels and more. We created our characters and invited many other players through various channels, and in a few months, we got ourselves a quite populated internet playground. For a fun fact, this was how I met Lory for the first time and we fell in love through roleplaying and chatting on this forum. Years went by, we played many characters but eventually had a falling out with the players, so last fall we left. However we had a really fascinating story cut in half basically with three vampires and the world was just too good to be left alone. After months of trying to recapture the same feeling elsewhere, we just bit the bullet and decided to make it into a grandiose adult fiction novel. Yupp, this is a co-production of three indie writers sticking their heads together to write three distinct point of views around the same conflict. So, what’s this about exactly?

II. The vampires There’s a thing I want to nail down at the beginning. Our vampires are different from most fiction, they do not reproduce by biting people nor do they need blood for survival. They are a new species born from the descendants of an almost forgotten army that tried to invade a new, fertile land but got into such a bloody conflict God punished them with two things. First the very earth broke asunder under them, sinking the land under the Earth’s surface and at the same time a curse struck, making sunlight harmful for them. They hid in caves or perished in the open, only coming out at night, but over centuries they created an entirely nocturnal society and separated from their old enemy, the humans who missed the curse by praying really hard (it’s a bit more complicated, but that’s for a later time). They created the Towers and the Families, colonies of vampires picked by their profession, resulting in entire clans of only hunters, soldiers, physicians and mages. Yes, mages. Because after a while they realized their Curse can tap into a dark power source, creating grotesque magic effects like manipulating living flesh, sewing shadows into solid objects or creating living creatures out of stone – but this came at a price. And that price was blood. The Curse would only lend them magic if they drank blood, so they started enslaving humans to use as a source for magic, forever condemning themselves in the eyes of the southernmost human kingdom and their Church.

III. The characters So, the story follows three characters. 

Aura is a half-blood with a vampire mother but human father, now serving as a low-ranking member in the Thesantei Tower, a family dedicated to maintaining social relationships. She deals with the previously mentioned human slaves and tries to form a bridge between the humans and the accursed, all the while trying to prove herself to be a rightful member of the Thesantei. 

Laetitia, on the other hand is as pure as vampires come. The youngest daughter of the lord of Nerinai, a feared vampire clan of physicians capable of manipulating blood and tissue at will, she arrives at the Thesantei Tower to learn about the only organ her family knows little about: the mind. Only her research doesn’t only tears down the borders of sanity, but her curiosity leads her to dark paths.

Arion is fully vampire, yet far from pure. He’s the bastard son of the Nerinai head dissector – a servant of much higher lords – but his mother is a prestigious Ataris noblewoman, from the family of vampire mages. He left the Nerinai tower when they denied him the right to practice as a physician, now he tries to treat the outlaws and lowlifes of Eschatia, a human kingdom that tolerates him. However his mission to heal requires deeds much more dire than he’d first imagine.

That’s the main three. Their story starts off separate, but after a shocking event that turns the already dark and hopeless land even worse, their fate intertwines in a desperate attempt to save what’s left to be saved.

IV. Where’s Lovecraft in that? I mentioned there’s a Church. We based it on the real life orthodox beliefs, mainly to mix up the usual Spanish inquisition style fantasy religions with something creepier and less known, but also because it has a strong focus on angels.And let me tell you, if you read the Bible literally, angels are anything but pretty. Most angels are many-dimensional horrid monstrosities, with maddening shapes and mind-bending voices – which means they are perfect for cosmic horror feel. I think it isn’t much of a spoiler if I tell you we focus heavily on these eldritch-looking angels, not just as antagonists but all over the spectrum. As I said, this will be a clearly adult fantasy, so it will be chonky. Like really chonky. Drama, politics, horror effects, family bloodlines and dark secrets are a-plenty, and there isn’t enough space in a blog post to touch everything. And if I did, where would be the fun in that? If you’re interested in more details, feel free to comment, I’ll try to address every question!Until then, stay sharp!

Dar

#writing #writerblr #writeblr #writers of tumblr #book #bookblr #bookworm #bts #vampire #gothic #lovecraft #lovecraftian #horror #amwriting #amwritingfantasy #fantasy #dark fantasy

[nedhugar]

In the days of early development for Gambit, the art department had a one-day jam to come up with ideas for factions and themes. I was picturing everything tied together with MtG style Planeswalkers, and wanted just an insanely diverse line-up of different factions. I wanted to really think about instantly clear hierarchies and giving the factions real motivation. Some of this stuff is REALLY rough, and some of it isn’t that original. I was just trying to pump out as many themes and ideas as possible in a short amount of time. None of this stuff really ended up in the game except the Imps from the Unsettled. 

Unsettled- The first team I drew, I pictured the Unsettled as a land-rich but cash-poor aristocratic family bent on reviving their glory days. Their imp servants use blue magic to revive their more notable ancestors. I imagined they’d just have endless crypts dating back a millennium of deceased despots, tyrants, dukes, layabouts, etc.

Veggiemancers- I think there are obvious similarities between the way RTS games and gardening games can be about stockpiling resources and saving up for big payoffs. I think the gardening witches are crucial to contextualizing everything. Storybook witches are often just women who prioritize their own power (and comfort!) over the demands of society. So, the vegetable monsters are all teetering a line between cute and uncomfortably weird- they’re not “for you,” they’re for the witches. Right? (Also shout out to Black Magic brand fertilizer, holla!)

Party Barge-  To integrate some sci-fi fantasy to the mix, the Party Barge. I love the idea of a fun troll team that shoots deadly confetti canons and boosts teammates with thumping jams and jello shots. Some people just want to play a game, have fun, and not take their in-game-selves too seriously and I like when games give you a way to express this. (Very Star Wars of course, but also the longest party ever held from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Thor Ragnarok wasn’t out at the time but damn that’s also the vibe.)

Softball Furies - At this point in the jam (probably like 2 pm) I was starting to run out of ideas, so Baseball Furies + Mad Max + Hunger Games?  The idea of team mascots as genetically engineered mutants is pretty fun, like Geshi from Clone High (This was drawn in a pre-Gritty world.) It seems boring to me to make every in-game faction just be an “army,” or a group of people united to fight a battle. How else are people united, and how else can they share common goals?

Destructagons- I hate how little personality spell cards get? Its always like, a drawing of a fireball or a spell book or something. I was thinking maybe all neutral spells could be a singular faction - some bizarre, alien time travelers who show up, unleash devastating hell, and peace out. Maybe they’re inadvertently destroying their own ancestors. The tribal mask theme was a last second addition - I just wanted them to feel like there are actual people behind the exterior appearance and not just be little geometric horrors. At the same time, their expressions are fixed- they are completely indifferent to everyone around them.

The Seraphs- This was the last concept pitch for a Gambit army I did on that initial art jam day- I wanted to squeeze one more concept in. (The text has a paraphrased / botched Angels in America quote.) They are little happy heralds of the apocalypse. They joyously announce the coming of much bigger and more eldritch horrors that will rapturously destroy all in their paths.

Play Gambit https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bigfishgames.gambitgoog and PLEASE spread the word.

#vis dev #concept art #gambit

[captainjohnlarson]

Golden Way Media Films' New Thriller "Mortal Prey" Finalized To Be On the Cards

LONDON (November 24th, 2020) - Action and thriller have for long kept us engrossed for as long as anybody can remember or document. A good crime thriller keeps the audience on the palms of its hands. Enthralling them with the Wow Factor and keeping them guessing in every scene and every act are the hallmarks of a such crime thriller made with intelligence and cinematic wisdom, which mind you, not a lot of people possess. But Golden Way Media Films has always, and continues to, work with just such intelligent people that have the great potential to be the kind of cinema that people never forget. A horror based crime thriller so riveting that people will remember forever what they saw - when they had their hearts in their mouth.

Say Hello to "Mortal Prey". Another jewel to the list of Maria Johnsen's movies that will soon go on the floors and a major theatrical release. It is a gripping story that will regale you with a sanity-draining eldritch monster of a serial killer who deceptively draws two foreign exchange students in their compelling youth to a deep, dark forest. In this belly of the infamous Jekyll forest, that adorns its namesake Island - The Jekyll Island, lies a monster that none of them are prepared to face. A monster so evil and so hell-bent on satisfying its fantasies that they will need all the courage and power in the world and beyond to come out alive of this precarious predicament. Will they be able to come out in one piece or will they too eventually fall victims to the most dreadful being straight from the deepest trenches of the netherworld. When you find out, you will never be the same again.

"Mortal Prey the movie is Golden Way Media Films' most daring project to date. Everyone knows the horror genre has largely fallen out of favour because of its predictability and, therefore, sticks to the tried and tested formulae of demons and exorcism. With the eccentricity and cinematic brilliance of Maria Johnsen, Mortal Prey will not only break the monotony but also redraw and lead on the path to success in the horror and crime thriller genre. Mortal Prey will not only be an excellent addition to Maria Johnsen's movies but also in the greatest directorial works in world cinema", said a producer at Golden Way Media Films.

About Golden Way Media Films: Golden Way Media Films is a film production house that offer TV series, short films and feature films production for movie production companies and private sectors.

For more information, please visit https://www.goldenwaymediafilms.com/mortalprey/

Media Contact: Phone Number: [phone] Email Id: [email protected] Website: https://www.goldenwaymediafilms.com/mortalprey/

###

[fic-dreamin]

I pre-ordered this book and was not disappointed. If you are into the art and lore ... I pre-ordered this book and was not disappointed. If you are into the art and lore of Magic: The Gathering this is a must have. The book has weight with solid binding and when gently opened there was no cracking sounds like a cheap coffee table book. This is a high-quality production book. If you are like me and had to strain your eyes to appreciate the artwork, this book is a godsend as many of the illustrations are enlarged to fully appreciate the details by your favorite artists. Go to Amazon

Great for MTG players and general fantasy/horror fans alike This book is awesome! Don't be fooled by the name which is a bit of a misnomer. While this book does have full pages, 3/4 pages and half pages of artwork it also contains ALL of the plot of both the Innistrad and Shadows Over Innistrad blocks. It includes everything from the basic background of the plane to character bios and the story from the creation of vampirism on Innistrad to the creation of Avacyn all the way through the end of the Eldritch Moon storyline. This book is an awesome buy for anyone who loves Magic or is just an avid fantasy/gothic horror fan. You don't have to know the game to get into it, in fact it is solely story based. It is an awesome buy with the quality that exceeds the price tag. Go to Amazon

Wonderful book collects story and art all in one place! As always, fantastic service and packaging by Amazon. Go to Amazon

Better than the Zendikar one. This Art Book is better than the Zendikar one as it features more of the art, and less of the story. There are no spreads dedicated to the world building which I appreciate, and all the art is well represented on some especially breathtaking cards. My only gripes come from what I consider to be some less than stellar art (Nearhearth Stalker, Declaration in Stone, Dauntless Cathar) taking up full spreads and what I consider to be fantastic art cards getting smaller spreads (Aberrant Researcher, Coax From the Blind Eternties). Likewise there are a lot of pages where art falls into the gutter of the pages, and occassionally there will be overlap of art where it covers the bottom corner of another piece (~10% of the other art). I imagine a lot of it is due to the original images themselves not being drawn for larger sizes Go to Amazon

Beautiful and full of secret lore gems Beautiful art and an excellent guide to the lore of Innistrad. I'm running a campaign for D&D 5e in innistrad using the Official Planeshift : Innistrad, while that is a wonderful resource and very helpful to think of the world in terms of the game, this book has given me so many more insights into the world and so many more idea for new content. Did I mention the art is beautiful? Go to Amazon

You don't need to play Magic to appreciate the artwork I started playing Magic: The Gathering right when the original Innistrad block came out. I was so enthralled by the artwork that I spent way too much money on cards. I lost interest in playing shortly thereafter, but never forgot the artwork (I even purchased one of the images and framed it on my wall). Then one day I ran across this book and couldn't resist - it had to be mine. The artwork is supreme and takes me back to every moment I played MTG. Go to Amazon

Great content, poor printing. I returned the first copy I received, as the pages were fused together. The replacement has the same issue but to less of a degree Go to Amazon

It's an art book. From Magic the Gathering. Of Innistrad. Nuff said! Do you like MTG? Did you like Innistrad set? It's a no brainer. This is the art book i was BEGGING for. So glad they did this book. Already had the Zendikar book, but was hoping and praying for the Innistrad plane. Prayer answered! Awesome sauce. Go to Amazon

Absolutely beautiful artwork, and excellent writing Corners bent Five Stars Maore than just an art book, it is a detailed Campaign Setting!!!! Brushworm Speaks!- The Art of Magic: The Gathering - Innistrad Five Stars These books are excellent if your into the story as well as the ... ... this as a gift for someone and he really enjoyed looking through it Great book with amazing artwork Five Stars

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Six Shots OC: Iris Ravencroft

[Here’s another OC. Not anyone super major or plot-important as far as I know, but she’s gonna exist within the world.]

Other Six Shots OCs

The Thief and the Samurai OCs

Iris Ravencroft is a prolific actress, singer, songwriter, and entertainer, having an extensive filmography despite only being 33 years old. This is mostly because despite her reputation and clout that she has cultivated over the years, she has never shyed away from the projects that made her famous: B-movie schlock. 

Born in London in 1986, Iris grew up absolutely despising Margaret Thatcher and her dictatorial command of Britain, much like her parents. When she was 11, she moved with her parents to the United States, and shortly after her move she began to develop her powers. 

At the age of 19, Iris auditioned for a role in a B-grade swords and sorcery fantasy film, and after a positive audition was given the lead role. This would eventually springboard into launching her career.The series, known as The Journeys of Arya Mournbalde, centered on the eponymous Arya Mournblade, a wandering warrior woman in the fantasy land of Urgonn. The following films were made.

The Lair of the Serpent King: Arya goes to stop a strange cult that wishes to ressurect an ancient and powerful serpent god. Despite its low budget, it managed to win over audiences with the cheesy script and solid special effects for the budget. 

Hellfire of Dagoth: Arya faces an evil warlock bent on releasing demons from Hell. Here it was noted Iris' acting was greatly improved, and the plot was tighter and more original. Dagoth is widely regarded as the least interesting villain in the series in terms of characterization and motivation. His actor, Gordon Brand, makes a valiant effort to make up for it by chewing the scenery, but to no avail in the eyes of the fans. However, Iris' better acting combined with the better effects and a decent supporting cast, including a beliguered henchman played by Don Sleeter and Tonya Reeba as a sensual bard, helped to make this a well-liked movie.

The Ebony Tower: An evil overlord wages war on the land from atop a mighty tower, which Arya promises to scale, not knowing all the dangers inside. This one was the first critical darling of the series, gaining good reviews from critics and audiences alike. A big help was getting Richard Bogart of the Dick Kicker: Private Eye series to play the villainous overlord Celsior, who is widely regarded as being the best antagonist of the series. The clear inspiration from kung-fu movies combined with the tightest plot to date and a cast of colorful oneshot assassins populating the titular tower led to this movie getting great reviews.

Starchild of Avalor: Beings from beyond the stars beg Arya to help them stop a coming invasion which threatens to wipe out all life on Earth. This is widely regarded as the lowest point in the series. The addition of UFOs and sci-fi elements really soured a lot of fans, with them finding it did not mesh well with the series. However, it is widely agreed the villain, Xendru the Conqueror (played by Orson Merkins) is one of the most fun villains the franchise had to offer. The special effects in this movie were shockingly subpar, and the story was rather confused in a lot of parts. Still, the fun villain as well as Iris' seasoned acting did end up being praised, and the movie does have a small cult following WITHIN the cult following, with most fans viewing it as a "So bad it's good" movie.

With Strange Eons: Arya must fight against the apocalypse as the Great Old Ones are awakened from their eternal slumber. This movie is the second film in the franchise to win great praise from both audiences and critics alike, and is widely hailed as a swords and sorcery classic. Iris is at the top of her game, and the story is excellent and finely woven, with the Lovecraftian influence working wonders after the divisive use of aliens. It helps eldritch horrors mesh better with fantasy settings than UFOs. The villains Ktulu, Yargog, Nephilethet, and Azeroth are some of the most frightening special effects the series had ever achieved, using all sorts of techniques from animatronics to stop-motion to bring the monsters to life. The film ends with Arya dying while sealing the Great Old Ones away forever, with Arya becoming a legend on Earth and having a constellation put in the sky, with the strong implication the gods granted her some form of divinity so she may watch over Earth for all time. It is widely considered the best film in the franchise.

Outside of those films, Iris has also starred in other movies, such as;

Marked in the Stars saga: An ongoing science fantasy space opera that many consider to be a succesor to Star Wars. Iris portrays the main villain, Empress Verisi Atrocitus, who seeks out powerful alien artifacts so that she may ascend to godhood and rewrite the universe in her image. 

The Crusade: Iris plays a young woman who hunts down the serial killer who murdered her friends and family at her birthday when she was a child.

Walk Like an Egyptian: Iris plays a nurse who must travel to Egypt to face an evil mummy after it steals two infants from the maternity ward.

Her music career has produced many songs, including “Nightingale,” “Song for the Irish,” “The Hills of the Homeland,” “Bleeding,” and “Hell Hath No Fury.” She is well known for being something of a musical chameleon, easily adapting to many musical styles. She donates much of her money to Irish charities out of spite for her home country.

OTHER INFORMATION ABOUT IRIS

Her power is incredibly strong psychic abilities, including telekineses and telepathy. Her most powerful ability, and the one she is rather famous for, is something known as “The Snap.” With a snap of her fingers, she is capable of teleporting over short distances. She is very private about the max distance she is able to travel with this.

She is 5′7″, with lavender eyes and hair that is almost always dyed a vibrant color.

She is an outspoken critic of the British regime, and has outright called them fascists and comapred them to Nazis.

Margaret Thatcher has attempted to have her assassinated on numerous occasions. Said attempts always end in failure.

She is good friends with many other exiled British artists, including Freddie Mercury, David Bowie, and George Harrison.

She is well-liked in anime circles for singing the theme song to The Thief and the Samurai as well as for voicing Freya Darke.

She is a very big fan of H.P. Lovecraft, and was the one who suggested they implement elements of the Cthulhu Mythos into the Arya Mournblade series.

She has won one Oscar and three Grammys.

She is bisexual. 

She is a known advocate for suicide prevention and awareness about depression, as she has suffered from depression and lost a close friend to suicide when she was in high school.

#Six Shots #OCs #Worldbuilding #My writing #My OCs

[fic-dreamin]

I pre-ordered this book and was not disappointed. If you are into the art and lore ... I pre-ordered this book and was not disappointed. If you are into the art and lore of Magic: The Gathering this is a must have. The book has weight with solid binding and when gently opened there was no cracking sounds like a cheap coffee table book. This is a high-quality production book. If you are like me and had to strain your eyes to appreciate the artwork, this book is a godsend as many of the illustrations are enlarged to fully appreciate the details by your favorite artists. Go to Amazon

Better than the Zendikar one. This Art Book is better than the Zendikar one as it features more of the art, and less of the story. There are no spreads dedicated to the world building which I appreciate, and all the art is well represented on some especially breathtaking cards. My only gripes come from what I consider to be some less than stellar art (Nearhearth Stalker, Declaration in Stone, Dauntless Cathar) taking up full spreads and what I consider to be fantastic art cards getting smaller spreads (Aberrant Researcher, Coax From the Blind Eternties). Likewise there are a lot of pages where art falls into the gutter of the pages, and occassionally there will be overlap of art where it covers the bottom corner of another piece (~10% of the other art). I imagine a lot of it is due to the original images themselves not being drawn for larger sizes Go to Amazon

Great for MTG players and general fantasy/horror fans alike This book is awesome! Don't be fooled by the name which is a bit of a misnomer. While this book does have full pages, 3/4 pages and half pages of artwork it also contains ALL of the plot of both the Innistrad and Shadows Over Innistrad blocks. It includes everything from the basic background of the plane to character bios and the story from the creation of vampirism on Innistrad to the creation of Avacyn all the way through the end of the Eldritch Moon storyline. This book is an awesome buy for anyone who loves Magic or is just an avid fantasy/gothic horror fan. You don't have to know the game to get into it, in fact it is solely story based. It is an awesome buy with the quality that exceeds the price tag. Go to Amazon

Beautiful and full of secret lore gems Beautiful art and an excellent guide to the lore of Innistrad. I'm running a campaign for D&D 5e in innistrad using the Official Planeshift : Innistrad, while that is a wonderful resource and very helpful to think of the world in terms of the game, this book has given me so many more insights into the world and so many more idea for new content. Did I mention the art is beautiful? Go to Amazon

You don't need to play Magic to appreciate the artwork I started playing Magic: The Gathering right when the original Innistrad block came out. I was so enthralled by the artwork that I spent way too much money on cards. I lost interest in playing shortly thereafter, but never forgot the artwork (I even purchased one of the images and framed it on my wall). Then one day I ran across this book and couldn't resist - it had to be mine. The artwork is supreme and takes me back to every moment I played MTG. Go to Amazon

Great content, poor printing. I returned the first copy I received, as the pages were fused together. The replacement has the same issue but to less of a degree Go to Amazon

It's an art book. From Magic the Gathering. Of Innistrad. Nuff said! Do you like MTG? Did you like Innistrad set? It's a no brainer. This is the art book i was BEGGING for. So glad they did this book. Already had the Zendikar book, but was hoping and praying for the Innistrad plane. Prayer answered! Awesome sauce. Go to Amazon

These books are excellent if your into the story as well as the ... These books are excellent if your into the story as well as the cards and gameplay. The artwork is incredible for anything MTG and this book really shows it. Go to Amazon

Corners bent Five Stars Maore than just an art book, it is a detailed Campaign Setting!!!! Brushworm Speaks!- The Art of Magic: The Gathering - Innistrad Five Stars ... this as a gift for someone and he really enjoyed looking through it This book is awesome. The art is awesome. Great book with amazing artwork Five Stars Four Stars