#run more counterspells then bitch

[femmchantress]

This one guy in our pod last night just really fucking bugged me.

Like, he was running Urza, Lord Protector (a card I have no qualms with and love to play/play against) that he’d built to do things like cheat out Blighsteel Colossus early or infinite mana shenanigans with Mana Crypt, which again is something I’m totally cool with, but when I started going aggro on him for just having an unstoppable value and control engine, he got all pissy and started bitching about getting hated out for no reason? Like my guy you melded Urza on turn four, I had to put every card in my hand and my board into taking him out - it wasn’t even a removal spell, I was playing Frodo and Sam and managed to gain enough life to make Treebeard big enough to hit it - and he just throws his hands up and concedes.

Game two he cheats out a Blightsteel Colossus on turn four and when I pour all my resources (12 mana in total from lands and treasure) into removing it in the most roundabout way possible (playing and then making monstrous a Kalemne’s Captain), he once again throws a fit about unfair hate and aggression and I’m just like…

What? Were you expecting??? To happen?????

#run more counterspells then bitch #mtg

[am-i-sans]

DND adventures 25

continuing the crossover!

(my power went off i have to rewrite maybe multiple times)

cam and wheatley are back from eeby deeby. cam gets to experience the horrors! yay! frog and dans comfort them and then other cam tries to slap dans for touching them and then switches back. frog and dans gets to learn a little about cams kid yay!

they switch back again and other cams family is concerned how strange their acting. keeps saying how much they love them. other cam is fuckin scared and demands to know why they arent at home.

cam runs out and towards another home and talks to a bird person named net and asks for a hug. awwww. another one named survey shows up and also joins the hug. then the others show up. bird pile lol.

cam suddenly stands straight up and tries to warn the others of the ice dragon but disappears before telling them where it is. when they get back they mention a robed lady hmmm. dorf asks about the lady but cam cant speak.

(im helping kay with something) teya looks really dead lol. (retcon raising them last time) tori is eyeing them and also trying to watch frog. senna rushes over to teya. tori is gonna attack! frog, senna, and wheatley try to protect teya! dorf fails to hold tori back!

teya wakes up in time and counterspells! she steps back in shock! dorf steps in between them and yells at tori that teya isnt just a normal undead. teya rips into tori for being a shitty parent and person in general. tori killed the babies and abandoned the surviving siblings. teya prays her kids dont turn into her since tori is like her mother. tori fuckin walks away. teya mumbles shes not dumb enough to follow her this time.

cam whistles and mumbles in bird. dans can tell they said fuck and asks for them to watch frog and they go after tori. undyne is just kinda shocked all over lol. wheatley just feels awkward and turns back to talk to zen. android starts being a little bitch and everyone yells at him to shut up. senna hugs teya poor girl. the dorfs have stabilized the portal.

suzy tries to hit android with the bone hammer lol. nana also attacks android and hits him in the knees. he pulls out his cannon! wheatley tries to grapple android and manages to shove him to the ground! suzy laughs and thinks nana is cool. dorf casts hold on everyone to stop the fighting.

dorf comments its been a long time since hes seen nana (their both old lol) shades walks over and asks him to fix their blueness. he comments that shades was nice to him but cant remember why. shades says its cause dans saved her life and since their cousins she thinks hes cool. no longer blue fuck yeah!

cam tries to speak to tori. tori sniffles and tells cam to go away. they refuse and hold onto her robes a little. tori asks why their staying around when their such a bad person? cam says their friends. tori is shocked. cam comments that they kinda have to be. and also they cant raise frog alone lol. tori apologizes but says they dont know how else to behave. cam comments they tried to kill dans today. tori is like what? cam explains they uh didnt get the full info and thought that dans WAS the kid being tortured lol. tori laughs and says this group is a mess. it really is.

teya gets more points F. senna comforts her. dans pulls a parental move and tells frog they arent responsible for what happens between tori and teya and to let the adults handle their own business and that its ok to be upset. frog is mad and wants to help. (this is also sans and frisk talking across the dnd table lol) frog screams 'what can i do?!' dans comments that sometimes theres nothing you CAN do. frog yells that their gonna do something ANYWAY. dans says this is the ADULTS responsibility. frog and dans are fuckin butting heads.

both dorfs go up to dans and ask if hes ok. dans says frog is having a hard time, and asks them to go to teya cause shes falling apart lol. frog mumbles and says their fine and go up to teya to apologize for what happaned :( teya also says its not up to frog to apologize and that its fine. same talk! teya says they should focus on being a kid.

old dorf comments on youth and senna says he cheated cause he can make a clone. frog is like WHAT has everyone here died? wheatley comments he didnt and senna reminds him he fucked with something that exploded. dans goes to raise his hand and shades forces it down. android tries to speak up and senna says no your a dick no soul.

undyne goes up to android and punches him in the face! tori and cam walk back in on this lol. yep he gets knocked over. suzy nana and parsley cheer! wheatley squaks and runs over to android. 'is inferno a robot now?!' wheatley begs him not to fight and shades says hes fuckin outnumbered. everyones arguing about violence. wheatley asks dorf if they can go home now.

cam walks up to frog and asks if their ok. frog says they are (lies, and teya gets 2 more points.) teya and tori look at each other, and teya tells senna its time to leave. cam walks up to tori and whispers they might feel better if they apologize. dans is staring and judging tori. tori tries to walk to teya. senna tells teya to not leave angry, and that tori can never apologize to HER teya, but teya's tori is still alive. teya sighs and walks over.

shades is chasing space core around. its adorable. vani and henry join them.

tori apologizes for her actions and is grateful she got to spend time with her once more. teya nods and tells her to be better than mom was. everyone begins to group up and prepare to depart. dorf says goodbye to dans. dans says in every universe, dorf is his favorite cousin.

dorf tears up and calls over the younger dorf. he has to remove younger dorfs memory to preserve the timeline. hes totally ok with it. he passes out lol. shades picks him up and says they'll look after him. older dorf does say that dans and regular dorf do get to spend time together. spacecore runs up to older dorf and asks for a star. he hands it over lol. but he wants the CLOAK star, to protect friends :( he hands him a whole part of the robe he rips off! its a tiny robe!

frog runs up to teya and hugs her and says it was nice to meet her. frog feels how squishy she is but doesnt care. dorf comments its gonna take longer to get his books. he wishes he could hug them but hes currently a stranger. frog hugs him anyway lol. shades also hugs him lol.

senna and dans have a staredown again before turning away. dorf raises everyone up on a platform to the rift and away they go and the rift disappears.

#dans #dnd #dnd adventures #razoolio #mod shade #senna

[criticalrolo]

All your PC's, battle royale. Who wins? Who goes out first?

OOOO fantastic question, I'll do it with PCs I've played in a full campaign -- Caliope, Thalia, Benelor, Iris, Kier, Osvald, Sigrun, Remus

Battle Royale, assuming everyone is at like. Level 15. here's the order they're going down:

8: Osvald. This man is Old and he's a Rogue/Cleric who was made mainly for support and to get murdered by another PC for the Narrative. He's gonna put up a good fight for a minute but the rest of these freaks are going to put him in the ground right away.

7. Iris. Gotta love a wizard, but I got murdered and/or nearly knocked out playing Iris like... mOst of the time. Just based on Her Habits Alone she's gonna do more damage than Osvald but the dice are going to kill her in the end. Her rogue dip is going to help Evade but she doesn't have as many offensive options as some other people here, let alone her shitty HP

6. Benelor. As a straight up fighter with no multiclassing, if he gets into range with anyone he's going to wreck their shit. IF he can catch any of these slippery bastards. Otherwise they're just going to hit him from far away and there's not much he can do about it. Better luck next time king

5. Remus. His dip into wizard is going to be great while his portent dice last and he can get advantage through his familiar. Same problem as Benelor -- strength fighter can't catch up with these mobile sons of bitches. However, he can do a lot more ambient damage at range than Ben can, and his crazy constitution score/HP total is gonna give him the edge over these other folks. Again, if he gets in range of anyone they're getting fucked up, so it could go either way!

4. Kier. Stunlock monk queen. Fast as fuck and can move a million feet per round, and can evade a lot of damage / has a great AC. Definitely the one here who could fuck up the spell casters fast enough for the melee fighters to finish them off. Can run up walls to get to the fliers and has 2-3x more feet per round than everyone else. Genuinely just luckier than my other PCs for whatever dice gods reason. Has a history of ending encounters on her own, god bless

3. Caliope. Caliope is placing so high because when I played her in a campaign my DMs let me use the UA Lore Wizard, and that one got outlawed immediately after publication for being insanely OP for a REASON. If you let me play a lore wizard right now I would kick everyone's ass. I would kick your ass. I would kick my ass. She's coming in third because she has no goddamn hit points and Thalia has counterspell.

2. Thalia. Straight up BUILT for 1v1ing anyone and anything. Definitely has the best options for straight up weapon damage and spell casting damage. Tons of mobility and access to flight. Hits hard and fast and then using mobile gets the fuck out of the way so everyone has to chase her around. Great AC from the warlock dip. Downside? No goddamn hitpoints. Goes down so fast if someone gets in a lucky hit. COULD clean up if she stays out of the way potentially, but one of her big damage dealers from her magic sword Redeemer gives her a level of exhaustion.

Sigrun. Unlike her dad (rip in pieces Osvald) Sigrun is gonna be the last one standing here. They've got a rogue/warlock/paladin build that, when combined with the elven accuracy feat, is gonna get them a huge chance to crit and do a metric fuck ton of damage. They've got more hit points and gamble less with damage to themselves, so they're gonna outlast and then annihilate the rest of these nerds.

#amazing. this was v fun thank you!!

[bloodyshadow1]

I really wish people would just chill, campaign 2 is ending “soon”, this is the last arc, that’s literally all we know, oh and if they kill Lucien there will probably be at least 1 more episode.  we dont’ know if there are 2 episodes left or 20, and you know what, I’m pretty sure the Cast, including Matt doesn’t have a concrete idea of the length of the campaign either, because that’s how dnd works.  

Campaign 1 was supposed to end at the end of the Chroma Conclave arc, yet they still had a number of episodes wrapping up loose ends, and more.  I’m not sure if they decided to keep going during the arc or before, but they still made it to 115 episodes of Vox Machina despite the last of the conclave dying in ep 84. Or maybe Lucien curbstomps the Nein and tpk’s them next episode leaving him an issue for campaign 3, no one knows except for the cast currently.   I’m not saying that they’re going to do that for campaign 2, but no one knows yet, but people are still bitching and moaning about things that haven’t happened yet, things that haven’t even been filmed yet because the show isn’t filmed that far in advance.  There’s literally 1 episode ahead of the campaign, and that’s only because of covid, 

Lucien could run or do some bullshit, he’s kind of a coward who already ran from them a couple of times so it isn’t impossible.  Literally the only reason why there are 115 episodes in Campaign 1 is because Scanlan counterspelled Vecna’s teleport spell and Grog didn’t do enough damage to destroy the lich’s physical form.  If those things didn’t happen, then there would have been more episodes most likely, or at least the last episodes would have been even more massive episodes. Matt can plan for things and try to tell the story he’s telling, but the whole table has a hand in crafting it.

I know I’m just shouting into the void right now because the CR fandom is easily one of the most fragile and toxic fandoms I’ve seen, it seems like 2 months can’t go by without another upheaval in the fandom, but seriously just chill, for the sake of the story, for the sake of the cast, for your own sake, take a breath and let what happens happen, nothing is going to change since it’s not your game

#critical role #critical role discourse #cr discourse #please calm down fandom #critical role spoilers #kinda

[readbythestarlight]

c2e141 (part 1)

Okay this is so long I’m splitting it into 2 parts pre and post break so I don’t just end up with something horribly long that clogs up the dash

I’m already emotional just over the intro you guys i’M GONNA MISS THEM SO MUCH

"Skin cradle idk what to call it" how about NOT THAT MATT

[[MORE]]

Home!!

AWWWW

Clarabell!!!

I’m so glad his family is all there and safe

Awwww that’s so sweet, showing him the cards <3

"Hey Molly! Go fuck yourself!"

M: :D

Poor Essek is so lost

A night’s rest yes that would be good for ALL of you

Also it’s time to fake his death

"And will you face the consequences of your actions, or run?"

"I need a night’s sleep first, if you don’t mind."

That’s fair

I’m worried tho

Cad

Cad this isn’t allowed to be goodbye

Not yet

Not this early into the episode

Don’t do this to me

Okay, if they’re all gonna stay that’s okay that’s fine

I mean yes go see

Oh no wait

This

We can’t split up this early y’all I can’t handle it

Yes good bring them here don’t split up

So many HUGS

Oh no

Plz don’t

NO

Please choose to stay, Frumpkin!!

Stay??

No!!

NO

COME BAAAAACK

godDAMMIT

30 minutes and I’m already crying

At least Marisha is crying too I’m not alone

"I needed him when I needed him. That time has passed."

Please adopt all the stray cats

"The last couple of years" baby it’s been less than a year canon time

"YOURE a good person"

"I could be"

"You are"

"There’s just a little more to do"

"She’s not wrong. Trust me, I know a few bad people, you’re not one of them." ESSEK

I’m gonna cry AGAIN

"I think you’re a good person" THAT’S IT IM GONE

Aww Molly bringing them flowers

They have a valid point though, like is this Molly anymore?

Jester curling up next to Fjord I cry they’re so cute

"Hey Fjord? I love you"

AKDLALSKAKA YALL

ITS SO CUTE

I can’t handle them

Veth going swimming?? Willingly??

SAM

The DM will remember that and Sam’s character will be the first to die next campaign

"There’s not even any bugs? That’s not meat"

Fjord is describing my entire week rn

Clarabelle is the sweetest

I’m gonna miss Jester’s messages xD

Jester omg I can’t breathe

Yeza is gonna be so worried

"Okay… ‘honey’. I think I know who this is but I take it as good news" I LOVE HIM

Mollyyyyyy?

MOLLYYYYY??

Woman?? In a red?? Coat?

Sad angel okay yeah

Y’all need to give him some TIME you can’t just fix this super fast

Awww he remembers Yasha a little that’s good

Poor Molly

What woman??

WHAT WOMAN??

Is it his goddess?? The moonweaver?

He’s gonna change his name to King Tealeaf lol

Why don’t y’all chill and let him pick his own stuff and figure his own stuff out

He wants a parasol lol

Travis like what even is a parasol lol

So like

We’re not actually getting Molly back in the end huh

Oh boy temporary splitting up

lol Yasha with the "I can definitely message you"

Y’all can’t just bamf into places like that lol

Oh dear please don’t walk in on your parents

Dad aaaaaaaaand? Is mom there? Momma? Are you theeere?

AYYYYYYYY

NICE

MARION AND THE GENTLEMAAAAAN

THE PARENT TRAP WAS A SUCCESS

I’m so delighted

Y’all had better get married by the end

Aw

They’re so sweet I love Marion and Jester bless Laura and Matt for giving us a healthy parent/child relationship

LUC lol

Poor Yeza is probably going prematurely gray dealing with this lol

"I’m sorry I didn’t get you anything, it was—it was mostly flesh" I almost shot tea out my nose

"Dad I won’t sink to the fucking bottom"

Oh dear

That was the most accurate child thing Matt has ever done

Marion is the queen of this place she doesn’t need your cemetery Jester lol

I love the way things turned out with the Gentleman it’s so soft

Jester sweetie you literally told him NOT to say anything back

I’m emotional y’all

Fjord like Jester babe NO

FUCKING HELL

I’m going to stab this bitch myself

YOURE a tragedy

Fuck you Ikathon the answer is NO

Oh my god okay are we doing this

We’re doing this

NO

HES HERE??

HOW??

How did he know they were there???

And Veth just brought her family there too

That MOTHER FUCKER

I can’t believe I’m getting my wish for them to fuck up Trent after all

Fuck fuck fuck how many people can he transport out??

Also you can’t burn down Cad’s home!!

Oh god Essek is going to have to face him too

There’s too much going on here I’m STRESSED

Does he have dunemancy magic?? Is that what that is?

"We had issues larger than your ambitions" OOOO BURN

Suck a dick Trent

"Erase these errors, so I don’t have to look at it" FUCK YOU

What is happening holy shit

What is this????

Run Luc and Yeza run!!

Poor things :(

Poor Caliope

Poor Clays

Essek booiiii

Oh my god I looked at the stats on this spell and it’s BAD

THE COLLAR

NO

What

Wilting what what what

Counterspell

Thank god

NO

NOOO

53?!

IN ONE HIT??

AND HES SPOILING THE FOREST TOO

NO NOT AT JESTER

FUUUUUCK

Oh my god he rolled BAD thank god

I was just saying thank god he’s alone at least but NOPE

Astrid had better not wait in the shadows to see who looks like they’re going to win and then only joining the winning side

Caleb protecting his maaaaaan

FUCKING STOP

DID HE COUNTERSPELL

THAT BITCH

THAT FUCKING BITCH

NO NO NO

they’re so FUCKED

Thank fucking god

COUNTERSPELL PLEASE WORK

YESSSSS

I don’t care what Astrid’s game is I’m tired of it and she needs to die along with Trent

And so does Wulf if he’s gonna play the same game

Come onnnn Wulf do the right thing

Mood, Fjord, mood

MARISHA xD

Ooooooh nice!

“Caleb’s produce flame” her one wizard spell is a Caleb spell omg

FLUFFERNUTTERRRRRR

Nice SHOT Veth

WHAT

Come ON

Why can’t they hit him??

Come onnnn Essek do something baby

Oooooo! So what does that mean?

Does that mean when one takes damage the other does too?? That’s amazing

Caleb noooooo

Thank god

Hits??

COME ONNNNN

Ouch

Okay but the stars haven’t done as much damage as they COULD yet which is good

STOP calling him Bren

Fucking HELL come on

WORK?? WOOOORK???

DID IT

YESSSSS

YEAAHHHH CALEB

Oh thank God

Too little too late bitch

Wulf is gonna die though I can feel it

A second shield UGH

No you stay AWAY from Caleb

Come ooooon Jester!

YEAH

Nice!

“Come ooooon!” Boy you’re tethered either way

I have a feeling we have too much time left until break for the collar to work but GOD I hope it works

E: “Caleb! I’m scared!”

I shouldn’t be laughing but I am

VETH NOW

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

PLEEEEEASE

God god god

21

Godddds

NO

come onnnnnn

AH

IT WORKED

IT WORKED IT WORKED IT WORKED

ITS ON HIM

ACTIVATE IT

A C T I V A T E I T

NO NOPE NOPE NOPE

COUNTERSPELL IT FJORD

DO IT

YAAAAAS

Good Wulf smart man

Ouch oh shit Caleb no

Oh NO

Caleb!!

Wulf, Astrid, soembody DO

CADUCEUS MY MAN THANK YOU

What does Caduceus say to the god of death? NOT TODAY (respectfully)

70 HP niiiiice!

Hot DAMN Veth nice call I love it

Oh come ON

Activate it!!

I still hate Astrid but fine

AHHHHHHHHHHHH

#cr spoilers #critical role spoilers #critical role #emi watches critical role

[nochiquinn]

campaign two episode FINAL: now that we’re here at the end

gdi I used all my hamilton and mcm references during the last campaign finale

(update from the future: found one!) (at least I don’t THINK I used this one)

at least I'm at a computer last time; I watched the last one on my tv, headphones plugged into the roku remote (the best thing about the roku tbh), crying silently on my sofa while my roommate very kindly did not make fun of me in the background

know what I miss? liam going "CRITROLE!" every time they had a coupon code for something

don't chat on twitch. I feel like that goes without saying at this point but don't do it.

laura's entire speech center shut down on that acronym

who's ready to watch taliesin fight himself

"alrighty - " "NO"

oh THIS is why it's 7 hours

a level in what now?

I'm so proud of him

mala: he did it. he won D&D

can you imagine

"skin cradle" banned word

darling!!

mala, attacking me directly: The M9 expressing what they've learned from Cad: sometimes things are unfair and you lose people and you have to accept it and move on Caduceus expressing what he learned from the M9: sometimes things are unfair and you get mad and fight back, let Molly live

cornelius: we will feed you caduceus: I ain't feedin SHIT

it would be hilarious if that just snapped molly right back how he used to be

oh SHIT that's right other purple boi

essek is in It's Complicated with the dynasty

"fetch me a goose!"

no it's too early for me cry

it's been like ten minutes

see I thought he was trying to get caleb to follow him

mighty nein cat cottage GO

he's a war criminal but he's cute so it's okay

he's a BABY

"I cast modify memory"

relateable

growth.gif

aka what I'm going to be doing at 5 am when this fucking episode finally ends

"it sucks when they photoshop you bald" pfff I forgot about bjald

that's matt as braun strowman

taliesin: molly will be asleep for the forseeable future, he cannot be woken or spoken to laura: o rly

caleb: what were you dreaming about? taliesin: fuck now I gotta come up with a dream

that's not an answer

fun fact, this is how my bf thought they were gonna break molly out of lucien during the fight

kingsley tealeaf

"you're cute, magic man"

"we have a habit of taking in strays" "very true" weH

CHAIRS

jester the fuck is that voice

"conversations"

"we have eliminated one of the 57 threats against us and therefore you"

jester

"he cares for you more than he's willing to admit" the jester lavorre experience

cry count: 2

"son of a WHAT"

cry count: 3

I fucking love Luc

I like the mental image of veth just hauling luc around like a football

oh goddammit

fuck OFF

caleb why haven't you blocked him yet

CALEB

santa beau

shoulda opened with fireball

just burn taliesin's house down in front of him

oh god I'm extremely slow I just realized the poetic whatever of trapping them in a house and setting it on fire

"trent saves" me, out loud, to no one: bitch

punch the fire, punch the fire

casts WHAT

NO

WE WERE ALL ROOTING FOR YOU

he does WHAT

no, no "actually", fuck you

WE WERE ROOTING FOR YOU TOO

liam confirmed blumendrei bc he knew this would hurt worse right

she casts WHAT

counterspell fiiiight

jester vs big scary monster

"there's no change in her demeanor" SUSPICIOUS FRY SQUINT

"you're having hex with each other"

shove the bomb up his robes

caleb, on the ground and bleeding: I'm so proud

[travis voice] YEAH YEAH YEAH

eadwulf doesn't get to run, he's either going to - dangit, liam, stop saying what I'm typing while I'm typing it

kamehameha

my boy :(

matt stop DOING THAT

samuel

matt: he's gonna roll acrobatics me: but he's a wizard matt: no, athletics me: but he's a wizard

AND THEY CALL THE THING A RODEO

YEAH YEAH YEAH

YEAHHHHH

laura WHAT

I'm shaking so bad

WHAT'S SEXIER THAN CLERICS

my GIRL

lay hands on eadwulf

(( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°))

oh SHIT

caleb takes psychic damage

ESSEK

this gives me vibes of the group hdywtdt on glintshore in campaign 1

"I'll SMASH them off"

nooooooo

YESSSSSSSSS

MY GIRL

FUCK IT [UNMAGICS YOUR WIZARD]

they did the twitch ad with liam doing shakespeare on purpose this week didn't they

"no sleep" yeah no shit there's another three and a half hours here

yeah, we already knew that, DICK

oh fuck off

that item? what item??? LIAM

that's the loudest taliesin has spoken all campaign

"I loved you both so much" lays on the ground

awwwWWWWWW

3.5 hours of rebuilding the clays' house

we found cad's angry button

I mean we knew what it was but we FOUND it

trent: I refuse to feel even one emotion

Good Is Not Nice

I love essek so fucking much

!!

secret service au

"intimidation.....in spades" marisha

and in a world where Zone of Truth exists, even their outstandingly batshit story will hold SOME weight

"COME ON, GROG"

"do you want a sledgehammer?" ".....LOOK at me"

beaurebar!!

veth ;-;

a pocket fairy

caduceus ;-;

cry count: 4

he has a seed vault!!

essek no

cry count: 5

every campaign matt makes himself a purple spellcaster that makes him cry

"how are you traveling?" segway

ducks from the shards of the tumblr tag exploding

(it is me, I am also exploding) (just a little)

there is so much I want to expound on in these but I also want to keep up with the episode

suffice to say this is the perfect place to pause their relationship until they're both in better places

two hour epilogues!!

"I CAST MODIFY MEMORY"

these awkward dorks, I love them

veth ;-;

"veth the brave" lays in the floor

god, they should be at the same table for this. fuck the pandemic.

JOY BUZZER

SYPHILIS BANDITS

SCRIBBLES

beau

"surprise, it's a child abuser!!"

tried by a library, throw ALL the books at him

GOD every time one of them closes their binders for the last time it fucks me up

"do you prefer bren or caleb?" THAT fucked me up

my GIRL. break ALL their shit FROM THE INSIDE

yeah, eat shit, beauregard's dad

EAT SHIT ZEENOTH

cry count: 6

I just love Jester and Artagan so fucking much

cry count: 7

I would be okay with artagan being a recurring character in every campaign

oh well shit

"she's wonderful" "she's a handful" both can be true

"what do you think france is like?"

lesbian farm LESBIAN FARM

beau "deflects serious conversations with horniness" regard

ugh sam has just completely dismantled his station, I hate it

put that shit back where it came from or so help me

stormdad says never talk to me or my daughter ever again

cry count: 8

wizard dates in the ancient magic city

caleb: I will take them to Tal'Dorei me: where they will take seats on the council

"of course it will work"

"I will help you"

"I will be an old man, and essek will be essek"

the other book!

the other book ;-;

cry count: one million

MAGIC SUMMER SCHOOL

kingsley has existed for what, four hours? and I love him SO MUCH taliesin you are too powerful

#critical role #spoilers #liveblog #crititag

[changlingrogue]

Okay, a head's up, this got rambly and it will definitely have spoilers for Campaign 2 Episode 128, 127 and to be on the safe side 126. I'll tag it as "cr spoilers" and put it under a cut though.

Okay, so, starting from the jump the episode is a little anxiety inducing as it picks up directly where last week's left off with Caleb, Jester and Veth confronted by Trent down in the basement. Trent only appears to want to talk (being the mofo he is, his words are just as dangerous as his magic), but Caleb isn't having any of that and starts things off with casting Wall of Fire (I think?) to separate them from Trent. Trent dispels it and still seems interested in talking until Caleb casts a Firebolt at him. Veth follows up with her attack which does work and then Jester tries another Word of Recall which Trent tries to Counterspell with a horrifying nat 20, but it gets cancelled out by Caleb's nat 20 and the three of them escape to Nicodranas, outside on the Brenatto family's balcony. A couple of takeaways from this encounter:

Was trying to fight Trent the best idea, no. But like I can't say I blame Caleb. Liam made it very clear that Caleb was terrified. He was going off of raw emotions and being confronted by the man that ruined his life in a place that held a lot of emotional trauma for him... can't say most people would be able to keep a cool head.

It does still make me wonder how things would have went if Trent had been able to talk. Would they have been able to leave without things ending up like they ultimately did or was it just a way for Trent to keep control of the situation? Maybe a bit of both? Trent certainly risks losing more now that he has to come up with some sort of explanation for what happened at the sanitarium and given that the whole Cerberus Assembly is under investigation, its not a good look. Veth's decision to steal some of those crystals did alert Trent to what they were doing and is maybe part of the reason he's pursuing them so aggressively, but I feel like its going to be one of those things that really helps them out in the future. I was happy when it was proposed to keep at least one for evidence, because I think if it's used in the right way and given to the right people it might be a nail in the coffin Trent (hopefully) finds himself in.

To jump off from the crystal point, I'm really digging how in this campaign player choices have at times had some really interesting a longstanding consequences/rewards. Like it really makes the world feel alive, and that its not revolving around M9. Like for one of the more "positive" examples, Beau telling Dairon about how she was kidnapped and forced into the Cobalt Soul lead to the eventual arrest and upcoming trail of Zeenoth and the apology Beau deserved for years. But on the flip side, as we learn eventually, when the rest of the party joins back up with them in Nicodranas, Jester mentioning The Ruby of the Sea gives Trent a lead of where to find them. (I'd also like to mention that Team Outtie or Audi, lol, did a pretty good job. Fjord really came through with Arcane Gate, Marine Layer and even Major Image. It didn't stop Trent but it did keep the Guards busy. Caduceus got them out quick with Word of Recall and while Beau's umm, assassination attempt was brutal, she did keep the Guard on top of the tower from doing anything and she alerted Team Outtie to the arrival of Trent and more Guards.)

But back to Nicodranas and M9 trying to get their families there ferried away to safety. I really did nearly cry from the conversations Jester and Veth had. I adore Jester and mother's relationship, like Marion is one of my favorite of Matt's NPCs for more than reason and I love how just... loving and understanding she is. And I really like Yeza for that similar reason. Those two conversations really stuck out to me because of like... idk, I guess they sort of hit home a bit? With Jester and her mom it's the shift of being the one whose protected to the one who is the protector that I (and other adults) experience at one point when it comes to your parents as they get older. It's not as wild as keeping them safe from a powerful mage and his magic assassins, but it's a total flip in a relationship that you've had since you were younger.

And with Veth it's about being a parent and a partner and having to make choices and sometimes sacrifices to keep them safe. I'm really glad Veth and Yeza got a chance to talk and be open with one another, for at least a bit. I was surprised by Yeza's perspective of things and how he felt he was also guilty of putting their family in harm's way because I always assumed like, at least when it came to working with the Assembly he didn't have much a choice ( Idk if I just missed that part or it was mentioned in Talks or not), but him saying that he also took risks because he wanted to make something of himself and provide for Veth gives a new perspective of him and on his and Veth's relationship. Like now it seems more like he actually understands (on some level) Veth's conflicting feelings of wanting be an adventurer but wanting to be with her family too and that's why he's been so supportive of her vs him just kind of blindly supporting her. I really hope they continue to be open with one another and they keep talking about things, which I guess they might get a chance to again in the future if Veth actually does end up coming home to them for good after M9 takes care of the TombTakers. I'm sad about the idea of Veth leaving and not adventuring with the rest of M9, and I will legit cry if they say to goodbye but I can understand and respect her reasoning. She really did try to "have both" and for the things that they've been involved in, it, unfortunatly, doesn't work. Since reuniting with her family that's been one of her main conflicts and I'm happy that she finally seemed to come to a decision of what comprimises she can and can't make for the type of life she wants. I know a lot of the fandom won't be happy if Veth leaves and Sam creates another character but I like that Sam (and honestly everyone else as well) really plays his characters to who they are as people. After those heartwrenching moments, the tension in the game picks up again as they find out that they're being watched by two inviduals who turn out to be Astrid and Eadwulf. Astrid basically tells them to get everyone they care about and get the fuck out of Nicodranas since they've been dispatched to get them, and from some invisable tailing by Veth, we learn that there's another Volstrucker in town, along with fucking Trent himself and that they're only a few blocks away from the Lavish Chateu. So M9 gets themselves and the families together and steaths to Yussa's tower, hoping he could help them get somewhere else quick, only to find that he can't be reached at the moment. Luckily, his servant Wentsworth knows of something that might help and after some searching a Detect Languages spell, they find a scroll that has the spell Plane Shift and a tuning fork that they're unsure which plane its atturned to.

My thoughts on this are:

That I'm not sure if they're lucky or unlucky at this point. Because on one hand they're literally on the run from one of the most powerful mages in the Empire, but on the otherhand they've managed to escape him twice, despite the odds being against them. I really want to know what plane they're on, there's a lot of speculation that its the Plane of Fire which sounds terrible, but I'm not that versed in like D&D lore so maybe it's not as bad as it sounds in my head. I agree with Matt that thinking to use the Happy Fun Ball as a way to transport some of their people was pretty clever, I just hope they made the right choices for who went inside and who stayed outside. This is Yasha's first time in the ball! I wish it was under better circsumstances so that everyone could be there and they could actually explore but I wonder what her reaction will be. When she's not making out with Beau, lol. I'm not as worried for the group in the ball as I am for the group outside of it, I think Beau, Yasha and Fjord will be able to get to an exit without too much trouble as long as they don't stumble across any surprises that aren't on the map. And I'm very intrigued with how Astrid is shaping up as a character. I like so far what Matt is doing with her and I like that she's shaping up to not just be the "bad bitch/ruthless" villain archetype that a lot of female characters end up being. That character can be fun and enjoyable in certain things and when there's more beneath the surface, but it's nice to see that Astrid actually does care about Caleb. I was suspicious of her intentions before, but I feel that Matt has made it clear that while her and Eadwulf are still adversaries to the M9, they do care about Caleb and want to help him out. I feel for the whole Blumenthal Trio one way or another. To close things, because this had gotten way too long, lol. I can't wait for the next episode. Hopefully everything will work out for them and they can get the families to safety, though I don't know if sending them to the Gentleman is a good idea. But we'll see eventually!

#critical role #cr spoilers #long text post #campaign 2 ep 128 #cr ramblings

[xellandria]

Zmija Yilan was a temporary character I played towards the end of our Tomb of Annihilation campaign after my boy Alexus got petrified by a beholder somewhere deep in the bowels of the tomb itself.  We were able to “salvage” both him and Amara (who had also gotten petrified in the same fight) by shoving them into the Bag of Holding, but short of having the two of us sit on the bench while the remaining two party members waddled back to town, we had to roll some new characters.

I spent most of the week between the petrification and the new characters appearing being mad at myself for not remembering I had Inspiration I could have used to reroll either of my failed dex saves and not being able to do much beyond that, but with less than 72 hours left until she had to debut, I finally pulled an idea out of my butt, ran it by the DM because it involved Shenanigans™, got the OK and started designing her. Thus was born Zmija Yilan, whose appearance was based partly on an old photo that was semi-viral on Tumblr several years prior and partly on Xelloss from Slayers because when I’m in a pinch, that’s always who I fall back on, and have been doing so for like, 20+ years at this point lmao.  Personality-wise, there was a post floating around Tumblr that week about proverbs in various languages that, when translated literally or without context, made very little sense so she got a lot of that (and associated misunderstandings based on language mix-ups) mixed in with—again—Xelloss from Slayers, because I am a hack.  I would probably never play her again because she was so firmly entrenched in that campaign and also there’s some parts of how I designed/played her that I look back on and am like “ehhh I’m not sure I’m comfortable with the optics of this,” but I enjoyed playing her a lot more than I expected, and I look back on the end of our Tomb campaign very fondly because of it.

I haven’t been able to talk about her in public both for a lack of reason to do so and because I didn’t want to “spoil” my group in case they found my various social media posts, but as it’s nearly a year since she was introduced and nine months since the campaign ended, I’m gonna absolutely wall of text the shit outta this bitch, rofl (that said there’s baby’s first nekkid pin-up under here so assuming Tumblr lets me actually post it, fair warning for that under the cut)

Zmija Yilan - level 8-10 Human* Warlock (Great Old Ones/Pact of the Tome) (usually this is where my D&D character posts put stats but I don’t actually have access to her character sheet anymore, so let’s just pretend she had something ridiculous like maxed Charisma because I remember my spell DC being ridiculously high)

Zmija Yilan is a traveler from the far-off land of Zemlya, and a disciple of Matrymriy, one of the "family" of five gods in the pantheon of that region.  Matrymriy came to Zmija in a dream one night and told her to travel across the seas because She had a task for her, and that she would learn more once she reached her destination.  She's been traveling around Faerun for seven or so years—reaching one place, being given hints to go to a specific location, and upon reaching it, being told to travel on without seeming to do much more than just Be There.  Upon reaching Chult sometime within the last few months, her patron's hints indicated that she should travel to a place called Shilku Bay; she hired a guide (named Salida) and a bodyguard (a Fort Belurian mook) with what little locally-acceptable currency she had; they got separated after being attacked by a band of undead, and after failing to reunite with them, she was wandering around lost, trusting that Matrymriy will guide her where She desires her to go.

Part of her wandering had her end up in the Tomb of the Nine Gods itself, where she encountered our adventuring party (down two player characters) desperately trying to find their way out of the tomb in the hopes of returning to Port Nyanzaru to depetrify their friends.  Our barbarian’s player immediately distrusted her because I’d drawn her tabletop token with her back to the camera, which was an awkward feeling almost immediately returned in-game because both the barbarian and paladin aren’t hardcore RPers but they had to carry all the RP weight as they were introduced to this new character and explain that they were there to destroy a lich (both because it was the source of all the bad undead in the area, and because they’d been promised a reward—a motivation Zmija understood, as “a hungry bear will not dance.”)  Beyond the usual RP awkwardness there was an additional layer of awkwardness between the characters IC as at the time, Thokk was barely wearing more than a breastplate and loincloth, while Zmija was covered neck-to-ankle despite the heat and humidity of the region.  She claimed that in the culture of Zemlya, having strangers see your skin was a mark of great shame and that modesty was of paramount importance, so seeing so much of him was very off-putting and threw her off-balance for much of their initial interactions. 

Getting off on the “wrong” foot with the party and pushing as hard as I could into Zmija’s quirks (the weird proverbs, sprinkling in her Zemlyan vocabulary and making a point of her being from Very Far Away with Very Different Customs) meant I went a little too hard on them at the beginning, which is partly what I’d do differently and partly why the whole thing ended up working, so it’s a weird retrospective balance.  If my partymates had ever shoved (almost) any of the names or places Zmija mentioned into google, they probably would have twigged to the scheme pretty dang fast.

In reality, Zmija is not a human traveler from Zemlya, because surprise! she's actually Zsaksatyi, a Chultian Yuan-Ti Pureblood under the command of Fenthaza.  She worked as a bit of a double agent/interrogator within the Fane prior to her current assignment (hence her spell list's focus on information gathering, silent communication, and manipulation); she's been fleshing out her alternate persona for years and would occasionally pretend to be a captive and be thrown in one of those cells the party was in to get relevant information from the other prisoners, or assist others that were interrogating prisoners by more direct means (via Detect Thoughts).  In-universe, the language she pretends to speak is mostly made up, and something she's been working on for years at this point—it's not a fully-fleshed conlang and she only has a couple hundred words and phrases but it's enough to be consistent and believable when she sprinkles it into regular speech.  Since there's no real risk of running into anyone else from Zemlya (because it doesn't actually exist), it mostly didn't matter, and since there's actual meaning behind the words she does have, in theory it would have held up to a spell like Comprehend Languages as well. Out of universe, the language she speaks is an amalgamation of my own conlang stuff (which, like the in-universe version, is very limited and not complete) and various words and phrases pulled mostly from real-world Slavic languages (russian, croatian, hungarian, etc) with a little bit of Turkish thrown in when my English-only ear felt that it fit or when I had already used a word and needed another word for the same thing.  Zsaksatyi (pronounced dzahk sot-YEE) is the only name/word in the whole mess that doesn’t actually mean something somewhere, and was a combination of syllables from an online Yuan-Ti name generator that I kinda liked together. If she had ever been outed, I would probably have come up with something a little less cumbersome for me and my (almost certainly wholly monolingual) D&D group to say... but she didn’t, so Zsaksatyi it stays!

She very much looks up to Fenthaza and almost idolizes and worships her—if she ever had to choose between Fenthaza or Dendar, things might have gotten a little bit rough for her (possibly no matter which way she ultimately jumped, though I imagine Dendar's vengeance would be more immediate, if Dendar's a hands-on sort of patron).  Thankfully (for her), there was very little risk of that given that the party had left Fenthaza on reasonably neutral terms (having already helped her oust Ras Nsi from his position of power in the Fane and the party having essentially marked that dungeon as “cleared”). Fenthaza had sent her to scout the Tomb of the Nine Gods and locate (or steal) an artifact known as the Black Opal Crown, which will allow the Night Mother to emerge into the world.  The group actually came across the crown pretty soon after Zmija (and our other new character, a firbolg druid named Mei Ren who replaced our cleric, Amara) joined them, but the party couldn’t figure out how to get it out of the room it was in and Zsaksatyi was content that it would be safe from both our group and other adventurers there while she found her way back to the Fane (though she Sent the location to Fenthaza in case she wasn’t able to make it back).  That was actually like, halfway through the session right after she’d been introduced so having her sneak off that fast would have been absolutely wild, so I kept playing her as Zmija and while there were myriad opportunities for her to be discovered—including a hallway where any non-magical non-living thing got evaporated, up to and including clothing—she never was.  The fact that the only spells she ever used spell slots on were Hex, Counterspell, and Identify never really got commented upon, because prior to her joining the party we didn’t have a source for any sort of utility magic and we’d been feeling the lack for a while.  She was a lot of fun to play just as Zmija once I got the hang of her, but the hidden agenda that only our DM & I knew about was an extra layer of fun, too. It would have been neat to see how the party reacted to a reveal, but unless Jim wants to take us back to Chult to actually deal with the Night Mother’s return (because without having to keep up appearances and alignments, I’m pretty sure I could have gotten that crown out of there even before the weird teleport-defying magic of the Tomb got turned off), her story is over for us—taking her outside of the setting she was designed for would be weird... plus we already have two warlocks (well, one and a half) in a party of four PCs; adding a third would be a little bit bizarre, I think.

Her more Yuan-ti features include scales down her spine and across her shoulderblades, on the backs of her hands, and on her hips and thighs—mostly in reds, oranges, and browns, but as she increases in power and connection with the Night Mother, more of them are darkening to Her blue-black; it started right at that spot between the shoulderblades where you always picture being stabbed in the back, and has expanded from there; I imagine by level 20 all of her scales would be that blue-black and may have encroached further on the more human-y leather bits, probably encroaching on her face at the last, which would make being a spy a lot more difficult (even moreso than wearing as much clothing as she already does) but I guess at level 20, do you really need to be sneaking around pretending to be human?

In direct sunlight or other very bright light, her pupils constrict to slits, which is the real reason for her heavy eye makeup—between the distraction of it and the (somewhat exaggerated) squinting that such light induces, it often goes unnoticed, as it did with her character portrait (although to be fair to my party, Alexus also has slit eyes because that’s one of the traits of elves and half elves in D&D, and also I’m not sure if they ever saw her portrait any larger than 150x150 or whatever Roll20 shows them at). Both her top and bottom canine teeth are sharper, longer, and narrower than is typical for humans, and she is careful not to grin too widely and will cover her mouth when she laughs or yawns, whether she is in disguise or not.  That part I’ve never drawn though, so I can’t really point to that as something the party overlooked, heh.  In hindsight, I wish I'd given her more/heavier snake features but even the official art for Yuan-Ti player characters are very light on them and getting around the differences between human and yuan-ti racials without tipping off the party was hard enough as it was—I took the 120 feet of magic-ignoring darkvision invocation to disguise the fact that she innately had darkvision, I never used my racial spells and abilities unless I was willing to “use” a spell slot on them and had another plausible way to have obtained them, the one time I got hit with a poison ability (which she was immune to) I spent a lot of time “figuring out the math” on how much HP I had to drop, etc.  I also wish I’d given her darker skin, as she is supposed to be Chultian but she is significantly lighter than all the NPCs we came across.  Then again, I’m as white as a sheet soaked in bleach so there’s something weird about me RPing folks of colour regardless (especially given her fake backstory, agh agh agh) so yeah.  Really enjoyed her, don’t regret her, will not ever play her again rofl

In our very last session of Tomb of Annhiliation, the party—fresh off the victory over the big bad lich whose name I can never spell and his weird world-eating fetus—headed back to Port Nyanzaru via the Aarakocra village of Kir Sabal, which the previous variant of the party (of whom only Thokk remained alive and mobile enough to talk to them) had helped out significantly earlier in the campaign, unlocking a flying ritual that we were like “man we’re not coming back here if we’re gonna use it we gotta do it now” to get us the rest of the way to the port.  En route, Zmija tried to leave the group and rolled a secret 15 Stealth roll... contested by 17 and 18 perception rolls from Mei Ren and Thokk, but as she wasn’t carrying much of the party’s stuff and it was the end of the campaign, they kinda just let her give some line about seeing them again in the future maybe, the Mother’s will is unknowable, etc etc.  I think if Duf and Kattii didn’t know that I wanted Alexus back as badly as I did and that we were like twenty minutes (real time) away from actually getting him back, they might have considered that more suspicious than they did.

Pronunciations (and translations): (mostly C&Ped from her bio, which is the only part of her character sheet I can still access on Roll20)

Zmija Yilan: zMEE-ah yee-LAHN.  Because I'm subtle as hell, that's Croatian/Russian/Ukranian (first name) and Turkish (last name) for "snake/serpent," according to the internet.  What do you mean Remus Lupin is a werewolf?!

Matrymriy: mah-tRRuh mRREE (Rs are rolled).  Matrymriy is Zmija's claimed patron—one of five major Zemlyashan dieties—but she'll state that she doesn't know the name that she goes by in the local dialect.  That's only partly true, of course—мати мрій is Ukranian for "Mother of Dreams" (at least according to google translate), which is close enough to her patron's actual names and titles (Dendar, the Night Mother) that she can get away with it without actually raising suspicions about the true source of her powers.  She'll also do that thing where if someone tries to say the name back to her she'll "correct" them by saying it exactly the same four or five times and then "give up" and accept whatever "butchered" version the speaker comes up with, except she'll do it even if they're actually saying it perfectly correctly.  She may do this with her own name as well (sorry, Jim. And Duf. And Dustin. And Kattii. And Kattii's coworker, if he ever joins us and I'm still playing this character by then, lmao.) (2021 addition: and literally everyone who has a name that isn’t typically pronounced by us English-only plebians, I am so sorry I’m not better at your language)

Zsaksatyi: dzahk sot-YEE.  Zmija's real name, when she isn't pretending to be a human.  That doesn't mean anything as far as I know, it was just a combination of some of the syllables the random Yuan-Ti name generator was coming up with that I liked (which is also where "Itszella" was from), lol.  I may end up changing it to be less cumbersome at some point, unless it comes up before then and ends up written in stone, but I'm on a bit of a time crunch for the moment.

Zemlya: zem-lyah.  If pressed for more detail on where in Zemlya she's from (e.g. by someone pretending to know details about her country), her home town is Fal'shyva (fall-sheh-VAH), southeast of the capital of Hayali (HI-yah-LEE) and just north of the port city of Farazi (fah-ra-DZI), which is where she originally sailed from seven years ago. фальшива земля is Ukranian for "fake land," Hayali is Turkish for "imaginary," and Farazi is Turkish for "hypothetical," lol.

Proverbs & (approximate) Pronounciations: (if I recall correctly, asterisks indicate ones I had used, so I didn’t repeat myself too frequently)

Wziąć się w garść (zvun shih garsch): lit. take the self into the fist (polish), pull yourself together Галопом по Zemlya (gal-OH-pohm poe zem-lyah): lit. galloping across Zemlya (russian), to be hasty/haphazard. * У кого немає собаки, полює з котом (Ooh koe-hoe meh-MIGH-eh soe-BAH-kay, poe-LOO-yay koh-tome): lit. who does not have dog, hunts with cat (ukranian, original proverb is portugese), make do with what you have. Z choinki się urwałaś? (dzi hoink-E she urr-vahl-wash): lit. did you fall from a Candlenights(aka Christmas) tree? (polish), you are obviously not well-informed; are you dumb? * Mi o vuku (MEE oh voo-koo): lit. to talk of the wolf (croatian), speak of the devil. * Thalai muzhuguthal (tha-LIE MOOz-GOO-thal): lit. pour water over someone's head (tamil), cut off a relationship. * Хоть ко�� на голове теши (coat-coal nah gohl-ehvee teh-SHEE): lit. you can sharpen an axe on this head (russian), a very stubborn person.

Other Languages Are Hard Today, Let’s Just Proverb It In English:

Cat's Forehead (japanese): a tiny space, usually used humbly to refer to owned land. It fell between chairs (swedish): group work that everyone assumed someone else would do, and didn't get done as a result * It gives me a beautiful leg (french): fat lot of good that'll do me Drown the fish (french): avoid a subject by talking about anything and everything else, confuse the issue In a river with piranhas, the alligator swims backstroke (brazil): protect your weaknesses * Accusation always follows the cat (iraqi): it's easy to blame someone who can't defend themselves The honey only sticks to the mustache of he who licked it (arabic): he who smelt it, dealt it * A hungry bear does not dance (greek): the reward must be worth the cost (or at least exist) * The crayfish sides with the crab (korean): people who have a lot in common stay friends * If you can't live longer, live deeper (italian): get the most of your time * A spoon does not know the taste of soup (welsh): intelligence is not wisdom Examine what is said, not who speaks (arab): don't take things at face value * Turn your face to the sun and the shadows will fall behind you (new zealand): have a positive outlook He who does not travel, does not know the value of men (moorish): wide experience is gr8 Do good and throw it in the sea (arab): don't expect anything back from kindness * Shared joy is a double joy; shared sorrow is halved (swedish): friends make things better If you want to go fast, go alone.  If you want to go far, go together (african): strength in numbers, speed on your own.

#xellart #dungeons and dragons #original characters #zmija yilan

[atc74]

A Whole New Experience

Square(s) Filled: Grace Kink for @heavenandhellbingo and @spnkinkbingo

Warnings: Grace assisted blow job, blow job narration (you’ll see), vaginal fingering, angel grace as a sex toy, implied voyeurism, implied threesome, lots of bad language, Sam Fucking Winchester the legend

Summary: After Cas and the reader are hit by a witches spell, they are forced into the other’s body. Wouldn’t you take it for a test run?

Pairing: Sam x Reader, Cas x Reader (sort of)

Word Count: 1575

Written for: @heavenandhellbingo, @spnkinkbingo

Beta’d by: @amanda-teaches who wanted me to add the following disclaimer: Amanda apologizes for any errors she might have missed when she was so distracted by the smut. 

A/N: Sequel to A Whole New World (catch up now), that I wasn’t going to write, since I have struggled in the past writing Castiel, but pushing myself to be a better writer means I gotta just do it. Graphics made by me, photos found on google. There will be two more parts to this. Fair warning...they get filthier. 

Like Sam or Cas’s scent? Buy it here from @scentsfromthebunker!

Y/N, still in Cas’s body, waited until she heard the rumble of Baby’s engine fade before turning to Cas. “Tell me everything I need to know about using your grace!” 

Cas’s eyes, more accurately, her own eyes lit up. “It’s quite simple really. It’s all about focus. And, I’ve seen you with the lore and on a hunt, Y/N, you are incredibly focused. This will be no different.” 

Y/N shed the remainder of the suit and strolled toward her and Sam’s empty bed and laid down, her back resting against the headboard, getting comfortable. Her eyes travelled down the well chiseled vessel Cas usually occupied. Just the thought of what she was attempting made her dick twitch. It throbbed and bobbed hopefully, filling at the thoughts running through her mind. 

“Cas, I thought you said you’ve never had an orgasm? How do you know this will work and why haven’t you ever tried it on yourself?” She looked over at him, his eyes trained on her, his hardening cock. 

“I’ve never experienced the primal urges that drive humanity. I’ve never felt a need for any of that. Until I met you and the Winchesters. I now better understand emotion and humor, needs and wants. Until this morning, I’ve never considered my own sexual curiosity,” he replied solemnly. “I’ll walk you through it, Y/N. When I am healing you or Dean, I don’t just hold my hand over your broken body, I focus all of my energy, my grace, into the parts of you that need healing.” 

Y/N nodded her acknowledgement and closed her eyes, letting his words, but her voice, lead her. It probably was better this way, it’s almost like she’s narrating, hearing the words in her own voice. 

“Envision in your mind, Y/N, exactly what you want. Imagine, if you will, you’re with Sam. Remember how you pleasure him with your mouth. Imagine my grace is your mouth, your lips, your tongue, your hands. Feel your tongue as it snakes out of your mouth, tasting you. Imagine your soft hands as they grip the velvety smooth skin.” 

Y/N followed Cas’s instructions and a warmth flooded her body. It wasn’t entirely unlike the feeling of arousal when she thinks about Sam. The picture of her on her knees between Sam’s was a hazy blue. A soft moan left her lips as she focused on what she wanted. 

“Run the tongue of grace around the head, before taking it between your lips,” Cas commanded. 

Y/N felt the warmth of the grace as it wrapped around the head of her vessel’s cock. An involuntary moan left her lips but she craved more. She willed the grace to do what she wanted, her hips bucking up into thin air, into the grace as it sucked at her cock. 

“That’s it. How does that feel, Y/N?” Cas asked. 

“Oh my god. It feels so good,” Y/N keened, the sound strange with such a deep, masculine edge to it. In her mind, it was still Cas’s voice and she felt herself grow harder, hotter, imaging pulling those sounds from him once he was back in this magnificent vessel. “I need more.” 

“You have the control, Y/N,” Cas told her. “Take it. Bend it to your will. Suck my cock, Y/N.”

“Oh, Cas!” she cried out as the grace followed her command, the pressure increasing to mind-blowing heights. “Oh god! I’m not gonna last!” 

“Go faster, Y/N. Harder that’s it. Make the grace your little cock slut,” Cas moaned. 

Y/N opened her eyes when she felt an entirely new sensation as tendrils of grace scraped across her chest, capturing each nipple, yet continuing to manipulate her cock. She looked up and Cas was three fingers deep in his pussy, pumping in time with her hips as she fucked up into the grace wrapped around her.  

The image was enough to hurtle her over the edge. “Cas, I’m gonna come!” Y/N screamed, her hips bucking, body thrashing as the pleasure ripped through her, forcing rope after rope of hot come across her heaving chest. 

Through hooded lids and fuzzy vision, Y/N watched as Cas continued to finger himself, and she gathered the mental strength to push the grace across to the other bed and aid in Cas’s chase of his own orgasm. 

“That’s it, Cas. Just let go,” she crooned, using the grace to lap at the tiny bundle of nerves, while thrusting it in alongside Cas’s digits. She increased the pressure and speed, propelling him to his own end. “Come for me, Cas.” 

The angel screamed for her as his body seized, shaking with the tremors as the orgasm worked through his cells. 

Y/N rose from the bed to clean the stickiness from her chest, then returned to the bed looking at Cas blissed out in her body. So that’s what she looks like after Sam fucks her. Impressively hot. “You need to pee, Cas.” 

“I assure you, I do not urinate, Y/N,” Cas attested. 

“No, you, Angel of the Lord, do not. Me and my body, yes. And, I don’t care for a urinary tract infection, so go,” Y/N ordered, pointing at the bathroom. While Cas did as requested, she got dressed, wondering when Sam and Dean would be back. “Oh, and wipe front to back, please!” 

“What?” Cas called out. “Oh...I get it. Okay!” 

Just as Y/N was pulling up the suit trousers, the door burst open, revealing a disheveled Sam. Still shirtless, she regarded her boyfriend. His face was flushed and his chest heavy with his breaths. 

“Sam, what’s wrong? Did you find a counterspell?” she asked. 

“No, but it should wear off in a day or so,” Sam breathed out. “We ransacked the entire place, but couldn’t find anything. Sorry, babe.” 

“Eh, it’s not so bad. I just gave myself a blowjob with Cas’s grace. That was pretty spectacular,” Y/N smiled at the memory, her cock reawakening, apparently needing little to no refractory period. “Where’s Dean?”

“Got his own room, said this is a little too weird and kinky, even for him,” Sam chuckled. 

“So, you gonna let me fuck you with this body?” Y/N strode across the room, meeting Sam chest to chest. 

“What? No!” Sam shrieked, backing away from her advances.

“Y/N, thank you for the orgasm,” Cas deadpanned, exiting the bathroom nude, his body on full display, still slightly flushed. 

“Wait..what the fuck did you guys do while we were gone? Did you fuck him?” Sam gasped, looking at Y/N and pointing at Cas. 

“What? No!” Y/N replied instantly, laughing. “I just used my grace, his grace, whatever. There was no actual touching.” 

“Good, let’s keep it tha-” Sam started.

“Unless, you’d let me. Fuck him, I mean,” Y/N looked up at Sam with bright blue eyes and a natural pout. 

“I’d be very interested in that,” Cas nodded enthusiastically, still buck naked. 

“No!” Sam protested, giving Cas his bitch face. 

“Think about it, Sam. It’s still my body, which you love,” Y/N reasoned. 

“I do fucking love your body, Y/N. It’s amazing.” Sam licked his lips. 

“And, you’ve shared with Dean before. Hell, we’ve shared with Dean before,” she winked, able to nearly look him in the eye in Cas’s taller body. “This is Cas. Your best friend, an angel of the Lord, that has never been good and fucked. In thousands of years on this planet, observing the human species, watching us go at it like rabbits and he has never, ever, been properly fucked. And for his first experience to be good and fucked by Sam Fucking Winchester himself? Mmmm, he’ll have material in his spank bank for another two or three millenia. So will we.” 

Sam’s thoughts were churning a mile a minute. Cas was his best friend, other than his brother. There was no one in the world Sam trusted more than Dean, Y/N, and Cas. Sure, they had invited Dean into their bedroom before, but that was Y/N. He reasoned that this would be for her as well. And for Cas. He couldn’t deny the arousal that sparked to life inside his belly at the thought of Y/N, in Cas’s body, manhandling Cas in her body like a pro. Combined with the power of angel grace, this could potentially be better than it had been with Dean. 

Y/N watched her boyfriend have his internal debate. She knew the thoughts that were running through his head, as well as the images. Sam was incredibly visual, and she glimpsed it just before he opened his mouth. He had made his decision. 

“Cas, get on the bed,” Sam commanded. Cas eagerly rushed to the bed he had been using before, tits bouncing as he landed in the middle, a feminine giggle escaping his lips. 

“Sam likes to be in charge, Cas, so just listen to what he says and I’ll help you, okay? You’re gonna love this. We’re gonna make you feel so good, baby,” Y/N cooed as she undid her pants and let them drop to the floor at her feet, cock already bobbing for attention. 

“First thing I want you to do, Cas,” Sam paused, shrugging off his jacket and pulling his shirts over his head. “Is suck her dick while I watch.” 

Part three - An Enlightening Experience

Did you like it? The nicest thing you can do for a writer is reblog their work and tell them, and others, how much you like it!

The Whole Enchilada: @iwantthedean @dolphincliffs @mrswhozeewhatsis @meganwinchester1999 @cherrycokegirls1 @closetspngirl  @roxyspearing @flamencodiva @blacktithe7 @sis-tafics @just-another-busyfangirl  @amanda-teaches @hannahindie @wotinspntarnation @winchesterprincessbride @winecatsandpizza @kickingitwithkirk  @wi-deangirl77 @hobby27 @mogaruke @gh0stgurl @alleiradayne @idreamofplaid @seenashwrite @manawhaat @crashdevlin @thoughtslikeaminefield @emoryhemsworth​

The Sam Sin-dicate / Jared’s Menagerie: @supernatural-jackles @fandom-princess-forevermore​

Cas’s Cravers / Misha’s Minions: @wildefiction​

#heavenandhellbingo #spnkinkbingo #sam winchester #castiel fanfiction #cas x reader #sam x reader #castiel smut #supernatural fanfiction #Supernatural fanfic

[jq37]

thoughts on this week's ep?

**spoilers for broadway brawl**

***Before we start, I remembered as I was typing this one of the important notes I lost from last week’s recap: Interesting that Christmas seemingly went off without a hitch. I expected Santa to come back into play somehow (like, someone would check on him to make sure Christmas was still on or he’d call them in to help or something) but he hasn’t, at least not yet.***

My guys, my guys, my guys. Was that something or was that something?

I think I am on record as saying that combat is my least favorite part of ttrpgs generally speaking because I’m here for the RP but when a combat episode shines it really freaking shines (see eg: that first combat ep of Bloodkeep where everyone went full Galaxy Brain except for Matt who couldn’t hit a single thing) and this is such a good example. This is easily a top five ep of the season for me, maybe top three so let’s get into it and break down why it was so awesome.

We start right where we left off with Titania and members of her court having come into the theater to beat the tar out of Misty mid-show.

Quick note: At the end of last ep, it was set up so that Misty was thrust on stage right after hearing the mirror was on stage which would place this fight right at the top of Act 2 but at the start of this ep, Brennan seems to indicate that it’s taking place during what would be the closing number. Which would make more sense but imagine you go see a play, the first act is super dope, and then the second act is an insane, minute long fight that’s pretty unconnected to the plot and then a buff, naked, beautiful man tells you the show is over and you should leave. Wild. Anyway.

Pixies with tommy guns in inherently funny.

So one of the things that makes this fight really great is the way it directly ties into the story in a way besides “These bad guys are in our way.” Misty is using this show as a part of her reincarnation spell so if the show is messed up, it fails and she’s on her last life. Brennan has a cool mechanic of making her roll death saves every round at a difficulty lower than her modifier (which is s/t crazy like 11) but that gets harder with damage done to her and performance checks failed by other players who decide to jump on stage. It’s a great way to make the battle feel like it has more personal stakes and it’s my fave original Brennan mechanic since the Family in Flames Sophie’s Choice situation.

(I love that the death save counter is changed for theater comedy/tragedy masks for this. Nice touch.)

Em, Esther, and Wally are also at the fight which is clutch.

Also, Sondheim is specifically here which is an insane detail to add just because.

WILD that no one knows what’s going on with the ritual initially because, as Lou almost does, getting all the civilians out is the smart move and it would COMPLETELY ruin Misty’s plans instantly.

Lou having Kingston take the stairs bc’s he’s 50+ years old and has no time for that nonsense has equal but opposite energy to him doing extra rolls for Fabian to do unnecessary parkour before a simple attack because Fabian’s Like That.

Murph fireblasts the hell out of Titania’s foot soldiers right off the bat from outside of counterspell range which is very cool.

“Give me a performance check for the cockroach.”

“You’re upstaging me bitch?”

Another great thing about this fight is that because of it’s theatrical nature, everyone’s RPing it more than a usual battle ep (or more intensely maybe is what I mean).

Titania hypnotizes Don Confetti and his goons into fighting for her.

“She doesn’t know she’s in a play but she does sing most of her dialogue which is helpful for you.” Titania is just Like That.

Pete drops an erupting earth and drops a sick 37 damage on those same minions Kug got.

I didn’t notice before but yeah, Ally does roll die like a f-ing beyblade champion.

Emily hearing Murph’s low key, offhand comments and cracking up is great.

“Get Sondheim!” (Emily and then Ally: WHAT?!)

Actual living dude Stephen Sondheim being involved in this fight is just so ridiculous and fun and crazy.

We go around to Misty’s turn and she has to beat a 28 (upped from 10) and she fails which feels worse than a normal failed death save somehow.

Lou, in a very good RP move, tells Pete to tell Misty to end the show so she can tell them not to so the group has a valid reason to not evacuate which is a thing they (or at least him and Ricky) would obviously want to do.

Sophie, the madwoman, jumps out of the balcony, grabs a costume, then runs on stage. Emily’s glee at being told that her grabbing the costume will give her advantage is great. She’s always trying to figure out how to make the most of her moves. She is the living embodiment of the concept of method to madness (which is from Hamlet since we’re talking Shakespeare today). 

Ox is constantly dying (Brennan!) but also it’s like, why was he even there before the fight started? I’ve never seen a non-service dog in a theater.

Ricky: Is this part of it?

Oh, forgot to mention that everything that happens on stage is kinda shielded by the Umbral Arcana so everyone watching thinks it’s part of the show, which is a cool plot detail.

Ricky gets fULLY NAKED (Emily, with perfect comic timing: Now do I roll with disadvantage?) and leaps into the fray. He casts Protection from Evil and Good on her which (1) He does by Magic Mike body-rolling on her while he’s naked and considering how much shorter she is that her raises some interesting questions about positioning and (2) is the most clutch use of this spell I’ve seen in a while. It’s a spell I always wanna take as a Paladin because it makes sense character-wise, but I’ve never been able to actually use it because we’re never fighting fiends, fae, or celestial.

Brennan’s dime change change reversal of the critic’s comments on Ricky’s body rolls when Zac re-rolls his 11 makes me glad I never had to face him in a debate team setting.

Ally: What’s Esther’s deal ;)/Brennan: *Esther’s Weapon Stats*

“Your only secret you’ve ever had in your life is that you have a crush on her.”

Wally has a beautiful singing voice and a working knowledge of Midsummer's which is wild.

Lou’s periodic, “My man”’s when Ally/Pete does something cool. He’s very dialed into being Kingston.

Ricky’s aura keeps everyone near him from being charmed and Misty saves everyone else w/ a nat 20 counterspell. Few things in D&D are more satisfying than a well executed counterspell.

Titania trying to get Pete to be her consort or something when he just over the super posh Priya is very funny.

“I mean between me and Sondheim, get Sondheim!”

“DO WE HAVE HOMEWORK TONIGHT?” (“We did have homework.”)

Anyway, Misty has one success now!

Misty tries to use puppet to get Titania to drop her crown and it doesn’t work. Brennan says the crown is Crown of Stars which I looked up and it’s actually a spell, not a physical crown, but I’m assuming he used the mechanical effects of the spell on a physical item.

Brennan doing all these musical/singing bits when he absolutely doesn’t have to. I love it.

I love Ricky and Sophie being the two martial fighting heavy hitters of the group. Like, the two fighters, having the spellcasters’ backs.

I hope the one kung fu fan in the back of the theater never sees another Broadway show again because he’s gonna be so disappointed. 

“I’m just so inspired by that beautiful penis.”

Murph, out of character, verbally acknowledging how insane what they’re doing is. I love when someone pauses in a game of D&D to just recite what’s currently happening out of context so everyone can appreciate how crazy it is. D&D. Gotta love it..

Emily and Siobhan have a quick conversation in the background about whether Sondheim did Les Mis or not (not, that’s Claude-Michel Schönberg) while Brennan and Murph are Ring nonsense.

I also was mildly suspicious of Alyssa so I’m glad Kingston checked her out.

The entire roast of Brennan when he’s selecting D6s is an instantly iconic D20 moment. I can’t do it justice. You kinda just have to see it.

“Someone call Wizards of the Coast!”

Em, Wally, and Alyssa go out when Titania puts out a huge spell that blinds Kug.

“Yummy, yummy, tastes like ass.”

On Misty’s next turn, she rolls a fail which makes it 2 failures to 1 success. Brennan mentions that a nat 1 counts as 2 failures and a nat 20 counts as 2 successes. I’m sure that won’t be relevant later because you can’t foreshadow things when dice rolls are completely random.

Misty fails on puppet again again and Titania goes full Wicked Witch of the West on her and starts Jonesing for those shoessss.

Emily’s Emily(tm) move of the session is doing a flying leap at Titania, hitting her with a stunning strike and having Brennan retract the Box off Doom he was pulling out because she can’t save when she’s stunned. She just plummets out of the sky.

Don Confetti respecting the sacrament of marriage as he goes full Opera ghost and tries to garrote Sophie.

Ricky (still naked) grabs the crown from Titania, tosses it to Misty, and, with some improv and a good charisma roll, makes the show suddenly make sense to the very confused but entertained audience.

I’m so glad that Murph decided to turn into a bear and that they made the Winter’s tale ref. I should have had faith in Brennan and Siobhan, the theater nerds. Exit pursued by a bear y’all.

Lou and Emily bonding over being proud of their die for rolling well when they lend it out for a big roll.

Really wish Pete had wild magic surged in this fight. Just to add that extra bit of chaos. 

With a very good turn (no damage taken, no performances failed) Misty only has to avoid snake eyes to get through this turn. She leapfrogs over that low bar and rolls a nat 20, instantly fulfilling her win condition. At this point, the play is superfluous and Titania is still down.

“Brennan lost and now he knows reddit is gonna eat his ass.”

OK, remember how I said earlier that Misty seems like the kind of character you nudge a little temptation at just to spice things up? Yeah, her killing Titania and getting the crown of the Seelie Fae makes me a liiiitle apprehensive, but we’ll see how that turns out.

“I killed my queen! This is America we don’t have royalty here.”

“Bear, I don’t know who you are, but take me on your back, let me ride on stage.” —creator of West Side Story, Stephen Sondheim

Misty charms the critic at the show to make sure they get a good review which is such a fae thing to do.

Kingston’s clearly not loving attacking Don and Co. post “real fight” what with his whole Do No Harm thing (well, that’s Dr’s but same principle applies I assume) is a good character detail. For that matter, so is Ricky just taking Titania’s crown and not beheading her which he super could have done while she was down but it would have been very incongruous with everything else about him.

Brian “This isn’t Loony Tunes” Murphy throws Sondheim as a projectile weapon at a pixie who snaps the pixie’s neck and then does a monologue at the audience.

I love it when someone rolls low on an insight check and Brennan gives them useless info and then they repeat it in their character’s voice.

4 mins from the end of the ep, Siobhan realizes there are two Perrys in this story for the first time and has a bigger reaction to that than almost everything else in this ep except her nat 20.

Ricky looks for costume faun legs to cover his fully out dick instead of costume pants or even his own pants.

Misty starts glowing with reincarnation energy and she runs into her dressing room for privacy. Also, she still super hasn’t told anyone what’s going on. (ALSO, assuming she’s gonna make the world think she died, it’s gonna be wild for the company of the show to have their leading lady put on the performance of her life and then die on opening night).

“Who am I to refuse a crown when it’s placed so deftly upon my head?”

You know that behind the scenes thing where Brennan is like, “Yeah, I knew Siobhan was gonna steal that book,”? I got some of those vibes during the crown scene.

The implications of what Misty did are gonna be left until next ep but Brennan says something about her creating her own court and it looks like she’s recruiting followers in the promo. IDK how I feel about that (these stories tend to have great power--especially tied to powerful magical items--as a corrupting force) but I am very excited to see how it goes down! See you then!

#the unsleeping city #dimension 20 #asks #galfast

[words-writ-in-starlight]

Hey Star! Bit of a weird question, do you know where's a good place to find a simplified ruleset for dnd 5e, specifically for a wizard. My wizard is finding it quite hard to remember all the rules and before I condense them all myself I thought I'd ask around and see if anyone has any resources that would do the trick. (Also, a quick update on the campaign, I made our kobold rogue worried about some mountains and now I know why you love to make your players worry. I feel very accomplished.)

Off the top of my head, I don’t know of any good resources for simplified 5e rules--I started out playing 3.5, so 5e is already about 14x simpler than what I originally learned.

I really want to convey that, as a 3.5 Druid on a campus with dubious-at-best wifi, I had one binder full of spells and another binder full of wild shapes, and spent 85% of my combat time trying to grasp the 3.5 grapple rules.  As a rules-laywer little-shit player, I miss having four thousand skills that I could finesse to give me stupid-high advantages on things like “Search” (plus thirty, I had a plus thirty to Search in my last 3.5 campaign), but 5e is WAY more accessible.

HOWEVER.  Even 5e is still pretty rules-dense, so let me try and hit some suggestions.  Without knowing the specifics of what your players are struggling with, these are going to be pretty broad, but you’re totally welcome to send in a more specific request if you want.

No one knows all the rules to DnD.  If a player, especially a new player, needs to check with their DM for every skill check and every attack roll, that’s okay!  Every DM I know keeps the Player’s Handbook in arm’s reach to panic-check a rule or a spell, or else they fully Griffin McElroy it and put the “rules” through a blender.  Please reassure your wizard from me that it’s totally okay if they’re having trouble keeping things straight.  As long as they’re having a good time, they don’t need to be able to recite the damage for Fireball off the cuff.  That’s what references are for.

The internet is your friend.  Again, multiple binders full of spells and animal shapes to be a 3.5 Druid.  This was because the internet on Friday nights got bad fast because Dolly (boys dorm) liked to run LAN parties, so googling my spells wasn’t practical because it took so long.  HOWEVER, the internet doth give many gifts, and if you and your party have regular access to it, I wholeheartedly recommend abusing that to your heart’s content.  Don’t even bother trying to keep that shit in order in your head or on your character sheet.  I shelled out for a DnDBeyond account, which does work great for my party, but you don’t need one--googling spells, special attacks, whatever, will work like a dream.  To facilitate your party being able to do this during fast-paced combat, as the DM, I suggest keeping people apprised of who’s coming up next in combat!  I do this by saying “Okay, Azara, you’re up, Heinous, you’re on deck,” as a way to remind people that they’re coming up and that they should be planning their next move, including looking up anything they might need.

It’s always a d20.  Okay, you don’t literally exclusively need a d20, but I resolved a lot of my mom’s anxiety about using the wrong dice by saying very plainly “if you want to hit someone, do something, or interact with the world in any way, you are going to use a d20.”  Everything else is near-exclusively used for damage rolls.  Damage rolls using Other Dice are described explicitly in spells or weapon attacks--for example, Fireball does 8d6 damage (described when you google the spell) and a greataxe does 1d12 damage (you should have weapon damage noted down beside the weapon).  Basically, it’s a d20 until your DM says otherwise.

Proficiency bonus is your friend.  You get a proficiency bonus in 5e rather than level-by-level skill point allotment like in 3.5.  This helps balance the playing field and limit minmaxing to a more manageable level, and also reduces the amount of math you need to do in order to level up.  Here is how any roll in 5e works: the number on the d20 + the relevant stat + (if relevant) proficiency bonus.  Let’s say you’re a Level 3 barbarian, and you want to hit someone with an axe.  You roll a d20 and get a 13, then you add your strength for a melee attack--let’s say it’s +4--bringing you to a subtotal of 17.  But you’re proficient with your axe!  So now you add +2 for your proficiency bonus, bringing you to a 19 all told.  Good job, your target is definitely going to feel it.  If you only know three numbers in 5e, they should be your proficiency bonus, your primary stat (for our example barbarian it’s Strength, for a wizard it’s Intelligence), and your armor class.  If pressed, you could probably get through a whole session with just those three numbers.  As long as you know what you are and aren’t proficient in (mark it down on your sheet if you haven’t already), you’re good.

Spell slots: write them down.  If you’re using DnDBeyond, they have a helpful little line of boxes to tick off each time you use a spell of a certain level, or an expendable ability like Rage or Action Surge.  I would recommend this technique, it’s the one I used when I did paper character sheets.  Make tally marks, tick boxes, cross out numbers, whatever.  If you have your spell slots written down instead of trying to remember what you still have available, you have more brain power to free up for other, more interesting things.

Combat’s a bitch.  Combat rules are the finickiest part of DnD, and again, do not feel bad about not getting them right off.  In fact, don’t feel bad about not getting it for multiple years.  I probably only got a good handle on combat in the last six months and I’ve been DMing for three years.  That being said, you can do three things during your turn, and one thing the rest of the time, and I’m going to break them down as best I can.  During your turn you have:

MOVEMENT: Pretty much what it says on the tin.  You have a movement speed based on what kind of critter you are (and occasionally what class you are, e.g. monks), and you can move that far. 

ACTION: This is where you Do Stuff, including but not limited to attacking.  You will start at a low level with one attack per action--that may be an axe, a spell, a punch, whatever, but you get to deal damage or protect your friends or whatever.  As you level up, some classes can do more stuff with a single action, notably fighters, who can basically evolve into a murder whirlwind with four attacks per action.  On your action, you can also interact with something (like, say, a bomb you’re trying to defuse or a lock you’re trying to pick), keep moving (this is called “Dash” and lets you move in the same way as the above MOVEMENT), get paranoid (this is called “Dodge” and gives you advantage on getting out of range of an attack), use your special abilities (like a ranger’s Primeval Awareness, or a cleric’s Channel Divinity), hide, (this is called “Hide”), or any number of other things.  You may also get something called an Action Surge, depending on your class, which lets you take ACTION twice in a row.  (High level fighters can actually do like...twelve attacks on a turn with this.  Fighters are underappreciated.  Be a fighter, julienne your enemies.)

BONUS ACTION: Something short and sweet that may also save your life.  Barbarians can Rage as a bonus action.  Certain spells can be triggered as a bonus action, like Hunter’s Mark or Hex.  Other spells can be used as a bonus action, like Spiritual Weapon.  Some classes can do other stuff as a bonus action, like a monk using it to attack or a rogue using it to hide.  If you’re not sure if something is a bonus action, it’s probably not.  It’s a fairly limited but powerful list.

If you’re not the person who’s currently taking their turn, you have something called a REACTION, once per turn, where you do something triggered by someone else’s turn.  Most importantly, this allows you to do something called an attack of opportunity when someone leaves your personal space--you get to whack them with whatever melee weapon you’ve got.  For some classes (notably wizards and anyone who can access the wizard spell list) you will eventually be able to use your reaction to exercise the Biggest Dick Energy in all of Dungeons and Dragons, which is called Counterspell.  Actually any spell saying that its casting time is “1 reaction” can be cast like this, but mostly people just use it for Counterspell.  REACTION is also what lets you “hold” your action, which means saying “I can hear Nym running toward me with the goblins behind her--I’m holding Fireball until the second the horde is in range.”  When the ‘trigger’ you chose happens, you can do your thing.  This means you’re committed and cannot adjust your plan if things change (in the example, Nym might still be in range, but your Fireball is still going to go off), but it also gives you the ability to lay a trap.  

Again, combat is a bitch.  The DM���s job is to know this stuff and help the players when they need it.  There’s no shame in needing a cheat sheet with this stuff noted down or needing to google references for casting time or whatever.  As long as you’re keeping things rolling and having fun, combat works however the DM says it does.  If you realize you made a mistake, just move on.  The nerd gods don’t care.

Any rule too obnoxious to live with can be dismissed by the DM.  You think I played around with 3.5 grapple rules when I was DMing?  Absolutely not.  In my campaigns you rolled a strength check and you lived or died by it with good grace.  If there’s something nonessential that your players really struggle with or you personally think is dumb as hell, just.  Don’t use it.  Wizards of the Coast isn’t going to come to your home and shake you down for ignoring travel rules or whatever.  Homebrew, my babies.

#dnd #dungeons and dragons #rpgs #advice from starlight #dnd advice #i think i need that tag at this juncture #but yeah! i don't know how relevant any of these are to your wizard's concerns but i hope they're helpful! #if you have a specific question i am glad to help! #honestly would anyone be interested in that combat explanation being pulled out as a separate post #because again: if that takes you literally years to have a good handle on it you are about on par with average #i think 'wizards of the coast isn't going to come shake you down for ignoring rules' is the most valuable advice in here #dnd rules are literally so intricate there are games of 'find the mistake in an encounter' #don't hang yourself out to dry for not knowing the rules #use references--books or internet or your dm or whatever #it's all good as long as you and your party are enjoying yourselves #but yeah if you have a more specific question i am glad to take a swing at it #queue deeper than the sea of stars #cinnamonandpancakes #asked and answered

[am-i-sans]

dnd adventures 29

last time, we were in the middle of kicking steves ass. steve was dans patron but dans switched to moss cause fuck you steve! cam and kyris and the kids were killing skeletons.

steve is pissed and grabs undyne and uses vampiric touch! undyne misses her sword badly. but she does hit thunder damage. now soupnik hits yay! dans crits witch bolt with fucking 76 damage. dans uses his bonus to heal a little. moss makes us roll con saves oh no. I HEALED FOR 10 AND STILL LOSE 5 MOSS FUCK YOU. tori more witchbolt thank you.

moss is fucking stunned she has no idea how to get steve out of this. undyne is unable to break from steve's grip. he tosses her aside! undyne lands on a roof! HES TRYING TO RUN! undyne bolts off the roof right back at steve! she lands by him and misses the attack, but hits the second one. soupnik missed entirely. dans keeps hitting the bolt and heals a little too. tori also keeps hitting. steve is so fucking enraged. he wants to kill undyne but hes going to disassemble dans.

(we also learn steve is bigger than soupnik?!)

steve finger of deaths tori oof. concentration broken but shes still alive and gets a reaction! hellish rebuke from tori! steve fails lol. steve smacks a random spot with his flail and whistles loudly. uh oh. undyne divine smites 3rd level! second divine smite hits! dans drops witchbolt to counterspell the con save everyone. then bonus action heal himself again. tori uses witchbolt again and crits!

steve isnt looking too good. cutting back to the shortie squad, all the undead start running toward the graveyard area?! oh no. cam tries to kill some more but they just keep going. suzy runs after them! kyris asks if they should go after them but cam and frog chase after suzy. kyris follows!

in the distance we can hear cam screaming for suzy. steve and all the undead suddenly vanish. coward. undyne calls him a little bitch. suzy runs up to dans followed by everyone else. cam calms down and asks where the horde went. dans looks around and says 'i guess he ran away.' frog runs up and hugs tori and then dans. dans pats them on the head, says hes proud and that they helped a lot of people today.

cam introduces kyris! oh no. friends. kyris is just...standing there. tori says its nice to meet her. (remember tori was invisible when she saw her) tori asks kyris for her name. (fey bullshit) dans says they should get to safety cause steve might come back. undyne says nah he ran away. suzy is so mad they got to fight steve. dans says steve was his patron and now its moss. dans snaps his fingers, vani comes back! hes orange and looks glittery and fluffy! frog squeals and hugs them. undyne whispers to dans if they should kill kyris and dans goes 'no dammit'

kyris goes to leave and cam is sad and wants them to stay. undyne urges them to leave and steps between cam and kyris and says kyris has no reason to stay around. cam is confused and waves goodbye. kyris leaves and cam asks undyne wtf was that? undyne says shes a cultist. undyne then praises the kids and cam for doing a good job. dans heals tori and tori heals frog. tori also heals dans. dans also minor heals suzy.

dans goes to frog and says "you learned eldrich blast from learning from me. i learned healing from learning from you." frog (and cam) and fucking melting how cute that is.

frog yawns, time to go back to bed! long rest! end of session cause were doubling with raz's one stay tuned!

#dans #dnd #dnd adventures

[authoressskr]

Language!

Characters: Gabriel, Castiel, Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Sister!Reader, Mention of Jack Kline and Jody Mills   ::  Warnings: Language (LOTS), Prelude to Sexy Time, Subpar Writing   ::   Word Count: 1328

@sdavid09‘s Daily Writing Challenge - Prompt #8: Warning: Language Ahead (*39 Curse Words Below*)

Note: Do NOT repost, copy and paste, post or share my works on any other platform without my EXPRESS PERMISSION. -+- REBLOGGING is fine! -+-

Gabriel chuckles as he enters the motel room, Cas leaning against a wall and giving his elder brother an eye roll. Gabe whistles low as he takes in the condition of the Winchesters, Sam and Dean both bent over their laptops raise their heads to glare at him with tired eyes.

“Heard you boys came upon a whole mess of witches.”

“Son of a bitch asshole bullshit dick shit clusterfuck.” Dean snaps out with an edge of exasperation before swiping a hand over his face.

“I haven’t been able to locate a hex bag. I have attempted to read their minds, but the spell is acting as a veil, so all I get is curse words. Some rather creative.” Castiel informs Gabriel, pushing off the wall. “I have sent Jack to stay with Jody until this is resolved.”

“I was about to ask where my little nougat was.” Gabriel nodded at Sam. “Tried writing? Texting?”

“It’s the same.”

“Of course it is.” Gabriel watches his little brother plop himself down onto a bed end. “Well, I got two options of how this went down; one is someone,” He points to Dean. “Got mouthy with a mini-coven.”

“Eat a dick shit son of a whore fucknugget.” Dean flips him off to boot as Gabriel chuckles again.

“Whew! That was supposed to be colorful? I’ve been riding the pine awhile, so get more creative Deanie-weenie.” He points to Sam. “Two is Sam was spitting out a counterspell and they put a stop to that shit.” Sam nods eagerly at his words while Dean mutters “Cumbubble” at Gabriel, closing his laptop. Cas clears his throat, drawing Gabriel’s attention.

“Can it be fixed?”

“Luckily, I’ve dealt with this before. Not for a handful of decades, mind ya, but give me two hours to get the ingredients and I’ll return your beloved Winchesters back to their cheery, dickish selves.”

“Cunt motherfucker!” Dean snaps as Sam shoots him a tight look.

“Yes, two hours! Some of the ingredients are hard to find or hard to barter for. I need time to work my magic,” Gabriel snaps up a piece of licorice, gesturing absentmindedly around the room. “Could be longer with that attitude though, you dick weasel.” He pauses, taking in the looks of the brothers. “Ooh - Double Winchester Bitchface Activate! Well,” he takes a deep breath, running a hand through his immaculate hair and takes a bite of his licorish. “Toodles!”

“Holy shit.” Sam mutters to Dean, returning to his laptop screen without much interest.

“Fuckface whore dick asshat bitch,” Dean mutters, gesturing to where Gabriel just was.

“Yes, he is.” Castiel agrees.

---

Gabriel startles you as his hands grasp your waist, his lips eagerly pressing kisses to your neck.

“I only got two hours.” He says softly against your skin before you turn to face him. “Got time for a quickie?”

“Mmhmm. I think someone needs to explain to you that quickies don’t last two hours.” His mouth covers yours eagerly, hands moved from your waist to the buttons of your jeans as you card your fingers through his dark honey locks.

“That’s an angelic quickie, gumdrop.” His lips trail down your throat as he pushes your jeans down, letting you step out of them before pulling you against his body, thoroughly enjoying the noise you make when he sucks hard over your pulse and ruts against you. Your hands scramble to shove his jacket off before you give a sharp tug on his shirt.

“Get your clothes off, handsome.” You growl before grabbing his hair tight and biting his throat.

“Fuck, I love when you get bossy.” You roll your eyes as he grasps the end of your shirt, tugging it up your body, only for the neckline to get caught on your messy bun, making you laugh as he gently freed you watching his amber eyes light up as he smiled back at you.

“I love when you smile like that. Carefree.” Gabriel presses his forehead against yours, rubbing his nose against yours before pulling away.

“Only for you.” You feel your smile widen before he snaps, both of you naked and in your bed. “Now then...two hours.” He waggles his eyebrows, moving in for a kiss when you pull back a little. “What?”

“Sam left a very, very odd voicemail on my phone. This wouldn’t have anything to do with my brother cussing me out?” Gabriel hesitates for just a second.

“Noooo.” A raise of your eyebrow makes him roll his as he settles himself firmly between your legs. “Okay, maybe.” You scoot back, making him grab you and drag you back under him. “Alright - yes! Dammit, woman, just let me fuck you senseless before I have to go fix your cursed brothers.”

“You’re the one who keeps hinting but won’t tell them. I said we should just tell them we’ve been dating and going at it like bunnies. But nooo, Mr. Archangel Tricksterpants said they don’t need to know right now.” He just stares down at you. “So, what happened with the witches? How badly are they cursed?”

“Nothing life-threatening. They got rid of the coven. They’ll tell you this later…” Gabriel lets his grace skim over your skin, from your neck and ghosting downward. “We’re naked - I love you, you love me - and we got two hours, sugar. THEN, I will go fix your brothers and probably take Cas to a bar to relax.” Your fingers dance along his chest as you consider his words even though you know you’ll give in. You always do with Gabriel.

“Fix them then you can stay the night.” You counter, watching him try to figure a way out of it. “Nevermind.” You say, settling down into the bed with a wiggle. “Get to fucking, Gabe.”

Gabriel snarls above you before snapping you both clothed again.

“What?”

“Don’t do that. You know how I hate that.”

“Gabriel, you’re gonna be here long after I’m gone. Either be with me or don’t. I’m tired of sneaking around. I’m tired of you always teasing revealing the damn truth, but never doing it.” Your phone rings and vibrates on the bedside table. “And I’m tired of them calling me over stupid shit.” You swipe to answer, grateful to hear Cas instead of Sam or Dean. “Yeah, I’ll look up the ingredients for you.” You glance at Gabriel, who is staring slash glaring at you. “No, I figure he’s getting his jollies with some swimsuit model in Tahiti then he’ll come fix them whenever he’s done. Yeah, you can put it on speak--” And then Gabriel disappears, which you regret. You had been petty and demanding and now who knows how long til he decides to pop back in. That’s when you hear Dean through the speakerphone.

“Shit bastard cockclown fucker prick!”

“Drink this.” Gabriel? “Better?”

“Yeah. Uh, thanks. Why’d you come back so fast?” Sam asks, his voice a little rougher than Dean’s.

“Because I’m dating your sister and she’s tired of hiding our relationship. So, I fix you, go back to the Bunker and apologize for being a dick and get laid. A lot.”

“You are NOT dating my sister, you dickbag! You asshat of a Trickster and angelic piece of shit!”

“Uh, sorry Dean, but I am. See ya.” And he’s back, standing at the end of the bed, losing some of the bravado he’d just been flashing with your brothers. You hang the phone up, tossing it onto the nightstand before launching yourself at your boyfriend.

“Thank you, Gabriel.”

“You’re welcome, sweetness. I’m sorry it took so long to do it.” He mumbles into your hair, holding you tight. “Speaking of doing it...”

“Oh, buddy - you get all the sex tonight.” You say before taking his earlobe in your mouth and giving it a sharp tug with your teeth.

“Fuck, I love you.” He groans, pulling back to look at you, dark goldenrod eyes dancing softly.

“I love you too, Gabe.”

Tagging: @sdavid09 @thewhiterabbit42 @nobodys-baby-now @unleashthemidnight @sumara62 @clockworkmorningglory @lucis-unicorn @chelsea072498 @galaxiesinmymind @sakurablossom4 @keepingcalmisoverratedgoddamnit @whinywingedwinchester

#archangel gabriel #gabriel supernatural #supernatural reader insert #sister!winchester #authoressskr writes #tale teller's daily writing challenge #castiel angel of the lord #castiel supernatural #dean winchester #sam winchester #supernatural fanfiction #language! #lotsa curse words #prompt eight

[littlecajunlady]

Critical Role Episode 33: Reunions

I’ve said before that doing these timestamps can feel kinda pointless sometimes because the ones on youtube are usually decent enough, but then I couldn’t find a timestamp for the Perc’ahlia “Darling, take the mask off” moment anywhere and it’s times like that when I feel like it’s worth it.

(Pt 1, 2:09:15 btw)

Another really good one. I know I said I was ready for the Briarwood fight but I’ve been putting off the next episode for days now. I guess I’m trying to prepare myself for what I assume will be a 4 hour 40 minute fight, but I’m also kinda not ready for this arc to be over.

Pt. 1 13:30 - Game starts 14:55 - Vex thinks the old woman is using seeming, so they decide to dispell her magic 22:00 – Anna Ripley revealed 23:25 – Percy questions Ripley 31:46 – Percy “You’re at the bottom of my list” and Percy reveals himself to her 33:40 – Vax talks up VM to intimidate Ripley 36:00 - Percy threatens Ripley again before they let her out of the cell 45:45 – Vax gives Vex his cloak, Pike disappears right after (They follow Ripley to her room and she collects her things) 56:10 – Ripley is a Percy/guns fan girl 1:02:25 – They go to Cassandra’s room, no Cass but Percy finds a family portrait and letters 1:06:50 – Percy “Anna, I’m going to take a leap of faith, and believe contrary to all evidence, that you’re a smart woman”   1:09:30 – Scanlan takes his potion of acid resistance after hearing about Ripley’s project 1:16:05 – Vax finds Cassandra, he says “Jenga” and attacks Professor Anders 1:19:45 – Cassandra’s throat is slit 1:27:34 – Taliesin is the anti-Wheaton 1:30:00 – Vax gives Cassandra a healing potion 1:33:30 - Scanlan inspires Vex ♪ (Ex’s & Oh’s) 1:40:00 – Percy sees Anders and Cassandra again . . . but his gun breaks (Mind controlled Grog attacks Vax then is no longer controlled) 1:48:14 - Scanlan inspires Grog ♪ (Aquarius) 1:49:08 – Scanlan’s first counterspell? “That door is locked motherfucker” 1:51:15 – Vax unconscious and fails 2 death saving throws, Keyleth then heals him and pulls Cassandra toward her using a vine (Vex does a slide over to heal Vax to heal him, then Ripley frees herself from Trinket and runs) 2:00:48 – Percy gets HDYWTDT on Anders 2:02:05 – Percy “Your the face I saw when murder entered my heart” 2:09:15 – Vex takes Percy’s hand “Darling, take the mask off”

Pt. 2

4:05 – Vax to Keyleth “You know I’m in love with you, right?” KISS 04:38 - Break starts 14:45 - Break ends 17:30 - Percy whacks Vax for running into the room on his own again 18:10 – Percy and Cassandra reunited 21:30 – Cassandra refuses to be left behind (Ripley gets away, they take Anders’ levitation boots and go through his letters) 32:30 – Scanlan scrys on his shit at Greyskull keep 35:35 – Scanlan asks Percy for Ripley’s gun, Vax takes it away 38:40 – More questions for Cassandra (and backstory for the last 5 years) 48:30 – Percy tricks Cassandra to see if she’ll willingly take a potion after a few minutes of trying to figure out if she is being controlled 53:20 - Cassandra/Scanlan?! Percy “NO” 54:15 - Scanlan uses seeming to make the guys look like Percy & the girls like Cassandra 56:50 – Keyleth tries to find Vax amongst all the Percys (Go through de Rolo mausoleum and all of the tombs are open, wraith fight starts at 1:09:05) 1:09:35 – Taliesin rolls a 20 and retires the golden snitch for a while, Marisha rolls a 1 on it 1:11:25 – Taliesin rolls another 20 “I’m the devil and I’ve come to do the devil’s work” 1:12:35 – Taliesin’s third 20 1:15:25 – Keyleth possessed by a wraith, then Vax and Grog too 1:22:50 – Vax’s religion check, he hears Pike’s voice and is no longer possessed (Trinket cannonballs Keyleth, Grog, and Scanlan) 1:35:20 – Nat 1, Percy gets possessed then Vax attacks him 1:39:10 - Scanlan inspires Vax ♪ (Moves Like Jagger) 1:40:34 – What about Cassandra? Laura “I just thought she was being a bitch” (Grog no longer possessed, Percy shoots Vax 3 times, Keyleth knocked unconscious and fails death saving throw, Percy knocked unconscious and wraith attacks him & he fails 2 death saving throws) 1:59:58 – Scanlan’s vicious mockery, gets HDYWTDT 2:01:00 – Percy “Which one of my ancestors did you shame to death, again?” 2:02:32 - Scanlan heals Keyleth ♪ (O.P.P) 2:04:20 – Percy to Scanlan “Don’t loot my family’s crypt” 2:04:42 – Game ends

#critical role #timestamps #cr 33 #critical role spoilers #critical role episode 33 #reunions #critical role reunions

[rarestereocats]

rundown of last week’s game!

   Upon leaving the dueregar city,  we're approached by two drow.  Something about them isn't sitting right with us and when they insist we follow them to a city we had no intentions on going to yet,  Xaren drops his mute act to question them.  In turn,  they drop their forms and standing before us are two brains on legs that are now chattering to each other about how obviously great and sexy our hot bods are and how they would absolutely love to have them.  Of course,  we're not thrilled with the prospect of sensual body snatching and proceed to beat their squishy asses.  It was a no brainer,  really. (loud booing)

   After kicking their brains with no issue,  Elathera understandably wants to dispose of these corpes cuz uh,  brains on legs that like to snatch bodies are bad and who the fuck wants to run into the issue of them possibly coming back?  She makes an acid pit via magic and destroys one,  but before she can get the other,  Virhea's stuffing it in her bag.  This party has a thing for stuffing corpses in bags of holding apparently,  but we don't question this too long because this is just who we are as people.

   We press forward,  parkouring and flying over magma pits and shit until we reach our destination.  The drow city of Agony.  Lovely name,  right?  It's a quaint,  quiet city deep within the middle Underdark,  surrounded by a mote of lava.  The only way in is a draw bridge and boy howdy,  the people here are delightful.  Just kidding,  guys.  It's a terrible place.  We go back and forth with the tower guard for awhile,  but as Xaren says his name,  they're more than happy to bring his ass in so that their matron mother may deliver his ass to Velevana herself.

   We talk with the matron mother,  Antoinette,  and Industria lies about how she feels the call of her goddess as well.  Antoinette asks her to display her powers on an unfortunate drow,  so Industria smiles and agrees before proceeding to cast hellfire on Antoinette.  She's pissed,  understandably,  but surprisingly doesn't kill us.  Yet.  As Industria goes to leave,  the matron mother takes her magic away and orders her goons to kill all of us except Xaren.  He's a prisoner and she needs him alive.

   As she takes her magic though,  I'm less than happy about that and decide to shadow stealth onto her throne to drop down and assassinate her,  but unfortunately,  that didn't go as planned.  I hit her,  but as I roll away,  some of her goons surround me and knock me to the ground.  Tenin shows up to help out,  so I crawl away,  but these rowdy boys are determined to stop me and follow after,  tripping my ass again.  I guess you could say I've really fallen for these guys. (even louder booing)

   Xaren is not thrilled watching his best friend get pushed around,  so he breaks free from one guard and turns around to punch the other guy straight in the face.  Unfortunately,  these guards either really fucking love their job or don't want the matron mother to beat their asses,  so he's stuck fighting them off.  Elathera displays a moment of snark (I'm proud of her) and takes away Antoinette's magic while loudly proclaiming;  "No, you can't cast magic!".  She's feeling pretty good in this moment until Antoinette counterspells and does the same to her,  proclamation and all wrapped up with a nice,  villainous cackle.

   So Tenin moves up to the matron mother and she goes to take away his life force.  He's wounded,  but zaps some energy from Elathera and stands tall again.  Antoinette is terrified,  panics,  and tries again;  but it's no use.  Now frustrated with the current situation,  I bust out some good ol' summoning salts,  throwing down the orange one.  Out pops a giant,  beautiful angel by the name of Rafael.  He smiles at me and asks if I wish to be as glamorous as him and sensing no ill will,  I'm like...hell yeah,  bro.  Hook me up.  I'm transformed into an angel version of myself and Antoinette has had enough.  How many angels does one party need!?  She wants our asses dead.

   Rafael asks if I'm trust him and in this moment,  yes,  I do.  We need his help.  Before anyone can do anything,  he reverses gravity.  Some of us manage to keep our grip on the world,  while the rest go crashing 50 ft into the ceiling,  including the matron mother.  With her ass pinned there,  I shadow stealth back up and go full murder kitten on her.  With her now dead,  the rest of the drow lay down their arms.  Rafael then reveals his true form and it turns out he was a horrible,  nasty demon the entire time.  She needed our help killing Antoinette as she fucking hated her.

   For thanks for my aid,  she says she'll grant me one wish.  Immediately,  the entire party breaks out into a chorus of "Kina,  no!" and I'm faced with a tough decision.  I want my cousin back.  I want Asri back.  There's a lot I could wish for,  but I turn the demon down,  so she turns to the rest of the party.  Elathera and Xaren,  despite being a part of the "Kina,  no!" party,  both are contemplating using the wish.  How rude.  But thankfully,  mom says no.  Industria casts banish on the demon and that bitch is gone before anyone has the chance to be a hypocrite.

   After escaping the delightful city of Agony,  we go make a sleep cubby far away.  I have a touching moment with Ilyana after Industria suggests I go draw some pictures with her since I am an Emotional Mess.  We draw some cats and Ilyana gives me her drawing so I always have something to remember her by.  I cry,  she cries because she's not sure what just happened,  Industria comes over and calms the situation down.  We all go to bed and Xaren is pulled into another vision.  He's walking through an empty cavern and as he presses on,  the steady sound of water dripping gets faster.  A voice calls out to him.  "Come find me.".  He's pulled back to reality.

   The morning after,  we have yet another family intervention at my sake and I'm prodded and goaded into telling the entire party about how I can feel Lucky's soul in me and how I've been communicating with it.  We decide to test a theory of mine and scry on corporeal Lucky as I reach out to their soul.  Corporeal Lucky is in the cargo bay of a ship.  Doesn't look like my communication affects the body at all.  We have Elathera establish a line of communication with them and talk for a bit.  Turns out they're aware that their phylactery was broken and they were heading out to go fix it.  While the soul in my body registers as evil to Industria,  she tries to detect evil on the body,  but gets no reading.  Since we need all the help we can get taking down a literal goddess of death,  we eventually tell Lucky to come find us and help us.

   As Industria's scry fades,  our communication with them is lost.  But Lucky is now scrying on their phylactery that they were trying to find,  so hopefully that will lead them to us.

#adventures of the volunteer fire department #oc: zakina kociak #game: pathfinder crusades

[mystery-moose]

FIC: Angus McDonald and the Flight of the Flying V (21/24)

[AO3 link]

They’ve come a long way, but even ten years after the world was saved, they’re still not quite where they should be. A whim, a missing painting, and a handful of near-death experiences help a flip wizard and his apprentice bridge the gap.

Taako does his best. Angus takes some risks. Introductions are made, bonds are tested, and lessons are learned — better late than never.

a/n:  This chapter contains description of serious physical injury. Forewarned is forearmed.

Taako decided, not for the first time in his life and likely not the last, that Magnus Burnsides was a god damn idiot.

He’d spent the last five minutes chasing after Gavin with that big stupid sword weighing him down, swinging it as best he could and hitting nothing but air. Of course, the beauty of this particular weapon was that Taako only needed to hit once, but that didn’t help him much in his present circumstances.

Gavin, as it turned out, was quick. Quick, and a little smarter than Taako gave him credit for. He’d worked out the two fundamental flaws in Taako’s backup plan; one was that the void of Silence Taako had cast was centered on him, and as long as he stuck close (but not too close) Taako couldn’t cast any spells either. The other, far more important thing, was that Silence only lasted for a maximum of ten minutes. Any longer, and Taako risked straining himself into unconsciousness.

And Taako was already straining himself — his mimicry of the Burnsides battle strategy had burned what little energy he had left, and he was running on fumes. It was hard enough to keep his concentration on the spell, let alone on splitting Gavin’s skull.

Taako paused, panting for breath after another failed swing, and glared daggers at the orc. His hair was a mess, his makeup ruined, and he was likely about to go to his grave doing the one thing he thought he’d never do — swinging a sword like a dullard.

When I die, I swear to god I’m haunting Magnus Burnsides for the rest of his natural life.

Gavin smiled, and Taako spit onto the floor and rushed forward again. One swing, two, spin and a third. All missed.

How long has it been? Seven minutes? Eight? Taako heaved the sword back up and felt sweat drip down from his brow. Rat bastard knows I’m short on time. Have to end this fast.

Taako decided to play to his strengths; he widened his eyes, looked past Gavin, smiled and waved.

The dumb son of a bitch actually looked over his shoulder.

With a grin, Taako rushed forward and swung down with everything he had left. Gavin turned back in time to dodge sideways, stumbling and flailing his arm. His shortsword caught Taako in the bicep, scoring a long slice and spilling blood onto the dark blue stone.

“Fuck!”

Taako gripped his arm and felt warmth spill over his hand.

Wait.

He looked up and caught a magic missile in the face.

Shit.

Another struck him in the chest, then the stomach.

Shit shit shit.

Taako fell to the ground, the sword thrown from his hands into the still-burning pyre of the chandelier as he was pelted by missile after missile. He reached for his umbrella and felt his hand smacked away by a wave of Force.

This is bad.

The barrage ended. Taako lay curled in a ball, shielding his face and chest. Then his stomach dropped as he felt himself rise fast into the air, hover for a moment, and then plunge back to the ground. He slammed hard into the stone, and heard something crack.

This is worse.

Again, Taako rose, and again Taako fell. Again, and again. Too fast for him to recover, to fire a counterspell. Too beaten to even reach for his umbrella, still tucked neatly into his belt and undamaged despite the force of his falls. He rose one last time, hovered, and then dropped into a heap on the floor. He was wracked with pain, unable to move, unable to concentrate on anything beyond a single thought.

I’m done.

Taako saw Gavin’s boots step towards him, singed and sooty. He realized he couldn’t see out of one eye. Gavin prodded him gently with his foot. Taako whimpered.

“Well, now,” he said, squatting down so Taako could see him. “We come, finally, to the end of this.”

God, why does he always have to fucking talk about it.

“As much as I loathe you — and believe me, that feeling has only intensified over the course of this duel — I must admit, you put up a much better fight than I ever expected you to. Quite creative. Even clever, in your own way.”

Taako felt warm blood pooling under his cheek, pressed against cool stone. He tried to move his arm, give him the finger one last time, and found he couldn’t.

“A quick death would have been preferable, wouldn’t it? Sadly, you had to linger. I’ll gladly end your suffering, of course.” Gavin smiled; his was far crueler than Taako’s had ever been. “That is, if you ask me to.”

Taako moved his head, tried to straighten it, and sobbed from the effort. “I…”

“Hm?” Gavin tilted his head, raised a hand to one ear. “What’s that? Are we begging?”

“I…” Taako swallowed blood and nearly retched. “I’m so…”

“An apology? Oh, that would be nice. Do continue.”

With as much effort as he could manage, Taako raised his head from the ground. He looked at Gavin with his one good eye, and did his best to smile back.

“I’m so parched. Could you be a dear and get me a glass of water?”

Slowly, by degrees, the smile disappeared from Gavin’s face.

“And a straw,” Taako croaked. “Don’t forget the st—”

Taako felt himself lift from the ground again, catch in midair, and fly across the room. Wind rushed past him, and with a loud smack, he bounced off the wall and crumpled to the floor.

“You know what? Fuck propriety.” Gavin’s boots stomped across the floor. “I’m going to enjoy this.”

Something grabbed Taako from behind and tossed him up into the air. He landed in a large golden hand, which spun until everything was upside down. Then it began to squeeze.

“You know what I’m going to do?” Gavin said, stepping into Taako’s vision. “I’m going to squeeze every last drop of blood from your body. Then I’m going to wax these fucking floors with it.”

“D—” Taako gagged. “Don’t forget to dust up—”

The hand squeezed harder. Taako screamed. His vision blurred, darkness creeping in around the edges. Unconsciousness, fast approaching.

“I’ll deliver your head to the boy, as well,” Gavin said, somewhere, a distant echo. “For no other reason than he should thank me for it.”

As Taako felt himself go numb, falling into the pitch-black void that had accompanied every near-death experience in his life, he had a series of thoughts. The first was that he was honestly pretty upset that no one was around to see him go out like the absolute baller he was; the second was that Kravitz was going to be ultra-pissed when he showed up in the astral plane; and the last was, appropriately enough, about Angus.

Taako hoped he’d done alright, looking after him. Not good, no, Taako was never going to be good at the job. Just okay. Acceptable. Decent. He’d be happy with that.

He really hoped he’d been decent.

Sorry, pumpkin.

Really hope you won’t stay mad.

#the adventure zone #thezonecast #taako #angus mcdonald #fanfiction #post campaign #mystery #adventure