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thatsrightice · 9 months

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F-14 TOMCAT ISSUES AND ACCIDENTS

The following is a compilation of issues with the F-14 Tomcat that have been encountered by pilots throughout its lifespan due to both mechanical and other reasons. Some are based on individual accidents and some cover epidemics in which many aircraft were lost to the issue *cough* compressor stalls *cough* basically it’s a bunch of ways you can hurt your fav characters in your fics so if you write something pls let me know cause I want to read it!!!

The issues range from minor hydraulic leaks to an explosion where pilots survive but the aircraft is literally in a million pieces.

LAST UPDATED 10/25/2023

Added some links to relavant FFFOTDs

Side note, the F-14 was a frickin massive tank of a fighter jet. She has taken damage to major components and still been able to land safely, so every situation is pretty unique.

Water Damage- Any type of water intrusion would cause issues with the electrical systems. It was a very common thing, so much so that they would have to duct tape anywhere water might be able to enter as a precaution when they knew it would rain.

Hydraulic Fluid Leaks - The F-14 did leak hydraulic fuel fairly often. There was a joke going around that if there isn't a bucket leaking hydraulic fluid underneath the plane then you are out of hydraulic fluid.

The Staple - On F-14 As and Bs, they would limit the jet to 4Gs maximum for three months and then they would install a metal staple to the bottom of the aircraft just forward of the tail hook. The point of the staple was to prevent severe bulkhead cracks and fuselage delamination by reducing the torquing moments caused by material fatigue. The staple is described as being a 1 foot-long and 1 inch wide solid steel part that looks exactly like a staple. As a part of their pre-flight checks, pilots would have to hang on it to ensure it wouldn’t fall out.

Airbags - Now and then, the airbags would rip and they would have to fix them.

Hydraulic Failures - Hydraulic failures happened somewhat often, but not often enough to be a prevalent issue. Generally speaking, it was common knowledge that if an F-14 wasn't leaking hydraulic fluid then it was out of hydraulic fluid. They would place buckets underneath to catch the liquid when the aircraft was not flying.

An incident from 1988 resulted from a complete hydraulic failure of both the main and the backup systems. They ruled the accident to be caused by the combination of failure of a relief valve and material failure. The Commander of the Pacific Fleet at the time believed that it could have possibly been the result of entrapped air that had been introduced into the hydraulic system through minor system maintenance.

AICS Programmers - They would have to start the airplane and then run the intake ramps aka would have to cycle the intake ramps otherwise they wouldn't be able to get off the ground.

Flap-Slat Lockout - If the flaps on either side of the jet didn't program at the same rate, it would cut it out and lock them up. They were then unable to move them as the lockout was a precaution to prevent asymmetry. This forced pilots to land without flaps, requiring an extra 22 knots during landing. It was difficult to land when they were locked out, and in many situations the end result would be pulling up next to the carrier and ejecting. Flap-Slat Lockout was a consistent issue throughout the Tomcat's life.

Unreliable Fire Warning Light - Sometimes the fire warning light would just barely start to flicker on and steadily become more prominent. Overall "just a bad system." You never actually know if there's a fire or not.

Wings Won’t Come Out - This happened at NAS Oceana. The airplane landed at a speed of 230 mph, so very close to the F-14’s stall speed. When the wings are stuck back, you can't hit the brakes during landing because there is no anti-skid and you would overheat them, if you pulled the stick back you would rotate, and with the wings back you have no spoilers so there is nothing to slow you down. In this particular incident, the pilot was able to take the long landing, but if this issue was encountered at sea it would require an ejection or divert to an airfield nearby if possible. No big explosions or fires though, it’d be a fairly calm procedure and the plane could fly into range of the ship for easy retrieval after ejection.

Low Fuel (Barricade Landing) - Bad weather at night combined with air traffic personnel being too occupied with diverting tons of airplanes, launching tankers, etc. can cause an aircraft to get low on fuel. There was a situation covered in the F-14 Tomcast episode called "F-14 Barricade" where they were unable to refuel using a tanker and were forced to do a barricade landing for their safety. They were almost forced to pull up alongside the carrier and eject. After the landing, one of the crew calculated based on the amount of fuel left that they only had about 90 seconds of flying left. This is literally the only night F-14 barricade landing ever I am pretty sure (in real life Maverick's doesn't count lol). I like it because the pilot and RIO had to tell the aircrew straight up "You have to take us now" because the pilot could no longer see the tape on the fuel gage. The crew tells their story really well and it’s really funny to listen to, especially considering the fact that they had to keep sending them around because they fucked up setting up the barrier.

Hitting the Canopy (During Ejection) - Goose's story is based on a real story in which a RIO hit the canopy during ejection and broke his spine. The reason the pilot does not also hit the canopy is because the ejection sends the RIO out first. The canopy is ejected after a couple of seconds after the handle is pulled, then the RIO is ejected after a second or two, and then the pilot another second later. The ejection seats also launch them in different trajectories so the pilot and the RIO do not collide in the air, meaning they may or may not end up in the same area. The solution would be to wait for the canopy to clear before ejecting but sometimes your don’t have that luxury.

Front Landing Gear Failure During Takeoff- While launching off of the catapult of the aircraft carrier, the nose gear attached to the shuttle broke. The landing gear and shuttle proceeded to the end of the runway without the jet, hitting the end of the ship at 305 knots and damaging the front of the carrier. The jet went off the ship with far less speed than necessary (at barely 60-70 knots) and began falling into the water as it was not enough to get the Tomcat in the air. They ejected to barely 50 feet high and were in serious danger of getting run over by the aircraft carrier. In the accident covered on the Fighter Pilot Podcast FPP004 - Ejection Seats, the RIO tells the story of his survival and the tragic loss of the pilot.

Radome (Nose Cone) Detachment - An F-14 Tomcat lost its radome during a flight due to the failure of the latching mechanism. The radome crashed into the canopy, shattering te glass of the windscreen. The pilot could only see out of a 3 inch hole in the windscreen due to the cracked windshield. He couldn't hear anything due to the noise of the wind in the cockpit, so he was unsure of the state of his RIO but assumed he was unconscious because he hadn't ejected them. The pilot flew over the carrier three times before successfully landing the plane, despite having glass in both eyes and a broken collarbone. It turns out that the RIO had been completely unharmed but with comms down he was unable to tell the pilot such. Upon landing the plane, the pilot was medevaced for eye surgery and then returned to the US.

Midair Collision - F-14A BUNo 159832 was a midair collision between two F-14 Tomcat. In this particular situation, one of the airplanes was able to divert to a nearby airport due to losing part of the right wing whereas the other crew was forced to eject. Obviously you could probably picture a situation where both jets went down.

Landng with Damage - Tomcats are a very sturdy aircraft, often described as being a tank both due to how much fuel they were able to carry and the sheer size of the aircraft. There has been an incident where an F-14 landed without one of its vertical stabilizers. In the Radome Deatchment section, the pilot was able to land the plane. The following video shows an aircraft, although not an F-14, landing aboard an aircraft carrier with significant damage on its right right side.

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Single Engine Cat Shot- There was an incident where an aircraft had engine issues the moment it left the carrier. Immediately after the launch, they lost the left engine, and the first thing the pilot did was go through engine failure procedures, wingman at their side. They set up for an engine start using normal air before they attempted a cross-bleed air start using bleed air from the right engine to rotate the starter in the left engine, but neither worked. The pilot addressed the fuel distribution situation by feeding the right engine with fuel from the left to even them out and then they began dumping fuel to get to the "max trap" weight. Upon successfully landing, the Commanding Officer initially believed that the pilot had allowed the left engine throttle to roll back to idle during the acceleration of the catapult stroke, however, after maintenance personnel spun up the engine to troubleshoot, the engine spun well past its normal rpm immediately without the mechanical load it usually carried by the tower shaft meaning that something was very, very wrong. An image of the aircraft after launch can be seen below. Note the singular engine lit up.

F110 Afterburner Failure - The new engines installed were great, but they initially had a problem with the afterburner. In one recorded accident, the pilot lit the afterburner, damaging the afterburner can's lining and leading to an explosion. The Navy prohibited use of the afterburner below 10,000 ft on the F-14+/B/D until the problem could get solved but it took nearly a year to remedy.

"Thump Bang" - The easiest way to incorporate any sort of accident is to call it what the Naval Aviators call a "thump bang". A "thump bang" refers to a series of events that occur when an aircraft experiences some sort of issue they described as a "thump" and then an explosion. It's kind of hard to describe what is like in the cockpit during this sort of accident as it could have happened quickly or could have been a delayed explosion, and it could have been caused by any number of reasons. If they don't know what actually happened, they'll call it a "thump bang" and can only hypothesize what occurred. The likely scenario would have been an issue with the TF30 engines.

TF30 - The "Turd in the punch bowl, " the TF30s had two specific issues that were kind of intertwined.

Throwing Fan Blades - One of the largest issues with the TF30s was that they were with the fan blades. When the fan blades become eroded or damaged over time, they no longer compress the airflow efficiently, potentially leading to an engine stall (see Compressor Stall below). Additionally, the TF30 was known for "throwing" fan blades. This is when the fan blade becomes detached and is shot out to the side into the interior of the aircraft. Not good. Pretty bad actually. They didn't initially know they were throwing fan blades until after a couple of accidents. when they started to be more common they would retrieve the aircraft from the water (if in large enough pieces and then investigate the cause.

Compressor Stall - The actual biggest issue with the F-14 Tomcat and its TF30 engines is the compressor stalling. They literally happened all the time from a variety of different causes. Generally speaking, the compressor stalls were the result of disruption to the airflow into the compressor of the engine. The compressor has fan blades that require the airflow to be undisturbed for maximum efficiency. It was theorized to be the result of foreign object debris (FOD) ingestion into the engines. They check religiously for loose objects on the airplanes as a result, oftentimes having a crew member dive into the intake ducts to check for loose bolts. Additionally, compressor stalls could be caused by operating the aircraft outside of its limits, improper handling, etc.

The F-14 had a gated afterburner, meaning it had 5 “gates” inside of the afterburner and each one lit up a flame rack. There was no variable thrust, so it had to be either on or off. Each of the five racks was labeled as a zone. Zone 3 is what they were allowed to take off with. Coming in or out of afterburner with any angle or attack would cause the compressor to immediately stall. This was mostly due to poor design of the intake.

In general, approximately 30% of F-14A losses were attributed to high-altitude compressor stalls. When one engine stalls, more often than not it will induce the other engine to stall as well. There is a procedure to counteract the compressor stall, the specific protocol was to ease the amount of Gs, slow down, the T.I.T. would go crazy and you shut it down. Or in fighter pilot slang, “ease, slow cook it, shut it down.”

One incident in particular that was assumed to be caused by engine failure resulted in an explosion that looked so bad it was a miracle the pilot and RIO survived (see image below). The pilot escaped with minor burns to his hands, face, and neck and was able to fly within a couple of weeks. The RIO sustained more serious burns on his hands but was flying again after several weeks.

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Not Touching Them For Two Days - True story; they flew best when they were used a lot.

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nohoney · 3 years

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I Just Want It To Be Us - 1.1

note: Part 1 of the Us series which is originally posted on my ao3 here

Us series masterlist

characters: Dabi/Touya Todoroki, Hawks/Keigo Takami

warnings: 18+, drug use, toxic relationships, cheating, angsty-ish

summary:

That question always rang through your mind every time he comes back smelling like one of his side whores and cash in his pocket. He’s your boyfriend but he’s been doing this since way before he met you, and he wasn’t going to stop just because you’re together. It was a condition that you pretty much forced yourself to accept from the very beginning because well… you really did like Dabi that much.

Dabi knows that it makes you upset but he’s not going to stop for your sake.

You know that he won’t.

1.1 ✧ 1.2 ✧ 1.3

Your mother would be so disappointed if she saw you with your current boyfriend.

“Marry a nice man, honey.”

“When you find someone to settle down with, make sure he’s the one.”

“Don’t flit about from guy to guy, it’s not lady-like.”

All these rules your mother set you up with when it came to finding a boyfriend, you knew it came from a good place in her heart. She was only looking out for you when she told you these things but didn’t she get that dating now was different in this age and time? You’re a free person and you can see however many people you want or you could see no one at all and that was perfectly fine as well.

She has a feeling you’re seeing someone but you haven’t confirmed with her. To be honest, you don’t think you’ll tell her anything about your current boyfriend. It would be for the sake of preserving her little, fragile heart. How horrified would she be if she found out her precious daughter was dating the local drug dealer in her college campus?

He didn’t like being called by his surname and he didn’t seem to like being called by his first name either. The first time he speaks in front of your intro to philosophy class, taking it just to fulfill one of grad requirements, he says to just refer to him as ‘Dabi’. It’s curious to the people who don’t know who he is already but who are they to argue with someone how they should be addressed?

So you call him Dabi.

You called him Dabi the first time you spoke to him in class, asking for notes from the day you missed before in class. You called him Dabi when he found you sitting alone in the library and he kicked your chair to get your attention. You called him Dabi the more you spent time together with him, even past the semester once your one shared class is over and final grades were submitted. You called him Dabi the first time he ever rails you on his cock in the backseat on his car.

You almost forget sometimes that his real name is Touya.

In his off campus apartment, he sits in a chair in front of the bathroom mirror and you stand behind him with plastic gloves over your hands, helping him dye the roots of his hair black. The dye stinks, you hate the smell of it, but he kind of suckered you into doing it for him this time. He promised that if you’d help him, he’d sit through one of your stupid romantic-comedy movies you’d been dying to watch for a while. But you had to tack on a condition if he was going to give you an incentive.

If Dabi watched a movie with you and wasn’t entertained by it enough, he’d always leave to smoke a joint and come back high just so that he could get through the rest of the film.

“No break of any kind unless it’s a snack or pee break, you understand me?” you tell him as you put the final layer of dye on his roots. “And no doing it before the movie starts! I want you sober when we watch it together.”

“Yeah, yeah doll. You have my word.” Dabi passively waves his hand at you as he looks down at his phone.

Your eyes casually glance down at his phone screen and see that he’s in his messages app.

Wonder if someone is trying to get him as a connect. You think to yourself as you dispose of the plastic gloves and the remaining hair dye. You’re cleaning up the hair dye tools and open the window to air out the awful smell of the dye, all while Dabi sits in his chair and stares at his messaging app. The sounds of incoming messages from his phone tell you that there’s a conversation going on but his fingers don’t move over the keyboard to respond. It’s not your business how he runs his operations.

“How long do I leave the dye on?” he asks as he stands up from the chair, putting his phone on the countertop, and literally rips the shirt off his body from the neckline down the middle. It’s just a regular t-shirt he bought to protect his skin from the dye dripping onto his body dispensable from the very beginning, but he didn’t have to make a show of it. The shirt drops to the floor in a heap and he kicks it off to the side; you are not picking it up for him.

Dabi’s hot, ridiculously hot, that’s the first thing anyone notices about him. Both his ears have multiple piercings and his nose as well sporting three studs on his right nostril. If he’s wearing short sleeves, the first thing anyone will see that his both arms are tattooed all black, save for where they end, at his hands and shoulders it’s detailed to look like his skin is being held together by staples. On any other person it would look ridiculous to you, on Dabi not so much.

He notices you staring and winks at you, but you scoff at him and push past him to exit the bathroom. “You know how long it stays on, you’ve done this plenty of times before by yourself.”

“I like it when you tell me doll.”

Ah Dabi could be so charming when he felt like it.

You roll your eyes at him but peck him on the lips. “Shut up, I’m going to order in some food for dinner today.”

“Wow, ordering in for dinner tonight. Such housewife material (Name).” Dabi pokes fun at you.

“And you’re going to be the perfect husband Dabi.” you tease back.

You’re not certain if Dabi is long-term boyfriend material, you’ve only been dating for about five months. It’s not a long period of time you’ve spent as boyfriend and girlfriend but you’ve had a lot of fun with him. Although you have to admit that part of the fun you were experiencing with Dabi was because of what he’s introduced you to.

Before Dabi, you’d only smoke a little bit of weed every once in a while or take the occasional edible to wind down. You never had your own stash of it, you’d only partake if a friend supplied or if you were at a party. There was no point in having your own selection if you didn’t really partake in it that much. You were okay with smoking from a joint or a bong every once in a while, maybe take an edible if you wanted something a little stronger than smoking flower.

After Dabi you’d indulge in the occasional gram of coke and maybe some ecstasy if you felt like you could afford to take two days off from work for the come down. There were still others you hadn’t given a try yet, like shrooms or 2CB or do a candy flip, but you were slowly working up the nerve to give them a try when you were ready. Dabi offered you a Percocet but god, never again because you were too fucked up the one time you tried it.

You didn’t really think in your life you’d be involved romantically with a drug dealer but honestly it’s not as bad as you thought it would be.

Oh yeah, try explaining that to Mom…

Dab treats you right for the most part, he’s never yelled at you or ever taken his anger out on you either since dating each other, he just sells narcotics on the college campus and he got you into it too, it’s not a big deal. It helped that Dabi took it easy on you rather than just pushing you to do more than you were comfortable with. The first time you were curious about coke, he made you a little thin line of it and it took you more than an hour to decide you were ready before finally snorting it. After that first one, he let you decide how long and thick you wanted your lines to be. He’d cut it nice and neat for you and point to which one was yours to take. Coke felt good but the drip was disgusting in the back of your throat.

Speaking of disgusting…

“Hey, it should have been long enough so wash that gross stuff out your hair and let’s eat dinner.” you called from the kitchen as you plated the takeout food that arrived not too long ago.

You and Dabi sit at his little dinner table with the television streaming some random drama for background noise. Dinner topics for the evening range from school, homework, family news if there is any, and when to coordinate seeing each other next in between classes and your part time job. Conversations go smoothly and you’re cleaning up the kitchen when Dabi comes up behind you and presses a kiss to the back of your head, nuzzling you as you wipe the plates you just ate off of. You feel a sense of dread because every time he does that it means…

“Hey, there’s a house party this Saturday and I gotta work.”

You bite your tongue inside your mouth and exhale through your nose.

He has to work so he’ll be gone for a while, has to disperse his inventory and has to please his regulars as well as find any potential new customers.

If it was just selling, it wouldn’t be an issue.

The real issue is that you know he fucks some of his female customers. No no no, they don’t just get free coke or acid or whatever they’re asking for by spreading their legs for Dabi. He still expects cash as payment, but if he thinks they’re pretty enough then he doesn’t mind getting something extra aside from money after a sale. He’s handsome so why wouldn’t someone want to hop on his lap and go for a ride?

Dabi saves you the trouble by just being upfront about it, swears to you that you’re his favorite and that he only sees the other girls if he’s making a sale, they’re just customers. He goes to them, he goes to their location and fucks them where they meet him. None of his side whores have ever been brought back to his place, not like how he lets you in so easily when you knock on his door. He doesn’t take them out or treat them sweetly like he does with you; it’s just a sale and a fuck. It still doesn’t matter to you though, it still makes you jealous. It makes you clench your jaw in anger and want to just deck him right where his nose piercings are.

You’re his girlfriend but did that title mean anything if he was still going to sleep with other girls?

Dabi knows that it makes you upset but he’s not going to stop for your sake.

You know that he won’t.

“Fine.”

━━━━✧

If Dabi gets to fuck other girls then surely you have the right to do just the same with boys right?

The thing is though is that you did one time just right before the two of you made your relationship official, you hit up an old fuck buddy of yours while Dabi was out selling at another house party in the middle of the night. He left a measly text saying not to wait up for him and that he’d see you for breakfast. It would have been sweet if not for the fact that he came to your apartment smelling like another girl, just spending just two hours with you before flitting off into the night. Two hours of him on your sofa smelling like someone else, not even offering to shower to get their stench off, and he did his best to placate you before giving up and letting you stew in your own anger.

So you hit up your old fuck buddy and you go to him, you just get straight to the point when you’re let into his dorm and fuck your frustrations out on him. You intended to go straight back to your home but angry fucking took a lot out on you so you just spend the night there instead. “Don’t cuddle me, I’ll be gone in the morning.” you tell him after patting his cheek and pulling the blanket over your body.

It’s a quarter before eight when you’re trudging back to your apartment and you see Dabi leaning against your front door. You’re going to ask how his night was but he abruptly pulls you to him and growls in your ear to, “Get in your fucking apartment… now.”

He knows you went out to get fucked, doesn’t want to know who you went to.

You and him argue for over two hours inside your home, pacing back and forth in the living room. It’s back and forth of ‘it’s just business with those girls’ from him and ‘why shouldn’t I be allowed to do it to you?’ from you. Dabi says it’s just business and they mean nothing to him, claims to you that you hurt him more because you did it out of revenge. He really got you screaming at him after he said that but he didn’t dare back down. He stands firm and so do you, that really gets him angry with you even more.

He didn’t apologize and neither did you.

You were jabbing your finger in his chest when he grabs you by the wrist, irritation and exhaustion evident in his turquoise eyes. “Don’t fucking do that to me.” he growls at you.

“Get your fucking hands off me Dabi.” you spit back, shaking his hand off your wrist. “Get out.”

“No, we’re not leaving it like this.” he insists. “We’re fucking talk about this.”

You throw your hands up in the air in exasperation. “No, you want to ‘talk about it’ until I yield to you which is never going to happen! We’re going around in circles! You’re not going to be sorry and I’m not going to be sorry!”

A tense stare off between the two of you for a few seconds.

Next thing you know, you’re pulling off each other’s clothes and you’re forced on your hands and knees in your own bed. The only foreplay you get is a few seconds of rough kissing and Dabi spitting on his fingers to prep you as quickly as he can. When he pushes in, it’s rough and a little uncomfortable but you’re quick to adjust to the punishing pace. He pulls your hair too hard, you backhand him in the face, he spanks you until your ass is red and aching, you dig your nails into his back and scratch achingly slow down his flesh to make sure it really hurts.

Hate fucking with Dabi was a whole new level of intensity for you but you keep up with him until it turns into slow love making.

The biting, angry dirty talk from the beginning turns into whining praises; from ‘you spiteful, fucking bitch’ to ‘my pretty, little angel’.

“Fuck babydoll, you know how good you feel? I think I’ve fucked you so much that your pussy’s shaped to take just my cock. This cunt damn near drained me dry but I still want more. Cum on my cock more, tell me how bad you want it.” Dabi whispers into the skin of your shoulder before licking a trail up to your chin and pressing a kiss to your cheek.

“Ugh, baby it’s so fucking good, only you know my body like this. I don’t want it from anyone else but you… shit, I’m going to cum again!” you groan as you clamp down on him once more and your pussy strangles his cock for more cum.

You fall asleep after two hours of fucking, your head resting in the crook of his neck and his arm around your shoulders to keep you close. The both of you are all fucked out but your mind is still fixated on the fight. Despite the intimate sex that’s brought you closer together after rounds of hate fucking, it doesn’t change the fact that Dabi still fucks his customers sometimes and you’re still resentful about it.

“If it makes you feel better then fine (Name), you can fuck who you want.” Dabi says to you when the both of you wake up and are pulling your clothes back on your bodies. “But know this, if you want to be in on this then you’re just going to have to accept that I’ve been doing this since before I met you and it’s not going to stop just because we’re together. So go ahead, fuck who you want but as long as you always come back to me. I always come back to you, don’t I sweetheart?”

You’re smoothing your hair down, taking in his words before looking up at him and asking, “We’re together?”

Dabi’s eyes are full of mirth as he approaches you, pulling you close to his body and squeezing one of your asscheeks in his hand. “You’re my favorite, my number one, I like you (Name). The things I do for you, what I’ve done to you, no one else gets that from me.”

He didn’t apologize and neither did you.

But funnily enough even though he gave you permission to sleep with whoever you wanted, you didn’t really have the desire to do so. He comes to you smelling like other girls sometimes and that should be your cue to go find your own rando to hump on but you just… don’t.

Part of you wonders if Dabi is happy that you don’t go around like he does despite his blessing. You’re resentful towards yourself sometimes that you don’t go out and have some fun with someone else too. He gave you permission so you should take him up on it, that makes sense given the circumstances. Apparently the only thing that was important to him was that he always be your priority the same way that you were his.

Maybe at the time you just wanted the rush of revenge and now it was different that Dabi took that away from you by giving you permission. Maybe he knew that once he gave you the green light that you weren’t going to bother anymore with seeking anyone else out.

You were certain that he was manipulating you but you didn’t have solid evidence so there wasn’t much you could do. What the hell were you supposed to say to him?

Hey Dabi you tricked me into not sleeping with other people?

Dabi did always give you a heads up at least when he was going out to sell and he always tried to make you happy when he comes back. He offers to order in your favorite food, bring your favorite bottle of alcohol with your favorite juice to chase, eat you out until you’re a quivering mess on his mouth, or nudges half of a tablet of ecstasy in your hand and says that he just wants to put on music and house roll with you.

It still doesn’t change that you get jealous no matter how many sweet things he does for you.

But you like him enough to deal with his shenanigans… just barely.

━━━━✧

“Why don’t you come with me?” Dabi asks you as soon as you’re back from work. You’re tossing your purse onto your sofa and drop your body onto the cushions, your head in his lap and seeking his warmth. His hand goes to your head to start massaging your scalp, his fingers working magic and making you groan in pleasure. “Come with me tomorrow doll.”

You roll your eyes and turn your head to look at whatever show Dabi was watching while he was waiting for you. “To watch you flourish your business? I don’t think so. I’ll stay behind like I usually do.” you scoff, pressing your cheek against his leg and sighing.

He’s never asked for you to come along before, he doesn’t need the distraction of babysitting you. You wonder what’s caused him to ask you to tag along.

“Come on doll, just come along. Odds are I won’t be coming back the night of the party and Keigo will be there tomorrow, he can keep you company.”

Ah you loved Keigo, he was the only one that Dabi really considered to be a friend to him. Maybe it was because he could keep up with your boyfriend in regards to their drug consumption but you could see that they had a bond beyond just getting high together, more than just pills or powders or tabs that keeps them together. Together they both seemed like laid back individuals but Dabi only seemed laid back due to how apathetic he was whereas Keigo was actually a chill person because that’s how he actually was, it wasn’t just the air about him that made him seem so.

You loved being with Keigo, he always spoiled you silly and made you laugh.

“I don’t know, what exactly will I get out of it?” you shrug your shoulders and huff out quietly.

Suddenly two little baggies come into your view, one filled with white powder and the other with a little pink tablet. “Is this supposed to be a bribe to get me to come along?” you ask, staring at the bags and not bothering to take them from your boyfriend’s fingertips. You won’t lie that it is a little bit tempting, just a little bit.

“Maybe so, you know that my merchandise for you is discounted doll. Nothing but the best for you, my shit is always clean.” Dabi shakes the little baggies as if the contents are going to be more enticing if he does so. There’s definitely a big truth to what he said, the quality to his inventory is nothing less than superb. It’s why his clientele always kept on coming back to him but the absolute best was either for his favorites or it was apart of his own personal stash.

You’re staring hard at the baggies and start debating in your mind. Dabi would still give it to you even if you insisted that you stay home but there was no fun in doing it alone. You had some friends that could help you kill the coke if you asked them over but god forbid they start feening, that’s when they became difficult to deal with. There was no point in you holding onto them either if you weren’t going to do anything with them right away.

Since Keigo was going to be at the party tomorrow and if Dabi was going to give the baggies no matter what…

“Alright, only since Keigo is going to be there. Nothing else.” you give in and pluck the two baggies from Dabi’s hand and sit up on the sofa. “Now how much do I owe you for your merchandise sir?”

Dabi smirks at you as he crawls over you until you’re lying flat on your back, like you’re his prey and he’s the predator. “Just your usual payment madame, if you please.”

#dabi x reader #todoroki touya x reader #dabi #todoroki touya #bnha x reader #bnha #tw drugs #us series

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a-little-slice-of-fandom · 3 years

Note

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the Irish-ness of Dracula, if you wanna ramble about it!

(Okay I just want to apologise for how long this took to answer because I know it’s been sitting in my inbox for over a month but..depression and work happened and I just didn’t have the time or energy to complete it. I seriously do apologise for this but I hope you enjoy the post anyway!)

So the first thing I need to clear up is this: the concept of a monster or a demon that feeds upon the life force of humans is not limited to one singular culture or folklore. In fact, this core concept is a wider cultural phenomenon and variations of it exist across both countries and continents. And no one country can take sole credit for the this core concept of vampires. Anyone who tries to claim otherwise either doesn’t know much about vampires or is intentionally being disingenuous. There can be cultural variations that are specific to certain folklores (and to just blatantly steal these would be cultural appropriation), but the main idea of vampires exists across a wide range of folklores and no singular person, group of people or culture can take credit for the creation of vampires.

However, arguably it was the work of Bram Stoker that aided in the solidification of the concept of Vampires that we know today. While there were other authors from a wide range of nationalities who wrote about Vampires before Stoker (including John William Polidori who wrote the Vampyre in 1819)...Dracula is the best known. (Now I personally believe that’s because Dracula is an absolutely banging novel, although I do concede that the prevalence of adaptations of Dracula from the 1920’s to today helps keep Dracula in the forefront of audiences minds.) In addition, it’s important to remember that Stoker was inspired by another Irish author Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, who wrote the novel Carmilla. As far as I know, Le Fanu and Stoker actually worked together on a magazine!

Another thing I think that needs clarification is the common belief that Stoker heavily/religiously based Dracula on the historical figure Vlad the Impailer. This is heavily debated by scholars. While there’s an obvious, undeniable similarity between the names of these two...the similarities start to wain after this, with only small similarities between the two and there’s even literal contradictions between the history of Vlad the Impailer and Dracula’s history in the novel. In fact, there’s not much indication that Stoker based the character Dracula off Vlad the Impailer, or even that he had a working knowledge of Vlad the Impailer beyond the name. In all 124 pages of his notes, there’s nothing to indicate that Stoker’s inspiration for Dracula came from Vlad the Impailer.

(Plus Dracula in the novel wasn’t even originally called Dracula...he was called Count Wampyr in the original drafts of the novel and this was only changed, from what I can gather, in the last couple of drafts.)

In fact, I’d personally argue that that connection between Vlad the Impailer and Dracula is actually something that’s been retroactively added by other artists, for example the 1992 film “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” heavily leaned into this idea that Dracula and Vald the Impailer were one in the same, and as time has progressed people assume that these elements were in the original novel when that’s simply untrue! Stoker didn’t write that! It’s a retroactive addition by other artists that’s just assumed by the masses to be canon. This phenomenon is actually super interesting and it’s absolutely not limited to Stoker’s novel Dracula/the modern day perception of Dracula (another example would be Mary Shelley’s version of Frankenstein versus the modern day perception Frankenstein). I’m not sure if there’s a word for what this is, but I like the term “cultural canon”, where something that’s been added in by other artists has become as good as canon within the minds of the masses and as such is ingrained within the cultural perception of something, despite it having no basis within the original piece or even directly contradicting what is in canon.

(Now I’ll absolutely concede that Stoker taking the name of a historical figure and possibly their likeness from another country and making them into a literal monster is something that should be discussed. I don’t know how Vlad the Impailer is viewed within Romania - whether he’s viewed positively or negatively or a mixture - but regardless he was a historical figure and Stoker did eventually use that name for his own creative purposes. Again, Stoker didn’t say that Dracula and Vlad the Impailer were the same person, that’s other artists doing, but there’s still issues with Stoker that needs to be discussed)

Now, I’ve seen people talk about how Stoker took a lot of inspiration from the Baltic folklore surrounding vampires for his novel, but I don’t really know this folklore very well and therefore I don’t feel like I’m qualified to discuss it. If anyone is more well versed in this topic wants to add to this post then they’re more than welcome to! I don’t deny that Stoker too inspiration from places other than Ireland (like the novel is set in Whitby) but I just feel like people over hype the relation between stokers Dracula and Vlad the Impailer.

Now, onto the Irish mythology side!

So the most obvious inspiration for Dracula comes from the story of Abhartach. here is a link to an actual, respectable retelling of the story of Abhartach which I’d highly recommend people read (it’s really not that long) but the key points go as follows:

There was this Irish chieftain called Abhartach, who was really cruel and the townsfolk didn’t really like him. So, the townsfolk and another cheiftain (known as Cathain) banded together to kill Abhartach. They did succeed in killing him (yay), however, Abhartach just sort of...rose from the dead and began another reign of terror (not yay). However, Abhartach needed to be sustained by blood and required a bowlful every day to sustain his energy. Cathain comes back and kills Abhartach once again, but Abhartach rises from the dead once more and now needs more blood. Abhartach is only banished when Cathain uses a word made from yew wood and wounds Abhartach with it. Abhartach is buried upside down with a grant stone over the grave to stop Abhartach rising once again.

Sound familiar? The similarities between Abhartach and Dracula are undeniable! Yes, there’s some differences between the two but the core story here is almost identical. I could totally reword that paragraph, omitting the names, and it would be indistinguishable from a short summary of Dracula! Even the way that the main characters find out about the wooden weapon that can kill the monster is similar, as both Jonathan and Cathain go to wiser and older members of their community to learn more.

(Also please mythology blogs don’t come for me I know my retelling was an incredible oversimplification but I’m writing on my iPad and my thumbs are starting to hurt. People have wrote full papers on the similarities between Dracula and Abhartach and there’s so many more people more qualified than me, I’m just an 18 year old trying to make a fun and interesting tumblr post. Again, if anyone wants add anything like extra sources or more information or even to point out my mistakes then I more than welcome the additions)

Another piece of folklore that’s also said to have inspired Dracula is the Dearg Due. Now there’s multiple different versions of the tale, but the version I have heard goes like this:

There’s a noble woman who wants to marry a penniless peasant boy, but her dad disapproves and wants her to marry another man who is much richer. The rich man and the noble woman were eventually married but the woman didn’t love the rich man. In retaliation, the rich man locked the woman in a windowless castle where she starved to death. The woman was buried by the locals who took pity on her, but because she was buried hungry she came back to life and drank the blood of her father and her husband as revenge. The version I heard says that the dearg due now basically wanders ireland drinking the blood of men who have hurt or wronged women (as one should) but there’s other endings to the story.

(Again is anyone has a reliable source they want to share then please feel free to add!)

So this is another Irish piece of folklore that clearly includes some elements that we now associate with vampires. Now people (including Wikipedia) claim that this story was specifically what Stoker based Dracula on, and while I definitely think that Stoker was aware of this story and took inspiration from it, I personally think that the Dearg Due inspired the concept of Dracula’s wives more than Dracula himself.

However the key point still stands: Stoker was likely aware of these legends and even the most staunchly anti-Irish person would have to concede that there’s similarities between all three stories. And very rarely are these similarities discussed in classes about Dracula...which I feel is a real disservice. I don’t think students should have to have an intense knowledge of Irish mythology (my knowledge is spotty at best) nor do I think it should be an exam question...but even a brief acknowledgment of “hey, Stoker was inspired by these stories and you can clearly see similarities between them” would be nice. Moreover, it further solidifies my original argument that Stoker was, at least to some extent, Irish and that his Irishness inherently influenced his work.

Also...the social context of what was going on in Ireland in this period can’t be ignored! Again, while Stoker did spend time in both England and Romania, he spent a lot of his life in Ireland and therefore would have known what was going on in his own country.

Dracula was published in 1897, which is exactly 50 years after the worst year of the Irish Famine/ The Great Hunger/An Gorta Mór. Now I don’t have time to do a whole history of the Great Hunger but the effects of the famine were greatly exacerbated by the horrific mismanagement of Ireland by the British government and the British system of ruling in Ireland. How many people died during the famine isn’t clear, but we do know that the population of Ireland at the time was 8 million and the population today is 6 million...200 years later and we still haven’t recovered. So while we all like to joke about the fact that Stoker wrote about an unfeeling member of the aristocracy literally feeding off others with no remorse and basically ruining their lives...are we really going to pretend that there isn’t social commentary there? Scholars specifically think that Stoker was commenting on the absentee landlords (basically British aristocrats who owned land in Ireland but didn’t live there and as such didn’t care about the well being of their tenants) who would often have tenants forced off the land when they couldn’t pay rent...despite the fact that their tenenants were already starving and had no money because their only source of food and income failed.

(I’m not being shady by the way, I also love to joke about the social implications of Dracula, but I feel like people forget that the jokes have actual points behind them)

There was also a cholera epidemic in Ireland in 1832 which is generally accepted to be one of Stoker’s biggest inspirations. You can read more about the epidemic here if you wish, but I’ll summarise what I feel are the key points. Not only was Stoker’s mother from county Sligo and lived through this cholera epidemic, but Stoker also asked her to write down her memories of the epidemic and used her accounts to aid in his research of the cholera epidemic. Now the fact that he was actively researching this should indicate that it would influence his work, especially considering the situation in county Sligo was incredibly morbid. There’s accounts of the 20 carpenters in Sligo town being unable to make enough coffins to keep up with the amount of people dying, resulting in hundreds of dead bodies just lying on the street. However, the most horrific account from this epidemic was the stories of terrified nurses placing cholera patients into mass graves while they were still alive. Stoker himself literally stated that Dracula was “inspired by the idea of someone being buried before they were fully dead”. So while at first there seems to be very little relation between the novel and a medical epidemic, it quickly becomes clear that Stoker’s fascination with this historical event influenced his writing.

My overall point is that Stoker’s irishness inherently influenced his writing. Writers don’t write in their own little bubble, divorced from the world around them, their views and work are shaped by their position in society and their upbringing (it’s why I dislike death of the author as a literary theory). So when people try to claim that Dracula is a piece of British literature...it indicates either a lack of understanding of the context in which Stoker was writing in or a wilful ignorance founded on colonialist ideas. His influences are so obvious to me as an Irish woman but they rarely get discussed, and even if they are it’s seen as overreaching! To call Dracula British literature and to ignore the inherent Irishness of the novel does a great disservice to Stoker!

Anyways I really hope you enjoyed this discussion my love! Once again I apologise for how long this took to write. Also I’m sorry if this comes off as argumentative or anything, that absolutely wasn’t my intention, I just have a particular style of writing long posts haha.

#dracula #bram stoker #irish literature #british literature #bram stoker’s dracula #gothic #gothic literature #ask #ask answered #anon ask #anonymous ask #anon #anonymous #being irish is my only personality trait

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mintchocolatechipnut · 4 years

Text

the boys but they’re idols

ft. bakugou katsuki. midoriya izuku & todoroki shouto

Note: yes, I missed prime pun opportunity to write ‘the boyz’ in the title. Anyway, I’ll be general enough to not include any real-life names and music, but I’ll get specific about other details. (Besides, if you squint real close you can see where I got my references from.) I’m thinking of a follow-up part, but we’ll see. Hope you enjoy!

* These headcanons are detailing each of the boys as a member in a hypothetical idol group, and not that they’re all in the same group.

** For context: the difference between main and lead positions is that main is the position that gets majority of the activity e.g. song, dance, rap, etc. Lead is more of a supporting role, but still important nonetheless.

Tags: idol!au, no x reader for this one, unless??, as you can see from the word length I think you’ll know who I’m partial to

Word count: 3.3k

BAKUGOU KATSUKI

Obviously an all-rounder. He can sing, dance, and rap, though his forte is definitely dancing.

Bakugou obviously has some mad hand-eye coordination if he can play the drums, and I haven’t even brought in his utilizing it through his quirk and fighting talent. He’s also very flexible when twisting through the air and extremely precise with his explosions

Thus, I’d say that his moves are the most on-beat and precise. He’s got very solid moves when dancing; imagine his limbs cutting the air in sharp, refined movements, and his flexibility leads him to be an overall powerful dancer.

Bakugou is a HUGE stickler for technique. Sure, he’s not above improvisation, but technique’s where he excels the most. He’s looking far ahead enough to not want to jeopardize his health by doing some dangerous moves that could potentially hurt his body, so he always takes extra care when going about them, such as taking advanced dance classes.

He works wonderfully as a center, because not only does he have this charisma that makes people unable to look away from him, his perfected balance between his fierce dancing and his emphasis on technique lead him to be a picture of refined strength, and an absolute delight to watch on stage

His facial expressions are definitely the best when he’s performing powerful songs, probably because he’s naturally angry lol. His worst concept has got to be cute, but while he dreads doing it, it’s not like he can’t pull it off. He’s an idol, dammit.

Bakugou’s that one member who wears a headband or bandanna during cutesy performances and sticks with it, because that’s the closest the stylists are ever gonna get to his hair

God forbid if he ever has curly or straight hair

He’s not against dying it though, but he still cares about the repercussions it has on his body, so he tries to refrain from dying it too often. (Which could be inevitable if his managers require him to, I know that. But I’m going to give the boys a little more leeway here to showcase their personalities.)

Anyway, a bandanna suits him just fine, and now he’s the trademark member with the bandanna haha

Some things that don’t change from canon are obviously his schedule. Boy still wakes up at the crack of dawn, probably goes for runs or do sets in the gym, make himself a healthy breakfast, then get down to work

Now I’m conflicted as to what position he would take in a group; I’m leaning towards main dancer

Then again, he IS an all-rounder, so really you could get him to do anything and he’ll be just fine

It’s not in his nature to fail, after all

He can sing, but since his voice is kind of gravelly he’s not the first choice for a main vocal. Strong lead vocal material, I’ll bet, because his voice adds a lot of color and diversity. It’s not something you’d usually hear in a song, that’s why.

He can rap, but again, his voice is gravelly and hard to hear, so I don’t think it would be too good a fit for fast-paced raps. Though, throw him one or two iconic rap lines in his natural ‘I’ll punch you in the face’ tone and you’ve got yourself an icon (and a meme) for days.

I can also see Bakugou being leader of the group, since in canon he’s actually the oldest in class 1-A. One thing though is his outward persona isn’t all that pristine; he has trouble switching gears into idol mode. As we know Bakugou doesn’t lie, regardless of circumstances, and he’s not about to start doing that just to be liked better. If any of these extras are going to be his fans, they’re going to have to recognize real talent, without all the fake smiles.

But because he knows what it could do to the group’s reputation if he came out to look like a big bad bully, he usually keeps his mouth shut during publicity events

He’s probably one of the first idols to have a not-so-sunny media persona, but fans mostly see him as this brooding, sulky kid that’s prepared to put 100% into everything he does

Which is why they still like him

Suffice to say, his fan-base is very similar to the BNHA fandom lmao

Cue all the memes on him being a jerk and everyone liking him anyway, but they know he’s fully committed to the group and wouldn’t want to do anything to risk its image

But over the years, and with the amount of events he’s been involved in, Bakugou’s learnt to let out his true personality one step at a time

He’s considering things carefully because he doesn’t want his fans to be jarred by his personality change all of a sudden, and also because he’s tired keeping up appearances

Jokes on him because the fans already know how he is and are just waiting for him to be more comfortable around the group to showcase his true feelings

And you know what? It sells!

His members also see him as some inspirational figure because his determination and commitment is truly unparalleled

And while he isn’t the easiest to get along with, they know that he’ll do anything within his abilities to push the group to greater heights

While that’s cute and all, it also means they have to suffer at the hands of Bakugou’s tough love. Tough luck

Besides being leader, I could also see him having a hand in producing as well

Remember when I said he was a stickler for technicality? Well, yeah, exactly this

If he feels something isn’t up to par he’d rather do it himself. I think he’d dabble in mixing for a bit and realize he actually has an ear for it, to which he’d then go on to producing whole songs that just awe his members and they’d be like ‘yeah let’s go with this’

And one more thing. Bakugou’s actually got an eye for fashion

Yeah, gripe all you want because all this boy ever wears in the dorms is skull shirts and black tanks but seriously, when he gets down to it, he knows what looks perfect on each member and can make little adjustments to change up a whole style

Courtesy of having designer parents lmao

Overall Bakugou is nothing if not capable. While it means he could definitely go solo at some point, he’s formed bonds with his members and knows he’s grown as a person as a result. And at this point he can only get better

In a leader position, he’s got the charisma, and is not afraid to push for changes if he thinks the status quo isn’t doing enough to ensure the members’ well-being

His weaknesses are obviously teamwork and perfectionism, but he’s been learning how to get along with others better, that it’s not all just a rat race for fame and influence, and he’s able to form some pretty lasting relationships (see: Kirishima)

Not perfectionism, though. He sees it as a strength and not for one second will he compromise. He wants nothing but the best quality, not just for himself, but for the fans

MIDORIYA IZUKU

Looks like the maknae but isn’t. That’s it, that’s the post

He has a really sweet voice so I can see him going for vocals. So imagine when he turns around, holds a mic in his hand and starts RAPPING

You got it, he’s a rapper. Look at the speed that kid goes when he’s mumbling and muttering to himself all the time

Cue Deku’s origin story where he’s mumbling to himself on the street and a talent scout hands him his business card asbfajgfsa

His enunciation is also clear, and his sweet voice makes for a very refreshing rap. That and he also writes his own rap, because if he’s going to be saying anything on that stage, he’s going to want it to mean something.

His raps are always soulful, with hard-hitting lyrics that serve to encourage and motivate anyone who hears and vibes with them.

Basically, his gap moe game is STRONG. Dude be spitting fire up there on stage but once he’s come down, he’s a timid, sweet, shy boi, with overreactions and exaggerations that just make him all the more endearing

He’s also a big fan favorite because he nails every concept well, and has a very down-to-earth personality which he doesn’t hide from the cameras

You want him to act cute and youthful? You’ve got it. You want him to go for something sexy? Um yeah, he’ll have his reservations, but he’ll still do well. You want him to be angry and powerful? The strength in his gaze has got you trembling from the pit.

He’s not just a fan favorite but also that of the staff. Seriously Deku deserves all the love in the world and in this world, he’s going to get it

He’s in the position for main rapper, but I could see him going for lead vocals as well. He’s got a sweet, clear voice that immediately tugs on anyone’s heartstrings the moment they hear it, and he’s usually given more lines in ballads. His vocal range isn’t bad, he can reach moderately high notes, but sometimes his voice undergoes strain. He’s training for that, though!

As for his dance style, Deku probably goes for freestyle! He’s got this easy-going, totally relaxed style going for him that’s full of swag (omg outdated word alert) that makes his movements very smooth. He’s also reasonably flexible, though not as flexible as Bakugou or Todoroki, so he still can pull off certain dance moves.

Unpopular opinion, but it’s Deku, not Todoroki, who looks good in EVERYTHING. Literally his stylist is squealing backstage because they can go ham on dressing him. You could put him in a gold chain and ripped jeans OR an oversized hoodie and rompers, and it’d just go. The only thing is his hair though; he’s thinking of selling it as his charm point (not his freckles!) so he’d prefer if it could stay green. He doesn’t mind if they style it different ways though

The fans would go ballistic if they saw Deku with an undercut, and chances are they’re going to get to see it

He’s definitely one for improvisation! He’s very flexible with these changes, much like how he considers his growth in canon. He’s always looking to try out new styles or moves and see if it fits for him

Besides, I also see him producing! It’s because he’s so immersed in his idol career that he’s always studying new trends on the scene and making them into formulas for the group. He’s also thinking of marketing strategies in his free time

Everyone better be afraid of businessman Deku because he’ll be stealing those bucks from right under your nose

He’s also got mean leadership skills, but I don’t see him in a leader position

Rather, he’s like the second-eldest-but-co-leader kind of guy! He assists the leader in any way he can, and always serves to inspire and motivate the younger ones to work harder together as a team

Deku’s still got that shounen-protagonist charm, even in this world

But for all his good points, Deku still worries he isn’t enough

He knows how cut-throat the industry can be, having studied it inside and out, and he doesn’t want to lag behind

Cue him getting up at odd hours of the morning to use the practice studio (without waking up the others, of course) and other instances

Whenever his members realize he’s been overworking, literally everyone turns on him

He used to be the mom figure, but the moment he’s ushered into bed, a cooling pad on his forehead and thermos at his bedside desk, and the members even station one person to be in the living room so if he tries to leave his room to practice by himself they’ll see him

Jokes on them because Deku practices in his room

He practically moves in his sleep as if trying to get the muscle memory down

Precious boy must protecc!

In sum, Deku’s a great teammate to have and a valuable asset to the team

He’s also the best of friends and is never one to let a fellow member down

Probably the first to burst into tears if the group ever disbands

With his talent and fan-base, he could definitely go solo. But more than that, he wants to cherish the time he has with his members and achieve greater milestones with them every day

TODOROKI SHOUTO

High-key a visual. I mean, everyone wants to look like him!

Like. Everyone stops to look at him whenever he enters the room. Staff, producers, backstage crew, everyone. Even his members, sometimes.

Man’s just too pretty not to stare at

That's not to say he isn't talented, oh no. He's much like Bakugou, an all-rounder, but he's gone through rigorous training from when he was young to get there

Definitely not because of genes, no offense to Rei

As much as Enji is a major shareholder in the industry, anyone who sees Todoroki strut his stuff and still says he got in because of his father has got to be blind. Or deaf. Or plain stupid.

Sure, he had all that training courtesy of his dad. But the moment he enters as a trainee, it's all him from there and no one else.

He's a lot withdrawn at first, still is, but he's improved a lot from when he first joined. It's because of the support he's gained from both his members and fans that he's able to push himself to be the best version of himself everyday

He definitely doesn't come out and say it, but he's probably the most grateful for his fans. As in his family isn't the only lifeline left for him anymore

Todoroki has an amazing voice; while his speaking voice is low, he can reach higher notes without much difficulty. His tone is deep, somber and perfect for ballads, but the training he's undergone has made his technique immaculate. He's got excellent control, he can do runs and riffs effortlessly and he's even perfected his growl. Fans won't even see it coming

His dancing on the other hand is a lot about technique; but unlike Bakugou, Todoroki probably did classical and contemporary dance training as opposed to hip-hop or popping. Because of that, his movements are smooth and elegant, and he always carries himself with the grace of a dancer

That's not to say he cannot be an absolute beast on stage, of course. He's just more in his element when it comes to melancholic ballads, and he's had a hand in choreographing contemporary routines before

That experience and knowledge easily make him a capable choreographer for the group

After all those years of not being able to properly express himself, Todoroki learnt to let his dance tell a story in itself

He's also a fast learner, so any hip-hop techniques he easily picks up and incorporates into the routine

This makes me think he’s going to be a main dancer and a lead vocal, maybe even main vocal

I don’t see him in a leader position because while he has the charisma for it, I think he’d lack in communication, like Bakugou. They’re both a bit too used to doing things on their own that they 1) can’t trust anyone else to do it right and 2) as a result have never consulted other people about how they do things

The difference is Bakugou is a little more observant and far-thinking enough to be a leader, but it doesn’t make Todoroki any less important

If anything, he’s the mom friend, and always makes sure that the members stay in line and out of trouble

Also, for some reason, he's got exceptional charisma on stage and he doesn't even know it

Like, a sexy song comes on and then there’s Todoroki's smoldering heterochromatic gaze

Fans: omgomgomg how is he so hot what the—

Him: ??? This is my normal face tho

It's a strange feeling. One moment, he can be humping the floor and another moment he's got dimples in his cheeks from smiling. It makes him look like a totally different person, even though he's the same guy

His fans don't know why either

As much as he has a creative outlet in dance, Todoroki thinks he has no talent for songwriting or producing. He doesn't consider them his areas of expertise and if he was asked to write lyrics he'd have a hard time because he rarely expresses himself with words. He'd fret on it and eventually not get much done, so why try?

He does help out though, in offering suggestions on how to proceed, but he won't take the lead for any of these. Only dancing

That and his growing up with a businessman father leads him to also know the industry rather well, so he can offer some insights as to what image they could go for and how to market their discography

When it comes to styling, Todoroki is an absolute Mess. The things he likes and wants to wear doesn't suit him all that much, and the stylists usually have a hard time picking out clothes that really accentuate his look and figure. The myriad of colors in his hair and face lead to color clashes, but they find that red and blue are usually the go-to colors.

Did I mention that Todoroki doesn't mind dying his hair as long as they don't dye the white part? Enough said

They've done rainbow on him before!

He also doesn't cover up his scar, and over the years he's learnt to make it his charm point

It serves to make him a noticeable figure in the industry (as if his heterochromia weren’t enough) but it also makes him easily recognisable to fans

It’s not like he doesn’t like interacting with his fans, but sometimes some of them get a little too close, or ask questions that are way too personal

During those times, he’s at least got his members to relate and support him through it

The cutest thing about this man has got to be when he interacts with fans

Like, he’s pretty expressionless most of the time, but he always makes sure that his fans know that he’s extremely happy to have them here, and that he’ll continue doing the best he can for them

If you’re lucky and catch a small smile from him when you’re at a fan sign, I guess you could die peacefully

To summarize, Todoroki is a sweet bean but hardly ever shows it

When people praise his looks, he’s humble about them (though it’s more because he doesn’t know or think he’s attractive… baby just doesn’t see it)

And to top it all off, he’s a charmer on and off stage with his quiet, sensitive nature and calm demeanor

He’s also the one that’s most likely to have a modeling career outside of his idol work

He can’t act for the life of him even though he’s got the expressions right on stage

Like Deku and Bakugou, he could always go solo, but his reason for not doing so is mainly because he’s found a new family, here with his members, and he doesn’t want to lose it

He doesn’t even mind if they don’t produce music anymore. As long as everyone sticks together and has a good time, he’s willing

A/N: Thank you for reading! If you haven’t checked out my other pieces, you can find them on my masterlist; if you have, thank you for your support! I’m trying to post something new every week, so stay tuned :)

#bnha headcanons #mha headcanons #bnha idol au #mha idol au #bakugou katsuki #bakugou headcanons #midoriya izuku #midoriya headcanons #todoroki shouto #todoroki headcanons

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keijikunn · 3 years

Text

Rivalry ── Chapter III

── A @babythotshq collab “To All the Boys I’ve Loved”

Old feelings

Pairing: Tsukishima Kei x gender neutral!reader Tags: college!au, angst, it’s kinda fluffy??? i don’t know, it’s not that angst either Summary: Tsukishima Kei had never imagined that you, his forever rival in high school, would write him a letter confessing your feelings. Does Tsukishima feels the same way? Word count: 3.7k

Author’s note: I’m dividing the last chapter in two, so I won’t be too long (trust me, it’s over than 6k and I wanna spare you all lol). Hope you all enjoy the chap III and I swear by the end of the month I’ll post the final part! Biggest thank you to @kaitycole and @newfriendjen that helped me out a lot, I love you two so much 🥺

WARNINGS: swearing, tsukki being salty but what’s new?, makeout (???), hints of anxiety

RIVALRY MASTERLIST

BECOME A BOOKWORM!

Ever since that… eventful day, you managed to avoid Tsukishima like the plague. It helped the fact you had classes in different buildings, not to mention the fact the college campus was huge. You were about to forget about the letter issue, as the courses have started a few days earlier and you dedicated most of your time to get things settled into a nice routine. Things were too good to be real, though.

You couldn’t believe in what you saw the first time you stepped inside the extracurricular class, after the first week since classes started. Not only your love letters were sent to all your previous crushes (who seemed to attend the same college as you), but the person you dreaded to see again would spend the next semester with you during your afternoon activities.

Tsukishima Kei smirked at your distressed expression, waving at you as if you were long time friends. He wants to irk you, Y/n, don’t give him this pleasure. You are better than him anyway, you repeated it as many times as possible before the bell rang - indicating the class was about to start. Fortunately you managed to sit on the opposite side of the room as Tsukishima, though you could feel his eyes burning holes on the side of your head.

“Why is he so annoying?” You muttered to yourself, sighing in annoyance. The professor entered the classroom, quickly introducing himself and the upcoming project you would work on. You were excited for it when you researched about the university, it was as if a dream was coming true, and you made up your mind to not let Tsukishima Kei ruin this experience.

“As always, we randomize the duos, so be prepared to work with someone who does things differently than you.” The old man at the front announced, and your guts were telling you that this wouldn’t be good. “Raise your hand if I call your name so your partner can find you.

The longer he took to call out your name, the more convinced you were that fate wouldn’t play nice with you. When the other two people left were paired up together, leaving you and Tsukishima without a partner, you had to hold the urge to scoff. As much as you tried your hardest to not bump into your old crush, the whole universe made sure to go against your will.

I should have gone to another extracurricular activity, damn it.

“So… guess we’re a duo, now,” Tsukishima snickered at your disgusted face, laughing at your dismay. “It’s not that bad be paired up with me, Y/n, c’mon”

“You’re right, it’s not bad.” You started, sending him a sharp glare. “It’s the worst thing ever”

With that, you turned around to pay attention to the further details the professor addressed the class. You knew Kei would try to make your experience in this project a literal hell, but you weren't going to let his antics distract you from getting anything less than the best result. You internally hoped that the tall boy also aimed for that, despite his annoying demeanor around you.

If not, you’d have a long semester ahead of you.

“For God’s sake, Tsukishima, this is not how we’re supposed to do it!” You whisper-yelled at the blonde boy, angrily gripping on your hair, holding yourself back from screaming at his face. It has been two weeks since you two started working on that stupid project, and it’s been two weeks of complete hell and anger. Being at the college’s library didn’t help as well, since you couldn’t externalize your frustration. “Can’t you read what I wrote down? Professor said we should follow this!”

“Yes, I’ve read it and decided that it sucks.” Tsukishima shot back, pushing away your notebook, writing a few words on your draft. “C’mon, Y/n, you should know by now that we don’t follow any professor’s instruction. We’re not at high school anymore, be more independent, won’t you?”

You hated to admit, but he was (at some instance) right. What hurt your pride more was that his suggestion was actually good- not that you would admit that, you’d rather die than say it out loud. This idea could easily work out with what you have thought previously, not to mention it would make more sense.

The lack of response made Tsukishima’s shit-eating grin grow on his features, irking you the exact same way he knew he was able to. He proceeded to add a few details on the paper and neatly placed it inside his folder, collecting his materials from the table. You two have been workin for almost two hours non-stop on the project after the whole morning classes, you had to admit your energy wore off at that point.

“Give me the paper, I want to add a few extra things.” You demanded, holding out your hand for him. Tsukishima arched his eyebrows as if he was surprised by such a request, then he scoffed at you - like always. “I’m not joking, I do want to modify it a bit.”

“The point of this being a group project is that we work on this together.” He stressed the last word, zipping his bag and shoving it over his shoulder. “And you wouldn’t do anything, judging by how tired you are.”

“I’m not!”

“Then care to explain how you didn't think about what I suggested earlier?” Suddenly your mind went blank at his response, what in the world does that mean? “You can think about this tomorrow, try not to melt your tiny brain.”

The tall boy left you without sparing a second glance, fumbling with his intertwined earphones as he walked. To say you were confused by his comment would be an understatement. Was he worried you would overwork yourself? No way, Tsukishima Kei would never care enough about you of all people.

Yet he’s still your partner.

“Fuck off, Tsukki.” You muttered tiredly, focusing on putting your belongings inside your backpack to (finally) head to your dorms.

The first time you’ve ever heard Tsukishima’s name was after the first exam of your freshman year in high school. Everyone was crying about their low grades, groaning at the prospect of having to study a lot more to the upcoming test. If you were not mistaken, a boy in your class named Yamaguchi commented how “Tsukki was smart” and he wasn’t surprised he aced it.

“Hey, L/n!” The girl who sits next to you approached you, paper in her hands. “How did you do?”

“I got 96%.” You answered quietly, trying not to drag attention to yourself due to your great performance. People in middle school didn’t like when you mentioned your grades, claiming you did that just to brag.

“Ehh? You’re so smart!” She said smiling. “Please, help me study! From what I heard just you and a boy from class 3 had such a high score. And Yamaguchi-kun said Tsukishima-kun doesn’t help anybody.”

“Of course, we can study at the library if you want to.” The offer seemed to appeal to her, given the fact she nodded quickly and proceeded to write down her cellphone number to you. “By the way, who is this Tsukishima guy?”

“He’s a tall, blonde boy. He uses glasses and if I’m not wrong he’s part of the volleyball club.” She answered, waving at you as she went back to her circle of friends, leaving you to think about who this boy is. “He’s not nice though. Always treats everyone as if he’s superior.”

You were able to put a face to the name you had in your mind after a couple of weeks, when another private school had a volleyball match against the male team of Hakone Academy. It wasn’t hard to figure out that the middle blocker with a poker face was Tsukishima, and you were surprised that he was actually good looking. Something that lacked in him, though, was passion in the sport - or rather in anything, according to your classmates.

Ever since that game, it seemed like you started to see Tsukishima every day in the corridors. You’d see him walking down the halls, his headphones always placed on the top of his ears, muffling the loud noise caused by the other students. He was cold to everybody, even rude if you were to be honest, but he was something else. His interests were inviting, itching your curiosity to get to know him better.

You realized you had a crush on Tsukishima Kei when you noticed how you paid attention to whenever you saw him around school, hearing his steady tone (usually talking to Yamaguchi) and his snarky smirk. All information you knew about him was, being honest, too little to grow intense feelings, but what got you hooked up was exactly this: you wanted to get to know him.

Things, however, didn’t work out the way you planned. The very first interaction you had with him was a disaster. You sounded way cockier than you wanted, you’ve never planned on teasing him and you have never imagined that it would backfire on you and lead him to dislike you.

After that incident, you discovered the aversion quite a lot of students had against him. Most of them claimed the same thing: Tsukishima Kei was mean, smug, had a superiority complex and always treated everyone poorly. A part of you didn’t want to believe in that, but how could you not when he mocked you in front of everyone?

Things didn’t get easier as the project progressed, not because it was too technical or that it required too many details. Yours and Tsukishima’s endless arguments and bickering always ended in screaming matches, hurtful comments and you two not on speaking terms. The premise of group projects was to create something together, but at this point you were doing your own thing while thinking about what the other was working on.

“Are you a dumbass or do you just pretend to be one?” Tsukishima angrily asked, dropping your notebook on the table. “This is horrible, Y/n.”

“You think it’s horrible because you’re doing things as you wish, not considering what I have to suggest!” You responded, your voice tone a few octaves higher due to your stress. Currently you two were at his dorms - the library was not an option anymore, the librarian kicked you out after you were shouting at each other - both awfully close as his dining table was tiny. “This is a fucking group project, you said it before! So you have to listen to what I have to say.”

“I’m not listening when you suggest stupid things like this!” He retorted, ripping the page out and crumpling it to toss on the floor. You widen your eyes, shocked at his recent action.

“Wow, Tsukishima, you are really being this petty.” A humorless laugh escaped your lips, you shook your head in denial, getting up to collect your paper off the ground. The tension in the air grew thicker and the man’s intense gaze burned holes on your back. “People were right, after all. You are unbearable.”

Tsukishima’s smug facade cracked a bit, you noticed, after hearing what you just said. His smirk left his face for a brief moment and his eyes mirrored mixed feelings, could they be sorrow, insecurity? You didn’t have enough time to decipher them as he quickly recomposed himself, offering you a snark grin.

“That’s why you liked me, huh? Did you want to correct the horrible, mean, malicious person that I am?” Tsukishima teased, hitting your emotions with ease. Your mind was empty, only his words echoing inside it, bumping into your skull with force.

You couldn’t understand him, honestly.

One time he is all worried about you overworking, passively aggressively implying you’re capable of suggesting better ideas; and now he’s being childish and not sparing a single offense towards you. You knew Tsukishima Kei was a hard person to handle if you’re not as quick witted as him, but this? This level of pettiness and stubbornness? For a young adult like him, that claims he’s better than everyone else?

“I’m done.” You stated, too burnt out to respond to his teasing comment. Your temples hurt due to the confusion the blond man was giving you, the constant push and pull between you two worn you out.

“What do you mean ‘you’re done’? We’re not done yet.” He stated as if it was a matter of fact - which was, he wasn’t wrong.

“Do I look like I care? I’m doing this shit by myself, you can do whatever you want, I’m done with you.” Silence engulfed the room, and you mentally thanked this peaceful moment. It, however, didn’t last long, because Tsukishima always finds ways to make things worse.

“Are you giving up that easy, Y/n? Couldn’t handle a bit of teasing?” That was it. The mocking tone he used against you was enough to snap the last string of sanity inside you, freeing a rage you never knew you had against him. The angriness burned your chest as you slammed your hands on the table, making Tsukishima flinch at the sudden outburst.

“Yes, I can not deal with your teasing ass.” You admitted shamesly, your mind ran a thousand miles a minute, not registering the words that left your mouth. “What I can’t deal with is a petty boy that can’t take this goddamn project seriously!”

“It wasn’t me who suggested stupid ideas.” Kei spat back, leaning in your direction, inviting you to answer him - almost like a dare.

“You always say my ideas are vain, stupid or whatever, but you never offered anything great or fucking brilliant,” it was indeed true. Tsukishima proudly belittled everything you said for the past few weeks, but never came up with something new. Instead, he modified everything you’ve given to him. “So please, before you put yourself above the others, do something that makes you actually the best-”

Any and every train of thought you had was interrupted by the aggressive contact of Tsukishima Kei’s lips against yours. Everything seemed to melt with the heat coming from the kiss, your hands sneaking behind his neck and gripping rather harshly at his blond hair. In between the feverish moment, Tsukki managed to sit you on the table and place himself between your legs. Gasps and soft murmurs interrupted the kiss every once in a while, your mouth occasionally made its way down his jaw and neck, nibbling and sucking his skin.Only until one of you reconnected them, tongues sliding against each other.

You honestly don’t know how long you two spent making out, but it was enough time to leave a few hickeys on each other's necks and clothes lightly pulled up. Tsukishima’s ears were as red as his swollen lips, the blond hair was a mess thanks to your roaming hands and the white t-shirt wrinkled.

“Still think I don’t suggest brilliant ideas?” Tsukishima teased, but the embarrassment he was feeling was written all over his face. To say you were speechless was an understatement, you’ve just had a full make out section with your biggest high school rival, the one you knew hated you the most. “Cat got your tongue? Or should I say- did I get your tongue, Y/n?”

“What the fuck did you just do, Tsukishima?” You demanded flustered, the feeling of his body close to yourself fading away. "Why have you done this?!"

"Don't tell me you didn't enjoy, Y/N, I can feel the spot you left a hickey on." His comment made you groan in annoyance, because you knew you wouldn't be able to retort it.

Not paying attention to your surroundings, you pushed Tsukishima away from you, quickly grabbing your bag to leave his dorms. You didn't mind if you forgot something at his place - you would see him the next day, anyway. All you wanted was to get away from him, to finally think straight.

The cool air of the end of the day would help you come back to a reasonable state of mind.

You kept acting around Tsukishima after the first encounter. Whenever you had the chance to irk him you did it, initiating an unnecessary banter. You felt stupid to say the least, how low could you go?

Yet, you continued. Just to have his attention. Pathetic. However, you had a limit. And Tsukishima managed to trespass it with such facility you were surprised.

It happened during your second year, exactly one year after you got so interested in that mean boy. Things weren't easy for you, many reasons were behind your unstable state. School was overwhelming like never before, you could barely juggle between regular activities and your club's.

The stress weighted on you to the point you let your grades slip at one exam. You knew you had your worst performance so far, and the subject didn't help you as well.

"I'm going to hand back the exams." Your homeroom teacher announced, earning heavy groans from the whole class. A sigh escaped your lips, knowing how screwed you were if Tsukishima knew how poorly you did. "L/n Y/n"

As you got up from your desk, you felt a familiar pair of eyes burn holes on your back. The moment you read the barely 50% score written on the top of the paper, you blanked out. You missed how your teacher kindly smiled at you, reminding how this one performance didn't define you. The words didn't make sense to you, because for you it didn't matter. You failed.

Tears pricked the corner of yours eyes, shallow breaths escaped your parted lips as you sat down once again, barely sparing a glance at the paper on your desk. You truly didn’t know if someone tried to approach you, mind far away from reality, engulfing itself in a spiral of self doubt, worries and self depreciation.

“Well… looks like the top 2 student failed miserably on the test.” The steady, yet teasing tone of Tsukishima’s voice broke you out of your own head. “You’re fake, couldn’t even get more than half of it correct. You’re a lie, Y/n.”

“Not now, please.” It took most part of your will to mutter these three words without letting your voice crack. Tsukishima arched his eyebrows, amused by the scene unfolding in front of him: you lowering your head against your forearms on the table, shielding your tears from anyone. “Tease me all you want, but please do it another time.”

However, he kept going. Tsukishima pointed out every single question you got wrong, rubbing in your face how he aced another stupid paper while you were a failure. The classroom was noisy, the end of the period let the students talk freely, but you only heard Kei’s voice, adding to your pre-existent stress and pressure.

As far as you could remember, you’ve never underestimated him in any interaction you two had. Sure, you threw a teasing comment every once in a while, but always bragging about yourself, how you’ve outsmarted him. But you were sure you never humiliated him - and you’d never do such a low blow like this.

“Enough, Tsukishima!” You raised your voice, everyone now was paying attention to you two. The embarrassment heated your entire face and your tears finally ran down your cheeks, the blond boy seemed startled with your sudden outburst, though his smirk quickly returned to your face. “I got that you’re better, now can you please shut the fuck up?!”

Thankfully the bell rang, indicating classes were over for the day. You quickly shoved your test on your bag, throwing it over your shoulder as you turned to head to the door. With the sleeve of your coat, you wiped the reminiscent tears from your eyes and left the room. Not only you exited that suffocating place, but also you left behind the stupid crush you had on Tsukishima Kei.

Since that day, you couldn’t stand being near him, all teasing interactions reduced to none and you’ve never checked the scoreboard as soon as the grades were out. You focused on your own stuff, trying your best to clear your thoughts from Tsukishima - which didn’t work as well as you planned.

Every once in a while, in the middle of a studying session, you found yourself pushing your limits like you used to do to get a higher performance than him. As much as you hated to admit, Tsukishima was a great incentive to do better, to set higher goals academically speaking. And though he caused you a lot of pain, a part of you (the stupid one, in your words) still thought he was attractive, you still had a tiny interest in the true guy behind that acting.

That’s why you decided to write him that letter. Perhaps admitting your “crush” on him would make you realize you’ve created almost an entire new person using his name and face. In a way it actually helped, you truly thought you have moved on from him and college would give you a new beginning away from Tsukishima.

Fate, on the other hand, had other plans for you and here you are: walking slowly towards your dorms, emotionally drained and confused. The prospect of Tsukishima Kei having the slightest interest in you was shocking, especially after all those three years of. endless insults.

Are those feelings coming back?

“Oh, no.” You muttered to yourself, immediately stopping in the middle of the sidewalk, frightened about your last thought. “Oh my, there’s no way I’m crushing Tsukishima once again!”

If you concentrated enough, you could still feel his chapped lips against your skin, his large hands roaming through your body. He was right about you enjoying it- in reality, you did more than you’d like to admit. Tsukishima Kei was annoyingly filling your mind with both his smart and arrogant ass and that unexpected (but surprising) heated moment.

You needed to get to your dorms and take a long shower to put your thoughts in order, because there’s no way you’re having feelings for Tsukishima Kei once again.

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#haikyuu x reader #haikyuu fanfiction #tsukishima x reader #tsukishima imagine #TATB: Tsukishima route #haikyuu imagine #baby thots collab

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grailfinders · 3 years

Text

Fate and Phantasms #115: Sakata Kintoki (Rider)

This time on “Fate and Phantasms”: We’re always trying to make the best build possible. Little do we know that we’re about to face our greatest challenge yet: building a goddamn motorcycle. Join us as we build: Sakata Kintoki (Rider)!

(As usual, his build breakdown is below the cut, or you can check out his character sheet over here!)

Next up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8WvSGNEV24

Race and Background

Yes, we’re still doing that bit from the first time. This means Kintoki’s still a Golden Dragonborn, gaining +2 Strength and +1 Charisma. This also gives you a fiery Breath Weapon once per short rest and Fire Resistance. That’s not very in character, but you’re gold, and that’s good enough!

As a motorcycle delinquent/Kamen Rider expy, you’re a Folk Hero, giving you proficiency with Animal Handling and Survival. You can literally talk to animals. Handling them shouldn’t be an issue.

Ability Scores

You’re pretty strong, which is probably why your Strength should be as high as possible. Your preferred method of fighting is crashing into people with your motorcycle, so your Constitution should be pretty high as well. Third is Charisma- bad boys are in these days. Your wisdom isn’t that bad, we’ll need it for multiclassing and also you know animals well enough to speak to them. Your Dexterity isn’t great; despite wearing leather armor, your main defense is your bike being faster than the enemies. Finally, we’re dumping Intelligence. Changing classes didn’t turn you into a professor.

Class Levels

1. Fighter 1: Getting your ride is our top priority, but that’ll take a couple levels. In the meantime we should make sure you’re at least a bit competent off the bike. Your fighting style is Unarmed Fighting, giving your unarmed strikes more power and letting you deal damage by grappling. I’d think grappling someone and running your bike would already deal damage, but now it’s RAW. You can also use your bonus action to gain a Second Wind for a smoke break.

You also get proficiency with Strength and Constitution saves, as well as Intimidation and Athletics. Bikers are scary, man.

2. Bard 1: Okay, now we can get that bike. If you want justification for the class, you did mistake the Rider class for Kamen Rider, so there you go. You’re powered by Saturday morning kid’s shows.

Becoming a bard gives you one skill proficiency of your choice- I’m gonna say Insight. You look like you can read the room pretty well. You can also cast Spells using your Charisma, and you can give Bardic Inspiration to another creature as a bonus action a number of times per long rest equal to your charisma modifier. This is a d6 that the creature can add to an attack roll, skill check, or saving throw within the next ten minutes. You’re a nice guy like that.

This Kintoki’s a bit more thunder than lightning, so for your spells grab Thunderclap and Thunderwave to stay on brand, Friends and Animal Friendship to talk to squirrels, and Heroism and Longstrider to protect your wheels and give them a nitro boost.

3. Bard 2: Second level bards are Jacks of All Trades, giving you half your proficiency bonus on any skill check you’re not proficient in. This includes initiative, so even with your +0 dexterity modifier you can be a bit faster out the gate. You also gain a Song of Rest for extra healing over short rests if you like that sort of thing.

Also you can Speak with Animals now, so they can tell you how much faster you are than them.

4. Bard 3: Time to make some golden creations! As a Creation bard, you’ll find your inspiration dice are a bit more golden thanks to your Note of Potential, gaining extra effects. If used on an ability check they can roll twice and take the higher number, on an attack roll they force an constitution save (DC 8 plus your proficiency plus your charisma modifier) or creatures around them take thunder damage, and if used on a saving throw the creature gains a bit of temporary HP.

The bigger draw this level, however, is the Performance of Creation. As an action, you can create a medium or smaller item worth less than 20 times your bard level in GP. It lasts a number of hours equal to your proficiency bonus, and you can use this once per long rest, or by burning a second level spell slot to use it again. It’s not enough to make a motorcycle just yet, but you can at least make that cool belt buckle.

Finally, you get Expertise in two skills, doubling your proficiency bonus. I’d go with Athletics and Animal Handling. You’ll need some lower body strength to hang onto your bike while fighting.

You can also cast second level spells now, like Enhance Ability to give a creature advantage on a kind of skill check. Give yourself a constitution boost to help with those Thousand Mile Drives.

5. Bard 4: Use your first Ability Score Improvement to round out your Strength and bring your Wisdom up to multiclassing minimums.

You can also cast Mending for another way to fix up your bike, or Shatter to break everything else.

6. Bard 5: At fifth level your inspiration becomes d8s, and you become a Font of Inspiration. This means you regain inspiration dice on short rests as well as long ones.

To celebrate, you learn how to put on a proper tokukatsu Motivational Speech from Acquisitions Incorporated, giving up to five creatures temporary hit points, advantage on wisdom saves, and advantage on its next attacks after its hit. The spell ends on a creature once the hit points are removed, otherwise it lasts for an hour.

7. Bard 6: Now we’re cooking! Now you can finally use an Animating Performance to make your motorcycle, a large Dancing Item. The item stays dancing for an hour, and you can use your bonus action to command it. You can animate an object once per long rest, or by burning a 3rd level spell slot to do it again. Plus, your Performance of Creation can make large items now, so a motorcycle is totally on the table!

The movement speed on a dancing item’s only 30′ which isn’t ideal, but on the plus side your bike can fly, so... I’d say it balances out the cool factor.

Sadly bards don’t get Haste, but if we can’t speed up your bike, at least we can Slow down your enemies.

Oh yeah, you also get Countercharm, spend an action to give allies advantage against being charmed or frightened, not really great but you can always use it for an “I know you’re in there” fight.

8. Fighter 2: Now that that detour’s out of the way, we can get back to fighting. Second level fighters get an Action Surge, tacking an extra action onto your turn once per short rest. Cast two spells, multitask with healing and hitting, or just hit people over and over again. It’s pretty versatile.

9. Fighter 3: Cavaliers get an extra skill proficiency, and Performance will really help you sell your Kintoki action figures. You’re also Born to the Seat, giving you advantage against falling off your mount and mounting/dismounting your cycle only costs 5′ of movement.

As a hero of justice, you can also apply an Unwavering Mark to a creature when you hit them that lasts until the end of your next turn. If the marked creature is within 5′, it will have trouble hitting other creatures, and if it still does you can make a special attack against the creature next turn as a bonus action. The attack has advantage, and deals extra damage as well. You can make these attacks a number of times per long rest equal to your strength modifier.

10. Fighter 4: Speaking of advantage and being good at riding things, use this ASI to become a Mounted Combatant, giving you advantage on attacks against creatures smaller than your mount, the ability to redirect attacks to you instead of your mount, and giving your mount evasion, meaning it takes half damage on a failed dexterity save and no damage on a success.

11. Fighter 5: Fifth level fighters get an extra attack each attack action. It’s not very complicated, but it is very useful.

12. Cleric 1: Your dad’s a god, you get more thunder powers. As a cleric, you can cast and prepare spells using your Wisdom. As a Tempest Cleric, you can channel the Wrath of the Storm. When a creature within melee range hits you with an attack, you can react to blast lightning or thunder back at them with a dexterity save attached. You can use this a number of times per long rest equal to your Wisdom modifier. (So if you’re using the standard array, once.)

You can also cast Thaumaturgy for more dramatic entrances, Resistance so you’ll wipe out less often, and Light because every motorcycle needs a headlight. You can also kick up some dust with your domain spells, Fog Cloud and Thunderwave. You already have a better thunderwave from your bard levels, but hey why not be redundant.

13. Cleric 2: Second level clerics can Channel Divinity in two ways. You can either Turn Undead to make walking corpses into running... away from you... corpses... (not my best work), or you can channel it into Destructive Wrath, allowing you to deal maximum damage when you deal lightning or thunder damage. Your spells are pretty low level, so the extra efficiency is appreciated. You can use this once per short rest, or you can burn your channel divinity use to Harness Divine Power, refilling a spell slot that’s less than half your proficiency modifier as a bonus action.

14. Fighter 6: Use your next ASI to boost your Charisma for stronger spells and more inspiration.

15. Fighter 7: As a more seasoned cavalier, you could react to add a bonus to a nearby allie’s AC when they’re being attacked a number of times per long rest equal to your Constitution modifier. You could, but unfortunately Warding Maneuver requires a melee weapon or shield, and you do things barehanded.

16. Fighter 8: If your hands are going to cause you this much trouble, they’d better be good at their job. Use this ASI to max out your Strength so they’re great at their job.

17. Fighter 9: Ninth level fighters are Indomitable, letting you re-roll a failed save once per long rest. You probably shouldn’t use this on your intelligence saves, you’re not making those either way.

18. Fighter 10: Tenth level cavaliers actually get something we can use, the ability to Hold the Line. This means your opportunity attacks can activate on a creature moving within your reach, and they also reduce the target’s speed to 0 on hit. A good hero keeps the villains focused on them.

19. Fighter 11: We’re almost done, but first you get another Extra Attack for even more punching goodness.

20. Fighter 12: Use your capstone ASI for more Constitution to get more HP and better concentration. You only have so many spells, you’ve got to make the most of them.

Pros:

Thanks to Animating Performance, you can literally make your motorcycle out of anything, as long as its large enough to ride. It also means you’ve got a flying bike, though if you want to keep it closer to canon you could flavor it as having the ability to ride up walls.

You can deal very consistent damage thanks to your high number of attacks and free advantage from mounting your bike. You’re also able to make your limited spell slots count, maximizing their damage with channel divinity.

Your skills as a cavalier make you good at getting enemies’ attention and keeping it away from squishier party members. Mix in a bit of healing from your cleric levels, and you can be a surprisingly good tank in a pinch.

Cons:

You like to ride on things, and you also use a lot of spells with indiscriminate damage. That’s not a good combination, especially since your bike is a construct.

Having, at best, a leather jacket and a +0 to dexterity means your AC is pretty low. Your best defense is not being near the enemy when they get a chance to hit back.

Having to command your bike eats up all your bonus actions, meaning you’ll have to chose between using your unwavering mark or riding.

#Fate Grand Order #FGO #D&D 5e #Kintoki rider #Fate and Phantasms #Cleric #Fighter #Bard

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candyradium · 3 years

Photo

Finally got around to typing up my Technoblade D&D build!!! I’ve been working on making these for a lot of the Dream SMP characters, and I thought it would be fun to have him in stat block format, so you too can throw c!Technoblade at your players as a final boss! (Disclaimer: I don’t know how accurate the CR level is, I just set it to 8 since the build is a lv8 build PC build.)

Image description and explanation/rambling below the cut!

[Image ID: A D&D stat block for Technoblade. It reads:

Technoblade

Medium humanoid (firbolg), Lawful Neutral

Armor Class: 18 (Half plate, defense fighting style)

Hit Points: 72 (8d12+24)

Speed: 40 ft.

STR: 18 (+4)

DEX: 14 (+2)

CON: 16 (+3)

INT: 14 (+2)

WIS: 13 (+1)

CHA: 6 (-2)

Saving Throws: Str +7, Con +6

Skills: Athletics +7, Intimidation +1, Perception +4, Survival +4

Damage Resistances: bludgeoning, piercing, slashing

Senses: passive Perception 14

Languages: Common, Elvish, Giant, Goblin

Challenge: 8 (3,900 XP)

Innate spellcasting. Technoblade's innate spellcasting ability is Wisdom (spell save DC 12). He can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components:

1/short rest each: detect magic, disguise self

Speech of beast and leaf. Technoblade has the ability to communicate in a limited manner with beasts and plants. They can understand the meaning of his words, though he has no special ability to understand them in return. He has advantage on all Charisma checks he makes to influence them.

Powerful build. Technoblade counts as one size larger when determining his carrying capacity and the weight he can push, drag, or lift.

Unarmoured defense. When not wearing any armour, Technoblade's defense equals 15. He can use a shield and still gain this benefit.

Reckless. At the start of his turn, Technoblade can gain advantage on all melee weapon attack rolls he makes during that turn, but attack rolls against him have advantage until the start of his next turn.

Great weapon master. When Technoblade scores a critical hit with a melee weapon or reduces a creature to 0 hit points with one, he can make one melee weapon attack as a bonus action. Additionally, before Technoblade makes a melee weapon attack with a heavy weapon that he is proficient with, he can choose to take a -5 penalty to the attack roll. If the attack hits, he adds +10 to the attack's damage.

Warrior of the Gods. If a spell, such as Raise Dead, has the sole effect of restoring Technoblade to life (but not undeath), the caster doesn't need material components to cast the spell on Technoblade.

Divine fury. While Technoblade is raging, the first creature he hits on each of his turns with a weapon attack takes extra necrotic damage equal to 1d6 + 3.

Action surge (1/rest). Technoblade takes one additional action on his turn.

Combat superiority (4/rest). Technoblade can apply the following maneuvers using his four superiority die (d8s):

Feinting attack: Technoblade expends one superiority die and uses a bonus action on his turn to feint, choosing one creature within 5 feet of his as his target. He has advantage on his next attack roll against that creature before the end of his turn. If that attack hits, add the superiority die to the attack's damage roll.

Menacing attack: When Technoblade hits a creature with a weapon attack, he can expend one superiority die to attempt to frighten the target. He adds the superiority die to the attack's damage roll, and the target must make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, it is frightened of him until the end of his next turn.

Trip attack: When Technoblade hits a creature with a weapon attack, he can expend one superiority die to attempt to knock the target down. He adds the superiority die to the attack's damage roll, and if the target is Large or smaller, it must make a Strength saving throw (DC 15). On a failed save, he knocks the target prone.ActionsHidden step (1/rest).

As a bonus action, Technoblade can magically turn invisible until the start of his next turn or until he attacks, makes a damage roll, or forces someone to make a saving throw.

Greatsword. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 11 (2d6 + 4) slashing damage.

Heavy Crossbow. Ranged Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, range 100/400 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d10 + 2) piercing damage.

Multiattack. Technoblade can make 2 weapon attacks.

Rage (4/day). As a bonus action, Technoblade enters a rage that lasts for 1 minute, ending early if knocked unconscious or if Technoblade's turn ends and he hasn't attacked a hostile creature since his last turn or taken damage since then. He can also end his rage on his turn as a bonus action. While raging, Technoblade deals +2 damage, has advantage on Strength checks and Strength saving throws, and has resistance to bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage. Technoblade cannot cast spells during a rage.

End ID.]

Okay. Rambling time.

Holy SHIT I loved making this. I tend to play spellcasters or dex based characters, so it was a lot of fun to make a str character for once.

Stats first. As a barbarian/fighter and also as a force of nature, str is his highest stat. I could have made it 20, but I have a weird aversion to writing up characters with maxed out stats for some reason? Anyway, that’s what he has. He can always boost it if he takes another level in fighter. I also decided to give him pretty high intelligence and wisdom, which are rare in barbarian characters, since, y’know, their main point is to hit things very hard. But Techno is so, SO resourceful, and one of the main reasons that he’s so good at fighting is because he does his research and acquires the best items for it and puts himself in the right place at the right time. Hence the high-ish int. I feel a little bad making his charisma so low, but cha represents several things, most notably the ability to talk to people and force of personality. Also known as: how hard it is to be swayed or controlled, magically or otherwise. Remember what happened at the festival? That’s low charisma. Also I had to give him a low stat to balance the fact that he’s insanely good at so many fucking things. Why.

As a side note, when picking his proficiencies, I was using the homebrew rule that you can use your strength modifier when you roll for intimidation. So his Strength (Intimidation) check would actually have a +7, which is MUCH better than the Charisma (Intimidation) check of +1. Big strong characters are absolutely scary, damnit, and I will die on that hill.

Next up: race. I HAD to make him a firbolg. They’re connected with nature and are often portrayed with animalistic features (e.g. Caduceus Clay from Critical Role), and it means we can have both pig Techno and anime Techno, since firbolgs naturally have the disguise self spell. I just think that’s neat. They also get the ability to turn invisible! Which Techno has been doing a LOT recently! Sure, firbolgs can only do it for a turn, but it still fits.

Onto classes. Barbarian was a dead certain for Techno, honestly - his battle prowess, how he acts when he fights, it just fits so well. Even his use of potions - he gets a lot of buffs from them, increased damage and damage resistance being the two most notable and the two that best translate to D&D rage. Even speed potions - barbarians get +10ft movement speed at level 5. And barbarians are made for two-handed weapons, so obviously I HAD to give him a greatsword. The Orphan Obliterator is a deadly weapon. He also still favours swords even when axes are better in the newest version, so a greatsword was a must. Also I just really like greatswords.

I wavered a bit when picking a subclass, to be honest. I’m not really a big fan of any of the official subclasses (they don’t really fir my playstyle, which is why I homebrewed an entire new subclass for my barbarian character, but that’s a post for another day), but looking through, there were a few that could work. Originally, I picked Juggernaut - this was because of how he fought during the Dream battle, moving Dream around the arena into a more advantageous position for Techno, which is the Juggernaut’s 3rd level ability in a nutshell. They also can’t be knocked prone, and both of these things work INCREDIBLY well for skywars/bedwars style combat - staying put on this island and knocking off your opponents.

However, in the end, I decided to go with Zealot. It was inevitable after he REALLY started building his character on the Dream SMP, which is what this is mostly based on. Zealots have two main points: they follow a God, and it’s very, VERY hard to kill them.

Sound familiar?

Techno isn’t just a barbarian - he also has three levels of Battlemaster fighter. The barbarian/fighter combo is one of the best there is for sheer combat power (bested only, in my opinion, by barbarian/moon druid - those characters are actually unkillable) and the choice of Battlemaster specifically opened up so many options in combat. I had debated going with champion, just for the crit probability boost, but ultimately decided that Battlemaster was infinitely more fun. The three maneuvers were picked for a combination of reasons - they’re all incredibly useful in combat, but I also just thought they were thematically accurate and/or funny. I just had to give him Menacing Attack, because one of the few constants in Technoblade’s combat is people running the hell away from him during competitions. Feinting is for pure combat ability, and Trip is just. Really funny to me. It worked better when he was Juggernaut and literally couldn’t be knocked prone, but I just like the idea of someone using their full action to try and knock over this eight foot tall firbolg (they’re so fucking tall! This bitch is massive!) Technoblade just. Looking down at them before knocking them clean off of their feet with one swing of his Greatsword.

And finally, weapons and magical items. The magic ones didn’t actually make it onto the stat block, because I wanted it to be purely basic character building, but I absolutely had some ideas. Some of these were rolled on loot tables, some were completely homebrewed to fit Techno’s canon weapons. Guess which ones lmao.

magical heavy crossbow (use charge to fire 3 bolts simultaneously, using only one arrow, rolling an attack for each. Each target must be within 10ft of each other. 7 charges per day)

explosive bolts (10ft radius, double dice of the weapon it’s fired from, dex save)

mithral half-plate

ring of feather falling

trident of flight (attunement) (30ft swim and flight speed, 120ft flight speed when its raining)

upgraded cape of the mountebank (8 charges, 2 for misty step, 4 for dimension door) (yes it looks like his normal cape)

bag of holding

sword of life-stealing (attunement) (I don’t know why I added this except Techno’s canon sword would be VERY hard to homebrew and also he can do enough damage with a normal one so he could literally just have like a +2 or something. Do what you want)

#candy posts #dream smp #technoblade #dnd #dream smp dnd builds #ive been working on these fucking things for MONTHS i cannot wait to post more #i have dreams stat block made too and i have a lot of other builds finished that i just havent typed up yet lol

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jenroses · 4 years

Text

Dear Good Omens Fandom *

*And others.

It’s time to talk about footnotes.

Okay, so there are a number of different ways to augment text in a print book to provide more information. When expanding on an idea, on a page, one often puts a footnote to a SHORT paragraph that appears on the same page. In digital versions, all the footnotes are often at the back of the text and linked to via some variant of a hyperlink.

Functionally, in a print book, most people will read the paragraph or sentence the footnote is in, drop their glance to the bottom of the page, and look up again. Grade: B+, perfectly serviceable.

Functionally, in a properly coded digital document such as an Ebook or web page, one clicks the footnote symbol or number, reads, and then either clicks it again or hits the back button to get back to where they were. Grade: C-, if you exit on the bookmark you may never get back to where you started, if you hit a back button, the document may reload if your browser is being techy, but if it is coded right, you probably can usually get back to where you need to be.

If it is not coded properly or at all, F-, not functional, will not read.

When providing references or receipts, one uses references, often a numerical list or alphabetical list at the back of the book, chapter or article. The point is that if someone wants more information, they can get it. In a nonfiction article, this works well.

You provide your reference in whatever style is appropriate to the publication, people can find what they need, the document is rarely long enough to care about flipping back and forth. Online, even easier. People can click through, open in a new window, whatever. Grade for nonfiction: A+. Provides extra information in an accessible way.

Grade for fiction... eh. Just use an appendix in a print book, author’s note, end note, whatever. Footnotes for receipts pull me out of the story. Grade: B- (or C+)

And online? Use an end note or chapter note. You rarely need to provide links in the text in fiction, just use an end note and say, “By the way, if you were wondering about such and such, here’s where it came from and what it’s about.” Easy peasy, flow is fine. Grade: A

So in a fandom which grew up with a fully footnoted actual physical book such as Good Omens? The temptation is to stick with the original for style, but please, my darlings, I beg you, do not do this. YES, you can absolutely provide snarky asides, quips and expanded information. You can do it without interrupting yourself mid sentence.

But it will be more functional in a digital environment, ESPECIALLY for people who use “whole work” viewing rather than chapters, people who download for reading later, and people who are visually impaired who need screen readers... if you use another method.* You do not have to send people on a wild goose chase to find footnotes, which many will simply give up on and ignore, and in which case, why did you bother? *It works like this. Put an asterisk in where you want your aside. Finish your paragraph. Break your paragraph. Add another asterisk and italicize your text. Voila.

Using this alternate method has multiple benefits. Your quip, witticism, background note or digression does not interrupt the flow of the writing. People read the footnote just about precisely where they need to. They do not get lost. They don’t have to follow links. Screen readers are 100% fluent with this method. And it copies from Google Docs to AO3 (if you use rich text paste and not html) seamlessly with nothing getting lost in the transition.

The eye sees the asterisk,* scans down for another asterisk, finds it, reads, and scans back up a very short distance.

*Like this.

Since pagination doesn’t happen in AO3 or google docs or websites or screen readers set on “scroll”... you simply do not have one of the components required for proper footnoting. Footnotes go at the foot of the page. And a 100,000 word fanfic doesn’t have pages. It has chapters.

And that’s a problem on Archive of Our Own. You see, people tend to upload one chapter at a time. Footnotes are often numbered within chapters starting from 1. But if you do that, and someone has loaded your entire story, the minute they get to chapter 2, those careful footnote links you crafted bounce them up to chapter 1′s footnotes.

The Asterisk method completely avoids that. It removes the coding stage. It removes all bouncing around. It works no matter how people load your work. And that, mes anges,* is functional. And it looks fine. It’s intuitive. And it doesn’t make me want to throw my phone out of the window of a moving car because we’re out of cell range** and I’m having to follow hundreds of footnotes back and forth and I couldn’t load the whole document because the footnotes wouldn’t work that way and now I can’t get the next chapter of your fucking amazing writing.

*my angels, French **true story, happened today Nov. 24, 2019. The wanting. I didn’t actually do it because I’m a goddamn grownup.

Grade for using the asterisk method? Five huge sighs of relief, and an A+ from every single person who uses a screen reader or can just about manage a scroll but can’t deal with finding the back button in the dark for whatever reason*.

*rheumatoid arthritis, stiff hands, lotsa lying down reading here.

The show did not have footnotes. It had occasional voiceovers. It’s okay to adapt your technique to the needs of the technology.

Bless everyone who has painstakingly gone through and linked to footnotes and back again. I know you worked really hard on it. Please stop doing it. This method is so much easier.

If you want to see how this works in a full fic, I happen to have one here. Mitzvah

End note

There is no real correlation between the quality of the story and the quality of the footnote method. I see a wide variety of methods in many stories throughout the fandom. You’re not wrong per se, if you don’t do it my way. But you’re doing more work than you need to, and wasting time you could be doing literally anything else. This is probably best taken as a “going forward” recommendation, because no one, literally no one expects you to go back and redo hundreds of footnotes.

If you reread your own work, and you have a lot of footnotes, it is wise to read it on multiple devices and in multiple ways. Does it make sense without footnotes? Some people will never look at a single one. If someone tries to use the footnotes, do they work in subsequent chapters if they’re not in chapter by chapter mode? If someone just reads in order, text first, footnotes last, are they going to have any idea what the footnotes are referring to? I have done literally all of these things in different fics in the fandom.

#Mine #good omens #writing #writips #meta #fandom

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blackjack-15 · 4 years

Text

Silly Rabbit, Ecological Terrorism is For Kids! — Thoughts on: The White Wolf of Icicle Creek (ICE)

Previous Metas: SCK/SCK2, STFD, MHM, TRT, FIN, SSH, DOG, CAR, DDI, SHA, CUR, CLK, TRN, DAN, CRE

Hello and welcome to a Nancy Drew meta series! 30 metas, 30 Nancy Drew Games that I’m comfortable with doing meta about. Hot takes, cold takes, and just Takes will abound, but one thing’s for sure: they’ll all be longer than I mean them to be.

Each meta will have different distinct sections: an Introduction, an exploration of the Title, an explanation of the Mystery, a run-through of the Suspects. Then, I’ll tackle some of my favorite and least favorite things about the game, and finish it off with ideas on how to improve it. As ICE sends off the Jetsetting Games category and moves into the Odd Games category, there will be a section between The Intro and The Title called The Weird Stuff, where I’ll go into what storyline marks this game a bit Odd in the Nancy Drew series as a whole.

If any game requires an extra section or two, they’ll be listed in the paragraph above, along with links to previous metas.

These metas are not spoiler free, though I’ll list any games/media that they might spoil here: ICE; TRT; mention of FIN; mention of CUR; mention of TRN; mention of SEA.

This meta is under a read more because of its sheer length.

The Intro:

Ughhhhh. UGHHH.

The White Wolf of Icicle Creek has a lot of things that make it distinct in the Nancy Drew video game series — it sports the first new interface since SHA, it has the world’s most boring list of ‘enticing moments’ from the game on the back, its assets look like they were forcefully molded out of gummy bears, it randomly was released on Wii, it’s the best-known game among non-fans thanks to the Game Grumps — but it also stands out because not one of those things make it enjoyable to play or to watch without a heavy amount of MST3K-style commentary.

Also because it features the fandom’s least favorite puzzle of all time…but more on that later.

A point to get out of the way before we get into the game proper is that this game feels a lot like a cheap knock-off of Treasure in a Royal Tower. Like, a lot like a cheap knock-off. One of those animated films called “Bemo’s Lost in the Ocean” or “A Toy Tale” that come out around Disney/Pixar films to try to trick hapless grandmas into buying them.

Just lining it up, we have Nancy stuck in/around a lodge in winter, an edict from the owner of the lodge to figure out what’s up with repeated Incidents and possible sabotage while most guests have left, an academic around Nancy’s age, an Old Coot, an Olympian whose grandparent was important, chores (including food related chores) to do in order to progress in the story, a suspect you can only talk to face-to-face for part of the game…the list honestly goes on in both big and small ways.

While ICE isn’t the only one that tries to do this (since I’m not doing a SEA meta, I won’t get into the fact that SEA literally just remastered DDI’s characters and said ‘good enough’), it does feel particularly egregious because, for all its copying, there’s not enough in the game to distract from it even a bit.

ICE is a game searching for an identity and unable to find one, no matter how many plot points, chores, or games (horrible, unskippable games) they throw at the player. We have full on international espionage and ecological terrorism here (more on that in the next section), and it just…doesn’t matter, at the end of the day. It also takes place in Canada, but your only clue to that is that one of the characters says “eh” a lot, so that’s not great either.

If ICE is a new game to you (it can be a bear to install and even worse to complete, so I’m going to go off the assumption that not everyone will be familiar with it), you’ve probably only heard of the cooking chores, fox and geese, and that this is the game with the Return of Tony Balducci, previously of TRN fame. (Honestly, ICE had a big enough cast without its phone characters, but HER decided to shove three phone characters along with one partial phone character at us anyway.) And, to be honest, that’s pretty much all there is to the game.

Now I know this sounds harsh, but there is a possible explanation to the lack of content in this game. In my previous meta (link at the top of this post) I made a note that CRE’s production in all likelihood suffered because the company was focused on ICE’s new interface. I don’t think it’s a leap at all to say that ICE’s story and characters could also have suffered because of the same thing.

The biggest problem with ICE — besides the weird stuff we’ll get into below — is that it’s a shallow game. None of the characters have any real depth, the plot is a paper-thin copy of TRT, the puzzles are alternatingly impossible and extremely easy, and in an effort to add “depth”, we get…well, we get this next section.

The Weird Stuff:

With each of the Odd Games (ICE through RAN, Heaven help us all), there’s something that makes the game truly…well, odd. Odd for the Nancy Drew series, odd for the age range specified on the front of the box, and odd in general when you look at the rest of the plot.

In this game, it comes in the form of terrorism — or rather, two types of terrorism. Guadalupe is our first (and only, in this series) ecological terrorist, belonging to a fringe group called “Run and Go Free” and being perfectly fine with illegal acts (destruction of the fishing lodge, sabotage of personal property), even telling Nancy that she’s done worse in the name of Run and Go Free.

Nancy Drew Games are no stranger to hippie/naturalist types (see DOG, DDI, CAR, etc.) but Lupe is our first to be legitimately dangerous. Sure, she doesn’t end up being the ultimate Bad Guy, but she is A Bad Guy, and it really does seem very odd to me that after everything Lupe does (and insinuates that she’s done), that she gets away with barely a slap on the wrist in having to leave the lodge.

Lupe in no way fits in with the rest of the plot; there’s nothing to justify her being present in the game, she can appear about halfway through the game and then leaves to become a phone contact soon after, she’s not present enough to be an actual suspect — she has no place in the plot nor the game, and it really does just boggle the mind that a character is in it at all, especially with ICE having a greater than average number of suspects to begin with.

On the other hand, however, we have Yanni, an Eastern European Olympian spy/terrorist, sent by the Fredonian (a commonly used fake country) government to bomb around the lodge to find uranium under the cover of training for the next Olympics.

That is a whole lot of things for one character.

You’d think with the presence of Lupe that Yanni would fit right in, but he doesn’t make her — or himself — any less odd or out of place than he would have been alone. It’s a ‘suspicious Olympian’ character that we already got with Jacques, but he’s a million times worse, setting off friggin bombs to find a metal that his government wants for…well, the normal reason that governments want uranium.

So we can add in “reference to ongoing nuclear warfare” as another thing that makes this game Odd.

Yanni doesn’t fit the game or the plot, which is pretty bad considering he’s responsible for about half the plot in the first place. He also has that weird aside about his grandmother being eaten by wolves, as if HER wants the player to suspect him because of some twisted revenge against wolves plot (which would have been Very Weird) so that they can pull the rug out at the end and be like “see?? He’s a political terrorist looking for uranium for nuclear bombs for his country!!! Gotcha!!”.

Like, it’s not a Gotcha if it’s absolute lunacy. My land.

With that explanation out of the way, let’s get to something a little less Odd.

The Title:

I actually don’t have much to say here. The White Wolf of Icicle Creek is honestly a great name; it tells us the focal point of the game (the wolf), the location, (Icicle Creek), and even pretty much tells you the season that this game is happening in (white, icicle). It accomplishes a lot in a very short amount of words, and pertains accurately to the game we’re dealing with.

We’ll chalk that up in the “Win” category…especially since we’re going straight back into the “Lose” category with the next section.

The Mystery:

The mystery is a mess, full stop. There’s way too much going on for the amount of payoff (i.e. little to none), and the plot, thin at best, completely drops off at the 2/3rds mark when all the player has left to do is wait for random events to occur and keep putting off fox and geese.

Anyway.

We begin with strange, destructive incidents of sabotage happening at a renowned winter resort. Most of the guests have left, and there’s been some damage to parts of the resort. Asked for help by the owner of the resort who’s away on business, Nancy must pick up the slack left by staff who have quit, run food-related errands, and discover who might be behind these attacks before it’s too late.

Oh wait, that’s Treasure in a Royal Tower. Lemme start again.

We begin with strange, destructive incidents of sabotage happening at a renowned winter resort. Most of the guests have left, and there’s been some damage —

You get the picture.

The biggest difference pre-game is that after every incident, a white wolf is spotted, only to disappear before the police get there. People start connecting the wolf to the crimes, and go as far as blaming it for cases of food poisoning and slashed tires, as if the wolf is cooking food and using a knife with its paws.

Just as Nancy’s arriving on scene, the bunkhouse is blown up and she hears the wolf howling — so obviously there must be a connection there, and a wolf definitely isn’t just responding to a loud noise.

This part honestly feels a bit like the beginning of CUR, where the game tries to establish Scary Feelings and Ominous Threats and just comes off ham-fisted.

The back of the box features three ‘exciting’ things that Nancy gets to do in this game, which are as follows: cook lunch and dinner, ride a snowmobile and wear snow shoes, and do snowball fights and ice fishing. While it’s sad that those moderately exciting things are the best that the box can boast, it’s even sadder that they really are the best the game has to offer.

It’s easy to lose thread of the mystery nearly as soon as Nancy gets to the lodge, because she’s immediately bombarded with laundry that has to be done before a certain time, meals that have to be done within a certain hour or two, and a suspect (Lupe) that can just refuse to show up.

Oh, and the return of Tino Balducci.

Returning in a game where he doesn’t fit in and where no one wanted him in the first place, Tino’s there to “help” Nancy solve the mystery by giving her a questionnaire for her suspects to fill out that asks what planet they see themselves as, among other inanities.

Honestly, this whole section could be summed up as “Tino returns, among other inanities”.

Nancy, throughout all of this, somehow has time to do a bit of detective work, interviewing a cast of rather one-note suspects, figuring out that more than one person is responsible for the many accidents. Guadalupe’s sabotage is discovered and she’s sent home, Yanni is increasingly unavailable (which is hugely suspicious), snowball fights are more prevalent than necessary, and finally the villain is exposed, all culminating in a glitchy, nigh-impossible snowmobile chase.

Oh, and there’s a half-tamed wolf storyline that kinda pops up every now and again.

All in all, the mystery is a weak thread throughout the game — which is a problem, because it’s the only thread throughout the game — that’s easily overshadowed by the chores, games, and frankly awful visuals throughout the game.

Now, to those who contribute (in a way) to the non-entity that is ICE’s story:

The Suspects:

Ollie Randall is our resident grumpy caretaker and is Chantal’s right-hand man, along with being on the Avalanche Patrol and a firm believer in the bad luck that wolves bring. His wife can’t handle cold temperatures due to a nerve condition, so he’s also his daughter Freddie’s sole parent during the winter.

As a culprit in the game as it now is, Ollie would have been the only sensical option; fed up with the awful guests that come and cause havoc, he starts causing little easily-solved accidents to spook away the less hardy-type guests, but it keeps spiraling as it doesn’t keep out everyone but people like Bill Kessler. Frustrated by the treatment the lodge gets, he decides that if people don’t treat it nicely, they can’t have it at all…

Unfortunately, Ollie is limited to being Grumpy, and not a lot else.

Freddie Randall is Ollie’s daughter and the self-proclaimed Snow Princess due to her ability to stay out in the cold for hours in her snow fort, and to take repeated snowballs to the face courtesy of a teen detective.

Freddie is…I know I talked about how Yanni and Lupe don’t really fit into the game, but Freddie really doesn’t fit any version of this game. She’s there for a mini game, she doesn’t have a personality, you can’t skip her mini game, she’s voiced by Lani Minella…the list goes on and on. Her shining moment of glory is acting as a red herring by throwing a snowball through Lou’s window.

She’s pointless to talk about as a potential culprit, even though she would have been an interesting “culprit” in a case where all the incidents are actually Freddie accidentally causing trouble, but that probably would have been even less satisfying than how the game actually went, so we’ll just move along here.

Our cross-country skiing Olympian from the fictional Eastern European country of Fredonia, Yanni Volkstaia is both our only suspect wearing a onesie and our only suspect with a family member eaten by wolves.

I know, that’s already a high bar to top. Don’t worry, he’ll fall very, very far below it.

Yanni, as mentioned above, is our odd spy/terrorist villain who is disguising his being there for uranium by saying that it’s his Olympic competitors trying to throw off his training. Why an Olympian is training alone without any coaches or security…well, let’s just say that Yanni didn’t really think his cover story through.

Just because Yanni’s the obvious culprit doesn’t mean he fills the role well; Yanni is obvious, annoying, and his paper-thin cover is just annoying enough to be…well, annoying. He throws out that his grandmother was “killed and devoured” by wolves as if he wants Nancy to believe that that’s the reason he’s targeting the lodge but…it still points directly to him. It’s just not great all the way around.

Joining Yanni in terrorism is Guadalupe Comillo, activist from California and hard-to-find suspect. Lupe can, as mentioned above, literally just not appear for a bit, stalling out the game and making her even more annoying than she already is.

Lupe’s cover is that she’s a bird watcher, but she knows absolutely nothing about birds — like honestly nothing, even though she had time to make her cover story (not unlike Yanni).

She gets sent away by destruction of private property (Ollie’s gun – super dangerous to make a gun misaim out in the wild and she’s lucky he didn’t hit anything problematic [like another person] because of it) and good riddance, but appears as a phone friend to rather pointlessly exonerate herself and do pretty much nothing else but stop the game in its tracks until she lets it proceed.

As a culprit, Lupe would have been the other obvious choice, but she’s just not in the game enough, so she’s easy to ignore. Her cover is thin, but so is her motivation (!!! Save the wolf!!!), so she’s one of the most annoying non-entity suspects in this series.

Our second Californian in the cast is Lou Talbot, who is a college student, master of ‘earthitecture’ (inspired by Poppy Dada) and stealer of dinosaur bones for money. He also plays fox and geese with Bill in his spare time. He does a really good impression of the Guy in my MFA twitter as well, but that’s literally it.

No, really, that’s his entire character. I can’t even posit what he would be like as the culprit because that is LITERALLY all we’re given on him. End of bio. My gosh, what a waste of pixels.

Lou’s partner in fox and geese is Bill Kessler, who loves to fish and whose grandmother used to own the lodge before Chantal. While he feels that his grandmother Tilly was cheated out of the lodge, he has little desire to get it back, and really just wants to hide the fact that he’s been to the lodge before (an odd thing to hide, but whatever makes him feel better.)

Like Lou, apart from that, he really doesn’t have any character. He basically is a mix of TRT’s Jacques in his family connection to the lodge and SHA’s Dave in actual amount of motivation (i.e., 0 motivation) to do anything about it. He is, however, the person who makes Nancy play fox and geese, and for that alone, I hate him.

As a culprit, Bill’s played as a red herring for a solid 5 minutes of gameplay (though not very well — why would an avid fisherman blow up a fishing shack?), and then totally discounted the moment Nancy finds out his backstory. He’s really just there — like most of the cast, worryingly enough — to pad out the number of suspects and to give Nancy a taste of Hell through fox and geese.

The Favorite:

There are a few bright spots in this confused mess of a game, so let’s go through them.

My favorite moment in the game is when Nancy, after Yanni says the horrific line about his grandmother being killed and devoured by wolves, can ask “how”. As if that’s a sentence that needs a ‘how’. It’s a great moment of Nancy being absolutely tone deaf, and I giggle like a madman every time I think about it.

My favorite puzzle in the game is probably the cooking minigame, which I dislike in frequency and time requirement, but do love in actual practice. It’s fun to cook in every Nancy Drew game, and this one is no exception. I just wish it wasn’t regimented so heavily.

I love the atmosphere of the lodge; it’s beautifully animated (in fact one of my favorite locations in the ND games), big without being too big, and is never boring, even by the end of the game. The lodge is largely a character unto itself, and is quite successful as a wonderful location.

The Un-Favorite:

There’s a lot to unpack here, but we’ll keep it short because the fix section of this meta is gonna have me by the throat.

My least favorite moment in the game is the moment Tino comes into the game. As the game now stands, there’s no reason for him to be involved, and short a comment about him by the Hardy Boys, which would at least justify it a little, he’s purposeless. He’s worse than that, actually — he’s there to slow the game down, and that’s a cardinal sin.

My least favorite puzzle in the game is a tie between fox and geese (UGH) and the final snowmobile chase. My problems with fox and geese are obvious — they’re everyone’s problems with fox and geese: it’s a required puzzle, it’s hard to do, there’s no way to cheat through it, and it takes forever.

The final snowmobile chase is somehow even worse. It’s buggy, laggy, has nothing to do with the actual plot, has arbitrary win conditions — it’s the worst (or at least among the worst) that HER has to offer with final puzzles. If everything else about ICE was perfect, engaging, fun, and thought-provoking, this final puzzle would still put me off of playing it. It’s just that bad.

The storyline with Isis and that whole backstory isn’t treated well in game; it’s almost as if they came up with the title and then remembered at the last minute that there’s supposed to be an actual wolf. I would have loved more of a focus on that storyline; as it is, it barely counts as a blip on the game’s radar — which is a shame.

The Fix:

Gosh, how on earth will I fix The White Wolf of Icicle Creek? The answer is that I don’t feel like I can just apply a few quick fixes and be on my way; the only answer I could find is to approach this as if I was at the proposal meeting for this game — how would I outline the barebones scenario?

This section will be long, as I’m going to start just from the skeleton and build things in. What follows is my own imaginings of what my own personal ideas would be to create ICE, rather than to fix it from what the finished product was. As an important note, the side-plot with the wolf, as it was really neglected and bare-bones to begin with in the game, is mostly removed.

The first section I’ll work on is structure. Though it wasn’t done perfectly in FIN, I feel like the pacing of ICE could be vastly improved by putting a clock on the game by assigning designated days and tasks. Three days is still probably a good idea, as it lets us easily break the story into a 3-act structure and delineate certain tasks for certain days without overloading one day in particular. We’ll get more into what should happen in Days 1, 2, and 3 later in a general overview of how the plot would go.

The mechanism used to get Nancy there — Chantal being a friend of Carson’s — isn’t bad, but I’d change it up just slightly. Nancy’s not yet a “professional” detective, but we’re only 2 games from her being hired by a foreign country’s authorities, so she should be making her way up there. It stands to reason that Nancy would attract some attention from the business in CRE since the Hardy Boys would definitely mention Nancy in their de-briefing and Aikens is a big name, so let’s build on that from here. Chantal is still Carson’s friend, and she still wants to get these incidents solved while she’s away from the Lodge for legal matters — someone got injured at the lodge and is now suing.

Carson decides to officially hire Nancy — paperwork, legal documentation, etc. — as a “concerned third party” in Chantal’s problems, telling her that her job is to find out two things: find out what’s causing the incidents of sabotage, and give Carson enough evidence in favor of the lodge’s safety that he can prove reasonable doubt against the people accusing Chantal. Nancy will be there undercover as a family friend of Chantal’s, with only Ollie knowing that she’s there in an official capacity.

ICE has a cast that is both unwieldy and characterless, and I feel like the way to fix that is through combining characters. Starting out we have Ned, Chantal, Tino, the ex-maid, her boyfriend, Ollie, Freddie, Lupe, Yanni, Lou, and Bill — 10 characters that we deal with in the present, plus one other player (in the boyfriend/stalker guy). 11 in total. That is a huge, huge cast that we definitely need to pare down.

The first thing to do is to take out Tino Balducci. He slows down the plot, is completely unnecessary, and isn’t even entertaining. Since there’s no Hardy Boys to play off of him (and I would keep the Hardy Boys out of this game, even with my love for them), Tino needs to go the way of the dodo. And good riddance to him, honestly.

Freddie, an obvious subject to axe, should instead be aged up to around 20 and combined with the maid whose ex-boyfriend’s letter Nancy finds at the beginning of the game. Freddie would handle all the chores the first day except the cooking.

Instead of a nebulous, incident-causing ex-boyfriend, Freddie would have just started a relationship with Lou, keeping our cast tight and visible, rather than one-off characters with nothing else to give to the story.

By now we’re down to Carson, Ned, Chantal, Freddie, Ollie, Lupe, Yanni, Lou, and Bill. I think we can do a little better than that.

The next step I’d take is to remove Yanni entirely. Yes, I know it’s a big change to remove the canonical culprit, but bear with me. With Yanni and Lupe having so many similarities and together being guilty of 99% of the Crimes in this game, I’m pretty comfortable in combining them. I’d also make the minor change of having Lupe be an Indigenous Canadian rather than Hispanic and from California, since our game is set in Canada and there’s absolutely no reason for a large portion of our cast to be American.

With Yanni gone, Lupe (or whatever her new name would be, since the name ‘Lupe’, all nationality changes aside, in a game ostensibly about a wolf makes me want to kill myself) assumes a few of his personality quirks – most importantly, a family member with a past with wolves. It doesn’t really matter if it’s positive or negative, you just want the association there as a herring (red or otherwise).

That puts us down to 5 suspects to talk to and three phone friends for a total of 8 players in the present. Since Chantal is supposed to be busy, I’d remove the ability to talk to her entirely — anything that Chantal could offer can come through Carson as Nancy’s official “employer”, which brings us to a nice 7 players — an entirely manageable number.

So let’s begin.

The beginning of the game with Nancy at her desk always includes a case file, so this time the case file would say that Nancy, at the behest of her ‘client’, Carson Drew, is flying out to Alberta to investigate strange happenings at Chantal Moique’s lodge. Chantal is trying to settle with people who got hurt there and are trying to sue her, and Carson’s helping to advise her. Nancy’s mission is two-fold: figure out what’s causing the incidents at the lodge, and find evidence that Chantal can’t be held liable for the injuries incurred by the guests suing her.

Wolves are commonly seen around the area of the lodge — Northern Alberta has some of the highest population of wolves in North America — and there’s a rumor at the lodge that the spirits of the wolves that are hunted in the area every winter are causing some of the sabotage.

Chantal thinks the rumor is being spread by whoever is doing the actual sabotage to make her guests leave and force her out of business, so Carson tells Nancy to pay attention to the stories about the wolves — and one snow-white wolf in particular, who is often sighted very close to the lodge. Carson suspects that, if it exists, the white wolf is actually a trained dog (a white/white and silver Siberian Husky, for example) being used to whip up panic, but tells Nancy to keep an open mind.

As Nancy’s arriving at the Lodge, an explosion occurs in the distance, causing the rumbling of snow to start. Ollie, who’s picked up Nancy from her plane, says darkly that he’s been waiting for something like this to happen, and that this will probably cause a minor avalanche (his opinion as the head of Avalanche Patrol in the area), making it impossible to leave the lodge for a few days. He tells Nancy to head straight to bed once they get to the lodge, as she’s in for an exhausting time dealing with the “weirdos” still left at the lodge.

Nancy wakes up and Day One begins with Freddie freaking out outside Nancy’s door. After explaining that the regular chef (who was off for the last month visiting family) can’t get back to the lodge until tomorrow and that Freddie’s only manned the kitchen once or twice, Nancy says that she has experience cooking and offers to take the chef’s duties for the day.

Day One has Nancy meet all the suspects – Bill’s playing a game (I don’t care what it is as long as it’s something that involves writing things down) with anyone who passes by and talks about how out of all the lodges in Canada, this one’s his favorite; Lou hangs out near the bones (make him an archeology major or something related to but not exactly paleontology) and Definitely Doesn’t Know the Cute Girl Who Works at the Lodge, How Dare Nancy Assume; Not-Lupe is gone until 4pm when it starts getting dark because she loves spending time in nature, especially with the Super Special Wolf running around the place; and Ollie’s in the workshop fixing the things that have been sabotaged, worries about his daughter being away from her mother and about her ‘cavorting’ with a guest.

Nancy still preps lunch and the day goes on without a hitch other than Lou having an overheard argument with someone at around 6. Nancy cooks dinner, accidentally (due to smudged instructions from Freddie) sprinkling paprika in everyone’s food and setting off an allergic (mild to moderate anaphylaxis, helped by an epi pen) reaction + hives in Freddie, who they fly out via helicopter that night.

Ollie, feeling hostile towards Nancy, takes a look at the instructions/recipe that Nancy worked off of and says to her that the first page is Freddie’s handwriting, but the second page isn’t — someone did this on purpose. Nancy calls Carson, who says that the soonest he can get there is the day after next, and to keep herself safe above everything — he’ll check in with the hospital Freddie’s at since it’s also in Edmonton, where Carson and Chantal are. Carson warns Nancy that the guests were about to settle the lawsuit when the news about the explosion hit the news, and are now more determined than ever to sue for all Chantal’s worth.

Day 2 opens with the cook (who’s unseen and just exists in order to relieve Nancy of kitchen duty) arriving and a phone call from Carson asking for Chantal/Freddie if Nancy can grab the laundry bags from the guests’ rooms and that the spare key is in the register at the front (of course guarded by a puzzle — I’d even accept a mini fox and geese, as one of the big problems with that puzzle in the vanilla game is that it goes on way too long.

While snooping in the desk, Nancy finds evidence that Chantal might have been guilty of criminal neglect — a few things around the lodge are listed as “fixed” and totally safe when really they still need some maintenance — and wonders how she should tell Carson and if she should wait until she has more evidence. Before she goes out for the day, Not-Lupe mentions to Nancy “in confidence” that she overheard Lou fighting with Freddie before dinner, calling it a “lover’s quarrel”.

After lunch and talking with all the suspects again, Nancy goes to grab the laundry with the master key and snoops in everyone’s rooms, finding various clues and suspicious things: Bill’s journal detailing how Chantal is running the place into the ground and needs to be replaced, along with a few lodge magazines; Not-Lupe’s gloves with suspicious specks of things on them (Nancy takes a sample of it in a Kleenex or something); Lou’s heavy suitcase that has a case with imprints of bones in it; Ollie’s has maintenance books that also detail how to take things apart and maintenance notes that say he saw the wolf around but didn’t have his gun; Freddie’s only thing of interest is a little dinosaur pin on her dresser.

Nancy takes the opportunity to snoop in Chantal’s normal room and finds that the things that were listed in the documents in the front desk really were fixed; Ollie reported to Chantal that things that he fixed were un-fixed by the time he went back to them the next day — most of the time suffering damage as well, such as the sauna that injured the guests that are suing Chantal. Nancy calls her father with the news, and Carson says to save those documents so that he can come get them tomorrow, and to see if she can find any clues to who might have done it.

After dinner Nancy talks to Lou, who confesses that he and Freddie started dating a few days ago after meeting online last semester in a dinosaur enthusiast forum — hence his decision to come to the lodge, as Freddie said there were cool bones here. He was originally going to steal a few small ones and thought no one would notice if he replaced them with resin-cast replicas, but Freddie caught him and they had a fight which ended with Lou deciding not to steal, and Freddie saying that she could help him make replicas for him to take home and keep in his house.

Nancy asks why he’s telling her, and Lou says that Ollie seems to get along with Nancy well, and he’d like Nancy to calm Ollie down if Ollie discovers that he’s dating Freddie. Nancy asks Lou about the wolf, and Lou says that some of the stuff could be a wolf — he’s seen one around the lodge once or twice — but he hasn’t really been paying attention to anything except the bones and Freddie (who he’s looking forward to visiting once he can).

When talking with Bill, he offhandedly mentions that he used to be a handyman — the sink in his room started acting up, but he fixed it easily because he thinks that Ollie has enough to do without doing this easy fix. Bill says that this would never have happened when Chantal’s father was running the Lodge and accuses Chantal of preferring to spend long “business trips” in the city to actually paying attention to the Lodge — he says she should just live in the city and hire a manager with experience who actually cares. Nancy asks Bill about the wolf, and he says if anyone could be haunted by wolves, he’d believe it was Chantal.

Nancy, it should be noted, during her explorations around the lodge, sees a few pawprints and some chewed-on debris, but otherwise hasn’t seen the wolf in person. Just traces and tracks.

Not-Lupe and Ollie both dodge Nancy’s questions – Ollie’s busy as everything seems to be breaking at once, and snaps at Nancy that without Chantal around, he’s the only person keeping the lodge afloat, and he’d be better off without the stress of this job. When Nancy asks him about the wolf, Ollie says that the last thing they need is some idiot tourist being attacked by a wolf, and so he refuses to believe that there’s a wolf around the area.

Not-Lupe is at her normal place at the window (though there’s a chair there because no one stands all day), and when Nancy asks about the wolf, says that that’s why she’s there — she heard the rumor about the wolf and wanted to see it, but that her visit’s been very disappointing — just a junky lodge with incompetent staff and no wolves anywhere. Her hobby is visiting winter lodges, and this one just Isn’t up to snuff.

Nancy tries to pry deeper, but Not-Lupe shuts her down and goes to bed; Nancy investigates the living room as everyone leaves for bed and finds crinkled up under the couch a magazine cutout about the Premier Lodge Group, a company that owns winter lodges all over Canada and the United States, and their plans to build a group of lodges in Alberta as soon as a few “minor inconveniences” with location are solved.

The day ends with Carson calling; Nancy tells him about all the suspects (Carson confirms Lou’s story by having talked to Freddie), the magazine, Ollie wanting to quit, etc. Carson promises to do some research on Premier Lodge Group and tells Nancy to send him a picture of the stuff she found on Lupe’s gloves. Nancy does so, and that’s the end of Day 2.

Day 3 opens again with Carson’s phone call, informing Nancy that he’ll be there in the early evening — he’s having a contact of his look at the photo Nancy sent, but he’s pretty sure it won’t be good news.

Premier Lodge Group was investigated a few years ago for sabotage to their competitors but ultimately nothing came out of it, and Carson suspects that people were paid off to keep quiet about it. Carson says that he’s looked into Ollie (since Carson suspected him the most) and apparently Ollie always grouches about quitting when he’s stressed but has been there for 20 years and is as loyal as they come, so Nancy says she’ll focus on Not-Lupe and Bill — the two lodge-hoppers who seem dissatisfied with the lodge.

Both Not-Lupe and Bill are gone when Nancy gets downstairs, and Lou (who’s planning on leaving that night to go to Edmonton) says that they both got a sack lunch from the kitchen and left early in the morning to go explore outside. He tells Nancy she can borrow his snowshoes and says that they both headed out (independently) in the direction of Skookum Ridge.

When Nancy gets up to the Ridge, she spots the “wolf” — really a Siberian Husky, like Carson thought, who seems very well trained. When the dog comes up to Nancy, a gunshot ripples through the air and nearly hits the dog, who would have gone running off had Nancy not grabbed her collar and yelled not to shoot. Nancy sees Bill across the ridge and waves him over, explaining that it’s a dog, not a wolf. The dog (whose name is something way better than Isis — literally anything else would do) is suspicious of Bill at first, which convinces Nancy that it’s not Bill’s — the only suspect left is Not-Lupe.

When she tells Bill what she knows about Not-Lupe, Bill admits to having seen her before at a lodge that went out of business due to mysterious accidents, but thought it was a coincidence before digging deeper in the magazines he brought and finding Not-Lupe in the back of a small photo of Premier Lodge Administrative Staff — he was worried about keeping it safe and knowing that there would be no cleaning staff until at least the next day, crumpled it up and put it under the couch he normally sits by.

A happy, friendly dog in tow, Nancy and Bill head back to the lodge only to find Ollie and Lou standing outside looking worried. They tell Nancy that they both went outside because they heard a loud noise, only to find the door locked behind them — and every other door locked as well. After realizing that Not-Lupe wouldn’t open the doors for them, Ollie went to get an axe for the door, only to have a note appear on the door’s window that if they forced their way in, the whole Lodge would be burned to the ground in an instant.

Carson calls then, saying that he’s a few minutes away, but that his friend got back to him — Not-Lupe’s gloves were covered in residue from explosives. Bill takes Nancy’s phone and begins to fill Carson in on who they think Not-Lupe is working for and who she is. Nancy asks Lou and Ollie to hoist her up to her own window, which she keeps unlocked, and crawls in, creeping downstairs to the main room to try to find how Not-Lupe will burn the lodge and stop her.

Nancy confronts Not-Lupe, who confirms her identity as a saboteur for the Premier Lodge Group, saying that with the bad press around the lodge Chantal would have already had to sell — but she’s going to go one step further and cause an ‘incident’, blowing up the lodge with fuses hidden around its ground floor — Chantal’s father won’t spend the money to rebuild the lodge, and the only proof that is against her is the word of two American kids, an old man, and a lodge-hopper with a very incriminating diary that would be found soon enough. She tells Nancy that she can either try to catch her or try to save the lodge and runs out the back, intent on escaping as she pushes the button to arm the explosives.

Nancy yells out the window for them to catch Not-Lupe, who’s got to be headed out to the main road, tossing the cushion of the seat Lupe usually sat in so that her dog can catch her scent, then has the final timed puzzle be switching off each detonator (which would be in each of the places where the suspects usually were, with the exception of Ollie’s whose is in the front desk).

As soon as Nancy disarms them, Bill calls out to her that Carson just called — Lou and the dog tracked Lupe to the main road, and Bill called Carson to let him know. Carson’s car stops Not-Lupe (Carson brought a policeman on a hunch), and the day is saved. Premier Lodge is snagged in a major lawsuit by Chantal’s father and other lodge owners who have had the same thing happen to them, and Chantal hires Bill as co-manager to ensure there’s always someone there to manage the lodge and for his wealth of knowledge of what makes a good lodge and good experience for guests.

The game ends with Nancy writing her letter to Hannah (so that Hannah doesn’t worry about them), and with her dad’s praise for a job well done.

I realize that this is a monumental fix; it’s a brand-new game made out of the skeleton of the old one. I also realize that there are a million and one ways to re-write this game; this one takes the idea of sabotage, one of the most frequent inciting incidents in the Nancy Drew world, and just makes it a little bigger.

No terrorism required.

#nancy drew #clue crew #nancy drew games #white wolf of icicle creek #ICE #long post #video games #nancy drew meta

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tigerkirby215 · 3 years

Text

5e Rammus, the Armordillo build (League of Legends)

(Artwork made for Riot Games.)

youtube

Yeah...

Any more words for an introduction would be excessive, alright?

Let's just get on with the build.

Okay.

GOALS

Yeah - Yuumi isn't the only one with Zoomies. Super Sonic style!

Alright - I'm rubber you're glue; whatever you say bounces off me and makes you explode.

Okay - What good is murdering anyone who touches you if no one gets close? Call them names (or just say "okay" in a very annoying tone) to force them to fight!

RACE

To carry a big shell on your back look no further than Tortle. (The spikes come later.) I'm going to invoke Tasha's ruling and suggest a +2 to your Dexterity and a +1 to your Charisma, to spin around fast and know just the right way to say "yeah" to piss people off. You have Claws that do a d4 damage, Survival Instinct for proficiency in the Survival skill, and can Hold Breath for up to an hour!

But of course there's two things we're here for: Natural Armor gives you a base AC of 17. Period. There is no way to increase this (other than wearing a shield.) Additionally you can go into a Defensive Ball Curl as an action for some Shell Defense, giving you +4 to your AC and advantage on Strength and Constitution saving throws. However while in your shell you can't move, are considered prone (meaning melee attackers have advantage against you), have disadvantage on Dexterity saving throws, and can't take reactions. The only action you can take is a bonus action to come out of your shell.

ABILITY SCORES

15; CHARISMA - Rammus has to be saying something to get everyone to attack him.

14; DEXTERITY - You need Dexterity to keep rollin'. Also Strength is largely pointless to us because... Shell.

13; CONSTITUTION - You are a tank so more health would be a good investment.

12; STRENGTH - Just because you have a thick shell doesn't mean you don't have to push some things off you at times.

10; WISDOM - Living in the deserts of Shurima means you have to fight for Survival every day, even if it's more like the desert is fighting you.

8; INTELLIGENCE - You literally have 6 voice lines.

BACKGROUND

For Desert Survival the Outlander background is pretty good. You get proficiency in Athletics but since you already have Survival proficiency you can choose a different one instead. Truthfully: pick whatever you want, because Rammus is a closed book you can make him however you want!

You also get proficiency with a language of your choice that you're not going to use, and a musical instrument! Imagine if they made a Spirit Blossom Rammus skin and he played an instrument like Yone and Yasuo.

As a Wanderer of the sands you can easily remember the layout of terrain around you, and can also find food and water for you and your allies to survive in the jungle! "Alright."

(Artwork made for Riot Games.)

THE BUILD

LEVEL 1 - ROGUE 1

Starting off as a Rogue because while Rammus may not look the part he's actually quite talented! Take proficiency in Persuasion, Deception, and Intimidation to be the master of taunts and... well you may as well take Stealth proficiency for ganking. You also get Expertise in two of those skills: I'm going to recommend Persuasion and Deception as your two "taunting" skills.

Rammus doesn't talk much because he's a master of the subtleties of Thieves' Cant, allowing him to speak without actually speaking what he means to speak. "Yeah." But of course if you gank from the jungle you can Sneak Attack for an extra d6 of damage. If you have advantage or an ally nearby you'll get this extra damage out, and your Sneak Attack increases with levels. "Okay."

LEVEL 2 - ROGUE 2

Second level Rogues can optimize their jungle clear with Cunning Action, letting them Dash, Disengage, or Hide as a Bonus Action. "Hm."

LEVEL 3 - ROGUE 3

Third level Rogues get to choose their Roguish Archetype, and to be the master of one-on-one combat look no further than the Swashbuckler. Fancy Footwork is basically the mobile feat, making it so that the enemy can't hit you with opportunity attacks after you slam into them with Powerball.

Rakish Audacity meanwhile is basically two smaller features put together into one: for one you have a bonus to initiative equal to your Charisma modifier, so you can be the first one around for a dragon fight. "Alright." Additionally if you find someone alone in the river (without an ally within 5 feet) you can sneak attack them, even if you don't have an ally nearby or advantage against them! This means you can dash into someone with Powerball and then taunt them for a Sneak Attack. Speaking of which your Sneak Attack damage increases to 2d6. "Yeh."

LEVEL 4 - ROGUE 4

4th level Rogues get their first Ability Score Improvement but Rammus isn't really meant to do damage? So grab the Durable feat for +1 to your Constitution and double the Constitution when healing during Short Rests, guaranteeing that you can heal up after a skirmisher and always be ready for a fight. "Right."

(Artwork by Kienan "Knockwurst" Lafferty. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 5 - FIGHTER 1

Taking a level in Fighter for... well kinda just to get proficiency with Shields, really. +2 AC goes a long way! And the Defense Fighting Style can further increase that AC by 1, equaling a +3 to your 17 total which means... hey look at that! 20 AC! "Alright."

You also get Second Wind for a refillable potion, giving you a d10 + 1 (because we're not getting more Fighter levels) healing as a Bonus Action.

LEVEL 6 - WARLOCK 1

People say that I make too many Warlock builds, to which I say... "Yeah." First level Warlocks get to choose their Patron at level 1, and to be the rolling speed demon of the desert the Fiend Warlock is a nice, universal subclass. That's because Dark One’s Blessing will give you a burst of Triumph (temp) HP when you down an enemy equal to your Warlock level plus your Charisma modifier.

But of course what we're really here for is Pact Magic. You get two cantrips from the Warlock list: Frostbite could be reflavored as a not-quite-Frenzying Taunt because it's basically just Vicious Mockery that targets Constitution instead of Wisdom. Inversely Mind Sliver will let you soften an enemy up for an ally's big damaging abilities!

For your leveled spells Armor of Agathys shall serve as your passive of which we will get many more abilities that do the same thing. Note that Temporary Hitpoints don't stack, but as a DM I'd be willing to say that if you get a new source of Temp HP while this spell is active its duration essentially gets refreshed. Inversely if you want a more direct source of retributive damage Hellish Rebuke will cause fire damage to anyone who hits you as a reaction. "Right."

LEVEL 7 - WARLOCK 2

Second level Warlocks get to choose their Eldritch Invocations; gifts from the sands that make them better from the standard armadillo. Eldritch Mind is a surprise tool that will help us later, and you might think that we should've taken Resilient (CON) instead of Durable at level 4 to which I say... "Right." Anyways there honestly isn't that many other invocations I want until about level 5 so take what you want (Devil's Sight is never a bad thing) and we're going to keep going. You can also learn another spell but again: not much I want! Wait for...

LEVEL 8 - WARLOCK 3

3rd level Warlocks get to choose their Pact Boon and we're still a Rogue first and foremost, so Pact of the Blade is still the best choice. You can summon weapons from thin air to always be ready with spikes on your shell.

You can also learn second level spells like Blindness / Deafness to make it harder for people to hit you, and Hold Person which is like a ranged taunt.

LEVEL 9 - WARLOCK 4

4th level Warlocks get an Ability Score Improvement, and while Charisma controls most of what we do currently Dexterity still leads to kills which leads to more temp HP, so increase your DEX by 2.

You can also learn a new cantrip like Chill Touch for some Thornmail anti-healing. There are good spells at this level too (Misty Step and Mirror Image being two great ones) so take them for now but we're going to swap them out come...

(Artwork made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 10 - WARLOCK 5

5th level Warlocks get more Eldritch Invocations! For a start we'll be taking Thirsting Blade, letting you attack twice in a round for more chances to get a kill for some healing. "Hm." We'll also be taking Cloak of Flies for Sunfire Cape, or more realistically Turbo Chemtank as CoF does Poison damage and I'm writing this build during patch 11.8 when every goddamn jungler in the game is running Turbochem.

You can also learn third level spells at this level like Spirit Shroud for a Frozen Heart that also increases the damage of your weapon, and Counterspell for some magic "resistance." "Yeh."

LEVEL 11 - WARLOCK 6

6th level Fiend Warlocks can give themselves the boost they need to make it out alright. Dark One's Own Luck lets you add a d10 to a skill check or saving throw: you're probably going to mostly be using this on saving throws but boosting ability checks can be helpful to. You can only use this ability once per Short or Long Rest however, so use it wisely, yeah?

You can also prepare another spell but again: waiting for a level!

LEVEL 12 - WARLOCK 7

7th level Warlocks get another Eldritch Invocation like... Devil's Sight? A bit late to be grabbing it (proper) now you may say, but it's a requirement for our one-two Defensive Ball Curl special!

First spell: Shadow of Moil! Along with heavily obscuring you (giving most enemies Disadvantage to hit you) any enemy that does hit you takes 2d8 Necrotic damage back!

Second spell: Fire Shield (from the Fiend Warlock list.) It creates light yes (which gets canceled out by Shadow of Moil) but you can choose between a Cold Shield (that blocks Fire damage and does Cold damage) or a Fire Shield (that blocks Cold damage and does Fire damage.) Regardless of which one you choose any attacker within 5 feet of you will take 2d8 damage (Cold or Fire depending on which shield you chose) if they try to attack you.

Here's the fun part: Fire Shield isn't concentration. That means that these spells do stack, allowing you to do 2d8 damage to anyone who misses you and 4d8 damage to anyone who hits you! I don't think I should need to explain why essentially getting a second level Chromatic Orb off every time you get hit is absolutely insane for action economy and overall DPS.

LEVEL 13 - WARLOCK 8

8th level Warlocks get another Ability Score Improvement: Dexterity is still our main "fighting" stat despite most of our levels being in a caster, so a simple +2 would cap it off to guarantee that you're doing something in a teamfight even if the enemy isn't shooting you.

You can also learn another spell like Dimension Door, which is basically a very long ranged Flash. Like, a very long ranged Flash. "Yeh."

(Artwork made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 14 - ROGUE 5

Hopping back over to Rogue because for some reason Rogues are very good at staying alive! Uncanny Dodge is part of that, letting you reduce the damage of an incoming attack by half with your reaction! "Okay."

Your Sneak Attack damage also (finally) increases to 3d6. "Yeah."

LEVEL 15 - ROGUE 6

6th level Rogues get Expertise in two more skills. I'm actually going to suggest the two skills from your background at this point: Athletics and Survival to continue optimal jungle pathing and escape grapples.

LEVEL 16 - ROGUE 7

7th level Rogues get Evasion which feels like an oxymoron for Rammus. But here's the thing: they can't attack you with weapons without taking damage themselves, so what if they cast spells on you? Well if it's a DEX save you take half damage on a failed save, and no damage on a successful save! "Alright." Your Sneak Attack damage also increases to 4d6 at this level.

LEVEL 17 - ROGUE 8

8th level Rogues get another Ability Score Improvement, and while more Charisma means better spell saves and more Temp HP when you kill someone I'm instead going to simply suggest the Tough feat for +2 HP per overall character level you have. It's 34 health points now and a total of 40 HP by level 20. "Hm."

(Artwork by SixMoreVodka Studios. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 18 - ROGUE 9

9th level Rogues finally get your goddamn Frenzying Taunt! Panache lets you make a Persuasion check against an enemy's Insight, and it works in one of two ways: if a target isn't hostile to you they're charmed by you! (I don't know what you're saying to charm them, but it's probably more than 6 voice lines.)

Alternatively if you Panache an enemy they get taunted by you, and have Disadvantage against all enemies other than you. Note that if your allies hit the taunted enemy they will lose this effect, meaning that you will have to constantly taunt them if everyone's focusing one target.

Oh and your Sneak Attack increases to 5d6 now, meaning that you actually do some good damage overall regardless of if the enemy is attacking you or not. "Hm."

LEVEL 19 - WARLOCK 9

9th level Warlocks get another Eldritch Invocation: your ultimate just got reworked, so Otherworldly Leap will let you jump into the middle of a teamfight! ...With the Jump spell...

You can also learn 5th level spells now! There's a lot of fun ones but I'm going to suggest good ol' Hold Monster. It's like Hold Person, but it works on Dragon! "Right."

LEVEL 10 - WARLOCK 10

Our final level is the 10th level of Fiend Warlock for Fiendish Resilience. Choose a damage type to gain resistance to! This doesn't work against silvered weapons, so it isn't that good against ADCs but it does give you some resistance against spellcasters. (Most literally.) You have to pick the resistance at the end of a Short or Long Rest, so it does help to know what you're going up against.

You also don't learn a spell because lol Warlocks, but you do get another cantrip! So take good ol' Prestidigitation to put on a show after reaching max level!

FINAL BUILD

PROS

Ok - I already mentioned how strong Fire Shield plus Shadow of Moil is. This damage goes against any enemy who hits you in melee, and can really hurt against multiple attacks!

Alright - You have plenty of ways to keep from getting hurt while you tank all the hits. Temp HP from Dark One's Blessing, Uncanny Dodge and Evasion, and of course 20 AC with just a shield!

Yeah - Despite not investing completely in Charisma your proficiency carries you a long way in social encounters. Just remember to say more than 6 words! (If "hmm" can even be considered a word.)

CONS

Right - All your damage is loaded against melee enemies, as you need to be in melee to hit them with Sneak Attack and both your shields only deal damage back to melee attackers. Ranged enemies are still going to suffer against your high AC and you're capable of spamming cantrips at them, but you really shine against melee bruisers.

Yeh - Only having 10 Warlock levels means that you only have two total spell slots. That's enough to cast your Defensive Ball Curl combo once. If you want to operate at maximum effectiveness you're going to need to take frequent short rests.

Hmm - Perhaps the biggest irony of Rammus is that being a Tortle doesn't really help us much. Being any other race would give you access to magic armor, as well as likely better racial features to generally be more useful overall. (Don't get me wrong: hiding in your shell is nice to boost AC but come late game the lack of movement will hurt you more than it'll help, especially since it makes you go prone.) My suggestion would be to make a Warforged for their innate +1 AC, or go for something like a Satyr or Gnome to resist magic.

But you can do okay no matter what the enemy lineup is. Hmm? You think you'll struggle, yeh? Well with the right team backing you up you'll do alright. Yeah.

(Artwork by Alvin Lee. Made for Riot Games.)

#yeah #alright #okay #hm #yeh #right #dnd #dnd build #dnd guide #dnd 5e #League of Legends #League of Legends Rammus #dnd rogue #dnd warlock #this build is weird

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jinruihokankeikaku · 4 years

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I love your classpect analysis style, you’ve got a great framework for explaining things! I’d love to get your take on the Prince of Time if it’s not too much bother?👑🕰

Hey thanks!! I’m really glad u like my methodology ::::) And it’s not too much 8other at all!! Here’s my take on the…

Title: Prince of Time

Title Breakdown: One who actively destroys or destroys with [threatens, breaks, annihilates] Time [endings, death, rhythm, narrative, literal Time]

Role in the Session: Destruction Classes are always a volatile force in a session, but where Bards are capricious, Princes are simply explosive. The Prince of Time, as a Culminative-Conclusive Aspect with heavy themes of death, fire, and inevitability, is rendered further explosive by this harmony between their Class and Aspect. Nonetheless, like any other Prince, they will begin with a deficit of Time – they are, much like the Thief of Time, simply running out of it.

The Prince will feel, at first, paralyzed, trapped in any given moment, unable to take decisive action no matter how much they want to. This may not last, but it is certainly the case at first. As such, they might be compelled towards numerous creative endeavors, as a Space player might be, but because they are merely ghosting the Aspect these creations are unlikely to ever reach completion, or even come particularly close. The Prince will be therefore driven towards increasingly reckless courses of action, but might at first choke or freeze up at the deciding moment, and lose their opportunity. In order to overcome the absence of Time that’s stymieing their efforts, the Prince will have to act at the right moment, intervene in Time to prevent catastrophe. If the Prince of Time fails to break through this disorganization, this lack of rhythm, structure, and organization could send them into a downward spiral of continuing to ghost Space while further destroying Time (that is to say, wasting their time!) within themselves. They might go so far as to refuse to participate in the narrative of the game, attempting some novel personal project, doomed to failure, and abandoning their duty to the Alpha Timeline.

Time and Space, unlike the other ten Aspects, are given very specific duties by the game – the Space player must breed the Genesis Frog and create a new Universe; the Time player must preserve the Alpha Timeline’s integrity through strategic use of their ability to travel through time, and create, destroy, understand, exploit, manipulate, or appropriate doomed timelines. The Prince of Time, being as they are so volatile, is going to require some pressure to step into their role in the Game, but if and when they do, they will be remarkably good at their job. We’ve already covered “Destroying Time” and its possible negative consequences, if the Aspect-inverted Prince declines to change their ways and attain some focus, but “Destroying through Time” is a decidedly more positive function, and could mean any number of things. They might destroy Doomed versions of themselves, drawing on their power to prune down the number of Timelines and assure success at a particular class – or they may take the greater risk of creating and immediately sacrificing doomed clones of themselves, literally using these already-dead versions of themselves to attempt suicidal (but effective!) attacks, or to gain a few extra shots at destroying an enemy that won’t stay down. As soon as the Prince realizes that they can be the ones in control of what Time they do have, rather than fixating excessively on their (past or present, perceived or actual) deficit of Time, they will truly come into their own, becoming a Machiavellian plotter-extraordinaire with the power to decide which Timelines keep going, and which ones must die for the good of the team. As a side-note, I think this class, even more so than other Time players, would be inclined towards self-prototyping (for the sake of the team, one would hope they’d have the good sense to do that post-entry, as opposed to “the moment they see the Kernel”.

Speaking of Hope, Hope players tend to work well with Time players, and our Prince is no exception. The Prince would work especially well with a Seer or Sylph of Hope, I think, both of whom would be players inclined towards showing the Prince (and the rest of the team) that they have a chance of success within the Game’s narrative, and that there are things even in this grim post-eschatological landscape worth believing in. On the other hand, a Knight of Doom in cahoots with the Prince, while perhaps… less than beneficial during the early stages of the Game, would wreak havoc in the climactic confrontation with the Black King and/or Queen, by combining the Knight’s pragmatic attitude and strategic acumen with the Prince’s reckless, but certainly explosive, weaponization of Doomed clones.

Opposite Role: The Sylph of Space. Here we have a role that’s decently well-developed within the canon, through Kanaya Maryam. The Sylph of Space will likely try their best to guide the Prince, at first, but could quite possibly inadvertently guide them in the wrong direction, towards Space-inversion and unwitting self-sabotage. The Sylph of Space “heals or passively generates possibility, expansiveness, and … beginnings” which is… rather the opposite of what an under-developed Prince of Time needs. Sylphs are almost always well-intentioned, but in situations of direct or near-direct opposition like this, their meddling has the potential to do more harm than good – and even if they are sufficiently knowledgeable and well-realized as to do the right kind of healing (that is to say, excising the Prince’s excess Space rather than encouraging it to run rampant), the Prince’s backlash against said meddling would certainly do more harm than good. Player-versus-player violence is almost unequivocally Bad News™ for a Session’s chances at success.

God Tier Powers

I’ll keep it brief since this analysis is already running a bit long – Time is the Culminative-Conclusive-Actual Aspect, and it has strong associations with fire, rhythm, and the concept of doomed timelines (and death/narrative conclusion in general). Here are a few ways to bring those notions together…

Temporal Flames: The Prince induces imperceptible fractures in the timeline and grinds them together, generating both literal heat and an increasing rate of Temporal Anomalies (interpret that as you will), the longer they concentrate on this ability. Set enough of a Timeline on fire and you get a hole in the Timeline through which entities from the Furthest Ring, or more likely, another (Doomed) timeline might enter, and through which anyone else might fall. These ruptures would be localized – they aren’t instantaneously dooming the timeline they happen to occupy just by using this ability – but if it sounds disruptive, that’s because it is. Use With Caution.

The Killing Time: The Prince burns through Doomed clones like they were kerosene, unleashing a barrage of inter-timeline assaults against their hapless foe. Each Doomed clone sacrificed fuels the Prince’s own access to their Aspect, but reduces their control over it, given that they are, in a metaphysical sense, “killing the hostages” and thereby surrendering some of their leverage. In addition to being a line of attack in its own right, this self-destructive maneuver also fuels the Prince’s Temporal Flames, damaging the timeline and entities nearby at a frightening rate.

Cutting Room: Reality starts to drop frames in the presence of the Prince, allowing them and their attacks to occur at an accelerated rate due to the falling-away of infinitesimal bits of the timeline. This would be especially effective with firearms, and ranged weapons in general, as it would greatly magnify the rate and accuracy of projectiles’ connecting with their respective targets (at the cost of the occasional arrow, slug, shell, or laser-beam disappearing outright, from Time to Time.

Personality: The Prince of Time is likely to have an interest in music, but be unsatisfied with their own progress and lack the patience, at first, to deeply commit themselves to it. Their personal life is bound to be fraught, even by Time-player standards, and it wouldn’t be unlikely for the Prince to have experienced some childhood trauma that left them feeling as though they’re constantly racing against Time, or that wasting too much Time on any one endeavor is too great of a sacrifice. They might, unfortunately, grind away slowly at the patience of their personal friends or romantic interests, due to their initial lack of focus and extreme impulsivity. These are the main issues that our Prince will have to work past – their failure to engage with their Aspect due to trauma or isolation, and their inability to commit, not only to hobbies or relationships, but to their own plans and schemes post-Entry.

Songs: Well, as it happens, a couple of weeks ago, before I even started doin this Classpectin thing, I made a 10-track Prince of Time playlist, linked here. It shares one or two songs with other Time classes I’ve covered on this blog, but there’s also some new stuff there if you’re interested in checkin it out!!

Thanks again for the request!! As you can probably discern from, uhm, how very long I’ve gone on, I’m a big fan of this Classpect, and in fact suspected that it was my own, for a minute. Princes and Thieves do have a fair few things in common. As always, requests remain open (as of time of writing), and do send any questions you have re: this Role or others!!

~ P L U R ~

#yo-yo-in-attack-mode #ask #classpect #classpect analysis #time #prince #prince of time #Homestuck #class #aspect

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hellyeahheroes · 4 years

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Building Gwen Poole in D&D 5e

Hey, guess who just got told my company is not working next week. Well, let’s celebrate by doing another D&D build, I had lately few ideas, including a character that makes me smile, unless she is making me feel bad for her

Let me quickly list the Goals for this build. First of all, we need to be able to enter Whitespace, cross beyond panel borders and then back. Second, we need to have knowledge only someone from real world entering a fantasy one could have. Finally, we need to summon Gwens from previous books to aid us. And one more for me is to not make this identical to Tulok the Barbarian’s Deadpool build, since the man already been an inspiration so much for these posts. Which will be hard since Gwen does lend herself well to similiar combination of two classes, spoiler alert.

As always, Ability Scores will be determiend by Standard points Array of 15, 14, 13, 12, 10 and 8, if you or your DM prefer point buy or rolls, go ahead and treat these as guidelines.

Strength: 10, we really don’t need it but Gwen carries a lot of weapons around so I cannot give this an 8

Dexterity: 14, despite the big boots I really doubt your suit is a medium armor, what with those bare legs and all.

Constitution: 13, hit points aren’t meat points and you survive in dangerous situations just fine.

Intelligence: 12, you are well-read in world of your heroes

Wisdom: 8, you let Ms. Marvel convince you you’re an enteirly different species and your life is a lie and you also tried dating Quentin freaking Quire.

Charisma: 15, people like you and even if they don’t believe your claams of being from another world, they’ll likely dismiss them with a heartfelt laughter than trying to book you a psychologist appointment.

Now for Race, I hinted I don’t believe the “Gwen is a mutant” retcon so I’m going with Variant Human. If you think everything must be a mutant now, then go with any Aasimar or Half-Elf. Variant Humans get to be bitter about X-Men, add +1 to two Ability Scores, go with Charisma and Constitution, gain one free language and one free Skill, pick History since you know it because you’re a human from our world, and a feat. Crossbow Expert lets you ignore loading quality of crossbows, let’s you shoot creatures within 5 feet of you without a disadvantage and make an attack with a loaded crossbow as a bonus action after you hit a foe with a one-handed weapon attack. Crossbows are easy to reskin as guns but be warned that this does not turn a crossbow into an automated gun - you still need a hand to reload the crossbow after every shot, which now counts as a part of your attack, but requires a free hand. Which means you cannot wield two crossbows or fire more than one shot in a single round without a free hand. It could be fixed with some Artificer levels but we’re not doing that here, so make sure you’re on good terms with Riri Williams if you want to shoot two guns or use gun and a blade in an accord.

For Background, Far Traveller is someone who came from far, far away and you are literally from real world. You get Insight and Perception proficiency, can pick any free language of choice and one musical instrument or gaming tool and world has All Eyes On You - people notice you’re not from around and take interest in you.

Time to go with Class Levels

1st Level: We’ll kick things off as a Bard, letting gets to be proficient in any 3 skills, let’s go with Persuasion, Deception and Acrobatics. You are also proficient with Dexterity and Charisma saving throws, light armor, shields, simple weapons, hand crossbows, longswords, rapiers, shortswords and three musical instruments of your choice.

You also get Bardic Inspiration, giving you a number of d6 dices equal to your Charisma modifier per long rest that you can hand over to someone that they can add to any ability check, attack roll, or saving throw that they make in the next 10 minutes. They can do it after they roll but before DM declares result of the roll. So you can now cheer on your heroes while fighting alongside them.

Bards are also spellcasters. You get to know a number of spells and have a number of spell slots per long rest that you can spend to cast them and if you cast one from higher level spell slot, it will be stronger. You learn more spells as you advance but cannot know a spell of level higher than highest spell slot you can use. You also get Cantrips which you can cast always and scale with your level, getting stronger at 5th, 11th and 17th character level. If a spell requires you to make an attack roll you sum up your Proficiency Bonus and your Charisma modifier to add to the roll. And if you add 8 to those two values you get your Save Difficulty, which a creature has to beat if your spell forces them to make a saving throws.

A Bard starts with two Cantrips and 4 known spells

Vicious Mockery is a staple for Bards, it lets you mock someone so bad, they must make a Wisdom saving throw or take 1d4 psychic damage and have a distadvantage on next attack roll they make before end of its next turn.

Message is a spell functioning as a magic phone, letting you send a short message to someone within the range and then can make a short reply.

Identify lets you see if you recognize an item as something you once read in a comic book - it tells you if the item is magical, magic-imbued, what magical properties it has or what spells are affecting it, how to use it, if it requires attunment and how many charges it has.

Tasha’s Hideous Laughter makes you tell a joke that forces the target to make a Wisdom Saving Throw or fall prone and be incapitated and unable to stand up due to overwhelming laughter. Target gets another save at end of each of its turns or a save with an advantage whenever someone deals damage to it.

2nd Level: We stick to Bard to gain 2nd-Level feature Jack of All Trades, letting you add half of your Proficiency modifier to all skills you are not proficient with. You also gain Song of Rest, letting you play some music when your team is resting and rolling hit dice to regain hitpoints, letting everyone roll an additional 1d6. I don’t think it is a power per se that Gwen has, but could totally see her try to cheer up her friends and heroes.

And speaking of cheering up, you get one new spell - Heroism let’s you instill the bravery in one willing creature, making it immune to being frightened and on each of its turns letting them gain temporary hit points equal your Charisma modifier. Again, Hit Points can represent someone’s luck or will to fight so if you see Batroc having a hard time against Captain America, you can cheer him up to keep fighting. I mean, you would but you like Cap too, so maybe hope Batroc fights Taskmaster or something?

3rd Level: And it’s still a Bard, on 3rd Level gaining admission to something Gwen never got in real life - a college. Bardic College, to be more specific. I was thinking of College of Satire but really, College of Lore fits our needs much better. You gain profficiency with three more skills, I’d go with Athletics, Stealth and Sleight of Hand. Since all bards also gain Expertise, letting you choose two skills for which your Proficiency Bonus is doubled, use it on Athletics and Perception which depend on two lowest Ability Scores you have.

Your spell for the level is Invisibility, which lets you skip through eniemies you don’t feel like fighting, we can refluff this as early “slipping out” to the whitespace, but some creatures can still see you and you are “pulled back” (read: made visible) if you try to interact with something or attack anyone.

College of Lore also gets Cutting Words, which lets you say something that spooks or confuses a creature. Mechanically it lets you use your Inspiration die the opposite way they are normally used, letting you roll to subtract from attack roll, saving throw or an ability check.

I mean, that’s basically how it works

4th Level: Still sticking with the Bard for an Ability Score Improvement, go for your Charisma, since not only your spells but also Bardic Inspiration relies on it.

You also get a new spell and a new Cantrip

Prestidigitation lets you make a number of smaller effects you can play as you messing around with Whitespace. Knock let’s you unlock one nonmagical lock on door or an object. Maybe play it as you “skipping” the door through Whitespace or cutting out to when the object is already unlocked?

5th Level: Surprise, surprise, it is still Bard. 5th Level mostly improves Bardic Inspriation - now it uses d8s and you regain them on a short rest as well. You also gain the access to 3rd level spell - Nondetection can make you or someone else immune on being spied by magical means for 8 hours. Situational? Yes. But something Gwen can do as a person capable of walking out of the reality where people like Doctor Strange or Professor X cannot find her? Very. You can also use it on objects.

6th Level: Bar...oh hey, we’re doing Fighter now. 1st Level fighter gains proficiencies with light and medium armor and martial weapons as well as Second Wind, letting you once per short rest as a bonus action regain 1d10+your Fighter level hit points. You also get to choose a Fighting Style - Archery grants Gwen +2 to ranged weapon attacks.

ALTERNATIVES: As you can see, I decided to do Gwen as someone gun-toting, if you’d rather her use a sword then picking Defensive Duelist at first level and Dueling style now. Mind you, you need to have a free hand for spellcasting so unless you take a War Caster feat (which is also an option) you cannot duel-wield either sword and crossbow (which would also require sacrificing your Ability Score Improvement for Crossbow Expert) or two swords and use many of your abilitties. On a side note, Gwen is also profficient now with heavy Crossbow, so you can use that as a shotgun.

7th level: 2nd Level Fighter gets Action Surge, letting you once per Short rest gain an extra Standard Action

8th Level: 3d Level Fighter gains a Martial Achertype. I was thinking which one Gwen would choose. Wade went with a Champion but we don’t want Gwen to be exactly like him even if we’re already mixing two of the same classes Tulok did. I have a better pick. Gwen is suppsoed to represent the modern fandom that jumped into comics during New 10s, right? If that’s the case then, without streotyping here, we should ask ourselves what would likely be her possible gateway to D&D.

Echo Knight has been introduced in Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount, the world designed by Matt Mercer for his Critical Role games. You can use your bonus action to Manifest Echo, letting you pull an echo of yourself from another timeline or, in your case, another book you were in. This Gwen has AC 14+ your Proficiency modifier, 1 hit point and immunity to all conditions, uses your saving throws and you command her to moves on your turn. She vanishes if she dies, you’re incapitated, you dismiss her, summon another Gwen or find yourself more than 30 feet away from her.

As a bonus action you can sacrifice 15 feet of your movement to swap places with other Gwen, you can choose if your attacks originate from your position or her and you can use your reaction to have her make an opportunitty attack if an opponnent would trigger one. And a number of times equal your Constitution Modifier per Long rest you can make her take an extra attack as a part of your attack action with Unleash Incarnation.

Now, to get third Gwen we would need 18 levels of Echo Knight, but we would lose or all other abilitties about Whitespace then. Instead I suggest you circle through Gwens, as it seems that Echo Knight can summon an Echo as many times as they feel like, just not at once.

9th Level: 4th Level Fighter gets an Ability Score Improvement, Round up your Charisma

10th Level: 5th Level Fighter gains an Extra Attack, letting you attack twice as a part of the same action. Meaning you can make up to seven attacks with Action Surge, two uses of Unleash Incarnation and Crossbow Expert, provided you’re having a free hand. Unless DM allows it I do not think you can have other Gwen reload your guns, so all problems of Crossbow Expert still apply. Dual Wielding meele or mixed meele and ranged Gwen would get to the same level of attacks.

11th Level: 6th Level Fighter gets another Ability Score Improvement, start focusing on your Dexterity - even a meele Gwen is better off using finesse weapons and it adds to your AC.

12th Level: The Bard returns! 6th level Bard learns Countercharm, letting you use your action to give everyone you consider friendly an advantage on saving throws against being frightened or charmed - I guess it’s Gwen cheering other heroes up more or warning them she read about the baddie they’re facing and he has mind altering powers

You also get one more spell. It is sad we are behind with the spells...or are we? College of Lore Bard can gain Magical Secrets - a Bardic feature we will gain later as well, but this is an additional one and early. It lets you add two spells from any spell list to your spells known, as long as they’re on a level you can cast. Unlike the standard Bard version we will get later, the two spells we get now do not count to our maximum of spells know. Meaning we get three new spells

Tongues will let you read world baloons translated to English for the American readers and apparently let you add translation to your own dialogues for an hour.

Blink lets you roll at the end of each of your turns and if you get 11 or higher you slip into Whitespace a.k.a. Etheral Plane and reappear in space no more than 10 feet away from where you were at the beginning of your next turn. When you are in whitespace you cannot be attacked or interacted with creatures on material plane. It is not as powerful as in Pathfinder but still - don’t cheat on this, don’t be an asshole and if you are pray you never see a spider.

Fireball is your grenade/rocket launcher. Creatures within range are dealt 8d6 fire damage, half on a succesful Dexterity saving throw.

13th and 14th level: 7th level Bard gains an acess to 4th level spells and 8th Level bard gains an Ability Score Improvement, invest in Dexterity again. I’m doing the two together since each gives you one more spell too add:

Dimension Door lets you teleport anywhere with range of 500 feet, as long as you can see, visualize or know the area. You can bring anything up to your carrying capacity and one creature also carrying no more than its maximum with you. However, if another creature occupies the selected space, you run into it and get knocked back through Whitespace, taking 4d6 force damage.

Greater Invisibility works like Invisibility, but now you can take things with you or attack until it ends naturally. Play it as you slipping in and out of Whitespace.

15th Level: 9th Level Bard gets to improve Song of Rest, now using a 1d8 instead of 1d6. And you gain access to 5th level spells. Legend Lore is a spell seemingly tailor-made for a fangirl - you can gain (or in your case, recall that you’ve read) knowledge about specific person, object or location. It may be vague, the more you already know the better results. This lets you put fun in your fangirl...wait.

16th Level: 10th Level Bard improves Bardic Inspriation dice to d10s, gains Expertise in two more Skills, I’d go with History and Persuasion, and learns one more cantrip and Magical Secrets - this works like before but these spells count to your maximum of spells know.

Blade Wards grants you until end of your next turn resistance agaisnt bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage from weapon attacks. Your armor is at best light, this may help if you want to go into meele.

Banishment let’s you force a creature to make a Charisma saving throw or let you send them into Whitespace. They get to come back like Paste Pot Pete did after it ends, but if they’re not from this plane and if you don’t break your concentration for one minute, they’re banished for good.

Banishing Smite is similiar - next time you hit a creature with a weapon attack, and it does not specify it must be a meele attack, you deal it extra 5d10 force damage and if you reduce it to 50 or less hit points, you send them to the Whitespace. There is no save, but there is no chance to keep target permamently out. Either spell still can save lives against tough enemies.

17th Level: 11th Level Bard learns to cast 6th level Spells, but I don’t see any so we will grab one more from 5th level - Scrying let’s you poke through Whitespace to find a person and observe them and their activities. They get a Wisdom saving throw to resist being spied on, I guess trying to reassert that their current narrative place is off-page. The better you know them and better materials connecting to them you have, the harder resisting your prying eyes gets. Just please don’t use it to stalk your friends, okay?

18th Level: 12th Level Bard gets last Ability Score Improvement, round up your Dexterity.

19th Level: 13th Level Bard improves Song of Rest to 1d10 and gains access to 7th level Spells. Etherialness lets you just hop to the Whitespace...I mean, Etherial Plane, for up to 8 hours, effectively saving you from an encounter if you would die othertwise. It let’s you regroup, regain your strength, plan ahead, move away or even bypass whole area, effectively skipping to different pages, and doesn’t require concentration to do it.

20th Level: And we wrap things up with 14th Level of Bard. College of Lore grants you Pearless Skill, letting you now use Bardic Inspiration on your own rolls. You also get two more Magical Secrets

Delayed Blast Fireball is a bomb - you put on a fireball in a place. Any creature that touches it must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw to be able to throw it in a different place. Whenever they suceed or not, it explodes anyway, same if your spell ends or you break concentration. It deals 12d6 fire damage plus an extra 1d6 for each of your turn that ended without it detonating, half on a succesful Dexterity Saving Throw.

Plane Shift lets you and up to 8 creatures move to a different plane of existence, meaning you can now team-up with Squirrel Girl to kick Mephisto’s butt. Teleport could be more useful as it let’s you move within a single plane, but then you don’t get to freak Squirrel Girl out by pointing there is no reason someone isn’t punching the devil in the face at all times.

Overview: So this is how I’d do Gwenpool - College of Lore Bard 14/Echo Knight Fighter 6. Let’s see how valid this build is

Pros: You have a pretty decent amount of hit points, somewhere around 160 on average, while having multiple ways to avoid damage. You are a good utility caster with multiple ways to gather information or scout ahead and you have a pretty good array of skills on top of that, making you a good use for non-combat situations. You also have pretty good mobility options, letting you move as you wish across the battlefield. Finally, whenever you picked meele or ranged options, you can dish out a lot of attacks if needed, or even blast out some foes.

Cons: Your Constitution is mediocre, meaning your Concentration and use of Unleash Incarnation could be better. Second, your spell selection is somewhat situational, some of the options we took may not always be useful, even if they are in character. Third, your Wisdom saving throw is horrible so charming, frightening or just Hold Person will be your bane. Finally, you do not have any ways of dealing magical damage, unless your DM throws a magic rapier and/or crossbow your way and your fireballs deal fire damage, which many creatures are resistant or even immune to.

However overall you are able to fill or support in multiple roles, from scout to party face to damage dealer to information gatherer, which makes you great to have. Remember, however, that this is not one-person show and you work better as a part of a team.

For example

-Admin

#Gwenpool #Marvel #Dungeons & Dragons

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grailfinders · 3 years

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Fate and Phantasms #170

Today on Fate and Phantasms we take our first steps into the pseudosingularity that must not be named, in search of new and... well, at least they’re new, servants. Today we’re making the Assassin of the Nightless City, a.k.a. Nite Brite, a.k.a. yet another reason why Type Moon should just stop designing child characters.

There’ll be spoilers in her build (obviously), but you can check out her build breakdown below the cut, or her character sheet over here!

Next up: Popular new Amazon service just comes to your house and kills you

Wu Zetian is an Arcane Trickster Rogue to pick up some of the tools of the trade she’ll need to become empress, as well as a Whispers Bard for more social graces. And interrogation techniques, those are important too.

Race and Background

Wu’s a Human, obviously, but she’s a really small human, so we’re going with Custom Lineage anyway since it lets us make her Small and barely changes anything about her abilities. This gives her +2 Dexterity, proficiency with Investigation to rat out dissent, and the Poisoner feat. Now she ignores poison damage resistance, can coat a weapon as a bonus action, and she can make poisons by spending 50 gp to make some weaker poison to apply to a weapon.

Also worth noting: the Dungeon Master’s Guide includes tons of poisons you could already make with the poisoner’s kit, but you’d never know that if you’d only read the player’s handbook. That’s a big reason why so many people think poisonings are underpowered in D&D, they literally didn’t tell any of the players how they work. That being said, the poisoner feat poison is by far the cheapest you can get, so it’ll be a staple.

Seriously, you can make paralyzing poisons, truth serums, knockout poison, time lapse poison, poisons that prevent the damage from being healed for at least a week, so many goddamn poisons. Please check out page 257 in the DMG, it’s a lot.

Also, you’re obviously a Noble, but you’re a scary noble, so you get proficiency with Intimidation and History.

Ability Scores

First up, make your Dexterity as high as possible. Being part of the emperor’s court requires grace and elegance, and being a rugrat certainly doesn’t hurt your ability to slip through small spaces. After that is Charisma, you are the most famous climber of the social ladder in history. You’re also fiendishly clever, so your Intelligence is also pretty solid. Your Constitution isn’t bad, but we’re mostly getting this because you’re definitely worse at the other stuff. Like your Wisdom! You’re nobody’s fool, but you do have a couple quirks that’ll make it hard to pass those saves against being frightened. Finally, dump Strength. The emperor didn’t date you for your sick lats, and becoming a child doesn’t help.

Class Levels

1. Rogue 1: Starting off as a rogue nets you a ton of proficiencies- you get Dexterity and Intelligence saves, as well as four skills. Stealth and Sleight of Hand to get poisons where they need to be, Insight to find out where that is, and Deception to play the survivors like a fiddle. You also get Expertise in Insight and Investigation to double your proficiency bonus in those two skills right out the gate.

You can also use a Sneak Attack to deal extra damage to creatures you have an advantage over. You also get Thieves’ Cant. It’s a language.

2. Rogue 2: Running an empire is a full time job, so use your Cunning Action to fit more into a single turn- now you can dash, disengage, or hide as a bonus action.

3. Rogue 3: Third level rogues get a stronger sneak attack (2d6), and they get all the goodies from their specialty! Arcane Tricksters can cast spells from the wizard spell list (mostly enchantment and illusion) using their Intelligence.

These spells include Mage Hand, which is super useful, because otherwise your Mage Hand Legerdemain would be pretty pointless. Your mage hand comes with all the usual abilities, but you can also: make the hand invisible, stow objects in containers worn/carried by other creatures, retrieve objects from the same places, pick locks at a range, hide your hand’s actions with sleight of hand checks against other creature’s perception, and do all of these as a bonus action.

You also get the cantrips Acid Splash and Poison Spray for even cheaper poisons, Ray of Sickness for roughly the same reason, and Sleep for a less direct kind of poisoning. You can also write Illusory Script to keep your plans a secret from busybodies.

4. Bard 1: Bouncing over to bard will help you understand the mandate of heaven thanks to your proficiency with the Religion skill. You also get more Spells that use your Charisma to cast, and your Bardic Inspiration can give your lackeys a boost as a bonus action, giving one of them a d6 to add to a check, attack, or save when they think they’ll need the help.

You get the cantrips Vicious Mockery and Friends for more social manipulation, as well as Command to start acting for the job you want, rather than the job you have. Bane is yet another poison that’ll dull the senses of a few enemies around you, and you get Unseen Servant and Silent Image to make your first servants. It’s a pain that the servant and their visuals are separate spells right now, but we’ll deal with that later.

Since you’re multiclassing spellcasters, check the player’s handbook to see how many spell slots you get.

5. Rogue 4: Back in rogue, you get your first Ability Score Improvement, so round up your Dexterity and Intelligence. Odd numbers are wasteful, and you have to make the most out of everything you’ve got if you want to become the ruler of China.

You can also Distort Value, doubling or halving an object’s apparent value. Make your presents to the emperor look better and your rivals’ look worse, easy.

6. Rogue 5: Fifth level rogues can make an Uncanny Dodge as a reaction, halving the damage of a single incoming attack. This is very useful if you don’t want to be gallagher’d, so use it often.

Also your sneak attack’s bigger again.

7. Rogue 6: Now that you’ve got your sights on your biggest opponents, it’s time to start taking them out. Use this round of Expertise on Sleight of Hand and Deception to Manipulate, Murder, Misrepresent your way to the top.

8. Rogue 7: Seventh level rogues get a stronger sneak attack, as well as the classic feature Evasion, making your dexterity saves really good. You survive an entire city collapsing into the ocean, that’s got to be a lot of dexterity saves.

You can also cast Phantasmal Force to start making some torturers for real! Er, as real as you can, right now.

9. Bard 2: Second level bards are Jacks of All Trades, adding half your proficiency bonus to any ability check that doesn’t already use it. If you want to entertain somebody that owns everything, you’ve got to be able to do anything. You also get your Song of Rest, making short rests a little more restful while you’re around.

You also get Healing Word for just a bit of healing. You don’t really have a healing factor by the letter of the law, but Imperial Privilege does restore a bit of health for some reason, so you’re good.

10. Bard 3: Third level bards pick a college, and the college of Whispers will help you climb your way to true nobility. Specifically on the backs of anyone foolish enough to get in your way.

Your Psychic Blades spend your inspiration to add psychic damage to a weapon attack once per turn, and your Words of Terror can cause a humanoid to become frightened of another creature for up to an hour once per short rest.If the attempt fails, they won’t know a thing.

On top of that, you get yet another round of Expertise, so brush up on your History and Religion before you ascend to the throne.

You also get second level spells this level. While you specialize in poison in this spirit origin, you’re still a torturer at heart, so grab Heat Metal.

11. Rogue 8: Finally getting back to rogue just in time for another ASI! Use this one to bump up your Charisma for better spell saves and more inspiration.

You also learn how to Enhance your Abilities, giving you advantage on one kind of ability check for the duration.

12. Rogue 9: Ninth level tricksters learn a Magical Ambush, giving your target disadvantage on a spell’s saving throw if you cast it while hidden from them. It’s a shame it doesn’t work on poisons as well, but it’ll make your opening salvo of magic much more effective.

13. Rogue 10: Use this ASI to bump up your Intelligence so your rogue spells match the strength of your bard spells.You also learn True Strike, which will link you to Agartha Rewritten, a tumblr blog that will let you avoid directly reading the real Agartha story. It also gives you advantage on one attack, but honestly you should probably just attack twice.

You can also cast Hold Person now to shove them into a vase for safekeeping. While frozen this way, attacks are made with advantage and automatically crit upon hit, so make sure you dig in with your sneak attacks while they’re stuck.

14. Rogue 11: Eleventh level rogues get Reliable Talent, so now you always roll at least a 10 on skill checks you’re proficient in. That means your insight rolls are always at least a 20, so no secrets can escape your eye.

Your poisons can also induce a frenzy in your foes with a Crown of Madness, letting you control which creatures it attacks each turn.

15. Rogue 12: Use this ASI to bump up your Charisma for more inspiration and stronger bard spells.

16. Rogue 13: As a Versatile Trickster, you can use your bonus action to distract an enemy with your Mage Hand, getting advantage on attacks against them

You can also expand your crown of madness to a full on freakout thanks to Enemies Abound.

17. Rogue 14: Your Blindsense lets you sniff out any creatures within 10′ of you, regardless of whether you can see them or not.

You can also, finally, make some real torturers thanks to Animate Dead. You can use the spell to make one zombie or skeleton, or to exert control over three of them you’ve already made. Given your spell slots are at a premium... good luck with that.

18. Rogue 15: Fifteenth level rogues have a Slippery Mind, giving you proficiency with Wisdom Saves. You’re pretty unflappable, aside from the cats.

19. Rogue 16: One last ASI, so bump up your Intelligence for stronger spells. Sorry if this sounds like a broken record, but we pretty much took care of your physical stats by level 5.

You can also spread Fear to whole groups of enemies now, forcing a wisdom save on all creatures within a 30′ cone. Any creatures that fail their save are frightened, and have to use their action to move as far away from you as possible. If a creature ends its turn somewhere it can’t see you, it can make another wisdom save to try and end the effect. Good luck though, we just made your intelligence really good.

20. Rogue 17: Your capstone level grants you the final boon of the arcane trickster class, Spell Thief. Once per long rest, you can try to steal a spell that’s affecting you, forcing a saving throw of the caster’s casting ability vs your spell save (DC 8 + Intelligence Modifier + Proficiency). If they fail, you negate the spell’s effect against you, and the original caster can’t cast that spell again for 8 hours. Furthermore, if it’s a leveled spell and you have the spell slots for it, you can cast it yourself for those eight hours. Imperial Privilege never felt so good!

Pros:

You are really good at skills, with jack of all trades making you kind of good at everything and reliable talent making you very good at some things. Basically, if something’s happening out of combat and it isn’t strength based, you can probably help.

Most of those skills you’re really good at let you control social scenes, controlling the ebb and flow of politics with your supercharged skill checks and the occasional word of terror.

Thanks to your Psychic Blades, you can convert all your sneak attack damage into psychic damage, which is way harder to block.

Cons:

That last pro is entirely tied to your few inspiration dice that only come back on long rests, so you’ll have to keep your cards close to your chest. Not that that’s anything new for you.

Thanks to your small size and low strength score, you’re easy to knock around. You should probably stay away from the muscleheads until you’ve knocked a couple rounds of poison into them.

Stealing spells is fun, but you’re limited by your spell slots. Unlike Nero, you can’t use wish.

#fate grand order #fgo #D&D 5e #DND #assassin of nightless city

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