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honourablejester · 8 hours

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Squid Creature by Roman Groph

#art #horror #ocean #maritime horror #dark fantasy #undead #squid creature #evil translucent jellies #fantastic!

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honourablejester · 8 hours

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#lighthouses #storytime #humanity #isolation #i love us

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honourablejester · 8 hours

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I found this channel on youtube that does D&D shorts not long ago, FrostyForestGames, and they’re delightful.

Some highlights:

Barbaric Inspiration (“Do you know what a Christmas Cracker is? You pull both ends and insides spill out. You better make the jump.”)

Solving An Intricate Puzzle (“Was that right?” “… It is now!”)

Commit to the Roll (when you roll bad, go all in)

9 Alignments of Warlocks (I’m vibing with Lawful Neutral)

True Grit (spellslinging cowboys and unanticipated consequences of repeated low rolls)

Subtle Spell (*gesticulates angrily in Italian celestial*)

Totem of Sloth Barbarian (for real I want to play this subclass)

#d&d #vid recs #i love this guy #also i really do want to play that barbarian

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honourablejester · 2 days

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Art by • Roger Dean

#art #fantasy #landscapes #roger dean #mountains #stairs #lovely

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honourablejester · 2 days

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1920 Cartier aquamarine and diamond brooch. From Art Deco, FB.

#jewellery #art deco #1920s #aquamarine #nice

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honourablejester · 2 days

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the woman who holds the moon

prints available here. my cover for this month's issue of baffling magazine.

#art #fantasy #night #moonlight #beautiful

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honourablejester · 2 days

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Okay, I know nothing about Hozier, so I’ve no idea if this is something he’d do, but that pair of lines:

“You treat your mouth as if it’s Heaven’s gate, the rest of you like you’re the TSA.”

Is that a direct reference to the Heaven’s Gate cult? The one that believed you had to give up all vestiges of human life, sex, food, etc, to live on pure sunlight, in order to elevate your consciousness to a new state of being and enable yourself to leave the planet? The one that committed mass suicide in 1997?

Because, um. That does change the tone a bit, yeah.

The TSA too. Because, yes, initially it scans just as gate guardians, a security organisation to protect the ‘gateway to heaven’ that is the partner’s mouth. Their body is a temple, and that temple is guarded to prevent the wrong things from getting in. But, well. The TSA was formed as a direct response to 9.11. So there’s definitely an implication of fanatical self-protection in there too, the aggressive refusal to admit dangerous elements, the fear of allowing attack.

Combined, if it is a direct reference to Heaven’s Gate, then the imagery here is very much of a very regimented individual who is pursuing an inhuman, self-destructive purity, at least partly out of fear of the world outside their boundaries. Not a pursuit of happiness, but an attempt to escape and stave off attack, to be good enough and pure enough to escape the world and be taken somewhere better.

“You keep telling me to live right, to go to bed before the daylight. But then you wake up for the sunrise, you know you don’t gotta pretend.”

“I aim low, I aim true, and the ground is where I go. I work late where I’m free from the phone, and the job gets done. But you worry some, I know, but who wants to live forever babe? You treat your mouth as if it’s heaven’s gate, the rest of you like you’re the TSA. I wish I could go along, babe don’t get me wrong. You know you’re bright as the morning, as soft as the rain, pretty as a vine, as sweet as a grape. If you can sit in a barrel, maybe I’ll wait.”

If it is a Heaven’s Gate reference, a suicide cult, then ‘I aim low, I aim true, and the ground is where I go’ is possibly a bit a refutation of the ‘heaven’ promised if they live right. The ground is good enough, and death is real, not just a step towards promised heaven. The ground is where we go. Who wants to live forever, babe? And “If you can sit in a barrel, maybe I’ll wait”, could just be, yeah, if you grow up a bit, maybe I’ll wait until then, but in this context, a suicide cult, it could also be: if you survive, maybe I’ll wait.

“You keep telling me to live right […] you know you don’t gotta pretend.” “I wish I could go along, babe, don’t get me wrong.”

There is some implication that the narrator thinks it’s a cult. He thinks they’re pretending to their purity out of fear, and he doesn’t want to be dragged in. Partly because he’s already embraced some of the ‘threats’ they see even in tiny things, like coffee and whiskey and bad sleep cycles, and it hasn’t had the consequences they seem to be afraid of.

“I work late where I’m free from the phone, and the job gets done. But you worry some”.

The job gets done. But they worry anyway.

Yeah. I think I would read this song, not necessarily as a straight exaltation of a bad lifestyle, whiskey and coffee and shitty sleep, but more as just a warning of going too far in the other direction, a life of purity based on fear and worry about other people’s rules. Rules that he thinks the partner does know are false. ‘You don’t gotta pretend’, vs ‘I aim low, I aim true’. Plus ‘you treat your mouth as if it’s heaven’s gate’. Heaven’s Gate was also built on a false prophecy, and their belief system had to change several times when elements of that prophecy were proven untrue. The rules change because the rules aren’t real. They’re externally imposed, and they build off your fear. So relax a little bit, embrace some of the small evils, live as a human some instead of attempting to be a higher life form, and see if it’s really everything you were afraid of.

i found the tenth circle of hell: it's where your fave blows up on tiktok

#hozier #media analysis #song analysis #IS that a heaven's gate reference though?#because oof if so #that's a heavy thing to drop straight in

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honourablejester · 2 days

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The defining thing that society in the Animals of Farthing Wood revolves around, at least for the Farthing Wood group themselves, is the Oath of Mutual Protection. When they lost their land and had to flee together, the entire group, predators and prey alike, swore not to harm each other, not to eat each other, to protect each other, and to work together to keep everyone alive. Even when they arrived in White Deer Park, this was upheld, to the point that several of the predators nearly died over a harsh winter because prey animals among the park had learned to name-check the oath to avoid being eaten (this only partly works, because you have to be Farthing Wood to claim the oath). So they are, as a society, very much about mutual assistance, and will hold to their oaths even when starving to literal death.

That being said, there are quite a lot of feudalistic elements in Farthing Wood. The leaders are mostly predators, because they’re the ones who primarily fight and protect everyone else, so there is a degree of ‘service in exchange for military protection’ happening. White Deer Park itself is arguably a monarchy under the White Stag, and there is a general ‘predators as leaders/aristocracy’ vibe that runs throughout.

However, when the White Stag passed and was succeeded by, to put it bluntly, a little shit, the rest of the park, and the Farthing Wood crew in particular, absolutely do not accept it. So no. There is no divine right to rule. There is an acknowledgement of what is your land and what is your territory, but unless a leader actively protects and helps those under him, he’s not tolerated for long.

The Animals of Farthing Wood are decidedly not monarchists. There’s a fair amount of communism in their outlook, mutual protection and sharing of resources, and a fair amount of feudalism, land and territory protected by a military elite with support and protection to and from their vassals. They're probably big fans of trade unions.

I don't know what paddington is doing on that list, but it made me think of the time someone drew a picture of the queen with paddington after she died, and we had scores of people losing their minds at the idea that paddington bear wasn't the same kind of communist as them

#animals of farthing wood #anthropomorphic animals #and just animal animals #children's fantasy #politics #of sorts

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honourablejester · 2 days

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Rutger Hauer as Captain Etienne Navarre LADYHAWKE 1985 | dir. Richard Donner

#ladyhawke #rutger hauer #etienne navarre #80s fantasy #knights

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honourablejester · 2 days

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Caspar David FRIEDRICH The Sea of Ice 1824 Oil on canvas, 96,7 x 126,9 cm Kunsthalle, Hamburg

#art #painting #landscapes #seascapes #ocean #ice #caspar david friedrich #this is a painting #not a photograph #because some artists are like that #light

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honourablejester · 2 days

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In my head I keep calling this the '1920s carpet vampire collection'.

Christian Dior Spring 1998

#fashion #photography #christian dior #1998 #1920s

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honourablejester · 2 days

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Late Victorian brooch with a man in the moon cameo carved from transparent moonstone, set in white and rose gold with a border of diamonds and rubies.

#jewellery #history #moonstone #moon #love this one #victorian

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honourablejester · 2 days

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been a bit, here’s a guy

#dishonored #fanart #eldritch void whales #i love them

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honourablejester · 2 days

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Random personal opinion: if you can’t make your own apple sauce, store bought absolutely is NOT fine. At least for me.

Brought to you by me finding a jar in the back of the fridge that I need to throw out. I’m not sure if it was just the brand or if it’s the stuff they have to put in to give it a shelf life, but that did not taste like apple sauce. (When I bought it, I should clarify, this is not just the result of a too long a stay in the fridge). We never usually buy the jarred stuff, I just bought this one on a whim to see what it was like and maybe to have as a snack, but, uh. No. That is not apple sauce.

#random #food #apple sauce #by apple sauce i mostly mean stewed apple #this was not that #fresh is the way to go

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honourablejester · 3 days

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Some thoughts for an Osh Derrinalina PF2e Conversion

I’m considering how much would need to be tweaked to use PF2e for my Osh Derrinalina setting. And … in a couple of places, it’s actually easier than D&D 5e, in that it has two specific player ancestries that make my life much easier: the Anadi and the Leshi.

The Anadi are not quite what I’ve been picturing for the Ineian Weavers, but you know what? They’ll do the job quite nicely. Their lore, as very communal and diplomatic spider people, fits very nicely, and the bits that don’t I’d be tweaking for a homebrew setting anyway (such as the lifespan, because the Weavers are longer lived than elves). For the Weavers I would have been picturing the hybrid form as the only form initially, but I can roll with the were-spider angle. I’d probably want to do an Anadi heritage that grants darkvision and bioluminescence, call it Deep Weaver, and the rest is pretty much already there. Anadi already get weaving feats, I might add that Deep Weaver silk is also luminous to those.

The other small issue is that human absolutely would not be the standard alternate form for a Deep Anadi, given that humans are fairly vanishingly rare in Osh Derrinalina, but you need a whole other heritage to get a non-human Anadi form. I will probably just politely ignore that and say that the typical non-spider form for Weavers is Starfolk elf. Though … given their roles as diplomats and go-betweens for most of the Lightless Sea, it might actually be a thing to let Weavers outside of Ysea have a form that’s the common one for the area. So Weavers living/stationed in Tchorit would have gnome forms, and ones in Durgenrath would have dwarf forms. This is not a deception, Weavers are up front about who and what they are, and most of them probably stay in spider or hybrid form most of the time anyway. But. If weavers need to do politics and spycraft, their other forms could be handy, and also as a … comforting gesture, when they’re publicly known.

The Leshy, of course, specifically the Fungal Leshy, would be Patient Ones of Lochantu. For the Patient Ones, I might say that they’re Medium, rather than Small, I’m not sure if that would have any knock-on effects through the Leshy feats, but I think it should be fine.

Unfortunately, there’s still no player version of a flumph in PF2e, no more than in D&D 5e, so playing a Joy Singer is still out. Eh, maybe we can work on that.

For both Palerin Goblins and Durgen Dwarves, I’d probably want to do homebrew heritages as well. Call the Durgen the Grower Heritage, and give them some primal innate spellcasting, and maybe do something similar to the Death Warden dwarf heritage for the Palerin goblins? Palerin would also get wonky lifespans, as Rachinilea messes with their mortality. Homebrew ancestry feats for the girrish tattoos are definitely also a must.

For the Starbuilders, the Umbral Gnome heritage might work? I might still want to do a more custom heritage to pull some elements of the crystal/earth partnership in. I could do that with some ancestry feats either, though.

For the Hadali merfolk, the Ancient Scale Azarketi work perfectly. Exactly what I want, darkvision and bioluminescence. Obviously I’d be changing pretty much all of the Azarketi lore, just keeping the mechanics, since Osh Derrinalina is a very different setting and does not include fallen continents, Atlantean empires, and algholthu corruption. Again, might do up a few ancestry feats relating to Derrinalina herself and the protection of the Mother Sea.

(Sidenote: I probably also want to do a deity write-up for Derrinalina. Possibly also Rachinilea as well)

For the Starfolk, Cavern Elf again works pretty perfectly. In Osh Derrinalina, at least if you’re a native, darkvision is pretty much all you need from your heritage (with the possibly exception of Durgen dwarves, because of the suns, but dwarves get darkvision by default anyway). Again, a couple of feats relating to endurance and constitution, as a result of the legacy of the Great Flight, or a couple relating to trade and diplomacy bonuses, could be worth considering. Might give them access to a couple of the PF2e human ancestry feats in that cause.

For the Siinelan Crystalfolk, like the Joy Singers, there still isn’t really a good player option. I’m not sure what stat block I’d use for them as NPCs, either. However … crystal, empathy, luminescence … I am wondering if some reskinned Kashrishi might work? Trogloshi, obviously. I don’t know, I would have to think about that one. The Oread versatile heritage would also be something to consider. That being said, they’re a bit more alien than a lot of player ancestries, again like the Joy Singers, so it might be better to leave them as NPCs.

So the set up here is that, in Osh Derrinalina, the common ancestries are deep anadi, cavern elf, grower dwarf, umbral gnome, ghostly goblin, fungal leshy, and ancient scale azarketi, and everything else is rare and usually only seen on strangers via the Southern Passage or the Durgenroad.

I am wondering if I need to tweak Silrithantus. PF2e Umbral dragons have somewhat different vibes to 5e shadow dragons. But, honestly, I can just use the stat block and change the lore, and Silrithantus was always his own deal anyway.

For Zarathea, I definitely want to tweak a Dragon Turtle statblock for blindness, albinism, faint bioluminescence, and possible deathly influences, but then I’d also have to do all that in 5e too. Heh.

Lochantu’s sacred bats can be either Giant Bats or Albino Giant Bats, possibly a mix of both.

Overall, though? Definitely a doable conversion. And the Anadi … oh, the Anadi make my life so much easier, just by existing. I really love the happy little spider people? Long may they reign!

#ttrpgs #osh derrinalina #pf2e #d&d #5e #pf2e conversion #subterranean settings #fantasy #spider people #i love that pf2e has those #and the psychic rhino people but they're less applicable here

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honourablejester · 3 days

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Watership Down traumatised the absolute fuck out of me, apparently, because I saw this cute picture and all I could think of was the destruction of Sandleford Warren scene:

(WARNING: DO NOT PLAY THIS if you have any form of claustrophobia or fear of suffocation).