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prinx-archive · 3 years

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My Au Summaries

As of right now, everything on this blog is mcyt. NOTHING I write for mcyt will ever be NSFW. If I ever write anything with a romantic ship, it will be between the adult characters of cc’s who are ok with that type of content.

If there is something on this blog that you can only associate with a kink or something sexual, please just don't read or interact with it at all. That's not why I write these and I don't want people thinking of the stories in that way because the characters are based on real people (some of them minors.)

summaries:

G/t

Content that has a focus on g/t or giant/tiny interactions.

Smolbois inc: the sbi get lost in a forest one day. They take shelter in a cave, but realize the cave is occupied by two giants- Ranboo and Tubbo. They're hopelessly lost, and it's too dangerous for them to be wandering outside (maybe because of giant mobs or something?) So they stay in the cave, trying their best to hide from the giants. But they're not used to being sneaky, so it's only a matter of time before one of them is spotted.

Ragdoll AU: sometimes, when creating dolls, if the circumstances are right, the doll may come alive. Be it ragdolls, porcelain dolls, or even gingerbread men. Sometimes they're made on purpose, sometimes on accident. Wilbur gets sent a tiny fabric doll as a present: it fits in his hand, and it's made of patches of black and white fabric. Somehow, he accidentally brings him to life, and suddenly he's got a living, magic doll to take care of. I have ideas for both Tubbo and Dream as porcelain dolls in this au.

Birds of a Feather: (this has an actual title, but it's one of my least thought out ones, go figure.) Wilbur and Phil are both bird hybrids. They both have wings, although only Phil's are large enough to actually fly. Wilbur has a great singing voice, and is able to make bird sounds that Phil can't make. Ranboo is also a bird hybrid, but he's also still half enderman. He only has one wing that's even smaller than Wilburs wings. He gets stuck in the rain one day and is rescued by Tubbo.

Shooting Stars au: Giant alien scientists Wilbur and Tubbo come to earth. They take samples of things to study, including a few humans, Phil, Tommy and Ranboo. Phil's friend Techno manages to sneak on board unnoticed before the aliens leave the planet so he can attempt a rescue mission. The aliens don't think the humans are sentient yet, so plan to study them.

Trust au: Giant Tubbo is best friends with half-enderman Ranboo. They met when they were both kids, and have been friends for years. Mostly a fluffy au, but I'm willing to go other directions with it depending on asks.

Starstruck au: benchtrio are tiny experiments stuck in a simulation, and have no idea their world isn't real. Wilbur is a scientist who gets transferred to their experiment and wants to get them out. He ends up making a fake identity as a musician in the simulation and the teens become his fan.

Tomyo au: a ponyo au with Tommy in the place of Ponyo, Phil as the dad and Kristen as the goddess, Wilbur as the mom and both Tubbo and Ranboo as Sosuke. Techno is a nursery worker and and Wil's coworker and Niki is beeduo's teacher.

Curiosity au: Wilbur is a witch who is experimenting with potions. His little brother Tommy sneaks in to mess with the potions and accidentally shrinks himself.

Httyd Au: an au of how to train your dragon, where the dragons are giant dragon hybrids. Still g/t. Tubbo is Hiccup, Tommy is Astrid (no romance obv), Ranboo is Toothless, Wilbur is also a dragon, and Phil and Techno are the leaders of the village. Dream is the giant boss dragon at the end of the movie.

G/t Revivebur au: is the name for both tiny revivebur au and giant revivebur au. Au where Wilbur is a different size in limbo and has to deal with being a different size when he's revived.

Bedrock borrowers au: Tommy and Techno are borrowers that live in the walls of an apartment complex. Phil and Wilbur are two of the humans that they borrow from. They set out glue traps when they think they have mice, and Tommy gets stuck in one.

Itsy bitsy drider au: Ranboo is a tiny drider that's lived alone for years. Tommy and Tubbo move into the house he's in, and catch him one day.

Rantooz au: the Ranboo yootooz box has a small surprise inside :D

unnamed au: everyone knows not to go too far into the forest. those that do often don’t return.

Currently on ao3:

Glass ceiling au: Ranboo is a borrower who's caught and shoved in a bottle. He's sold at a market, which is where Techno finds him. Techno buys him to rescue him, and brings him home where he and Phil live. Ranboo is very nervous at first, but Techno and Phil do their best to make him feel at ease.

Earthbound Spirits au: Wilbur, Ranboo, and Phil are a family of borrowers that live in Technoblade's house. While Phil and Ranboo are pretty cautious, Wilbur is more of a risk-taker. Hopefully that won't get him into too much trouble...

Oneshots:

Hide 'n Sleep: Wilbur is a giant with a magic pocket dimension called an 'inventory'. When his family and friends are cold during the winter, he decides to help them out by sticking them in his inventory. A friendly game of hide and seek ensues.

Lonely Nights: story for blurrybunnie! prompt: "cold nights are the best time for cuddles, but can it really be called cuddles when the giant is unaware of the tiny stealing their warmth?"

Noms

Content that contains soft, safe, nonsexual vore. Usually the vore is about comfort, fear, or both.

Drider Au: Wilbur is a giant drider that lives in a forest that as far as he knows is far from any human villages. A human teen (Tommy) wanders into his nest somehow, getting trapped in the webs. Wilbur can't understand him, and he can't let him go or he'll be killed by the other monsters in the forest. So he keeps Tommy wrapped up so he can't escape and tries to learn the human language.

Shipwrecked au: Tommy is tossed overboard during a storm, and rescued by a giant mer, Phil. Since they're miles and miles away from the nearest shore, Phil decides to take him home. He swallows him, putting him in a pouch mer have to hold their children before they develop gills. He takes him back to where he and Wilbur live. Niki is their human friend and is able to explain things better to Tommy.

Nom Therapy: being eaten, or nommed, is a completely safe, common form of therapy or even recreation. Ranboo is referred to a therapy nom establishment where he is nommed for the first time by Tubbo. Other characters also are regularly nommed.

Face of Peace au: Tommy is part of a village that offended the royal family a century ago. Ranboo is the current prince who has been sent to accept the village’s apology. He isn’t expecting an entire person, Tommy, as a sacrifice.

Non G/t

These are just my ordinary aus, stuff that either doesn't contain g/t or that doesn't have a focus on it.

Humans are weird au: basically just a mcyt version of the humans are weird/humans are space orc stuff that you can find. Techno is a human, the galaxy's most terrifying creature, SBI and beeduo are aliens. Dream, Foolish, and Niki are also humans.

where to find the tags? here

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alice-angel12x · 3 years

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☁ Drider!Shouto x reader

Dystopian AU/ Monster AU

[Sorry if shouto is a bit ooc]

The world fell into ruin when the all powerful All For One took over all of japan. He took control of everything, and who ever dared defy him would face a horrible fate. Once he had control he shapped society the way he found entertaining. It's not like they could stop him. He had a large following that helped spread his rule and terror. Those who had a transmitter, or transformation quirk were safe. They were treated like people or held in higher regards. Those who had mutation quirk were called monsters and were locked away.

So All For One seperated people. Those who were safe where human. Brainwashing them into believing they were better then those monsters. Those who were Mutated were teated like wild and unpredictable animals, The monsters. They were mocked, humiliated, tortured, and locked away from the pretty cities, and only human Capitals. Some were unfortinate to be born with a mutation quirk, but some were forced to have this fate by All For One. By curing people with said quirks, some were criminals, rebels, or innocents to show his power. Those who are 'lucky' just get their quirk taken and turned into a slave.

What about those who were quirkless you ask. Well... They are slaves.

____

Just outside of the grand Capital, there was a large Dome loomed over the forest. It covered 50 miles worth of land. Inside was a forest, a river, rock hills, cliffs, and caves. Inside were the monsters. This is were they are locked away, and put into their natural habitat. Left to starve, except the occasional 'mouse' that was let inside for them to feed on. With no other food they are left with no choice. As the mouse tries to run and hide the monsters hunt it down and devour them. This hunt is recorded and broadcast all over the cities. As a sick entertainment for the rich, Powerful, and citizens. But for the quirkless slave or the mice it is a form of warning to stay in line and to know our place.

___

"Oh looks like our little mouse could not out run that pack werewolf," the commentator said with so much enthusiasm in his voice.

"Yeah John looks like he's dog food now," John's partner joked.

The slaves all watched in horror, as they watched their friend get eaten alive. The quirkiness were all in their cages and forced to catch the monitor, as a constant reminder that soon that will be their fate. To become a meal, a mouse for sent to die for entertainment.

"They ate Ochaco," a close friend of hers sobbed.

I didn't know her personaly, but she was a really nice girl. She didn't deserve to go out the way she did. I sat in my cage, trembling as I watched the carnage. Denki, Momo, Jirou, Sero, and know Ochaco.

They were all the unfortunate mice picked. I survived another month. Sadly my luck ran out the next month.

"Haha this little rat will do," said a gaurd as he opened my and quickly grabbed me.

I tried to struggle and break free from him, but something hard hit the back of my head. I blacked out.

........

"Welcome back everybody, it's that time again. Our favorite little game of survival. Today our lovely little mouse this month is Y/n L/n. A bit on the petite side, could probably squeeze tight spaces. She's a pretty face, it's sad it's wasted on a mouse. Well place your bets now folks. Who will she find herself being eaten by," John the host said with a laugh.

I opened my eyes to see that I was in a forest. It seemed go on forever, but quickly relieazed where I was. I was inside the dome.

"Jeff sound the dinner bell!" John said as the sound of the air horn filled the dome.

I ran, I didn't know where I just ran into the forest. There was no point in banging on the door. No one was going to answer. So I ran through the forest till I saw a clearing. The same clearing were Ochaco was eaten. I came to a halt right at the edge of the forest. I hesitated as flashed of Ochaco's mangled corpse appeared in my head.

Suddenly I heard growling behind me. I turned to see the pack of werewolves. The leader was a ashy blond with spiky hair and blood red eyes. I slowly started to back away, as he took a step foward.

"Sorry, nothing personal. Were just starving and everyone needs to eat," a red headed werewolf said with a sorrowful look on his face.

"Kirishima shut up! Lets just make this quick before some other monster gets her," said the leader.

"Bakugou, could you be a little more sensitive," Kirishima said bitterly.

"Yeah, well your sensitivity almost cost us last time," Bakugou shot back.

While They were arguing, I quickly made a run for it. Dying by werewolves is probably the worst way to go. I could hear them give chase once they relieazed I ran. Just beyond the open field was tall grass. I managed to loose the wolves, as I came across willow tree by a lake. I stoped their to take a break, when I heard hissing.

Looking up into the tree was a Naga. He had green hair and eyes to match his green tail. He was skinny and so malnourished he didn't have the strength to move anymore. I quickly left that spot and kept moving, till I came across some caves.

It was almost night and it started to get dark. So I went inside the cave, to learn to late that what is a hole in the ground three steps in. I fell into the darkness and blacked out.

_____

Dark and lonely. Thats what I would describe my life to be. A lonley spider in cave.

While the other people in the some wait for their next meal I'm working on making my way out of this hell hole. As I continued to dig my tunnel when I felt my webs vibrate, something fell into my webs.

I slowly made my way over to the cave entrance, surprised too see a unconscious girl tangled in my webs. She had soft silky h/c hair, and smooth s/c skin. I slowly started to inspect her entirely. As I did I found a mouse brand burned onto her skin.

Like me, a monster brand was burned on my side. I untangled her and placed her down softly on the ground. She felt So warm in my arms, I almost didn't want to let go. So I took her deep within the caves, too hide her from the monsters. But also to keep her here, with me.

___

I slowly started to wake up, as I sat up I found my self in a cave. Looking down I was laying on some sort of silk thread, or web. Actually the whole room was covered in webs. I slowly started to stand and started to rip the remaining webs on me.

Suddenly I heard something crawling. Then I saw it a Drider, though I never saw one before. He had half red and half white hair, with a big hurn on the left side of his face, all over his body he bore scars, and on the right side of his chest was the monster brand burned on his skin.

"Umm, hello," I said as I slowly sat back down. He did block my only exit.

"Hello.... I'm suprised your not screaming, or trying to escape," he said bluntly with a neutral face.

"Well your blocking my only exit, and even if I scream no one is gonna hear me so, yeah... I'm y/n by the way," I said as I held out my hand.

"Umm, I'm shouto the Drider," he said simply slowly shaking my hand.

"So.. Umm, why did you spare me. I thought you would be hungry like the other people up there?" I said looking up at the ceiling.

"Well I have a slow matabalizem, so it takes a while for me to get hungry. I.. I was just lonely," he said with with a light blush.

"Oh... O-okay, I'd be happy to

acompany you, shouto," I said with a smile.

Shouto seemed stuned at first as he seemed to just stare at me for a bit. Suddenly it seemed his eyes began to water, then he pulled me into a tight hug. As he did he stood up to his full hight, which lifted me a few feet of the ground. I slowly and hestitanly returned his hug. His spider half looked like it was an albino verson of a black widow.

As I was studying I could hear him smelling me... It was weird but I didn't say anything. Suddenly I heard a buzzing noise.

____

I could hear them. The humans flying spies, they were looking for Y/n. Gently placing y/n down on the nest, I went to investigate.

I saw it the flying cameras. I quietly sneaking up behind it and quickly smashing it with a rock. They weren't going to take my friend away from me.

-----

As the weeks went by Y/n and Shouto got closer and closer. Y/n would help with Shouto's tunnel, and sometime shouto would go out to the surface to bring berries for y/n. She would clean up any wounds Shouto would gain.

As the weeks went on y/n became more, and more weak. The berried weren't enough to sustain her. She could even afford to move or spend any energy, or she will starve even more. So in desperation, Shouto worked on the tunnel even more. Till he finally did it, he finally tunneled his way outside the dome.

Quickly and quietly he scools y/n into his arms and escapes from this hell. Shouto travled for days, getting as far away from the city, and the dome as possible. When they finally settled down, high up in a tall tree, Shouto went out and hunted down a strong stag.

Cooking it and feeding it to y/n. As time went on y/n did regain her strength.

_____

I slowly crawled down the tree with y/n in my arms. I was so nerves, always worrying if somethi g would come and take y/n away.

We finally made it to the ground , and I let y/n down. She stood still for awhile then she started to.. Roll around on the ground with a wide a smile.

"Were free Shouto. It feels so good," she exclaimed as she jumped up and hugged me.

"Y/n... Thank you for staying with me. Even when you were close to dying. I never want to lose you, and I treasure you, Y/n," I said as is quickly pulled her into a passonite kiss.

And I was happy went she slowly melted into my kiss. This is my paradise. She is my Utopia.

#monster au #shoto torodoki #bnha shoto #shoto x reader #fluff #mha x reader #bnha

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delimeful · 4 years

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Fake title: Helpless

wrote a synopsis for this and then accidentally turned it into a whole fic. whoops!

Also for @hiddendreamer67 Feb Prompts Day 1: Ideal!

warnings: spider, spider biology, injury mention, fear

As a drider, Virgil was well aware that he should stay well away from the nearby human town, unless he wanted a bounty on his head and adventurers near and far coming to claim it. His capacity for human interaction was already strained whenever he rebuffed any advances into his woods made by ambitious explorers or lost travelers by gently scaring them back in the direction of society.

Well. He thought it was gentle, but apparently the townsfolk had been telling stories, because today he ventured near the edge of the woods to gather plants, and now he was here. Three of his spider legs were stuck in three separate steel-toothed traps, because having to get rid of just one leg wasn’t bad enough, no, of course they’d left more snap traps sitting around for him to recoil into like an idiot.

He carefully avoided putting any pressure on his trapped legs as he peered around to make sure he wasn’t about to set off anymore, because those things hurt like a bitch.

Behind him, a twig snapped underfoot.

He twisted around best he could, his front legs springing up in a threat display and his throat forming a spitting hiss. He was forced to drop back down a moment later, because his second left leg was one of the ones trapped, and he had automatically twitched in an attempt to raise it anyways, the motion sending agonizing pain through him.

Before him, a human stood, shaking like a leaf. His soft brown eyes were locked on his spider half, pupils shrunk with fear. He wasn’t a hunter, at least. Not with that attitude.

But he’d be going to get the hunters, and then Virgil’d really be fucked if he didn’t get over himself and tear his legs off already. Sure, it’d be agonizing and maybe he’d bleed to death, but would humans really give him any better?

“Relax,” he finally grumbled, tired of watching the stranger tremble, “I’m not going to eat you. I can’t even move, see?”

He gestured to his legs, which were technically a majority free, but whatever. Wait, had he just implied that he would eat the human if he was free? Shit, he was so bad at this social interaction thing. This was why he lived alone in the woods, dammit!

The human jerked his head up to meet his gaze, as though surprised he could talk. “You’re not a giant spider,” he said, voice tremulous but almost… relieved?Virgil leaned back as far as he could, hoping the guy wasn’t about to have a mental break.

“Uh, I’m a like, at least half giant spider,” he corrected, because he was incapable of keeping his stupid mouth shut, apparently.

“But that means you’re also at least half not a spider,” the human replied firmly, never letting his eyes drift below torso level. “So it’s… fine! Everything’s fine!”

He also ignored the way his voice cracked, instead dropped into a crouch to search the ground near him. After a moment, he perked up, and turned back to Virgil with a large, blocky stone in hand.

Virgil couldn’t help but hunch down and curl his free legs in towards him, a strangled whine leaving him as his injured legs tugged at the traps. His breathing got shallower, wondering if he could get away on five legs. Humans only had two, it couldn’t be that hard, right? Unless the humans followed the blood trail he’d undoubtedly leave behind.

The human took a step forward, brow crinkling, and Virgil’s resolve broke as another tug at his legs send a fresh wave of pain through him. “Oh spirits, please don’t stone me. Come on, just go get someone with a sword, it’ll be done so much faster. I- I haven’t hurt anyone, I swear!”

The human stopped short, which was weird because Virgil hadn’t expected pleading to work. “I– stone you?” He looked at the rock in his hand like he’d never seen it before. “No, no, I’m trying to help you! This is f- for breaking open the traps, not by killing you!”

That was ridiculous. Virgil uncurled slightly anyways, because he’d never learned when to stop hoping. “What? Why?”

The human looked at him as though he was the crazy one. “Because you’re in pain and you need help?” He took another step forwards, hands lifted peacefully. Virgil resisted the urge to hiss another warning, unconvinced.

“Most humans would be putting an arrow through my skull right now,” he replied, “so I don’t really see how me being weak and vulnerable explains your sudden mercy.”

The human frowned. “Well, I have different ideals than ‘most humans,’ then. You deserve sympathy as much as anyone, even if you do have quite a few m- more legs than most.”

He was nearly at the first trap now, putting him well in range of Virgil if he decided to grab him with arms or legs. His legs were visibly shaking, his eyes a little too wide, but he kept approaching anyways. Virgil exhaled slowly.

“Fine. Do what you want.”

“I will,” the human answered brightly. He mumbled encouraging words to himself as he wrestled with the mechanism, finally springing it open with one last hit from the stone. Virgil pulled his bleeding leg to himself automatically with a wince, and dragged some silk webbing with his fourth leg to carefully and quickly wrap the bleeding injury.

Below him, surrounded by spider limbs, the human had frozen with careful breaths until Virgil was still once more. “One down!” he uttered shakily.

The other two followed in much the same way, and though he was still feeling pain, his carapace was thick enough that he thought the wounds might heal over properly by his next molt. He owed this human all three legs, at this point.

“There we go!” the human cheered, taking a few respectful-maybe-fearful strides back to give him space. Behind him, something glinted in the sun.

Virgil acted on impulse, his body moving before his brain could catch up. His front legs jumped out to catch the human and pull him in with a yank, and then he reached down and lifted him right off the ground easily by the armpits.

The human yelped, squirming in his hold, and he resisted the very spider urge to squish him against his chest until he quit wiggling. “Sorry, sorry! You’re okay, I’ve got you, I’m not gonna hurt you.”

“Whahuh!?” the human asked shrilly, round glasses slightly askew. He looked much softer, close up like this.

“You… um, you were about to walk into one of those traps,” Virgil explained, angling himself so they could see the metal glinting in the leaves. “I’m pretty sure humans can’t grow legs back, so…”

The human was silent for another stunned moment, and then turned to look at him properly. “Thank you so much,” he said, eyes shiny with awe.

Virgil immediately felt embarrassed. “You’re the one who saved me, you don’t have to thank me…”

The human chuckled. “I guess that means now we’re even! Oh gosh, I still don’t know your name after all this! I’m Patton,” he offered Virgil a toothy grin.

“Um, Virgil,” he returned, still slightly off balance. He’d never gotten to exchange names with a human like this. “And I think I still owe you two more leg saves before we’re even.”

Another one of those sweet laughs. Virgil carefully began to navigate between the trees, watching the ground. Once he finally deemed the area clear, he picked up the pace, darting over the ground. It was stilted with his injuries, but he could manage.

“Where are we going?” Patton asked, apparently content to dangle like a cat as they traveled. He’d only glanced down at Virgil’s legs once before losing a bit of color and keeping his gaze firmly on Virgil’s face.

“Back to the town,” he answered. “That’s where you live, right?”

“Oh,” Patton said, almost disappointed. “I thought maybe we were going to hang out a bit longer. You’re much friendlier than most of the folk in town.”

Wow. The townspeople must really suck if they weren’t being nice to a guy as sweet as this. Virgil chewed on his lip, debating with himself for a moment, but… if Patton had treated him so kindly while he was mostly helpless, there was no real reason to mistrust him.

“I… do still technically owe you two more saves,” he said, voice faltering. “I should sleep now, but if you… wanted to come visit. That would be cool, I guess.”

Pattton brightened, and Virgil found himself hoping it would be the first of many smiles he’d get to see.

#asks #anonymous #fake titles #sanders sides #spider virgil #ts virgil #ts patton #writing #my writing #feb prompts 2020 #*posts at the odd hours of the morning* i cannot be stopped.#*closes the like 7 tabs of spider research i opened for this fic*#did you guys know spiders can purr through vibrations?#because its a thing and now its a virgil thing #helpless

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moonloredraws · 4 years

Photo

Hello! I’m Moonlore, an Estonian Illustrator and Comic Artist based in the Netherlands! I primarily work with fantasy themes, and I have a variety of different comics I work on, which will be detailed in this post.

Other places to find me!

I can be found on most Social Media as MoonloreDraws. This includes Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, my Etsy , my itch.io , Tapastic, and YouTube. In some other places I can just be found as Moonlore, such as my Patreon, my Ko-fi, Pillowfort, and Artstation. I have a few other miscellaneous places that I can be found, including my FurAffinity and my NSFW Twitter. You can also go visit my Portfolio Website! I also stream on Twitch!

More information can be found under the Read More!

Places to Support Me!

I’m an independent artist trying to make a living making comics and drawings, so any and all support is greatly appreciated!

Patreon - This is where most of my magic happens. You can pick a tier, and you get to see high quality art for a small price each month and you get to see exclusive behind the scenes work of my comics! I have two tiers, a SFW one, and a NSFW one! It’s pretty self explanatory.

Ko-Fi - This is where you can donate to me!

My Online Shop- Here is where you can buy my stuff! You will be able to get physical goodies shipped right to you via snail mail! I have Stickers, Books, Prints and all sorts of other goodies!

My itch.io - There’s not a whole lot here yet, but this is where I’ll be selling my PDFs! Itch.io has been shown to be more reliable to comic artists than Gumroad which has gone down a crypto road, plus issues with not paying out.

My Comics!

It’s An Odd Kind of Fairytale is a long term project of mine that follows the story of two girls who get given powers by gods and must embark on an epic journey to prove that they are worthy of the powers.

You can read the first 5 chapters for free on Tapas!

You can also buy the first 5 Chapters in book form from my shop, and I am currently working on the 6th Chapter on my Patreon!

Aberrant Tendencies is another long term project, consisting of various short erotica comics featuring monsters as the love interests. These comics are LGBTQIA+ friendly and vary in their themes and the montrousness of the content.

Aberrant Tendencies is currently a Patreon Only project, but when the first public comic is finished it will be available for purchase on Gumroad.

The very First Aberrant Tendencies comic, Hex Over Heels, is 8 pages long, and has a 4 armed lesbian demon and a bi human witch lady. This is Patreon only and will not be printed in any books or be for sale anywhere else. It is still accessible on my NSFW Tier.

The current comic I am working on, Stellar Jewels, is 20 pages long, and features an agender alien and a human woman, and there’s egg nonsense.

The next comic I will work on is called Itsy Bitsy Girlfriend and will be 24 pages long, include lots of legs and some rope stuff and a very very funky mouth. The protagonists are a male drider and a female elf!

Other Comics can be found on my Tapastic as well!

Commissions!

I do take commissions occasionally! They are currently open but my queue is full and I’m working very slowly through everything, but if you are interested in getting a commission, please look through my Trello Page for the Terms of Service and Commission Prices and then feel free to shoot me an email over at moonlore [@ ]hotmail [.] com

( without the brackets and spaces of course! )

About Me!

I’m Moonlore, some people call me Gretz! I’m an avid D&D player, cat lover and tea enthusiast! I’m in my mid 20s and have a degree in making comics, so I’d like to think I know what I’m doing when it comes to sequential art. I’ve lived in several different countries, and now I’ve hopefully settled down permanently until I retire and go back to my home country or something. I speak a few languages, with English being my primary one, since I use it pretty much every day for everything. Estonian and Spanish are ok and I’m starting to pick up Dutch too!

#About Me #Artist on Tumblr #Moonlore #MoonloreDraws

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doing-an-okay-job-miranda · 4 years

Text

Vampire Kisses

Part One: AO3 / Tumblr

AO3 link

Masterlist

Warnings: Mentions of Drider!Virgil, Vampire!Patton, Blood Puns/mention, A little insecurity but this fic is mostly just fluff

Summary:

"Patton!" Roman cried out as he bursts through the door of their inn's room "I'm in love!" The prince rushes forward and flings himself on the bed, causing his sweet vampire to laugh as they bounce.

"Again?" Patton's eyes are fond and crinkle up with his smile. "You haven't even been gone for a day."

"It's not my fault there are so many pretty boys!"

Or Roman goes to his Vampire boyfriend to gush about his Spider crush

----------

Patton!" Roman cried out as he bursts through the door of their inn's room "I'm in love!" The prince rushes forward and flings himself on the bed, causing his sweet vampire to laugh as they bounce.

"Again?" Patton's eyes are fond and crinkle up with his smile. "You haven't even been gone for a day." Still, Patton sits up and crosses his legs all too excited to hear who captured his partner's heart.

"It's not my fault there are so many pretty boys!" Roman drapes his arms over his eyes as he sighs loudly, only peeking up when Patton giggles and leans over him. "You should have seen him, I've never seen such purple eyes before. Oh, how all his eyes widened when I called him gorgeous! You'd think no one recognized his beauty before! It's a crime! It's illegal! I will make it illegal and I will-" The prince is cut off by a soft kiss to his lips, the angle is awkward and upside down as Patton leans him but Roman eagerly leans up and smiles against his lover's lips.

Sadly, Patton pulls back before Roman can get to into it but the prince can't find it in his heart to be upset when he looks up at Patton and sees an angel(despite the more 'unholy' nature of Patton's existence but when Patton smiles with his sharp teeth and soft lips how can Roman be anything but reverent?)

"When do you think I could meet this criminally gorgeous man?" Patton snickers and it takes a moment for Roman to even remember what he was talking about before, how on Earth was he supposed to think clearly with Patton being so cute above him?

But then his stomach drops. "Oh, uh-" Patton watches him, a little concern in sparking in his silver eyes as normally Roman wouldn't hesitate to drag the vampire to the next cute boy he found but this situation is a little different.

There are three things working against him.

Spiders. Roman is sure this is only a minor issue, as the cute Drider isn't an actual spider and while Patton may be a little unsettled at first, his darling would never judge anyone on what they were.

The main issues were that his amethyst lived underground. Patton would never be able to enter such an enclosed space without being reminded what the horror he went through, without reliving the feeling of having to dig himself out of his own grave.

"Should I-" Patton hesitates, hand raising to cover his mouth and hide half of his beautiful face. "Should I not meet him?" Roman knows that look in his eyes too well, the sadness of being reminded that Patton isn't human anymore and that such horrible idiots have the nerve to be scared of the purest ball of sunshine Roman has ever met.

Roman sits up quickly to face the vampire. "No, no, my love, that's not why I'm worried. You know that I would never even entertain the idea of someone who couldn't see what an incredible being you are." He rushes to assure, gently taking Patton's hands and pulling them to rest over his heart. "My heart beats for you, my sweet cloud." Roman finds himself smiling as Patton's face flushes up without fail. "I'm just worried because his home is in a burrow and I'm not sure of my ability to coax him out. I never want to risk your comfort."

There's a moment of quiet between them, Roman watches Patton smile return to him, although a bit sadder than before. "That would sure make my blood run cold."

Apparently watching Roman's expression suddenly drop between soft comfort and utter despair is funny because Patton's expression immediately lights up as Roman groans.

"I really appreciate it, your effort isn't in vein!"

"Patton!" The moment is ruined! The prince finds himself flopping back to lay down once more although the effect is lost a little as he lays his head on Patton's lap.

"Oh! Sorry, was that the final nail in the coffin?" Patton runs his fingers through Roman's hair, gently scratching his scalp and making it really hard to stay upset.

Roman lets out a long-suffering sigh before sealing his fate. "It's a bite too much." He mutters out grumpily but it's a hard battle trying to fight off a grin with how ecstatic Patton looks. He quickly loses said battle when Patton leans over to kiss him again, muffling giggles when Roman catches his bottom lip between his teeth.

They lay there for some time, exchanging kisses and filling the breaths in between with rambles of love, either for each other or for Roman's new crush. The prince couldn't be anything but content, only mildly wishing he had a lovely spider boy curled up beside them to share kisses with as well.

"So what is he?" Patton finally asks the fated question as Roman goes into the less human details of his newly beloved.

"Um, well... He's a Drider?" Roman says with a sheepish grin, carefully watching Patton's expression only to get a confused look as Roman figured that Patton has no idea what that is given the fact before his love died he lived in a very human-only town. "Ah, he's um- well, don't repeat this but he's a spider person. Like a centaur but a spider instead of a horse."

"Oh." Patton makes a cute little 'o' with his lips that Roman has to fight the urge to kiss. "No wonder he has you caught like a fly."

"Oh my lord, he could trap me in his web any day." Roman felt his face heat up with the idea but he quickly shoves those down, the Drider hadn't agreed to be courted yet and the prince sure as heck will respect that.

"Does he have a name or should I wait till I meet him to ask?" Many creatures didn't like they're names being given freely as both Patton and Roman have learned but the question makes the prince pause.

"Oh my fucking Lord." Roman's hands shoot to hide his face, ignoring Patton's small chastising for his language. "Patton!" He whines. "I forgot to ask his name!" The prince's ears heat up as he steals a glance through his fingers at Patton, the vampire with a hand over his mouth to hold back laughter. "Don't laugh at me! Patty, I have to wait a week to see him again! How will I survive?!"

Patton barely stifles his snickers but Roman couldn't truly be upset as the vampire twirls a lock of the prince's hair. "It'll be okay, honey. You just need to B positive."

Roman peeked through his fingers slightly, embarrassment fading a little as he was just more confused now. "I'm afraid I don't get that one, love." The way Patton said it made it obvious it was a joke but Roman is stupid and gay right now, thank you very much.

Patton doesn't take offense though, scratching dulled nails softly into Roman's scalp. "B positive is a blood type." He explains but it only adds to his prince's confusion.

"There are- there are types of blood?" When did that happen? Is this just a vampire thing? "What type am I?"

Patton's fingers paused their movement which is a crime in itself. "You're AB positive. Were you not taught this in your schooling? I've had a conversation about it with Remus before."

"Look," Roman's face immediately heats up again with embarrassment but Patton starts playing with his hair again so not all is lost. "I was taught a lot of things I didn't pay attention to." Schooling was so boring and half of it wasn't even useful, why would he even need to know about blood and stuff? He's not a doctor. "All I need to know is how much of a snack I am."

"I don't know if you'll ever compare to my midnight cookies but you're definitely a close second." Patton's giggles fill the air and Roman has to resist the urge to lean up and kiss him, except he doesn't resist at all and gladly bares his red flustered face to the world to steal Patton's lips for a moment.

"Your cookies are amazing, I don't accept second place but they are a respectable foe."

#sanders sides #sanders sides fic #roman sanders #patton sanders #virgil sanders #royality #prinxiety #Eventual Dlamp #A princes guide to seducing monsters

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cozycryptidcorner · 5 years

Photo

Chapter Five

???? After Arrival

Your mouth is dry.

It hurts to swallow, but doing so is a habit that your body cannot break. So you go through the motions even with the pain, the tongue pressing up against the roof of your mouth, the muscles in your cheeks trying to push the thick, almost nonexistent saliva down into your raw throat. The stone of the floor is cool against your feverish skin, trying to ignore the way little rocks and grit dig into your cheek. Every breath you take is ragged and weak, the hunger penetrating through your muscles and into your very bones. If you had the emotional energy, you might try to cough up a few tears to cry, but you feel nothing other than a grim determination to succeed.

If he wanted you dead, he would have killed you right where you had stood, braced to run, even when you knew it was futile. He could have plucked out your heart and watched you with those soulless black eyes as you bled out on the floor, crying for a deity who couldn’t be bothered to answer your tearful prayers.

A panel on the door opens, and you hear the quiet tsk tsk of a disapproving servant as she reaches in and retrieves your untouched meal tray.

“You must keep your strength up, kore,” she says, but you don’t answer.

Now

There’s buzzing flare in the top of your skull, right on the edge of your brain. It reminds you kind of those headaches you would get if you forgot to drink through an entire day, a dull, throbbing thing that threatens to grow even stronger if there isn’t a quick solution. Your lips are getting cracked from having to breath out of your mouth, your nose stuffed up from a variety of different things. Dust, probably, for one, but maybe also the fact that you’re trying not to cry, though your eyes are still tearing up, and since they aren’t escaping normally, they’re just slipping back into your body running out your nose.

“Should I call for a doctor?”

You almost start at his voice, though it’s not like you just forgot the prince’s presence, especially not with the way that he gently plays with your hair. The idea of having to see someone else who is just as unfamiliar right now as everything else feels just as unwanted as the aching in your joints. “I’d rather not, no.”

“Would you rather go to bed?”

You mull the idea over, squinting at the light despite its dimness. Yes, you want to go to bed, you decide, but then immediately wonder if the prince was going to follow you to your room. While casual murder might be his mode of operation, he doesn’t seem to be the type to do that, so you don’t think you have to worry about being alone with him in an enclosed space. Even though you are pretty confident that there isn’t any incriminated evidence that’s currently out, to have him in there, potentially poking around, you aren’t so sold on that idea.

On the other hand, though, isn’t the welcome dinner that you obviously aren’t even thinking about going to happening tonight? The one where you aren’t planning to spy on the goings-on just to get a taste of the political strife happening all around the underground palace? Maybe if you go to bed, he’ll get out of your way quickly so you can do some internal investigating. Or perhaps he’ll stick around for a little longer than anticipated, running the risk of something slipping, either out of you or out of your personal belongings.

Hell, you’re not one to back away from risk. “Yes.”

He helps you up, doing most of the muscle work since your knees don’t want to do their job. You almost stumble into him, grabbing onto one of his smooth, thin legs for support. Instead of seeming uncomfortable or put off in the slightest, he asks, “are you alright to walk?”

You grit your teeth because you aren’t going to fold this quickly into being dependant on someone for something, even as small as letting him carry you to the bedroom. Goddamnit, you’re going to make this walk yourself or die trying. “I’m good, I just-

Your vision spots out.

The light glares down at your eyes, far harsher than you are ready for when you open them. The bed you lay on is thin, barely wide enough to keep your limbs from flopping off as long as they stay perfectly straight and unbent. Unfortunately, your clothes are gone, replaced by a dull brown dress, long and straight, and judging by the coolness running along your spine, loosely tied, if not all the way open, at the back. Talking, there’s talking happening somewhere to the side, tense, worried words shooting back and forth between two… maybe three people.

“She should have been checked in when she first arrived.”

“I sent her the notifs based on her contact info, and even went so far as to try to get her assistant involved, but the damn machine stopped all responses yesterday-”

“You should have told me.”

“Of- of course, keias, a thousand apologies, you’re absolutely right. It won’t happen again.”

“It won’t, you are very correct.”

You sit up, terrified that this might end in bloodshed if you listlessly eavesdrop even more than you already have. Big mistake, you discover, as a sharp punch drills through your skull, your fingers shooting up to press against your temples, and then you whimper. You don’t mean to do that, in fact, the moment the sound resonated through your body, you make it stop, your lungs shaking with the effort, but the damage is already done. As much as you like capitalizing on those who underestimate you, outwardly showing weakness? Not your style, not at all, so you take in a gulping breath and hold it.

“Do something!” The prince is at your side, how did he end up there so fast? “She is in pain, fix it.”

“Of course, sire, one moment, and I’ll get out-”

“I don’t care to hear the specifics.” His hands fold over yours, adding a smidgen of pressure that actually eases the pain somewhat. “Get it done.”

A sharp, small pinch nicks the side of your neck, a crisp, palming feeling quickly running through your veins, overwhelming the pain like a tidal wave. It doesn’t go away, though, merely… sinks to the back, while whatever settles in your blood overshadows it significantly. Slowly, you open your eyes, your breath calming, your muscles relaxing, finding the prince barely a few inches away, the closest he has been physically, ever. The lights dull slightly, did the doctor turn those down for you? Everything looks like there’s some sort of halo of energy around everything, and the prince seems to fizzle with it. You need to touch it, actually, so you reach out and place your fingers against his forehead.

“Hey there,” you say, your head feeling wayyyyyyyyyyyyy lighter than usual.

“What was that?” The prince says in his grumpy shlumpy voice, looking over at a tall, thin figure that you can’t quite make out.

“A numbing agent, keias,” the other person says, “fast-acting but not without its side effects. She will be back to normal within a few hours, which is plenty of time to find a better long term solution.”

“Side effects?” The prince says as you pet the side of his ridiculously smooth face.

“Well,” the doctor gestures in your general direction, “it doesn’t just dull the pain receptors in the brain; unfortunately, it also dulls everything else. Her hand-eye coordination is off, her balance is warped, and her ability to sense dangerous situations is significantly lower than what it normally is. Relatively speaking, sire, she’s drunk.”

You snort, turning over in the direction the blobby spot in your vision is speaking. “Excuse you, but a milliliter of whatever isn’t going to do anything to me, bud, I once drank an entire bottle of Moseranian aged wine, and I may not remember that night, but I survived, so,” you shrug, waving your hands, “I’d like to see you do that and come out with your liver intact.”

“Like I said, keias, she’s not in a normal state of mind at the moment,” the doctor says, and then adds, almost dubiously, “she might also be more likely to answer any questions truthfully.”

“Leave.” The prince doesn’t turn around to give the order; rather, he seems far more focused on you than he has been in a long while. “Find something to help that’s more than whatever this is.”

“Of course, sire.” A door opens and closes with the doctor’s exit, leaving the two of you alone.

You pat his head. “I’ve always wanted to touch your hair, it always seemed so nice and silky, like-” you giggle, “no offense, but like a spider’s web.”

“A spider’s web,” the prince repeats, his eyes squinting, his head tilting to the side. “Spiders are common creatures where you are from?”

“Yeah, even more than rats or other pests. Mining stations are great for them because I guess space lice is a good source of food, and they don’t need to breathe too much air, so if they get accidentally locked in a no-air zone, they’re more likely to survive. The little guys were a real problem where I came from.” You giggle, switching over your wrist so he could see a bite mark on the underside of your forearm. “I got bit by a blue recluse once.”

He reaches out, taking your arm into his hands so he can take a more intimate look at it. “And the... blue recluse, are they poisonous?”

“Oh, yeah, horrifically so.” You wave your other hand, laughing it off. “I almost died, but whatever.”

A puff of breath escapes from him, you can’t tell if he’s laughing with you or exasperated. He lifts your hand up to his mouth and kisses the heel of your wrist. “I’m glad you didn’t die.”

You don’t answer.

“I suppose, then, what I really wish to know is how you handle the drider species as a whole,” he says, “I understand the similarities between spiders and us are rather, er, distastefully similar.”

“I mean, the eight legs. Yeah.”

“Do you find me hideous?”

You balk, sure that you heard him wrong. “I- do I what?”

“Do you find my appearance unnerving?” He asks. “I understand that spiders tend are disconcerting to your kind, though with good evolutionary reason.”

“Weeeeeeeelllll I wouldn’t say hideous. Or disconcerting. And I don’t think it’s because of the spider legs, maybe it’s because of how….” you forget the word, trying to mime it with your hand. “Um, seismic isn’t what I mean, uh… big? Kind of. You take up space, and that makes me nervous.”

“I see.”

You can’t tell if he’s disappointed in you, and no, don’t want that, so you try to clear up what you mean. “Most other people I know have been threats,” you say, “on the mining colony and, um, as a pilot, but I’ve always been able to somehow rise above the game and walk out scotch free. But I don’t know you, ok? I like knowing things because then I’d find ways to get out of a situation if stuff blows up, and I don’t really know you, except that you could kill me far easier than I could kill you. I don’t like that.”

The prince hums, a bit thoughtfully, reaching over and brushing some stray hair strands that had fallen in your face without you noticing. The brightness in the lighting suddenly changes, the electricity humming in your ears like a solar mite. “That is understandable.”

“It’s all unfamiliar.” You squint at the fluctuating lighting in the room. “And the expectations of everyone is worse than…” you trail off, tightening your mouth in the realization that you might have let out more than you should have.

“The expectations of what.” The prince’s body stiffens considerably, his hands no longer holding onto your kindly. They’re holding onto you like he is about to see how much pressure you can withstand before your bones start cracking.

“The- the-” lie, lie, lie, a voice in your head hisses urgently. Clear everything out. Mislead, but don’t speak anything false you can’t remember. “You don’t think the match of the supposed insane heir of Lolth, the biggest player in the opposing force in a war, isn’t going to turn many heads? The Matchmakers aren’t even the ones to sit me down to go over everything like their protocol demands. Someone leaked the information to the press. I woke up one day to everyone, the military, the civic government, and all news companies within the quadrant trying to break their way into my ship.”

Everything melts again, his expression softening, his fingers resuming to tracing the scars from various mishaps on your bare arms. “The Matchmakers weren’t even able to reveal anything to you?”

“You didn’t know?” You fold your arms around yourself. “Headline news every single day from when the info leaked to when we entered the censor barrier, but I don’t doubt it’s still circulating even now.”

“I did not.” He sounds far away, deep in thought. “No one- no one dared to hurt you, did they?”

You think of the sparring sessions where Clementine tended to go really hard without any reason other than the thrill of the fight, and then the representative that favored pain as an effective method of teaching. “Torture? No, there wasn’t any torturing. It’s not like I would magically know anything more than the average person just because I was matched with you. There were...”

“There were what?”

“Ummmm, like deals. Offers. Big corporations that wanted a foothold in this territory. I didn’t get much more than a few contract messages before Starward Matchmakers cut off all contact from the outside so I could, um, ‘focus on integrating into Lolth’s society’,” you use air quotes there, rolling your eyes. “I just think they’re worried they might not be the only intermedial and supposedly neutral presence in both sides- your eyes, by the way? Are really, very pretty. Like kaleidoscope colors, but without the kaleidoscope.” You reach out, then stop, remembering it’s probably not a good idea to poke one of his eyeballs.

He doesn’t shy away from the aggressive hand gestures, only creeps slightly closer. “Surely the presence of the representative helps you now? With acclimating?”

“Uh,” is this like… a test? Does he want you to tell him what’s happened? You start playing with the end of your hospital dress, tugging at the threads along the hem, trying to come up with the words to play this in your favor. “She’s been infected with a virus.”

“I didn’t think people of her caliber got sick.”

You let out a frustrated sigh. “No, no, an electric virus, like someone from the outside has managed to hack into her internal functions? People do it for corporate espionage, like, all the damn time.” When he appears to be absorbing the information as though it’s brand spanking new, you add, almost hesitantly, “didn’t you know about this?”

“No,” he says, calm, “I did not. When did this happen?”

“Yesterday she came back, all loopy and stuff. Had to shut her down for a full reboot, but this morning her diagnostics found a foreign programming, like a bug or something.” You yawn, placing your fingers in front of her mouth. “I thought you had something to do with it, so I didn’t say anything.”

“You thought-” he pauses, trying to come up with the words, “that I had something to do with that? Why?”

You shrug weakly, shaking your head. “I don’t know.”

“Do I seem to be the person who-” his voice trails off, his mouth closing sharply. “Have I done anything that made you seem unsafe?”

“No.” Maybe you should stop petting his hair while you talk about how untrustworthy you’ve found him in the last couple of days, but it’s so silky? And shiny? The black almost shimmers in the now-green light, it’s actually kind of fun to play with. “You’ve been way nicer than I’d thought you’d be.”

The prince is silent for a moment more. “How so?”

“Everyone told me that you’d be all rawrrrrrr,” you use your fingers for makeshift mandibles on either side of your mouth, “I’m gonna eat you, little girl, and toast to Satan with your blood, and make cute belts and stuff from your skin and wear your face like a hat! But it turns out you don’t eat orc babies because you believe they will give you strength.”

He stares you dead in the eye. “How do you know that I didn’t feed you orc infants during our first dinner?”

You stare, dumbly, and then you think if you open your eyes any wider, they might fall out of your skull. “Y-y-you did not-”

He laughs, laughs, the sound as relieving and good, you feel the same kind of serene flow as when you first heard real, planet-made rain, a sudden shock at what it is, and then a warm feeling spreading out from your chest and down to your fingertips.

“You were joking? You were joking,” you say, and then you start giggling too because damn, that was kind of funny, despite your initial terror at the thought of infanticide. Your vision sharpens, the shapes and angles of the prince becoming far more vibrant.

The door slides open, and your eyes fall onto the Bloody Doctor of the Kazzanine Run, a tall, thin, and rather gaunt elf holding up a medical tablet, those blackened eyes falling over onto you. On instinct, you grab for the closest thing you might be able to use as a weapon, in this case, the prince’s arm. “Ah,” they say, their voice familiar to you as the other person in the room earlier, “our lovely patient seems lucid enough to participate.”

You swallow thickly, your grip tightening around the prince’s arm as though it’s your only anchor to survival in this situation. “I thought you were dead.”

Indeed, the side of their face that has been hit by the laser blast of a rather resourceful sniper is marred with burn scars and discolored flesh, the corner of their mouth drooping down slightly despite the wickedly curved smile they wear like a painted mask. “Well, well, well, it looks like our favorite human girl has been keeping up with her government’s propaganda. No, I’m afraid that rumors of my demise have been grossly exaggerated.”

“Don’t leave me alone with them,” you whisper, low enough that only the prince will hear, and then slap on a halfhearted, “please.”

“Now, now, young lady,” they say, almost, condescendingly, “I’m here only to keep you alive, as my expertise in your species’ anatomy is not nearly as lacking as friends on Lolth.”

“From fucking experimenting on unwilling test subjects!”

They flick a little vial of liquid with their yellow-tinged finger. “I won’t expect someone like you to agree. with my methods, despite their necessity.”

“I beg your fucking pardon?”

“One day you’ll understand, I’m sure.” They come closer, holding the glass vial out to the prince instead of daring to step into your kicking radius. “Lolth has a way of leaching out your spirit.”

You see, unable to come up with anything that wouldn’t make you seem unseemly, but you are this close to ripping off one of the prince’s golden claws to stab that monster in the throat.

“I apologize a thousand times, sire, but I have yet to find a muscle strengthener dosage, so have her take a drop or two of the inhibitor before bed, this will only help her sleep through the night, staving off any migraine and muscle pain.”

“I didn’t ask for a temporary solution, Nisesh, I asked for something permanent.”

“I understand, keias, but I must respectfully remind you that the tiniest, most minuscule detail could potentially kill her,” they look directly at you, eyes narrow, “so I must request that I take the time that I need in order to make sure everything is properly concocted.”

The prince places a hand on your head, almost in reassurance. “I suggest that you hurry.”

They bow as low as any dog looking for a modicum of approval from its master will bow. “Of course, keias. If I may get started?”

“Do what you have to.”

As that monster leaves, you look at the vial in the prince’s hands, already deciding that you are not going to be taking it under any circumstances, not willing, anyway. Your stomach heats up as the room begins to tilt to the side, you recognize the urge to vomit the second your throat begins to tighten. “I need a bowl.”

“A bowl?”

“Or something, I’m about to throw up.”

You’ve never seen the prince scramble, but he does so now, his legs skittering against the hard metal floor as he flies to the counter on the other side of the room, finding something with enough volume to hold your stomach contents, and returns just in time for you to seize it with both arms. You tilt your head forward as whatever was in your stomach flies out, coughing, spluttering, the bile burning the back of your throat as it shoves its way up. It takes a few moments for you to even manage to pull in a gasping, choking breath before another round ensues. The prince hovers over you, hands out but not touching, unsure if there is anything he can do to help.

“I’m done,” you cough, “and I’m ready to go to bed now.”

“Of- of course,” he says, looking somewhat frazzled for the first time since you’ve met him.

The vomit stays where you hope that elfish abomination will be the one to have to deal with it, but you know there is probably an army of custodians that take care of that sort of thing. You have to change, though, and the prince respectfully steps out of the room while you do so, managing to finagle your arms to pull just enough of the buttons loose enough for the clinic dress’ removal. To be in your clothes again is a relief, the hospital gown made you feel kind of exposed, especially in the face of a war criminal you didn’t think you would ever manage to cross paths with. Your fingers start shaking as you tab the pad on the side of the door, opening it, and try to remain calm as you exit the room.

The prince waits for you to the side, hugging the wall to make himself smaller in case of passing workers. “Do you feel better?”

Your head is still light and fuzzy, but at least you’re able to comprehend that you’re high. Maybe the self-awareness will keep you from doing anything stupid. “A bit, but not fabulous.”

“Perhaps the substance was… unwarranted. Doctor Nisesh tends to be, how would you say it, ‘trigger happy’ when it comes to medications. I should have told them not to do it.”

“Don’t let them do anything to me.”

There is a pause. “You know I wouldn’t allow anyone to hurt you.”

” Do not let them do anything to me.”

The prince gives you a nod. “If you insist, then I shall see if there is another doctor versed in human anatomy available.”

“Good.” Your response is terse, but you don’t have it in you to be polite anymore.

He takes you to a waiting area, one with chairs facing towards two tunnels on opposite sides. On one end, a small, private tramcar waits, apparently for you, because he leads you to the open doors. The inside is plush, cushioned, and just the sort of disgustingly comfortable method of transit that you’d expect the royal family to have. And, since you’re a new addition, you suppose, you’re going to enjoy it, so you bounce onto one of the longer seats and lay your head down on the pillow.

“How long until we get back?”

“A few minutes,” the prince says, “it’s probably better if you rest, though, so if you wish to, then please do.”

“Right,” you say, laying your head down on the pillow, suddenly waking back up in your room.

#exophilia #drider #drider boyfriend #monster boyfriend #monster lovers

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bedlamgames · 3 years

Text

No Haven 0.945

Highlights for this one include new assignments, a new race, training being overhauled, new Ensnared Rose intro with various options, and more

Download links can be found on the No Haven page. Update notes can be found under the break.

If you don’t have RAGS and you need a copy to run it there’s one on the help page here or the one pinned on the patreon you can find a link to in the attached read me which is more up to date. If RAGS has never worked on your system despite the help page suggestions then it might be worth trying with one of the alternate players. There’s also improvements on there to the RAGS player that can also help with performance.

Change log under the break:

v0.945:

-Miscellaneous additions: ---Upgraded the Lago'mae trait package which was Slutty - Sex Addict - Seductive - Bimbo - Emotional to have Insatiable instead. ---Adjusted the Bimbo, Sissy, restraints, Obsessed Over, and Pariah penalties so overthrows should be not quite so instantaneous with those. Starting with Unproven as a Bimbo or Sissy could result in a day 1 loss. ---Made the favoured magic/elementalist trait in Full Custom wording less ambiguous.

-Bug fixes: ---Fix for Advanced Anal Training giving Obedient again. ---Fix for too many people having the dolled up ass. ---Fix for Nymph's not having a value. Which also fixed them getting increasingly valuable each time you estimated or examined them. ---Fix for the other reason why Nymph's weren't dominating slavers. ---Fix for Barbarous Bargains having an issue with having the wrong goals available when lacking in gold which could lead to getting stuck. ---Fix for an issue where part of the slave intros which you get before doing biomancy, corruption, making use of, etc. would be missing. While I was there I noticed that the recall bits don't really work if the slave came pre-trained like with the pirate booty so I've used some alternate wording to account for that which I've also used as a variation to the existing ones. I've also added some more text there for slaves who had previously not had specific ones like the cheerleaders.

v0.944:

-Miscellaneous additions: ---Added some new combined gender options for the slaver recruitment General Order. I also made 'Easy' for that more likely. ---No idea how but sometime before release the original intro that I remember being pretty good to arriving at the Marshlands following the letter got replaced by the ambush version. Also rather annoyingly it's apparently the one bit of text in the update that I didn't copy into docs for posterity, and I also can't find it in any of the backups, so I've had to rewrite it. ---Artful Whore is now an Exceptional on Corner and Pillow Talk. ---Anal Slut is now an Exceptional on Corner, Pillow Talk, Ponygirl Training, and both Anal Trainings. I've also made it so that if Anal Slut is an Exceptional on an assignment you'll get a Critical bonus for having Pleasure Enhancement-Ass or Dolled Up from the Neck Down. You don't need Anal Slut to get those bonuses but they do stack if you do. ---Added some extra ass examine description For Dolled Up Neck Down to reflect this. ---Added Crafter: Culinary (C:Cu) as a Success of Forage Supplies. ---If Dominated/Obedient will not count Submissive as a penalty on assignments. ---Sudden Betrayal and Whore Makers are no perma remove assignments with no chance of an unexpected return. ---Witches will always be permanently removed with no chance of return. ---Added an explanation of what Head Slaves do in Help. ---Added a note to Green Soul to confirm the time reduction stacking does work by having more than one. ---Despoiler's 'Reward' should now correctly count as chastity in all respects. It will also count as the belt from Quick as you Like apart from not having the morale loss. Added a chance to gain morale from that belt too, and added a bit of extra text to both results to reflect exactly why the morale is going up or down. ---Oozes will be less likely to inflict full gender transformation. Updated the Gathering Tide aspect to prevent it for all oozes entirely. ---Made it impossible to convince a golem to become a bed warmer or camp bitch. ---Slavers with slave training should now get the value estimate bonuses for having done that training.

-Bug fixes: ---Fix for the 'Say you'll handle it in private and do' dilemma choice. ---Fix for Corner of your Own incorrectly saying you can't send a female slaver when you always could. ---Fix for not being able to send a slave on the second role on Shuffled Deck. ---Fix for the slaver return piercings having the wrong spacing. ---Fix for realizing your slaver's worst fears not actually doing anything. ---Fix for succubi missing their flying mounts. While I was there I added a chance for those races with set flying mounts to be able to get a different mount. ---Fix for the Drider or Ooze skipping Catastrophic and instead getting a bonus not working like it does for Disasters. ---Fix for Centre of Attention, Gloryhole Box and Marshlands Survival not being listed in Assignment Overview. ---Fix for Unstable Change time reduction not working. ---Fix for Slaving Assignments repicking not clearing everything it should likely causing a myriad of issues. ---Fix for Scout the Deep Mountains time reduction for Flying being four days rather than the correct two. ---Fix for not being able to send a slaver-in-training on Halt Slaver Caravan or Halt Draenei Caravan. ---Fix for an issue where some traits may not have been checked specifically on certain assignments. ---Fix for Shadriel's aspect not taking up an aspect slot. ---Fix for Treachery Most Foul being listed twice in Overview Assignments. ---Fix for getting the burning crown corruption having the same text regardless of whether the character had spiritual/faith. I've also added some specific text if you get it as previously it only read right for someone else getting it. ---Fix for the Depraved trait abbreviation on Retribution for Arrogance and Arrogance Subjugated. ---Fix for Johanna von Knittlingen not getting the value bonus from her tongue. ---Fix for Elementalist: Air (E:Ai) not having a value bonus. ---Fix for missing/repeated text in Glimpse of Paradise if you get one of the hidden bonuses on the Critical Success. ---Fix for Cocksucking Natural being applied twice. ---Fix for the Aspect Green Soul not correctly giving the fully favoured bonus to being in the Ever Forest. ---Fix for Lago'Mae not always coming with Insatiable by default. ---Fix for the eight day version of Barbarous Bargains instead adding an Ample Distractions. ---Fix for Alice and Bles not showing anal training. Also not getting them Insatiable on Advanced Bimbo Training if they have Resilient. ---Fix for Dominated Slavers not showing the status effect like Slaves do. ---Some text fixes.

v0.943: New Assignments: ---The third and final part of Thornspire with a commission generously funded by a patron. Has some truly crazy potential rewards given all you need to do to get there.

-Miscellaneous additions: ---Got a comment about the lack of variety, length, and facials. After checking there were two causes for this. Facials were mainly a thing for titfucks only while most of the lengthier blowjob texts required training, obedience, or other factors so often they were defaulting to the basic result. Due to this I've adapted the titfuck facials so they can now occur during blowjobs. I've also added alternate options for when the blowjob result would normally change to the default one. Some of these are different enough they'll appear as an alternative to what would normally have been the result if the requirements were met. Also there's some other touch ups and more minor additions in there which don't just apply to blowjobs. ---Added a notification if a trait is boosted by Arcane Winds on assignments. ---Added some better formatting to highlight when getting a new assignment from an assignment. Also corrected some where it said a plural assignments when you were just going one. ---No more getting out of the Meddling Fools region debuff by just removing the assignment. ---Expert Fellatrix will no longer remove Dominant/Switch, and if so will not grant Obedient on the Critical or Submissive on the Success. So now you can put a slave through Advanced Dominance Training and then still get them to be really good at blowjobs without losing their dominance. ---For consistency you'll get the blonde demi-angel examine and not the black hair one if you're playing a demi-angel yourself.

-Bug fixes: ---Fix for the second part of Thornspire having the wrong display name. ---Fix for the first of Thornspire applying too much Xp to individual slavers on the Critical Success ---Fix for the Ensnared Rose letter turning up or the Shuffled Deck starting if you're away on an assignment. ---Fix for the slaver from the Ensnared Rose letter options having the same identifier as the last character generated resulting in duplication. ---Fix for Severina's art if playing as her yourself. ---Fix for Shuffled Deck where no one could be assigned to that one. ---Fix for the Featured Patrons text appearing when you change nicknaming. ---Fix for some total mind breaks such as from Domination not also removing Learning related traits like Educated or Folklorist. ---Fix for an issue where forced not male slavers could be generated as males anyway. ---Fix for tails being fondled twice. ---Fix for Scavenging rank up giving you Infiltration specialized slavers instead of Scavenging ones. ---Fix for everything to do with dreams being turned off. That affected the later parts of Quick as you Like, Heavenly Debauchery, Puppet Leader enforced sexy times, and being Possessed Nightly Activities. ---Fix for the no one else around check if choosing to ambush on the letter encounter. ---Fix for not getting a rare race when choosing the hardest option on Slaver Caravan. ---Fix for Keeping an eye on the slave on Price of Freedom overwriting the odds. ---Fix for Fel Tide not generating a Hold Back the Dark assignment. ---Fix for Alice not getting her training options if you get her from the letter rather than by Full Custom. ---Fix for Alice and Bles missing some training options along with adding some checks to ensure things don't go wrong if they become a slave. ---Experimental fix for armour tracking issues. Not 100% certain, but I couldn't replicate it. I also ran a tracker for pretty much everything that adds or subtracts armour and it all seemed to work properly. ---Some text fixes.

v0.942:

New Assignments: ---A special assignment for one of the uniques you can either start as or find on an assignment. You'll need to do something, or more specifically have something not happen, but if you can do that long enough this will become available. Has two commissions both funded by a patron and has one of the most unique uniques yet. The unique or you can gain an upgraded version of an existing aspect with a bunch more power and text. ---Advanced Anal Training. Will make the slave more likely to be used for anal and will again reduce the effects during sexy times.

Legion: ---Has a new commission for their examine which also has a version so they can now be Futanari as well as Males. This will be used for an assignment down the line so they won't be quite so tricky to find. ---Updated all the specific Legion text when they're refusing to do things. ---Updated their dialogue titles and swears. ---Significantly improved Legion starting traits to reflect their power. ---Expanded their lore page with another paragraph. ---Updated their skin colours. ---Updated their physical description which includes losing their tails.

Sable Masquerade: ---Thanks to a generous patron there's a new commission with a whopping five different variations. Specifically the assignment itself, the unique you can get on it as slaver and as a slave, a crop for the precursor to that assignment which is Treachery Most Foul. That crop is used for the unique as a slaver you can get on that assignment, and there's another version of that crop where she is a slave.

-Miscellaneous additions: ---Reworded Land Piracy Success to correct some unclear wording and to flesh it out a bit more. ---Updated the Ensnared Rose Letter Ambush text if you don't have anyone else around when you go. ---The Ensnared Rose Letter won't turn up if you're not currently able to follow the instructions such as due to being wounded. ---Lasciel Oathbreaker now gets a value bonus from both of her races rather than neither of them. ---Updated the Ooze racial to reflect the unpredictable effects of their touches on non-Oozes. During sexy times they now have a chance (increased by low condition and/or willpower) to apply one of the Blessings of Perversion corruptions (not including some of the more full on corrupting themed ones) to their partner. This can also happen on the new Special Ever Forest assignment and also on the Deluge of Oozes disaster.

-Bug fixes: ---Critical fix for the slave disappearing issues and other serious wonkiness resulting in following the Ensnared Rose letter. ---Fix for Nymph's gender limiter. ---Fix for getting more than one slaver if you find the unique on Adversarial Affairs. ---Fix for Conjured Companion not turning off if you lose Magic: Summoner (M:Su) ---Fix for Basic Anal Training Fail saying it gives the training. ---Some text fixes.

v0.941:

Ensnared Rose Introduction: ---Rather than available from the start, the Ensnared Rose will now be introduced early on in the first month. This will also introduce as part of normal gameplay the concepts of the Town, Tavern, Mercenaries, and the Marshlands to new players who might otherwise have missed that option. ---You can ignore it and not have access for that playthrough, or you can get a new encounter which can provide a number of bonuses to starting off. ---You can either get no strings attached gold, more gold as a loan (which can kickstart the debt storyline), a slaver (potentially one of the existing recruitable uniques if you don't take her at the start), information on some better quality assignments in all regions, or a special outfit. ---Subs, and especially those with the Exhibitionist or Pretty Maid aspects will have a much harder time not taking the outfit.

-Miscellaneous additions: ---Sissies can now have their cock enhanced by Biomancy to a set limit. So you can correct them if you accidentally make them too small and are worried about the risk of making them a full woman, but they're also not going to be challenging even an average Futa anytime soon. ---Asanei slavers will now use the Adversarial Affairs commission for their examine until I can get something less specific for them.

-Bug fixes: ---Fix for a potentially missing skill check for unchangable attire. ---Fix for the bisected now being counted as unchangeable attire for skill checks. ---Fix for being able to get out of Ettersilk or the corrupted armour by trading outfits. ---Fix for Bimboborn still being an option on level up. ---Fix for Weald Autonomy rejecting slaves in the third slot. ---Fix for the Amazons on Barbarous Bargains nicking a big chunk of your supplies if you trade by Other Means. It also no longer takes supplies to go on. ---Fix for the drow tattooist going over the top on guys at the Tavern. She's pouting, but has promised at last to knock it off. ---Fix for the updated Advanced Obedience Training getting the races the wrong way round. ---Fix for Adversarial Affairs getting mixed up with The Elvish Art.

v0.94:

New Race: ---Thornheart Nymphs have been added with a new Rare assignment in the Ever Forest. Can be Female or Futanari with commissioned art for both. ---With their racial will be very powerful though they do have some definite drawbacks making them quite the double edged sword. ---Has specific text to reflect their alternate way of inflicting Domination. ---Once found via the assignment will then start appearing rarely like any other character can as both slavers and slaves. ---Can be playable if one takes over the encampment after an overthrow event, or you can start as one as one of the Promoted Slaver options (TF Edition only). If you start as one then Nymphs will be in the generator from the start without you needing to do their assignment.

New Assignments (not counting the Nymphs one): ---An Uncommon Trading Amazon themed assignment in the Ever Forest. Has four goals where it can work similarly to the standard Great Plains Trading assignment including options for an alternate payment plan other than gold or supplies. Includes special text for Submissive playthroughs even if you don't go as the alternate payment plan though there is a different special Disaster if you do. Also includes alternate text in some of the results for being Insatiable, being a wright, or having other ways to have limitless sexual energy, along with if you take a pair of slavers who won't ask questions about what you get up to on this one. ---A reduced rarity Marauding legal themed assignment in the City of Aversol. Thank you to the patron who funded the two commissions used for this one. Includes the possibility of recruiting the hidden unique recruitable slaver featured in the art.

New Commissions: ---Decadence Like No Other. Features a new race of beastkin who will be added in a later update. Has non-female variants that will be used if you don't send a female on that assignment and will be used as slave Examines down the line. ---Zharr females. Plan is to use it for a Zharr themed assignment on the Dreadsea Coast down the line. ---Nest of Vipers, also used for Fel Tainted Lamia slavers. Has alternate versions used for Fel Tainted Lamia futanari, and Fel Tainted Lamia slaves. Also has a crop for non-Fel Tainted Lamia that I'll use for now until I can get something more suitable. Will be used down the line as a follow up to A Brief Foray. ---Drow female slavers, with a less dressed version used for Drow female slaves. Plan is to use her for a new start, and thank you to the patron who submitted this commission. ---Driders. Will be used for a new Deep Mountains assignment eventually, and does come with a zoomed version. I've also kept the Scout the City version as an Examine for Driders with Submissive. ---Fallen female slavers, with a less dressed versions used for Fallen female slaves. Also has alternate versions to replace the Demi-Angel female slaver and slavers examine to distinguish her from the unique that used the same commission. Thank you to the patron who submitted these new variations on that commission. I've kept the old Fallen placeholder art for now until I can get a commission featuring Futanari. ---Double Dicked Golems. Also has a variant for Golems doing punishment, and a zoomed in version that will alternate with the other Human Noble slaves. That version will also be used for any futanari doing double dicking.

Slave Training Review: ---Extended and improved the intro text for Basic Dominance Training, Basic Obedience Training, Orc Cum Addict, Basic Sissification Training, Advanced Sissification Training, Advanced Lesbian Training, Basic Blowjob Training, Advanced Blowjob Training, and Exquisite Fellatrix Training. Touched up some of the others to a more minor degree. ---Extended and improved the Critical Success result text for Advanced Bimbo Training, Basic Bimbo Training, Advanced Dominance Training, Exquisite Fellatrix Training, Basic Dominance Training, Advanced Lesbian Training, Advanced Blowjob Training, Basic Lesbian Training, Basic Anal Training, Advanced Sissification Training, Advanced Obedience Training, Basic Sissification Training, Heal Slut Training, and Basic Obedience Training. ---Extended and improved the Success result text for Advanced Titfuck Training, Basic Titfuck Training, Advanced Bimbo Training, Basic Bimbo Training, Heal Slut Training, Endurance Training, Advanced Dominance Training, Orc Cum Addict (including all orc, no orc, and shakko versions), Exquisite Fellatrix Training, Basic Dominance Training, Advanced Lesbian Training, Advanced Blowjob Training, Basic Lesbian Training, Advanced Sissification Training, Advanced Obedience Training, Basic Blowjob Training, and Basic Obedience Training (including Stubborn and Defiant removal versions). There's a few of the redone Successes which are now longer than the Critical Success results which I don't think I've done before, and if I have, it's definitely pretty rare for them to be so. ---Extended and improved the Failure result text for Advanced Bimbo Training, Advanced Titfuck Training, Basic Titfuck Training, Basic Bimbo Training, Ponygirl Training, Endurance Training (including adding the previously missed You version), Advanced Dominance Training (mainly the You Sub version), Orc Cum Addict (again including all orc, no orc, and shakko versions), Exquisite Fellatrix Training, Advanced Lesbian Training, Advanced Blowjob Training, Basic Lesbian Training, Advanced Sissification Training (as a bit of an experiment added some dialogue from you here), Advanced Obedience Training, Basic Blowjob Training, Basic Sissification Training, and Basic Obedience Training. ---Extended and improved the Disaster result text for Orc Cum Addict (again including all versions with the Shakko version in my opinion being the highlight), Endurance Training, Heal Slut Training, Basic Bimbo Training (Includes the alternate Obedient version for those two, the otherwise unchanged Anal Training Disaster result also uses that updated version if applicable), the generic 'Be Gentle' options (now includes versions for your doing it and for them being Obedient), the generic 'Be Brutal'/Sadist/Aggressive/Brutal/Unscrupulous options (also now includes versions for your doing it and for them being Obedient), and Exquisite Fellatrix Training where it's not either of the previous two generic options. ---Added extra morale losses for the Disaster results for Orc Cum Addict (with the all orc version being by far the heaviest) ---Being Obedient now blocks the generic nothing else applies 'more ready and willing to resist the shackles of slavery' Disaster result where the slave got a Willpower boost and there was a -10 Morale Hit. Uses the same text as the Heal Slut Training, Basic Bimbo Training, and Anal Training. ---Bimbos can now do bimbo training so you can bimbo your bimbos to an even greater degree. ---Advanced Dominance Training now has an alternate result text for slavers with Dominant (Dom), including Switch and hidden Dominants, on the Critical Success. If they don't the slaver can now pick up Submissive (Sub) along with a damaged reputation. ---Basic Bimbo Critical Success now gives Sex Addict (Sex) instead of Insatiable (Sex+) ---Advanced Bimbo Critical Success only applies Insatiable (Sex+) with Resilient (Res) and 80+ Condition. This is to make that trait more of a specific thing for Trollops and Lago'Mae rather than being quite so easy to maintain. ---Advanced Obedience Training now as text on the Critical Success if already Obedient (Sub+). I don't think that's possible given the training paths, but it's there now just in case. ---Advanced Obedience Training Critical Success only applies Obedient (Sub+) with 80+ Willpower along with Submissive (Sub) which it need before to make it trickier to get so relatively early on in a slave's training, and to make the other sources of getting that trait more desirable. There's alternate text to both versions based on Willpower if they have Submissive (Sub) going into the assignment. ---Advanced Lesbian Critical Success can give Lesbian Desires if the slave doesn't get it on Basic version. Added a estimate value bonus to Lesbian Desires. ---Advanced Blowjob Training also now can give Cocksucking Natural on the Critical Success if they didn't get it on the basic version. ---Advanced Dominance Training now removes Sympathetic (Sym) on both Critical Success and Success results. ---To replace the aspect Bimboborn which Advanced Bimbo Critical Success used to give I've added a new aspect to that result called Ditzy Doll. This aspect will also replace Bimboborn as a Level Up option so that aspect will only be available from Corruption for now to reflect the nature of that aspect being about having one of the naughtier powers watching over them no matter the trouble that they might get into. Ditzy Doll is the first aspect to scale in power with the character's experience which is an idea I like and one that I'll revisit when I get round to adding more aspects. Like with slaver gear upgrades you'll use assignment ranks up instead, and yes you can take this aspect on a Level Up unlike Bimboborn. ---To expand on the mechanic where mantras could be embedded by having someone with Hypnotic (Hyp), Dominator (Dtr), Magic: Corruption (M:Co) (also Corrupter), or Malevolence (Mal) twenty four new Critical and Success results now have the potential to ad the relevant mantras at various stages from Light all the way to Fully Embedded. ---Added a small chance for a mantra to be applied during those specific training Critical Success results even without the usually needed traits to represent an especially powerful breakthrough. ---Heal Slut Training will no longer give Lay on Hands if they already have the usual maximum of five aspects. ---Heal Slut Training, Basic Titfuck Training, Advanced Titfuck Training, and Ponygirl Training are now all counted as Obedience Training assignments for the purpose of getting a bonus from the Obedience Mantra. ---Ponygirl Training now adds Resilient (Res) on both Success results. ---Removed the feminine pronouns on the various Blowjob results that assumed the trainee was a 'her' to reflect it can be done by males too. Exquisite Fellatrix Training Critical Success now has specific male slave text so you can now have a Prince of Blowjobs to go with the Queen. ---Exquisite Fellatrix Training on a Disaster now sets the slave back to Basic Blowjob Training, though not if you treat then gently or they are Obedient. ---Updated some formatting for better visibility, and some other more minor text additions not mentioned above.

-Miscellaneous additions: ---Due to adding Thornheart Nymphs more than doubled the number of Horned One female first names and surnames for both genders in the generator including some specific ones just for Nymphs. ---Added Kitsune, Lago'Mae, Shadow Outcasts, and Asanei to the rare races table so they'll be slightly more common than before where they only had a very low chance to be found on their usual tables, and will now have a better chance to be found as higher quality characters. ---To make the Golem Commander unique commission more specific I've changed the Wastelander slave commission that uses the same art to a closer crop than before. ---Increased the Will/Condition loss for slaves if they'd get that instead of getting Shattered/Exhausted ---Adjusted the Shattered/Exhaustion calculations so the risk has more of an effect each way, if it's not for wounding/removal then being Aggressive will no longer make things worse while Fleet or Flying can no longer help avoiding being overly tired. So no longer will being able to ride a pegasus help you out in the glorybox. ---Asanei have lost their crest in favour of the hair-tentacles in the commissions, and the come in three variations. ---Updated the lamia lore page to expand it, and to ditch some obsolete information about their race. ---Made a change so Ecstatica should stack better with Fae Flying, Size Queen'd, and Sapphic High. ---Replaced Sapphic High on the Fully Embedded Sissy mantra (which they weren't getting anyway) with a new effect that allows a slaver using them to count as Dominant if it would be a positive on the next assignment. ---Changed the wording of Fully Embedded Bimbo mantra to represent they can get extra mantras later via training. ---Lesbian Hypnotic Mantra is now available to Non-Males with a different version with the same effects to reflect that. Also includes some alternate dialogue lines during sex text for when slaves have this mantra. ---Added a new Glossary page for Hypnotic Mantras. ---Standardised how extra morale loss works on assignments with a more consistent formatting display. Also removed an odd inconsistency where the third position on Hold Back the Dark was losing 10 morale less than the others. ---Added some checks at the end of corruption to prevent anyone going over 100 morale. ---By request Golems may no longer purchase the rank III Slaver Upgrades. ---Legacy Decim-Vex has sorted out her unconventional hairstyle and has gained some height in the process. ---Sea Elves and Golems will now be unable to have a secret desire to be the Spiritual Leader, and will not have a faith that they've been keeping quiet about. The new Nymphs will work the same way. ---Krystal has had a visit from the boob reduction fairy. ---Removed the deeply inappropriate witchy-looking outfit for Magic: Nature users for a new look. Also Hedge-Witch is now Wise-Woman. ---Added skin colour variation for Asanei.

-Bug fixes: ---Fix for the Best Left Sealed Asanei popping up during end of day sexy times instead of what should have been there. ---Fix for the extra Diplomacy XP not applying on Glimpse of Paradise. ---Fix for the Tavern Drow having such an obsession for a specific tattoo for the guys. ---Fix for Persuasive (Per) check only working in the suggestions for Listening to Whispers. ---Fix for Scout the Deep Mountains being claimed to only last six days rather than seven. ---Fix for High Elf not being checked correctly on assignments. Might just be Imperial Muses, but if there's others, it would have not worked for those too. ---Some text fixes.

#No Haven

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pontsalin · 5 years

Text

Au masterpost

With summaries and links for each!

There may be aus that I’ve never talked about before, so if you’re interested in hearing more about them, shoot me an ask about it (you can also ask me if you want to hear more about an au I’ve posted about)!

Quirk au (crossover with BNHA)

@ask-vigilante-virgil

Summary: Virgil is a vigilante, fighting the crime at night with his best friend Remy. Everything is fine until Virgil gets caught in something much bigger than he thought.

Info about their quirks:

Virgil, Logan, Patton and Roman

Remy

Deceit and Emile

General info about them (desktop only)

Read from the start (desktop only)

Ships: Eventual LAMP, established remile, eventual RED, past sleepxiety

Tw: Morally grey Patton, unsympathetic Remus, sympathetic Deceit

Monster au

Summary: In a world where monsters exist, but are feared by humans, Logan and Patton create a school for fantastic creatures, to make a safe space where they can learn to control their powers and get a proper education.

Design of the main sides

General infos about them

More lore infos about them

Tag: monster au

Ships: Eventual LAMP, originally analogical and royality, but has been built to be more prinxiety + logicality

Tw: Morally grey Roman, Morally grey Deceit

Shugo Chara au (crossover)

Summary: Thomas wakes up with three eggs in this bed, each one representing an hidden desire. Then a fourth egg. Then a fifth egg? What?

Their design + the backstory

Tag: Shugo Chara au

Ships: None

Somewhat swapped au

Summary: Swap au + Highschool au where the sides are swapped but still keep a part of their canon character.

Who’s swapped:

Virgil/ Patton

Logan/ Roman

Remy/ Emile

Deceit/ Remus

Their designs

Tag: Somewhat swapped au

Ships: Slow burn LAMP, eventual remile, platonic demus

Tw: Sympathetic Deceit and Remus

Gem au (crossover with Steven Universe)

Summary: Roman, Logan, Patton and Thomas form the Crystal Gems, defending the Earth against the odd.

Their designs

Tag: gem au

Ships: Eventual LAMP

WlW au (genderbend au)

Summary: Human au where the sides are girls.

Their designs + their body types here

Tag: wlw au

Ships: Prinxiety, loreceit, remile

Tw: Sympathetic Deceit and Remus

Sun and Moon au

Summary: Au where the sides are spirits of a specific thing, and Thomas is a kid curious about them.

Their designs

Tag: Sun and moon au

Ships: LAMPD, remile, eventual Remy/ Emile/ Remus

Tw: Sympathetic Deceit, morally grey Remus

Fnaf au (crossover)

Summary: Each sides are animatronics living in a circus and entertaining kids.

Their designs + a bit of their story

Tag: fnaf au

Ships: None

Tw: Morally grey everyone

The Greatest Showman au (crossover)

Summary:

Roman: P.T Barnum

Patton: Charity Barnum

Logan: Phillip Carlyle

Virgil: Anne Wheeler

Deceit: Jenny Lind

Ships: Royality, Analogical

Tw: unsympathetic Deceit

Ghostbusters au

Summary: Logan and Patton are two ghosbusters, catching the troubling ghosts.

Their designs + backstory/ plot

Ships: Eventual moxiety, eventual logince, past anxceit

Spider Virgil au

Summary: Deceit being a snake, and Remus an octopus, so Virgil being a spider (more precisely a chilean rose hair tarantula) would be fitting, right?

Art

Ships: Undecided

Gaming au

Summary: Logan is twitch streamer, Patton has a gaming channel and Virgil and Roman owns together a gmaing channel too. Damien is their editor.

Details of their channels

Ships: Slow burn DLAMP

Tw: Sympathetic Deceit

Witch au

Summary: Logan enters a school for witchcraft and gets to meet other witches, and learns that science and magic are one and the same.

Ships: Undecided

Angel/ Demon au

Summary: Virgil tries to summon a demon, but an angel tries to prevent him from doing it. He’s now roomate with the two of them.

Art

Ships: Prinxiety, eventual moxiety, undecided

Golden soul au

Summary: Soulmate where your dreams are linked to your soulmate(s). You can't remember their face or name, but when you wake you got golden dust where your soulmate touched you. (Original post)

Roman and Logan are soulmates, except Roman lives in Europe while Logan lives in America. They barely get sleep at the same time, and for the longest time thought the two of them didn’t have soulmates, until Patton (Logan’s friend) shows Roman’s youtube channel to him.

Ships: Logince, moxiety, RED

Unconventional pets au

Summary: Virgil likes pets that aren’t universally loved. He likes spiders, frogs, snakes, mantis etc.

His dads (Logan and Patton) try their best to support him, but Patton’s fear of most of those pets isn’t ideal. Virgil gets to meet another snake lover, Dee.

Logan and Patton are also trying to fix their gay crisis, since they’re both crushing hard on that cute genderfluid baker down the street (Roman).

Ships: Anxceit, established Logicality, future morolo

Tw: Sympathetic Deceit and Remus

Secret Identity au

Summary: Heroes need to hide their faces to preserve their identity. Shenanigans insues.

Powers:

Logan: Can create portals on flat surfaces

Patton: None. Masters white weapons.

Roman: Invisibility

Virgil: Can control the weather, and has a small orb that changes shape depending on his mood (sad= rainy etc.)

Deceit: Animal shapeshifter

Remus: None. Is the voice that co ordinates them in the mic.

Emile: Blood bending

Remy: Can go into other’s people dreams

Ships: Logicality, Remus x Deceit x Virgil, Roman x Remy x Emile

- Hero! Logan and Hero! Patton make out after the fights, but Logan can’t stand Patton irl.

- Deceit and Remus are dating, and Virgil is very jealous of Remus. Though he really likes the voice that talks to them during fights.

Tw: Sympathetic Deceit and Remus

Creepy au

Summary: Logan is a curious kid. Patton is always smiling. Roman has many friends. Virgil will never leave his brother’s side. Four outcasts dealing with supernatural stuff.

Logan is a young scientist with a lot of motivation.

Patton is a new demon.

Roman sees dead people.

Virgil has a plush possessed by a demon.

Ships: None

Cryptid au

Summary: Roman has a youtube channel where he does urbex with Virgil (bfu style), and make rant videos about how cryptid are beautiful and he’d love to date one.

Plot twist. Virgil is mothman, and sticks with Roman to protect him since he has a very bad luck and attracts every bad spirits.

Logan has a youtube channel where he debunks myth (from the flat earth to supernatural stuff). He does not believe in anything supernatural, except that his best friend Patton is a fae that has claimed him.

Ships: Prinxiety, Logicality

Mermaid au

Summary: Roman is a human who has always been fascinated by the ocean. Little does the know that his mother was the same.

Roman: Human

Remus: Octomaid

Deceit: Human

Logan: Octomaid

Virgil: Shark mermaid

Patton: Seal mermaid

French Highschool au

Summary: Highschool au happening in France because I’m tired to see every highschool au being in the US.

Logan: S, overworks himself to the point of doing burnouts because he needs to be the best.

Virgil: S, is ahead of pretty much all classes due to his anxiety. Often beats Logan during tests.

Roman: S, pressured by his parents to go in the scientific course, doesn’t work but still gets good grades. He hates himself each time his executive dysfunction makes him not working.

Patton: ES, tries his best, works a lot but still struggles to get more than average grades.

Deceit: L, average. He gets average grades and work an average ammount of time. He’s the stereotypical L that smokes and is bad at math.

Remus: Redoublant, gets the new school system, struggles to work.

Emile: Biology / science and life of the Earth teacher

Remy: Math teacher

Thomas: French Teacher

Ships: Analogical, roceit, intruality, remile

Patton’s design

Doodles (second and third pics)

Ships: Logince, moxiety, demus

Steampunk au

Summary: The high and middle class live on a floating island, unknowingly (or not) abusing on the people living on the ground.

Deceit: Originally from the lower city, he’s one of the few that knows how to travel down (or up).

Remus: Son of the King, does not know anything about what’s happening bellow. Deceit conviced him to go to the lower city.

Roman: Son of the King, knew what was happening in the lower city, and escaped many years ago. Presumed dead. Patton’s fiancé.

Patton: Comes from the lower city, managed to go on the island as a courtesan. Went back down with Roman when he escaped.

Virgil: From the lower city, one of the greatest engineer of the Kingdom. Made Patton’s prothesis, Deceit’s monocle and his own fake eyes.

Logan: Middle class, works as a cop chasing people escaping the island. Constantly running after Deceit.

Ship: Dukexiety, Royality, Loceit

Sudden Monsters au

Summary: The sides gets transformed one after the other as monsters. A great excuse to talk about feelings and overcome fears.

Virgil: Drider (half spider)

Deceit: Naga

Remus: Octomaid

Roman: Mermaid

Logan: Centaur (but half unicorn)

Patton: Werewolf (is always an humanoid canid, but gets violent during the full moon)

Ships: Moxiety, undecided

Eldritch au

Summary: Virgil meets the monster under his bed. He is actually really sweet.

More talk there

Ship: Dukexiety, eventual Logince

Lost kids au

Summary: Virgil and Remus run away from the orphanage they were in, and decides to sleep in an abandoned house. The creature (Deceit) living there decides to take care of them.

Rpg au

Summary: The sides meet on a mmorpg and creates a team.

Roman: Tank, werewolf

Logan: Long range dps, elf

Patton: Summoner/ necromancian, human

Virgil: Healer, spider specie

Deceit: Rogue, snake specie

Remus: Short range dps, human

Ships: Established moxiety, slow burn lomus, roceit

Alien Runaway au

Summary: Logan is a scientist working in a space station. An alien arrives, badly injuried. The crew saves him, and keep him safe until he gets better. His name is Roman, and he’s willing to talk (with ASL) only to Logan.

Roman, Remus, Emile and Deceit are aliens.

Logan, Virgil, Patton and Remy are human scientists.

Marvel au

Virgil is Natasha

Patton is Cap

Logan is Bruce

Roman is Thor

Deceit is Loki

Remy is Tony

Ships: Undecided

Overwatch au

May be a crack au. Idk I was just in a ovw mood when I made it.

Roman: D.Va

Logan: Symmetra

Patton: Mercy

Virgil: Reaper (following the theory that Reaper is infiltrated in Talon)

Deceit: Moira or Roadhog

Remus: Junkrat

Fusion au

Summary: Fusion au where the fusions are piece of chess

Doodles

Souleater au

I do not know yet, but it’s somewhere in my mind

Sherlock au

sherlock - virgil

watson - remus

moriarty - roman

irene - patton

mycroft - dee

lestrade - logan

#i'll edit this as a i go #au masterpost #sanders sides #ts sides #ts au #sol mumbles

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pixieungerstories · 5 years

Text

Housemates - 24

Vinny tried to relax.

It wasn’t easy. Thea’s fingers were stoking her clit, slowly and carefully like a gentle kid petting a hamster. Dren’s hands were kneading her ass and her thighs.

She tried to twitch her legs open but the strings connecting her wrists to her ankles made her sway in the drider silk ropes dangling her from the ceiling.

Bazur asked softly, “Still ok, Vinny?”

“Yeah.” She gave a breathy sigh then added, “This is really nice.”

“I’m going slow, but you have to tell me when it gets to be too much,” Dren reminded her.

Vinny twitched, “OK.”

She could feel a silky soft tendril of Dren sliding over her lower lips and then into her. He was moving into her so slowly she could barely tell. She could feel his warmth on the insides on her thighs, holding open her lips and a slight warmness inside. Then suddenly she was full. She moaned softly.

“Need me to stop?” Dren asked. “You have more room, but I can stop if you need.”

Vinny blinked inside the blindfold. “How can I have more room?”

“All I did was open you. You are creamy and delicious and I am so pleased you let me taste you. But this isn’t a stretch yet. I can if you want,” Dren explained. Then he added, “Whether I do or not, I am honoured just to be here.”

Vinny let her head flop back. She just lay there for a moment. She could feel Dren pulsing. It wasn’t a pumping, it was more like a slow pulse between softer and firmer.

Thea was still being too gentle.

This groan was one of frustration. “I don’t know what to ask for! Thea, can you rub a little harder?”

Thea did and at the same time Dren changed his pulsing. Now it was pressure, relax a little, then more pressure stretching further. Vinny started squirming in her bonds. Dren chuckled and he vibrated as he did. That was all it took, Vinny shook and arched and gushed. Dren was there to absorb it all. Thea didn’t even break his rhythm. Vinny was sobbing a moment later when she came again.

“I think that is a stop,” Bazur said gently. Thea’s hand moved away from her and Dren went still. “Put her on the bed now please.” Vinny felt herself being slowly lowered to the bed. The webbing was pulled away. Bazur’s cold, firm hands began rubbing her arm. “Thea - go get some juice, please,” he directed.

Vinny wasn’t sure what Dren was doing, but she awkwardly pulled the blindfold off. The was a bulge in her abdomen like she had eaten too much and she was wearing Dren like a purple gelatinous catsuit. He covered her breasts both under and over her bra, her belly and her thighs. The was a little gap over her clit where Thea had been rubbing.

Vinny reached down and stroked her hand gently over Dren where he covered he slightly swollen belly. He trembled and Vinny nearly came again.

Bazur stroked her hair. “When Thea gets back, you need to drink some juice then have a rest before supper. Are you still ok?”

Vinny nodded, “That was awesome. 10/10. Would do again.”

----

Supper was stew and stove top bread.

After supper was a candlelit game of Cards Against Humanity. Kevin was as raunchy as she expected. Kogan kept asking Tristan what different cards meant. Dren was blushing magenta. Derick was even home watching them all with a soft smile on his face.

Thea was curled up on the ceiling watching everyone’s cards upside down.

Vinny adjusted her T-shirt a little to give him a better view.

Bazur had the best poker face in the group.

She was having fun.

At ten o’clock the land line rang. Bazur answered and had a quiet conversation with whoever was on the phone.

As soon as he assured the person that Vinny was already in bed so that she could go to church in the morning, Vinny rolled her eyes. It had to be her mother. Bazur exchanged small talk for a while, said good night and hung up. He came back into the room in silence and sat back down on his chair.

“Val is quite insistent that you stay home tomorrow. She says Kogan is a nice man, but she doesn’t want you on a motorcycle in this weather. Especially since the street lights are out.”

Kogan nodded, “That is a fair point.”

Tristan snorted, “I’ll take you in my truck, if you want.”

“I’ll take you in your bed, if you want,” Kevin muttered.

Vinny hesitated at that, then she chose to ignore it. “Well, it’s been fun, gentlemen, but I should really go turn on my fireplace and -”

“Please sleep down here tonight,” Bazur interrupted.

Vinny blushed, “We barely all fit in this room on the chairs. There isn’t enough space for us all to actually sleep.”

“You can sleep in my bed, if you want,” Derick offered. “It’s on the main floor, it will be warmer here than it is in your room.” Vinny was about to agree when he added, “And if we push the futon against the wall, the rest of us can all puppy pile on the floor.”

“I don’t want to kick you out of your bed,” Vinny protested.

“Kevin has the most open floor space,” Thea pointed out. “If we moved Tristan and Kogan’s mattresses in there, there would be enough space for Vinny, Kogan, Derick and Tristan to get the beds. I would take the ceiling and maybe Kevin could hold Dren. Bazur doesn’t really sleep, but we would all be in one room.”

Vinny blinked, “I don’t think we get to just take over Kevin’s room.”

“Yes you can,” Kevin said firmly. “Last night was nice and it works better for us all to be there then having anyone feeling left out.”

That was a little uncomfortable coming from the only guy in the room who hadn’t seen her cum. Oh god. What was she doing? Her mother just -

“Vinny?” Derick asked softly. “Are you OK?”

Was she OK? “I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m doing. I just-”

Derick nodded, “It’s OK.” He scooped her up and cuddled her to his chest. “You can sleep in my room. The rest of us will just stay out here. You will be fine. I won’t be sleeping anyway. I’m used to being at work right now and … well, I’m not great at thunder storms.”

Vinny hugged him back. “I’m going to go brush my teeth and get ready for bed.”

Bazur was right, the top floor was already pretty cold. The grand central staircase was acting like a chimney sucking the heat up and out of the house. But the ground floor was full of pocket doors that could be opened and closed to keep the warm air from escaping. The dining room was closed off. All the doors were closed so that the servants access between the kitchen and the parlour was completely separate from the rest of the house. Those rooms were surprising warm compared to everything else.

Vinny remembered how nice it had been falling asleep safe and warm between Kogan and Tristan last night.

It felt like family.

But her mom calling had been like being hit by a bucket of cold water. And now she was in her bathroom brushing her teeth and washing her face in literal cold water.

She was embarrassed by what had happened this afternoon. Not just that she had done it but also how much she had enjoyed it, how much she had wanted it. And she just kept thinking how it would have been even better if Derick had been there for cuddles afterwards.

She didn’t get to ask that though, did she? It was one thing when Derick had encouraged her with Kogan and Tristan, but they had never discussed if Dren, Thea and Bazur were supposed to be completely off the table. How had she ended up as part of an orgy?

It had been good though. She would have been hurt when Thea just ran off except that Dren and Bazur had stayed to take care of her. Dren had been especially good at thanking and praising her. Vinny was already having to come to terms with how much she enjoyed that in her relationship with Kogan.

What did it say about her that she wanted Kogan to fuck her almost raw while telling her how good she was then have Derick kiss her better with that long tongue of his?

Shit.

She felt like she needed to try to sneak away to spend time alone with any of them, so the others wouldn’t notice. Which was stupid. The others wouldn’t care.

There was a knock on her door. Vinny jumped and spun around to find Thea watching her.

“Did I make you afraid? Um… this afternoon?”

Vinny blinked, “No. This is still all just new to me.”

Thea nodded, not looking at her and asked, “Do you think I could try again sometimes?” Vinny shivered in anticipation at the very mention of next time. Then he peeked at her and added, “Dren was so excited about how good you taste. Maybe I could try some time.”

Vinny stared at him in shock.

“Or not,” he mumbled and left.

Except now the idea of next time was in her head and she really wanted next time.

#terato #exophilia #housemates #drider #orc #slime #gargoyle #werewolf #Minotaur #mimic

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artemis-entreri · 5 years

Photo

[[ This post contains Part 2 of my review/analysis of the Forgotten Realms/Drizzt novel, Boundless, by R. A. Salvatore. As such, the entirety of this post’s content is OOC. ]]

Genre: Fantasy

Series: Generations: Book 2 | Legend of Drizzt #35 (#32 if not counting The Sellswords)

Publisher: Harper Collins (September 10, 2019)

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Additional Information: Artwork for the cover of Boundless and used above is originally done by Aleks Melnik. This post CONTAINS SPOILERS. Furthermore, this discussion concerns topics that I am very passionate about, and as such, at times I do use strong language. Read and expand the cut at your own discretion.

Contents:

I. Introduction

II. Positives II.1 Pure Positives II.2 Muddled Positives

III. Mediocre Writing Style (you are here) III.1 Bad Descriptions III.2 Salvatorisms III.3 Laborious “Action”

IV. Poor Characterization IV.1 “Maestro” IV.2 Lieutenant IV.3 Barbarian IV.4 “Hero” IV.5 Mother

V. World Breaks V.1 Blinders Against the Greater World V.2 Befuddlement of Earth and Toril V.3 Self-Inconsistency V.4 Dungeon Amateur V.5 Utter Nonsense

VI. Ego Stroking VI.1 The Ineffable Companions of the Hall VI.2 Me, Myself, and I

VII. World Breaks VII.1 No Homo VII.2 Disrespect of Women VII.3 Social-normalization VII.4 Eugenics

VIII. What’s Next VIII.1 Drizzt Ascends to Godhood VIII.2 Profane Redemption VIII.3 Passing the Torch VIII.4 Don’t Notice Me Senpai

Mediocre Writing Style

I admire some authors for their lyrical phrases, some for their poignant imagery, some for their rapid-fire dialogues, and with so many others, for their ability to show a true mastery of language. I have never felt this way about Salvatore's literature, which will probably never win any awards for its diction if it remains consistent to its current level of quality. Salvatore has his moments, which I've described in the previous section, but sadly, they range from being vastly to overwhelmingly dwarfed by the rote and tedious writing practices he employs. It doesn't help that in addition to the employment of unimaginative diction, Salvatore writes a lot of long and laborious scenes full of words that serve little more than to fill up space. There is so much telling instead of showing, a problem further compounded by the exhausting amount of poorly-chosen anecdotes which he relates that, despite being a nonstop action book, Boundless is very hard to pick back up after putting it down. And, of course, there's the repetition of the same themes, of the same kind of things happening to the same characters, that certainly doesn't help the predictability.

Bad Descriptions

For every good turn of phrase I mentioned earlier, there exists a score of bad ones. If I were to give examples of all of them, with the other things I'd like to discuss, this article would end up being as long as the novel itself, so I'll simply point out the most cringe-worthy ones.

The metaphor that takes the cake for the worst of the book is, "The horde had come, and now it pounced upon them misshapen humanoid forms, the wretched lesser demons known as manes, shambling out of the brush like an army of humans risen from the dead." Basically, what is happening here is that Salvatore pretty much wrote, "those demons came shambling out like zombies". It doesn't matter how much one dresses up a turd, the most one gets from the effort is a fancier-looking but just as stinky piece of excrement. Furthermore, the dressings that Salvatore uses in this example are flimsy and unsatisfactory in substance, with the vague adjective "wretched" that's as descriptive here as his customary usages of "magnificent"/"fine" and the tedious repetition in "humanoid" and "human". Additionally, it begs the question of why Salvatore specified an army of humans in a world in which the undead of all races would shamble, or, better yet, why not simply say "zombie", for a zombie is a prevalent and known theme in both the Realms and our world. It would've been one of the few ways Salvatore uses a shared concept without incurring a world break like he normally does.

A close second in the diction mediocrity contest is, "as if Yvonnel's breath, blowing them out, was that of a magical dragon, one designed specifically against the life force of a demon." Why a "magical dragon"? Are there non-magical dragons that breathe magic? Not that there exists a type of dragon in Forgotten Realms lore with a breath weapon that is specifically designed against the life force of a demon. However, as is par for his course, to counteract lore not agreeing with his lazy constructions, Salvatore doesn't bother to research an appropriate in-universe analogy. He completely invents one but doesn't actually develop it, not that doing so would be appropriate in this context, but the creation of it is wholly unnecessary for the sake of a poor analogy.

Another awful passage is, "with horrid creatures -- half drow and half spider -- all around the drow women and filtering back through the many shadows of the forest. Scores of these horrid mutants milled about..." It's bad enough to use the adjective "horrid" in an empty and vague way, but to do it twice in quick succession makes it seem like Salvatore doesn't know how to describe driders. By itself, a half-drow half-spider creature isn't inherently abominable. There's an increasingly large number of art pieces featuring dark elf arachnid centaurs, with beautiful humanoid faces and torsos attached to streamlined spider bodies that would even give arachnaphobes pause. What makes driders menacing, which Salvatore has described himself in the past, is that they're not these romanticized images of spider centaurs. Their humanoid torsos, rather than looking like they should belong to supermodels, are bloated and misshapen such that they're more reminiscent of the flesh beasts of nightmares. They have vicious mandibles protruding from their cheeks, sometimes multiple insectoid eyes, making their faces look more decidedly non-elven even with pointed ears. Admittedly, the physical appearance of driders has fluctuated through the D&D editions, but it's as though Salvatore couldn't be bothered to look up what their current iteration is. Maybe he did try and couldn't find a definitive answer, in which case he could've approached the drider's description in a more evocative way, for example by describing how the tips of their arachnid legs were sharp like swords digging into the earth, or perhaps by mentioning their aura of menace as they regarded the dwarves whom they towered over with hungry anticipation, as though the shorter folk were their cocooned victims waiting to be devoured. Or, even referencing how the driders came to be, the excruciating transformation process and fall out of favor with their goddess, both of which would've rendered them at least slightly unhinged.

Some descriptions consist of fewer words, but are just as bad. For instance, Jarlaxle's bracers are at one point described as "magical wrist pouch". This evokes an imagery of literal pouches hanging from around his wrists, dangling like a pair of testicles in the wind, testicles that shoot out magical daggers into Jarlaxle's hands. Another similar example doesn't contain an analogy but is just as bad is, "a smallish man dressed in finery worthy of a noble house. His face was clean-shaven, his hair cut short and neatly trimmed." This description is so ambiguous and features adjectives that have been applied so frequently to other characters that it could have easily been Artemis Entreri, except it is someone quite different (Kimmuriel Oblodra). Putting aside how jarring it is to use "man" to describe male drow, there's a world break here in that drow shouldn't need to be clean-shaven, as they can't really grow facial hair, but at least there's the nice detail that Kimmuriel is apparently short-haired, contrary to what many assume of him to have long hair. Nonetheless, what happened to the usage of the word "short"? Furthermore, why not just state a height for Kimmuriel and put it into his character bible? To be fair, I've speculated that Salvatore doesn't use character bibles, but it's never too late to start.

Salvatorisms

Boundless sees a return of what I've dubbed “Salvatorisms”, which are clichés and poor sentence structures that Salvatore abuses frequently. In Boundless, there's more than just those Salvatorisms dragging the narrative down. It's disappointing to see a professional author, especially one who'd been working in the field for over three decades, fail to follow a rule taught to amateur writers. Making the New York Times' Bestsellers' list does not make the usage of clichés, such as "merry band of misfits", acceptable. Especially considering how it's not even appropriate in the context that it's used for, namely, describing Bregan D'aerthe. Even though it's a priestess of Lolth who is considering the mercenary band this way, it's so incredibly unlikely that she'd think they were jolly, which the meaning of that cliché specifically includes.

In Boundless, we also see a return of the “how [character] [action]ed!” sentence construction, after a refreshingly complete lack of any in Timeless. This is one of Salvatore's favorite ways to tell and not show, for stating how a certain thing performs a certain feat doesn't, ironically, actually ever convey how that thing is done. There's a new overused Salvatorism to add to his cliché stable, namely, the “up went”, “down went”, and other similar ways to open a sentence. There's nothing wrong with these kinds of phrases when used sparingly and with variety. As it is, the flavor of the text is quite intolerable, seasoned as it is with an excess of one type of additive. By the same token, in a fight scene between Arathis Hune and Zaknafein, Zaknafein's superior prowess is indicated by the sentence, "Except Zaknafein wasn't there". This sort of device can be effective to convey surprise and the unexpected, again, when used sparingly, but unfortunately, it is yet another one of Salvatore's favorite writing practices. The sentence is hardly even a proper sentence, but is used as its own paragraph.

The telling and not showing approach in Boundless extends beyond the diction. On numerous occasions, it's almost as if Salvatore couldn't be bothered to actually demonstrate how something is true, but instead, just tells us that it's the way it is. One way that he does this is through the usage of rhetorical questions, for instance, "Could anything be more invasive and traumatizing than having your body stolen from your control and turned against you?" I'm not sure if any of his readers can actually answer that question from personal experience. It's almost as though Salvatore did that purposely to minimize the possibility of someone realizing that different strokes exist for different folks and that the most traumatizing scenario for one person could be very different from that of another person. That aside however, a question like this leaves little room for imagination, and is even a bit bullying, for it corners the readers into having to answer "no" even while the scenario painted prior to it was not powerful enough to solidify that impression.

Another way that Salvatore tells rather than shows is to use empty comparisons that lack a frame of reference. For instance, the reader is to understand Athrogate's strength and resolve through, "A lesser fighter would have fallen away in terror. A less sturdy person would have simply melted before the reeking horror." The problem with these statements is that they don't serve any purpose. They state the obvious, and are a poor attempt at being evocative. They have the same effect as simply stating that Athrogate stood his ground and didn't falter, except being more verbose and less effective.

It's not just word usage that's repetitive. Boundless sees a continuation of the theme of having the same sort of things happen to the same characters. It's as though each character is a designated target for certain motifs, with those motifs not being applicable to other characters. For instance, Entreri appears to be the go-to target for torture, and after being made the one with the repeated childhood sexual assault, the sexual victimization in Menzoberranzan, the victim of rape by a succubus in Neverwinter and the over seven decades of enslavement, I'm getting very sick of seeing him the victim of yet another long-term grueling experience. Meanwhile, Drizzt is as holier-than-thou and full of sanctimony as he was in Timeless, and it's not a flattering look for him. I'm not sure if Salvatore thinks it is, but it isn't so much character consistency as stubborn obnoxiousness. In Drizzt's journal entry, he writes, "I fear that Zaknafein's transformation will not come in time to earn friendship, even familial love, from Catti-brie or from our child, and in that instance, it will not be in time to earn the love of Drizzt Do'Urden." Drizzt then goes on to state, "But he is my family by blood, and she is my family by choice. I have come to learn that the latter is a stronger bond." While the message that's attempted to be conveyed here is a very important one, the validity of it is harmed by the context. It's very unfair for Zaknafein to be presented as though he were more akin to the other Do'Urdens instead of the unconditionally loving father who didn't hesitate to put himself in harm's way, including dying in excruciating and humiliating ways so that his son could have a chance at freedom. This is yet another scenario in which Salvatore creates unnecessary drama while ignoring facets of his story that have genuine dramatic potential. Zaknafein is not the type of character with whom Drizzt should have to choose between family by blood and family by choice, as he's already shown that Zaknafein is trying his best to adapt to the new world. It is true that there are few opportunities for Drizzt to flaunt his moral beacon in Boundless, but there's nothing wrong with that, and should've just been left as it is, but it's as though Salvatore can't write a Drizzt novel without Drizzt having to be sanctimonious and preachy. It was wholly unnecessary to villainize a non-villainous character to repeat some of the same old tired writing practices.

Also in the category of repetitive and tired themes, albeit one that doesn't further butcher the characters, is the catching of projectiles in one's cloak. This is a phenomenon that happens so frequently in the Drizzt books that had a reader no knowledge of the purpose of cloaks, they might think that their main purpose is to act as an anti-missile system. Cloaks originally became common because they protected the wearer from inclement weather while allowing access to the wearer's worn possessions. In D&D and other games, it became an additional equipment slot and as such, gained an practical value as well. A cloak without enhancing properties would actually serve as a detriment in a fight, acting as a loose and difficult to control extension of one's body that can be easily grabbed by the opponent, something that's accurately made a point of in The Incredibles. I suppose that there could exist a magical item like a Cloak of Missile Catching, but this isn't what any of Salvatore's characters ever wear. It's difficult to give Salvatore points for coming up with a creative use for what's basically an aesthetic item because it's just so impractical and unrealistic. It doesn't help that he repeats this motif so much that it approaches ego-stroking levels.

The second most major contributing factor to Boundless' tediousness is the obscenely large amount of recollections strewn throughout the book, making them overall more unsightly than the plastic polluting our modern day oceans. In the scenes set during the current timeline, almost at every turn we're given a history of what so-and-so is, or who so-and-so have associations with. These reviews, although brief, make up for their concision with their frequency. I can understand why Salvatore does this, for Timeless wasn't as standalone as he'd hoped, but his attempted method to rectify this fact in Boundless is more distracting than enlightening. Especially considering that much of the reviewed content is along the lines of, "Drizzt, trained in the ways of the monk by Grandmaster Kane", ergo, telling us how awesome Salvatore's protagonists are rather than shedding light into the significant events that shaped what is happening in the current book. When a significant event is mentioned, it is done so in such a cursory way that all a new reader would know is that something happened in the past that relates to what is happening presently, but otherwise it's like explaining different colors to someone who's never had vision before. For instance, "this was a trick Kimmuriel had used before, and very recently with Drizzt in Menzoberranzan, creating a telekinetic barrier that absorbed the power of every strike, magical or physical, holding it in stasis, ready for the magically armored person to release it back." This recap does manage to explain the relevant mechanic, however it also alludes to a very significant event, yet it's unclear what the purpose of it doing so is. The reference to what Drizzt did in Menzoberranzan doesn't say enough to allow anyone who hasn't read Hero to understand, but someone who's read Hero should remember the details of the climax of the book. So much of what Boundless presents is like this, retreads that make the novel tedious to read for those who have been reading, and probably only serve to further confuse those who haven't. Who is Salvatore writing for, then? Those who continue to throw money his way but never pay enough attention to what happens in his books to remember the climaxes? Are these the kinds of people that any author should point to as "proof" of their literary excellence?

Laborious "Action"

The one aspect that drives most of Boundless' tediousness is the sheer amount of long and boring action sequences that are wordy and not much of anything else. Salvatore's action scenes are more reminiscent of IKEA furniture assembly instructions than descriptive imagery, except that IKEA instructions are actually visual enough for one to use in constructing a pragmatic (and sturdy) physical object. Salvatore's action scenes are reminiscent of the type of smut in fanfiction that gives fanfiction a bad name, namely, cut and dried descriptions that are more like making a grocery list than painting a picture. At the very least, Salvatore's action scenes are not too anatomically ridiculous (yet), which makes them slightly better than the kind of fanfiction referenced.

An example of a grocery list action scene is as follows:

There's so much going wrong in this passage. The inconsistent specificity of each element makes the whole feel like an incongruous collection of parts. Jarlaxle hooking his fingers on a jag in the stone is clear enough, as is flipping over, and rolling his feet can be understood even if vague, but how all of that ties together is as clear as a chunk of obsidian. How Jarlaxle pulled himself around the base of a mound isn't articulated, other than that he did it while keeping his momentum, which is superfluous because any acrobatic maneuver would keep its momentum because momentum is what makes those maneuvers possible. It's like the only basic physics concept that Salvatore understands is gravity, because "he fell with gravity" is one of the few things he doesn't spell out in his action scenes. In any case, specifics like if Jarlaxle went left or right aren't what's needed, but rather, how about some evocative imagery like, "he snapped like a whip around the sharp turn"? I'm not saying that's the correct analogy to use, I honestly don't know, because I have no idea what's supposed to be going on in this passage. The same is true of what's said of Zaknafein, which while a bit better, is still painfully dry. Some of the stuff doesn't make sense, for instance, how did Zaknafein leap on the wide base of the stalagmite? The base of a stalagmite is that which the stone formation grows out of, inside the rock itself, does Salvatore mean that Zaknafein propelled himself off of the side of the stalagmite near its base? The rest of the sequence, it's unclear what Zaknafein is flipping over and running along. Is it still the same stalagmite, or a different stalagmite? All of that is just words words words, except, of course, the one thing that's clear enough: that Drizzt is awesome and so is his dad.

Another grocery list action scene is, "A glance left, a glance right, and off he sprinted, up the side of a stalagmite mound, leaping, spinning, somersaulting, to hit the ground in perfect balance and at a full run." What this scene brings to mind is more along the lines of a Driver's Ed course followed by the Sky Dancer toy from the 90s rather than the agile moves of an acrobat. Again, an excess number of words are used to little effect, and all that's conveyed is, "Zaknafein is awesome". I almost feel like he should be clad in skin-tight black leather and be wearing high-tech sunglasses.

Yet another example of writing that only conveys how awesome Salvatore's characters are is, "the barbarian came to realize that this foe was far more akin to Drizzt or Entreri than to what he'd expect from a pampered Waterdhavian lord. The man's sword worked in a blur, every movement sending it at Wulfgar in a different angle, sometimes a slash, sometimes a stab, sometimes a punch from the hilt." The first sentence in this passage, although not describing any action, tells us a lot more about Wulfgar's opponent than the second sentence, which does actively describe the man's actions, even to a new reader whom wouldn't know about Entreri's history and what makes him what he is. Furthermore, there's a stuttered nature to the second sentence, with the "blur" description disagreeing with the choppy rhythm of the specified attacks. Rather than a blur, the noble's attacks feel more like a predictable pattern of programmed thrusts from an automated training dummy.

Boundless wouldn't be the first Salvatore book in which I'd wondered if he'd confused himself with his writing. One example of what leads me to think so from this novel is:

What is even going on here? Did Salvatore switch Zaknafein and Jarlaxle's names by accident, intending for Zaknafein to be the one caught by surprise? Zaknafein's "don't wait for us!" suggests that he knows what's going on and has some level of confidence in the circumstances, yet as is demonstrated later in the passage, this is not the case. Indeed, later in the sequence (not shown), Jarlaxle is the one in control, deploying a back-up plan to guarantee their safety amidst the chaos. Yet, it's unlikely for Jarlaxle to scream, and Zaknafein to gasp, so perhaps Salvatore meant what he wrote. It's all too convoluted to tell, however. Further, while its a trifle nit-picky, wouldn't the command to "Let 'em fly, boys!" come before the quarrels were discharged? I mean, these are quarrels that do make things like stalactites explode, both powerfully AND beautifully, but dwarves have a lot of discipline.

Perhaps the most tedious action sequences are Zaknafein's extensive training montages, like the one in chapter four. It takes up literally forty percent of the chapter and proceeds in excruciatingly dry detail. The entirety of it is too long to quote here, but there are a lot of statements like, "hands across his belly to grab the hilts of his swords at his hips, right forearm over left", "he turned his right wrist as that sword came across bringing it vertical in its sweep, then shortening the cut, while the left went across perfectly horizontally, with full follow-through and even a step with the left foot in that direction", "he went to a series of same-hand, same-hip draws, where he brought forth the sword on his left hip with his left hand, right hand for the right", and so on. It's like Salvatore is writing The Dummy's Guide to Drow Swordfighting, as these sentences are more like step by step guide points than flowing combat moves. It's actually worse than that, because more than likely, these moves are more theatrical than actually practical, such that anyone who followed such a guide would indeed be a dummy, and quite a dead one at that if they expected to survive in drow society like that. And there's just so much of it, such that it begs the question of if Salvatore had a word count quota that he had to fill.

Finally, after a refreshing break away from it in Timeless, the standard Salvatore C-rated Hollywood stop motion fight scenes are back. Speaking to many members of the SCA and historical combat re-enacters and fencers, including ones who have read Salvatore's books, have taught me that most of the combat scenes, specifically concerning the usage of swords, are totally wrong. A consensus among the actual martial artists is that there's a lot of slashing when there should be stabbing, and the way that the characters conduct themselves in combat is more akin to sports than martial arts, being particularly evocative of hockey. It isn't surprising that Salvatore's inspiration comes from hockey, that is what he knows after all (more than swordsmanship and D&D anyway), but it seems that rather than improving his knowledge with research, he supplements it with popular themes in movies. Something like, "slowly they closed, though, until they were but a few strides away, when both, as if some silent understanding had passed between them, leaped into the air and roared" feels more like a transcription from a live action sequence, for in reality no purpose is served for two combatants to leap at each other roaring. It's a waste of energy, especially as the two have been aware of each other's prowess for a while and are not easily intimidated. If this scene was something that we were watching rather than reading, the sound effects might enhance the the drama, and while imagined sound effects can do the same for a written scene, something as bland as simply "roaring", just makes the whole scene banal.

#ooc #Boundless #legend of drizzt #Forgotten realms #R A Salvatore #book review #Generations Trilogy #Artemis Entreri #Jarlaxle Baenre #Kimmuriel Oblodra #Yvonnel Baenre #Arathis Hune #Drizzt Do'Urden #Catti-brie #Athrogate #drow #drider

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obsoletesystem · 5 years

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D&D Ask Meme

@wisdom-fangs asked me to do all the questions of this D&D ask post. So I did. 1. A favorite character you have played. I really like playing monstrous characters. Currently in Adventurers League, I play Frattek Venvaris, bugbear rogue/barbarian, who is a delightfully goofy character. But I also miss playing Bajur Mashoir, a very charismatic lizardfolk "voodoo" shaman, whose catchphrase was: "As you can see, I am an alligator, sir..." spoken in a thick southern brawl. 2. Your favorite character that someone else has played. During a one shot the guy that played an evil halfling warlock sacrificed himself to blow up the big bad with a block of dynamite. The true MVP. 3. Your favorite side quest. Idk. 4. Your current campaign. I DM a homebrew campaign, in which the party is stuck between sides in a war between the local Jarl and a fey duchess who has taken over a part of the woods. I also participate as a player in a slight homebrewed Salt Marsh campaign, in which I play a tiefling cleric of Pelor. She's got a Sad Backstory. 5. Favorite NPC. The Loathesome Gribble, an NPC in the game I DM, who is a very small tiefling sorcerer with an immense knife collection and a four-armed aasimar monk girlfriend. He is found in the most of unlikely places and his signature spell is "Gribble's Hand of Sand", which may or may be not magical, as it blinds a creature with sand, but the material component is just a handfull of coarse sand. 6. Favorite death (monster, player character, NPC, etc). The druid in our home game charged into giant stag form at a huge burning construct (The Burning Man from Burning Man, but moving), missed his attack, upon which the Burning Man rolled nat 20's on BOTH ITS ATTACKS. No advantage, no nothing, just two straight 20's. He grabbed the stag by its antlers, turned its head 360 degrees, and dropped a flaming, mutilated dwarf to the ground. 7. Your favorite downtime activity. I always like to do something that tells a little bit about the culture of the creature I play. When I was on haitus because of school, I described how Frattek had spend some time with his little bugbear niece, and had just returned from a fun little war (seeing as bugbears love to fight). 8. Your favorite fight/encounter. We had to fight a vampire spawn in a dank, dark basement, but it was light outside, and Frattek is incredibly good at grappling creatures, so we dragged the vampire out from his basement into the sunlit street, and then made a run for it as we had broken into a house. 9. Your favorite thing about D&D. Coming together with friends and not drinking (a lot) or smoking weed. I like doing those things too, but it is also fun to just hang out and play games where heavy drinking is not really handy. 10. Your favorite enemy and the enemy you hate the most. Dragons are the best, spellcasters are the worst. Spellcasting Dragons are the bees knees. My players, however, are going to hate a certain spellcaster very much. Once they find out... 11. How often do you play and how often would you ideally like to play? Usually once a week, but I'd love to be able to balance twice a week. One day as player, one day as DM. 12. Your in game inside jokes/memes/catchphrases and where they came from. "Name and occupation, please" comes from when we played Pathfinder, and one of the characters died, but I didn't want to get rid of him yet or he was set up to be reincarnated or some shit idk. Anyway, his soul arrives in purgatory, which turns out to be this bureaucratic office, where he has to stand in line for a long, long time, before arriving at a booth/desk type situation, in which an Ophanim angel (one of them burning wheels full of eyes) floats that asks with a bored sigh "Name and occupation, please". The player answered, and was set up for reincarnation, which involved shooting his soul from a cannon/drop tube into the unborn baby of a local woman. The child grows up unnaturally quickly, and because it has the soul of a mature orc barbarian, it is more than a little trouble. Nephertheless, the "Name and occupation, please" gag remained forever. 13. Introduce your current party. My Homeboys, the Lords of Okab Volal, are Nazreen, a wood elf ranger who missed her wolf, played by @tabula-wasa, Tophr Thanestone, the previously mentioned dwarf druid who was murdered by a giant flaming effigy and subsequently reincarnated/put into the body of a frost elf woman (something he hasn't come to terms with) played by our bearded friend Glenn, and Adelon Vrena, half-elf bard/cleric/divine soul sorcerer a.k.a. Healer Supreme, who is really righteous but not above torturing a captive githyanki, and played by Arnaud. The Schadestenen (meaning "Damage Stones", as in dice), which is the OG Adventurers League group in the Spellenhoorn in Hoorn, consist of Aiden Rainbowscale (Albino orphan wood-elf monk/barbarian), Fjorgyn (dwarven cleric of Moradin, who died last week and still suffered from the Death Curse. RIP.), Frattek Venvaris (Bugbear barbarian/arcane trickster and gladiator/luchador, played by me), Gideon Thornton (cowardly Half-Orc Hexblade), Grommash Hellscream (Stereotypical Half-Orc Barbarian. Great guy.), Ruldra (disgraced Hobgoblin undead-hunting Ranger), Cadence (Powerful but stupid Half-elf Grave Cleric/Divine Soul Sorcerer who never learned how to read), Ullr (Arnaud's Gloom Stalker and Human Machine Gun), and Darin (half-elf ranger and Master Of Backflip). The Peeps from Salt Marsh, DMed by the guy that plays Darin, in which Arnaud plays William Wisenose, The Awfully Lucky Halfling Build (halfling wizard/bard/whatever), Cadence's player plays Sylver Ravenstar (half-elf bard/hexblade/run away princess), her friend plays Samm Enoch (Aasimar Bard and Very Handsome Man), Aiden's player plays Ankis (Aasimar Celestial Warlock and very secretive about both these facts because Back Story), and his friend plays Vena Malum (Human Bloodhunter, who is really buff and does that swirly thing with her falchions, and oh my...), Grommash's player plays Morgain of Astora (human paladin of Pelor, and companion/boyfriend/substitute son to my character), and I play Paytsarra Avèry (winged tiefling cleric of Pelor). Praise the sun. 14. Introduce any other parties you have played in or DM-ed. We had one party consisting of a drider, a very evil dwarf, a fire genasi, a gnome psychic, and a kenku ninja at one point. When the evil dwarf died, and I introduced the guy's new drow "medic", I knew I lost all cohesion of the group. 15. Do you have snacks during game times? My players do. I don't like snacks that much. 16. Do you play online or in person? Which do you prefer? In person. I tried playing online, and I think I would do again, but only if I'd have a really good headset. 17. What are some house rules that your group has? In the Salt Marsh campaign you double the value of the dice on a crit, which I think is disappointing. I just wanna roll a lot of dice :( 18. Does your party keep any pets? @tabula-wasa's ranger has a dire wolf...somewhere...

19. Do you or your party have any dice superstitions? Not that I know of. I do know some of my dice seem to roll better than others. 20. How did you get into D&D? How long have you been playing? I found a d&d character creation app on the web ages ago, and that sparked my interest. Later I joined a warhammer fantasy role play group with a friend I had been rp-ing online with a lot, but this was the real deal, at Arnaud's house. He dmed number of campaigns for us, and later he joined my pathfinder group which turned into a D&D 5th edition group. 21. Have you ever regretted something your character has done? Yeah. Frattek decided to be a hero and tried to assassinate an ogre torturer. He failed his shot. We had to fucking run. 22. What color was your first dragon? The first dragon I fought as a character was a young Red Dragon. Even at 5th level, we whooped its ass. He found himself in a cave, surrounded by fools, and we beat him to pulp. The first dragon I put in front of my players was a young White Dragon. It kicked their asses. 23. Do you use premade modules or original campaigns? I usually homebrew my own campaigns, but I have dmed some AL sessions. 24. How much planning/preparation do you do for a game? Not an incredible amount, but for my home game I prepare ideas months, even years, in advance. For DMs 25. What have your players done that you never could have planned for? A lot. The most notable was casting Dispel Magic on the demiplane-item the cultists were in... and then opening the demiplane underwater. 26. What was your favorite scene to write and show your characters. I had these zombies that always repeated the last thing they said before they died, which was cool and creepy. But the thing I really wrote out was the description of how an Astral Ship warps space around itself, and what that looks like from the people on the deck of the ship. 27. Do you allow homebrew content? If it's well written, absolutely, but there is a lot of shit out there. 28. How often do you use NPCs in a party? When it makes sense, but I try not to do that too often. 29. Do you prefer RP heavy sessions or combat sessions? I prefer RP sessions, but I am leaning more toward combat. On the other hand, I don't think it completely excludes each other nor should it. I am of the opinion that 30. Are your players diplomatic or murder hobos? Rather diplomatic, but they can definitely kick ass. For Players 31. What is your favorite class? Favorite race? I like casters, and I will always have an affinity for wizards, but arcane tricksters and eldritch knights are cool too. I like elves, and I like monstrous races; goblins, hobgoblins, bugbears. I like things that are pretty and scary, or creepy and goofy. 32. What role do you like to play the most? (Tank/healer/etc?) I usually mix a bit of tank and dps. I don't like being very frail, but I do enjoy doing a lot of damage in one shot. 33. How do you write your backstory, or do you even write a backstory? I tend to write a character from a concept, and then build out the backstory. How did this person become the person they are today? Even if you have something of a bugbear, or a hobgoblin, or a yuan-ti. They have had a childhood, they have role models, they have culture. But what is that? What defines a character? What makes them they way they are? I don't like playing monstrous races that have been adopted by a "better, nobler race" like humans and elves and dwarves. I get the appeal, but I also think it is a little trite, and a little condenscending, almost. I think a lot about what defines a monstrous identity, and being a Cultural Anthropologist, I think a lot about the way culture shapes the values and morality and thus also behaviour of a creature. Do hobgoblins tell their children bedtime stories? What are they about? How will a bugbear struggle in regular humanoid society, where his violent urges -natural to him- are equally, or even more excessively violently repressed and punished? Is this just for bugbears? Will they then look for each other, and find each other in their shared cultural/natural tendencies? Are there goblinoid lawyers or activist groups, that seek to protect other goblinoids from unjust treatment under laws that aren't theirs? How will your life be if you are a second or third or even fourth generation inhuman creature in a human society? Do they dream of returning to a society that is 'theirs'? And is there even such a thing? And if there is, will they actually fit in, or forever be an outcast, neither hob nor man? I tend to poke at such questions with my character backstories. 34. Do you tend pick weapons/spells for being useful or for flavor? Everything is useful, since everything is always situational. If you plan only for situations in which you are going to kill every living thing, then you shouldn't pick something like Rope Trick, or Magic Circle. But you do you. I very much dislike decoupling "flavour" from functionality. This is a game of make-belief, so everything you do is flavour. The mechanics are an abstraction of a fantastic reality, and though inherently important to the working of the game (without rules, it would merely be improvisation, which is also a kind of game, but schwa), it is all flavour. People that brag about how much average damage they can do with this or that specific build tire me. 35. How much roleplay do you like to do? All of the roleplay! But please let me punt goblins into the garbage sometimes!

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your-dungeon-is-problematic · 7 years

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Thri-Kreen (AD&D)

Holy shit, it’s been quite a while, hasn’t it? Then again, I’ve had a very busy summer. And May, of course, was total bedlam what with the graduating from university and such. And of course this fall, where my faith in the American people was...uh, let’s call it “shaken”, even though that rather undersells it, in my opinion. Hmm. Well, without any more hemming and/or hawing, thri-kreen. Mantis men. Zorak, even. Really, what’s not to love about the thri-kreen? They’re MANTIS MEN. That is awesome! I mean, sure, none of their forearms have chitinous blades for hands like actual mantises, but four hands means four weapons, plus, they’re psionic. I’d say that makes up for not being Scyther.

General:

“Thri-kreen are a race of large, intelligent insect often referred to as ‘mantis warriors.’ They roam the deserts and savannah, where they have marked-out hunting territories. They have no need of sleep and can remain active through the day and night.” ...Well, on the one hand, they aren’t hampered by lack of sleep, and on the other, it must mean their caloric intake is ludicrous considering they are constantly active. ...Then again, that’s probably why they’re constantly roaming their various hunting grounds...? “Mature adult thri-kreen are roughly 7 feet tall at the shoulder and 11 feet long.” Well, that’s nothing if not imposing! “Of the six limbs protruding from their midsection, two are used for walking; the other four end in four-fingered hands.” I mean it’s interesting, but I can’t help but think looking at the example thri-kreen presented up top as looking a little unbalanced with how thin and skittery his legs are. Like, four arms is a wonderful gimmick that adds to what they can do? It’s just that from a practical perspective I can’t help but think the thri-kreen would have been best served on an evolutionary level with four legs and two arms. But who am I to judge? “The tough, sandy-yellow exoskeleton is extremely hard. A thri-kreen has two compound eyes, usually black with highlighted eyespots, two antennae, and a complicated jaw structure that manipulates food as the thri-kreen chews. The antennae help the individual to maneuver through brush and grasslands in the darkness (they also reduce any melee combat penalty from darkness or blindness by 1; missile combat is not affected). Thri-kreen often wear harnesses and even some forms of clothing, but they never wear armor.” This is all fairly accurate to regular mantis anatomy (though as I recall, most mantises have some kind of extra simpler eyes in the middle of their head? But I suppose that’s not majorly important), but the thing I question is their refusal to wear armor? Like, is this supposed to be a purely mechanical thing? They’ll later on state that their exoskeleton gives them a natural Armor Class of 5; would wearing actual armor over that be that much of an overkill? Is this supposed to reference how in their native Dark Sun setting, metal armor is among the rarest of artifacts? Because even as a species with a hard, chitinous exoskeleton, I think I would want as much protection as I can afford if I’m a soldier or mercenary of some stripe. Like, the exoskeleton is great and all, but if something gets through that exoskeleton, it’s like you’ve lost armor plating, and have broken a bone, and have exposed your squishy innards in one fell swoop. “The native thri-kreen language is made up of clicks and the grinding of its jaw appendages. While it is difficult for other creatures to speak this tongue, it is just as difficult for a thri-kreen to imitate more standard speech patterns. Thri-kreen speak their own language, but some understand the Common tongue.” Inevitably leading to Chewbacca-and-Han-Solo-esque bilingual dialogues as the one guy in the party who understands thri-kreen talks to their one guy who understands Common. Unless somebody has some kind of enchanted doodad to allow thri-kreen to speak Common unhindered, assuming they know it. Such are the luxuries of a fantastical setting, eh? “Three-kreen seldom live more than 35 years.” Oh. Ohhhh. Ohhhhhhhhh... It’s a real good thing they don’t need sleep, then. Really have to maximize their time, while they still have it.

Combat: “A thri-kreen’s chitinous exoskeleton gives it AC 5 naturally. Unarmed, it can attack with four claws and one bite attack per round.” No offense, but lacking the natural blades of regular mantids, those arms look rather willowy, and trying to use them for mere fisticuffs seems a waste. And while those mouthparts look sharp, I don’t generally think of mantises when I think of “vicious bites”. “If using a weapon, the thri-kreen can attack with its weapon and bite.” See, now that’s more like it. And judging by the illustration, it would appear they very well might be able to quadruple-wield! ...Though considering the various penalties that would involve, perhaps it would be best to just wield a two-handed weapon with four hands. Hell, perhaps some bonuses for that could come into play, I don’t know. I mean, you’re using more hands than is necessary, thereby giving your blows more force, and--ah, never mind. Bit of a longwinded tangent. “Thri-kreen also learn special combat maneuvers as they grow older, learning all by the time they are mature adults.” Oh! This is different! Do tell! “Leap: This ability allows a thri-kreen to leap 20 feet straight up or up to 50 feet forward. They cannot leap backward.” Criminy! That’s...really rather impressive. I mean I suppose great leaping is more of a grasshopper, cricket, or flea-associated ability, more than with mantises, but...I don’t know, it seems like a rather clever reference to whenever one is trying to compare the jumping ability of any of those insects to a human scale? ...Though I must say I’m a tad puzzled at this being a learned combat maneuver, and not merely a natural jumping ability, merely being applied to combat scenarios... “Chatkcha: This is a crystalline throwing wedge. A thri-kreen can throw two chatkcha per round, up to 90 yards. A chatkcha causes 1d6+2 damage when it hits, and returns to the thrower when it misses.” ...Boomerangs? ...Well, okay then. I like boomerangs. Boomerangs are neat. Don’t know why the tri-kreen in particular have boomerangs, but I’m not complaining. :V “Venom: This venom is delivered through an older thri-kreen’s bite. Anyone bitten must make a successful saving throw vs. paralyzation or be paralyzed. Smaller than man-sized creatures are paralyzed for 2d10 rounds, man-sized for 2d8 rounds, large creatures for 1d8 rounds, and huge and gargantuan creatures for only one round.” I...wait, what? Venom? The mantis-men have venom? I could understand driders, being spider people, or naga or yuan-ti, being snake people, having venom, but...the mantis-men? That doesn’t follow. I mean, of course I don’t think any sapient fantastical species mostly based on one creature needs to stick to the abilities of the animal, but the additions should at least make sense. ...Also, that sounds like a great way to make a group of thri-kreen a pretty huge threat. If someone’s unlucky they’re out for 16 rounds, 20 if they’re a dwarf or halfling. “Dodge missiles: A mature thri-kreen can dodge missile fired at it on a roll of 9 or better on 1d20; they cannot dodge magical effects, only physical missiles. Magical physical missiles (arrows, thrown axes, etc.) modify this roll by their magical bonus.” Oh! Bullet time! Neat! And unlike the venom thing, this actually makes some sense, on account of how zippy a striking mantis is. Also, that’s literally bullet time if you have guns in your campaign setting. What’s more, since it’s dependent on the thri-kreen’s roll, it doesn’t even matter if the archer or gunslinger are really good (unless it’s a natural 20, I think, which will always hit? but I don’t know how you’d work that out), it’s all dependent on wether or not the DM rolls well on those dodge rolls. And on a 9 or higher, the odds are in the thri-kreen’s favor. Color me impressed. Don’t piss off the mantis-men, especially if your party mostly consists of ranged folks. “Psionics: Some thri-kreen have psionic wild talents. There is a 50% chance that any thri-kreen will have a psionic wild talent, described in the Complete Psionics Handbook.” Oh right, that’s a big thing in Dark Sun, isn’t it? The proliferation of psionic powers? Hell, the description’s kind of underplaying it by saying “some” thri-kreen have psionic powers if a full 50% have them. A few bad coin flips and the party is being tossed about by a group of angry insectoid Jean Greys (Jeans Grey? ...Grey Jeans?). “Magical Items: Thri-kreen can use most magical items, though those designed for humanoid creatures cannot be worn properly, so will not function for a thri-kreen.” ...I mean that makes sense, but that’s a little vague. Like surely magical weapons work the same, it’s not like they don’t have hands. Not to mention magical rings, necklaces, bracelets, hell, even like a tiara or crown or circlet or something if situated properly around those antennae. You’d definitely have to make some alterations to, say, a magical chain shirt, or something, to give it the proper arm spacing. Not to mention the four arm holes. But such a carte-blanche “it don’t work” doesn’t seem terribly reasonable. It’s not like they’re weird blob things, they have arms, legs, a head...most of the general stuff should still work alright, in my limited estimation.

Habitat/Society: “Thri-kreen organize into hunting packs; there are no permanent thri-kreen communities.” Tch, pity, really. I mean, it seems mostly a measure to ensure you can justify a thri-kreen random encounter. “Uh, they were just...out here. Hunting. Yeah. Now fight them, take their stuff.” Unless of course you use your random encounter table for things that aren’t just for random murder opportunities for your party.

Ecology: “Thri-kreen are carnivores. They seldom hunt other intelligent creatures for food, but will do so in times of need.” Well, better than the lizard men, who explicitly prefer the taste of human flesh. I prefer Donner Party behavior to eating people when there are perfectly serviceable non-sapient animals and plants to choose from available already. “Mantis warriors have a well-known taste for elves, which keeps both races at an uneasy peace at best.” ...Wait, what?! You just said they seldom hunt other intelligent creatures for food, now you’re saying they have a taste for elves?! ...I mean, granted, the word “seldom” implies a non-zero number of intelligent creature hunts in non-starvation conditions, but still, that seems like a contradiction, to me.

Related Species: “The tohr-kreen, or mantis nobles, are larger, more cultured versions of thri-kreen. Though many of them wander their world to gain knowledge, they sometimes build cities as well. They regard thri-kreen as somewhat barbaric cousins, though there have been incidences of a tohr-kreen creating a permanent settlement of thri-kreen, or teaching a pack more civilized ways.” ...Okay, well, first of all, “more civilized ways” are in the eye of the beholder. Second of all, they earlier mentioned that thri-kreen do not create permanent settlements. Yet, the tohr-kreen do? I suppose I’m not really convinced that these tohr-kreen are actually a distinct species so much as a ruling class/caste of the same species. The “larger” thing, which would appear to be the only explicit physical difference between tohr- and thri-kreen, could easily just be the fact that noblemen of cultures the world over and throughout history have been better fed than the peasants, allowing them to grow larger instead of having their growth stunted through malnutrition. “The xixchil are spacefaring mantis. These creatures are skilled surgeons and artificers, who enjoy replacing lost limbs with ‘more efficient’ substitutes.” Ooh! Spelljammer shit, sounds like! I love me some sci-fi-fantasy crossover! I mean, they’re really undeveloped, but “skilled surgeons and artificers with a taste for cybernetic enhancement” is almost deeper characterization already than the rather vague and generic “HUNTING CULTURE” that appears to define basic thri-kreen.

Overall: I really think they could have done more with the lore. Like they didn’t even tell us wether thri-kreen women ritualistically kill their mates after conception. Not even as a joke. The most impressive thing about them is their various skills, like their leaping, and their psychic powers, not to mention Bullet Time. I’d say use them, sure, but give them something to work with from a characterization perspective. If you’re going to keep them as hunters, I might go so far as to say crib from the Predator movies, and have THE HUNT be the centerpiece of their culture. Like, superiority in THE HUNT is the be-all, end all. It’s better than “yeah, uh, they hunt, but sometimes they eat people, except when they don’t, but except when they’re starving.” Give them a proper culture. Though I guess that’s what I usually ask for, then, ain’t it?

#thri-kreen #dungeons and dragons #you're dungeon is problematic #mantis men #Dungeons & Dragons

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