last dnd sesh out of context 🤠

megan is @mapalssyrup lark is @just-a-we1rd0 and i’m the dm and varis :3

Here's a kobold character design I made for @cyanide-the-spider back in December 2nd 2020. It was an ongoing campaign for quite some time, the character still gets a lot of love. I also did the silliest little doodle based off of a post she had made. "leaning back on her tail and turning her gaze back up towards the sky to watch the fireworks. " And I said "HOW? HAVE YOU SEEN HER TAIL???" and drew this as a response.

she do be hitting that yoinky sploinky

Felt a little silly for not posting them all together :']

There's something like the anticipation of a Kiss...

Purple magic nerds kissing. That's it. That's the post.

some floating heads of my boy Asher, his guardian and his favourite people to go adventuring with ♥

Been thinkin about Astarion + vampire biology so have some headcanons and the bits of game lore they're based on

Dialogue establishes that Cazador has been successfully passing himself off as a regular noble for centuries, and Astarion confirms that while he's considered a bit reclusive, he does mingle with the upper class of Baldur's Gate and has a property specifically for hosting fancy events.

Vampires are camouflage predators, whose primary hunting strategy is to blend in with their prey until the perfect time to strike. Their ecological niche is not a particularly safe or stable one - they live hidden in plain sight, usually in sizeable cities, for easy access to prey, but they know that if they are discovered they will be rooted out and killed or driven away. They are rarely able to get away with attacking in public, where city guards might rush to the aid of a screaming victim - they have to isolate their target before killing it. The ability to blend in, to be overlooked by their target, until it is too late is essential.

Cazador is, as far as we know, the only true vampire in Baldur's Gate

This is because true vampires are aggressively territorial. Like most apex predators, they eat a lot, and need substantial territories to support them - even moreso if they have a partner or spawns. Ascendant!Astarion would need to hold onto the entire city, as Cazador did, to be able to feed himself and Tav without raising suspicion.

True vampires are relatively rare, but there are more of them than there are cities, so it's not uncommon for one to set up in an occupied city and try to oust the sitting resident. The challenger usually believes himself to be as strong or stronger than the current tenant: these territorial disputes usually end in at least one death, so they're not to be entered into lightly.

Astarion is very obviously a vampire: his fangs are visible, as are his bite scars; he's so pale multiple people comment on it; his eyes are red, etc.

Astarion is not a healthy vampire.

This is a man who has been kept on the knife's edge of starvation and tortured regularly for 200 years, and to another vampire, that would be clear from the state of him: Astarion is a camouflage predator who is so malnourished he is no longer able to blend in.

Tav will get an up-close look at his transformation over the course of the game and during the years afterwards: the more healthy and well-fed Astarion becomes, as his body catches up on its immense energy deficit and begins to recover, the better he will be able to mimic a living elf. His skin will be able to bleed, or blush, or bruise, none of which he's capable of while actively starving. Hia fangs will retract until he needs them, not invisible but less obvious - having them out all the time is a response to severe deprivation; he's so hungry his body can't risk losing prey to the split second it takes Cazador to snatch a rat back, so he's permanently in bite mode, hyperaware, ready to strike. Some body functions will come online that he didn't even know he had, the ones that are supposed to help him blend in - his eyes will start producing pigment to look darker, less scarlet and more burgundy, to be more easily mistaken for brown; his lungs will make him breathe automatically even though he doesn't need it, he'll start being able to eat normal food without getting sick again, though he still won't get any nourishment from it; he'll heal faster. He'll even be able to get drunk, though he'll burn through it very quickly. As it stands, all those extra systems have been shut down by his starving body - they're useful, but nonessential, and he needs every single bit of energy funnelled into just keeping him alive and functional.

There is probably an intentional bit of psychological warfare against the spawns on Cazador's part here - him starving them strips them of their natural defences, and every time he makes them leave the mansion to hunt, they have to do so knowing that they're poorly hidden and vulnerable. But it's established that true vampires treating their spawn poorly or outright abusing them is A Thing, so it's not the only reason - he sees them as property rather than people, he keeps them weak so they won't plot against him, he's acting out his own trauma from Vellioth on them, he just wants to - but it does feed into it.

Astarion can, at one point, identify old blood as belonging to the player character. He also gets excited at another point if an enemy character runs away, stating, "Now it's a hunt."

He says that "even stale, [he'd] recognise that bouquet anywhere." This confirms a few things for us:

He has a vastly superior sense of smell capable of identifying individuals by scent and - since he can tell who the blood belongs to even after some time has passed - following scent trails.

This confirms that although city-dwelling vampires may primarily hunt via luring a victim to a secondary location before killing it, they still have the "stalk down and chase" predator instinct. Since Astarion can't lure wildlife anywhere, this is almost certainly how he's been hunting to supplement his diet when he's not using the player as his personal caprisun.

The fact that he can scent out prey before killing it means he has this ability all the time - he can smell blood while it's still safely inside the owner's body.

So scent is probably relevant to how vampires process the world. The more time each companion spends with him, the more he gets used to their scent, starts associating it more with safety and camaraderie than with a potential meal, and so he becomes more relaxed around them. As he learns to link the player's scent with love and comfort and trust, the more likely he is to retreat to their tent over his own when he's injured or afraid or having a trauma moment. When he's fond of someone, something of theirs will go conveniently missing - he's moving their scent into his little safe space, it's comforting for him. He can tell when his lover is hurt or aroused or frightened - though not which of the three applies - from a distance, because his sense of smell can pick up the spike of adrenaline rushing into their bloodstream.

But that also means that he can never feel like he's got any distance from Cazador while he's living in the mansion - even if the man isn't in the same room, the entire place reeks of him, and it makes Astarion feel like Cazador is breathing down his neck all the same. Ascendant Astarion would have a really, really hard time sticking it out in that mansion with stale Eau de Cazador all over the place. It means that he's put instantly on edge by the faint scent of one of his siblings as he walks through the lower city - when seven vicious, territorial apex predators are confined to a single small dormitory, several hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, fights are going to be nasty and frequent, and although Cazador wouldn't allow them to kill each other, considering how many of his siblings refer to him as weak or a runt, Astarion probably didn't win them very often. So. Having a highkey advanced sense of smell is a mixed bag.

mother fuckin’ themberchaud

essek time

they are besties your honor

he's so baby !!

God I have too much free time

BABY SIPS!!!!!

This character does not belong to me, he belongs to @dingodoodles

when you just finished fkng on top of a grave, but you have feelings you gotta sort out (they're just nekkie, but since I dont know the state of tmblr cens0rship - and I had drawings flagged where people were fully dressed before) you get the white halo of doom - but you can see the full pages on my twitter!! I drew some nice butts so pls check them out :3c)

Echoes of the solstice (but skrungly)

School and public transport are making me get up at 4:30 am every morning right now so this is the best I can do

Tiefling (devil) Nicole from Snow Day and Imp Tweek from Phone Destroyer

They play volleyball together on the weekends

Did that steven panel redraw circulating on Twitter