Chain OC Idea (again)

a travelling salesperson making their final rounds on the last day of autumn

A long-ish rant about deities in D&D

One thing that always bothered me about the various deities in D&D that there is almost no myth attached to them. The deities of D&D are a bit too understandable and logical. They’re just high level characters who also picked up the ability to grant divine spells because reasons I guess, with motivations and interests in the real world, but no myth attached to them.

Which is kinda boring, because myth is so important in religion. When you read about the shit that Mystra or Kelemvor or Cyric did during the Time of Troubles, it’s just that, shit they did, with 100% real and observable consequences, mostly in the way of eating other deities’ portfolios or shifting around the seating order in the pantheon or something, but no mythic resonance to it.

I always liked the sort of idea that deities exist on a level that is not entirely literal and heavily couched in metaphor, and that events in the real world are reflections of what happens on the divine level and vice versa.

Like, on the material plane some people just slowly adopted an agrarian way of life replacing their previous hunter-gatherer lifestyle giving rise to the establishment of the very first cities, which also lead to a shift in religious practice away from the gods of nature and towards gods that had more relevance to life within a city, but on the divine plane it was a full-on war with the gods of nature and the new-fangled city gods duking it out, and both of these are true.

Maybe on the material plane there never was a time when death didn’t exist and people were immortal so the gods had to kill the deity of life to stop more immortal people being born as a consequence of which death was first introduced into the world, but like, that literally happened in the divine realm! Or, like, literally in a metaphorical sense, because as I said the divine realm is all about metaphor.

And like maybe you rarely see the sun and the moon in the sky at the same time because the goddess of the moon is awfully shy and the goddess of the sun is constantly trying to find her because THEY SHOULD BE GIRLFRIENDS

I laughed way too hard at this

Give us a lil A5, D4, E5, H3, R1?

A5. what is their most impressive talent?Illusions. Sure, he knows other spells, he’s a decent swordsman, and he’s got a good voice, but illusions are the only thing that he has which is consistently really impressive. He’s got the imagination for it, too.D4. what type of clothes and accessories do they wear?Ha ha. Well Paisley has a red paisley scarf; it’s old but it has held up well. I think the aesthetic is a lot of reds and browns. As for his normal ‘uniform’ I think it’s something along the lines of the clothes in the original moodboard. A nice old coat, sensible boots, nothing baggy enough to be dangerous, a belt with a few pouches full of components, the Chain insignia on a necklace or on a loop off his belt. As for when he’s off duty, he probably has a few nice, light, baggy shirts. He probably hasn’t gone too far from a Riojan style.E5. do they portray their personality intentionally or let people figure it out on their own?He’d make it clear to anyone that he’s friendly enough, but I think he’d let people figure him out beyond any surface level “Oh this guy’s alright.”H3. do they like the snow?Probably likes it for a couple days, or when it’s falling lightly. He probably hates it when it’s constant and he can’t avoid the cold.R1. do they follow rules?In the Chain? Yeah. I think a lot of his sensibility comes from not actively wanting to break the rules like some of the misfit Helltroopers. He’s pretty content being a soldier, so why fuck that up? If it’s harmless fun, or if he’s making sure some delinquent doesn’t die, he’s not axiomatically opposed to breaking rules, though, and he probably wouldn’t follow an objectively bad decision as an order.

Small physical things that give your characters personality

How they smile

What their “tell” is for lying

Posture

Volume of speech, if they’re verbal

Nervous tics

How much eye contact do they make

In a group conversation, how close do they stand to others? Are they off to the side just listening and occasionally speaking or are they right next to people?

When standing, what do they do with their hands? Talk with their hands, cross their arms, put hands in pockets, prop up against the wall, etc

The sound of their footsteps

Nonverbal greetings: do they wave, nod, hug, glare, punch, high five, something else?

How do they get others’ attention? Raise hand, clear throat, etc

Reasons to Write a Play

If you’re an author, you should write a play. Even if your genre is high fantasy novels, even if your genre is romance novellas, even if your genre is poetry, even if you don’t watch theatre often, you should write a play.

Why?

1. It’s a completely different medium for storytelling that still puts your writing skills to use.

2. It’s an incredibly helpful exercise in show-don’t-tell. Like seriously. Wow.

3. A new way to write characters. You can’t shoehorn in extensive physical descriptions most of the time, so you have to resort to defining them by their actions and words. Again, see point 2.

4. You’re creating a piece of performance art without even getting up off the couch? Woah??

5. It’s so gratifying to watch it performed, or even just read, if you can. Like oh wow.

6. Lots of stuff that you never think you’ll need or use again outside of playwriting follows you back into your prose work.

7. The world needs more plays that aren’t just adaptations of Disney movies or 80′s jukebox cash grabs trying to ride the coattails of Heathers. Seriously.

8. It’s fun.

9. Like, really fun.

10. For real, I have never finished a writing project more quickly or with less burnout.

My new meds make my skin throw a fit. It’s not terribly bad, just a few things here and there, but it’s bumming me out because I’ve never really had too many run-ins with acne.

My four-year-old sister, however, is under the impression that it’s just “3D freckles”, and that they look very, very pretty. She wants all of my freckles to “pop out”, especially the ones across my nose; they’re her favourite.

And it puts me in this weird position where I can’t say, “No, this is acne, and it’s bad,” because I don’t want to teach her that it’s a bad to have unclear skin, you know?

Because the more I think about interactions I have with children, the more I realise that children will consistently compliment “flaws” until they’ve been taught not to.

Like, a kid at the library, whose sister has vitiligo, saw my scars once and suggested that his sister and I should be cats for Halloween, since I have “tabby skin” and she has “calico skin”. “I can be a black cat,” he immediately added. “It’s not AS cool, but they’re the spookiest.”

When I started losing weight, my little brother immediately demanded that I gain it back, because I wasn’t as comfortable to cuddle with anymore.

And my other little sister always wants to wear her paint-stained clothes to school so that “everyone can tell [she’s] an artist”.

I don’t know. I guess talking to little kids just reminds me that all of this superficial shit we worry about really is 100% made up.

D&D classes as john mulaney quotes

Barbarian - *smashes a 40 on the ground and yells* SCATTER!

Bard - the entire salt and pepper diner story.

Cleric - You have the moral backbone of a chocolate eclair.

Druid - Aaah! One feels like a duck splashing around in all this wet! And when one feels like a duck, one is happy!

Monk - I’ll just keep all my emotions right here and then one day, i’ll die.

Paladin - for those of you who aren’t catholic, I don’t mean to exclude you (even though we looove to exclude you)…

Ranger - everybody get out of my way. I just wanna sit here and feed my birds.

Sorcerer - this might as well happen. adult life is already so goddamn weird.

Rogue - Stop snitchin’, motherfucker.

Fighter - sometimes babies will point at me, and I don’t care for that shit at all.

Warlock - FUCK DA POLICE!

Wizard - I’m either having a drink or I have to pee. You’re living the golden years kid, not me.

L1 L3 C1

L1: What is their favourite fruit?

Mint really likes strawberries! In fact, when Mint probably used to have a bunch of strawberry bushes back when they had a garden.

L3: Any foods they hate?

Salted fish and/or pickled vegetables. They don’t like salt, for whatever reason. They will drink vinegar straight though, so who knows.

C1: How do they sit in a chair?

Like a fucking heathen. Mint has never sat normal in a chair Ever. They usually squat on the chair, but will try to lie down on it. Somehow manages to sit upside down. It’s a sight to behold.

Thinking about my cute little campaign-less tiefling bards