Reblogging Future Reference

This is incredible!

I’ve compiled every raw ass quote from tumblr shitposts into my phone and i’m gonna use every single one of them in my campaign at some point.

Reblogging so I remember. Character research. I’ve made a half-elf, with a drow mother & half-drow father, raised in drow society particularly in a temple of Lolth. They worship a different goddess currently in the campaign, but it’s good know their roots better.

The Descent of the Drow

Requested by @adrainea​ for the lore giveaway.

Part 5 of 5: Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes & Beyond

So where are we now? On May 18th/ May 29th 2018 (digital version/hard cover) WOTC released Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes, and along with it some changes to this tale. Here’s my summary relevant to drow, though I highly encourage looking at the supplement its self. There’s much more to add, but I’m only including what is relevant to the question: What did dark elves do to become drow/banished? 

Elves were formed from drops of Corellon’s blood when he fought a godly war against the orc god Gruumsh. Corellon was like “oh neat” and adopted these blood spawned beings as his children

He favoured a few of them and made them the Seladrine gods. One of them would become Lolth.

Corellon had no fixed form, Corellon could be a flock of birds, a woman, a man, a river. Like Corellon, elves too had no fixed true form and could choose.

One day Lolth picks a form, names herself Lolth and tells the other elven gods that they should choose fixed forms as well to have power and impact on the universe.

The some elven gods agree, some do not. Elves become divided into those who agree with Lolth and those who agree with Corellon.

Lolth tries to kill Corellon for her usual reasons, fails, Corellon finds he can no longer trust his children and casts out ALL elves from Arvandor – they get pushed into the Feywild where they now have fixed forms, even those who stood by Corellon. (?)

The elves decide to explore Toril and other lands because they are naturally curious and emotional creatures, hungering for new experiences after the loss of their “father.”

Some elves continue to worship Corellon, some Lolth, some other gods.

[I get on a plane in several hours so no time for arts. Please enjoy this art “ Temple of Lolth “ by Julian Kok, featured in Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes] Closing thoughts:

Drow who repent can be gifted this ability to change form (biological sex) after a long rest. New lore states that all elves worshipped Lolth, not just the Ilythiiri. But they stopped and it was the dark elves who did not pull back. Whether this means all dark elves or only the Ilythiiri, is unclear.

If there’s a core thing to take away from MTOF it’s that: Drow aren’t born evil, not by race. They have a history, culture and environment that encourages certain behaviours. Remove them from that environment and they have a chance to change. If a drow, orc, or goblin, where born say in a good aligned city, grew up with humans, they would pretty much act as a human would, think and have values as their peers would. They’d look different, sure, their biology would have some effects, yeah. But they aren’t “born evil”. If you’re playing a drow (born in the Underdark into drow culture) it’s likely they will struggle with this inner darkness for a very long time, perhaps forever. And that’s fine. Such things are what make drow so thrilling to play. Despite being set up from birth to be drawn to darkness, they may overcome it, or use it in productive ways. I’ll leave you with this Paarthurnax quote, because I adore it and it’s relevant. “What is better ? to be born good or to overcome your evil nature through great effort ?” ~ Paarthurnax, Skyrim Be well friends, and may your characters be as varied and complex as you wish them to be.

This is number 1 on my list for next Christmas. 

All I want for Christmas is a Solas-centric DLC announcement.

Oh! Awesom. I’m doing some Irish Celtic myth stuff fo a game at the moment. The The four cities legendary bard/poet idea is amazing, that would be such a good way to use them.

Celtic Pantheon/Campaigns (5e D&D)(Long Post)

Okay, so I’m just going to get this out there, because every time I glance at the Celtic Pantheon in the PHB I do giggle a bit. Mind you, it’s not anyone’s fault, but a couple of centuries of academics bundling stuff together under ‘Celtic’ has mightily confused just about everything, and it really shows here.

(Note: I have no academic qualifications regarding Celtic mythology/history/folklore whatsoever, I’m just Irish and grew up with a lot of the Irish myths and legends as a kid. This also means I know very little about the Welsh and other Celtic myths, just to say that in advance. This is all just what I’m familiar with from growing up and a little bit of research, and might have errors)

This post is also brought to you by my idly scanning lfg posts for Celtic campaigns and seeing a lot of historically inspired Celts-vs-Romans campaigns which is … doubly funny to me if they’re using the PHB pantheon list. This is because, as you’ll see in a minute, the majority of the PHB list uses the Irish gods and we … didn’t have those. Romans. We didn’t have them. So. Heh.

(We had Roman traders, especially around the Waterford area, it’s a relatively quick hop over from Wales/Cornwall, and we have evidence of Roman … tourists, probably? There are Roman offerings at various Irish prehistoric religious sites, in the Midlands especially. So we did have Romans, in the sense of we met them, but we didn’t have Romans, in the sense of invasion by the Roman Empire)

So. The thing about the PHB ‘pantheon’. It’s kind of borrowing gods from several different Celtic pantheons. ‘Celtic’ covers a lot of distinct regional cultures that are believed (I think for primarily linguistic and archaeological reasons) to be descended from an original proto-Celtic culture. For extra fun, there aren’t many primary historical sources for most of them, as in Celts writing about themselves and their faiths. Most of the texts we have are either medieval Christian (a lot of the Irish and Welsh) or Roman (a lot of the Gaulish, Iberian, Germanic, Brythonic), so there’s a lot of cross-cultural influence and interpretation muddling it up in there before you ever get to celtic-vs-celtic.

So they’re all Celtic, but they’re all very distinct in terms of stories, culture and the attributes of their gods. There are some gods that were broadly shared under similar names between various of the regional pantheons (Lugh and Brigantia are two examples), although they could be very different in portrayal between, say, the Irish and Gaulish stories. (Where the PHB uses one of these, I’m going with what name they’re using for guidance)

(The various attributes given to them by the PHB are a different muddle of influences again, with I think a lot of it being straight D&D invention, but that’s its own story)

So, to have a look at the D&D breakdown:

5e PHB Celtic Pantheon

Arawn  (Welsh)

Belenus  (Gaulish/Romano-British)

Brigantia  (Gaulish/Romano-British)

Diancecht  (Irish)

Dunatis (???)(Can’t find or remember this guy at all. Only thing I’ve got is that the Irish for ‘fort’ is ‘dún’, so maybe Irish?)

Goibhniu  (Irish)

Lugh  (Irish)

Manannan Mac Lir  (Irish)

Math Mathonwy  (Welsh)

Morrigan   (Irish)

Nuada  (Irish)

Oghma  (Irish)

Silvanus  (???)(Don’t know at all. I’m going to guess continental because I think ‘silva’ is the latin for ‘forest’, hence ‘Transylvania’ or ‘Beyond the Forest’, so the dude has a latin name)(… looking this up, he’s actually straight-up a Roman god, okay then)

The Daghdha  (Irish)(I usually see it spelled ‘Dagda’, mind)

This all shakes out as follows:

Irish: Daghdha, Diancecht, Goibhniu, Lugh, Manannan, Morrigan, Nuada, Oghma

Not Sure/Maybe Irish?: Dunatis

Welsh: Arawn, Math Mathonwy

Gaulish/Romano-British: Belenus, Brigantia

Straight Roman: Silvanus

So that’s more than half the list being figures from Irish mythology. And that … there’s nothing wrong with using them for an Asterix-and-Obelix Romans-vs-Celts sort of campaign. I mean, it’s your own private fantasy game, not a history lesson. Go nuts! It just … reads oddly to me. Heh. Historically speaking, very few people with Irish names calling on Irish gods would have had much cause to fight Romans. Not on any large scale, anyway.

Campaign Inspirations:

I’m going to just say, though. If you want a more historical and/or mythological feeling Celtic campaign. You have a couple of options. I’d say the easiest thing is to just look up the specific pantheons and cherry-pick your gods from there (there’s a handy Wikipedia list here)

If you want continental Romans vs Celts a-la Asterix and Obelix, use the Gaulish/Brythonic list.

If you want Romans vs Celts more along the lines of various modern interpretations of King Arthur, use the Gaulish/Brythonic and/or Pictish lists.

If you want Celtic more along the lines of full Arthurian, Excalibur, BBC Merlin, ‘dragons, druids, knights and romance’, a lot of actual Arthurian legend used Welsh myths as a base, so it’s a nice start, then throw some Brythonic on top (particularly if you want to do an 80s Robin Hood on it and throw in Cernunnos/Herne the Hunter in). If your setting is more of a fully mixed ‘Medieval England’ sort of setting, Robin Hood, King Arthur, etc, you can mix and match a whole bunch of folklore and mythology of various sources, Welsh, Roman, Norse, etc. (Alan Garner is a fantasy author who does this very well, if you want a high-fantasy example)

And if you want Celtic as in Irish myth to match the names …

If you’re going relatively low-fantasy for a more historical feel, use the Irish pantheon, and the sources you want to inspire the setting would be the Cattle Raid of Cooley and the Fenian Cycle/stories of Fionn Mac Cumhaill and the Fianna. The Five Kingdoms of Ireland (Ulster, Connacht, Leinster, Munster and Meath, with the High King sitting at Tara in Meath) makes a pretty good setting.

If you’re going more high fantasy, like the Arthurian example, use the Irish pantheon, and you want the Book of Invasions and the Battle of Magh Tuireadh as inspiration. Setting elements you can have here are the Five Kingdoms of Ireland, the Four Cities that the Treasures of Ireland came from, Tir na nOg, and the Otherworld. (Note on the four cities and their treasures: they were each guarded by a legendary bard (poet/scholar/mage), so you could go classic archmage wizard or you could throw in some high level NPC bards for fun)

There’s some very cool magic items in Irish myth too, like the aforementioned four treasures, the magic pigskin (waterskin) Lugh had the sons of Tuireann quest for (heals all wounds, but charges of various healing spells per day would probably work), the sword Fragarach (I think other D&D editions had a version, but I’m particularly interested in its sword of truth aspect that forces anyone threatened by it to tell the truth), Cuchulainn’s Gae Bolg spear, aka Belly Spear (which is made from a bone of a sea monster and is nasty – it basically grows barbs/spines once it’s in someone’s body), and basically every item ever owned/gifted by Manannan Mac Lir, who is basically the Irish god of giving away cool magic items (as well as sea god, trickster god, elder god, and the god often in charge of starting quests). If you need a quest-starter god or a god to litter magic items around your world, Manannan Mac Lir is your dude.

If you want a fantasy author that I quite like who does great loosely-based-on-Irish-myth high fantasy, I would say Michael Scott, particularly (from my reading) the De Danaan tales and Tales of the Bard. I also grew up reading Cormac Mac Raois’ Giltspur trilogy, which is an awesome kid’s portal fantasy involving some Wicklow kids winding up in Tir na nOg and fighting the forces of the Morrigan, but that’s pretty much impossible to get outside Ireland, I think.

And I promise I’m not only saying this because I personally feel like a low-fantasy ‘historical’ campaign is about the least interesting thing you could do with any of the Celtic pantheons. Honest.

Also human friends cooking their Kitsune spirt friends lots of dishes that they like, tofu, aburagé, azukimeshi and other meals to so the spirit can hide from Yokai hunters and because they’re starving after playing pranks all night. Then word gets around about the human’s cooking, thanks to Kitsune bragging and the human accidentally starts a supernatural being soup kitchen/restaurant at the their apartment. Making cucumber cocktails for kappa, blood dishes such as Sanguinaccio dolce for Vampires, and seafood sushi for Mermaids & Selkies.

I’m all for fantasy stories where supernatural characters protect their human friends, but does anyone else want some stories where the humans are the ones who are looking after their supernatural friends?

A human girl exchanging her silver engagement ring for a cheaper one after she realises why her werewolf friend has been refusing to high five her.

A group of humans throwing coats over their vampire friend because he forgot it was the Summer solstice and was caught out by the sunrise. Those same friends coming to visit him when he wakes up in the late afternoon, bringing him blood from the butcher’s and putting up with his whining about the nights getting longer.

A human hearing that someone stole their selkie friends pelt and coming over to her new “husband"s house immediately and threatening to punch his lights out unless he tells them where it is.

Humans petitioning the counsel to build a wooden climbing frame in the local playground because the old one has iron parts and their fairy friend’s kids can’t use it without burning themselves.

I’ll post more if I can come up with any.

Reblogging so I remember. This seems super help for art. Been wanting try my hand at battle pose art rather reference poses but haven’t found much luck in finding good reference poses

You know what’s some crazy $hit?

This fabulous bitch

She makes a shit ton of poses (like 16,000 or some crazy nonsense).  I used this lovely lady to draw so much as a teen.  Whether it was some nerdy pose for my Mary Sue as fuck OCs

or for full on fight sequences

or for tragic deaths of my OCs in the arms of a totally OOC main protagonist.  

this bitch hooked me up.  

And with the wildest, craziest stuff that you could see in your head but had no way or resources to reasonably draw like

or this

or this

DUDE!  INASNE SHIT!!  So I was using her for a pose reference and decided, you know what, I owe this bitch some cash.  Lemme dole it out for her.  BUT then, I looked and saw she only has 286 fucking patrons!!  This chick gives out free shit and spends countless hours arranging these shoots and setting this stuff up.  

I’ll fork up the cash, SenshiStock.  You’re worth it.  

Check out this amazing woman’s stuff, and get knowledged:  https://www.deviantart.com/senshistock

This is incredibly helpful. This definitely something I wish had when first diagnosed With Autism. It all checks out with my understanding. Some of the methods for dealing with sensory overload are things I do myself to help with it. There’s still heaps of other pieced of advice that look super useful or address things I noticed but couldn’t put into words. So reblogging to remember this easier & because it is super useful.

I decided to create something that I wish I had when I first got diagnosed with autism - so here’s my comic for ASDComicTakeover! You can find out more about the project here!

Keep reading

This is incredible

Join us in our talk on Torterra tree care, much needed after our PoGo community day recently.

I got College of Lord Bard. Fun & accurate. I like creative writing, character building & world building.

idk if uquizzes are still a thing that anyone cares about, but my love for quizzes will never die, so i’m back with another one! i made a dnd class quiz focused more around personality and mindset and less about what abilities you’d like to have in the game. 

also, if anyone is interested in a subclass quiz for any of the classes, let me know! i’m totally down to make those, i just don’t know which class to start with haha

link to the quiz in reblog

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JjhF5uuyzo)