D20 Analysis - Blog Posts

Taking magic from the marrow, sucking on the sweetness of familiarity— humanity and ribs are inherently attached, a biblical kind of the magic held within that which protects the heart and the stomach, producing of life— the growling for power and the eternal hunger for control that comes at the cost of a rib and the cost of one’s life.

posting these tags from aabria since there's been a lot of discussion about lemli's 206 magic items and the implications: (original post)

#the one thing i'll say about K's rib breaking #and the reason I didn't describe it in terms of magical potential #(same with B-squared's death) #is the word I drilled into them in episode 2 #Intention. #The core of all magic #a wizard's rib breaking isn't inherently magical #but breaking a wizard's rib to take the magic from their very marrow?

A right hand man. A trusty sword. A friend.

Deli finds comfort in his new acquaintance. Colin Provolone is a sturdy and simple man— quick and skilled in battle, a loyal and reliable in service, and also a good friend. Deli, with boyhood now smudged against the edges of his face, grows into his position of The Meat Lands.

Colin keeps the promise he made years ago to a disgruntled mother in the corner of an expansive hall in Comida. He listens and enacts the advises and discussions made for the benefit of this land far from home. He keeps guard and wrestles the yawns that strangle his throat and eyes as politics are discussed. All standing, never leaving, the right hand of Deli.

Colin watches Deli through the days, this leader guided with a willpower of steel, the love and dedication to the unification of his home watering his quick growth and maturation. Two years and Deli had become a fearsome, confident and ambitious young man.

Then Deli lies a gift upon his shoulders— Skald Colin Provolone, meaning poet (sing the songs of heroes, be my witness, carve my name into history, approve of my works).

And when Deli uses this title, Colin doesn’t question. He only grips his sword tighter, stands straighter, observes steadier. Deli’s sword and shield. His skald, his poet.

And at night he meets a softer, kinder Deli. They sit on the edge of Deli’s bed, talking and laughing about smaller matters. Sweeter things, like childhood and gossip that whisper down the hallways. He watched Deli’s expressions pour out, an innocence that splays across his face. He finds delight in those times, a remedy for a past he tries to forget. Light laughter, “simple is always how we’ve kept things”, and drunkenness fills the air between the two.

Two quiet years. Then comes blood.

And blood and blood pours from a carriage and drips, viscous, hot and real from hands and blades.

A quiet shatter in friendship. A trusty sword clanks at the feet of Deli and the familiar, light scent of cheese drifts far away from the house.

For the first time in two years, Deli is alone. A void renders behind him where his skald, his poet, would be standing.

And then five years pass and Colin sees Deli again. Scars rip at his face and he explains in whispers the ambush which landed him with it. Colin examines Deli’s face and finds little. A hardened and rough man. Colin thinks Deli resembles his mother.

Colin thinks about how he might’ve been able to prevent it, how he would’ve kept his promise, how he would have been able to protect him or die trying. Deli’s sword and shield, his skald, his poet.

There, Colin watches Karna die and the light leave Deli’s eyes. He watches the replaced Skald (and he thinks about the way Deli reached out to her with this title that fit her so effortlessly) shredded into a million pieces and he hears something in Deli die along with it.

This time Colin saves him. He nurses his old friend to stability and yet the “yeah, we’ll talk later” never comes as he watches Deli walk off into the sunset, now a man that would never be the boy, the friend Colin knew five years ago. A man with a cold and lifeless portrait, his soft edges ragged and a heart half rotten.

A sword. A shield. A skald, a poet. Colin keeps a promise to a mother and son made seven years ago. A protector, dedicated and loyal. He swings his sword quietly, precisely, dangerously against the ones who killed all his friends, dead or alive. Colin Provolone, sole survivor of the Saprophus, the poet of dead heroes.

The Rook’s exchange.

A flower, clutched and crushing in her hands, the blue-white staining and eating her fingertips— a cyanotype. She gazes across the battlefield. She sneaks into the bedchambers of a beloved she kept too close, kept too far. 

Karna stands in replaced positions. A Colin sized position. An Ariana sized position.

Her heart skips a beat as she skims over Deli’s haphazardly hidden notes. She finds motes of anger, of resentment, of despair and heartbreak at the corners of rapid heartbeats. She pulls and tugs at them, rearranging herself. Presentable. Useful. Disposable. 

She slides her note underneath the pillows of Delissandro Katzon’s bed. A quiet confession. A hopeful confession. She must survive.

She is dying, she is a child, she is in love. She hopes and she fears as tears crawl down her face and the rot eats her body. She knows the ways of war and the smell of murder better than the scent of a well prepared meal in the comforts of home. She knows the quick breath of death and the slow of a pulse better than the warmth of a family and the embrace of a lover. “She died nine years ago”.

At the bottom of the earth, in the embrace of Heart of the World, her story ends in a realm unknown to the rest. All the fighting to survive, the lies and the murder, the whispering of secret secrets and the blood dripping from the end of a blade. It all comes to a rest. Karna gives in to her exhaustion with an exhale (exhale, exhale). Eyes closed and a prayer to no god. A Hunger greets this tired warrior.

Cold steel rips apart her torn body. She dies and no one will mourn her. She dies and no mother, no sister, no lover will leave flowers by her gravestone, no eulogies sung, an insignificant name. 

She dies and she looks at the face of her lover. A letter remains underneath his pillows. Will he mourn for her?

“The only secret I have left, is that I love you” and in a title that was never made for her— “Signed, Sklad Karna Solara of Scoville”.

The Pawn resigns.

Amongst a group of a queen, a powerful bishop, a skilled spy and a to be chief, only Colin Provolone, a Dairy Island runaway, really escaped Saprophus.

He whose secret forced him to escape his homeland, stay undercover, speak nothing, want nothing. He whose morality throws his sword at the feet of his good friend, a devotion severed by the burden of death, and to think that war was all he was good for.

And yet, he makes it out of the rot-filled cave. He saves Deli, half-dead, his body lying still at the mouth of the cave, and still half-dead as he walks over the horizon, never seen again. He protected Amangeaux, one who is forever indebted, her regret buried a thousand miles down a cave non-existent, a life owed to a memory of those lost and now lies dead beneath their feet.

Colin Provolone begins this journey a sword and shield. He protects and devotes and craves belonging. His allies are bloodied and shattered and their purpose lies dead, forgotten to war and revenge, names erased to the world they so desperately etched their nails into.

Yet Colin Provolone survives with a purpose so driven. He is a quiet survivor, a noble protector. He remembers his allies, their hubris, their desperation. He swings his sword so that this world may know peace a little longer, that the war may have served a greater good, that the blood spilled may have been worth it.

In nobility, in morality, in wit and in war, Provolone survives the manipulation, the secrets and the ravening war with greater purpose than he started with and more gained than lost.

Knight takes King.

Our ragged, bloodstained girl in red. Flesh stained teeth, earth crusted nails. An animal-girl.

Girlhood knows red. She knows of blood and the hollowing hunger that resides in the pit of stomachs. She knows her way around organs and the fresh scent of danger. Girlhood knows of red eyes, red hands, red tongue licking a full, satisfied smile.

Red waits with the Creature resting on her grandmother’s bed. It lies with one paw over the other. It yawns and sleeps and bares its neck. It waits for inevitability. Fear wears the clothes of love.

“If you cannot eat, you will die. This is the Law.”

Tears swell at the corners of the girl’s eyes. Who are these tears for, my child? Humanity lays at the corners of her eyes. She wipes them with the back of her hand.

Hunger and hunger and hunger grips the girls stomach. Starvation. Instincts. Animal.

She lays the iron weapon into the Creature’s skull.

Red Riding Hood devours her shadow. She rips apart fur, finds the critical spot where the meat comes apart the easiest, where the heart pounds and fades the quickest.

She splits the skull apart, pulling the strings that have tormented her Story many times told. She strays the path and follows her instincts. Animal.

She eats. She eats and drinks and swallows. Bright red. Raw meat. She picks the fur and guts out of her teeth. She wipes her mouth on the collar of her white dress and her hands at her thighs. “My teeth were made to eat you”.

Unrecognisable child. People fear you the way they feared the Big Bad Wolf. What have you done? Predator claws and ears grow from her body. Alien, familiar. Maturity, mortality, humanity, innocence— the blood at the end of girlhood.

“I met death, and Death wants me to live.”

Amethar, a little prince of the House of Rocks, so far away from the throne. Lover and loved. He makes choices as a human, before his position as prince. He has never understood the necessity and restraints of royalty. He marries his lover, a commoner. He is young and innocent, and he does it unabashedly, without hesitation and fear.

Caramelinda, Duchess of Merenge falls in love with the blinding brilliance that is Lazuli Rocks, the powerful Archmage of Candia. She knows power, she knows politics, and she knows the importance of unity of Candia. She marries her lover. She cares and loves with more than her entire existence and she achieves peace for her home too.

The Ravening War. Caramelinda finds the lifeless body of her wife scattered amongst the heroes of the war. The sound of her heartbreak deafens amid the devastation of the field. She cradles the body of her lover close to her heart, thumping and thumping yet Lazuli’s eyes remain vacant. The tragedy of our heroes. Caramelinda watches the Rocks sisters fall at the hands of this hungry, bloody war. She watches the line of crowned dominoes crumble and fall at the feet of young Amethar, warrior and sole survivor of The Ravening War.

Orphaned Amethar, Heartbroken Caramelinda wed, both hearts aligned to another. They wed, hearts broken and lost to a war, torn apart and left to a quiet, empty castle.

“Lazuli I loved with all my heart. And this (pointing at Amethar) is just politics.”

Two children are gifted to this loveless couple and they find solace in it. Twins with the beauty and brilliance of their mother and the determination and bravery of their father. Ruby and Jet hear the quiet arguments between their parents, “Amethar, the delay of conversation has been perhaps your most cardinal sin.” They see that their parents do not share the love-filled eyes they shine onto the sisters.

Caramelinda lost her heart years ago on the battlefield and Amethar, his, even before it.

Hi! I’m pluto passingnights!! I’m super into Dimension 20, Worlds Beyond Number and Glass Animals :D

I binge a lot of the D20 campaigns and so I write character studies and analyses here!

I’m always going a little bit insane about the current season I’m watching so I might write more on that but I’ll catch up on the ones I’ve watched before eventually :)

D20 campaigns I've watched:

I yell about other random things, usually untagged, on @plutomn!!

There are certain times of the day where the numbers align in perfect harmony and a familiar glow of magic illuminates the world for that singular minute.

It’s 7:21am and you’re running through the sweet spring fields, far away from home with the hand of your twin sister— your half soul held strong and confident in yours. Both of you dream of a life away from the responsibilities neither of you understand. You leave scarecrows in place of yourself in the classroom of your chocolate bunny teacher.

It’s 3:03pm and this is the first time you smell what you have only have heard stories of. The stink of bloodlust, of a tidal wave war, of screams and the clattering of iron, of a mother’s tears and the crackling fires of revenge. You and your people survive. An assassination attempt was made on your father. You feel rusted gears start cranking, slow and threatening, deep underneath the earth as the wails of the fallen fill your ears.

It’s 8:45am and forbidden confessions echo against the walls of the holy. Words you did not know were capable of escaping your father’s mouth, old and dusty secrets pouring out and you realise you do not know him. Your sister’s hand grip yours and your crowns spilt into two, simple metal clattering against god-forsaken grounds as everything you have known now lies at your feet. You narrowly escape the church. You witness the brutal murder of a friend. “The Bulb cares for no one.” You run.

It’s 10:05pm and you embrace your mother for the first time in weeks. You see the way she looks at your father. You see the way she scrambles to find some resemblance in him of an older lost one and fail to do so. Her soft and love swelled eyes that grace you and your sister does not land on your father and you wonder if she deserves the wordless losses she has dealt with. She demands that you and your friend go to rest but you, your father’s child, see too much, hear too much and you run away from the castle to explore as you did before all this.

It’s 12:01am and you draw your last breath. You feel yourself slip into the mist within the warm arms of your friend, your brother. “Tell Ruby that I love her, and tell her that she did the right thing.” You feel yourself loose the tight grip of your sister’s hand, your mother’s, your father’s.

Your dream of fighting for the world has been fulfilled. No longer princess, instead a warrior in war. And you remember the stories of the soldiers— you feel the warmth of your father’s arms around you, of your mother and sister’s tears soaking the earth above you and you sleep, knowing that you have protected what is most important to you and that they still have the breath to even mourn.

It’s 6:33am and you smile a little smile and sleep— a sister, a daughter, a princess and a warrior.

You bury your child. Distant land, unfamiliar territory within your own homeland, and yet so far from home. You stand at the crown of this insignificant hill, unfit for a princess, your heir, your twin, your friend, your child. And the last time you saw her war-stricken face, you didn't even know it would be your last, and the determination lining the ferocity of revenge and exhaustion in the creases of her eyes, her brilliant intelligence and curiosity lighting a torch down the broad and dark path called Death.

You lay her down in the sickeningly sweet earth, your dwindling people by your side, your queen by your side, your now singular daughter by your side.

“You continue to teach me“ —and the Bulb’s light casts dancing shadows through the trees on a gravestone upon a hill too humble for a King and his family.

And then they sail away from that nameless place, their dearly loved one now lying still, and cold, and so so quiet beneath this land of churning blood and gore and the stink of war in which no tears or love can save her anymore.

Oh there is so so much to say about the ending of Burrow’s End but Tula’s lined up a shot right into the core of my being so;

She’s back in the fields where she found her husband, dead, lifeless, cold. It’s winter and the snow has piled up so high and she runs around after the terrifying sounds of lightning in a clear nights sky.

It’s Blue and icy when she falls asleep, oh so tired and she hadn’t even begun to process the grief. Her mother’s response: “Where were you?” to a “Geoffrey’s dead”. She‘s a mother of two. She gives into her exhaustion. She sleeps. Everything is so quiet in the cold, the Blue.

And a few years later, neither dead nor alive but with a renewed sense of hope and peace, things Tula has never given herself space to feel after her husband’s death, she walks to his resting place and talks about their children. She talks about accomplishments, hopes, about dreams.

“I can’t wait to find out what’s gonna happen tomorrow”, she says. She means it.

(and Brennan as the player breaks just the tiniest bit)

Tula finds softness, she finds comfort. The cold, the Blue melts under spring’s warmth and the grass below finally drinks. She is happy.

It’s kinda crazy that the events at the last few episodes of FHSY were glossed over (this is a very badly written ramble about how The Bad Kids are probably incredibly traumatised after sophomore year and it isn’t addressed much, or kind of at all)

—

Thinking about how The Bad Kids walked into the Forest of The Nightmare King after weeks of travelling, the constant threat that came with sleeping, being vulnerable in foreign lands and people, and that one of their best friends was kidnapped and only just retrieved with her months-of-tortured and previously evil sister a day or two ago.

And then they get to a skeleton-scattered temple of a forgotten god, their friend is violently murdered by a unicorn in front of their eyes, they do a whole bunch of drugs and after, on top of all of that, are tortured by their worst fears come to life?

Then The Bad Kids go on to face a colossal king— no, a god, AFTER having to shake off and give into their deepest fears with their war torn friends and family by their side, all for a school project worth 60% of their grade.

If Kristen Applebees had not hit that Nat 20 (tbf it had to have happened exactly that way but still), the fight would have spun out a very different way

The finale of FHSY fails narratively to address just the insane amount of emotional, mental and physical torture these children went through and because of the amount of real life time between seasons sophomore and junior year, I think we skipped over addressing that these kids are probably very traumatised