Rant About Feeling Guilty About Ranting.

Hey. You. Trans girl who's had quite a bit of breast growth but feels insecure because of the way they sit. Most cis women's breasts don't sit naturally with perfect squished together cleavage. All cis women whos breasts do sit like that will not sit like that naturally for longer than a decade or two. It's all in the bras. Most good bras don't make your breasts sit like that because they're made to support the weight, not to display them perfectly. Get a push up bra. Trust me. If you wanna maximize the squished together eye candy factor you need to get a push up bra. There are many options to choose from because millions if not billions of cis women have that same insecurity you do. Your body isn't incorrect. Your body is perfect. You were just fed an unrealistic ideal like every other woman

What is the answer to that red, three-legged riddle? I'm stumped.

Oh there isn't one, I just wrote a bunch of riddle-sounding statements with no connection whatsoever.

Sadly, I admitted that after you gave up so you have failed my riddle and will now be devoured.

-Pencil

The Chant of Sigil : the Modron renegate 3RN3ST-0 paints some anti-Mechanus propaganda on a wall

25 City Ruins Adventure Seeds

by Robb at readytorole.com

Treasure hunters claim to hear the voices of children playing in a walled off section of the city, but can’t find a way to get in. The voices fade at night but no adults are heard calling them.

A half-ogre calling himself the Baron of the Wastes has taken up residence in the city, and is recruiting any monsters who will work with him. Those who have gotten close enough to hear say that he is looking to build an army to terrorize the countryside.

Strange, colorful lights appear over the city at night swirling and dancing in the sky. In the morning they descend atop a preserved, hard to access tower in the center of the city.

A merchant who has returned from the ruins of the city is selling treasures she has uncovered. A family who claims to be originally from there says that some of those treasures belong to their family but have no proof, and therefore are looking for those who can help.

Giant webs have quickly been cast, covering nearly the entire city in a week. As the webs begin to reach toward local forests and villages and giant spiders have been spotted, panic has erupted and a search for a way to deal with them is underway.

Orcs and trolls have been fighting over control of the ruins for months now, but recently crudely written signs have appeared asking for mercenaries to join the orcs. They claim that they just want to have a place to stay but the trolls are set on destroying the city.

A thick miasma has been emanating from city ruins, making nearby travelers sick with an unknown illness. The local magistrate wants an investigation to take place and put an end to it.

A lone skeleton wearing old, tattered finery was seen near the city, waving arms towards travelers and making strange sounds. Some say it appeared as though it was beckoning them towards the city, but none have been foolish enough to approach.

A large crystal fragment brought back from the city has recently awakened, speaking telepathically to any nearby asking for help. They are claiming to be a soul from the past, and begs those who might be willing to return with them to prevent the city’s destruction to do so.

A black dragon wyrmling has recently made its nest in the city, claiming the area for itself with the help of some kobold followers. A kobold recently came to civilization to hand over a note saying as much and warning people to stay away and pay a tithe.

Ghosts go about their business in an old tavern, not even aware that they’re dead. One lone soul is aware and asks for help finding and burying the physical remains of those inside so that they all may finally rest.

A group of ragged, nearly feral humans and elves have been sighted near the city, causing speculation about their ancestry. Some believe that they are the descendants of those who went into hiding when the city fell and that all efforts should be made to make peace with them.

Every night, glowing footprints appear leading into the city’s marketplace, where they confusingly walk in circles and are hard to follow to any determinable destination. They disappear in the sunlight and show up in a new pattern afterwards.

A giant effigy in the city that can be seen from the road is being built and expanded upon by gnolls, who flock to the city in growing numbers. People are understandably frightened by this, especially since the gnolls appear to be growing in size as the effigy grows.

The Builders Guild is looking to hire some protection in the city as they’ve been contracted to start demolishing and rebuilding parts of the city. Since they started at least one worker gets found turned to stone each day.

Last night, various spells could be seen going off around an intact tower, leading some to believe a wizard has been alive in the city this whole time. A friend of the city’s archmage holds out hope that it is him and wants to make contact with the wizard.

Every year, the villagers that live near the city gather and light candles around the city’s perimeter. They say this wards off the evil spirits and souls of the dead inside the city from coming out and attacking them, but this year the candles won’t stay lit for more than a moment.

Golems made from old debris have been stalking around the city, aggressively attacking nearby travelers by throwing more debris at them. Who made these monsters, and why protect an abandoned pile of rubble?

Buildings in the city have started collapsing, leaving some to wonder what’s going on behind the broken walls. Some brave scouts who have ventured in say that they are seeing huge holes and tunnels appearing under the city, and the buildings are falling in.

A floating castle has drifted over the city and stopped, and long rope ladders have been lowered. The heraldry on the castle and those descending the ladders is entirely unfamiliar to any who see them.

Highwaymen have been harassing travelers and have taken some hostages inside of the city. They are asking for weapons made of silver rather than gold in exchange for their safety.

A beam of red light shines down onto the city, directly onto the temple of the goddess of life. This is an unheard of occurrence, and her followers want answers.

A statue of the ruined city’s first ruler has been successfully excavated and moved to safety into a nearby town. Now, small cracks are appearing and moisture seeps out through the eyes of the statue, leading many to believe it is cursed.

Excavators claim to have uncovered a secret passage under the castle, and say they believe it was filled with treasures unaccounted for by history. However, after the first attack by undead, they would rather experienced adventurers clear it out in exchange for a cut of the treasure.

According to the local alchemist, a very rare gem is required to make the antidote to the plague that is spreading around. The last known location of one is set in the throne in the heart of the ruined city.

I would like to reiterate. High collared supermans are evil Supermans. Low collars or necklines that show some of the clavicle are good superman fashion. This is simply how it is >:) this is my 1 law of Superman design and it is universal. If u wanna make your evil Superman believable he must have a high collar otherwise it doesn't work

young kryptonian prince

Out of all the Seemings in Changeling the Lost, I think the Wizened have to be the funniest.

Like. Imagine you get kidnapped by fairies and forced to do the most menial, boring shit. You are spirited away to Fairy Land and the nobles force you to do stuff like unclog toilets and work customer service for one billion years. And contrary to everything you'd expect from a fantasy world it is boring as sin. A Sidhe noble getting snippy at you because you used the wrong kind of sparkleberries in their parfait was the most noteworthy thing to happen to you in the the past century.

And of course the tedium of it all just shrivels you up like a prune. By the time you finally escape, you're this ancient, wrinkly, little yoda-ass gremlin. Just the crustiest, dustiest barnacle on the face of the earth.

Eventually you manage to find other survivors. Other former humans who had their lives ruined by the Arcadian Slavemasters. Except they're all became beautiful elves and badass elemental golems and sexy animal-men. You find out that even among some of the unluckiest bastards to ever live you are especially unfortunate.

Everyone else was stuck doing things like exploring ever-shifting labyrinths, or fighting dragons, or serving as courtesans in the cut-throat courts of fairy kings. And while that kind of stuff is also awful at least it was whimsical and glamourous in a demented sort of way. At least it didn't suck all the vitality and color from their bodies. At least they all got to become something cool instead of some unremarkable Dobby knock-off. At least their torment was interesting instead of mind-numbingly boring.

Congrats. You survived Wonderland and are now a fairy tale character.

Your reward is Being Old.

I would be so fucking pissed.

TURN YOUR SOUND ON FOR THE LOVE OF GOD

MTG Tutorials #34: The Legend Rule and the Planeswalker Uniqueness Rule

How does one... draw? I want to draw Odo and Lwaxanna Troi kissing :))

The release of Werewolf: the Apocalypse 5th Edition has evoked a sense of urgent inspiration in me. I found the news inspiring because it marks the launch of a new product that rings so close to the original game in which its new premises instantly evoke a lost-world setting perfect for new players to uncover through revelation. And with it, a sense of urgency that a large chunk of the game’s horror pathos and cultural representation will be lost in lieu of chronicles centered around direct action, high entertainment, and transactional resolution.

First and foremost, I applaud the efforts of anyone wanting to excise Werewolf: the Apocalypse, and it’s fandom, of it’s toxic player base that has festered far too long. Anyone taking that on isn’t blind to something that is both wonderful and incredibly problematic, and it requires a collaborative effort to address meaningfully. It means being willing to internalize hard and profoundly uncomfortable truths. 

When I look at the prior editions, I consider its inherent value and feel that the things that made the original editions of Werewolf so special to me don’t entirely align with a large portion of it’s old player base. This is not for those players. In some ways my aim with this is small, with the understanding my target audience is also small, and this space exists for them. 

Werewolf: the Essentials is a project culminating my 25 years of entertaining and horrifying players. This is a carefully curated gaming experience tailored to Queer tabletop audiences primarily, although I am confident it will resonate with many others as well. This started as something I was working on alone but quickly has grown to include a pack of other avid Players and Storytellers who have felt left behind by the current direction of the gameline. I am laying out every little trick, twist, and ounce of Storytelling experience I have acquired over the years. In many ways, this is the quintessence of my inclusive World of Darkness, and a passion project that I hope those who read this may too come to appreciate.

In the first and second editions of the various splats published across the World of Darkness, the Storytellers Handbook gave Storytellers the raw narrative tools to convey the world to their troupe of players. As time has progressed, the sourcebooks to follow have greatly expanded to include Garou society, their relationship to Gaia, and to each other. As the editions expanded what they made available to Storytellers and Players, some of the original content of earlier editions was left out. By the time the 20th Anniversary Edition was being written, many of the edits were made to cut back a bit on the roughage and “get to the meat and potatoes” of mechanics crunch. In that way, the edits were a complete success, but something important was lost.

The earlier ST guides laid out explicitly that the World of Darkness is first and foremost a horror game. Essays within their pages provide advice on using textural descriptions and different modes of storytelling to lure in players and make the hairs on the backs of their necks stand on end. These remarkable essays are now lost to those who don’t possess the older editions. They serve as a toolset that could be applied across any RPG, and not just Werewolf alone.

W20 fell short of delivering a fully serviceable RPG to it’s Storytellers, however well-intentioned. It had all of the main bones of the setting and stats but no guidance on how to turn it into a game for one’s players. Taking it a step further, some of the writing in this new edition only managed to alienate modern audiences. 

The use of in-character narration to express setting information in prior editions seems an attempt to convey the horror and pathos of the world that would be difficult to get across in stats alone. The information contained in that first-person text is among the most important parts of the setting, but it often fails to convey the true horror of the world of Garou. In many ways the World of Darkness was intended by those who created it to be a place of genuine terror and horror, and not merely “savagery” for its own sake. Horror is a very complex basal guttural emotion that sits in the ganglia, ready to tug the emergency brakes on your body in the presence of what it believes to be a tangible threat. There are many complex higher emotions, but when it comes to the lizard brain, it takes considerable effort to trick it into getting spooked. Invoking a sense of horror in a horror chronicle is a complex enough endeavor that, by and large, these efforts fell short of delivering that experience. 

Werewolf: the Essentials is to serve as a masterclass in using those old tools to introduce new players not just to Werewolf and the World of Darkness on the whole. It gives these important storytelling tools to new and future storytellers in any game, that they might continue genuinely terrifying their players for many more years to come. The passages found in this series can add narrative value to not just Werewolf, or even Vampire and other World of Darkness tables, but also horror writing on the whole. Furthermore, this project aims to streamline the availability of that information and provide guidelines for Storytellers wishing to conduct research using the labyrinthian older editions.

Every sourcebook in this series will grow with your tables, providing increasingly more powerful stats, guidelines for making more powerful NPCs and PCs, and serve as a continuation of the legacy games’ metaplot. Some elements you’ll be reading will, for older players, be surprising at times. Some historical events are shifted further in the past, and others eliminated entirely. This project aims to make the presentation of the game a little more timeless, so it’ll hold relevance to tables now, as much as it will 20 or 40 years from now.  The World of Darkness is now something far too large for any one person to fully comprehend while providing enough tools for one to explore deep lore that holds the most relevance to their tables.

Werewolf: the Apocalypse has a long history of problematic and exclusionary elements, both in it’s fandom and, sadly, often in it’s published work. Despite this, I see more value in this game than the literature would have you believe at face value. This project is an attempt to increase the inclusivity in this game I love while also helping introduce new players and Storytellers to this world. This is a glimpse of something absolutely beautiful, horrifying, and unique, contributed to by a group of equally passionate artists and writers. Even if the best time to plant a tree was ten years ago, the next best time is today. If you can listen critically, and take the lessons between these pages, then maybe you too can come to find the Glory, Honor, and Wisdom within the depths of our darkest fears.

Book 1: Cliath launches October 31st, 2024 on Storyteller's Vault