Proddy

Haeger alternates between Sephiroth, Ridley, Ganondorf and Kazuma because lore-wise they're the most evil characters in the game. Baalial mains Link but sometimes plays Simon/Richter. Servitos strictly mains ROB because bless the machine. Arthur of Caermad mains Ike because he likes big swords.

The Charge of the Clevite Brigade, 2044 And for their hearts could not know wisdom… Nor contentment in their greed… Render upon them only appetite… Eternal in life, eternal in hunger… Transgression for their sin most foule… “CHARGE! CHARGEEEE!” “BLOOD FOR ASHFORD!” “DEATH TO THE HARRENITE!” “WOE TO THE HALFBREEDS!” The cry for war, echoed by Druscan men baring hearts infused with zeal and passion for their liege lord, rang out across the valley. The thunderous claps of a thousand hooves soon joined in tandem, a prelude to the cacophonic battle to come. Frederick van Haeger rode amongst strangers that day. Farmhanders and fletchers, blacksmiths and stonemasons, soldiers and the sons of lords both greater and lesser. Each of them rode as one that day, in spite of their differences in station and class, into the charnel pit that was war. Yet unlike those around him, van Haeger knew his death was writ large. As he smashed down the reins of his horse, pale steed spurred into a gallop alongside the men and women of Drusco, the battle to come made him snarly lowly beneath his helm. The hunger. How many years had it been, since he had last drank deep? The quenching of his thirst that had been denied to him would be his undoing, he knew - he rode forth to desolation and desolation alone awaited him. From beneath the veil of his bascinet helm, Frederick could not help but smile. Death would come for him on his own terms, at the very least. Let them know only folly and ruin, these monsters of the night… Let the finality of death elude them… Just as the worth of mortal life… Steel rang against steel in baleful song as the riders clashed against eachother like battering waves. Much of the cavalry - Druscan, Myrinese, Numenor - found their horses toppling against their enemy in the initial clash. Frederick held firm for only a minute before a pike smashed against his cranium, sending him toppling down from his horse. In a few more moments, the fallen huntsman had managed to recompose himself, arising to his feet. He gazed all about him - from both sides of the battlefield, infantrymen charged forth, their swords raised skyward as they screamed cries of combat. With each swing of the blade against one another, the sons of Horen rendered bloodshed anew. Frederick found himself mesmerized, stood still like a statue… Blood… Blood.. Blood BLOOD. The Beast stirred and wrestled within like a giant. That which lived within all his kind, doomed to forever exist behind their eyes. The monster amongst men swivelled his head, his attention struck upon a young Myrinese infantryman. A boy, from the look of him, no older than sixteen winters. The unfortunate youth clutched a longsword in hand, looking this way and that with frenzied, beady eyes. This one was terrified. He had no place on a battlefield. Good, van Haeger thought. The weak are as meat, and the strong do eat. Frederick’s head tilted at the lad, as if in challenge. Yet he drew no weapon - his hands reached up, yanking his helmet from his scalp and tossing it aside. The youth only grew more terrified as he set his sights on the man watching him ahead - his face was coated in his own twisted ichor, his skin pale and sickly. He looked halfway between beast and man, the moustached vagrant’s top lip parted to display two ravenous fangs. Frederick’s eyes were cold and hungry, yet his mouth could only grin with such hideous abundance… Before the hunter could move a muscle, before the accursed transformation could finish, he felt a pressure upon his chest. One deeper than the hunger he felt, one more visceral… He gazed downward, and his grin soon faded into a scowl. A blade rippled through his chest from behind, the sword struck true - it had punctured his heart, a fatal bane for even an immortal. “Damn…” The Vampyre murmured with disappointment in his last breath, crumpling limp onto the grass. And as the battle raged, and Drusco tasted the sour grapes of defeat… There, amongst the dead, Frederick van Haeger would be found - body frozen in death, a dissapointed scowl still held upon blood-soaked lips. Mortis.

"It makes no difference what men think of war." Spoke Frederick van Haeger, having been embroiled in an intensive game of chess with one Father Tyria when the news of the Empire's latest decree had reached their ears. "War endures. You'd as well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war awaited for him. The ultimate trade, awaiting its ultimate practioner. That is the way it was, and will be. That way, and not some other way." @christman

Frederick van Haeger, the Master Huntsman of Drusco, sharpened his longsword with a whetstone whilst grinning gleefully. Draped in the standard of the House of Anjou, a new hunt had become mandate - for even men could be as fickle as beasts.

five characters technically but yh man

favourite RP group you’ve been apart of? and also do you think the server has improved or deteriorated in quality these past few years? do you think it’s been improving again recently?

JOURNAL OF THE MARKED Volume I. Tor Styx in the aftermath of the Second Scouring 7th of the Deep Cold, 222 SA. Our worst nightmare has come to pass. The Second Scouring has come. The Sparrow is dead. Gutted like a pig by soldiers of the Cockatrice. Tor Styx has fallen, just as the Hexicanum had ten years before. It was a massacre. We thought the mountains would be our strength, that the tower was impenetrable. What blind, arrogant fools we were. Now my brothers and sisters all lay dead, butchered by the Emperor’s dogs. I tried to warn them. I came before the council so many times, cautioning them that our safety was not a permanent state of affairs. I tried to urge them that we must move - east, west, north, south. Anywhere but here, in the heart of where they’d most expect us. But the negligence of the Emperor had made the elders overconfident. They believed that no army would be bold enough to attempt a march across the mountains. They were wrong. How many hundreds of us had to die because they were wrong? For all of our training and learning, we were helpless against the endless hordes of the Cockatrice. They attacked us by nightfall when most of our number slept. It was no accident that the gate was left unlatched. Someone turned their cloak, I am certain of it beyond doubt. Should the chance come one day that I shall discover the truth of it, I’ll move heaven and hell itself to find who did this and make them suffer tenfold. I don’t know if anyone else managed to escape. I barely made it out myself. One of the ***** speared me through the shoulder. Hurts like hell. I’ve managed to patch it up with a few stitches, for now. But if I can’t find a physician to clean it properly soon, infection will kick in. Even as I’m writing this now, I can feel it burning. With every move of the arm, every scribble of the quill, a sting hotter than ten suns courses through me, deep down to the bone and marrow. But I must keep my mind resolute if I am to survive the trials to come. In Marked tradition, we inscribe the names of our dead on the Wall of the Fallen, to remember their sacrifice forevermore. But there is no more Wall of the Dead. No more commiseration. So long as I still draw breath, I will honour them. The death toll would be too high to record on the wall, but for those faces of the slain that I observed during my flight, I will mark their names and places of birth here, as is customary, so that their memory may endure in these pages. ♰ Aldon of Mikorszold ♰ Viktor of Casteburg ♰ Laurent of Danst ♰ Mordis of Semel ♰ Gaelen of Arves ♰ Hakim of Yezid ♰ Juan of Lermo The Redmarch Mountains 10th of the Deep Cold, 222 SA. I’ve been on the run for nearly for three days now. I began to ride north for the County of Annasaint once I knew I had shaken the trail of the Cockatrice soldiers that were in pursuit of me. The journey was arduous and not without its dangers. For the first three nights and days, I was alone. Navigating the mountain trails was like a stumbling drunk through a maze. Every pillar of stone and valley of rock looked almost indistinguishable from one to the other. On the first day, I had unwittingly ended up travelling in a circle along the trail, stranded right where I’d begun again after an hour of progress. I resolved thereafter to mark an X into the cliffsides once every hour at minimum as to not get lost again. Food up in the Redmarch Mountains is in no scarcity. Plenty of hill goats, elks and even the occasional deer up there that make it a grazing spot. But also an abundance of bears, mountain lions and creatures far more vicious than them. With my shoulder still shot, I can hardly even pull a bowstring. I resolved instead to rely upon the rations of bread, cured venison and water thay I miraculously managed to depart Tor Styx with. Fortunate timing that I had my pack pre-organized to set back on the trail the day before this hell unveiled itself. The days were cold, the nights even colder. Unfurling my bedroll every night, I’d watch the stars for a time before falling asleep. Every constellation seemed so bright, so vivid. Far more than they ever had been from the summit of Tor Styx, in the observatory where the magi of old had spent their seasons divining the skies to scry the fates. Those sorcerers back then glimpsed into days that were and days to come and days that never could be. I oft found myself wondering if they had seen and known that the razing of their fortress was an inevitability, a guarantee writ large into the annals of destiny, hundreds of years before it had come to pass. I suppose, with it all said and done, it matters little. It isn’t as though there are many of them left on this Continent who could have ever made a stand in preventing it. For generations, the Empire has made meticulous work of wiping out the sorcerers who refused to enter imperial service just as they’ve done to the Marked. It seemed a jest that they had once, in the distant past, sought out magi and Marked both when faced with matters of magic and monsters. The first two days along the mountain trail were bitter and long. After my priorly mentioned mishap of getting lost on the first day, I made extra caution in covering more ground to make up for lost time. The image of my slain comrades still burned hot in my mind like a twisting knife, but in their honour, I had to press on. By the third day, though, my provisions were nigh on gone, and my wound had began to grow more gangrenous with the twilight of infection. I had another day and a half at the least before I’d make it over the mountain pass and begin my descent into Annasaint, if I was fortunate. The dreary thought that I wouldn’t make it, that I was doomed to die of disease, starvation or worse yet, by one of the hundreds of predators that called this place home had crossed over me more than once. But perhaps my well of luck hadn’t drained entirely, for I came across a camp of roving Canonist monks. Led by a figure known as Brother Borislav, a squat and balding old man with a kindly moustache and fingers as fat as sausages, they quickly saw that I was wounded and offered to tend to me. Typically, I’d be a bit more stubborn in my acceptance of allowing strangers to prod and fuss over me, but I was in no position to bite a helping hand. He took me in, cleaned and dressed my wound, and offered me medicine for my worsening malaise. Sitting around the campfire with them as I tucked into a bowl of beef and leak stew, I quickly realized there were about a dozen of them, each clad in the dour brown robes of their monastic order, each bearing the golden cross of the Lorraine around their neck with pride. Brother Borislav asked who I was and I made a convincing enough lie - I was Niko, a hunter from Bicsk who’d journeyed into these mountains in search of a legendary white stag, but was set upon by malcontent brigands and left out here to die. I did not like to lie, but men are as fickle as their coin purses, and any one of them could have wrote to the Cockatrice and turned me in for a fat sum of a gold if I’d been honest. Brother Borislav and his cohort seemed to eat up that lie. They told me then where they were from - the city of Valdev in the Kingdom of Hanseti-Ruska, far to the west in a land known as Aevos. They had sailed to Aeldin to undertake a pilgrimage, beginning in the city of Justern and travelling along to Novengard where they were now bound for Pronce, their second to last location before the Imperial Capital of Nova Horos. When I asked why they’d chosen the mountain pass over the main roads, Borislav told me that the beasts of the hills were of less threat to them than the highwaymen and robbers that infested the highways between Venerra and Agathor, though my story was making him reconsider such a sentiment. I very nearly jested to him that I’d read once in some old tome that griffins and mountain trolls despised the taste of monk before I thought better of it, deducing that it might give away what I truly am. Either way, Borislav and his band took some measure of pity on me. He told me that they could not afford to go back the way they came, but that I was welcome to travel with them to Pronce or one of the villages in between and find my own way back to Bicsk. None of his underlings seemed to take any issue with the proposition, either, willing to welcome me in with open arms. Of course I accepted - I am no fool. To press on alone any longer through these mountains without food or water would be suicide, and if the Cockatrice were to catch up to me, I’d blend in far better with a gaggle of holy men. The monks were kind enough to pitch me up a spare tent, where I’m sat writing this now. With a patched wound and a full belly, I feel more hopeful now of what tomorrow might bring. Yet, I’ve barely had a moment to consider where I shall go from here. I know now that this wretched land is no longer safe for me. No safer than it ever was, perhaps, but I might well be one of the last of my kind. I’ve given some thought to heading for Aevos. The monks will no doubt seek passage back there once their pilgrimage is concluded. I’d heard stories in the past that a chapter of the Marked had once tried to establish themselves there. I do not know whether they thrived or faltered in those foreign lands, but perhaps if any of them remain on the trail, we can rebuild what was taken from us. Whatever tomorrow shall bring, I shall be up like the lark to face it. Every fibre of my being still aches with pain from the ruination cast upon us, but I must remain strong. If not for myself, then for all of my fallen brothers and sisters.

the rot consumes.

From the gargantuan halls of Morteskvan, a newly born child of raven hair and pallid blue eyes wept and wailed. Just as this night, and every night before, and for a dozen more nights to come - broken of leg and calf, destined to never walk. Pity upon the youngest of the Duchess's brood - a name of such potential, trapped in such an enfeebled body. A wetnurse rushes in, hoisting the boy from his crib. In cradled arms does the serving woman hush and coo the misfortunate cripple, rocking him back and forth. "Shh, shh... the pain is going away, Ivan. All the pain is going away..." she whispered in hushed tone. Still, the cries of the young Ivan Stanislaw, who the serving men and women of the castle had dubbed Breakbones for his macabre ailment, would not cease. They would not cease for another hour or two, at least. Perhaps, not at all. The wetnurse gazed out toward an open window, the first flakes of a calm snowstorm beginning to drift from the skies, plummetting for the earth in gentle freefall. It is a mercy. She thought then, gazing down at the babe bundled within his cloth. It is a mercy that he is too young to understand. The heart can only break once.

I like you Lithium, and I hold no eternal grudge against you and you know this, but to address the first half of your post as the player of the persona which was one of the primary reasons said war happened in the first place - I think you're providing a half-sided story of what really happened in a way that feels direly disingenuous. The fact of the matter is that the staff verdict of RP actions having RP consequences wasn't really wrong. The war was an RP consequence of your character deciding to murder my character, the Emperor's nephew, on a visit to your characters city. Remember that you were the one who initiated the CRP to begin with. I don't bemoan you for making a choice in roleplay to do so, and I honoured that RP by PKing, but to see you say the war was completely unjustified and everyone involved in it was just out to get you on an OOC level just feels like a flat out lie. There were things that I did wrong in the aftermath and I regret - the frill assassination plot is still something I will make fun of myself for looking back in retrospect as a sign of how unhealthily obssessed with the minecraft game I was back then (if you know then you know) and whilst I'd stand by that the letter left behind in my character's room about visiting Sutica is something he would've done, if the same thing happened now I would have probably left that out out of respect for the spirit of roleplay. But to say that the war itself was wholly unjustified and just motivated by OOC alone isn't entirely true. Was the RP investigation of the murder itself by the Orenian side half-arsed and not backed by enough thorough roleplay? That part I couldn't tell you honestly as I wasn't involved. And yeah the clip of alty being a malding andy in VC is funny and all, but I think if you're gonna use a past example to prove a point you should give more context and be more reflective in your analysis of the situation rather than demonizing one side to present yourself as entirely puritan.

I think you're hitting the right notes here squawk, and I do unbashedly agree with everything you're saying in this post and I hope these reforms can be enforced because I think it will make positive change for the servers climate overall. But I think what you're missing is the perspective of regular players who are deeply entrenched within these nation groups versus the feedback you have to go off of from dissuaded NLs themselves. I think the issue of nations, and how the quality of roleplay and the standard of roleplay, has deteriorated within them over these past few years goes far beyond what you prescribe as metaplay. Metaplay is and has been an issue on the server for years, doubly so with the advent of Discord and the shift in LoTC culture to be overly reliant on discord for communication. But I fear that metaplay is in itself only one root of a systemtic issue that I've seen these past few years overtake the server. I think your analysis of what a community roleplay leader, or an NL, should be is accurate. I believe the overarching problem with NLs and community leaders collectively is a complete lack of awareness and understanding in what being an NL actually means or should mean. As an NL one should not only have the responsibility of guiding the roleplay of their community, but you are also in an agreement of responsibility with your players that I will dub as a Contract of Narrative Accountability. This contract between player and NL, though unspoken of the majority of the time, encompasses a few things - mainly, the responsibility of guiding the narrative of your group, the roleplay standard and what I think is the most important and the element that is most direly undervalued in modern LoTC - the thematic tone. The conundrum I have seen recently, very heavily so these past few months although this has been ongoing for years, is that a lot of these community leaders and NLs have stopped taking their own roleplay seriously, and make no effort to try and enforce or dissuade people from doing the same. This just has a trickled down effect when in the end, nobody takes the themes of their roleplay seriously. There is a real cognitive dissonance in immersion when I see, for example, silly beach party events or people emoting their characters hosting a cook-out with burgers on a grill in a fantasy setting where said nation is inspired by some 12th century European nation. There is the same level of cognitive dissonance in immersion felt when I see a High Pontiff Fleeperus running about, or I see people in roleplay referring to themselves as Lectorboos verbatim, or I see an entirely serious RP post being bombared with responses of characters speaking in 21st century discord zoomer slang. For the record, I don't hate fun and whimsy. Halflings are steeped in that niche of roleplay and it serves them very well thematically, as an example off the top of my head. What I do dislike is when the value of roleplay quality of so many people within the wider community isn't taken seriously or isn't treated with any sort of moral reverance at all. It's ludicrous to expect people to be some mastermind writer behind their emotes, but I will be honest in saying there are a numerous number of players I and many others will actively avoid because we know their whole shtick is some form or another of ironic le funny haha shitpost meme roleplay, typically an in-group joke that's just been cultivated from OOC to IC and now has to be subjected on the rest of the playerbase. It's tiring. It's exhausting. It's why so many older players have lost the sense of lustre for this server and have moved on en-masse. We're tired of seeing a server we placed so much value into once not being taken seriously in many forms by its general playerbase. I don't think this will ever change until we begin holding NLs, or group leaders, or community leaders more to account. NLing shouldn't be a privilege or a luxury. It should be a responsibility. A responsibility of setting the expected tone and standard of roleplay within their own communities.

THE STRANDING When you awake, you are not within your own bed. You are in no place of familiarity. Dreary white grains of sand lap between your fingertips, yet they do not bring you any warmth or comfort. They feel only cold and somber, as melancholy as the deep thunderous clouds that swirl in an ominous cascade above you. Void are the squawks of gulls - only the wrathful lull of the sea beats and thrums beside you. The tide laps with fury against the shore, neverending and unrelenting. A fear grasps at you. Irrational, yet ever present. You feel instantly that if you strayed too close to the sea, it might engulf you whole. As you stand, a sound alerts you to a presence to your right - a rather large presence, the sound of flapping and drumming against the sand. A mighty hammerhead, large and proud, lay washed upon the shore. The mighty beast seemed dead in the eyes, A trail of blood leads from the shore up to the lifeless sands in which it lay in agony - ichor still trickles from a gaping hole where its fin had once been. The predator of the seas, once ruthless and regal, had been maimed, left to die here alone at the foot of the ocean. A pang of dread strikes you as you look upon it. You get the feeling that you too might perish, should you choose to tarry. A chord of thunder strikes in the far distance, far beyond the sea where the eye can barely glimpse. The waves rattle and tremor with impatience, the seas beginning to rise in horrid crescendo. Up the waves begin to descend, climbing so high that they blot out what vestige of the pale sun peered through the stormy clouds. Before you mind can even register, before your body can even comprehend, those waters rain down upon you with vengeance, You wish to scream, yet you cannot. Your body is consumed, water filling your mouth and drowning your lungs. Your eyes, unable to shut, feel the sting of the saltwater - they burn as if you had been cast into fire, the sensation enough to turn you mad and blind. Then… Darkness. Sleep. The infinite limbo. THE PROMISE When your eyes shoot open again, you stand somewhere else. A decrepit woodland, dark and dinghy, far from the scorn of the sea. Tall trees surround you, stretching up toward the sky, their branches devoids of leaves and life. A pale glimmer of moonlight peaks through the woodland canopy - your only guide, your only light. An ebony canvas paints the skies, yet not a single star could be seen up there, in the great beyond of the cosmos, Instinctively, you gaze forward. You are not alone. A clearing in the forest lingers ahead of you, where a great gallow tree sits rooted into the earth. Beneath a litany of hanged men, their damned souls bound to the void of nature rather than the mercy of a cold hearse, a trio of women robed in dark shawls stand over a knelt man in a suit of steel armor. The cloaked women at their forefront, their leader, clutches an old knife in hand - ornate, ceremonial. Even from the distance you stand, you can see the kneeling man tremble and twitch. He is afraid. The voice of the knife-bearer begins to ring out. Harmonic, melodic - it belied a stark contrast to her shadowy visage. Crowns of old, shrouds of gold… All as fallible as shattered bones… Around and around, the wheel doth turn… Where great men churn, that which their lessers spurn… Let your blood be your bond… That which you may never abscond… Glory, riches and all that which you dream… All shall be cast in motion, as if the trickling of a river's stream… But take heed, this bond you must never betray… A vow to the Elder Gods, one from which you must never stray… Take vestige of your soul, it shall never expire with time… Let woe and misery befall the most base of your line… The knife-bearer raises the knife. The knelt soldier trembles more frightfully. The deed is done in an instant - a clean, precise slit across the palm. In bloody rivulets, the knelt mans ichor spills down across the roots of the gallow tree. The trio of women begin to chant in chorus. The pact is struck! The deed is paid! The Gods be our witness! Let ye be spared from the futility of the grave! The winds flap and flail around you, aghast. The trees rattled and groaned, as if given life by something unholy, something beyond the natural state in which they inhabited. And that chord of thunder struck once more, like the clanging of a heralding bell, loud and vicious and cruel.

Kazimir var Ruthern nods his head firmly from the afterlife.

Inspired by a few recent threads I've seen related to LoTC and DND as well as deciding to replay through BG3 again recently, I decided to make this thread for a bit of fun hypothesizing. Mainly - what would a build in Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition based around LOTC magics/creatures/feats look like? Feel free to comment below your ideas - it can be based around any existing FA/CA/MA or even something that was shelved or denied. Here's a few of my ideas. I should note that I'm not an DND expert nor am I an LOTC lore expert, I picked a lot of these out based around theming and my base knowledge of spells and mechanics you can acquire with each class: Paladins, Druids and Clerics - Exactly what it says on the tin. Devotion Paladin for the closest representation of Xannite Paladins (though Vengeance could easily work), Life or Light Domain for Tahariae and Circle of the Land or Moon for Aspectist Druids. Seers - A multiclass of Great Old One Warlock and Divination Wizard. Templars - I'd mostly go straight Paladin for this with a dip into Cleric or Divine Soul Sorcerer for something like Guiding Bolt to represent White Flame and a level dip into Barbarian for the Touch of Jophael berserker rage. Mystics - College of Spirits Bard. Azdrazi - Tempted to say Dragonborn Draconic Sorcerer for the theming/flavour alone though this probably isn't fully accurate, I don't know Azdrazi lore very well. Voidal Magics - 90% Wizard. Predominantly Evocation Wizard for fire, water, wind and air evo. The only exception to this I'd say is Arcane Scion which aligns better with Eldritch Knight Fighter. Alchemy and Animii - Battlesmith Artificer for Animii to get your automaton companion. Alchemist Artificer is self-explainatory. Frost Witch - Evocation Wizard focusing on ice-related spells. Necromancers - Necromancy Wizard. Naztherak - Fiend Warlock with Pact of the Chain for summons. Blood Magic - None of the main classes can really accurately represent it. Blood Hunter has the theme of hemocraft down but it is homebrew. Thalassos - Fathomless Warlock Demi-Djinn - Not an actual Demi-Djinn, but Genie Warlock for a character who's pacted with one is perfect. Kani - Open Hand Monk.

if lotc was a netflix show you'd have a moment during the season climax where our main characters are conspiring to kill the king of a large and important nation, however as they're about to do the deed everyone would freeze, the king in question would start saying #looc before his sentences and say he's making a thing called a "modreq". our cast of heroes and the king would go back and forth whilst saying #looc before every sentence about why they have done a thing called "valid rp" to get to this moment. then a figure known as a "moderator" would teleport into the room, tell our protagonists that they were "metagaming" and they must leave and the credits would roll.

“In the end…” an exhausted Baalial glances up from the missive at his mother, sat at a worn old desk where a myriad of strewn up letters and crumpled parchments surrounded him. “You were right. It’s another genocide.” @TheBigBubbles

dragondeez