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[bigmfrat]

What's stopping me? Why shouldn't I post the Illithid section from Lords of Madness?

I may do this for other books, not the Illithiad, though. That's like 93 pages worth of squid, even if it's mostly pictures, I ain't doin' all that 💀

Here's the whole book

Here's also a bunch of other books that have mindflayer lore:

Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk

Dragon Magazine 337

Dragon Magazine 308

Dragon Magazine 281

Dragon Magazine 255

Dragon Magazine 078

The Illithiad [BW - Color] (This ones my fave :))

Dawn of the Overmind (a lot of bg3 is based on this book)

Murder in Baldur's Gate (this is where the emperor came from)

Underdark

Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage

Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft

Mordenkainen Presents Monsters of the Multiverse

Fizban's Treasury of Dragons

Psionics Handbook [Basic - Extended]

Lords of Darkness

Monster Vault

Monstrous Manual

Monster Manual 4th edition

Monster Manual V

Lords of Madness: The book of Aberrations ,

Monster Manual

Volo's Guide to Monsters

This isn't a fully comprehensive list; I know I'm missing a few, I'll find them eventually and update as I go. These links may also break from either the website going down for a bit or because they were removed; in that case, just Google search "book name pdf" and you should be able to find them pretty easily. Also keep in mind, every book contradicts each other, and sometimes even itself between pages. Don't feel bad about picking and choosing based on your own project.

[olomaya]

Playtime Fun! 12 New Toys for Kids & Toddlers

Just an assortment of various toys I've made over time mostly testing out ideas and getting the hang of basic custom object animations. The little ones need more toys in the game!

The script and animations are all in the MAIN file which you must have but you can pick and choose which toys you want and download them separately. Files that have the same tags means that they need to be downloaded together for the toy to function. There's also a collection file with all the items. Details and features for each toy after the cut.

Requires: University (only for the chalk set). There are some effects and sounds taken from Generations, Seasons, Late Night and the Titanic Toy Machine store content. It's not required. If you don't have the latter, you can get it Blam's EA Store here.

Download HERE

If you like my stuff and want to tip as a thank you, feel free to donate to my Ko-fi account.

1. Koffee & Bean “Yes, Chef!” Kitchen Playset  - §615 - I loved this kitchen set by @bethisims. It's not big and bulky so perfect for bedrooms and good polycount as well. I've always wanted a functional play kitchen with an emphasis on the play and not the kitchen. I personally don't really care for the in-game toy oven because it just spawns a lot of burnt muffins and brownies that I don't want my Sims eating anyway.

2. Toy Food (comes with playset or buy separately): 7 toy accessories that toddlers can play with and dogs can chew on (if they swallow it, they will get sick or maybe poop)

Children can "Play as Chef" where they will pretend to cook and bake. They can play alone or ask any Child+ sim to play restaurant with them or a stuffed animal. They will gain marginal cooking skill for this.

Children can also "Play House" pretend to do laundry or play with bubbles in the sink

Toddlers with a stuffed animal in their inventory can play with/torture(?) them in the kitchen.

Credits to @bethisims for the kitchen and XOIAL from Sketchfab for the food accessories and papuga_lab for the toy pack. Custom animations by me and EA.

3. Toy Pot Drum (§40) - works as a drum kids and toddlers can bang on if you have the Toy Store set from the Sims 3 Store. The skilling rate is much lower though. Credits: @leaf-motif

4-6. Lil' Chef Playtime Appliances - 3 individual toys for toddlers 4. Mixer toy (§75), 5. toaster (§100), 6. blender (§75) 

Credits to SixamCC for the mixer and Severinka for the blender, both from Sims 4. The toaster I made from a Sims 4 toy box that I liked. 😭 Custom animations by me.

7. Koffee & Bean Cottage Playhouse - §700

Another "I must make functional" piece by @bethisims!

Interactive playhouse that fits 2 Child sims inside, up to 6 kids can play with

Pretend to run a cafe with the 8. Koffee & Bean Baby Barista Cafe Set (§105) which includes a Toy Coffee Maker + all the deco items you need to open a cafe with your friends. (Note: requires toy fridge (§35) which is sold separately. The toy coffee maker needs to be slotted on the center shelf slot. fridge goes underneath the shelf)

Hang out with a friend in playhouse (if my Hang Out mod installed)

Read in playhouse (if book in inventory)

Decorate with flowers (if wildflowers in inventory, adds small gardening)

Water plants (if decorated, gives small gardening)

Add notes in the mailbox (Child+) to send messages to your friends or little one

Play inside (if toy or stuffed animal in inventory; kids/toddlers); joinable interaction

Daydream (improves fun and social)

Draw on chalkboard (separate pieces that need to be placed on the side). Requires chalk (see below)

Credits again to bethisims for this lovely playhouse mesh. I've wanted something like this in my game for ages! This is a separate object because I made edits to it to suit what I wanted so it won't replace her version in your game. Toy coffee maker by Severinka from Sims 4. Cafe set box by Unknown on Sketchfab. Deco items by novaas (Sims 4) and toy food from Shi0n on Sketchfab. Custom animations by me.

9. Chalk Bucket - §50

Chalk Art: Kids can draw colorful designs on sidewalks or chalkboards using the sidewalk chalk set. Finished chalk art can be cleaned up or goes away on its own the next time it rains.

Draw anywhere on the ground (if terrain is not dirt or grass or if it's snowing or raining).

Draw a hopscotch court you can actually use

7 pieces, 3 uses per piece

Skills involved: street art

Credits: robfitzy on Sketchfab for the chalk and bucket, jen&tonic on MTS for the hopscotch court, Vecteezy for the chalk images. Animations by me/EA.

10. Blackboard Wall - §45

Add a fun touch to your child’s bedrooms with these floor to ceiling blackboard walls that children can use to draw on. Requires chalk and will increase painting skill.

Note: this cannot be moved or deleted with drawings on it. You have to erase the board first to move or delete it.

Credits: Vecteezy for the chalk images. Animations by EA/me.

11. Into the Wild Cruiser Jeep - §950

For toddlers only

Go for a ride around alone or with a passenger if you have a stuffed animal in your inventory

Requires an open 4x4 space at least. Note: the wheels aren’t animated.

Credits: Javier Barron on Sketchfab for the jeep. Custom animations by me.

12. Playground Set - §2499 - The second I saw this conversion from Martassimbook I wanted it in my game and wanted to make it functional. Up to 3 Child Sims can use this at the same time. You can place this playground set outdoors or in your kids playroom. Activities will increase the Child Athletic skill.

Credits: @martassimsbookcc for the conversion and Syboulette for the original item. Monkey bar animations are converted from Sims 4, remaining animations by me.

[blueballofnowhere]

When Fighting Back Becomes a Crime: Ansur, the Emperor, and Fictional Racism in BG3

As someone who did not grow up in a Western cultural context, there was a specific moment in Baldur’s Gate 3 that left me deeply uncomfortable. It wasn’t the fact that we had to kill Ansur, or even the tragic history he shared with the Emperor. It was the moment when Ansur fails to kill the Emperor in his sleep and then, incredibly, condemns him for the act of fighting back.

That reaction stayed with me because it reveals a moral logic the game seems willing to accept. It is the idea that some beings are not only killable, but actually blameworthy for refusing to die.

I can understand Ansur’s fear. I can understand his desperation and his grief. What I cannot accept is the judgment that follows. When Ansur attacks the Emperor, he is not responding to a crime. He is responding to a fear of what might happen in the future. Yet, when the Emperor chooses to survive, the narrative frames his self-defense as a betrayal. It becomes something that needs explanation or even forgiveness.

This framing matters. Being attacked and defending yourself should not require a moral justification. Survival is not a crime. When a story suggests otherwise, we have to ask a difficult question. Who is expected to accept death without resistance?

This is not a hypothetical. The game offers a clear point of comparison in Gale. When Mystra asks Gale to die so that a future catastrophe can be prevented, the players overwhelmingly criticize her. She is seen as cold, manipulative, and controlling. That reaction is important. It shows that players are not actually comfortable with the idea of one person dying for the greater good.

So why does that reaction change so dramatically for the Emperor?

The answer is uncomfortable but clear. Gale is treated as a person whose right to live is a given. Even after he makes catastrophic mistakes in his pursuit of power, and even when the magical artifacts he consumes to stabilize his condition start to fail, he is never treated as a mistake. He becomes a literal ticking time bomb, yet his existence is never something that should have been erased in advance. (For the record, I actually like Gale a lot. He is my favorite companion.)

But as a mind flayer, the Emperor’s existence is treated as a problem to be solved before he has even committed a single harmful act. His potential for harm alone justifies preemptive violence. More disturbingly, his refusal to die makes him look morally suspect.

The standard quietly shifts here. The question is no longer what he has done. It is simply what he is.

This leads to what I call the trap of retroactive justification. I often see players defend Ansur by pointing to the Emperor’s later actions. They mention his secrecy or his manipulations to excuse the original attempt on his life. But this move itself reveals the trap. Once a character is marked as part of an evil race, they are no longer judged by their actions at the moment of violence. Instead, they have to prove they deserve to survive at all. They have to be better than everyone else. They have to be more honest and more restrained just to earn the basic right of self-defense.

This is not how we judge characters like Gale. We don't retroactively decide Gale should have died because he is flawed. But for the Emperor, every imperfection is used as evidence that Ansur was right from the start. On the night Ansur tried to kill him, the judgment wasn't based on a crime. It was based on his tentacles.

When a character is condemned before they act, the issue is no longer about individual morality. This is fictional racism, or perhaps lookism, though in this game they effectively function as the same thing. It is the kind of structural prejudice that makes entire groups disposable by default. If you are a mind flayer, your right to live is conditional. You may be tolerated, but you are never fully innocent and you are never fully entitled to fight back.

This logic is even harder to ignore in Act I. The game frames the safety of the tiefling refugees as a moral imperative and pushes players to eliminate the goblin camp to achieve it. Even though the story suggests only killing the leaders is necessary, the mechanics tell a different story. Once the leaders are dead, the entire camp becomes permanently hostile. There is no negotiation and no retreat. Success is defined as eradication.

Many players don't hesitate because the game rewards this path with experience and loot. Violence is not just permitted, it is structurally encouraged. What makes this troubling is that the game acknowledges both groups are capable of cruelty and kindness. Yet only the goblins are treated as collectively killable.

Averages are irrelevant here. Tieflings can be cruel and goblins can be peaceful. But when being born into a specific race functions as a death sentence before a crime is committed, we are no longer talking about ethics. We are talking about racialized moral superiority. It is a system where some characters are allowed complexity while others are expected to disappear quietly.

Because I did not grow up in a Western cultural context, this logic feels uncomfortably familiar. Not because it maps onto a single real-world group, but because the structure of the bias is so recognizable.

Baldur’s Gate 3 asks many questions about choice and consequence. But it seems unwilling to confront one truth. Who is allowed to fight back, and who is expected to die without protest? When the answer depends on race rather than action, it is not a tragedy. It is fictional racism embedded in the rules of who gets to live.

[nausallien]

THE SIMS 3 STORE PRE-INSTALLED

Today marks 25 years of The Sims. Since EA forgot TS3 exists, I’m releasing the entire The Sims 3 Store as an Anniversary Gift. It's all pre-installed and works flawlessly!

It comes with all available fixes and collection folders I’ve personally created for every set. You'll get over 5000 new Buy/Build and CAS items, 11 new worlds, and tons of new gameplay!

INSTRUCTIONS

Go to "Documents/Electronic Arts" and rename the "The Sims 3" folder (or move it).

Create a new folder and name it "The Sims 3" (or whatever the name is in your language).

Extract the contents of the ZIP file in "The Sims 3." Now launch the game.

You'll have to adjust your setting again. Don't forget to disable the in-game Store so you don't get duplicates.

Quit the game. Copy the "Saves" folder from the folder you have previously renamed. You can also copy your Mods and CC in package format.

CAUTION

Never copy over or overwrite the DCCache folder.

If you have content installed through the Launcher (Sims3Pack), you'll have to reinstall it.

I strongly recommend you don't install things through the Launcher from now. It already has a lot of content and it is a known fact the Launcher becomes more and more unstable the more content it has to handle.

Since the entire Store has been decrapified, if you want to install lots or world that contain Store content, you'll have to decrapify those too using MATY's TS3 Recompressor.

I had a report that there was an invisible top in CAS. It doesn't seem to have a CASP resource so it shouldn't cause any issues (like being assigned to a random Sim). It's best to avoid it or hide it or blacklist it using NRaas mods. Do NOT try to save the game while your Sim is "wearing" this invisible top.

UPDATE #1: MARCH 2025

Added some missing content: the Mother Russia CAS Set and the Cool Chap Cap that was given as a secret bonus item in the "Make Me an Offer" page. If there's something else missing, please let me now.

Now NRaas MasterController and the Cheats and Integration modules are included in the pack. This version NRaas MC comes with CAS Compact Mode enabled by default. This should fix the issue of blank/invisible CAS items and also speed up the loading of CAS items. Keep in mind, these mods aren't compatible with Lazy Duchess' Smooth Path, but you can have both. Her mod will automatically disable the fast loading of CAS items.

If you encounter any issues, feel free to reach out to me. I've put a lot of effort into making the installation process as smooth and straightforward as possible. Dag Dag!

DOWNLOAD FROM GOOGLE DRIVE

[littlemonday]

Patch 7 is Larian’s Final Betrayal of The Emperor: My Analysis of the New Cinematic Cutscene Between The Emperor and Ansur.

When I read in the patch 7 notes that Larian had updated the animation for the cutscene with the Emperor and Ansur, I honestly thought the scene was going to remain largely unchanged except Ansur’s bones would rise at the end of the cinematic. Instead, Larian completely threw out the old cinematic more than a year after the game’s release, replacing it with one that’s vastly inferior to its predecessor both in technical execution and its thematic implications.

In the original cinematic, Ansur’s spirit possesses the player character, his bones remain still while the virtual camera wends its way through the dragon's animated spirit and into the body of the player’s avatar, providing the motion and energy the scene needs. The astral prism then stirs, the music swells, and the Emperor comes into the scene beside the player character’s limp and overtaken body. There’s a powerful and beautiful visual contrast of Ansur’s bones on the dirt, the cold blue color of his spirit as it rises within those bones, his bronze scales green with the passage of time, against the warmth of the orange glow surrounding the Emperor as he emerges from the prism. His slow emergence, gently planting his feet beside the player character, is starkly different from the violence with which Ansur steals the player character’s autonomy. We hear the anger and accusation in Ansur’s voice, and the vulnerability in the Emperor’s. We get to see the Emperor’s expression harden as he faces Ansur’s anger, only to soften and his eyes widen from the shock of Ansur’s accusations. There’s an irony to this scene that Ansur accuses the Emperor of bringing a thrall before him, when Ansur is the one who’s callously stolen the player character‘s autonomy. When Ansur becomes consumed with his anger, when he cannot be reasoned with, he proclaims his bones will rise and bring about the final tempest. The lair violently rumbles as Ansur pulls in energy from the environment, his anger overflowing. Once the battle begins, we see the wyrm’s bones now risen and shaking. There’s at once the intimacy of two former lovers reunited, as well as a tragedy on a mythological scale that the visuals, the music, the voice acting, and the cinematography capture. This scene was moving and complete.

These images were screenshot from one of my own games.

However, more than a year after the game’s release, Larian, for some inexplicable reason, threw this entire cinematic out. The new cinematic features an undead Ansur reanimating, pulling the player character up into the air, and possessing their body via a stream of spirit coming out of the dragon’s mouth that overwhelms the scene with a constant loud whooshing that makes any thematic music barely audible. The astral prism stirs around the character held up in the air, there’s a brief orange glow, and the Emperor then appears on the ground in a thick mass of shadows far below where the prism is. The warmth, intimacy, vulnerability, and contrast we see expressed in the color palette of the original scene has been completely replaced with these black shadows that obscure the Emperor so much the scene looks as though it wasn’t properly lit. There’s an additional effect of clipping black shadows strategically placed on the Emperor’s face so that only his eyes are barely visible, glowing menacingly as the camera looks down on him. For a character whose anatomy limits his facial expressions to his brows, these poorly rendered, clipped black shadows placed directly over the front of his face are no accident, and completely obscure the minutiae of his expressions. Combined with the downward angle and the glowing eyes, the vulnerability and humanity have been all but stripped away. What’s more bizarre is the voice acting is the same, creating this tonal dissonance between the softness and intimacy we hear in the Emperor’s voice, and this menacing, expressionless figure surrounded by shadow. Ansur then proclaims that his bones will rise, but his bones have already risen because this dialogue was clearly written for a different scene that no longer exists in this final patch. All these changes are not just bad, they’re almost amateurish. I certainly would not expect to find something like this in a game that swept all those GOTY awards.

These images were screenshot from Tjoa Jun Choi's upload of the new cinematic. I looked for other uploads as well to compare brightness, and while Ansur is brighter in some videos, the Emperor is equally as poorly lit. You can click on the link in this caption to see Tjoa Jun Choi's upload that features both the old and new cinematic for this scene.

These visual changes have thematic implications as well. The Emperor, having once been Balduran, was forced to undergo ceremorphosis, but grew to accept his new form. However, Ansur could not accept him, and kept looking for a cure even after the Emperor had repeatedly and desperately pleaded with him to stop, to leave, and to find peace without him. When a cure could not be found, Ansur tried to murder his love in his sleep, self righteously calling it a “merciful death.” To present us now with a scene so tonally and visually different, one that obscures the Emperor’s humanity and casts him in this menacing light, is problematic to put it mildly, especially in a game as queer-coded as this one.

For a company that keeps altering its game to cater to players, who were they catering to with these changes? Is this new scene for the players who didn’t realize this encounter deconstructed the legend of these two figures? Is this for players who thought the Emperor should have let Ansur kill him, when it’s an expectation they would never hold to their own character? Is this for the players who hugged their Dream Guardian for a few seconds, and then spent the rest of the game angry over being “catfished” because they created their Guardian in hopes of seducing them? Is this for the players who romanced the Emperor “for the achievement” and then pretended to be ashamed about it? Is this scene for players who feel personally lied to for not knowing all along the Emperor was Balduran? (In writing we call this a “twist,” and believing this twist is contingent upon Ansur identifying him). Was this change for players who parrot how the Emperor is soulless without any further curiosity as to what soullessness means in the context of this fantasy world? Is this for players whose sympathy of those we deem as monsters only extends to those who are conventionally attractive? Is this for the players who just can’t wait to kill the Emperor so Orpheus can turn into a mindflayer instead of them?

If this scene is for them, why is Larian catering to the lowest bar? Why is Larian catering to players whose media literacy doesn’t extend beyond their personal dislike of this character? Why are they catering to players unfamiliar with this genre and the tropes, themes, or twists we can expect from it? Why are they catering to players who don’t want to be challenged in a narrative that, ostensibly, pretends to challenge us?

This is not the first time Larian has altered a scene relating to the Emperor in a bafflingly lazy way. The first was the Emperor’s romance scene. - We all know the one I’m talking about. It’s the one where you get to sleep with a queer-coded alien who has non-traditional, non-human anatomy. Your companions then “walk in” on you and are completely disgusted for a cheap and mean-spirited laugh in an otherwise sincere and well written scene. - After many players complained that there were no companion reaction lines to “walking in” on your romance, Larian added a single line in which the Emperor promises to wipe their memories. It was a truly lazy addition that added all kinds of problematic implications and never fixed the issue at hand. Setting aside that your player character doesn’t get to react to this memory wipe, there are multiple opportunities for companions to discover you romanced the Emperor: one from the Emperor himself, another from Orpheus, and a potential one from Raphael, but there are still no companion reactions in those scenes either! Larian seemingly just didn’t care. This addition was on top of there being no evidence in the game that the Emperor can manipulate someone’s memory so completely as to just wipe it clean. It was just bad, lazy writing.

As bad as that was, this newest change is far worse in my opinion, and it truly shows how little the developers think of this character. I know he may not be the most popular, but he’s hugely significant to the game. He sets the story in motion, he’s at the center of two of the largest twists in the narrative, he subverts our expectations in many ways, he has the deepest ties to the city at the heart of the game’s conflict, and yet the developers have shown little care or attention to his handling in the game’s updates. That’s on top of an overall lack of content related to romancing, or merely interacting, with the Emperor - which is the subject of a different analysis for another time.

The original cinematic for the scene between the Emperor and Ansur needed no changes, and certainly did not need to be thrown out entirely. It was a beautiful scene in which we see the myth of Balduran and Ansur laid bare and broken. We see the Emperor as someone who was the victim of violence at the hands of his partner; violence that nearly took his life. We see Ansur driven mad by grief and misplaced righteousness, unable to let go of his entitlement over the life of someone he loved. We see heroes of old fallible and unreliable, and we must put our faith in the alliances we have made along the way. This scene was supposed to challenge us.

At this point, I will not be updating my game to patch 7. Baldur’s Gate 3 was not complete on release, but rather than merely add content with new patches, Larian has rewritten elements of the game. I do not believe this new scene is somehow closer to an original vision. Not after so much time has passed, and not when the original scene was so well done and actually matched the writing, tone, animation, and voice acting. This was just an unnecessary and poorly executed rewrite that placed more value on a “cool” reanimation for Ansur than it did on the humanity of the original scene we had for more than a year. I genuinely believe that the Emperor’s creative team had a vision and cared about the work they did to bring the Emperor to life. I believe the writers, animators, his voice actor Scott Joseph, and even composer Borislav Slavov, put a lot of careful and thoughtful work into the Emperor. I believe Swen Vincke is likely the one who has undermined their careful work. It’s a shame because all the potential is there, and what little content we were given for this character has been eroded with thoughtless additions and poor rewrites. The members of the Emperor's creative team who actually care about this character, as well as the fans who care and identify with the themes present in the Emperor’s story, really deserved better than this.