Cpt.Carnage @cptcarnage - Tumblr Blog

One of these days I’m going to write a one-shot RPG based on those illustrations people keep doing of, like, mice and frogs wearing wizard hats, and it’s specifically going to play with the issues of scale this introduces. Like, yes, your frog wizard can wield their phenomenal cosmic powers to call a meteor down from the heavens to smite their foes, but the meteor in question is the size of a pebble and the resulting explosion of all-consuming hellfire has about a six-inch blast radius. Better make it count!

@thetwistedlight replied:

An Acid Splash in the eyes is still a splash of acid in the eyes even if it’s of a frog magnitude !

Yeah, but the tiny frog version of acid splash only has a twelve-inch casting range. If you’re up against a human, you’re gonna need a boost to reach the target’s tender parts!

Actually, you know what?

Here.

Tiny Frog Wizards

A game for 3 to 7 players

You have mastered the secret arts of sorcery.

The very primordial energies of creation and destruction are yours to command.

You are two inches tall.

Keep reading

Updates for February 22nd, 2021:

Clarified that you cannot cast a spell with a pool of zero dice; you must increase your pool to at least one die in order to attempt a spell

Added rules for counterspelling

Updated the description of the Imprecation Arcanum to note that soft-hearted frogs can use it to produce relatively benign curses like “fall asleep” or “forget you saw me”. Messing with people’s memory still isn’t nice, but it’s easier for a heroic frog to justify than melting someone’s face!

Currently in progress: mechanics for tiny frog wizard duels.

Updates for February 23rd, 2021:

Clarified that you need line of sight to a spell’s target unless otherwise noted (though you don’t actually need to see the target; you’re perfectly free to cast spells in the dark if you don’t mind guessing what you’re aiming at)

Clarified that if a spell uses the Target (Size) parameter, the parameter’s value needs to be sufficient to affect the whole target; you can’t bypass a low roll by affecting only part of it

Cleared up an edge case regarding how Potency is calculated

Added rules for overcoming Abjuration-based wards with spells

Added a rule that the location you Conjure an object or creature into can’t already be occupied by another object or creature

Added a rule that you can’t Conjure only a part of a living target

(Yes, those last two bullet points were prompted by something that somebody actually tried. You know who you are, you sick puppy!)

Still in progress: tiny frog wizard duels.

theinformationdump

Body Language Cheat Sheet for Writers

As described by Selnick’s article:

Author and doctor of clinical psychology Carolyn Kaufman has released a one-page body language cheat sheet of psychological “tells” (PDF link) fiction writers can use to dress their characters.

Had a plot bunny pop up in my brain this morning. Maybe I’ll write it, maybe I won’t, but the prompt for it is almost too delicious not to share.

Hiccstrid, Pirate AU, Soul Mates AU, possibly Coffee Shop AU :D

There’s one pirate out there who has never been caught, who has a flair for the dramatic, some improbably advanced weapons, and is very skilled at hijacking the merchantmen ships laden with coffee and sugar for the mainland.

So the governors send out their best pirate-hunter, Astrid ‘The General’ Hofferson to track him down. And when she does confront him in a duel on the deck of his ship, she loses–because how else can you react except in surprise to the pirate saying the words that have been on your wrist since birth, words you expected to hear at a formal ball, and not punctuated by cannons?

“I suppose that this dance is ours, milady, but you may lead.”

Okay, my writing statement for this fic:

Writing Statement

For the Savage Seas, what I want out of this fic is to play with a few themes on fate versus choice, especially rebelling against fate and unintended consequences, which the Soulmate Charm AU seems to be tailor-made for, plus also the theme that is one of my perennial favorites that while the people in the system may not be malicious on an individual level, the sum total of their interactions often will be callous, uncaring, or even outright malevolent. I also want to have some fun with a sort of setting that I haven’t played with before, and toy with the characters’ emotions as I take their various certainties about the world and turn them upside-down. Also, I’m a maritime geek, and getting to play with pirates and sailing ships is going to be fun for me. Also, I’ve never tried doing this sort of writing before, relationship-wise, where the main romantic pairing start explicitly antagonistic, and go from enemies to lovers over the course of the story; all of my prior writing experience has involved writing established relationships. So this’ll be an interesting experience for me, even with the scaffolding of the Soulmate AU to work off of. Also, again, yay, I get to play with worldbuilding again! Always fun.

I’m looking forward to this because, well, it’s such a silly premise that nonetheless has such potential for a compelling story if I pull it off well. I’m looking forward to seeing people screech at me in the reviews for plot twists and angst and betrayals and pain, and cheer at the fluff (smut is TBD, but probably not). And I’m going to see if I can do this in a—for me—shorter story. I’m also going to write out a more specific outline than I do usually, rather than just pants it and try to steer towards the plot points I want, and keep my prose from rambling too much. So I’m going to try to keep this under 200k (and I thought I just heard my future self laughing. *extends middle finger*). I’m going to keep my prose tight, dammit! I can see that I need to reread some of Bujold’s books and take notes on her economy of prose.

Above all, I want to have it such that I’m going to be humming the Pirates of the Caribbean and HTTYD soundtracks constantly as I write this; I want to have that feel, where it is HTTYD in a Pirates world, and I’ve successfully fused the two of them together.

And, yes, that will include a dramatic and climactic naval battle where the stakes are so high that when I leave it off on a cliffhanger, people will be screaming at me. And, because I’m a sucker for them, a happy ending, of course, once they’ve earned it.

Lastly I finally, finally finally will get to use the phrase “loose cannon” to describe Ruffnut and Tuffnut in the proper context. That right there is worth the price of admission.

There will be battles, love, family, betrayal, shock, awe, philosophy, conspiracies, swordfights, swashbuckling, larger-than-life heroes and villains, domesticity, action, revolution and war. There will be all the characters we’ve come to know and love—and I’ll do my best to give them all a chance to shine. And finally, there will be a Hiccup and Astrid. Always. :)

But, for the moment, I’m going to get back to work on my big project, and outline this when I’m stuck on stuff in A Thing Of Vikings.

Status update on this: The outline just crossed 20k in length, and is about… 75% complete, I’d say. I’m definitely outlining the final act before the climax at this point. (And my alpha readers have sworn at me a few times for leaving them on cliffhangers in the outline. This bodes well)

Note this is a side project, so it gets worked on when I have time and energy, and I’ll probably finish the whole fic and have it proofed and revised before I post any of it.

There will be epigraphs for each chapter here as well, with the conceit being that they’re from almanacs, gazetteers, newspapers and the like, to give worldbuilding (it’s an original setting, not RL history) and other exposition.

Chapter 1 has been drafted; chapter 2 is underway. Going to build up a buffer on this one, if not just draft out the whole fic before publication. But it is being worked on.

Status update: Chapters 1 through 8 have been drafted and are awaiting the revision pass; chapter 9 is being worked on; the first 4k of the outline has been written out into the drafts; the total length of the outline is 23k. Current length of the drafts is 36k.

kalessinsdaughter

Arrr! Keep a weather eye open for this one, me hearties!

Update to the update: Chapters 1-15 have been drafted, total draft length is 73k

Update to the update to the update: @math-is-magic won my Fandom Trumps Hate auction, and after some back and forth discussion, we agreed that, since I haven’t started posting The Savage Seas yet, it will be acceptable for me to use for my FTH entry. :D So I will be beginning posting of this before the end of 2020.

IT BEGINS!

The Savage Seas, Chapter 1

Happy Birthday to @astridthevalkyrie!

sepulchritude

on the topic of humans being the intergalactic “hold my beer” species: imagine an alien stepping onto a human starship and seeing a space roomba™ with a knife duct taped onto it, just wandering around the ship

it doesn’t have any special intelligence. it’s just a normal space roomba. there are other space roombas on the ship and they don’t have knives. it’s just this one. knife space roomba has full clearance to every room in the ship. occasionally crew members will be talking and then suddenly swear and clutch their ankle. knife space roomba putters off, leaving them to their mild stab wounds.

“what is the point?” asks the alien as another crew member casually steps over the knife-wielding robot. “is it to test your speed and agility?”

“no it doesn’t really go that fast,” replies the captain.

“does it teach you to stay ever-vigilant?”

“I mean I guess so but that’s more of a side effect.”

“does it weed out the weak? does it protect you from invaders? do repeated stabbings let your species heal more quickly in the future?”

“it doesn’t stab very hard, it gets us more than it gets our enemies, and no, but that sounds cool — someone write that down.”

“but then what is its purpose?”

“I don’t know,” the captain says, leaning down to give the space roomba an affectionate pat. “it just seemed cool”

aethersea

this is the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard but I thought about it for five seconds and realized that if I were, say, a random communications officer onboard this ship and someone taped a knife to a roomba it would take maybe three weeks before even I was inordinately fond of Stabby. I would be proud of Stabby when I met up with my other spacefleet friends for space coffee, I would tell them about the time Stabby got the second mate in the ankle five seconds before the fleet admiral beamed on board and she swore in seven different languages in front of high command.

also by the fourth day Stabby would be in the ship’s log, he’d have little painted-on insignia, people would salute him as he went by, and someone would hook up a twitter account to tweet maniacal laughter and/or a truly terrible knock-knock joke every time he managed to nick someone.

tallteal

Omg so the ting I typed up might actually happen this is gold

petralemaitre

I am suddenly astonished that Stabby isn’t Farscape canon. 1812 was weird enough.

dearthoughthenightisgone

Stabby’s little charging dock would start accruing cuddly toys and commemorative holo-vids of Stabby’s greatest stabs. Its insignia would start off at a fairly low rank, but soon, without anyone every discussing it, everyone would know that Stabby got to take the rank of the highest ranking crew member it stabbed. The ceremony for Flag Admiral Stabby was beautiful. The captain gave a speech.

jumpingjacktrash

why am i proud of stabby this is irrational

bisectedbrioche

INCIDENT LOG: 46-7-2 Action #45437: Desc: Covert enemy boarding attempt

Details: Six (6) members of a Mercenary/Pirate crew of little renown attempted to infiltrate ship in order to steal equipment and/or personnel.

Prior to being detained they had remained undetected for eight (8) hours and accumulated several high value materials (see attached log), and incapacitated and restrained several crewmen (see attached log) in dock #3, with the intention of using a life boat to exfiltrate.

Just prior to their would-be escape, the boarding party encountered the ship’s mascot. A cleaning unit which had been modified by crew members to mount a traditional Terran melee weapon, as well as an officer’s insignia (having been jokingly given a commission by the Captain the night before). Curious, one picked it up, before realising the mounted weapon had a nickel finish (highly toxic to their species) on the handle, and dropped it in a panic.

As the unit’s anti-impact sensors had been disabled, it immediately tried to right itself on landing. This caused it to flip over and slash the third knee of the boarder who dropped it, prompting the rest of the boarders to flee. In doing so, they tripped over a waste container, causing the unit to “chase” them, as it collected the trail of dust they left.

The security crew were alerted to the boarding party’s presence by an entry on “Sargent Stabby’s Hit List” - an account on an intership microblogging site which automatically logs any injuries caused by the cleaning unit in question - and quickly intercepted them.

Casualties: Four (4) crewmen treated for minor lacerations sustained after detaining boarding party, one (1) captured crewman treated for negative reaction to sedatives used by captors.

Belligerent status: Two (2) members of the enemy boarding party remain in stable condition in sickbay. Three (3) remaining surrendered peacefully and remain in the brig. One (1) refuses to leave the safety of a storage cupboard he went to ground in.

Recommendations/Actions:

All captured guards to undergo debriefing and possible disciplinary action for breaches of security protocol.

Remind all crew members to report missing colleagues immediately.

Retain a guard outside cleaning storage room 87 until the final boarder can be coaxed out and properly detained.

Cleaning unit D4.87 AKA “Sargent Stabby” has been promoted to Quartermaster, and is now considered the superior officer of all autonomous drones on the ship. All Class #1 drones have been programmed to salute their superior with their effector, should it enter the room while they’re active.

theotheristhedoctor

Ok but what about that final bit - all the other space roombas respectfully standing to the side and saluting when Quatermaster Stabby comes past?

flyingwerecats

Quartermaster Stabby goes on to have many more adventures and many more promotions.

Quartermaster Stabby becomes a famous icon of the human race, proof that humans can and often are unintentionally terrifying, but maybe there actually IS something to their strange attachments to inanimate objects…?

Aliens are now convinced that humans have some weird psychic/aura powers or something. “Object Tamers” they call us. Humans are so amused that they adopt the term for themselves. They love it. They start printing it on bracelets and T-shirts. Aliens can’t tell if this is a joke or a confession.

Through a disturbing number of coincidences like the above, aliens begin to fear Quartermaster Stabby and are legitimately unsure if it has intelligence or not. It doesn’t help that humans refuse to break the joke to explain it to them.

Alien scientists try to explain the strange phenomenon that is Quartermaster Stabby. They cannot. Humans are delighted.

Quartermaster Stabby is eventually promoted to a position of authority over all autonomous drones in the entire human empire. It also escaped the ship once and managed to become the mayor of a small alien city. That city has since begun using the fact as a tourist attraction, and the episode has brought to human attention the fact that Mayor Stabby technically fulfills all of the criteria necessary to become a president or council member. (Minus the sentience.)

Humans are now trying to vote Mayor Stabby into office, using the aliens’ inability to determine its sentience level to their advantage.

They are successful. Counselor Stabby is most universally beloved representative of the human race. (Among humans, anyway. The aliens have mixed reactions, ranging from amusement, to fear, to outrage.)

Counselor Stabby goes on to somehow reveal a corrupt plot among several other counsel members and essentially averts a huge political catastrophe, all because one of the spies dropped her earring and Counselor Stabby ate it. The earring was bugged. Good call, Counselor Stabby.

Every time Counselor Stabby breaks down and has to be repaired, trillions of humans flood its social media accounts with ‘get well’ messages, and many flowers and gifts are sent to the repair bay or to its charging station.

Counselor Stabby has somehow blundered its way into receiving all of the highest honors that can be bestowed by human society. It helps run an empire. It saves lives. It cleans donut crumbs off of the floor without being asked.

All without a single sentient thought.

Counselor Stabby becomes legend.

dixeyray

The humans have started a campaign to use Counselor Stabby as a model to create better bots.

“Why does a human’s consideration for a ‘better bot’ mean more knives, sir?” the young ambassador said, staring at the contraption in front of him.

“ we are unsure of their purpose, we have many reports of these creations protecting their home ships. “ The advisor said also staring at the contraptions many spinning blades.

The residing human walked into the room squealing, quite to loud for the ambassador’s taste, at the contraption.

“ Aren’t you just a spinning bundle of death! “ The human cried out happily? (The ambassador was still unsure of humans deployment of emotions.) The delivery droid, with knife blades above its propellors, bobbed up and down before depositing it’s ‘gift’ (as the human called it) and leaving through the bot-hatch with a frightening scream accompanying it.

Thes humans, they were, well, humans. The ambassador would need to read more on their culture to even remotely understand them.

spacefaringviking

**STABBY**

future-ghosts

*buzzes happily*

megasonger

i dont remember if ive ever shared this here, but just in case, here, have the Peasant Railgun DnD tactic, thats completely legal within the rules

wickerwight

@wheel-skellington

supersoftly

wasn’t this on 4chan like 8 years ago..?

psiotechniqa

Its a /tg/ classic

Along with this gem:

Basically, in D&D - if a portable hole goes into a bag of holding, you get a nuclear explosion.

pallidprincess

people breaking dnd is peak humor

cowscratch

I LOVE THE PEASANT RAILGUN

patrickdiomedes

My favorite is the Truly Immovable Rod

somethingdnd

never heard the Truly Immovable Rod one before

A few joking D&D achievements.

( All images used are No-Attribution Required stock images. )

Forgot these two.

More fake achievements.

Yet more fake achievements.

More!

So… I heard people wanted more of these?

I somehow managed to royally screw up the text, but hopefully these still come in handy.

thefingerfuckingfemalefury

Hey quick question how the hell did this get 60,000 notes

orsathesimurgh

So this is AU where Hela haven’t been driven out from Asgard and spent a great deal of time with her youger brothers [Loki in Hela’s arms is illusion btw]

What have these idiots done this time

singingwithoutwords

Ship Sizes

Supercarrier: fandom flagship. Everybody and their dog ships it. The fandom is glutted with artwork and fic. You cannot escape this ship.

Dreadnought: massively popular. Nearly everybody ships it. You can, with dedication, in theory, reach the end of the AO3 archive for the ship’s tag, but it’ll take a long time.

Cruiser: pretty popular ship. Not everyone ships it, but everyone knows about it. Has a good amount of fic/art, and probably multiple ask blogs.

Frigate: just plain popular. Feels like it could use more fanworks. New people to the fandom might not know about it, but they’ll stumble across it sooner rather than later.

Gunboat: bit of a rarepair. It might have an ask blog or two. A couple big name fans ship it. Probably only takes a few weeks to get through the entire AO3 backlog, and one new fic gets added during that time.

Tugboat: rarepair. Almost never seen except as a side pairing to a more popular ship. You can usually get through everything on AO3 in a matter of days. You’ve forgotten what it is to be picky about what you read.

Rowboat: less than a dozen people ship it. You all know each other. You exist in an endless cycle of the same five people desperately producing art and fic and one person who constantly contributes headcanons.

Canoe: you are one of maybe three people who ship it, and there’s a not-insignificant chance you’ve never encountered those other two hypothetical shippers. You spend your days paddling furiously in hopes of keeping the ship afloat, dreaming of the day you upgrade to a rowboat so you can finally rest.

samjohnssonvt

Submarine: Quite a few people ship it, but nobody wants to admit to shipping it. Will randomly appear and throw the other ships into confusion.

rainewynd

Pontoon: that random crossover ship with that one black dress character/trope/fandom everyone will ship with everything else. Has the potential to turn into a massive party until someone gets sick and everyone goes home.