[crabkick]

Howdy! I'm an artist and writer who loves historical stuff, sci-fi/fantasy, love stories, and anything that’s just plain weird. Here are some links:

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/crabkick.bsky.social

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/crabkickart

Toyhouse: https://toyhou.se/crabkick

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EVERY day I am trapped in DGS rarepair hell...

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Volunteering at the local pride parade so I made a pride hat!!

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Quick character-building guide from yours truly!

I’m a firm believer in the idea that at their baseline, your character should have a simple but strong core. You only REALLY need like three things when building a character; the rest is just extra. Let's dive in!

THING ONE: CONFLICTING WANTS. Here you put two or more all-consuming, character-defining desires that your character has that are ALSO in conflict with each other (with one having to be sacrificed in order to achieve the other). This is essentially the "want vs need" category.

THING TWO: THE LIE. This is the lie your character has formed and spent forever believing in order to protect themselves. The story must challenge this lie and force your character to either break through it (postive upward arc) or embrace it and become it fully (tragic downward arc).

THING THREE: FLAWS. I think flaws can really make a character–because if your character isn't flawed in an interesting way, then they're not engaging. I would list about three major, solid flaws that are relevant to the character AND things you can actionably put into your writing.

And that's it! That's the core, the very crux of your character. Stuff like likes and dislikes, height, hair color, scars or what-have-you are just extra. They flavor the dish, sure, but these three things are the base ingredients that will make your character really solid.

As always, take any writing advice you find anywhere with a grain of salt–but don't be afraid to try it out either! You never know what'll work for you until you experiment. Thanks for reading!

[tieflingkisser]

[chotomy]

omg the iliad ❤️ that’s my favorite workplace sitcom

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More fabulous gift art from the wonderful @blackivyart, this time of Kallista! I am SO in love with the fresh aqua colors and the idea of her strolling down the beach is so perfect. Thank you so much!

[captainhaterade]

BREAKING: Trump Administration Orders Dismantling of the U.S. Forest Service

The headquarters is going to Utah. Every regional office is being shuttered. The research program is being destroyed.

“More than fifty research and development facilities across thirty-one states. Gone. Consolidated into a single location in Fort Collins, Colorado. And ‘consolidated’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence, because what it actually means is that decades of place-based, long-term ecological research—the kind that literally cannot exist anywhere else because it depends on specific forests, specific watersheds, specific ecosystems studied over generations—will be snuffed out.

You cannot move a thirty-year watershed study. You cannot relocate a decades-long old-growth monitoring program. You cannot box up a forest and ship it to Colorado. When these facilities close, the experiments die. The datasets end. The partnerships with universities that took generations to build collapse. And the institutional knowledge of the scientists who ran those programs walks out the door, because the administration damn well knows most of them won’t follow a forced relocation to a single consolidated office that has nothing to do with the ecosystems they’ve spent their careers studying.”

[arianaderalte]

The U.S. Forest Service, Dismantled

Nine regional offices. 57 research labs. 193 million acres. An interactive map of what was lost.

[aetherograph]

Call your senators. Both of them. Tell them the Forest Service reorganization is proceeding without the congressional approval required by Section 716 of the Agriculture Appropriations Act and Section 421 of the Interior Appropriations Act. Use those numbers. Say them out loud. Staffers write down what they don’t recognize, and these are the provisions their bosses voted for.

If your senator is a Republican, the question is simple: you voted for a law that requires USDA to get committee approval before reorganizing or relocating any office. USDA didn’t get that approval. Their own lawyers declared your law unconstitutional. What are you going to do about it?

If your senator is a Democrat, the question is just as simple: the legal basis for stopping this already exists. Where are the subpoenas? Where are the hearings? Why is USDA’s general counsel allowed to declare a duly enacted law unconstitutional by internal memo and face no consequences?

Make them answer. Make their staff write it down. Call back next week and ask what happened.

(source)

5 Calls

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Slowly working my way through NPC designs... When I've got them mostly figured out I will make fullbody references :3c

EDIT: Added a few more busts!

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Working on a toyhouse site for my Illytheros game... I'll be sure to share when it's done!

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Another myth for my Illytheros game, this time created and written by one of my players, @malwarewolf404!

EPHIGNAEUS OF NILASSA

Centuries ago, there lived a noble woman in the city of Nilassa named Ephignaeus. She was beset by prophetic dreams, and visions of her husband Arteseus led her to his secluded island, where he asked for her hand in marriage. Theirs was a happy life, and the world seemed joyous.

But one night, she was beset by a vision that her husband’s friend Ponteaus would be brutally murdered. She rarely spoke of her dreams, but on this day she begged Arteseus not to leave Ponteaus’ side. He did not believe her, and went about his day as usual. That night, Ponteaus was slain by a highwayman.

Months later, after a visit from her husband’s family, she dreamt of her brother in law swept away in a terrible storm. She wept in the morning, and told her husband what had occured. Still refusing to believe her, he continued about his day like normal. A week later, parts of Arteseus’ family ship washed ashore in Nilassa.

Finally, Ephigneaus dreamt of a terrible earthquake that shook the city and killed hundreds in the night. She again told Arteseus, and he grew suspicious, but when the morning came and they found the city half turned to rubble, he grew furious. The people tried her as a sorceress, responsible for the deeds she forsaw. She was sentenced to burn as an offering to the gods in the agora. But seeing her suffering and innocence, the maiden goddess Helike took pity on her, and from the ashes of her pyre, she was reborn as an antelope, and bounded away from Nilassa, a divine declaration of her innocence and freedom.

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Quick sketchy of Demyseia, goddess of cunning and secrets!

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Why did her husband lead the brigands to their house?

Was he just being an idiot, or did he expect to gain something/want to take something away for some reason?

That's the thing... I've only shared the official version of the myth >:3

In reality, Ariella/Ynpharia's husband never actually betrayed her. The brigands came of their own accord, and Ynpharia, vulnerable and grieving and emotional, was led astray by her mother Selenoa, who believed that Ynpharia's husband (who she'd never liked and always saw as unworthy) was the culprit and convinced her daughter of the same. To this day, everyone still blames him.

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Another myth for my Illytheros campaign!

THE FLIGHT OF PHILO

Once, in times half-forgotten, there was a pallake by the name of Demostrate who was more beautiful than any woman on earth or in the heavens. Though she was a concubine, she was beloved by all, even the wife of her lord, and lived a peaceful, happy life in which neither she nor her infant son Philo wanted for anything.

But it was not to last. A neighboring king grew jealous and coveted her, so he slaughtered her lord and took her as his own, and kept her as a slave. Demostrate was not only beautiful, however; she also possessed an indomitable, hopeful spirit, and tried to escape many times. As a result, she and Philo were kept locked away in their chambers–but Philo, blessed by Demyseia and who was a mathematical, inventive mind who was happy to read and tinker, still needed room to roam, growing boy that he was, so he indulged his restlessness in the only way he could.

He climbed.

He climbed the pillars and the parapets, the walls and the roots in the stone and the trees. He snuck about the palace, a specter, his passage kept secret by the servants, and he taught himself to pick locks and open windows, and eventually became quite the sneak–but the king who held him and his mother hostage caught him one day, as no secret can be kept forever.

The king was furious. He took Philo up by the throat and hurled him down from the very top of the palace. As Philo fell, Demyseia, who had guided the boy in his intellectual pursuits and kept his secrets his whole life, wept to Selenoa, her queen mother, and begged her to save him. Selenoa’s heart was touched, and she changed Philo into a falcon so that he might fly away and taste freedom instead of meeting his end on the stones below.

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@blackivyart

Yep! Here's one:

THE BIRTH OF YNPHARIA

Ynpharia, mistress of justice and law, was not always the goddess we know her to be. Once she was a young, fair thing, a goddess of the hearth named Ariella. She took a mortal man for a husband–no mere lover–and became pregnant by him, and the two lived in peace and joy. In the final month of her pregnancy, however, her husband betrayed her, leading brigands to their joint home, who savaged her and slew her and her baby, not only committing deicide, but violating the laws of hospitality.

She did not, however, stay dead. A new goddess rose, reborn from the ashes of the old, harsh and imperious where before she had been sweet and gentle: Ynpharia, goddess of justice and law. She gave birth to her daughter Helike, goddess of rebirth, shortly after, and now rules as a commanding queen over morality, ethics, and retribution for the violation of those ideals.

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Gods and goddesses of my Illytheros campaign! Most of these names are just bastardized Greek words; don't expect anything accurate to actual Greek mythology, haha.

ANTHERIOS TRICKSTER GOD OF MEN AND MORTALS. The first and only mortal to ascend to godhood. Shapeshifter and interloper; disliked by the other "trueborn" gods. Stole the spark of divinity from the other gods and dispersed it among the people of the world.

YNPHARIA GODDESS OF JUSTICE AND LAW. Was once a minor goddess of hearth and home before she was slain by her traitorous human lover and reborn in the ashes of her burned-down home.

HELIKE GODDESS OF REBIRTH AND CROSSROADS. Ynpharia’s only child; died during the burning of her home and hearth but was reborn. Goddess of rebirth and the in-between, liminal spaces.

KATO GOD OF CONQUEST AND WAR. Honorable, but hot-blooded and proud. Known to stir the spirits of even the least of creatures. Brother to Agapea.

GAIANOS GOD OF THE SEA. Many-scaled and shining, capricious yet life-giving. Has thousands of children, some even unknown to mortal men.

KYNITHAEA GODDESS OF THE HUNT AND HARVEST. Fair and nurturing. Often seen in art challenging Kato to friendly games.

PYRISMA, PASALLA, FALASSI GODDESS OF THE ARTS. Fickle and fleeting, but beautiful before all other goddesses. Pyrisma is the aspect of visual art, Pasalla is the aspect of music, and Falassi is the aspect of the written word.

CTHERION GOD OF THE END AND DEATH. He who presides over the end of all things. Grim and dutiful and feared by all. Husband of Arkeia.

ARKEIA GODDESS OF THE BEGINNING AND LIFE. Loving mistress who grants a beginning to all things. Gentle and kind and adored by all. Wife of Ctherion.

AGAPEA GODDESS OF LOVE AND SEX. With beauty to rival that of the goddesses of the arts. Patron of love, sex, and marriage. Sister to Kato.

MITHRAKNIS GODDESS OF MONSTERS. Self-impregnating monster goddess of unknown origin who lies secreted away in the depths of the world, ever-birthing monstrous creatures.

THONOS GOD OF POISONS AND MEDICINE. Dual-faced god of healing and harm. Popular among doctors and assassins alike.

STRATONITES GOD OF THE SUN AND SKY. King of the gods and god of the sun and the sky. The allfather, as expansive as the sky is vast. Husband of Selenoa.

APHOSYMA GOD/DESS OF FATE AND CHAOS. Multigendered god/dess. Decider of who will be controlled by the strings of fate and who will find the course of their lives simply up to chance. 

SELENOA GODDESS OF MAGIC AND THE MOON. Queen of the gods and wife to Stratonites. Keeper of secrets, caster of spells, and she who makes the moon rise.

NEMOS GOD OF WINDS AND TRAVEL. Fickle and ever-changeable as the winds. He who guards sailors and travelers.

DEMYSEIA GODDESS OF CUNNING AND SECRETS. The goddess who favors those who use their minds to achieve their ends, and who keeps the secrets of those who confide in her.

MELOSIAS GOD OF WINE, CELEBRATION, AND GRIEF. He who makes the libations flow, who mourns and celebrates in equal measure.

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Do you have any mythological hero equivalents in the lore of your dnd game?

Yes!

In the current era we've got Hesperion, who helped win the war against Pyrikos on the side of Nilassa. He killed Pyrikos's king, Arcadius, as well as his two eldest sons, Heroides and Neophytos. He's considered a living legend because of it.