Play the Cha-Cha Slide into the Void

Welcome! This is yet another fandom side blog. (Lots of UT and DR with some other stuff Has absolutely nothing to do with the AHIT fanblog multiversal-pudding. At all. Especially not in the sense of secret identities. Nope. What secret identity?

[biglawbear]

Y'ALL THIS IS THE NEW WHITE HOUSE MONKEYPOX COORDINATOR HOLY SHIT

Biden really said "I think we need a raging queer leather daddy doctor to run the country's monkeypox response" and he was RIGHT

[pinene]

yeah this is based

[grison-in-space]

Oh fuck that is a good call: that's a gentleman whose career started while AIDS was in full swing within his community, who has championed harm reduction approaches to infectious disease, and who is pointed in his insistence on destigmatizing high risk communities rather than setting himself apart from them. This is someone who understands harm reduction and meeting people where they are without judgement, which is precisely the attitude you want to have when you grapple with a stigmatized epidemic.

Here's an article about his appointment to director of HIV/AIDS prevention from February 2021. Look at his career: he's been working in HIV/AIDS nearly his entire adult life and career. He's been working on increasing public health within stigmatized populations by focusing on harm reduction that entire time. Hell, this is someone with the institutional memory to remember Anthony Fauci's piss poor treatment of HIV during the Reagan administration and carry a grudge because the man didn't go far enough.

By the way, this is absolutely an example of harm reduction in terms of exercising your right to vote: there is zero chance that an advocate like Daskalakis would have been appointed under a Trump administration, but the incoming Biden administration installed him in the previous director position (which he still holds, as he adds monkeypox to his case load) as early as late 2020, before Biden was even properly inaugurated. That doesn't mean this administration is perfect or that we can't continue to agitate for better change, but it does mean that things are better and fewer people are going to die. That's basic harm reduction in action: you focus on survival for the most people as your metric, you take the route that results in the best outcome for the situation you have, and you do not ever let the imaginary perfect become the enemy of the tangible better.

Fuck, this is delightful good news. Well done Dr. Daskalakis, and all the best of luck to you and yours!

[saywhat-politics]

[kautsky-hateblog]

hey so the Democrats are in charge at this very moment. They could enshrine abortion rights in the constitution at this very moment. Why would they wait until after midterms to do something, and if they aren’t gonna wait until after midterms, wtf does this have to do with midterms?

[fandomsandfeminism]

The only way to “enshrine it in the constitution” would be to make it an amendment. This requires a 2/3 vote from both the House and the Senate.

Which… wouldn’t pass.

I know this is shocking. But “being in charge” doesn’t actually mean unlimited power.

This post mentions the midterms because it 1. Could give us a super majority needed for this kind of amendment and 2. Would affect STATE governments which could safeguard abortion on a state level.

[pax-no-pax]

Vote these midterms. It has never been more critical to stop this shit. Those playing the long con game have been waiting for this most of all. The more freedoms they remove from us the stronger they get. Stop the backwards slide to remove rights from everyone but the rich white male.

[lynati]

Vote these midterms. If Republicans win any more seats in The House or The Senate, they’re going to use the opportunity to enshrine THEIR beliefs as much as they possibly can. It takes votes from two-thirds of Congress to overturn a presidential veto and force a law into place. HELP KEEP, AND FLIP, AS MANY SEATS BLUE AS POSSIBLE.

[soleminisanction]

Being in charge doesn’t actually mean unlimited power.

Read that again and memorize it, people. They literally told you in 2020 that the goal was to get a supermajority, that they NEEDED a supermajority to get anything done, and then THEY DID NOT GET A SUPERMAJORITY. They got just enough to stem the tide and no further.

Anybody who says things are just as bad now as they were under Trump is full of shit. Don’t buy into their bullshit. There is a wide spectrum of people running under the democratic banner; find the most progressive one and vote for them. Move the party as far left as you can and, more importantly, get as many Republicans as we can OUT.

KEEP THE SEATS. FLIP THE SEATS.

[bunnyduckcucumberpatch]

I’m still amazed at the number of people on this site that have infantile takes on the Dems having a majority. Like fuck yall.

[aspiringwarriorlibrarian]

Once again, Women’s Health Protection Act. There has been an attempt to codify Roe v Wade into law every Congress for nearly a decade now. They got it past the House this year. It was all over the news when the Roe v Wade decision got leaked. It died in the Senate.

Next Congress, it will be back. And this time, we need to show up for it.

[the-haiku-bot]

Next Congress, it will

be back. And this time, we need

to show up for it.

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

[the-fluffy-folio]

Ember Rat – Tiny elemental, unaligned

“Some people have a great love for their pets. Checkers was very beloved by the artificer that owned him and he could not stand to lose him. The artificer also had a favorite lighter. He loved it, not as much as he loved Checkers, but it was his best lighter. With a technique he did not choose to write down, he bound his pet into it, making sure that Checkers would be around a lot longer than the rather short life span of a rat would usually allow…”

🔮 Join The Fluffy Folio on Patreon to gain access to monster pages, tokens & artwork of dozens of quirky creatures and potion cards based on their lore ❤️

This creature was made in collaboration with AbyssalBrews❤️

[spockoandjimjim]

Hey tumblr user spockoandjimjim how is that campaign you dm going

Well I’m glad you asked

[wankydoo]

[creativerogues]

20 “Totally Not Weird” Things To Say To Your Players...

As far as your character can tell, there is nothing unnatural about it.

The trap appears to be disarmed.

Do you touch it, or are you just looking?

Who goes first?

From what you can see…

This room does not appear to contain anything.

There’s no visible effect.

You don’t seem to spot any traps in the immediate vicinity.

As far as you would know…

You feel fine.

Can I see your character sheet a second?

Can you describe in a little more detail how you do that?

What order are you walking in?

It doesn’t seem to do anything.

Are you sure about that?

You can certainly try!

How close do you want to get to it?

By the way, where exactly are you all standing?

Before you fall asleep…

I need to borrow a few more dice for a while.

[dailyadventureprompts]

Monsters Reimagined: Baphomet, Demon Lord of Brutality, and his Cults. 

Since I’m going to be using this demon lord as the driving influence for several future adventures, I figured it’d be a good idea to write up “my version” of the character and post it on this blog.  If you’re interested in WHY/HOW my version differed from the original, feel free to click the “read more” link for a full breakdown of my process. 

Background:  Baphomet, the horned lord,  king of bloodied conquest, is the demon lord of brutality, and the embodied spirit of power overcoming all restraints. His cult spreads among individuals who wish to use their personal strength to dominate the weak, as well as those who covet such strength for themselves. 

Baphomet rose to prominence a scant few millennia ago, stealing his seat of power from a demon-lord of magic and cunning who sought to bind the great power he possessed for his own. The seed of Baphomet’s mythos was born when he used that power to break free and slay his rival, taking his labyrinthine domain and status as a king of hell for his own. 

Adventure Hooks: 

Baphomet commands his worshipers to prove their strength over those that would constrain them. His adherents are famous for constructing arenas where they can prove their mettle against challengers and captured beasts. The feircer the fight and greater the challenge, the stronger the victor must be, and thus more deserving of the Horned Lord’s gifts. Baphomet however is just as likely to bless those who defeat his unworthy petitioners, creating demon possessed beasts or unwilling oracles from those who fight their way out of these temple-arenas. 

Those who use their natural strength to oppress others may sometimes find themselves courted by the servants of Baphomet, promising to guide them to greater glories if only they would dedicate their victories to the king of bloody conquest. Many giants, warlords, orcs, minotaurs and others blessed with physical might fall prey to these “easy gain” plied with arms and blessings that slowly drive them to challenge Baphomet himself… exactly as the demon lord intended. 

The beast in the labyrinth loathes those who think skill or smarts can bend the world to their will, and delights in proving their infeiority by releasing vexing curses into the world for them to find. These curses often take the form of poisoned puzzleboxes, tomes that eat away at the mind like acid, labyrinths that shift and bury as they are explored, or treasure vaults full of traps that mangle those that try to “solve” them. 

Keep reading

[howlingguardian]

Talk fantasy prosthetics to me.

An elf maiden dances on feet of living wood sung into shape, planted in soil and watered when she takes them off. Every year she plants the old ones and sings a new pair. (Incidentally, the pair of peach saplings from three years ago have produced an excellent crop- She makes preserves from them, and despite the inevitable jokes about “toe-jam”, they are appreciated.)

A dwarf king has a metal fist, all tiny gears and fine wires, kept wound by a mischievous mine-spirit bound to the spring as punishment- the more it struggles, the tighter the spring. 

An orc chieftaness is regularly asked for the story of how she earned the name Wyrmthrottler- she boasts of how she strangled the dragon that ate her arm, and had her shaman make a new arm from its bones, with its fangs as the fingers.

A necromancer simply re-attached his old leg bones- Sacrificing a few mice each day keeps it going.

A pirate captain lost her arm to a shark attack: a passing selkie saved her, and gave her tattoos of kraken blood. Now she has an arm made of salt-water, that grows and wanes with the tides, and swings a cutlass as well as the original. (She doesn’t sail as far these days though: she doesn’t want her wife to worry.)

A wandering swordsman was broken at the waist- his ancestral armour allows him to walk again, as long as he keeps it polished, and burns incense to the ancestors regularly.

A high priestess has an eye made from a crystal ball- to predict the future, all she has to do is wink.

A bard was struck deaf by illness- he struck a deal with the god of music. Now he wears hearing-trumpets made from his old pipes, and dedicates his every song to the god of music- the better he plays, the better his hearing. (It is said his music could make statues weep, and he can hear a mouse fart at 60 paces.)

A princess has the arm of a golem, enchanted clay with mystic words carved in- her music tutor despairs of how her harp playing has become even worse, but her calligraphy tutor is ecstatic over her handwriting.

A goblin pickpocket has an arm made of whatever he steals- no-one feels his fingers, and even if they did, they couldn’t find their possessions amongst all the rest.  

A witch has eyes made from shadow and starlight, given to her in a game with a demon. Nobody dares to ask what she wagered- they aren’t even sure she won.

A warg was born deaf and blind- his people learned of his power when the nearest birds started staring at them, and dogs pricked up their ears as he walked past.

[ironic-discordia]

@zeowynda

[lady-feral]

These are some damn cool concepts.

[scrmnviking]

D&D yoink

[educatedsavage]

These are such beautiful and poetic ideas!!!!

[prince-atom]

Far better than what has been published for D&D, so yoink away, I say.  Yar-har.

Back in the early ‘00s, there was a Monster Manual with options for adding golem limbs to your character – the result clearly intended to be monstrous.

One of the clones of the late wizard Manshoon has a metal gauntlet for a left forearm and hand because the mad wizard Halaster relieved him of his original for inscrutable purposes.  Presumably it is animated, but the texts don’t say, and the effect only serves to make him more sinister.

The pragmatic player will ask why you don’t simply seek out a high-level druid and pay for your lost limb to be regenerated.  The answer is, because that’s boring.  And anyway, maybe the druid doesn’t feel like being a paid monkey.  They’re not a cleric, after all.  Maybe they’ll set you some task out of a fable or fairy tale, if you’re lucky.  This is a 7th-level spell we’re talking about, here.

[uovoc]

Real talk tho Mob is gonna grow up and choose some constructive but random-ass occupation like healthcare clerk or something idk but word of mouth means that everyone is going to know him as “my friend has a friend who also does exorcisms”

like maybe spooky noises have started coming from that sketchy chest freezer you bought off Facebook so you tell your friend and they say “oh yeah my cousin knows this dude, he can take care of that for you, called him last year to deal with a cursed bong, he’s 100% legit" 

later that evening this COMPLETELY JACKED guy shows up at your apartment and you’re like What are you gonna do, punch the ghost or something? But no he politely asks if he can come in, stands in front of the freezer for a minute without doing anything, then tells you that the evil spirit is gone now and you can store your cowshare portion in peace. Whole thing seems kinda suspect but musclebro didn’t charge you anything and anyway the spooky noises have stopped so no harm done, right?

And then maybe a few months later your coworker tells you that they swear they saw this creepy headless figure walking home last night so you’re like, Y'know I know this guy, 100% legit, I bet he could look into it for you…

[littlebigmouse]

Okay but. At some point Mob is going to run into a problem where there is no spirit to exorcise. So a friend of a friend recommended this jacked guy to fix your haunted freezer problem, but the guy just looks intently at your freezer for a minute. Then he turns to you and tells you that he doesn’t know how to fix your freezer, but he knows a guy who CAN help. At this point you’re kinda intrigued, but also sure, whatever, so the tall guy calls his friend and within the hour a greasy guy in a cheap suit shows up. He’s a lot more talkative than the first guy, and before you know it he’s started taking apart your freezer, and then the electric socket, chatting about spirits causing faulty wiring all the while. You’d meant to stop him, but the guy seems to know what he is doing, and before you know it he’s rewired the socket, replaced a faulty cable and rebuild the freezer. You might have complained but he charged you less than any electrician would request as the transportation fee alone, so you shut up, pay him, and the two guys leave together. The haunted noises have stopped. You look up the guy on the internet later but can’t find much except for the ugliest website you’ve ever seen and a ten year old twitter hate campaign you can’t discern the cause off. No matter, it makes an intriguing enough story for your coworkers later.

[neko-mancy]

[probablyfunrpgideas]

Idea: some games like Monster of the Week have a mechanic for you to say “I prepared this beforehand” and have a plan, or a useful item. It’s also a feat in Pathfinder 2e! My house rule is that the player should describe a montage of the planning or the shopping.

You can extend this to other games too! Imagine a 5e feat where you can make an Intelligence roll once per day to acquire a tool worth a few gold, or a map fragment that can give you advantage on a single check. Failing the roll, however, might mean you got a false clue or a faulty tool.

[protectspock]

Obsessed with the idea of being a symbiont’s first host. Gaining pretty much nothing from the process because the only memories it has is of swimming around in a cave. Go worm, give us nothing.

[catfishimages]

new star trek oc: ricky dornt, 18 yr old trill host and his fresh-outta-the-soup symbiont. fresh faced, empty headed, and about to get their shared dick kicked in by the universe

[hortaheart]

This is really funny, but I think another hilarious possibility is if those worms have completely full, dramatic lives in those pools. So the first host would be telling wild stories from their past life like any other joined trill, and people would be like “Woah that’s crazy where could something like that have even happened???” And they’d be like “Oh in the worm pool.”

[protectspock]

oh my god, I never considered worm drama.

[thechekhov]

I think I’ve posted this before, but it’s a THING now. 

In the game I DM, I ended up making up a recurring merchant NPC just for shits and giggles - a Kobold who calls himself Dumas and goes around selling strange magical/enchanted items which are… not as they seem. His prices are enticing, but the items have strange properties, and it’s a gamble to see if your investment is worth it. 

My players love him so much they have taken to Sending him every time they want something new, and all of their party funds end up going to this little creature, who is delighted, and is now probably the richest bastard in all of Barovia. (Yes, this is in Curse of Strahd…. look, humor needs to be a part of EVERY game imo, even the Gothiest of them all.)

[shorteststory]

When the party likes the doppelganger more than you (ft. voice guest Leeman Kessler)!

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

you know how rich people do that awful thing where they fuel the illegal wildlife trade with their demand for exotic animals?

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

ok so a fairytale where a dragon is rescued from a princess. the dragon, an endangered species, is being held captive in the Royal Menagerie.

[probablybadrpgideas]

Reverse feather fall that finds people sat still and just hurls them off the nearest cliff.

[vodoriga-art]

some eldritch blasts

[aylendoesart]

Gotta keep a straight face u guys

based on this post

[prokopetz]

One of the weirdly specific Dungeons & Dragons tropes it never really occurs to you to question until you take a moment to think about it is adventures where the player characters have to go down into the sewers because the terrible flesh-eating monsters the city keeps down there on purpose are getting up to no good.

Now, we could ask whether there really wasn’t any better waste management solution available than deliberately cultivating a pack of face-devouring hell-amoebas and turning them loose in the tunnels beneath our very feet, but I prefer to take it the other way: why is it only the sewers? What other deeply inadvisable monster-based civic infrastructures might one expect to see in a setting where this sort of tomfoolery is the norm?

Magma sprite streetlamps?

Haunted public libraries?

Mass transit landsharks?

There are so many possibilities – and so many adventure-worthy ways for them to predictably go horribly, horribly wrong!

[probablyfunrpgideas]

Local wizard Starrath Nithza has used their powers of necromancy to make an incredibly overcomplicated “e-mail” system (the e stands for ethereal). First, you let a ghost possess you. Then your soul tells the ghost the message you wish to send. Next, the ghost departs your body and goes floating off through walls to find the recipient so it can possess them and repeat the message. Expensive? Yes. Prone to terrifying accidents? Maybe. But the e-mail is untraceable and can’t be stolen, which makes it very useful for secret messages.

[probablyfunrpgideas]

To send an Ethereal-mail, there are dial-up ouija boards at most public libraries and at the regular post office. Major companies might invest in a board just for their personal use, and they say the city’s guard headquarters has three in case of emergency.

You can receive a message anywhere, so it’s becoming more and more common to see pedestrians stop on the sidewalk and turn their heads 360 degrees while listening. The older generation frowns on the irresponsible use of technology, of course.