Myobu Tachibana - Plucky Alchemist and Living Wildfire
Commission/s Artist: @cloud-ya
Musings under the cut:
Yet another Toon, Fruity? Really?
Yeah.
Early April I asked was invited to a friend's personal D&D game after the game that had both Gardenia and Aseren go on hiatus. I had to throw together another Toon that could fit into their home game's dynamic, and they happened to still use homebrew that out group had somewhat abandoned. And since this was still the first and only game they ran, I decided to not roll up anything too busted.
The material we had was *passed down from a member who used to run a game that initially brought me into contact with them, and had ghosted the table due to circumstances that aren't worth scrutinizing. Amongst them was a homebrewed Alchemist class that directly references the Atelier games. Mechanically it's under tuned compared to others, but for the kind of game I was joining it was perfectly fine. The player [lineages] available also had a fun, if a little over tuned, version of Kitsune that had a fun spin on the shapeshifting aspect of their lore.
*Said member took it for themselves from another game that they had initially been a member of. This fact was learned though some dumb luck coming across a Roll20 listing from said previous group. I also took the opportunity to steal additional and updated material for myself when I cared to run 5E.
According to the mechanics, a Kitsune's fox form size increases each tier from the base size of Tiny, to "Medium", then landing at Large. The reference image really sells the scale of it; admittedly it might not be as drastic, but it's still cool. There are other, more busted, aspects of the [lineage] that I won't comment one; balance in 5E is a psy-op to convince players it's a well-designed game.
Still, looking forward to getting to play her a bit; genuinely the most honest and straightforward "JRPG protag" I rolled for a game. Ignoring that Nanami Kiryuu plays some influence on her.
Aseren C. Hoshino (He/Him) - Local Yokai and Ghost Writer
Commission artist: @punklilyyy
Aseren is owned by @umberhokkyokusei
Musings under the cut:
Two years ago a friend decided to kickstart a D&D game that they had to put on hiatus for reasons that fall outside the scope of this post in particular. It was a high fantasy game set in an academy for fated heroes that was mostly a vehicle for playing with blorbos. And oh boy I had a blorbo that I absolutely wanted to strap into the seatbelt.
Around this time I had been cleaning up my film degree, and had finished my short film that was also an excuse to write the rabbits outside a fantasy setting. The fact that I got people, actors, to play them still makes me a little light-headed. So off that high, I had humored the idea of casting a friend who I had the gut feeling that could play my blorbo pretty well. And after some convincing, we had both agreed to swap two of our characters for this game. They would be taking on Gardenia and myself taking on their OC, Aseren.
This is a hilarious way to reveal that for the past two years and a small handful of commissions later, Gardenia wasn't a character I was playing at the table this time around.
Artist: @/mintyfreshka
This is the first piece I've commissioned for him; a somewhat masculine, young, semi-generic academic with some bird/howl energy for some flair. His aesthetics fit just as much as the recent piece does. Swagever.
Gardenia had an easy brief that I could hand over for them to interpret; this was still the era that she was still heavily influenced by off-kilter DrakeNier themes. Comparatively, Aseren was a WoW RP character with years of RP logs and relationship baggage. I had some trouble finding a starting place for him that wasn't too sharp. Especially with elements like him being an Empath was something that had to have several conversations at the table for it to not be an abusive element of his character.
One of the elements I thought was fun to establish in his backstory was to make him a ghostwriter for a famous romantacy series in the vein of A Court of Thorns and Roses. Then it occurred to me that it's kind of odd for a dude, even one I was told was gay, to be writing something with a fem lead and the exact kind of gaze one would expect. So I thought it would be fun to make him trans-masc as a minor detail that wouldn't be explored too much.
Artist: @/punklilyyy
Speaking plainly: I'm a cisgender, heterosexual male. Arguably aro/ace. Aseren was definitely a character I didn't really expect to have his identity be something I was playing around with. And very apparent to myself I was playing him from the uneducated position of a Tumblr blogger who happens to follow a lot of queer folk. So I based a lot of it as an element in relation to his parents, wanting to be like his father. Which was an uphill battle once I started establishing further that he's basically a dead ringer of his mother, in both looks and talent. He also staked a lot of it in a relationship he had with another character. To the extent where I thought it'd make more sense for him to pull a little back on being masc since he was getting a lot of external affirmation from that. Until they broke up. Admittedly encouraged OOC by myself since it'd be a fun dramatic shake up.
Artist: @/cloud-ya
This piece is essentially supposed to be him at his lowest afterward, despite how much he's serving; giving up on himself, his passions, and accepting the idea that he can't be anything other than what he was born as. It's gotten so bleak that he was going by his dead name for a while. During this time, sessions were just him lashing out at everyone while he was going down a doom spiral. It'd be a few sessions where he would start looking more introspectively and listen to other party members, which is where the new look for him came from. Understanding that owning his own identity was important to himself, and to look for affirmation from within. Not intended to be an end for his character arc, but definitely the moment where I found out who he was as a character.
"Well that's cool and all, but this is a high fantasy setting right? Why not just use magic to not deal with the dysphoria?"
Well that's kind of easy and boring to do, although there was some of that when it came to explaining how the initial portrait turned into someone a little more fem. Aside from that, there wasn't any further use of fantastical elements with regard to his identity. To some degree this is what the Combat Wheelchair is, a part of reality that exists within fantasy for the sake of itself. A relevant example is what Granblue Fantasy does with Cagliostro and Ladiva; the former using magic to become her ideal self, and the latter is just textually trans without making it a huge part of her character. Both are characters that essentially at the end of their own stories, but nonetheless exist. Having Aseren be a more openly trans masc character wasn't intentional thing I wanted to explore, but I'm kind of proud of what I've done with him.
The game went on hiatus, again, for various reasons I won't speak on. Selfishly, it really cements that I'm kind of cursed to never play a character I like to their conclusion. Although I can claim that Aseren is the first character I've played who had an arc actually see it's end, so that's a plus.
"Like this? No, I'm pretty comfortable like this. If I relax my back a little more, I can definitely get a better pose for-" *plastic creaking,* "Maybe not."
Commission artist: @cloud-ya (with some minor lighting edits from me)
No long musing for this one, just wanted another piece for the wyrm. Now with an impractical serpent's tail that definitely doesn't get in the way of anything ever. (RIP monobloc chair)
Vivian Vázquez - Party Wyrm and Academic Procrastinator
"Hacer puente, ahogar las penas! Life is too short to study all day!"
Commission Artist: @cloud-ya, with modifications
Background Credit: iivangm, Centro Histórico de México, Some rights reserved, CC BY 2.0, modified, via flickr
Musings and some personal art under the cut:
Several years ago, I was invited by a now close friend to a D&D campaign they were running that was a mythology mashup set in the modern 60s. I had initially played some warlock that was a riff on an evil Dionysius with JJBA Diavolo mixed in because Part 5 was airing at the time. He didn't get to stay too long since there was friction at the table due to his presence as the only evil aligned PC, so I defaulted to another character I always had in my back pocket.
Vivian was a (Fem) Green Dragonborn Bard that I had prepared in case the Warlock died. I did some research to fit her in; looked into Aztec myth, and used Quetzalcoatl as her touchstone. But mostly she was the same "character" I always attempted to play, as every game I had put her into until then ended during a period of hiatus. And the same happened to this campaign as well, but somehow she hung around in my head long after. Mostly as a comfort character that I drew a lot of during the early periods of the 2020 lockdown.
To some extent, she was my mascot character, since I felt really chuffed about her design. She was both fun and a pain to draw, and probably marked the period with my most creative output. I've since tilted my creative endeavors towards other things, although I do sometimes think about getting back into art proper again. And also I hope to reprise her in something again, since she hasn't seen much love from me until asking for this commission.
Wanted another rabbit for a one-shot that plays into the best character archetype in horror; a teenage girl.
Artist: @/cloud-ya
(EDIT: There used to be a bad lighting tweak here. It's gone now.)
“Nerium Oleander” Is a character for a one-shot with some friends set within our main campaign's setting. It’s set a few years back, I may or may not opt to have her be a certain other rabbit’s mother in her teens.
Wanted to really play into some 2000s horror game protagonist vibes, leaning close to Heather Mason’s deal of being some teenager stuck in a situation she doesn’t want to be in. And maybe some form of psychosis that may or may not be otherworldly influence, but sucks all the same when your family hates you either way.
Very excited about the opportunity to contextualize a bunch of “quirks” of hers in relation to Gardenia’s, as well as being able to play a deliberately uncooperative character. Hopefully she doesn’t bite the dust too quickly, and if she does, it’ll be funny to figure out the answer to how she manages to have kids in the future.
(I've finally commissioned someone outside the people I know, lmao.)
This is the fourth-ish iteration of my rabbit; Miss Gardenia Dubosquet!
A lot has happened since the last look I got for her. Long story short; yet another dead game. But the group, aside from the GM, has stayed together since then! We've got a few games running between us now, and another opportunity to have her in a game.
Won't yap too much about it; It's just nice to have her being weird at people again. And this time, she's French too.
A collection of edited commissions from @aeonic_scribble (Twitter)
Full illustrations with some thoughts and commentary under the cut.
Some time ago a close friend, aeonic_scribble, wanted to run another 5E campaign right after wrapping up a short campaign.
At the time I was way big into Drakenier content, having finished the replicant remaster and automata. I had this idea of wanting to play a character styled after and tonally close to the games, specifically the first Drakenguard. The concept was flexible enough to fit into anything he ran, but I ran it by him first to see if he was comfortable with it.
Gardenia Jonquil Dejardins was initially conceptualized as a Tabaxi Eldritch Knight with an absent older sibling who is the driving force in her story. However, at the time WotC had released a UA for a player lineage called the Harengon, forming an idea in my head. I wanted to instead run her as a Viera from the FF games in aeonic_scribble’s game. Being a huge FF mark, he was all for it.
Nothing was too concrete about her even during game time, with a class change to an Oath Paladin and attempting to find a personality that could stick for her. With no fault to anyone, sessions took long times between games and it made it harder to really nail anything down. Eventually it ended up being put on hiatus due to scheduling and priorities, and stayed that way since. However in-between games I picked up FFXIV, mostly out of guilt of running a Viera but not having played a FF game outside for 7R.
I’ve already written about my experiences with the game in another post but didn’t really talk about my wol too much. If it wasn’t too obvious, I decided to plunk Gardenia right into the game as a stand-in PC. The game's setting informed a ton of details about her backstory, as well as her characterization. wol!Gardenia is probably her most fleshed-out iteration so far and would have stayed that way if I didn’t join any other games.
A month or two ago I joined an online 5E group on Roll20 that was kind of up my alley. I would lovingly describe the setting as “JRPG fantasy” with a slew of home-brew player options, and Gardenia fit right into it with minor changes. This iteration of her now being a Rabbitfolk “Usagi” Hexblade Warlock, with the relationship with her patron being heavily inspired by the Dark Knight quest line from FFXIV.
The game is still pretty fresh, especially after some complications that required a hard reset. My time in the group has been a positive one, with my GM clearly having a great time running the game. And nothing against my friend, but it's also nice to have her in a game that has more regular sessions.
Despite every iteration of her that I have, I've always commissioned aeonic_scribble for art to use in the games that she's in. Mostly due to the fact it's easier to commission a friend, but also due to the fact that he's the only other person who I share a lot of her information with. I do consider Gardenia being a joint character between the both of us, with him having had a good amount of say on the initial iteration of her character.
I hope to have more to eventually share about dnd!Gardenia, but as for now, I'll leave it to being just these loose thoughts and commissions from a friend.
#
(pst, if it was also not apparent, go follow @aeonic_scribble on Twitter while it's still not completely on fire. I doubt I can convince him to make a Tumblr, but if you liked his art you can find some more on Twitter or on Instagram.)
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