chaotic good, bitch!

leo | 23 | he/him dungeons and dragons enjoyer icon by paladinbaby main blog

[punkbarbarian]

fuck terfs!

[itmightrain]

[punkbarbarian]

i really enjoy darkness man turning into trash to disguise himself it’s so ridiculous

[avadaniels]

"Scrooge learns the true meaning of Bisexual Awareness Week" Make Some Noise Season 3 Episode 11

[punkbarbarian]

i cant believe coterie polycule is real (kinda). beautiful world

[punkbarbarian]

every time a player tries to have a normal conversation to move the plot forward it becomes the most baffling interaction on earth

[punkbarbarian]

this is basically how i feel for every scene in the show

[punkbarbarian]

every time a player tries to have a normal conversation to move the plot forward it becomes the most baffling interaction on earth

[punkbarbarian]

brennan pointing at ally saying “you need to get in touch with your culture” because they don’t know leprechaun lore really got me

[psychhound]

[video description: a screen recording of flipping pages, showing a few spreads from shadow / giant 2e. end VD]

shadow / giant 2e is coming to print !!!

Following in the legacy of Lone Wolf and Cub-inspired media such as The Mandalorian, Telltale’s The Walking Dead, Birds of Prey, Logan, The Last of Us, Arcane, and more … Shadow / Giant is a tabletop RPG for two players eager to create their own wolf & cub story.  Their journey will be filled with dangers, outbursts, exploration, discovery, and entirely unexpected devotion. One player takes the role of the Shadow: a traumatized youth with powers unfit for their world. The other player is the Giant: an adult who swore they'd grown too jaded to ever care again, until the Shadow crashed into their life. There are tales of somewhere they can go—a Safe Place, far away, where the Shadow will be protected. To make it there, the pair must outrun, outsmart, and outfight the Threat that's hot on their trail. No matter the specifics of the Threat's sinister plans, they cannot be allowed to catch up and take the Shadow away. And they won't—not if the Giant can help it.

shadow / giant 2e is a 2 player TTRPG supporting games from 1 to ~12 sessions. it uses dice and playing cards, with alternate rules for rolling digitally or only using d6s. each session plays out for 2-4 hours

the two character playbooks - the shadow and the giant - are asymmetric. they have different core builds and different rolling mechanics

the giant uses a yahtzee-like mechanic: rolling and re-rolling pools of dice to try to make good combos. they always have to balance the potential for a better and rarer combo but risk total failure versus playing it safe and stacking up complications

the shadow, on the other hand, builds dice towers and knocks them down. they have to balance force and gentleness - leaving some dice stacked creates issues, but so does knocking them onto the floor. they compare their results against a sliding number representing their fantastical powers versus their natural youthful skills

the 60-page zine is full to the brim with examples, pick-lists, roll tables, and oracles that make GMfull play a breeze. you can carefully craft your world and characters or just roll for everything and jump right into play

accompanying players through the gamebook is The Narrator, a cosmic being whose sole purpose is to guide new Shadows and Giants on their journeys, along with a collection of absolutely gorgeous art by @prose-n-scripts (seriously, people can't stop raving about the art)

shadow / giant 2e was designed with accessibility in mind from start to finish:

the game is written and laid out to ease the cognitive load of learning and setting up a new game, as players can read each section out loud (or listen to it from a screenreader or future audiobook version) and follow the steps as they go. each section has summaries as well as visually distinct pick-lists and examples. even new ttrpg players should be able to jump into play within an hour of picking up the book

all the main text is in inclusive sans, and the pdf includes bookmarks and human-written image descriptions. the layout colors balance the need for contrast and any potential color blindness while remaining comfortable to look at on screens. the most-used oracles are at the very back of the book for easy reference

did i mention the amazing art by @prose-n-scripts ?

you can pre-order a print copy now from plus one experience!! the game drops in june of 2026 !!

Shadow / Giant - Preorder!

Following in the legacy of Lone Wolf and Cub-inspired media such as The Mandalorian, Telltale’s The Walking Dead, Birds of Prey, Logan, The

the digital zine will be sold from this page on my itch once it launches!!

[punkbarbarian]

i’ve reached the sweet blue hole era of c3 which is normal and chill to listen to at work

[rabdoidal]

I’ve been thinking about episode 7 of City Council of Darkness and about Lavonte reacting the way he did to Maya assuming he and HJ were a couple.

Lavonte and HJ represent exact tropes of homosexuality and vampirism of the 1980s; by the 80s, vampires had shifted from countryside landed gentry hiding away in musty castles to urbanised capitalists - the setting changes, but they still benefit from the toil of others as the bourgeoisie against the proletariat (Morrissette, 2013). At the same time, people moving to cities during the industrial revolution to work formed proletariat communities of their own, including homosexuals that left their homes in search of a better life; the city was different than their small-knit towns where everyone knew everyone, and gave them freedom. By the 80s HIV/AIDs crisis, horror had synthesised vampires and homosexuality to be intertwined urban concepts; for members of these groups (homosexuals/vampires), there is an element of hunting or pursuing a partner (cruising/finding a victim), exchanging fluids (cum/blood), and those fluids put you at risk of sickness or death (AIDs/vampirism) (Clark, 2022). There is, further, the idea of “turning someone” - this is framed as a bad thing by out-members, but contains nuance within the community. They are both seductive. They are both abnormal. You should warn your children about (homosexuals/vampires), do not let your daughter move to the city, or she will become a (homosexual/vampire). Within horror, vampires began to be queer coded; Daughters of Darkness (1971), The Hunger (1983), Fright Night (1985), The Lost Boys (1987).

HJ is the exemplar of the 80s vampire - he is a businessman with immense power, he is slick, he is clean shaven and well dressed, he is a confirmed bachelor. He is coded as (homosexual/vampire), and it’s interesting to think about whether Lavonte pursued HJ because he was a vampire, or because HJ was a man. It is risky for either of those factors to be what makes him appealing, but the desire alongside the disorder is what makes it a (homosexual/vampire) love story - it would be horrifying to want someone while also being terrified of what they can do to you. It completely makes sense to me that Lavonte, even though Lou played it as a joke, would have reservations about people thinking he was gay. Being gay in the 80s meant being dirty, meant being sick, meant being less masculine or respected, meant being the “other,” regardless of if he’s gay or not (Clark, 2022). Even though I see Lavonte as being totally accepting, being gay himself would be an admission of guilt in some way. Lavonte is focused, charismatic, and doesn’t like hearing “no” - if someone implied he seduced HJ to gain vampirism, I think that would be his nightmare.

Truly, even though none of their 80s-gay-vampirism coding was intentional, and even though Lou and Ally were playing up the miscommunication as a joke, I think it's interesting to see how character moments make logical sense within meta-horror. It’s been a great season so far.

Clark, Ian (2022) "Infectious Queers: HIV/AIDS and the Vampiric Body in Interview with the Vampire (1994)," Journal of Dracula Studies: Vol. 24: No. 1, Article 4. DOI: 10.70013/n1p5h7g4 Available at: https://research.library.kutztown.edu/dracula-studies/vol24/iss1/4

Fullilove MT, Wiley J, Fullilove RE 3rd, Golden E, Catania J, Peterson J, Garrett K, Siegel D, Marin B, Kegeles S, et al. Risk for AIDS in multiethnic neighborhoods in San Francisco, California. The population-based AMEN Study. West J Med. 1992 Jul;157(1):32-40. PMID: 1413740; PMCID: PMC1021901. 

Heller J. Rumors and Realities: Making Sense of HIV/AIDS Conspiracy Narratives and Contemporary Legends. Am J Public Health. 2015 Jan;105(1):e43-e50. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2014.302284. PMID: 25393166; PMCID: PMC4265931.

Morrissette, J. J. (2013). Marxferatu: The Vampire Metaphor as a Tool for Teaching Marx’s Critique of Capitalism. PS: Political Science & Politics, 46(3), 637–642. doi:10.1017/S1049096513000607 

[punkbarbarian]

whatever hj and lavonte have going on makes me want to chew the walls

[punkbarbarian]

the food coop interaction intensified this by like 100

[punkbarbarian]

zaeth talking to tyler made me laugh so hard i had a coughing fit

[punkbarbarian]

whatever hj and lavonte have going on makes me want to chew the walls

[punkbarbarian]

god callie saying morrigan bit her for absolutely no reason really kills me. just fucking with this woman on purpose

[theobaldgumboner]

Getting into scrapbooking/ junk journalling and Dimension 20 has been really inspiring for it! First completed set of pages are for Starstruck! Definitely one of my favourite seasons I’ve watched so far!

[punkbarbarian]

listening to the hardwon/moonshine astral plane conversation in ep41 at work was definitely a choice i made