A few months back I joined a D&D group that was going to start in a month or two. I asked if I could play as a slugcat so I could bring my hyper fixation into D&D and the DM said yes. And so after about a month and a half of constant work and an additional two months of playtesting, my take on a playable slugcat within D&D is finally done (at least until I find another mistake and spend several hours fixing it or something like that). It's about as lore accurate as I could make it without making them too overpowered or something like that and it's flexible enough for you to be able to insert them into whatever campaign you have going on. I've also consulted with several much more knowledgeable people to make sure everything is as balanced as possible. Please let me know if you find any mistakes or issues within it as I tried but I may not have fixed everything. Any criticism is welcome.
(I added the link to it and images for those who can't open it)
Slugcats are small, nimble creatures known for their curiosity, resilience, and mysterious connection to a cycle of rebirth. Often mistaken
this makes me so happy as a fat hairy guy who likes skirts and dresses i never get to see guys like me in dresses it’s always skinny twinks this makes me so happy 🥺🥺
i love you lab grown diamonds i love you slavery-free chocolate i love you community gardens i love you fact that the insulin patent was sold for $1 i love you locally produced meat and milk i love you streets turned into walkable parks i love you little reminders that Things Do Not Have To Be This Way and there are people working to build a better world!!
i love you smog tests for cars i love you clean air regulations i love you HEPA filters i love you dam removal i love you planting native gardens i love you monarch butterflies (up 64% in 2026!) i love you working for decades to bring the condors back from zero to 300+ in the wild i love you inventing little machines to pick up the plastic fishing nets and other trash in the sea i love you occupational health and safety regulations i love you environmental protection agencies i love you unions i love you social aid programs i love you food not bombs i love you sea shepherds i love you most countries stopping industrial whaling and more humpback whales now than ever before i love you saving the forests i love you little libraries i love you take what you need cupboards/fridges i love you secular food pantries i love you public bathrooms i love you all-ages playgrounds i love you museums i love you aquariums + zoos i love you restoring peregrine falcons to nyc i love you letting beavers fix the river i love you releasing wolves into the wild i love you bison recovery efforts i love you landback i love you reducing light pollution i love you freeway sound baffle walls i love you advertising bans i love you public outreach and education i love you maria montessori i love you queer clinics i love you people working really hard and succeeding at fixing the world and making it safer for all living beings!
It's been just over a year since Deltarune chapters 3 & 4 released! I did the 3D work, which mostly means Tenna 📺 I figured it's been long enough to share some "behind the scenes" stuff, starting with a look at the Maya file for his static poses...
I'd individually render the poses to get that early 3D shine ✨ Here's some of them at their original resolutions! I would work from text descriptions from Toby, and sometimes there'd be a Paint sketch to help out. Gigi drew the concept that I modeled from and some poses too!
I had a lot of fun pushing myself to match the dynamic poses Toby had in mind for Tenna - making him so crazy and expressive was something I couldn't have done without his prompts. He'd draw the faces on afterward too, which really brought Tenna to life!
(lots more after the Read More cut...!)
Here are some of the Paint sketches Toby drew to help me with specific Tenna poses! I love seeing his drawings LOL, genuinely really good and evocative 👍
There was a time when I was struggling to capture what he wanted for these specific Tenna poses… Until Toby acted them out himself, and I thought, "Ah, it's like that. I understand." and then I was able to make them just how he pictured them.
When looking through the renders and choosing what to share, I laughed at these two… Remember when Tenna had a gun? Remember when he bent over in a very specific way that might remind you of another, different image? No? Maybe you don't…? Well. Don't worry about it.
These ones are cute… Tenna is pretty cute sometimes! Has anyone ever thought this? Actually, before people knew he was going to be a strange 3D sprite the Whole Time, I was worried people wouldn't like the style and it'd sour people's views on him. I'm glad that didn't happen.
Toby thought it would be funny to have Tenna do some really smooth, mocapped animations sometimes - specifically free to use ones that often pop up in other things. An extra funny part to me is how many frames these take up in the game, and how his tails are stuck to his legs…
Speaking of mocap, Toby wanted Tenna to use custom mocap animations as far back as 2016 - Ten(na) years ago! I got an Xbox Kinect at the time and learnt how to set this up, but then never used it. Here's a look at messing with mocaped stuff again in 2022. So Normal.
Don't bother trying to help him here, he's just being dramatic 🙄
I particularly like these poses - I think I improvised most of these just based off the context they get used in… I always liked posing his tie and coat tails as if they were also parts of his body he could move. Which I guess they are?
After I rendered out the individual poses in high quality, I'd force the color palette to be limited to just a few shades and then I'd shrink the result down to pixel sized sprites. Like these! I'd tidy them up a little, but they'd really get improved on at the pixel scale by Clairvoire.
As well as Tenna's sprites, I also worked on his intro "movie"…! Seeing people be completely overloaded by this on first playthroughs would always make me laugh. In game, there's a ton of extra editing done by Everdraed, but my unedited cut looks like this ⬇️
This was the entire storyboard I had to work from, and I'm realizing now that there's the note "put him in car etc" that I never did and actually don't know what it would mean exactly. Working on this had me listen to the accompanying audio many times, but it's good so it's okay.
Here are a bunch of random clips of the Maya project for Tenna's intro movie. This is how movies get made, I think!! Yeah… Just like this.
Say it with him, folks!!
For the 3D Ralsei clip from the intro, Toby really wanted it to look a certain way, and drew more sketches for guiding me with this part than any other. They genuinely helped.
Remember how Toby's original storyboard has the note "covered in slime and shrinks"? That meant I had to learn how to make 3D slime. You can see my tech advancing here.
I'm really happy with how the final Tenna animation at the end of the intro movie turned out! It wouldn't look as good if it wasn't for some 2D animation to reference from SmallBuStudio, so thank you to them for the help! Tenna is cute… Huh, I already said that…?
Phew!! That's a lot of Tenna. I hope it was fun to look through my posts! Oh, one more thing - the Fangamer Mr. Tenna Figurine just straight up uses the 3D model I made, which I think is really funny and cool and nice. Check it out if you want! Thanks for reading!
Panel 1: Kamuyagi observes from the dark, staring towards the viewer. SFW: Whirr
Panels 2: Saint stands with their back to the viewer as they tend to the leaf of a banana tree.
Saint: "Kamuyagi, I can hear you. Where is Rivulet? She said you two had something to show me."
Panel 3: Saint and Kamuyagi look towards someone off-panel yelling "Saint!"
Panel 4: In the distance, Rivulet, an anthro slugcat with a large rain jacket, axolotl gills, and a rudder-like tail, runs through a tunnel towards the viewer.
Rivulet: "Saint!"
Panel 5: Saint and Kamuyagi stand in a forest clearing and watch as Rivulet runs to them.
Title: i bet on losing dogs
Word Count: 2,635
Warnings: Canon-typical violence and death, descriptive blood/injury, mild language, somewhat toxic relationship dynamics (be chill tho this is characters not cc’s) and implied shipping
Summary: Pearl's no stranger to being a lone wolf. That's just how it goes, sometimes, in a death game, despite how much she wishes otherwise. So when a new world starts with Gem and Grian's promises of belonging, she leaps at the chance to be part of a pack again. But she quickly finds herself pulled into dark, cold depths that have her struggling to keep her head above water. And at the end of it all, she faces a haunting question: what do they actually want her for?
A/N: Introducing the long-awaited (by me lol) dramatized Past Life retelling through Wolf!Pearl's eyes, with a focus on a somewhat toxic Villies dynamic (with GemPearl undertones) and mob hybrid instincts galore. Every line of dialogue is pulled directly from canon, but I’ve cut bits and taken some liberties for the sake of a better/more coherent story. Hope y’all enjoy :3 - Aqua
(Follow the above link to read on A03 for complete tags, or continue reading below. Link to Spotify playlist here.)
~
i bet on losing dogs, part I - oh apricity, you’re calling out to me
~
Pearl is knee deep in a sand pit, digging out a spider spawner dungeon, when her ears prick at the sound of distant footsteps.
She falls still, turning her face to the wind. Two familiar scents nip at her. One is a strong, earthy sort of musk with a sharp-sweet tinge, like freshly stripped birch wood- which can only be Gem. The second one is milder and a little dusty- that ‘old jumper mixed with feathers’ smell she’s come to associate with Grian.
“Hello? Hello!” she calls, quickly climbing out of the sand pit and glancing around.
Gem and Grian’s arrival brings mixed feelings. She’s known them both a long time, and they’ve generally maintained a good friendship. If this were Hermitcraft, she’d be anticipating some light-hearted shenanigans or a consultation about a new build, maybe even some playful combat that ultimately has no consequence. But these worlds are different. She’s ended up on the opposite side of a battlefield from them before, and they’re both formidable foes in their own right. This early in the game, it’s impossible to know their intentions.
Grian hops off the overlooking hilltop, fluttering to an abrupt landing in front of Pearl. “Who are you talking to?” he asks urgently.
“Who are you with?” Gem asks from the top of the hill. Her ears rove in every direction, nose wrinkling as she scents the wind; gathering information about her surroundings while she keeps her eyes on Pearl.
It’s the most natural thing in the world for Gem to keep Pearl in her direct line of vision. Her species is technically prey to Pearl’s- a deeply buried piece of data they’re both aware of but pay little mind to. Pearl doesn’t take any offense by the way Gem sometimes stomps the ground and snorts in challenge, no more than Gem takes offense to the way Pearl’s eyes dilate when she breathes in her scent. There’s no easy prey here and they both know it.
Pearl turns her head so she’s not making eye contact with either of them, signaling no threat. “I’m just with myself,” she hums, “I’m talkin’ to me.”
Gem’s face brightens. “You’re by yourself? Well, that’s great news!”
“That’s great news,” Grian echoes. He tilts his head in little twitches and jerks that snatch Pearl’s attention. Rapid movements signal prey behavior to her wolf code, but he always stares at her head-on like a predator.
And it’s not to do with the fact that his eyes are set into a human skull. Jimmy’s an avian, too, and he doesn’t stare at her like that. He almost always views her out the side of his eye. Face slightly turned away, feathers slightly ruffled. Like a part of him is always waiting to take flight.
Grian looks like he’s always waiting to strike. And Pearl finds herself wondering, not for the first time, just exactly what kind of bird he is.
“Pearl,” Grian chirps eagerly, “I just explained to Gem, I’m tryin’ to like- I came into this series for the first time ever with a team in mind, and it’s you, it’s me, and it’s Gem. What do you think?”
Pearl’s heart skips a beat. “I like that team,” she says, her tail starting to wag low and loose. She looks at Gem, mouth falling open into a wolf’s grin. “That’s a great team.”
At the same time, she’s already reminding herself not to get her hopes up. She’s cautious out of habit. She’s learned over these games that it’s hard to find a pack, a true pack, in a world where only one of them can make it to the end. But that doesn’t stop her from wanting it. Wanting to find somewhere soft to curl up and call home, warmed by bodies pressed against her, comforted by the scents of safety and good hunting. Wanting to be wanted.
Gem smiles back at her, satisfaction glimmering in her green eyes, before she exchanges a knowing look with Grian. She pats Pearl on the head as she trots past her, and Pearl has to fight the urge to lean into it. “Good. I think so, too.”
Grian is watching them with a certain glint in his eye. “I just said- I’m gonna find the strongest members, and here we are.”
“Already found a spider spawner,” Gem says appraisingly.
Pearl ducks her head. “It’s a good start,” she amends, and then because she physically can’t help herself- “But you know everyone dies when they’re with me, right? You know that?”
“We turn up,” Grian continues talking to Gem, as if Pearl hasn’t spoken, “and she’s already proven to be the most competent player.”
Pearl’s lips press into a tight smile. None of them are strangers to tragedy, it goes hand-in-hand with these games. But if Grian and Gem want to pretend things will be different this time, want to ignore her warning, she’s happy to let them. She’ll be the sole keeper of this knowledge until its inevitable conclusion.
They fall into an easy rhythm, then. Gathering supplies, cobbling together a crude base, venturing down into the mines. All the day one things that need to be done in every new world, regardless of a death game going on. It’s comfortable and fun- if not slightly undercut by the thrum of anticipation that permeates the air. It’s as if the entire world is holding its breath, waiting for the fragile peace to shatter.
“Okay but like, socially, what’s the plan?” Grian asks eventually. “Are we… ‘cause, you know, there’s not really rules, they’re more like… suggestions.” His gaze darts between them, head jerking and bobbing, wings ruffling. “Are we just- can we just, like… take every- everyone else’s stuff?”
Pearl pauses. There’s a strange, almost guarded tone to his voice. Like the first slow, careful step onto a frozen lake, testing to see if it cracks. She lets out a heavy breath through bared teeth. “I mean… you’re the rulemaker,” she murmurs, reluctant to leave the shoreline.
Gem springs onto that lake, crashing through the ice with powerful hooves. “We should just go ahead and full on do it and make enemies, ‘cause everybody on the server already doesn’t like me very much.” She idly flicks an ear, unbothered by the cold. Steam curls from her mouth. “I know people don’t like me. So I think we should lean into it, we should be three villains.”
“We should just- that’s what I was thinking,” Grian exclaims, eyes flashing with excitement as he follows her in deeper. Water droplets roll down his feathers like moonlight. “We just be the villains. Like, everyone’s too scared to be the villains- I’m not scared to be a villain. You scared to be a villain?”
Gem lifts her chin, tossing her antlers back with a spray of water. “Let’s be the villains.”
Their gazes turn expectantly to Pearl. She shrinks under the weight of it. This path is one she’s walked before, back in a time of red strings and red eyes, bloodlust and bitterness. It’s not something she’s keen to return to. Not even for the temptation of another win. She can see a watery grave beckoning, and every instinct is telling her to run. Every instinct warns her against the too-hungry eyes of a deer and a bird that look upon her without fear, in affront to nature.
But they want her. And she wants to be wanted.
“Alright,” she breathes, wading into the icy depths.
Let’s be villains.
~
Grian takes first blood that night. Unprovoked, green on green. He claims he wasn’t actually trying to kill Martyn, but the alternative isn’t any better; if their plan was successful, it would’ve been a multi-kill on Jimmy, Joel, Skizz, and Bigb. Trapped like foxes in a hole. Just because.
Pearl watches it happen silently, tail stiff and stomach tight. Even the instant karma of Grian tumbling down the exact same hole to his death isn’t enough to dispel her uneasiness, not even when everyone is all jokes and laughs afterwards. She can’t help but feel that some invisible line has been crossed. Can’t help but feel the sluggish ripples of an icy lake lapping at her paws.
“I do like you as villains,” Cleo hums. But when their dead-eyed gaze drags over Pearl’s form, there’s far too much awareness in it to be entirely friendly, and her nose fills with the scent of rot.
~
As the daylight begins to fade, they venture out to explore the world, see what everyone else is up to, and- incidentally-steal all the torches from around the other bases so more mobs will spawn. Typical villain behavior.
They just so happen to be catching up with Skizz, all of them crowded inside his tiny cobblestone house, when there’s a shout from outside- shortly followed by Jimmy hitting the ground. Apparently the shallow water below wasn’t enough to spare his life.
Grian immediately swoops out the door to loot the dropped items, Pearl and Gem in tow. Pearl’s a little reluctant to follow as they wade into the pond, wary of the mobs surrounding them, but eventually she jumps in and manages to get away with a few diamonds, among other various belongings. They quickly retreat back to their own base, with Jimmy and Joel hot on their heels.
“Pearl,” Joel starts, climbing up the hill, “we’re here to kindly request that you return Jimmy’s stuff, please.” He stops in front of her expectantly. Jimmy’s standing a little way behind him, watching nervously out of the side of his eye, feathers ruffled.
Pearl pauses. She gives him a shrug. “I don’t have ‘em, mate.”
Joel’s antennae twitch. “Give Jimmy his stuff back!” He punctuates his demand with a swipe of his sword.
It’s the flat of the blade that lands against Pearl’s head, but it still hurts. “Ow!” she yelps, ducking her head as she scampers around the house, tail tucked. “What the heck!”
Gem charges over, darting in front of Pearl with flat ears and a stiff tail. “Don’t hurt Pearl!” she snaps. Her sword comes down on Joel in a flash. He returns the hit before they break apart, still glaring.
“No,” Grian flutters over, his voice warning, “steady, steady, steady…”
“Hey, c’mon,” Jimmy says, grabbing Joel’s shoulder. “Come on now, guys-”
“Shush,” Joel shrugs him off. He levels his sword at Gem, eyes narrowed. “Okay- give him his diamonds back. Give him his diamonds back.”
Gem paws the ground with her hoof. “How dare you.”
“Guys,” Jimmy holds his hands up, “I’m here for my diamonds, alright?”
Grian tilts his head. “I- I believe the term is ‘finder’s keepers.’”
“I believe the term is ‘you’ve stolen,’” Joel deadpans.
Grian exchanges a look with Gem before he hums noncommittally, turning back to their farm. Reluctantly, Gem lowers her sword. She blows a sharp exhale through her nose before following.
Jimmy, evidently seeing they aren’t going to budge, decides to help himself to some of their belongings, rooting through the various chests they have lying around. Then he lets himself into their house, and Pearl is spurred into action. She lunges forward and strikes him with her sword (and she can't help but think about how in another time, it would've been her teeth).
He whirls around with wide eyes. “I’m on three hearts.”
“You better get outta that house, there, Jimmy!” Pearl barks, stepping through the doorway. She leaps onto the chest in the corner and stares down at him. Her tail moves side-to-side; too intense to be friendly.
Jimmy sputters for a moment. His wings flap haphazardly as he backs himself against the wall, talons scratching through the sandy floor. “I’ll- I’ll have my diamonds then, please, thank you!”
Grian pokes his head inside. “Are the diamonds worth more than your life?” he asks softly, hopping on top of the furnace in the corner opposite Pearl. His talons grip the edge of the stone as he leers over Jimmy.
“Yes,” Jimmy answers without hesitation. “At this moment in time, yes.”
Grian catches Pearl’s eye, a smirk spreading across his face. “I mean, one swing of the sword, and that’s true.”
“It is,” Jimmy allows, dipping his head. “You can swing, and I will die. But-” He puffs out his chest, wings flaring out behind him. “-green on green, my friend! There will be trouble!”
“No,” Grian says, casually preening a wing, “I already- I already killed Martyn by accident, so.”
Jimmy pauses. “Oh,” he says, shrinking back down. “That was you.”
Before anything else can come of it, Joel sets fire to their base from outside. It’s not completely made out of wood, but there’s enough of it in the lower layers to get a blaze roaring, and Pearl’s kicking herself for using it. She joins Grian and Gem in their desperate attempts to put out the flames, but despite their best efforts, it quickly grows out of control. They concede defeat, merely watching the fire spread as Jimmy and Joel take their leave, considering the score settled. Pearl’s nose wrinkles at the scent of smoke. Her ears twitch when the wood splits and pops.
Gem looks over their burning base with pursed lips. “Guys, being the villains is really hard.”
“It is actually really hard,” Grian laughs, running a hand through his hair. “‘Cause I- I neither feel like a villain- I don’t feel like a good villain, you know?”
Pearl rubs her head. “Kinda feels like we’re being picked on, at this point,” she murmurs.
But it seems like Gem and Grian’s response is that they need to be better villains, rather than give up on the whole idea like Pearl wants to. So she keeps her reservations to herself and follows them in deeper.
~
They all sleep on the same bed that night, cloaked beneath the moonlit sky above their roofless hovel.
Grian’s perched on the headboard, curled in on himself and tucked beneath his wings. Pearl’s never understood how he can sleep comfortably like that, but it seems to work for him.
That leaves the rest of the bed for Pearl and Gem, the latter carefully resting her sharp antlers on the pillow, long legs folded gracefully beneath her. Pearl moves to curl up at the foot of the bed, but Gem chuffs softly. Her eyes shine with stray beams of moonlight as she holds her arms out, silently inviting Pearl to come closer.
Pearl does so gratefully, trembling from the force of trying not to break out into excited full-body wriggling, her tail held carefully still. She crawls forward on her stomach, nuzzling Gem’s face before curling against her, head tucked beneath Gem’s chin. She can hear Gem’s heart beating, can feel the pulse of her jugular pressed against her lips. An errant thought occurs to her: it’d be so easy to sink her teeth into Gem’s throat. To rip through skin and muscle and sinew ‘til her teeth glance off bone made slick with blood.
But Pearl merely turns the thought over in her mind before letting it slip from her fingers, drifting forgotten into the inky depths. She hasn’t seriously entertained bloodlust like that for several seasons, now. Maybe she never will again.
She closes her eyes and inhales deeply. She’s content just like this, warm and safe and wanted. She’d gladly forsake the taste of blood if she could just live in this moment forever.
Gem sighs, too, but there’s a different tone in it. In the eye of Pearl’s mind, she can almost imagine Gem’s breath fogging in the air, its sting as sharp as any teeth.
(Pearl curls up tighter and pretends she can’t feel the sudden chill breathing down her neck.)
~
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