So for those who don't know I'm part of an FFXIV Podcast called A Podcast Reborn.
One thing we've gone every year in March is a tournament to crown the best waifu and husbando.
And every year I have FOUGHT to get Aymeric a victory for the Husbandos only to be outvoted for one reason or another.
I am a (mostly) straight man.
All of the belief and feelings I have that Aymeric should have long won this silly tournament we do comes from the folks I follow here that write such amazing WoL/Aymeric fic.
I feel like I have failed you all for the past three years, but this year the tournament voting is half over and Aymeric is FINALLY one of the finalists.
I will try my damndest not to fail you guys this year. It should have happened long ago, but I am DETERMINED to right this wrong!
hi friends.
I know I haven't posted anything in like...forever, but after dawntrail release, i've been dealing with some mental health stuff, and with it a general downturn of interest in FFXIV.
But one thing I've been doing all year is an RPG character creation challenge. The original challenge was at least 1 a week, but there've been more weeks than not where I smash that.
At the time I write this I'm up to 115.
so if you're interested gimme a random number up to that max and I'll tell you about the character corresponding to that number. I'll give their name/species/class of course, but also a brief backstory snippet and some notes on the design process for them.
RPG character creation challenge?? 👀 tell me about number 77 please!
Number 77 is from July! The sub-challenge for the month of July was an idea my beloved spouse gave me. I was to create a character for each member of our immediate family for a theoretical D&D game we would play, taking into account that person's interests/personality/etc.
For the previous two weeks, I made characters for each of our offspring, and this week was devoted to her character.
Kiara Stormdreamer is a Leonin Bard, using TheArenaGuy's College of Linguistics subclass (linked below).
Kiara seeks to understand the truth of the world through its written words, specifically from the teachings of the Gods. She believes there is a hidden truth at the story of the gods teaching and seeks to study them in their original languages and in the times they were written, believing she can uncover truths lost to time in doing so. Her words often put her at odds with clerics of various faiths, yet she will not be cowed or silenced in her quest.
I had to pick Leonin for this character, since Lions are my spouse's favorite animal. The admittedly very-"fantasty sterotypical" last name came from her love of thunderstorms and enjoyment of peacefully enjoying the sounds of them as they happen. She's also currently pursuing her second masters related to the field of biblical studies, because like Kiara she believes the bible has been twisted and misconstrued by the passage of time and the agendas of people, and she's not afraid to speak up on what she has learned.
As her field of study involves, by necessity, the study of languages, I felt the College of Linguistics was the best means to embody this idea as an adventuring character.
This link to the subclass takes you to a post on reddit, as TAG does not make his work freely available anywhere outside of that.
Thank you for asking, @blackestnight!! Hope you enjoyed, and if you wanna do another one, by all means, toss me another number!
Gonna go on a bit of a WoW ramble just because I need to get these thoughts down somewhere. Skip if you aren’t interested.
Dragonflight launched today. It’s the first expansion in the game’s history I haven’t been hyped for. I feel like I should have been. Like I shoulda resubbed for the prepatch to get everyone’s new talent trees situated and their hotbars setup, done the pre-patch event for gear and testing out possible new mains (like I ever didn’t come back to mage) and trying to figure out how my personal headcanons would fit into the overall next narrative chapter.
But then I would always stop myself and think “Do I really want to do this? Am I going to play this expansion? Is this a narrative setting I feel like I can jump back into?” and then I would stop myself. Because the answer to those is “no, not really”.
FFXIV has changed me. I knew I wanted the kind of narrative-driven MMO it is, but until I tried it, I had no idea that it existed over here. A cohesive unified story leveling experience that you can’t “outlevel” and move on to the current story. One that doesn’t lock major story developments behind raiding, but absolutely offers optional (and really freaking good) story content if you’re willing to do it.
I can’t imagine being a longtime XIV player and trying WoW now. “Wait, we don’t finish this story chapter? We’re just expected to drop this whole plot and move on?”
That’s to say nothing of the narrative inconsistencies that are marked by mass upheavals in the writing teams with little care for what came before. Shadowlands’ depiction of WoW’s afterlife lore absolutely just broke me. For one, they never bothered to be consistent on “Are the four covenants the only afterlives or are their unlimited others?” and even if the answer is “the latter is true” they certainly don’t back that up with the rest of the story. Three of the four afterlives are kinda horrifying to end up in, let’s be real, You become an unreasting dead soldier in a neverending war, you end up being tortured until you break, or you become an angel that loses all sense of its former self and culture.
And the less we talk about the Jailer/Sylvanas/Anduin/Arthas’ epilogue....the better.
I’m told that Dragonflight is moving very far away from all of the neverending gameplay systems that require completely separate grinds and the “borrowed power” concept, and I get that they’re putting in a bit of a timeskip to move us as far from the events of Shadowlands as realistically possible.
But I see no evidence they’re moving away from WoW’s many many narrative mistakes. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think they have any intention to. It’s never been a priority for them enough.
And now that I know there’s better out there, I don’t see a reason to go back. But heavens help me, I really do miss all my characters that I left behind.
I think I would like to close out this chapter in a narrative format. Something where the Old Man and Old Lady Franks are able to say their goodbyes to their friends on Azeroth. Maybe get a bit of closure on Dahkar’s (the troll archmage, not the Au ra) illness.
1. Origin of your username? kind of boring. First name is Brandon, last name is Matthews. Someone in college abbreviated it as B-matt. It stuck and I typically use it as my social handle now except for a few locations where i use oldmanfranks
2. I will always order this food I was born and raised in texas and lived there til 2014. I grew up eating texmex and it remains my favorite food. If the option to order fajitas is there, I am TAKING it
3. Overused emoji: I tend to use 😁 after making a terrible pun. I use 💙 to send love to the spouse, or 😜 when I’m teasing her
4. Current favorite show/media/book TV wise I don't watch much these days except pro wrestling. I'm an AEW fan primarily, but I have some friends who have gotten into pro wrestling as well so we generally watch a lot of different things together. Book wise I am in the middle of Drew Hayes' second book from the Spells, Swords, and Stealth series, but one of my 3rd party D&D books I backed on kickstarter recently arrived, so I'm taking a break to read that. It's called Songs of the Spellbound Sea by somanyrobots, get it here if you want!
5. Song on repeat this changes like....daily, lately I've been on a classic rock kick, but Obikatiekat, Futakuchi Mana, & Zephyrianna's cover of Kingslayer has also entered back into that "must listen to a bunch of times" list lately
6. Last thing you hyperfixated on still hyperfixated on making TTRPG characters, primarily D&D and PF2E, and especially from a small group of third party creators. Been hyperfixated on this for the past couple years. My therapist says it's a good coping mechanism for my anxiety at least?
7. Oddly specific thing that brings you joy related to the above, typically when I make a character I do a simple combination of origins, how they got their powers/training, and what set them on the path of adventure. I typically go for setting agnostic as much as I can, but sometimes I'll make something for a specific campaign, either one of my own or otherwise. When I really nail a character concept that I can just see interacting with other characters from a specific table, it makes me hella giddy.
8. Phone wallpaper
Lock screen - my lovely spouse.
Homescreen - a shot of the downtown denver skyline taken from the Denver Museum of Nature and Science
9. What smell makes you happy? A lot of food smells, especially baking ones
10. Morning, night or other type of person? I've become more of a night person thanks to the phenomenon known as Revenge Bedtime Procrastination
11. What's your work/profession? I work in Data Governance for a big manufacturing company.
tagging: I am far too anxious to actually ask anyone specifically, so if you're reading this and would like to do it, consider yourself tagged!
twist my arm why don't you! i'd love to hear about number 1, number 92, aaaand dealer's choice!
Oh no. Oh no number 1. Oh dear.
We're gonna save him for the end. He's very goofy and this is gonna take some explaining, heh.
Number 92 is an elven druid by the name of Ilythyrra (I'm awful with names so blame the popular online name generators for pretty much all of these)
Her subclass is a creation of somanyrobots, who has created a pair of druids around the theme of bug swarms. The Circle of Consumption is based on wildshaping into a swarm, while the Circle of Swarms is primarily concerned with summoning them. Ilythyrra's subclass is the latter.
I had built the idea of a backstory for a Dragonborn Consumption druid that was basically "lost" to his Swarm form for a level 20 minigame at the end of last year, so I modified that a bit. Both the Dragonborn and Ilythyrra are part of a circle that reveres and protects insect/arthropod life and its role in the cycle of life. The Dragonborn is the first to attempt the wildshape, but it went a bit wrong, and now he's vanished. Ilythyrra has been tasked with finding him and helping him regain control (or putting him down if he's lost control entirely) before he does something bad, and their circle (which already doesn't have a great reputation because of the whole people are scared of bugs thing) takes the blame for it.
Okay, Dealer's Choice eh? Well I know you're a Pathfinder fan, so let's grab a PF2 character at random here.
And our dice roll has picked Jered! I'm gonna put his story, as well as Number 1 on the list, under the cut
Jered is a human with the Naari versatile heritage (which is what they renamed Ifrits to as of Rage of Elements for those who don't know). He's got the Witch class, but his patron isn't one of the ones from Player Core 1, it's a creation of Team+, my favorite PF2 creators. He uses the Calamity Incarnate Patron, as well as the Hexmarked Class Archetype, from their Witches+ book.
I incorporated a fair bit of lore from Rage of Elements for him. To briefly summarize, his mother died when he was young, and his father abandoned him not long after that, which left him a bitter and hotheaded child, not at all helped by his Naari heritage. He was in and out of various forms of prison for most of his life, until he was contacted by his great-great-granmother, a woman named Adenah....who turned out to be a Salamander priestess. Adenah is herself a servant of Atreia, the benevolent elemental lord of fire, and she is in need of someone who can operate on Atreia's behalf in the mortal plane. She is offering that chance to Jered because they are kin, and she believes he deserves a chance after the rotten hand life dealt him. Jered, for his part, sees this as a way to connect to a part of his family and a chance to have a better life than what he's got, so he accepts.
Okay, I hope you enjoyed that one, cause it's time to talk about our first character for this challenge.
This character incorporates creations from my favorite three D&D creators: TAG, somanyrobots, and KibblesTasty. I've talked about the former two before, but this is the first time I've mentioned Kibbles, I believe.
Kibbles is a really good class designer, and one of his creations is known as the Occultist. The Occultist is a very general framework class designed to incorporate any spellcaster concepts that rely on "the old ways", or magic that must be learned, but more through ritual and tradition as opposed to the more academic learning of a wizard, but don't necessarily fit into the framework of a druid or cleric. Subclasses the Occultist has include (but not limited to) Witch, Oracle, and Shaman. As you can imagine, each of these has very different lore and flavor ideas, which is why the Occultist provides a very basic framework of spellcasting, and a system called Rites which is akin to a warlock's invocations in design. Most Rites are subclass specific so you can have a very wide variety of options in this framework.
Hopefully that explains it well enough. The idea is to have a class that can incorporate a wide variety of character archetypes that are more difficult (in Kibbles' opinion, at least) to expand into full classes on their own.
So, many of the subclasses of this class can further make a selection to more accurately define their archetype. A sub-subclass, if you will. The Witch, for example, has a choice of Covens that determine their Bonus spell list and a couple of extra abilities thematic to them. The Green Coven is very fey-like, with a lot of nature spells and trickster-themed debuffs, whereas the Black Coven is more destructive and curse-focused.
Somanyrobots was actually commissioned to do his own Witch Coven for this class, the Candy Coven. Themed after a varity of candy witch stories, this is a heavily supportive Witch, and despite its somewhat silly nature, it is a well designed creation.
Robots released this right around the same time as I started this challenge, so I decided to use it for my first character. I used TAG's Half-Ogre race, and created Orok, a gentle soul with a fondness for sweets that stumbled across a coven of Candy witches. Initially they mistook him for a raiding monster, but soon realized his true nature and essentially adopted him and taught him their ways. Orok's gentle demeanor and sometimes childlike expression belies a hidden wisdom, and he quickly took to the arts. Now he adventures to help other good hearted folk with his sweets, and to trick not-do-good ones into "sticky" situations.
His adopted aunts are very proud of him.
Okay, that was a lot, but I hope you enjoyed it all the same, and thank you again @blackestnight!
LINKS FOR EVERYTHING.
New content and player options for 5th Edition and related games!
Druid - Circle of Swarms by somanyrobots - Created with GM Binder.
Witches+ - Something wicked this way comes!
From sea witches with patrons from below the waves to lessons of prophecy and binding,
High quality Homebrew content for your 5e D&D. Artificer, Occultist, Psion, Warlord and more. Feats, Crafting, and new Inspiration Rules. Mo
Occultist (Witch) - Candy Coven by somanyrobots - Created with GM Binder.
Don’t think so, for the first name. Middle name, yeah, after a famous Star Trek captain. My dad’s a Trekkie. I was told he wanted it to be my first name, and then he wanted my first name to be “Captain”. I have no idea if that’s real or if my mom was teasing, tho.
2. When was the last time you cried?
I honestly don’t remember the specifics, other than it was within the past couple of weeks and it was a sappy moment in a TV show.
3. Do you have kids?
I do, a nine year old daughter and a seven year old son
4. Do you use sarcasm a lot?
Not a lot, usually if I’m angry or irritated. I’m more of the “corny jokes” sort in most cases.
5. What sports do you play/have you played?
None, at the moment. I played soccer and baseball as a kid in little league. I was pretty bad, I’m not the athletic sort, and as I grew up I developed something of a disdain for sports.
6. What’s the first thing you notice about other people?
I think probably faces in general.
7. Scary movies or happy endings?
I am very much a happy endings sort of guy, and I HATE poorly written ones. Nothing will cause me to turn on a series/franchise quite like a poorly written ending.
8. Any special talents?
I’m a fast reader. I rarely give up on things (which means I can also be stubborn).
9. Where were you born?
Texas. Don’t hold it against me tho. I’m pretty much the opposite of what the stereotype of people from there tends to evoke.
10. What are your hobbies?
I like video games and writing a lot. Currently enjoying a lot of worldbuilding for my homebrew D&D campaign setting.
11. Do you have any pets?
I am sadly allergic to both cats and dogs, but we do have a gecko. Her name is Ginger and she is a cutie. I’ve posted a few photos of her around here if you wanna see.
12. How tall are you?
6 feet tall. Not a particularly short king but not super tall either.
13. Fave subject in school?
Anytime it was time to hit up the computer lab was my jam heh.
14. Dream job?
Don’t really have one. I’ve always looked at a job as “Something I do to be able to enjoy the rest of my life”.
