what better way to start things off than my D&D oneshot
alternatively, read here on ao3
word count: 1,254
CW: implied (but never described) torture
Summary: (copied from ao3)
What happens when a Barbarian's Rage is, instead, a controlled trance?
That anger has to go somewhere.. and the results will not be pretty.
Yos'drie Fievasarin was just about your ordinary adventurer. Dragonborn by race, Barbarian by trade, he trained to control his emotions, and as such instead of his class's typical Rage, he's able to enter a more controlled trance for combat. When he was younger, he was given a special blade, a katana that had been in his family for multiple generations, a weapon he swore an oath to only ever wield in the name of justice, and to never use it as a tool of anger. Eventually, he wound up with a custom-ordered Battle Axe, a weapon he cherished and sought to make his own. With those, a trident, and a tower shield, he was a true force to be reckoned with for any enemies.
Until now, that is. His party had been ambushed in the night by agents of the evil king; the very same tyrant they sought to overthrow some day, but by now they were all far too weak to fight off the king's agents, much less defeat the man himself. In the span of just a minute, all of their weapons, armor, and equipment had been taken alongside their owners, with the dragonborn himself being muzzled in order to prevent usage of his Breath Weapon. With the entire party in shackles, they were brought to a fortress concealed within the woods, brought down to the dungeons beneath the earth, each party member confined to their own cells, with Yos'drie himself finding his arms shackled to opposing walls, leaving him on his knees while his arms were forced to hold up the rest of him.
Time was impossible to gauge from inside the dungeons, but periodically he would hear voices cry out.. voices he recognize as his comrades— his friends. Whatever was being done to them, he could only imagine.. and despite his normally collected demeanor, he felt the sparks of something he'd not felt in a long time; something he always attempted to control. Soon enough, the General who ordered his party's capture entered his cell, their (presumably) otherwise pristine uniform notably spattered with blood.
"Your comrades were quite stubborn, but they all broke eventually." He spoke with an infuriating smugness in his voice, a twisted pride on his face. "However, given your Class.. I wished to handle you personally, after overseeing the interrogation of your party first, of course. Barbarians are always the most fun to break." His tone left no doubt in Yos'drie's mind: this man had done this before, and he'd enjoyed every second of it.
The General casually approached his prisoner, stopping just short of being within the dragonborn's already limited reach. "See, I enjoy dealing with Barbarians myself for one simple reason.. their well-known Rage. They always tend to rely solely on their strength, but that doesn't leave much else in their skulls to do frivolous things like thinking. But you, from what my spies have told me, you're different, aren't you?" He lowered himself down, not out of any sense of respect, but to get a closer look at his prisoner, almost as if admiring a prized artwork. "You have no anger, no fury, it almost feels strange to call someone like you a Barbarian.. but that just means I can speak with someone of sound mind; after all, it's far easier to extract information from a person than an animal. Your comrades can most certainly attest to what we can and will do."
There it was again, another spark in his mind, a familiar yet alien sensation, a primal feeling he tried to control, but the General gave him no time to recollect himself, instead describing in gruesome detail what was done to his friends, the torture inflicted in order to extract information. He could feel it, the rage building within him.. but he could feel it was just more than that, this wasn't some petty anger. No, this was a truly primordial fury trying to claw its way out of him, and as the General's sickening pride showed through his cruelty, the shackles were finally released… Not the shackles binding him, oh no, the mental restraints he'd been maintaining in order to control his emotions, the chains he'd used to tie up his anger, the one emotion he'd kept back through thick and thin, the rage he had always wished to unleash upon that damned tyrant on the throne.. the monster wearing the body of a man in front of him warranted the anger of a kind adventurer, the rage of a patient man, the searing fury of a good soul.
In the physical world, the dragonborn's previously patient body tensed and trembled, his muscles suddenly overflowing with an animalistic strength as the chains holding him began to audibly creak.. a sound that gave the General pause for the first time in his years of time at this fort. "There's no point," he thought, "those chains are made to restrain a true dragon, much less a humanoid." But as the chains audibly strained against his prisoner's strength, he began to second-guess himself, cautiously backing towards the entrance to the cell, yet maintaining his facade. Until an unmistakable sound echoed in the chamber: chains ripped from stone, iron bars wrenched away, and the last thing the General saw was a Rage befitting a warrior of myth, before a truly thunderous roar threw him against the wall, the impact knocking him unconscious.
Yos'drie had never felt anything like this before, and even if he could think, he wouldn't know what to think about what he'd become. There was only a single coherent thought among the searing Fury in his mind: to save his friends. Tearing the steel door out of its hinges, the lucky guards who'd survive the coming rampage would tell of a being of pure, undiluted fury, wearing the body of a mortal, its battleaxe effortlessly cleaving through flesh and steel alike, its roar truly like thunder, able to blast away anything that dared to stand in its way. Those whispers spread throughout the tyrant's kingdom, and eventually the sight of the distinct axe that had seen countless deaths in a single night would be enough to strike fear in the hearts of the kingdom's sympathizers.
Nobody in the party was of sound enough mind to recall what exactly had occurred in that fortress, the only thing they could recall was the sound of something with monstrous strength tearing through the fort, and breaking each and every one of them from their cells. The only one with any indication of what had happened was Yos'drie himself, as he could feel that something in his mind was now different.. he had unleashed his anger after many years of control, and while the sheer scale of the carnage he wrought terrified him.. the power of his true fury seemed to grant him stuck with him even more. He could feel the difference in the spirits of his weapons as well; he supposed that even through his fury, he dared to not taint his family's blade with what he would do, but as a result, he could feel the sword's connection to him weaken even the slightest, while the axe seemed to tremble in anticipation every time he felt the anger begin to brew inside him again.
Despite vowing to himself that he would never allow himself to unleash that fury again, should the Tyrant King or his agents give him no other choice.. the True Fury would once again make an appearance in the world.
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Closing Notes: (also copied from ao3)
i cooked up this shit for my D&D character like two nights ago at 4 fucking am but i was not gonna be another "i wrote this instead of sleeping" (this time)
so, after finally sitting down with an empty doc (and Butcher Vanity playing bc why not), here it is
Yos'drei wouldn't be my first D&D Character who became an OC outside of sessions
he certainly won't become the last either lol
💫 Peppercorn, the red Goblin bard, and Tarragon, Tiefling monk 💫
Some character art of a bardic duo
Peppercorn - a short king with a magnetic personality. Though a commonly reviled creature, Peppercorn is able to charm folks and disengage conflict with their quick wit. Proficient with percussive instruments
Tarragon - Levistus Tiefling Monk - Way of the Four Elements
Reserved, and a big softie — a tiefling of few words, Tarragon towers over folks in conversation, though he keeps to himself. His trues colors shine during his captivating performances. His velvet, baritone voice coaxes his audience into an altered state, unable to hear the world around them.
I did draw this with the reference of the DMG, I think it turned out ok, the foot's a little wonky, but, it's fiiiiiineeee.... It's totally now driving me insane, but....
