#dnd fics

[crewofthegoldrush]

while I've been neglecting my main series I've recently given Roommate AU & Soulmate AU a new coat of paint; the stories are the same but the grammar is more consistent, typos are fixed, and some scenes have been expanded & refreshed. Give em a read if you're interested!

[valen-reed-apologist]

DM: here is a morally grey character. He is fighting for a just cause but ultimately taking a path of self destruction that may not even achieve his goals. He's stoic, unflinching in trying to kill the party and riddled with guilt.

Me: cool I'm giving him a fear kink

DM:

Me: :)

Me: so here's multiple scenes of him getting beaten up/intimidated by my character and enjoying

[dicedungeons-and-dragons]

Aroma

A quick little drabble about the nature of being surrounded by magic as a nonmagical creature because I have brain rot for my underrepresented son Gadreel

Gadreel never thought that he had a particularly strong sense of smell growing up. He had thought that his mom always smelled like sunshine and warm bread because she enjoyed her gardening and cooking. He had never wondered why that scent clung to her even after she and mother had spent all day together in the forge, and mother’s skin wafted the scent of hot metal and cooling sweat. It wasn’t until much later that he was told a lot of mages, the utilitarian kind, the less powerful kind, the kind that reached for magic as a tool instead of a part of themselves, often don't consciously know what their magic projects from them. (Waylan read that in one of his many books he snuck back from the ‘big city’ that used to be Gadreel’s home. And Waylan had been somewhere between proud and fearful when he admitted that the smell of fire he exuded was just an extension of the burning he always felt under his skin.) How even after learning this he never wondered or worried why he could smell the magic under his mom’s and Waylan’s skin. How it wouldn’t be until much later he had to contemplate if it was something that was typical of orcs or elves or if it was something inherent to who he was. And how he was too much of a coward to ask Lugh about it. So he never did. He kept it to himself and tried not to let any of the others know.

How sitting out in the fields with Waylan never made him feel like they were getting fresh air because everytime the younger man got worked up or excited all he could breathe was smoke. How when he finally gotten to kiss Waylan, hold him close-- how a hard metal hand and thick rope of scars pressed against his skin, things he had never imagined during the dark nights he fantasized about touching his best friend like this-- he had never realized that the air between them would smell like burning, and that Waylan’s mouth would be open flame, and his skin would taste like ash.

How when Vani was with them she radiated warm sunshine, soft damp earth, wildflowers and sage. And when they went to see her home, even in the dead of winter he knew her magic was allowing her to carry a piece of her kingdom everywhere.

How when he was pushing himself between fragile, bold, timid Lughnasa (his half sibling-- just own it already everyone else already knows) and whatever danger was coming for them next he could smell wine and sweet rum, and touches of something like thick soft grass in a far off foreign meadow. How it made him wonder if Lugh’s magic was desperately latching on to the memories of their home and the toxins they'd tried to use to forget.

How when Ray reached out to him, her hands soothing his hurts in his mind and body, he would be overwhelmed with petricore and seawater. How when she did it in Ketterdam it was like walking along a beach after a gentle rain. But after they had visited Vasselheim, after her stint in the catacombs, and her sword had started to spew dark water-- he had recoiled from her spells. Because then her magic had taken on a horrible odor, a brackish briny rot of a bloated animal whose drowned body had washed up on a beach, left to fester and putrefy on the sand.

And how at first he liked that he knew this part of them, especially given they seemed so unaware of it themselves. And he had thought the longer this... arrangement, alliance, friendship went on he would just get used to it, put it away in the back of his mind. Because smells were something that people could get used to. But magic, he found, was not. He smelled it every time they did something as mundane as cleaning their clothes and changing their eye color (and what a strange privilege to be in any position where doing something like that could be considered commonplace) to ripping a monster from this plane of existence. But what was worse was the way the smells made him feel.

How at the faintest whisper of wine, water, or smoke, his whole body went tense. His fingers would curl around the hilt of whatever weapon was nearest and his eyes would dart around for any possible threats. How even if it was just Lugh weaving an encouraging phrase or Waylan lashing Ray with a flame that they both knew wasn't made to harm her, his body would coil itself tight because when his companions threw magic it was always a draw if they would be using it to play or to fight. Always a coin hanging in the air, filled with the heavy scent of possibility, for just long enough it may turn into a guillotine on the way down.

How he hadn't thought this was weighing on his mind before Jinx came along. Not until there was someone who didn't carry a smell that made the air tingle and hum obtrusively. No. Jinx smelled like old leather and sometimes gutter muck if she had been doing her favorite work of scaling buildings. But her scent could fall to the background. When they were together she was a sanctuary. Nothing about her being pushed in on his senses. She did not exude an aura that forced him to take notice of her, she simply was. And oftentimes, when she felt like it, she simply wasn't too. She had the amazing ability to make herself disappear. Not in the same way that Waylan or Lugh could-- though when she had their help the effect was only compounded. She could just become smaller, quieter, thinner, like existing in this reality had left her so tattered and threadbare that the shadows and cracks between cobblestones welcomed her and let her slip between them far away from prying eyes. He can admit that her being a blindspot, a dead zone, in the sea of magic he had been treading for the past-- two? Three, maybe?-- years is what made him approach her.

What had kept him at her side was how she had been so out of her depth, unfamiliar with so much of the world, so much of the world's strangeness each of the others represented. How she had a story of her own-- orphaned, growing up in foster homes, and then on the street. How that wasn't an uncommon story in big cities. How he had been so relieved to hear her old wounds were something mundane enough for him to empathize with. How he could understand those while banishment, dragon inherited fury, siblings lost in Hell, and rebelliousness that nearly brought a civil war were so far out of his depth he never felt like he could say the right thing to his friends. How he never felt right voicing his own concerns and struggles with them when they were so little. Jinx, smelling like the mud caked on her boots from their long day's travel, leather of her gloves and coin pouch, and the oil he had given her to keep her blades clean and sharp, would walk up to him, or wander off with him, and ask him his thoughts. She would be glib and she would be tactless, and she would understand. She was like him, so far removed from magic, from being extraordinary in the strange exotic way the rest of their friends were, and she made him feel like it was okay for them to exist in that space. To be nothing like the others, and still matter. Like they did help, even if they could only hack and slash, couldn't close a fatal wound with a shining gem and a few murmured words. She gave him respite when the heavy press of magic all around them made him feel like he was seconds away from shaking apart trying to hold still or having to fight for their lives. She bought him a little bit of sanity the nights that he could sit in their camp, surrounded by all of them, and her presence allowed him to believe the smoke on the air was the fire they'd lit to keep them warm, and the sweet smell of wine was the skin she would pass him between sentences. And for now, that would be just enough to give him peace.

[crewofthegoldrush]

pure gold (the best i've ever known)

"Sheriff!" she says, and you almost expect to hear a purr. She comes to stand in front of you for a beat, before leaning back to practically perch on the desk. "So good to see you again. And with friends today!"

She gives Tequila a charming but genuine smile, something that never failed to make her blush on the few times they did interact.

Her eyes travel over Harper, lingering as you introduce her. You can't read her expression, but she knows you like them pretty.

[CONTINUE TO CHAPTER THREE]

[crewofthegoldrush]

pure gold (the best i've ever known)

You gaze out at the river as you think, chewing over something. "It's just that Runswick is behind me now. I had to leave it behind, and I was forced to leave them behind, too. Sometimes there just…ain't reason to bring up the past."

"You find it hard to discuss."

Glancing at her as you both finish your last sips, you offer her your arm as you slide off your seat. "I suspect you…relate?"

Quietly, she lets you lead her over to the balcony, looking out over Breland below and the open sky above. "Yes, I might."

[CONTINUE TO CHAPTER SEVEN]

-

I got impatient :) this is technically the start to "part 2: promotion" but the banner isn't ready lol

[crewofthegoldrush]

pure gold (the best i've ever known)

"Deal with them."

The doors to the first mate and captain's quarters open and Aubrey steps out, a dagger flipped in each hand, their edges tinted green with poison. Her eyes were the same red as all the others, no recognition in them at all.

"I believe you owe me a rematch, Sheriff."

She stabs right at you, eyes on nothing but you.

[CONTINUE TO CHAPTER EIGHT]

-

[spits out poison] so true queen are you single

[crewofthegoldrush]

pure gold (the best i've ever known)

You have a unique relationship with fire. Given your gold nature, fire was a part of you, born in you, the easiest magic that you can cast, and the kind that never exhausts you to do. You are proud of being a dragonborn and that meant being proud of your element.

You show it in the colors you wear, the reds of your ties, bows, and occasionally vests and blazers, in the ruby hilted sword you sometimes "borrowed" from Aubrey, and in that elemental sword you previously coveted.

But sometimes, under the right circumstances, fire could be your worst nightmare.

[CONTINUE TO CHAPTER ELEVEN]

-

[crewofthegoldrush]

pure gold (the best i've ever known)

You debate if you should grant her the alone time, but you and Aubrey talked about almost everything, and there was no reason this couldn't be one of them. You approach her, coming up next to her and tapping her borrowed boot with your tail. You find yourself shocked when she startles.

For the first time you can think of, you snuck up on Aubrey, and when she turns to you, your heart jumps to your throat at the tears running down her cheeks

[CONTINUE TO CHAPTER NINE]

-

oops I made our assassin cry