#essmer

[locuas642]

Okay so the Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree trailer.

(Spoilers ahead)

My first thought is that I see a lot of people jumping to the conclusion the character Messmer is an aged-up Miquella

It's not impossible. because Elden Ring does like to play with the concept of Identity and names. This could be a Miquella who has falled into disgrace and corruption, the Fallen Lucifer who chooses to rule this world of Shadows.

But like, I feel that's not it. First of all, I feel it would be a bit too obvious for Fromsoft to show this character like people wouldnt immediatly assume he is Miquella. The red hair can hint at a relation to Radagon, but that with the imagery of Fire can also link him to the Fire Giants.

Also, paying closer attention, you can see one of his eyes is closed, the same one as Melania, who is theorized as a child of the Gloam-eyed queen just as much as she is theorized a child of Marika, has closed.

I feel this hints at a stronger relation to that part of the Lore than to him being Miquella

On top of that, given the strong use of Nordic Mythology in the setting, and this "Realm of Shadows" being some sort of afterlife or Limbo, to me would associate him closer to this world's version Loki or even Hel (Replace Frost giants with firey ones, obvs...). some sort of ruler of this land whom we need to deal with to rescue Miquella and awake him

[dreadlock-detective]

You’d be amazed at how often I forget that I can just... draw character interactions without needing the context of a comic page~ Or any context at all! So here’s some Dindel & Co to celebrate the end of 2021~ I’ll keep attempting to be more active online next year. Cuz I AM still drawing, just not posting anything. Like that group shot was done back in friggin July. Yeesh!

Anywho, Happy New Year erryboddy~!

[dreadlock-detective]

Last time on Hot for Healer:

Perus, the party’s newest member and cleric of Tyr, got very emotional learning that Dindel only owned 4 sets of clothing. When we got into town he sought very hard to rectify this apparent tragedy by buying the fanciest, poofiest, most aburdiest thing they had in her size.

(He also blew all of his money on it, apparently, because Dindel who at this point has thousands of gold wouldn’t waste any on frivolous clothes~)

Dindel isn’t a child (she’s 20-ish), but try telling that to the team dads of Essmer and Perus, who totally aren’t projecting on to her at all while their own daughters are away nope definitely not.

On the other hand, I haven’t had the chance to bring out Dindel’s sassy side ever since Niles stopped being a jerkface, so having this cleric around that she gives zero shits about pleasing is pretty refreshing~

(I had way too much fun drawing all the expressions on these pages)

[dreadlock-detective]

pixelized versions of the Dambrath campaign PC’s~ minus Lucan because Gaius is just a full replacement for him anyway.

[dreadlock-detective]

And so ends Vale’s story, at least for the foreseeable future, and breaks Hot for Healer’s love triangle... and the entire rest of the group if I’m being honest.

Essmer has officially given up drinking

Lucan got the group back to safety and then left off on his own. Between other story stuff, he’s buried too many people he cares about.

Niles is falling apart and blames himself for Vale’s death, because he counterspelled Dindel’s magic and he’s not sure how much of it was to protect Dindel, that they promised not to interfere, or that removing Vale gets rid of the biggest roadblock between him and Dindel. That last thought sickens and horrifies him

Dindel, well, once she started actually responded to the outside world again, has become rather lost and more than a little bit dangerously reckless with her well-being. Thankfully her dice agree, and she’s been OBLITERATING things with her magic ever since.

Hell, not even just the characters - I know at least a few of us were visibly shaking during the session~

I know most the group watches this space, so I hope this does the session justice! 

Why did the orcs grab Niles for counterspelling when Dindel was casting first?

Because Dindel rolled massively well to cast without being noticed. But Niles NAT 20′d to see it. And then he rolled to a Nat 1 to hide HIS spell. And yes, that means if not for that nat 20, Vale may have been healed, and things may have gone differently but lady luck just wasn’t on his side.

So Vale’s dead dead?

Yeah~ His player got a new job that stopped him from being able to come to sessions, so we went on hiatus for a while and then when he couldn’t get it worked out it was decided to give Vale a proper send off. This wasn’t scripted though, there was contingency plan for if he won. And he came SO CLOSE too.

[dreadlock-detective]

Doodles of the Dambrath campaign~

[top left] Dindel and Niles both failed pretty badly to learn tool proficiency from Essmer - we have chaulked it up to Dindel being entirely foreign to proper education and Niles spending all of his time trying to help her.

[top right] So more death and bad things happened and Dindel and Niles were standing vigil over a grave for religious reasons. Both Gaius and Essmer had the plan to bring them food out, which led to a brief bit of tension~ The four had a relatively nice conversation over dinner though, including one of the first times they got to bond with Gaius, since he’s a relatively new PC to the campaign. [bottom left] Perus, our cleric, is a family man and absolutely the only person in the group that has a healthy relationship with his family and he is having trouble keeping up with all the other’s emotional hangups [bottom right] Essmer’s got your number, THEISTS!

[dreadlock-detective]

Finally got around to finishing up these pages from the last Dindel game session before this corona stuff shut us down.

This is only a fraction of what happened, but Essmer got into some trouble with Grandma at the church for his opinions on Dindel’s control of her magic, which triggered Grandma something fierce (Something to do with men thinking they know what’s best for women and their bodies, if I had to guess) and Essmer, uh, isn’t good at deescalating conflict, so he ended up getting kicked out of our safe haven at the church.

We of course went after him wanting to smooth this all over, but it just resulted in Niles and Essmer shouting at each other, Niles wanting Essmer to stop making Dindel feel like a threat to everyone and Essmer convinced that Niles’s feelings for Dindel are blinding him to the potential danger her magic could become.

Eventually our two new members, Piros and Gaius, decided they’d camp out with Essmer that night while Dindel and Niles headed back. It was an interesting therapy session to be sure. These two have only been around a few sessions, but I’m enjoying what they bring to the group dynamic. Both seem more level headed than the other three, with Piros being more compassionate and Gaius being more down to business.

[dreadlock-detective]

Guys! I managed to get my hands on an official VHS case of Hot for Healer! It's a little beat up and faded, but damn what a find!

As usual, the dub is fucking awful though. Censored to shit too! They cut out an entire epic duel and just suddenly offhandedly mention that Vale (oh, I'm sorry, "Max") decided to head off to college with Blacktusk (or "Derrick"). Boy howdie does higher education make people sad in Dambrath! My guess is that they picked up the US distribution rights after only watching the first episode and never realized how fucking dark it gets.

Pissed me off too - I really wanted to listen to "Billy" the rogue shout his catch phrase as he pulled "Sarah" away from seeing Max die!

You can see some screenshots I posted last year if you’re interested~

[Chapter title is a quote from Niles’s player and the ‘review’ is a paraphrased quote from @surikitsuna]

edit:

No idea, but I feel like it’s the anime equivalent of vaporwave lol @cthulhubert​