#faenir

[autumnalmoth]

(🏳️‍⚧ trans man character, he/him ✌️ 🏳️‍⚧)

crop tops were meant for me to draw my terrible hot criminal ocs in

(commissions open! please check pinned post :) )

[mourningmoth]

oh i DID forget to tell yall something that happened last session, which was the re-appearance of fae's lich friend, who apparently snuck his phylactery into fae's bag when no one was paying attention, and then he killed himself so he could reform himself on the ship. the purpose of this was bc he wants to crash with fae for a while bc hes depressed his girlfriend dumped him (his gf who was dead, and who fae helped him resurrect, lol)

[mourningmoth]

Copy and pasted this from what I wrote in a Discord server to explain my weird little dnd character story arc with romantic gore themes 💖

Tia do not read btw!!!! TIA DNI

sorry im gonna type my thing abt my dnd character and his er/oguro-ass story arc in here bc its my personal pet brain disease that ive been feeding and nurturing for years <3

im also gonna reiterate some background details that ive probably already written somewhere, but im gonna include for the sake of making sense lmao

general disclaimer: the campaign we're doing is entirely homebrew, we're only rly using dnd races and spells etc. the world itself is original, its not a canon dnd setting

so context: my character is Faenir, hes an elven druid from a continent called Lor, which is the native homeland of both elves (all the different types, like drow, wood elves, etc) and dragons

Lor has separate "kingdoms" occupied by dragons, wood elves, high elves, and drow; but since all these races are united and allied with eachother, they dont rly have solid "borders". in fact, the drow and wood elf territories share a capital city (the capital city is a world tree, which is a fantasy cliche thing, but in this context the wood elves live in the canopy, while drow have their capital built in the tree's roots underground. different general locations, but the same tree) (not relevant to character story arc just fun lore lol)

so anywayyyyy. Faenir was a very important person to the wood elves specifically, due to circumstances of his birth. he and his brother were born as twins, but Fae in particular was born with a "blessing" from the moon goddess their society venerates (details about the blessing are intentionally vague bc it ties into more story stuff DM hasnt revealed yet which is also intertwined with the overarching story)

because he was born with this blessing and chosen by the goddess, Fae was then put into mentorship with the elven temple, with the intention that he would one day take on the role of their High Priestess (historically extremely important position in elven society)

Fae is trans, but he wasnt out or masc-presenting during the time he lived in Lor

so during his mentorship, Fae basically did not have his own identity. he was extremely restricted on what he was allowed to do or who he was allowed to associate with, due to their preconceived notions on how their priestess "should" act and Be

he spent his entire childhood not really being allowed to express himself, have his own interests, have friends, or really be a person beyond what they just "expected" from the Chosen or whatever. ofc this attitude from society as a whole, made Fae grow extremely resentful about the whole "chosen by the goddess" thing, and he developed a sort of bitterness about it where he started to wish it wasn't his reality and that he could just leave and live a different life (spoiler alert)

(this is also tied to my own personal trauma; all the aspects of Fae's childhood isolation are a direct mirror of my own life, as someone with overly sheltering parents who wasnt allowed friends until i was 22. lol)

theres also an element of this backstory that involves how Fae repeatedly rejected every single suitor that ever vied for his attention, and his family got SO sick of this that they just arranged a political marriage for him without his say-so, which was the massive catalyst that would lead to Fae secretly running away from Lor

so after having a particularly terrible mental breakdown, Fae decided to just pull a spontaneous disappearing act. he left during the night, trekked across unoccupied wilderness, stole a small boat once he got to the coast, and just sailed away lmao

after this, he actually started presenting as masc and going by the name Faenir. he also became a pirate, which sets up how hes involved in the Pirate Campaign. but this is just the backstory shit and doesnt even rly get into his actual story arc that im excited about

before getting into that tho i should talk about the other important character involved, which is Taivash, who is one of Fae's boyfriends (Fae is polyamorous and has 7 total partners; 3 bfs, 3 gfs, and 1 nb partner). i actually did this so i could explore many different relationship dynamics with the one oc, and its fun. do recommend polyamorous ocs. anyway

all the relationships Fae has now are kinda intentionally designed to be specifically healthy relationships, bc its meant to contrast how Fae's life was very restricted and toxic beforehand. its meant to symbolize improvement in one's life and finding ur own happiness (this also ties heavily into the themes of identity and the character being trans, and how he eventually found this happiness After deciding to transition and be honest to himself)

so Taivash is an important element bc he comes with his own emotional baggage about family and identity and belonging. Tai is an orc, but he was orphaned and adopted by a human. however, he was not adopted to be an actual son or anything to this guy, he was adopted to be an assistant bc the human who adopted him was an old blacksmith. so Taivash grew up without a sense of real "family" due to the fact that he never actually had one. his sense of personal identity is also a bit skewed bc of how he was never really expected to be anything more than The Kid That Works with Old Man Abyrthorn

to keep things more brief and not be sooo long-winded, im just gonna say that Fae and Tai eventually meet (theres a whole short story im writing about it) and end up in a relationship together (in-universe they have been in a relationship for 9 years). part of the point of the Fae/Tai relationship here is the element of "family"; Fae had a lot of issues with his own family, and is now effectively estranged (technically he is a Missing Person but lol whatever same diff), while Tai had no family to speak of from the start. so theyre very important to eachother for that reason, because of them finding a sense of family in eachother etc etc

during the beginning sessions of the campaign, Fae sorta accidentally convinced Taivash to join our player crew, so he's now been an NPC companion to us thru the entire game so far, which was something i wasnt actually expecting, but now that it Has happened, it facilitates my little Thing i keep alluding to

and this gu/ro-themed thing is actually something i wrote BEFORE this dnd campaign, bc Fae was originally gonna be an original fiction character. but i mentioned this storyline to my bf (who is the DM) and he decided he liked my idea way more that what he was going to write for Fae's arc in dnd. so in this way, ive accidentally written my own dnd arc, but theres still an element of mystery to it, bc certain parts of it are going to be up to DM control

so whats going on with this situation is that, currently in the campaign (about 24 sessions in) Fae is slowly being possessed by a figure that repeatedly appears in his dreams

quick context about this: in this dnd universe, elves do not properly "sleep", they only go into a 4-hr trance and thats a "long rest" for them. they are never unconscious and "dreams" are extremely rare occurrences for them. Fae has been having *frequent* nightmares about this figure, which is highly concerning in-universe bc hes not Supposed to dream that much or even have nightmares at all

the figure in Fae's dreams has the ability to control plants, but really specific magic plants in this universe, which manifest as black thorny vines that also pulsate with a red blood-like energy within them; it also involves some innocent-looking white flower blooms

whats happening with this, is that the dream figure is slowly using its dream-powers and plant control to encroach on Fae's mind, and from there also take control of his body (in the game, he's already been growing mysterious little tiny vines and flowers around the back of his neck that he keeps plucking out)

eventually this situation is going to culminate in Fae being completely taken over by these fucked up plants and he will become a surprise mini-boss in the campaign that his friends are going to have to fight :3

being taken over by the plants also will be involving a lot of.... pain and violence. the vines are going to be growing THROUGH certain parts of Fae's skin and they may as wrap and intertwine with other parts, such as bones or his organs

i dont know EXACTLY how freeing Fae from this is going to work or what the other players will have to do, thats DM stuff. but i DID have a fun little idea of how it could end if the other players can't figure it out, where i can have the DM roll for Taivash

and if Taivash succeeds, the way he's going to have to free Fae will be by having to stab Fae in his now-corrupted, plant nightmare heart and rip it out, which is what will remove the nightmare corruption from Fae's body. obviously if Fae is going to actually SURVIVE this mini-boss thing, he'll need some kind of huggge healing or magical heart-replacement type thing

but. the main POINT of allll this shit is just that i think theres something rly nicely deeply romantic about a situation where u cant save the person u love the most, who is the most important person alive to u, without doing something so drastically bloody and visceral to save them

[mourningmoth]

idk if i ever specified this detail about fae's character design, but its a little detail i like a lot

but his natural lip colour was not green. the reason his lips are green is bc theyre tattooed that way. the green tattoos have cultural significance; he also has many more than most art of him can actually show lmao. he also has a non-culturally relevant small blue feather tattoo, it just wasnt visible enough to put in the recent art

[mourningmoth]

im gonna make a big post about fae here, since ive realised ive been posting about our dnd adventure but ive never actually elaborated on fae as a character on tumblr lmao

so this will go into his backstory history a bit as well as some aspects of his personality that tie into it :33

DISCLAIMER BTW: this campaign is massively homebrew, we're only really using dnd's mechanics and not its lore. the entire world, society, etc in this campaign is original writing ✌️

most basic of basic information: Faenir is a wood elf moon druid, and currently "employed" as a navigator on Captain Bluefeather's pirate crew. hes been a pirate for 15 years and has sailed under a couple different captains over that time. hes exceptionally good at his job and has been sought out by very prolific captains (in the very first session, he was actually offered a job by THE pirate king lollll)

this is a relatively recent venture however, as hes actually like 125 years old currently. the other 110 years prior were Very different, so im gonna start from the ~beginning~ and get into backstory

fae was born (as a twin) on the island-continent of Lor, which is the elven homeland. most elves (except mermaids, which are sea-elves) live there. elves dont have royalty however, their governments are set up as a system of councils (relevant in a second)

the wood elven domain is called merethil, and within it grows a large world-tree, which the wood elves utilise as a capital city

faenir and his twin brother taldrys were born to the very prestigious Thalasi family, to an archdruid mother (she is one of the wood elven council leaders) and a noble father. at birth, fae was believed to have been personally blessed by the moon goddess selune (stealing her name from actual dnd). taldrys was not similarly blessed

growing up, taldrys was afforded a lot of freedoms, and was basically allowed to do with his life what he desired. the same was not true for fae though, due to how everyone around him regarded his "blessing"

basically since infancy, fae had a lot of high expectations thrust on him, and was essentially pedestalized, which ended up doing a lot of mental harm. he was given extremely rigorous and strict training throughout his childhood, in preparation for the role he would take as an adult

it was VERY important to wood elf society in general that fae specifically would be the person to take on the role of High Priestess of the Moon on the government council (now is probably a good time to mention that fae was born female-assigned and presented as a woman up until leaving Lor)

unfortunately, things just continued to get worse in this specific time period. he DID meet someone that would be a close friend for many decades up until his departure (its illandria, ive posted about her before :3), but generally he had a pretty bad time, which culminated in something that could possibly be described as an "episode"

the constant pedestalization, expectations, and responsibilities of being the big important High Priestess mentally wore fae down over the course of MANY years. this perception of him severely damaged his own sense of self and also warped his perception of what the goddess actually expected of him. in addition to ALL this bullshit, fae's family also wanted him to be in an arranged political marriage with a high elf noble (whom fae had never met)

its reasonable to say that fae eventually had some kind of mental break, and decided to secretly leave Lor without telling anyone. its at this point he ended up joining with a pirate crew, and started presenting as a man. he has NOT been back to Lor since, and has actually avoided talking about his past entirely. people back on Lor have also circulated rumours as to their priestess' disappearance

since leaving, fae's relationship with his goddess has been put into a somewhat nebulous position. he never wanted to disappoint her, he still values her presence and importance, but he feels like he HAS disappointed her and is unsure on how to navigate the situation

he's thought about talking to selune about his situation, but he hasnt because hes too afraid she will tell him that everything in his life is a mistake and he should just go back home

the problem is that hes making this assumption based on his treatment from other elves, not exactly on the goddess' actual behaviour. everyone AROUND fae made his status the Biggest Deal Ever™️, which sorta fucked up his brain and his perception of selune herself. now hes too afraid to address that with her directly, due to the effect it all had on him.

fae SEEMS very capable and hyper-competent in nearly everything he does, but its partially over compensation for the fact that HE feels like hes "failed" something by just being Himself and not being what everyone else expected him to be (or what he Thinks the goddess expected him to be)

this also ties directly into a concept that fae has a massive complex over being "controlled". due to his upbringing, fae always felt as though people expected him to be a certain way, and they tried to push him into being an idealised version of himself that ultimately didnt exist. he felt very much like he wasnt allowed to be himself, and that his "actual self" was something unacceptable, hence mental-breakdown-leaving etc

hes been generally much happier since leaving and getting to control his own life, but there are still numerous nagging reminders and doubts lingering that he tries very hard to ignore lmao

I also forgot to mention some of his family stuff. so fae's brother taldrys, unblessed, was afforded way more freedom in life than fae, which bred some resentment between them. fae was very jealous of his brother's treatment growing up, feeling like he wasnt really "allowed" his own individuality as tal was. taldrys, conversely, was also jealous of fae bc he perceived fae's treatment as "favouritism". the two of them were still pretty close growing up, but the jealousy was in the background regardless

fae's mother ithana, as mentioned previously, was ALSO on the wood elf council with fae. she had a big hand in fae feeling as bad as he did. ithana would never openly admit it, but she secretly acknowledges (after all these years) that she had played a part in fae's disappearance. deep down, she knows he left and exactly why, but wouldnt dare talk about it with anyone. she secretly feels guilty and wishes he would come back someday. fae himself feels a lot of resentment towards his mom because of how she was when he was growing up, and hasnt contacted her since leaving

i realise his entire backstory is a very obvious trans metaphor but whatever lol. i rly like how i have this character set up

[autumnalmoth]

[dj khaled voice] anotha one

[mourningmoth]

ok, THIS friday on dnd:

fae revealed a little bit of his secret business to the crew, but only a little, because he likes to be an evasive little shit about anything involving his pre-pirate life. he basically just told them about his birth-blessing and how he thinks its the same thing as the curse Intra talked about. he also told them about how he has to travel to the Actual end of the world (theres a massive hole in the planet, idk if i ever mentioned this part before) to kill a specific guy from his nightmares, he also sorta had to reassure eri that hes not secretly working for rellick lmao

speaking of, we attempted to deliberate on a plan for the next time rellick appears and tries to take fae, but we didnt get very far in that before deciding we wanted to go to a different island to rob a dragon (its an advertised job that eri's been absolutely itching to do since like session 3 or 4 and we're close to that island anyway). sometime during this, fae also used a detect magic spell to confirm the status of their curses, and saw that eri, love giver, himself, and pollart ALL indeed have curses on them

sometime before the night ended, eri also deliberately tried to talk to aesma, who gave her some information about "the dog", and also made promises to eri that she (aesma) would help her (eri) control her unbridled strength, so she wouldnt end up hurting her friends again. eri VERY hesitantly considered the offer, leaving it a little ambiguous for the moment

after all the panic from intra's little visit came down, everyone went back to rest. sometime in the morning of the next day, a large ship kinda swept up next to ours, which turned out to be the 40 Proof, the ship of captain morgan (lmfao). captain morgan was a satyr, and he talked with captain bluefeather for a little while, basically commending us for having killed a navy admiral, but also warning bluefeather that some really powerful people are gonna be on our tail now. but he was also really happy and kind of goofy, so he was a fun character to meet. his crew had a little party with ours for a while before they set back off. almost everyone ended up with a hangover (EXCEPT fae bc fuckin. of course). kenshin ended up passed out on the captain's bed, which led to a rly funny cartoony scene of bluefeather searching for him (by lifting up kenshin to look for kenshin. under kenshin.)

i believe it was also this same day in which fae decided to try to have a nightmare on purpose to speak to the elf man who appears in his dreams. he was successful, and managed to go into the dream world-area, and met the elf. fae attempted to politely introduce himself, but the other elf refused to shake hands, saying that it would be a bad idea to do that. regardless, he revealed his name was krom. fae asked him a bunch of questions about what's going on, and what his "destiny" means, etc. krom told fae that his ultimate goal is to destroy the "heart of the world", but he also expressed some hesitance, saying he didnt really WANT to do this, but that he also could not stop himself from it. he mentioned fae's curse is the reason why fae is the only person who CAN stop it. he also mentioned that fae is a "vessel", but didnt say for what; similarly, krom also said that he himself is just a fragment of a larger whole being. while talking to him, some vines slowly crept up fae's legs, which is par for the course in these dreams, but krom also kind of implied something more dangerous about it, bc he also told me i shouldnt come into the dream without someone to wake me up. after getting OUT of the dream, fae decided to relay all this information to eri

fae and eri made some connections between all the information they got from aesma and krom respectively, theorizing about the connections between the dog and the people with his mark tattooed on them. ALSO during this conversation, eri talked about her dialogue with aesma to fae, and fae asked eri's opinion on whether he should try to contact selune (the moon goddess), stating that he SHOULD, but doesnt WANT to

the ship eventually reached regatta (and island we've already been to, but we're returning for supplies for our. trip to the end of the world. lol.) taivash told us that we needed to get rid of the legendary sword we have. on the island, the owner of the sword could be seen yelling in a tavern about his intent to "kill those bastards" (presumably us. for ykno, having his sword). so tai and fae took the sword onto the island and left it in the woods (bc they didnt want to talk to the owner, considering he was like, murderous about it lol)

WHILE tai and fae were away dropping of this sword, the owner of the sword actually ended up recognizing kenshin and confronting him about the missing sword. things got very heated because of the fact that kenshin mentioned intra, and eri mentioned the dog, both things seemingly pissing off the sword guy even worse. so fae and tai were coming back out of the wood around this time, where the confrontation was happening, and in an attempt to Not Get Kenshin Killed, fae came out of the bushes telling the swordsman that they left his sword nearby in the woods. the guy was a bit dumbfounded, but slightly calmer than he was lmao. regardless, he was still pissed at kenshin and made a little agreement that, if kenshin could touch him with a sword, he would give us information about intra and the dog. if kenshin failed, we'd have to leave (AND NEVER COME BACKKK)

tai and fae hastily went back to the ship while eri stayed and watched the sparring match, which *mostly* ended in a draw? kenshin DID cause a welt on the swordsman's side with his own swords, but the swordsman also LIGHTLY hit kenshin in the throat with a dagger (non lethally) which fucked kenshin up a little bit (made it hard for him to talk, lol), so it was considered a failure on kenshin's part, and we didnt get any information about intra or the dog (😔)

eri and kenshin went back to the ship where fae was like "oh, you're not dead! did it go well?" kenshin just sorta went ":("

OH YEA there was also a point on the ship (before the swordsman thing) where love giver ONCE AGAIN let his navy follower out of the brig. (he enthralled a few navy guards with a spell during the jailbreak and one of them ended up permanently devoted to love giver in a very cult-like manner. so hes with us now i guess.) we also learned our cook clem likes to write poetry, and we (eri, fae, and love) encouraged him to follow his dreams, while he lamented that hes probably better off being ratatouilled by an intellect devourer at the moment anyway (😔😔). fae asked clem if he was interested in perhaps learning magic instead of being a cook, to which clem said magic is scary and not something he wants to mess with lol

sorry this post is a little long btw, last session was pretty eventful lmao

[mourningmoth]

forgot 2 do a dnd update, but after we met valerie the harpy, we got captured by a fancy ~homebrew~ spell and got taken to a jail cell. fae shapeshifted into a spider to escape his shackles, which turned out to be kinda pointless bc the guards let everyone who wasnt our captain and love giver out, since they wanted to put our captain on trial. they wanted to keep love because he's an escaped slave

anyway, fae, kenshin, and eri deliberated on how to break captain bluefeather out. pollart (the captain's shoulder-guy) ran off into the forest and caught valerie's attention, bringing her back to the jail

in the meantime, fae cast a pass without trace spell on bluefeather to hopefully help him sneak out, but bluefeather ended up shooting a guy and the whole thing turned violent (😭)

we killed all the guards, which involved fae shapeshifting into a sabre-tooth tiger and ripping some guy's throat out. then he gave another guy a heart attack and killed him that way. so fae now has 2 kills to his name (😭😭)

we escaped from the island and got back on our ship. during our ship time, we came across the ghost ship again. fae and captain bluefeather went and checked it out, finding no one on board, a broken mendicant stone, and a very strange map showing more of the world than our characters currently actually know about

later on we rested, and in the wee hours of the morning, we got accosted by a navy ship with rellick (the former pirate king) and his first mate intra (scary elven swordsman who cut a mountain in half in front of us in session 1). they announced their intent to take fae with them, calling him the "best navigator in the seven seas". intra teleported to our ship and attempted to intimidate everyone (which worked, everyone was basically frozen lol). he also said some cryptic shit about fae being cursed and how fae doesnt know "what he is". he also said some things about love giver having 2 curses, and eri also being cursed. he then left and rellick's ship also teleported away, leaving us alone for the moment

thats where the session ended tho so NOW next session, fae is gonna have 2 explain at least a LITTLE bit of his deal that he's been hiding from everyone lol