#lludd

[bloodstone-and-bones]

The King of Two Courts

This is a playlist for my dude Gwyn ap Nudd. Help me find a better name bc “The Kings of Light and Sorrow” is already taken by my Gwyn/Ash playlist. Please send any song recommendations for these playlists my way!(Mostly about his perseverance and strength aka not a lot of gentle songs. A lot of Johnny Cash songs so be warned. American Southern Gothic vibes bc I said so.) Link at the bottom.

Achilles Come Down // Gang of Youths

Gwyn being talked into believing himself worthy of things despite what Albion and Crielle say.

Glitter and Gold // Barns Courtney

Total “walk like a badass” song.

“Do you walk in the valley of kings, Do you walk in the shadow of men, Who sold their lives for a dream?” Becoming a king of both courts (respectively, not at the same time) because of the Oak King and the Raven Prince.

Black Eyes // Radical Face

“While I slept you crept in and pulled the rug right out from under me” Augus finding out the truth of his alignment.

Broken Crown // Mumford & Sons

“And I will not speak of your sins, There was a way out for him, The mirror shows not, Your values are all shot” Gwyn mourning Mafydd (god I hope I spelt that right) and swearing to keep his alignment a secret.

Ain’t No Grave // Johnny Cash

“Ain’t No Grave, Can hold my body down” No matter what level of fae he is, nothing can keep him down.

God’s Gonna Cut You Down // Johnny Cash

“Go tell that long tongue liar, Go and tell that midnight rider, Tell the rambler the gambler the back biter” Gwyn saying hey I’m the new king tell everyone and I mean EVERYONE I’m not tolerating any shit.

Black Sun // Death Cab for Cutie

“And there is death upon the vine, There is fear in the eyes of your father” Not that Lludd was ‘afraid’ of Gwyn but he was a little worried about his powers. “Death upon the vine” refers to the end of the family line bc Gwyn ruined any chance of them having more kids.

Sinners // Barns Courtney

“Let’s go have some fun before, They go and put us in the ground” A rousing war song for the unseelie armies.

Blood On My Name // The Brothers Bright

“When the fires are consuming you, And your sacred stars won’t be guiding you, I’ve got blood, I’ve got blood on my name” when Gwyn looses his light in the Ice Plague.

Grave Digger // Blues Saraceno

“Let me be the one that got away” Gwyn escapes as underfae from Albion’s grasp.

I Hung My Head // Johnny Cash

Idk this song reminds me of Gwyn going to Augus the first time after he made that one guy eat his father’s heart (or was it the other way around I don’t remember).

I Won’t Back Down // Johnny Cash

“You can stand me up at the gates of Hell, but I won’t back down” (I warned you there’s a lot of Johnny Cash lmao.) Gwyn standing his ground as king.

Redemption // Johnny Cash

“My old friend Lucifer came, Fought to keep me in chains” Crielle trying to keep him under her control even after her death.

Bottom Of The River // Delta Rae

“Don’t you lift him, let him drown alive, The good Lord speaks like a rolling thunder” this song has two meanings: that one scene where Augus drowns Gwyn and the other is Gwyn training with Lludd and him not letting up on him bc that’s what Crielle (the good Lord) has said.

Old Devils // William Elliot Whitmore

“And they tell me there’s a war without no end, The old devils are at it again” Gwyn and the gang going after David and Olphix who created the Ice Plagus and the fire that burnt Mosk’s family.

Hurt // Johnny Cash

“Everyone I know, Goes away in the end, And you can have it all, My empire of dirt, I will let you down, I will make you hurt” Gwyn feels unlovable and he just wants the kingship to be handled by someone else.

[baphall]

Creating a Feywild Domain

Creating a Feywild Domain I pitched a feywild domain for a compilation that @TheRubyFeather is putting together. Here's a quick teaser. I'll probably write it either way, it was a lot of fun to visualise! #ttrpg #dnd5e

If you’ve missed it, Wizards of the Coast released an add-on for The Wild Beyond the Witchlight that allows you to create your own Domain of Delight following their guidelines. There are a lot of random tables, but overall it helped with some creative prompts for me. I pitched to a collection of domains that’s upcoming (possibly a Christmas release), but I’ve yet to hear back. If I don’t get it,…

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[margravelucian]

I have been thinking a lot about Nodens: an ancient fragment of a complex, multi-faceted divine figure that echoes up through strata of time, language and place.  He is more than dreams, and hunting, and healing, and dogs, and the sea - he is all of this and more.  A great hoard of manufactured silver coins created just for his offering lay at his feet.  The Welsh Llydd of the silver hand came later, building on pre-existing folklore.  Was Nodens missing his hand?

A lack of written records is inspirational and freeing!

(Patrons got this as a printable for colouring)

SHOP / KO-FI / PATREON / INSTAGRAM

[hearthfirehandworks]

A prayer to Lludd, a Welsh Celtic god.

[not-poignant]

I've been rereading "Game Theory", and in chapter 22 (Truth) Augus mentions that he met Ludd once. Can you tell us how/when that happened?

Oh, yeah, before Augus kind of formally joined the Raven Prince's Court and got his status raise, he was actually invited to the Winter Court (which is an Unseelie leisure Court specifically not run by the King/Queen, and focuses on carnality/food/pleasure/games etc.) as the Raven Prince's guest or the guest of other clients.

The Winter Court, and the Seelie Summer Court are - respectively - open to the opposite alignment for some of the events. And Lludd and Crielle sometimes attended (Crielle more than Lludd), just as Augus has been to a Summer Court before.

So he saw Lludd at a Winter Court gathering.

Augus may have actually thought something along the lines of: 'I'd be curious to know what he looks like when he's broken, I suspect he'd be quite surprised at some of the sounds he's capable of making.' (There was a time when Augus viewed everyone as 'I wonder what they'd look like while broken in my rooms'). But he watched Lludd and Crielle closely, both at the suggestion of the Raven Prince and also out of curiousity, and he noticed then that Lludd was dictating/controlling and - he surmised - possibly domestically violent / abusive. That plus all the rumours and information gathered later meant he thought he had a pretty good idea of what Gwyn's family was really like. Of course he was totally wrong. Because what they present to everyone else is kind of just the tip of a very sick iceberg.

Augus has actually mingled with pretty freaking high echelons of Noble Court families - so he knows firsthand just how much they disdain and hold contempt towards many underfae. It always kind of amused him (a very dark amusement, I might add), that the very people who could subtly insult him to his face at a soiree or ball or masquerade, were sometimes the people that came to him for his services.

[not-poignant]

Okay, anon whom you hate here :D LOL sorry bout that last ask and YES YOU ARE EVIL IN A GOOD WAY I LOVE YOU *hugs* alright how bout this instead~ answer if you're bored: if Augus had had the chance to kill Lludd himself (this being after he's fallen in love with Gwyn) how would that play out? :3

Augus has never been one of those villains to simply 'talk' himself into a place where the person he wants to hurt can fight back easily.

So, because he knows that Lludd is resistant to his compulsions, he would likely move pretty quickly in terms of killing him. As much as Augus daydreams of viciously killing the people in Gwyn's past, when it actually comes down to it on a practiceable level, Augus wouldn't allow his own dreams of torturing folks to get in the way of actually killing a very powerful fae.

Basically Augus doesn't like to underestimate his enemies. Which doesn't mean that he doesn't end up doing that, only that...what he daydreams of happening is not what he'd necessarily do, because he'd be concerned that Lludd would have some tricks up his sleeve if he was captured.

He'd kill him pretty quickly, and he'd probably do it by massive spinal damage in the process of tearing him apart through his torso. (Which is sort of similar to what he did to Efnisien after tearing his jaw off).

[not-poignant]

I read your post about Ludd and thought to share that for quite a while I've had...how should I put it? Fantasies? Musings? Hopes that one day you might inspired to write a story where he's somehow brought back and Augus gets his hands on him. That's all. Augus getting his hands on him. Somehow. Gwyn doesn't have to know.

Believe me when I say that Augus has had the same fantasies and musings about both Lludd and Crielle. And knowing what he knows about Efnisien, he wishes he hadn't killed him so quickly.

Augus loves a good revenge fantasy.

[not-poignant]

Am I the only one who kind of gets Stupid evil vibes from Crielle. I mean pre-Crielle backstory stuff I was just like 'she is so evil.' but after you answered those things I was like 'why the hell didn't she try to turn Gwyn into an 'effective weapon'.' We have seen him be violent so it's not like he is entirely nice and sweet heart- though definitely more than his family. Why didn't she ever think fake affection so that he would do anything for his 'lovely mother'? even with the unseelie thing.

Okay, firstly, Gwyn was born entirely nice and kind of a sweetheart. His family had *no idea* that he had a dark side or a cruel streak, because both didn’t really start revealing themselves in any meaningful way - unsurprisingly - until after the events of the Drawn Bead, and after Gwyn had started being sent on his war campaigns. But if you’ve read chapter 24 - Soldier - of Game Theory, you know that Gwyn threw up after his first battle, he was so nauseated by what he had done. That’s not generally the sign of someone who shows natural signs of a propensity towards cruelty!

Which isn’t to say that Gwyn doesn’t have a cruel streak, he does, only that…you could make a good argument that for an Unseelie Fae, he has a pretty good heart. Certainly by his family’s standards when he was young, he was useless. He didn’t want to hurt animals, he didn’t want to hurt other people, and he was eager to please. To them, he was ‘pathetic.’

Secondly, even if Gwyn had been capable of *immense* cruelty from the beginning, here I think it’s important to emphasise how hard it is for characters to go against their centres in this specific story. You’ll remember that in the beginning of Game Theory, anything that Gwyn did that conflicted with Augus’ centre of dominance was excruciating for Augus. And Augus’ centre was - at this point - already weakened and he wasn’t as reacting as extremely as he could of.

Crielle’s centre has always been appearance. Gwyn ruined her appearance in childbirth (her lower body was scarred by his light), but more than that, she hangs a lot of her centre of appearance on her sense of pride that her family and Lludd’s family have always ‘thrown Seelie fae.’ When Gwyn was born, he was - to her - an abomination. She could see objectively that it might be worth training her up, but she couldn’t go against her own centre. Doing anything with him that would have acknowledged him as being worth *anything* other than her disdain, contempt and hatred, would have rocked her centre too severely.

For Crielle, her centre is more than just ‘appearing a certain way,’ it’s also at a most fundamental level, living in a way that enforces that centre. She literally couldn’t have forced fake affection, she needed him to know that he was *wrong* and that he had threatened her appearance and her reputation simply by *existing.* Crielle takes Gwyn’s alignment, and his personality, very personally. She feels insulted by him. And no one insults Crielle.

Crielle also prefers interpersonal cruelty over strategic cruelty. While she enacts strategic socialising for the sake of her family’s reputation (thus serving her centre of appearance again), her very first centre was malice, and she prefers taking that out on people she knows or people she can hurt over time. It is *very* satisfying to her, to play out her petty tortures and torments on Gwyn. To her, there is no ‘unseelie thing.’ It is the gravest insult and personal offense she has ever received in her entire life, and it wounds her. It’s more than just a thing, it threatens the integrity of her centre, it threatens the reputation of her family (and Crielle cares about family within certain parameters), it injured her on a very physical level, and every time she sees him, she literally feels an anathema of hatred open in her very chest.

For Crielle, there was no room for ‘let’s train him up,’ only ‘I suppose we MUST keep him because his murder will be deemed suspicious, but we don’t have to be nice to him now, do we? Children die all the time.’