#occidentalavian

[utilitycaster]

Thoughts on how you'd do season 2 now that we've seen the finale? With the way they've set it up I think adapting the Iron Shepherds arc in some way is much more likely.

I agree. I think what's more likely to happen is the party flees northward with the beacon, possibly leaving a message for the Gentleman but probably not, at which point I would probably skip the Labenda Swamp stuff but would perhaps show Hupperdook, as that was the party doing things out of the goodness of their heart rather than just for money and represented something of a moral shift. Have Jester, Fjord, and Yasha kidnapped shortly after Hupperdook and run the Iron Shepherds arc though my guess is most of the guests won't be there (if you only pick one I feel like you go with Keg, despite my love for Nila and Shakaste), and introduce Caduceus as he was introduced during the campaign. Go straight to the coast, and start the pirates arc, and end the season on either them meeting Avantika, or a pivotal seal moment. On the "major character NPC" side, I'd have Essek and Trent working very reluctantly together to try to reclaim the beacon and also the volstrucker starting the Felderwin plot; a good cliffhanger could also be for Nott to reveal her backstory perhaps while at sea, and for the ending of the season to be Essek ordering the attack on Felderwin.

[revvethasmythh]

Relating to Veth and her whole deal with her marriage and having that second kid, do you ever feel like an author, Sam in this case, doesn't take a story a seriously as you wish they did? A lot of times I feel like all of Sam's post-canon character stuff with Scanlan and Veth are just played for jokes without any thought for the implications of them, since their story is already "over", so to speak.

I say this as a compliment to you and your analysis of Veth's character and actions by the way!

in post-campaign materials? yeah, sometimes i do feel like the story doesn't get taken as seriously as i'd like. which is why i was not super into the idea of her having a second child to begin with. we have no idea if there is EVER going to be material to explore that part of her story, which makes it feel disconnected and thrown into her story because that's just what married people do. they have kids. and it doesn't really matter what you do at that point, because the campaign is over and you CAN write checks you don't intend to cash (how having a second child is going to impact veth and her marriage in a serious way, when there is still enormous unresolved tension in her marriage). the minotaur bit also? i think it's run it's course. unless we're seriously going to dig into veth's desire for people she is not married to, we can maybe drop it. i do sometimes feel a little like *grabs sam by the shoulders* "now tell me something beautiful and true about her." tbh that's one of the reasons i'm so curious about that conversation she initiated with yasha in c3 about how to be a better wife, because it seemed like it was getting at something deeper going on, but again. there's just no place to explore that, because the campaign is over. i don't mind jokes and little mistakes coming through--veth's flask mysteriously reappearing on her person after she gave it away, or even the fact that she apparently took the ring of water walking back after she gave it to luc at the end of the campaign--but i do wish some aspects of her character in post-canon appearances were handled with more seriousness, or at least with more intention.

[dunmeshistash]

Have we figured out what that baboon-tiger monster is? It shows up in Kabru's flashbacks to Utaya and a few other times elsewhere. I remember hearing someone theorize it's a real world monster but I can't remember it's name.

From these panels?

They look like some sort of chimera monster? The front claws look kinda like a bird's and the back paws look kinda like a cat/lion doesn't it? I have no idea what these are tbh

In this part Kabru says the dead were turning into monsters

Perhaps the same was happening with animals and these mutant creatures showed up? I've never seen a monster like that so I can't help much.

[triaelf9]

Can I ask, what determines when your queue posts something? Because your queue just posted something about the Eurovision boycott, but Eurovision ended weeks ago. Why queue something that's time sensitive?

Sometimes I click the wrong button and the queue schedule is long and I'm not able to get in there and delete it.

I reblogged that one live too as soon as I realized I'd made a mistake b/c that's what I'd wanted to do.

TLDR, I clicked the wrong quickpost button

[criticalrolo]

I’ve had two CR dreams recently. The first was before they came back from hiatus, they were about to fight the dragon turtle. I looked away for a minute and came back to a TPK within the first 10 minutes of the episode 😅 The second involved Essek challenging the party to a bicycle race because he was apparently a professional cyclist in his free time.

oh my god essek im sCREaming

[luckthebard]

occidentalavian replied to your post: do you think there's any other Martial/Wis classes...

I’ve seen people say that his whole character (stats aside) would’ve made a good Swords Bard. Just swap his Wisdom and Charisma scores.

I’ve always fundamentally disagreed with this, actually. I suppose that would work if you think Mollymauk would be the same person with a higher Charisma score, but I think this comes back to one of my most unpopular opinions in this fandom: that Molly had, and was played like he had, a lower Charisma score.

I think he would have been a very, very different person with a higher Charisma. Molly struck me as the kind of person who acted like he was more likable than many people actually found him. His “I don’t care what anyone thinks” attitude might have been attractive to some people, sure, but it’s just as easily a turn-off. He in particular had a very hard time speaking to authority figures in a way that wouldn’t lead them to dismiss him. Thus: 11 Charisma. 

I just have never gotten on board with the pretty popular opinion that “Taliesin played him as having a higher Charisma than he did.” In my opinion, Taliesin made a point to make him kind of polarizing, and while he was certainly a character with good intentions, he didn’t always go about manifesting those intentions in the smoothest or most receptive way.

So since this class exercise was, for me, about trying to find a class other than Blood Hunter that Molly could still be without changing his stats (and thus, in my opinion, his personality and how he was played), any kind of Bard doesn’t really fit for me.

[seased]

For April Fools this year, Minecraft launched the 20w14infinite "snapshot", which creates randomly generated dimensions!

AH i see i see! that actually sounds very cool... i might find that and see if i can get it to work, just to experience it thank you! ^u^

[roll-for-world-building]

Loving your posts on familiars! I'm wondering, would you do a write up on warlocks who take the Pact of the Chain? After all, a warlock's familiar can take forms more powerful than any wizard.

Thanks so much! Sure, I’d be interested in talking about warlock familiars. I’ve got a few more posts about wizard familiars lined up, but gimme a bit here and I can add a warlock one to the list.