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A incredible commission by @marina-does-things of my wizard Rainivere (left) and her pirate girlfriend Ecstasy (right)! Sometimes, the first time you meet the person you're going to spend the rest of your life with, she holds you hostage to negotiate the terms of your party leaving her and her crew the hell alone. And you're incensed by it, obviously. ...but also, it was kinda hot. And sometimes, your paths keep crossing (you both know it's not by accident, but neither of you are going to be the first to admit it) and you end up wrapped up in each other's lives thoroughly enough that extrication seems impossible. Until one day, horrified, you realize you've fallen in l*ve.

I can't recommend marina-does-things's work highly enough! Their art always has such wonderful attention to detail. If you're looking for a commission, I would recommend checking them out!

#dnd oc #rainivere #amnesia campaign #dungeons and dragons #dnd commission #'this is beautiful. I've been staring at it for 12 hours now' etc etc #just look at the colors!! the detail!! the expressions!!!!!#raini's blush the way you can *feel* how silky her dress is the ornate decorations on ecstasy's coat their HAIR #i made it my discord icon and i keep getting distracted when I see it because 🥰🥰#mine #character art

♞: Caring for each other while ill and ♟: Patching up a wound for bitch bastard and her pirate

♞: Caring for each other while ill

“They just call it that, it doesn’t actually mean—“ the boat lurches, and so does Raini’s stomach. She reaches blindly for the recently emptied bucket beside her, retches, and promptly refills it. The room’s stale, acrid scent is suddenly much fresher, but while Ecstasy wrinkles her nose in disgust and steps back Raini just closes her eyes, groans, and rests her forehead on the rim of the bucket. “…it doesn’t actually mean I’m sick,” she finishes, voice scratchy and tired.

Ecstasy, to her credit, is at least trying to act like she doesn’t think the scene in front of her is as funny as she does. She isn’t trying very hard, of course, but fortunately Raini is too preoccupied to notice. “That’s what I’m saying, Angel. I’m not so sure it is just seasickness. Seen a lot of sick sailors, and it usually doesn’t include… all of this.”

“We’re on a ship, it’s rocking, and I’m throwing up. What else would it be?” Raini retorts, but her words lack their usual heat. “Why are we sailing, anyway? Isn’t the whole point of you that your ship flies?

Ecstasy snorts. “You’re the one who asked for discretion. We can run friendly colors, your little disguise spell can help the crew pass at a glance, but people are gonna start asking questions if the ship’s out of the water.”

#amnesia campaign #mine #thank you!! please don't acknowledge that this is eight years late. what can be done about that now. nothing. amen.#original writing #new tag because i'm VAIN #rainivere #word count: 2652 #it may not be perfect. but I have read and reread it like eighteen hundred times and at some point. 🤷

Things You Said Instead of “I Love You”

You have never once in your life said the words “I love you” to anyone.

...admittedly, that may not be true. You love your dads, and you must have told them at some point growing up. But they’re family, so it’s different. The thought of saying those words to anyone else-- It’s unthinkable. The very idea makes something in your chest seize up, high and tight, makes you want to live the rest of your life alone and unbothered in the middle of nowhere. Most days, you don’t think you could choke the words out if your life depended on it. They’re too… much. Too open. Too intentional. How some people bandy them about like it's nothing, you’ll never understand.

But sometimes the one person helping to keep you alive is sick, and the closest thing the two of you have to a healer is, well. You. And you lied about being a cleric, you’re wildly unqualified to play nurse to anyone, and on top of everything else you have an absolutely horrendous bedside manner. You can light a fire, you can keep it burning, but they’re shivering so hard it’s like you’ve done nothing at all. You don’t like that they had the audacity to get sick when they should know you need to keep moving to keep finding work. You don’t like the way your chest goes tight as you sit and watch them suffer. And you certainly don’t like how damn helpless you feel in the face of a fever that just won’t break. Zize isn’t getting better, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

...fifteen gold. That’s what you managed to scrounge up when you left home weeks and weeks ago, what you managed to hide in a small pouch in the bottom of your bag in case you needed to cut and run in the middle of the night. The profits from the jobs you two can get mostly go toward paying for food and transportation, a roof over your heads when you can get it, but you haven’t had to break into your emergency fund yet. But Zize isn’t well enough to work, hasn’t been for long enough that your communal coffers are starting to run dry, and your conviction that whatever he’s come down with will pass on its own wanes with each day that it doesn’t.

So, finally, you make up your mind. You build up the fire, wait for Zize to fall asleep, dig your coin pouch out of the bottom of your backpack, pull up your hood and set out to find help. Help that, ultimately, takes the form of a small glass bottle you cradle carefully in both hands as you return to your campsite. You wake Zize up and help him sit up enough to drink, and by morning his fever has broken. By that afternoon he’s back on his feet and the two of you are on the road again. You’ve stopped for dinner when he finally asks how you managed to afford the potion; you lie through your teeth as you stuff your empty coin pouch back into your backpack and tell him you stole it.

~~~

That’s the first time your heart goes soft for someone; it isn’t the last. Years pass, and while you don’t get any better at saying “I love you” the circle of people who you might consider saying it to grows slowly, begrudgingly, larger. They love you, you know that. Even if they didn’t say it -which they do. Often. You’re starting to suspect it’s just so they can see your reaction- they show it constantly. You see it in the way Cylthia motions Kiya to circle toward you when things get tight in a fight, in the way Lent will clap a hand on your shoulder and pour healing magic into you without having to be asked, in the way Zize always takes the room closer to the stairs when you stop for the night in an inn. You see it in the way you read each other’s movements as easy as if they were your own and protect each other like it’s the most natural thing in the world. You know they love you and you hope that they know you love them too, without you having to come out and say it.

But it’s not enough. You know it isn’t. And that doesn’t make it any easier to choke those words out, but... You need something. You need a way to tell them without words that you see them, that you understand them, that you want them to stay. That there’s a place for them in your life, not just because they happen to fit into it but because you carved out that space with each of them in mind. There aren’t-- There aren't words to explain that kind of devotion, the kind of importance that gives someone. Or, if there are, you don’t fucking know them. There has to be something else. A gift, something you can make them, a spell you can cast--

So you build them a house.

You pour hours of work into every detail of it, from the grand entrance to the quiet corners of the garden you designed from scratch. You want it to be safe. You want it to be home. You want it to be a gift, a love letter to the people you would and have fought the world for, but practical enough that it can’t be questioned outright. For weeks you stay up late, offer to take watches alone -which you never do- snap at anyone who so much as looks at your spellbook with far more ferocity than usual, and practice and practice and practice until your fingers twitch to mark the spell’s somatic components within the folds of your robes and you mouth the incantations in your sleep. And more importantly, you spend hours sitting and reflecting on each person, each relationship. You sculpt them each a bedroom, to show who they are and what they mean to you and what you want to say to them. You build Zize a workshop, with a ratty couch piled with blankets taken from your room and a door that connects their room to yours. You build Lent a quiet retreat with a view of the garden, a table full of food and, ultimately, a small shrine to a goddess whose name you can only say with disdain. You build Cylthia a room with a roaring bonfire, the illusion of unlimited space, and the comforts of a real bedroom just feet away. You build, and you practice, and when you’re ready you take great pleasure in holding up a hand, pulling out your spellbook, and telling the party that you’re not paying for an inn that night. You open your spellbook to a page absolutely covered in notes, tuck your nerves neatly behind the usual smugness that accompanies showing off a new spell, and raise your hand to cast. A door shimmers into existence in front of you and as you reach out to grasp the handle you look back over your shoulder.

“I’ve been working on something.” Please see this for what it is. “You’re welcome to tell me how impressive I am at any time.” Please don’t pull away from me when I’ve made myself vulnerable. “If you don’t, I might not let you back in.” If you do, I don’t know what I’ll do.

You open the door and step back out of the light that comes pouring out of it to let your friends enter first, heart in your throat as they do. The entryway says “This is for you”. The kitchen says “I love you”. The sitting area says “Please don’t leave me” and the dining room says “I would tear down the stars for you” and each bedroom says “I love you too, I love you too, I love you too. I know it’s ‘too’ because I know you”. You hang back while they explore, wringing your hands within the folds of your robes, watching up the stairs and waiting for the final judgement to be made. And this once, just this once, when they come back with smiles and praise and hands that rest on your shoulder or ruffle your hair, you allow it. This gesture is your “I love you”, and they heard you loud and clear. They’re telling you that they heard you, that they see you too, and you are not fighting back tears or a smile as you shrug it off and pivot the conversation to what an arcane feat the house around you is. Your chest feels warm in a way you’ve never quite experienced before. And, for the first time in your life, you think you might be able to get used to it.

#Rainivere #amnesia campaign #mine #ohoho....gay in here. watch out #word count: 1480 #edit; this is part of a Hugeo enormous ask I got 18 million years ago. I’m just obsessed with this in particular so you have to read it now

Amnesia Campaign Notes!

HEY folks what’s up it’s me, back at it again, thinking I’m so funny and good at notetaking. Anyway, in honor of this campaign wrapping up, here’s the highlights from my campaign notes!! Split up by session, and with as little context as possible. Enjoy!

#amnesia campaign #Rainivere #mine #this is nothing this is nonsense. please enjoy

20, 27, 35, 40, 50, 59, 67, 88 for All Eight Characters (one each but if you wanna go Hog Fucking Wild feel free)

Alright so. I’m not going hog wild but! I decided to do two guys per question, one who was my first gut instinct for that question, and then one random character to spice things up! Do some character building in a direction I might not have thought to go, you know?

Also bro this got so long so just. Putting it. Under a read more because I do respect your time and dashboard.

27. How much have they given up to get to where they are in life, willingly or unwillingly? How much do they think they would give up to get to where they want to be, in the future? Raini: Raini I think is super interesting because I think she’s given up a fair bit, and she’s completely fine with the sacrifices she did make because she decided the benefits outweighed whatever she had to give up to get it. But on the other hand, giving something up unwillingly? Having something taken from her? Absolutely a cause for retribution at any cost. idk if I’m explaining the difference in a way that makes sense, but that distinction means the world to Raini because, even if the sacrifice is hard to swallow, at least she was in control of it. And like, the whole premise of the campaign is giving up shit! Giving up everything! And was it willing at the time? Yes! But coming out on the other side of it and not remembering making the decision and, quite frankly, not agreeing with the decision you made is rough! You’re yourself, you know because you’re you, but you’re also not yourself because that’s the whole point of what you did, so did you really do this? Was it someone else in a body you now inhabit? What happens to this new you when you regain your old memories, because there’s no way in hell you don’t at least try to get them back? It’s a lot to think about!! And that, and the core of this question, is why Raini doesn’t let this end without a Wish to restore the memory of whoever wants it. I don’t think she sees erasing them the first time as a decision “she” necessarily made -although whether that’s a philosophical issue or one of diverting guilt is open for debate- so she wants to reclaim what she sees as having been taken from her unwillingly. Pip: Tbh, the plot and premise of Strahd aside, Pip has lived a pretty charmed life. He fucked up plenty, but he always seemed to manage to stumble his way into where he needed to be when he needed to be there. Honestly, even within the module things didn’t go too badly for him! He lost a good friend at one point, and nearly died in that same fight, but other than that he fared pretty well. The biggest thing he’s given up in his life was his place in his home village, but honestly it’s like 50/50 on whether that was willingly or unwillingly. Like, he feels bad about the accidental arson? But also. It kinda kicks ass that he did then just like. Leave and it was fine. With his campaign over, I don’t really have much in the way of future goals for him! He’s just. He’s just fucking vibing. You know? So! Seems like he’s getting out of giving up anything in the future.

40. Do people expect a lot from your character or look up to them for something? Why or why not? Ayen: Unfortunately, Ayen is baybe. And even though she hasn’t outright told anyone how old she is, it’s becoming rapidly apparent that. Hey? They might have figured it out. It’s literally inconceivable how they could have pieced it together though?? I mean, how does anything about her not read as completely mature and put together elf woman thank you I’m an elf?? So, no. I don’t think anyone looks up to her. And that’s okay!! Yes she is a young adult with her own set of skills and her own value to add to the world and the people around her, but she would not thrive in a position of leadership like she thinks she would. She needs time to mellow out and settle down, and to learn how to make decisions quickly and responsibly. I think, one day, she’ll be able to show a lot of people how to do a lot of good. For now, though, she’s happy trotting along after Dad and rowing her and her new friend around in circles in a row boat, just because it’s fun to mess around sometimes. Auriga: Interesting question! Interesting question. I think in the collective sense, as part of the Court of Stars, definitely yes. They’re the rulers! They guide their people through the knowledge and wisdom accumulated over the course of millennia! I think Auriga specifically even is seen as having a closer connection to this wealth of knowledge, being a cleric and all. But I am toying with the thought that outside of the context of the council and the court, the people that make it up don’t have as much weight? There’s still respect of course! But while one star shining on its own is all well and good, without the context of those around it how are you meant to learn from what it has to say to you? Auriga understands this, it’s just part of their culture, and he’s in no way troubled by it. It’s the way things are meant to be, and so they will continue to be until it is clear that something needs to change!

50. What’s their earliest memory? Auriga: Now full warning this is going to be a lot less detailed than Cog’s is just because I know him less, but I think Auriga earliest memory is something sweet and warm like. Sitting in one of his older sibling’s laps (while he’s the Baby of the family!) and just. Dozing against their chest while the rest of them sit in front of a roaring fire and just talk. He doesn’t remember a word of what was said, he just remembers being little and held and loved. Their family mostly interacts in the council room, I think, because when things get busy with ruling it’s so easy to just fall into work and let family time fall by the wayside. But when things get stressful, when he realizes he hasn’t interacted with his brothers or sisters outside their meetings in a while, I think this is one of the memories that comes to mind and encourages him to set aside whatever he’s reading and go off to be intentional about spending time with his brothers and sisters :) Cog: One of her earliest memories was when her magic first manifested! She was maybe six or seven, and Mama was busy at church and Daddy had gone out to check on some of the folks that lived a bit further out from town, and baby Cog was bored to tears. She knew she wasn’t supposed to leave home alone!! But there were some Cool Older Kids she wanted to impress, and they were going to sneak out and explore the swamp. They were big kids! They were like thirteen! Surely, nothing bad could happen if there were big kids with her! So she followed them out of town, and by the time they noticed their tag-along it would have been Way too much work to take her back home. Whatever. It’s fine. They start poking around the edge of the swamp, looking at weird fish and bugs and poking at mushrooms or whatever kind of shit grows in swamps. Probably getting eaten alive by mosquitos. Well! Cog is having a grand old time playing with frogs and cattails, and she’d wandered off from the teenagers she was supposed to be staying with. She was up to her calves in the brackish water trying to recapture a frog that escaped her when she looked up to see a long, thin shape darting through the water straight for her. It was a cottonmouth, mutated by the Wasteland and nearly as big as she is. It hissed as it closed the distance between them, mouth open wide as it readied itself to lunge and sink its fangs into her. Cog screamed and threw her arms up to protect herself- And then there was a burn of something wild and unfamiliar in her chest, a warm hand on her shoulder, and a flash of light so blinding that people swore later they could see it from town. Cog stood there for a moment, frozen and trembling, but when she gathered the courage to open her eyes everything within five feet of her was scorched clean, and the corpse of the snake that had charged her was bobbing, almost completely unrecognizable, in the water in front of her. Mama was furious with her when they made it back home, of course, but after hearing what happened? After hearing that Cog had finally managed to channel a spell, some rudimentary form of Word of Radiance? Well, there were much, much more pressing things to worry about, all of a sudden.

59. Have they ever had an encounter with someone that changed their whole life? Cog: HA Morgan opened up a can of “Talk About Ace” SOUP and folks it’s fucking lunchtime. Drink up assholes!!! I know I’ve talked about this a hundred times but I’ll never be sick of it: they’re JUST such good friends and they’ve been so so good for each other. Before they met, Cog was in a place in her life where she felt trapped and perpetually anxious, and Ace was restless and angry at the world. Neither of them felt like they could measure up to the expectations other people had for them, and Cog had turned that worry self-destructively inward while Ace had turned it outward. Ace’s straining at his leash brought him to Lafaroh, and Cog’s -at the time, Charlotte’s- soft heart had her defying direct orders to slip up to this stranger and warn him that he needed to leave before he got hurt. And Ace looked at Charlotte, at the genuine worry on her face for someone she’d only just met. And he looked at the town around them, at the way the people who passed by looked at him and how that look shifted from suspicion to shock and outrage when they saw Charlotte with him. And he did some math, and he realized whatever the hell was going on in this podunk town was a thousand times more interesting than anything that would ever happen back in New Alexandria proper. So of course, he settles in to pry. Charlotte, bless her, has many, many strengths; reading into people’s intent is not one of them. So when Ace starts asking questions, she’s happy to answer to impress upon him how important it is that he goes home! And the more she talks, the easier it is to just... keep talking? This man, this stranger from the Academy, is talking to her, listening to her like nobody ever has. And more than that, he actually seems to care! He has no reason to care that she’s worried she won’t be able to step up the way she knows her mom wants her to, but he’s clearly concerned and invested in her story. And even though she’s trying to keep things vague, she’s never been very good at deceiving people. Pieces start to fall in place, Charlotte lets more slip than she means to, and by the time they’ve been talking for an hour or so Ace has a pretty good picture of what’s going on here. It’s not safe here, not for him and certainly not for her, so he doesn’t even stop to consider whether it’s an offer he can make when he holds out his hand, both literally and figuratively, and tells her he can take her back to the Academy with him. And to Charlotte, who less than an hour ago had been weighing her odds of surviving the Wasteland alone if she ran away on her own, the door this man just opened to her? The way he’s reaching back through it to offer her a hand, to pull her through to a better, safer life? How can she say no? They fought their way out of Lafaroh that day. Charlotte almost certainly wanted to try to slip out unnoticed, but they’d already attracted too much attention by letting townspeople see them talking. Charlotte goes home to quickly pack, and she doesn’t come back out of the house. Ace waits, and the sun starts to set, and she still hasn’t come back out. Something isn’t right. He knocks on the door: there’s no answer. He knocks again, louder. Then again. Finally, an angry looking man opens the door and starts to tell Ace to get lost, but there’s clear sounds of arguing inside coming from just out of view of the doorway. The man is big, but Ace is fast enough to duck inside and around the corner in time to see Charlotte struggling to get around a woman who looks strikingly like her in order to make a break down the stairs and toward the door. The next several seconds are messy and disjointed; no one expects someone in high level caster robes to take the staff off their back and start attacking with it, but the next thing Charlotte knows Ace has her hastily packed bag slung over one shoulder, has planted her firmly behind himself, and is holding her hand with one of his own while he levels his staff at her parents with the other. His voice is calm but hard as he explains that they’re leaving, because Charlotte made it clear that she isn’t safe or happy here. If they try to stop them, Ace can and will bring the full force of New Alexandria’s wrath down on their tiny, shitty town. He’s going to take Charlotte away, find her a place in the Academy, and they’re not going to say a word. And so they leave! With all of Lafaroh absolutely seething behind them, with Charlotte gripping Ace’s hand as tight as she can and willing her own not to shake, they set out together into the Wasteland and, ultimately, to New Alexandria. I have Such a vivid mental image of the two of them camping out in the Wasteland the night before they made it back to New Alexandria, with the lights of the city just peeking over the horizon in front of them. They’re eating dinner over a fire Ace made Such a show of lighting with magic instead of the tinderbox one of them definitely had, and they’re talking about names Charlotte could use in New Alexandria because she’d quietly admitted earlier that day that the name “Charlotte” has so much baggage that she doesn’t want to carry anymore. And Ace, while he is trying to help, is also a dork. He’s throwing out every name that pops into his head, good or not, trying to see if he can get her to laugh at one of them. They spend a few minutes talking, Ace muses aloud over “Charlotte Olivia Grace” a few times, looking for some cute nickname he can pull out of a name like that. And then he pauses, and sits up, and looks at Charlotte, and nods. The suggestion that she go by “Cog” makes her laugh, but that’s a good thing. Ace is grinning too because some dumb shit he said finally got a smile of out Charlotte for the first time since they left her shithole town. She’s sort of laughing in spite of herself, and it eases some of the heaviness that’s been hanging over them the last few days, but after considering it for a moment? She loves it. Taking the name she was given, and making it her own in a way she knows her parents would hate? It feels good! She’s grinning ear to ear when she turns to Ace and nods in agreement. “Cog” it is. “Charlotte” dies in the Wasteland that night; Cog enrolls in the Academy the next day. In Cog’s eyes, Ace’s intervention literally saved her life. She went from being a scared little girl in the middle of nowhere with no future beyond the ramshackle walls of her small town, to an incredibly promising up and coming student of the Academy. She went from being told that the only use her magic had was what it could do for the Church, to blowing away professors who expected her to barely be able to manage a cantrip and being praised for her intuitive understanding of magic. And for Ace! Cog was the first person his actions truly, directly helped. He saw a problem, he stepped in, he fixed in. In a slow moving, insular city like New Alexandria, that wasn’t something he’d been able to do before. He saw how the good he’d done in helping Cog reflected and redoubled in the way she treated the people around her, and saw her making the choice to be kind not in spite of but because of everything she’d been through growing up. Bro like Ace’s character bio says “self-appointed big bro to Cog” and “he sent a letter to Cog thanking her for being a positive influence in his life”. This question got SO out of control as I wrote my Cog and Ace fanfic but! They deserve it! AND the party is going back to New Alexandria next session, so!! More Ace content soon folks stay tuned! Raini: Did you think I ran out of soup?? Did you think lunchtime was over? FUCK you! This is MY blog and I’ll wax poetic about my dnd characters and their friendships for as LONG as I want to! And there’s nothing you can do to stop me!!!!! Now this one in fairness probably won’t be as long as Cog’s was, just because I know that all the people who follow me are like. Actively in the campaign and various group chats where we discuss how important our characters are to each other. But do NOT make the mistake of assuming it’s because I love you any less. I love you so much. Yes homo. Where do we start? At the beginning, with our lizard. Y’all ever uh. Y’all ever met a dipshit lizard who you’re pretty sure you can trick into taking you adventuring but plan to ditch the second they become deadweight (i.e. whenever they go down for the first time, probably), except then you became like best friends and siblings by all but blood and you realize you’d rip the world in half for them without them even asking and you can’t even begin to imagine how you’d reconcile the hole they’d leave in your life if they left it? Have you ever slowly realized that you’re adding “except for him” at the end of every generally grumpy statement you make about the world? And then realized even more slowly after years of friendship that somehow the bastard managed to extend “except for him” to “except for them”, and you’re so much less disengaged from and disinterested in the world around you? Y’all ever had that happen to you?? Shit’s wild. And then. Y’all ever met a fucking cop who clearly has, like. An actual metric ton of baggage she’s refusing to even glance in the direction of? And at first, it’s a pain to have to circumvent her “morals” in order to get shit done. Honestly, it’s kind of always a pain. But even your crotchety ass has to admit there’s something about sticking so firmly to your guns regardless of the situation you’re put in that’s admirable, that the world would be a much better place if more people had that same iron will and a refusal to be moved. Even if they’re standing up for stupid shit, at least they’re standing up for something. And maybe you take some of that resolve and tuck it away in your chest, to give you something to grip onto when you need to dig in your heels and refuse to let the world knock you around. And then. Y’all ever met a druid who burns with an anger you, honestly, kind of understand? Who wants to be more than the world wants her to be so badly, in a way that you definitely understand? Have you ever gotten to watch over the course of weeks and months as she time and again made the choice to take that anger and that drive and point it at things that would hurt the people she cares about? By god, she’s leaving her mark on the world, and she’s doing that by burning the shit out of it. But, without fail, there’s always a circle of uncharred, untouched ground around each and every party member. And when you notice this pattern, you can’t stop yourself from noticing it again, and again. And you learn: sometimes, you’re angry at the world. Sometimes! You’re angry at your party members! But that anger points outward. Always, and unequivocally. You have your friends’ backs, even if you’re furious with them. And then you meet a fish and you learn that sometimes things just need to be hit a lot of time in a row, really hard, with a big fucking hammer. Okay but you meet this fish who, somehow, despite being monotone and weird and a fish and clearly an outsider to like. Land culture? Which you guess is a thing, apparently. Despite all of that, they have an emotional intelligence that’s off the fucking charts. And quite frankly! For a long time, it makes you really, really uncomfortable! If you don’t tell somebody how you’re feeling, and you don’t, then they shouldn’t be able to figure it out. But, slowly, you start to see the value of it. Your lizard is upset about something, and they won’t tell you what, but you’re able to squint at them and slowly figure it out so you can fix it. A few days later a joke a party member makes rubs you the wrong way, and you swallow your pride enough to admit it and they just. Apologize? Just like that? They promise not to say it again? And fish expressions are so hard to read, but you can just Tell that they’re over there looking smug, the bastard. But while you’re definitely not ready to commit to this being a daily thing you can, begrudgingly, admit that you can see the benefits of “communicating” with the people around you.

IT’S GAYBOY TIME. 👫 for zize and raini AND ayen and vinny.

Ahahah!!! Gayboy friendboy!!! Protip: If you and your friends make your dnd characters also be friends, that’s TWO layers of friendship!!!! (Send a 👫and I’ll write four headcanons I have about our muse’s relationship)

Zize and Raini

1. Raini takes food off of Zize’s plate constantly. It’s not because she’s hungry and didn’t get enough for herself, it’s not because she didn’t like what she ordered and wanted something else, it’s because she’s an asshole. Zize addressed this issue by leaning Really heavily into snacking on bugs for a solid two weeks. There’s only so many times you can steal a bite of food, hear a crunch, and spit out bug parts before you stop taking food without permission. 2. Kirsi likes Zize almost as much as she likes Raini. She will, especially as a dog, sprawl out across Zize almost as often as she sprawls across Raini. It’s genuinely like 50/50, and goes up to like 70/30 if they are Mad At Each Other. Don’t you dare acknowledge it, or you’ll ruin the whole thing. 3. Zize’s room was the first room Raini designed for the mansion. There’s more than one sketchy prototype on a folded piece of paper stuffed between pages of Raini’s journal, and her designs varied Wildly before she committed to the final design. When your love language is gifts, and your present is a magic house, everything has to be Perfect. The one thing that was present in all the designs, though, was the little door in the back of the room, and the matching one in Raini’s. 4. Raini knows the exact moment she decided she would, privately, admit Zize was her “friend”. It was stupid late at night after an Exhausting day, and they’d just spent the last like hour of it stumbling through a pitch black forest to try and avoid a group of mercenaries they just didn’t have the energy to deal with that late in the day. Raini can see pretty well in the dark, but Zize was having a Much harder time getting by. And he was trying to lead, because he knew Raini hated being in front, but-- Fuck, it was hard to watch! So Raini had made a show of huffing and muttering something under her breath, and pushed past Zize to take the lead. When she felt a hand brush against her elbow a few minutes later, she’d sighed again but reached back to take the hand in hers “just because I know you can’t see, alright? Don’t make it weird.” She didn’t look back, but she just knew Zize was grinning behind her in the dark. Fucker. She didn’t let go though, like she might have a few weeks ago. Because they were “friends”, or whatever. Because apparently, sometimes, you have to have your friends’ backs.

Ayen and Vinny

1. Ayen! Thinks! Vinny’s! Outfit! Slaps. It’s fine. Why the side eye from other people? There’s nothing wrong with someone dressing the way that makes them happy. Fuck you. 2. Ayen also thinks Vinny likes her terrible jokes. Does she? Impossible to say. That does not change the fact that Ayen thinks she does, which means that while she’s never the target of them (because it won’t get Ayen the groan she wants as a reaction) she is always the recipient of the “huh? uh huh?” grin that follows terrible puns. 3. Vinny! Is very strong. Very broad shouldered. And do you know what broad shoulders are good for! Getting on up there! Rides! If Vinny is into it Ayen is 10000% down to scramble on up there to ““keep lookout”“ and be rowdy and tall. Fuck yeah. Roona was right having tall friends S L A P S! 4. Vinny has not let Ayen live down that one time she bit her for no reason. It’s not malicious, especially because it didn’t really hurt, but she thinks it’s funny as shit. Ayen is, for maybe the first time in her life, a little embarrassed about some impulsive thing she did. It’s a pretty good trump card in any inconsequential debate, and it’s pretty funny to watch Ayen get a little flustered for once.

#fruitbattery #Rainivere #amnesia campaign #ayen morwraek #creepy campaign #friends......friend time.....friend boys...#maybe they are Friends!!!!! it's NOT hard to say. at all. We fucking know they are 😤

3 and 9 and 25 for cog, 20 and 23 and 31 for raini

Cog:

3. Things you said before leaving. Your name is Charlotte Olivia Grace, you’re nineteen years old, and you met a man in town today who told you he could take you with him back to New Alexandria. He seemed genuinely pleased by your enthusiastic agreement, and had walked you home so you could pack your bags. He’s now planted himself between you and your parents, and the warmth of this stranger’s hand in yours gives you the courage to stand a little straighter, look your mother in the eye, and tell her that not only are you leaving but that you’re never coming back. You’ll cry over the memory of the look on her face that night when you’re fairly sure your new companion has gone to sleep -and he won’t have the heart to tell you later that he heard each quiet sob- but in that moment your resolve is firm, and your voice doesn’t shake. Your name is Cog, you’re twenty years old, and you’ve just met the most wonderful group of people. They’re rough around the edges, but so was Ace when you first met him. They’re fearless and exciting and so full of life that your chest aches with a longing to join them on their adventures. You’re silently but profusely grateful that you were the one sent to fetch them for their meeting with Master Kind when they first arrived in the city, and that she saw fit to send you with them on the errand they ran for her. ...but that errand has been completed. You’re back from the town you swore six months ago you’d never step foot in again, and in the morning your new friends leave for the Crossroads. In the morning, your life returns to lectures and essays and studying runes and history you’ll never use, and it’s so much better than what you had in Lafaroh but the taste of a life of adventure is still thick on your tongue and you’d give anything you have for even just another day of that excitement. You’re unhappy and subdued the night you make it back to New Alexandria, and you know Ace notices even though he doesn’t say anything. You hope he knows you’re not ungrateful for the life he gave you here, and as you lay on your back in your dorm room bed you tell yourself again and again that boring at least means stable, and that stable is good. Ace sends you off ahead to meet the party outside the Academy gates the next day, claiming he wants to grab some supplies to send with them and that he’ll catch up soon to see them off with you. You’re in the middle of trying to convince the standoffish gunslinger to give you a hug goodbye when you see Ace coming toward you, and though his grin is infectious it’s out of place enough to give you pause. He leans in, ruffles your hair, and tells you that you have approval straight from the Headmaster’s desk to leave New Alexandria with this group of weirdos you’ve gotten so attached to. It takes a moment for what he’s saying to sink in; it takes another for you to understand what was unsaid, as well. You’re going, and Ace has to stay here. You know Ace almost as well as you know yourself, and you know he wants more than anything to be able to do what he just bent the rules to give you the freedom to do. And yet here he is, smiling and teasing you for tearing up when you should be thanking him, because he’s honestly excited you get to go in his stead. So you hug him tight and promise to write, promise to come back and visit, promise you’ll miss him and do whatever you can to make the world a better place. He makes you promise to keep your chin up and refuse to let the Wasteland smother your spirit, and you do without hesitation. Your cheeks are still wet but your face hurts from smiling when you finally pull away, and with one final, heartfelt goodbye, you take off into the city to catch up with your new friends and tell them the good news. 9. Things you said while lying to yourself They’re just dreams. Stress dreams, you tell yourself, and who could blame you for being stressed? In less than a week you’ve had to watch helplessly as one of your friends was lead to his execution, trekked across the Wasteland because your car was stolen by a Bandit who’s now taken it upon himself to tail your party, had to choose between destroying a town’s entire water supply and triggering Project Leviathan, gotten a letter from your best friend who’s hurting and struggling to hold his city together, and had the horrifying realization that the Bandit who days ago stole your car just to get your attention now has unsupervised access to an incredibly powerful, incredibly dangerous magical artifact. It’s enough to put a strain on anyone, and you’re self-aware enough to admit that you’ve never been especially good at dealing with emotionally taxing situations anyway. It makes sense that you’re having stress dreams, and you’re certain they’ll go away on their own when things slow down. It doesn’t mean anything that these dreams are reoccurring, unchanging, and relentless. It doesn’t mean anything that you’re dreaming of your hometown, of the street where you watched as -with your permission- Ace killed you mother. It doesn’t mean anything that the creature speaking to you is the same one she summoned, or that it speaks with her voice. Or your own. It doesn’t mean anything that it says, over and over, that you can’t cheat destiny, or that you’ve heard that phrase more times than you can count over the last few days. It’s your brain dredging it up from those moments, that’s all. It doesn’t mean anything. Because if it did—If it did— But dreams are just dreams. You jolt awake, pulse racing, heart in your throat, and look around frantically to find your friends asleep in the room around you. Seeing their silhouettes is less of a comfort than you had hoped it might be, and you curl in on yourself, forehead pressed to your knees, and whisper that truth to yourself in the darkness again and again. Dreams are just dreams. Dreams are just dreams. Dreams are just dreams. 25. Things you said that you still think about today You’re in a jail cell in a city that by all rights you never should have been able to step foot in, and for the first time all day the people around you are speaking a language you actually understand. It would be a refreshing change, but you’re having trouble believing even now that you’re actually understanding what’s being said. Valentine had followed the party as they were escorted from the throne room to their cells, no doubt to gloat about how they had played right into his hand, that everything they had done had been pointless in the grand scheme of things. And, sure enough, he’s there now, leaning against the bars of your cell and waxing poetic about the meaninglessness of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ and how the only way to save the world from ruin is to conquer and unite it. He speaks, uninterrupted, for several minutes. He’s all but preaching at your exhausted, downtrodden party, and not one of them raise their head to tell him to stop, to argue with him, or even to tell him to just fuck off. And so, exhausted as you yourself are, you have no choice but to push yourself to your feet and take a step toward the bars. “You’re wrong.” It takes Valentine aback for a moment that you were the one to stand up to him but, as always, he recovers quickly. He smiles at you, composed as ever, and leans in to remind you that you were the one who said you wanted to see the Wasteland at peace. Isn’t that right, Charlotte? That’s what he’s offering. Really, you should be thanking him... Your hands ball into fists at your sides, and an anger you’ve never felt before starts to burn in your chest. He’s trying to use you. He’s trying to take your words, trying to take the good you want to see done in the world, and twist it so you have to agree with him. He wants you to believe that your options are help him or watch the world burn, and you’ve never been more angry with another person in your life. “You’re wrong,” you insist again, and the new fire in you burns hotter as you watch his smile go pitying at the way your voice trembles. He doesn’t get to be right because he’s not emotional! He doesn’t get to be right because he’s decided he’s been logical! You take an angry step forward, with half a mind to jab a finger through the bars and against his chest. You instead stop inches away and glare up at him, defiant and resolute. “If you’re looking at a problem this big and can only see two solutions, it’s because you found the one you wanted and stopped looking for others. You’re wrong, Valentine, and you don’t get to tell me I’m stupid or naive for knowing there has to be another way.” It’s the first time you’ve put words to that thought, but the conviction behind them is unshakable. You’re right, and you know you’re right. You know that it may not always be easy, but looking for that third option is always, always worth it. You tuck those words into your heart, and carry them out of the city with you. And when you get to New Alexandria, when you learn that Master Kind wants to start a war and Ace intends to let her do it because he can’t see another way out, you look him in the eye and tell him exactly what you told Valentine. There is always, always a third option.

Raini

20. Things you said when you missed what you could have had Maybe it makes you sound like an asshole -you’re pretty sure it does, and you’re even more sure you don’t really care- but rescuing a town’s worth of kids from the warlord that had been extorting their parents really feels like a job that’s beneath you at this point. You’d fought a fucking adult green dragon last week, why are you running a glorified fetch quest now? Surely there are other adventurers in the area who are looking for work? Who are just the right amount of qualified to raid the warlord’s camp and kill him and his men? You would have fought the issue, but you saw the look on your party’s faces at the mention of children in danger and you decided to save your breath. The fight was so one sided that it barely stuck in your mind as something that happened. Your contribution was walling off the tents the children were in, so that what was going to be a simple bloodbath didn’t turn into a hostage situation, and then keeping that wall up while the rest of the party cleared out the bodies before the children could see them. And now... Oh, now you’re walking up the dirt road toward the village with a gaggle of children nipping at your heels, tugging the hem of your skirt free from sticky, grabby hands every ten seconds, arms crossed tightly so none of the little bastards try to reach out and hold your hand. It’s miserable, it has been miserable for the last hour and a half you’ve been walking, and if the sun sets before you make it to town you’re going to scream. ...there’s a little girl, no older than five or so, riding on Zize’s shoulders up ahead. Bright blue eyes, blonde hair in messy pigtails, thumb in her mouth, she’d walked right up to Zize and held one arm up toward him in a silent demand to be picked up. She hasn’t said a word the whole time the group has been walking, but she hasn’t been crying either. She seems entirely content to suck her thumb and trace the tiny scales that make up the delicate details of the ridges that crest Zize’s head. As far as you can tell Zize doesn’t seem to mind the passenger, though you can’t imagine how. You make it to town before nightfall -thank the gods- and since you’re the only one without at least one sticky parasite hanging off of you you hang back while your party members help reunite the rescued children with their families. You watch as Yocheved lowers their tail so the older children who had been riding on their back can safely dismount, as they hand the infant they’d kept cradled protectively against their chest back to its tearful mother. You watch Lent kneel to hug a pair of twins who had spent the whole walk holding her hands, before shooing them off to their parents who thank her profusely. By the time you catch Cylthia in the crowd she’s handed off her charges as well, and appears to be counting the reunited children to make sure, one last time, that no one was left behind. And Zize- You scan the square, and catch sight of Zize a little ways off, laughing as they reach up to keep their little charge from falling off their shoulders in her eagerness to get down. She’s caught sight of her dad in the crowd and is calling out to him, wiggling and squirming in Zize’s hold until they set her down and she can dart off to hug her dad’s leg as tight as her little body can manage. And it’s... it’s strange, the way your chest goes tight watching the reunion. You frown and step back, but can’t bring yourself to tear your eyes away from the look of absolute joy on the father’s face to have his baby in his arms. You don’t... remember the last time you spoke to your dads, you realize. It’s been months since you’ve so much as thought about home, and suddenly the guilt is eating you alive. It’s not a feeling you like, and it certainly isn’t one you’re used to. The town is having a celebration in your honor that night, but you wave off the repeated offers to join in on the festivities. You beg off claiming to be tired, and while that’s enough to deter the thankful townspeople your party members remain unconvinced. You still haven’t brought up home with them -Zize is the only one who has any real idea of where you came from, and even she never actually met your dads- and, quite frankly, you’re still not sure you think it’s their business. Still, you know they won’t drop it until they get a better explanation. “I have a letter to write,” you tell them reluctantly, adjusting and neatening the pages of the sheaf of paper you’d managed to scrounge up. “It’s... overdue. You go on, I’ll join you when I’m done.” 23. Things you said while absolutely exhausted It’s pointless. The fight- There’s no reason to continue, bleeding yourselves dry across the streets of some city in hell, chasing down an enemy you know you can’t kill. Your wounds may close seconds after they’re inflicted, but the rest of your resources aren’t regenerating the same way. You’ve been fighting for what feels like hours; you’re down to the dredges of your magic at this point, and a glance at Cylthia and Lent tells you they’re nearly tapped too. Zize and Yocheved may not be having that same problem, but it’s clear they’re exhausted as well. More than that, desperation is starting to set in. How do you sustain your will to fight when you can watch in real time as the wounds you inflict on your enemy disappear in a matter of moments? When you know that, eventually, your strength will fail you and your enemy will escape to doom the world? You keep swinging, you keep firing, you keep casting, because what else can you do? You’re going to fail, but you want to fail knowing you did everything you could to stop the end of the world. You’re standing at the back of battle, because of course you are. You’re drenched in sweat and your arms ache from holding your spellbook and focus up for as long as you have had to, and it hasn’t made an ounce of difference. The realization of how truly pointless this all is hits you, and you slowly close your spellbook. You let your wand fall limp at your side, and you watch as the people around you grit their teeth, dig in their heels, and call out to one another as they give everything they have to buy precious, useless seconds. In the span of less than then of them you watch Yocheved hiss in pain as claws rip into their flank, watch as Lent’s shield swings around just in time to catch the brunt of an attack that would have bit deep into her shoulder, watch as Clythia cries out and reaches uselessly toward where, seconds ago, her fire spirt had been extinguished by an spell that had caught her, unawares, from behind, watched as Zize looked back at you, offered you a grim smile, then shifted a few feet to the left to put himself in front of you before firing at Geryon again. You watch and you know, with a deep seated certainty, that this isn’t going to change anything. This is a war of attrition, and you’re going to lose. ...and then. You look down at the spellbook still heavy in your hand, and while you can hear the battle continuing to rage around you it seems distant. Far off, recedding further still, and unimportant. You can fix this, you realize. You’d be giving up everything to do it, but... The world slows down as you tuck your wand away and reopen your spellbook, turning page after page to get to a spell you haven’t yet had a reason to cast. Your notes on it barely take up half the page you assigned to it: a deceptively short description for a spell you’re going to use to change the fate of the world. You look up to see Zize snarl as one of Geryon’s minions attacks him, and your resolve hardens. The devil is dead at his feet seconds later, and Zize looks back at you again to make sure you’re alright. “...I’m sorry.” You say to him, tearing your eyes away as his look of concern turns to one of confusion. “I am so, so sorry,” you say to the four people you love most in the world, making eye contact with each one of them in turn. You know none of them are close enough to stop you. You hold your spellbook out in front of you, turn your face toward the sky, close your eyes, and scrape together every bit of arcane energy you have left to channel the most powerful spell a living creature can cast. ”I Wish—” 31. Things you said that you wouldn’t have if it were light out "You gonna stay the night?” Ecstasy asks, and though you have your back to her as you peer into the mirror to make yourself presentable enough to Teleport home, you can hear the grin in her words. It’s been a running joke since you first started sleeping together; you honestly can’t remember who started it. One of you, sprawled out on the bed, loose and warm in the afterglow of absolutely amazing sex, calling out to the other to ask for them to stay. The answer to the flippant request is always the same: “Not a chance.” It’s how the game is played. The person asking never expects a yes, and the person answering never really has any malice behind their words. It’s easier and less awkward than having to say goodnight, goodbye, or -god forbid- ‘thank you’. ...but recently, Ecstasy’s been the one asking every night. She laughs off your refusal same as she always has, but there’s a sincerity to the request that caught you off guard the first time you heard it. The first several times she heard it, if you’re being honest. And tonight? Tonight, you find yourself honestly, genuinely considering it. Picturing it. You could turn around, crawl back into bed, and let Ecstasy’s soft breathing and the rocking of the ship around you lull you to sleep. You’ve missed your line in the script. You hear a creaking behind you as Ecstasy sits up on the bed, and you can picture the way she’s cocked her head as she swings her legs over the side of the bed and leans forward. You turn around, and the quiet, intense familiarity behind the fact that you’d envisioned the position she’s in perfectly based on nothing more than the sounds she made by moving does something to your chest you’re not ready to face. “Angel, are you—” “Ask me again.” You demand as the feeling in your chest turns into something more recognizable. Your heart is pounding; you’re fully clothed again, seconds away from being ready to leave, but you’ve never in your life felt more vulnerable than you do in this moment. Ecstasy pauses, visibly confused, but she inclines her head toward you and indulges your request. “...alright then. You gonna stay the night?” “...okay.” The word come out breathless, and for several moments all you can do is stare at Ecstasy and wait for her reaction. For several more moments, it seems she can only do the same. Neither of you know what to do with this kind of vulnerability, not after so many months of living under the unspoken rule that this wasn’t how you interacted with one another, that the permanent sort of thing staying the night implied wasn’t something either of you wanted. A beat passes, then another. Then: “Well. Good. I'm an angel, too, in the mornings.” It’s an attempt to get things back on track, but several seconds too late to feel fully natural. You’re biting back a grin as you undress again regardless, because if Ecstasy is mouthing off like that then she’s not scoffing and telling you that you weren’t supposed to actually say yes. She holds the blanket up for you to join her in bed once more, and as you make yourself comfortable beside Ecstasy, you realize with a smile you’re glad the darkness is there to hide that you’re very much looking forward to seeing the kind of terror Ecstasy is in the mornings.

#alwaysyourqueen #cog #wasteland campaign #Rainivere #amnesia campaign #ohohoho can you tell how much Fun I had on that first cog one.....really off my shits a little #also it's fucking DAD hours bitches!!!!! YEAH we love our dads keep scrolling. i'll kill you #i know baby lover try to write someone who doesn't love babies....idk what to do with myself 😭

OCtober Day 1: Sunrise

There’s something indescribably comforting about watching the sunrise, especially when there were times during the night when you didn’t expect to get to see it again.

The Abeast is dead. Raini still isn’t entirely sure what all that means, what’s going to happen to the now corpse of a creature big enough and powerful enough to have spread through and consumed multiple planar systems, but that sounds like a problem someone else can handle. Someone who hasn’t spent the last three days fighting their way through the guts of this now-dead monster, who hasn’t cast Wish within the last half hour, who isn’t only upright because of the steadying arm around their waist. Someone, in short, who isn’t her.

In the chaos, Raini hadn’t seen who landed the final blow. It wasn’t her, and beyond that it doesn’t matter. Because one moment she had her feet planted, arms raised and outstretched to cast, incantation after incantation shooting rapid fire from her lips to send volleys of spells into the dark, writing masses of the Abeast. The next, a shuddering roar that shook Raini to her very core echoed throughout the chamber the Abeast had made its final stand in, and the world around the party began to fall apart. The monster was dead or dying; it made precious little difference when it was shaking apart around them and the closest exit they had was miles away. A quick, frantic look from Cylthia told Raini that she didn’t have the energy left to Plane Shift, and so it was with a grim determination that Raini put away her wand, raised her voice to be heard above the din of destruction, and cast.

“I Wish--”

The words that followed aren’t important. Raini honestly isn’t sure she could verbalize her intent behind the spell if she tried. Magic that powerful, it supersedes words. Raini channels her Wish more through thoughts and feelings than anything: they need to escape the Abeast before it kills them as it dies, so Raini pictures safe. She pictures away. She pictures home and safe and away and dear god, don’t let us die here, not after all of this. It wouldn’t be fair, not after everything we--

The kind of magic that can reshape realities rips them from the heart of the dying plane and spills them out onto the deck of a ship miles in the air, and the rush of relief at feeling the sun on her face and the realization of where they ended up has Raini, flat on her back and covered in sweat and Abeast remains, suddenly near delirious with laughter. And it’s contagious; soon, there’s a familiar snorting laugh coming from her right, another familiar giggle coming from her left. The sky is pink and gold above them, the world is safe and goddamn it, despite all odds, they lived. They fucking lived, because they were too stupid to give up and too stubborn to die. Raini reaches up blindly over her head, finds a clawed, scaly hand, and grips it tightly with her own.

They lived. They lived, they’re living, and they get to keep on being alive. The sun peeks over the bow of the boat, bathing the exhausted party in a wash of golden light, and Raini closes her eyes to enjoy the warmth of it as it soaks into her skin. In a minute, she’ll open them again to take stock of their current situation. In a minute she’ll open them to deal with mouthy captain of the boat they crashed onto. In a minute, she’ll open them for long enough to stumble to the captain’s quarters and pass out on the overstuffed bed for the next three weeks. But for now: the sun is shining, there’s air in her lungs, and the people she loves are here with her. Safe. For now, Raini thinks, she’s earned the right to revel for a moment in those simple pleasures.

#Rainivere #amnesia campaign #OC-tober #we're trying something new this time lads. I'm calling it: brevity. we'll see how it goes I'm still a little iffy :/#here's a fun peak behind the curtain: this started out infected by second person disease. We vaccinated her but. Oof #word count: 660