#rit writes

[ritunn]

I just got into reading Dungeon Meshi as I've been loving the anime on Netflix, and I have to say, some of these panels kill me with the expressions.

They're just so good.

[ritunn]

I finished The Amazing Digital Circus: The Last Act and though not fully satisfied, I'm quite glad. It was a good ending to a great show and I'll miss it for sure. Having it with me all the way from the start of university to the end, I got a lot of good memories with The Amazing Digital Circus.

As someone who's been following Gooseworx for long before The Amazing Digital Circus though, I look forward a lot to what she decides to create next!

[ritunn]

Vile Beauty - A Look at the Elves of Lorwyn/Shadowmoor and Queerness

"Beauty determines values, and we determine beauty."

That's the flavor text that accompanies the card, Masked Admirers, a rare, now uncommon, elf that made its debut in Lorwyn. Flavor text that summarizes the views of the Lorwyn elves who we'll be revisiting next year.

Beauty Determines Value

I started playing MtG back in 2009 and I took a liking to the elf and kithkin tribes almost immediately. I was young enough that I didn't quite understand the social commentary being made by the writing behind the elves at the time, but it's something that's entranced me since then. In Lorwyn, the virtue often associated with elves, their unnatural beauty, has been twisted. The vain elves live in a hierarchical society where the most beautiful live on top and a single scar or blemish can ruin your life. While nature is nothing more but a tool to continue their harm of others or to be shaped to be as beautiful as them.

It's a strange society, but one that fits all too well with elves and the tropes we've come to associate with them. Though the twist of eyeblights, the name elves give to those too ugly to be anything else in elf society, but also what they call everyone else, adds an fun twist to the basic idea of "What if the beauty industry was a society?"

Eyeblights at best are treated as eye sores, creatures to be avoided if needed and an annoyance at worse. At worst, they are hunted for sport, blades slicing them in twain while the insidious moonglove poison kills them in seconds if that fails. This is often reserved for giants and boggards, the name for goblins, but they aren't above using these selfsame measure on other elves.

But for those elves who would reach so low as to become eyeblights, often due to disfigurement, purposeful or accidental, they are allowed to become nettelvine breeders. Nettlevine is a parasitic plant cultivated by the plane's elves that shortens the already short lifespan of elves, but also grants them great control over it, allowing them to make mockery of the plane's treefolk and devastate the enemies of the elves. But, what lays in the store for those elves who reach the pinnacle of beauty?

We Determine Beauty

Elvish society in Lorwyn is separated into four distinct classes, the faultless, immaculate, exquisite, and perfect.

Faultless: the lowest caste, the faultless meet a minimum threshold for beauty. They're without fault as the name suggests, but their beauty isn't anything better than what is expected for an elf and work the basic jobs required of society.

Immaculate: those who act as dignitaries for the elves. If you're cunning enough in addition to beautiful, you can reach the level of immaculate and attain some special privileges within elvish society.

Exquisite: second only to the perfect, elves who reach exquisite are masterful hunters and lead other elves in hunting excursions with packs of wolves to kill eyeblights. As dangerous as they are beautiful and the only caste below perfect with permission to speak to them.

Perfect: the most cunning of all elves and of transcendental beauty, perfects rule elf society in Lorwyn and have permission to kill anyone they'd like in a caste below them. Vicious and vain rulers of which only a few exist.

Eyeblights are not in the caste system. As mentioned before, these elves are either made into nettlevine breeders or killed. Even associating with creatures that aren't elves or using them to kill eyeblights such as one of the Lorwyn/Shadowmoor protagonists, Rhys, did can earn you the ire of other elves. Speaking of Rhys...

Rhys, the Exiled

Rhys was a student of Colfenor, an elder treefolk and the last yew treefolk. He taught him the secrets of yew poison magic and they'd maintain a psionic bond for life even when Rhys became an eyeblight hunter. His past of being associated with an eyeblight like Colfenor always earned him some contempt, especially from his superior, Nath. Nath was a more traditional elf, one who was quite annoyed when Rhys made use of a pair of giants to deal with goblin raiders after the hunting party's trap went wrong due to an inexperienced archer, an archer Nath cut down for his mistake. As such, Rhys and Nath had a tense relationship, one that broke when Rhys became one of the very eyeblights he hunted and his friend turned against him.

Nath had ordered Rhys to exterminate some peaceful goblins getting together for a story time festival. Despite Colfenor's pleas not to go through with it, he did and the attack went horribly wrong. The goblins turned feral and murderous due to the Great Aurora starting to begin, an event that inverts the traits of every race on the plane and brings eternal night. With little choice, Rhys unleashed the magic Colfenor taught him and killed everyone except for himself, his friend, and Nath. When he awoke, he found his horns destroyed. He had become an eyeblight and his friend and Nath had promised to slay him, but not before he was rescued by an elf named Maralen and a group of fey.

The rest of the story follows his adventures with Maralen of the Mournsong and the other adventurers on Colfenor's quest to continue the yew treefolk line and stop the Great Aurora, but this fall is what we care about. Rhys knew what was wrong but still went through with it anyway. Corrupted by the pressure of a society and willing to kill to maintain his position, only to lose it all. Though, when night comes the only true monsters on Lorwyn become its saviors.

Beauty is a Seed

The elves of Shadowmoor, the name the plane adopts when the Great Aurora brings eternal night, are an interesting contrast in the dark fairy tale feel the plane adopts during this phase. These elves are also obsessed with beauty, but the world itself has become as ugly as they were inside while phased to Lorwyn. Thus, there's the twist. They seek to preserve beauty, those little slivers left. Beauty is a seed, waiting to blossom under capable hands as the flavor text of Bloom Tender puts it. As everyone else becomes the monsters they believed them to be, they stopped hunting them. They hunted for beauty instead. No longer vain, they care for each other and see the seeds of light in the darkness. They see true beauty, of nature, of love, of life, and just want to protect it. There's something so kind about it, so heartwarming, a glimmer of hope in darkness, all ripped away when the morning tide washes away the darkness and things return to normal. We get a glimpse at what the elves could be, and in a way, it hurts.

Something I have yet to mention is the deer-like apperance of the elves. In Lorwyn, this soft apperance hides the truth: they are predators, hunters, to be feared, not prey. But on Shadowmoor, they are the prey, able to fight back, but prey nevertheless to hideous monsters like scarecrows, kelpie, deurgar, and the twistwed residents of Shadowmoor. They've become the ones they once hunted, the other, but for once, they're free of hierarchy and free to live life and dream for a better tomorrow and they revel in that. Rhys is able to find redemption in Shadowmoor, and embrace his true ideals. Night doesn't last forever though, and neither can this. But, I'm intrigued to see how it ends up being handled come 2025.

Toil to Renown

So, what do I love about the elves of Lorwyn/Shadowmoor? Well, they are quite pretty, I love the design, but these days, I think love that they're the very people that'd despise me. Being queer means to live outside the binary standards of beauty quite often. Some transphobes even go as far as to label others trans based off of very minute masculine or feminine traits that no one but them cares about. This leads to reinforcing gender stereotypes and leading to violence and/or vitriol against anyone who doesn't fit in. We become eyeblights, as does anyone who's cis and not quite the perfect model of their gender. All the while, people like Rhys, who don't totally agree, are browbeat into conforming and suffer for it when they too find out they will never live up to the standards of such wretched people. Whether they come out queer or simply have an accident.

But, I also love these elves, the ones on Shadowmoor, because I see myself in them too. I want to find the beauty in a cruel world that despises me and others I call friends and family and protect it with all my heart. Beauty isn't flawless skin and a sharp intellect, it's in a lonely flower blossoming, the laugh of someone you love, celebration of life. We fight every day to live and assure our continued existence in a world that despises us. Is that not reason to celebrate? Life may be grim, but there's beauty everywhere and we decide it ourselves. I hope WotC explores that duality again in 2025, because it's a beautiful message I've taken to heart for years. Thanks for reading.

[ritunn]

When I Think About Playing Control in EDH: "Ha ha, yeah, I'm going to stop so many things!"

Me Actually Playing Control in EDH: "There's too many threats to my existence and the entire table hates me."

[ritunn]

This week on Doctor Who, Bridgerton cosplayers try to end the world and your average D&D rouge player marries the Doctor. Like, okay, didn't expect any of that. But you know what, best male side character since Jack Harkness. He better come back or I will cosplay someone (with insidious intent).

[ritunn]

A Short Review of the PF2e Remaster Crafting Rules

Crafting! Every Intelligence spellcaster's (and Alchemist, Munitions Crafter Gunslinger, Inventor, and Alchemical Sciences Investigator) favorite skill. In Pathfinder 2e pre-remaster, the Crafting skill and its Craft activity were generally... underused. The Craft activity asked of you 4 days to produce one permanent item or 4 consumables at full price after you also bought the formula for it, and most adventure paths just didn't have the downtime to allow for it to be useful with the real benefit of spending extra time to reduce the price of the items down by your Earn Income amount for your Crafting skill. However, with Player Core 1, that's changed! So, first, let's go over what changed from the CRB.

I Can Make a Spoon in 1 Day Now: The Changes to Crafting

The following are some of the most notable changes to Crafting and the Craft activity:

CRB: Crafting items takes 4 days of downtime, and you must have the formula. You must provide half the materials upfront and pay the rest of the value after the 4 days are finished, but you can spend can spend extra days to reduce the price further, up to half the total value of the item.

PC1: Crafting items takes 1 - 2 days of downtime. 1 day if you have the formula, 2 days if you don't have the formula. Any common item can be crafted without a formula. You must provide half the materials upfront and pay the rest of the value after the 4 days are finished, but you can spend can spend extra days to reduce the price further, up to half the total value of the item.

The following feat was altered with these changes to the rules:

Inventor was moved down from a 7th level skill feat that required Master in Crafting to a 2nd level skill feat that requires Expert in Crafting. Additionally, it now says the GM can allow you to use the Craft activity to make uncommon and rare formulas, which you do need if you want to craft those items.

Spoons are Nice, But How About This Healing Potion: How Crafting Helps Every Party Now

So, with those changes, there is a notable difference with Crafting now: you only need 1 day to make stuff (if you have the formula). 1 day of downtime is stupid easy to come by in a majority of APs and homebrew games, heck 2 isn't a big ask either. The biggest benefit this provides is the savings, however. By reducing the downtime required from 4 days to 1, that gives you 3 days you typically would've spent making a wicked new magic longsword for Seelah as extra days you can spend to get savings you wouldn't have been able to get otherwise. This makes feats like Impeccable Crafter have much more value, since you can take advantage of getting a critical success on your Crafting check a lot more now.

But, let me provide a recent experience. In my current campaign, my GM gave the party a month of downtime before PC1 came out while I ran Malevolence for everyone to give him a break. I wanted to craft the following:

4x Cheetah's Elixirs (Moderate)

4x Elixirs of Life (Lesser)

1x Eye Slash (Greater)

4x Oils of Mending

4x Predator's Claws (Formerly called Owlbear Claws)

My Gunslinger/Inventor has the following skill feats and items to help with Crafting, with her Master Crafting proficiency:

Crafter's Eyepiece

Speciality Crafting (Alchemy)

Tattoo Artist

Overall, I got 4 critical successes, 1 success, and 1 critical failure on my die rolls. In total, I spent 25 days performing the Craft activity to make of all of this, spending lots of extra days to reduce the total cost of the items be crafted by half. In total, I spent 6 days making the items, and 19 days finishing them for the discount.

With the CRB rules, I would've spent a total of 24 days making the items, and then 19 days finishing them for the discount, for a total of 43 days spent Crafting, 13 days over my limit of 1 month.

Simply put, if I used the CRB Crafting rules, I would've had to spend much more gold, but I also likely wouldn't had taken the time to make the Oil of Mending for our Inventor, or the Eye Slash for our Barbarian. The new Crafting rules provide incentive for players to not only make cheaper items, thus spend less gold, but also make more items too since you're spending way less time.

We Only Have 1 Apex Item Between Us All: How the Formula Changes Helps High-Level PF2e

A minor issue high-level PF2e APs have is item droughts. Acquiring the equipment you need can be difficult because it doesn't drop, and unless you have access to a city like Absalom with a high settlement level, it won't be sold either. The issue can mainly be seen in acquiring Apex Items, some of the best magical gear available to high-level PCs that boosts 1 ability score to +4, or increases it by +1 if it's above that already. This is essential for getting a +7 in your primary ability score. The main problem, however, is that most APs (barring a few like Stolen Fate) don't drop apex items for every stat and buying them could be out of the question either due to not having enough gold or just no place to purchase. The solution to this was supposed to be Crafting, but small issue, you needed a formula to craft it, and that was just as hard to get.

However, the recent change makes it so that common items require no formula at all, you just need to spend 2 days on the Craft activity instead! And what are apex items and their rarity at typically? Common. With this, plus the lowered downtime required to finish the initial item, if a party has a crafter, getting cheaper apex items can be simple provided you find time for a little bit of downtime from levels 17 - 20 (which can still be a big ask, but not as big as before). This means, that perhaps everyone can get access to the prestigious magic items and enjoy the benefits of the power they entail.

In Conclusion

The PC1 Crafting changes have been a boon to everyone interested in the skill, and everyone who loves playing with them too. The reduced amount of downtime required leads to cheaper items, and/or more items. While the formula changes provide more versatility in what one can craft for their party and themselves.

[ritunn]

There's something surreal about this art. Like yeah, that butch just punched a fella so hard they flew into the air with a trail of smoke behind them, but like WHY IS THERE A HORSE SNAKE IN THE BACKGROUND?! WHAT IS THAT THING?!

[ritunn]

Perhaps the best flavor text ever printed on a counter spell. It hits just the right spot of snarky and comedic by being a report of the incident rather than the mage themselves saying it.