#sburb2

[toweringclam]

Disco Elysium Skills for my OCs: Beat

The pulse. The power. The pain.

Cool for: Drummers, Fighters, Those Who Refuse To Be Victims

Beat. The world has a heartbeat and you can hear it. Beat. You feel it in your veins, in your ears, in your skull. Beat. It drives you forward like a cadence. Beat. Beat. When your sticks strike the drum, that's Beat. When your fists strike their face, that's Beat. When their blows rain down on you, that's Beat, baby. Beat. Beat. Beat. BEAT.

At high levels, you are a force of unrelenting aggression. Whether in a street fight or behind your kit, your pulse, their pulse, the world's pulse, it all becomes one, marching to the implacable drums. That aggression can get you into trouble though, making you as immune to mollifying words as you are physical abuse. At low levels, you flinch at every raised hand or sharp noise, too afraid to raise your own hand and make some noise yourself.

(art by @thefaiao, words by me)

[toweringclam]

Disco Elysium Skills for my OCs: Persona

The masks we wear. The armor that protects us.

Cool for: Celebrities, Code-switchers, Con Artists

Persona is the face that hides your face. It's how you present yourself to the outside world, lest your vulnerable soul be picked clean by the scavengers of society. Most people never question their Persona and believe the mask is just their face. It isn't. There's always another mask.

At high levels, you become adept at switching between different faces for different occasions. If you're not careful, you might lose track of which one is your real face (if you even have one anymore). At low levels, you just have the one, and lack the introspection to even know if it's real or not.

(art by @thefaiao, words by me)

[toweringclam]

Disco Elysium Skills for my OCs: Framing Device

The world in microcosm. A story told in a single instant.

Good for: Photographers, Reporters, Private Investigators

Snap. Take a picture. Capture a moment in time. The camera never lies, but it may mislead. Framing Device is the ability to stage a scene for the effect you want, to pick the exact moment to tell a story. A picture is worth a thousand words, after all. Always remember though: a lie can travel around the world before the truth even gets its boots on.

At high levels, you get to decide what the truth even means. Whether fabricating evidence or revealing hidden truths, you know exactly how to tell a convincing story in pictures. At low levels, you struggle to tell a story at all, accidentally revealing more about you than the subject of your photographs.

(Art by @thefaiao, text by me)

[toweringclam]

Character who acts low-key transphobic because she's literally the only one who treats the crossdressing femboy like a boy, but at the same time, is also the only one who is respecting his stated gender since he has repeatedly insisted he is a boy and not a girl.

[toweringclam]

Once, long ago, four children made their own playgrounds.

One sought peace, so she created a world of fertile fields. One sought adventure, so he created a world of terrifying monsters. One sought beauty, so she created a world of breathtaking art. One sought strength, so he created a world of valiant warriors.

But children cannot stay children forever, and when they grew, they abandoned the worlds they had created.

The world of peace grew dusty and barren. The world of monsters grew toxic and sickly. The world of art grew convoluted and strange. And the world of warriors grew dark and foreboding.

And new rulers rose to claim them.

Talos, the Guardian Machine, claimed the world of peace and tried to protect it. Medusa, the Great Serpent, claimed the world of monsters and tried to build her family. Argos, the All Seeing, claimed the world of art and tried to understand. Izanami, the Queen of Merit, claimed the world of warriors and tried to rule.

They squabbled so much that they separated their lands into planets, leaving themselves isolated and vulnerable when the Black King came.

Talos fought but was enslaved. Medusa was slain to harvest her blood. Argos made a deal for safety but lost his mind. Izanami made a great weapon but was destroyed by it.

And now, the worlds are unrecognizable. They have become the antithesis of what they once were.

The land of peace has become a lifeless battlefield, the Land of Dust and Wreckage. The land of monsters has become a factory for soldiers, the Land of Toxins and Chains. The land of art has become a maze of paranoia, the Land of Frames and Towers. And the land of warriors has fallen under a miasma of fear, the Land of Shadows and Flame.

The lands now await new children, new Heroes, to redeem them in their own image.

The Mage, that one who rides the sunset, will beat swords into plowshares. The Bard, that demon child, will bring together only by first tearing apart. The Thief, that hoarder of memories, will remember who we could have been. And the Sylph, that ethereal beauty, will bring down the skies to light the way.

Yet this will not be the end of the Four Heroes' story. It will only be the first half...

[toweringclam]

Human Homestuck OCs

Colt Graham (M): Mage of Rage. CanuckCowboy

Kate Labelle (F): Thief of Mind. CameraAffliction

Izzy Durante (F): Bard of Blood. ToweringClam*

Haru Arakawa (M?): Sylph of Doom. GyaruCross

*(don't read too much into this lol)

[toweringclam]

Sburb2 human OC Sylladexes

Izzy: Aspect Deck

A Sylladex that resembles the popular trading card game Aspect: The Summoning (primarily played by small children, sweaty gross dudes, and lesbians looking to hook up). She starts out with it in Draft Mode, which is a 40 card minimum. In order to use an item, you must first "energize" other items to reach that card's Aspect Value. Only one of the energized items has to be of the same Aspect. More powerful items have higher Aspect values. Energized items last until you "scoop" at whihc point....(trails off)

Benefits:

Potentially infinite storage,

exciting af to use

Drawbacks:

Extremely inconvenient to access what you want

heavily luck-based

needless complexity

Kate: Photo Album

A Sylladex that resembles a photo album. You can only see ten items at a time, but by turning the pages, you can access any item whenever you want.

Benefits:

High storage capacity.

Convenient access.

Easily organized.

Drawbacks:

Requires use of the Camerakind Specibus, which is otherwise of limited utility.

Items take a seemingly arbitrary amount of time before they "develop" and become usable again.

Cards are much flimsier than standard Sylladex and can easily get carried away in a strong wind.

Boring. People will think you're boring.

Colt: Six-Shooter

A Sylladex consisting of up to six items, stored in a rotating chamber Before using any item, user must "spin" the chamber. Item is selected at random, and can be an empty chamber. Can carry more than one.

Benefits:

Items are ejected at high velocity, making weaponization easy.

Randomness provides a thrilling element.

Drawbacks:

Limited storage space

Easy to lose track of what you stored where

Items are ejected at high velocity, potentially damaging or losing them

Haru: Beigoma

A Sylladex that pits two items against each other to decide which one you use. Both items are transformed into tops that spin at each other until one is ejected from the arena. The winning item appears in your hand. The other item is ejected from your inventory at high speed.

Benefits:

Exciting and fun

Only semi-random

Experience and careful item selection can make the outcome more predictable.

Drawbacks:

There is still a strong random element,

Impossible to aim weaponization effect

Can be wasteful, as one item is all but guaranteed to be lost.

Takes a moment to resolve conflict.

[toweringclam]

All 12 fantrolls together! Who's your fav?

Soon to appear in my ongoing longfic, Sburb²