Chronicles of Oil

Just a guy posting bout his DnD setting and reposting brainrot Banner art is @straziart on Instagram!

[beggars-opera]

So I just found the most useful photo album in existence for tumblr arguments

[noldorinwa]

I HAVE FOUND MY FAVOURITE POST ON THE INTERNET

@georgeorwell @lordhellebore @francisperfectionbonnefoy @janiedean and everyone else have you guys seen this gem

[janiedean]

OH MY GOD I’M SAVING ALL  OF THESE RN

[rupurteblr]

i call this one “using tumblr as a person of color”

might update with more images at some point

[tophettheoliveoilman]

Geovan Mulde're was once considered a great man.

One of 7 council members governing the city-state of Vein Zelm’r, Grand Arcanist of its prestigious magic academy known as The Lexanthiant, wielder of the Hell-Queens' lingering defeat, trusted friend, husband, and father.

After losing his wife and daughter to the actions of a group known as The Jokers Wilde, an entity reached his ears in the darkness. "You can have them back for good" it whispered "and I will personally ensure their safety. All I request, is your aid in making my return possible... and safe."

It was this thing, which showed him the Hell-Queens' pooled remains, naught but energy left from a failed giantess. It was this thing, which drove him to be Grand Arcanist, then council member. It was this thing, which taught him to construct amalgams of metal clockwork and flesh, and use them to create fear. Fear, which would be drawn to the focus of the underground churches, though I found out many of the cultists ignored my instructions to ensure the people they harvested fear from returned to the surface alive. And it was this thing, which stated I had earned its trust, and its name.

Tophet, God over the domains of Fear, Death, and Shadows.

It was not this thing, however, that was forced to enact Tophets premature return, turning half the populace to stone. It was not this thing ripping families apart. It was not this thing draining The Crystal City of its lively luster. It was not this thing, who's hordes of creations covered the city, designed to bring forth as much terror and despair as possible!

It was not this thing, who declared that it was all worth it.

It was me. Geovan Mulde're, a once great man.

One of 3 surviving council members which once governed the reclaimed city of Vein Zelm’r, a creator of orphans out of selfish vengance, cursed with the responsibility of the Hell-Queens' lingering defeat, commander of the army of Tophet...

Trusted friend, husband, and father.

[wildflower-hunter]

i feel like an oc i'd make when i was 12 with every mental illness and physical pains. what the freak man

[soggyfae]

@tophettheoliveoilman

[tophettheoliveoilman]

Uncalled for, but also true

[rabbiteclair]

auto immune disorders happen when the immune system ignores regulatory factors and begins attacking healthy bodily tissues, due to what scientists refer to as "sheer love of the game"

[tophettheoliveoilman]

Man I'm gonna get my ass beat in the new Monster Hunter expansion, the only reason I can fight Xu Wu and Balahara is because they max out at like 6 star 😭

[embyeme]

trying to explain why Dishonored is basically my favourite video game is like. Well. The voice acting is, primarily bad. The entire combat system revolves around killing, eating, starving, or befriending rats. There are only 10 lines of ambient dialogue and I love all of them. You can never see the protagonist or hear him in the first game, but he has big dick energy so inconceivably strong that it hardly matters. The game’s lore and themes are morally nuanced, but every single person you meet falls into one of four camps (“helpless civilian”, “guy who’s just following orders, “ontologically evil”, and “crippled with guilt and choking on regret). They went off *unbelievably* hard with the world building. The majority of it is hidden in gay poetry and the diary entries of the man who killed your wife. Attention is lovingly poured into the mundane and fantastical aspects of life, and each wound or injustice suffered is a serious part of the narrative that characters are expected to carry with them for the rest of their lives. The pinnacle of the game happens when two Greeks, asexual and bisexual respectively, have a time travelling sword fight on top of what is basically the crumbling ruins of the World Trade Center. best game I have ever played hands down.

[mmelete]

Has this been done before? 😅

[tophettheoliveoilman]

Im playing pokemon champions and when you train your pokemon, theres a sound that plays which just sounds like some people playing basketball, and NOW I am forever cursed with the mental image of pokemon wearing Jordans and shooting hoops

[soggyfae]

Left a little gift in my partner's sketchbook, Arkveld loves you never forget that

[probablybadrpgideas]

Replace the effect of every card in the Deck of Many Things with an event mentioned in Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire

[witchcatcher]

A few months after submitting this idea, I've made it!

I first had to take a list of all 118 historical references in the song (from the Wikipedia page) and turn them, in a localized Jojo's Bizarre Adventure's fashion, into an (ideally) setting-agnostic version of what Billy Joel was saying or alluding to.

Then I had to figure out an effect for each of them, either directly or indirectly connected with the original concept.

Ultimately, I've cut 18 (15%) items to neatly fit them in a d100 roll; most of them had to do with politics, war and the like, since that was the most numerous category; I landed on ones that weren't too widely known, too similar to other items present, or just those that were to hard to convert into D&D mechanics.

I also had to make sure the entirety of the items' effect was balanced (like the original Deck of Many Things) and tracked the main categories that each effect fell into, to ensure enough variety.

You can now download the PDF here, beautifully illustrated by Dusky Cat. I've done some other work for Kelfecil's Tales, so you can check them out too!

[sunny-reblogs]

I've been playing for a bit but I'm quite new to Risk of Rain and its characters and I don't know if they have canon personalities but I just love applying the attitude I have when playing as them, so following this:

Seeker is falling apart at the seams and avoids all combat because everyone is counting on her to bring someone back if the worst happens so she's just frantically farming Tranquillity in the corner but if she gets her hands on Transcendence it's OVER for you guys

Mercenary is an overconfident douche whose ego is as big as his arsenal because he knows he has an advantage over Mithrix so he can keep collecting every item in existence without accounting for the rising difficulty (he will die)

[narutwitter]

[tophettheoliveoilman]

Oh Sasuke, king of taking L's

[soggyfae]

Oh boy it's time for the mega post. This only took a week to write completely and I pray this purges at least some of the space that Arkveld takes up in my brain day to day.

This time, I want to break down its design from more of an evolutionary/biology perspective rather than artistic/symbolic. So I'm gonna put my half finished degree and evolutionary biology fixation to work. This breakdown will be much longer and a bit more speculative than my previous blurbs so bear with me for this one.

As I'd stated in a previous ramble, I theorize that the Arkveld species either existed during an ice age period, or inhabited a very cold region of the planet. Its thick white fur and stony grey skin would (and does) stick out like a sore thumb in most regions, but blends in perfectly with the cold, rocky terrain of the Iceshard Cliffs. Though it shows itself to be highly adaptable, thriving in warm, dry deserts, humid jungles, and boiling hot volcanic caverns. I suspect this ability to withstand extremes comes from whatever intense threats it would have faced in its natural habitat and time period.

Arkveld is built insane.

Every inch of this creature is both heavily armored, and designed for offense in some capacity. Thick overlapping scale plates cover its neck, back and forearms. These plates appear to move flexibly with the body and do nothing to inhibit its swift, acrobatic movements. Thick, curved, helmet-like horns and jaw plates defend the face and eyes from frontal assault. They can be used to ram opponents or scrape the ground to throw them off balance. The massive horns are held up by its short, muscular neck, which is also well protected from all angles. Though it has very formidable, thick fangs, it is hardly seen using them for anything other than tearing apart already dead prey.

Many wyverns exhibit spikes, hammers, or quills on their tails and Arkveld is no exception, sporting a pointed, triangular scale at its tip. However, similar to its chainblades, its sinewy tail is segmented and capable of extending to jab targets from behind with great accuracy. The tail is also comparatively wide and flat, likely to allow for better steering while airborne to compensate for its extremely small wing membranes.

Getting into some more specific and puzzling features, it's feet and ‘wings’. Why the HECK do these guys have zygodactyl feet??? There are only a handful of animals that have them in real life, and they are all for the purpose of gripping. Owls and osprey have it to catch and hold wriggly prey, parrots utilize it for greater dexterity when holding and manipulating objects, and chameleons use them to grip and climb branches and vines. So why would a largely terrestrial wyvern, armed with 4 immensely powerful prehensile appendages that can toss wyverns like rag dolls, need grippy feet???

And then there's its ‘wings’, which I have a tough time coming up with any feasible explanation for. There's no way this big idiot is able to fly the way it does, and so I'm going to ignore that just a little bit and chalk it up to gameplay purposes for now. These fuzzy wing membranes seem much better suited for short distance controlled gliding, similar to a sugar glider or flying squirrel. Even in its flight animations there is little to no flapping, just a long glide (I know this is used for many other flying monsters as well but bear with me). So for the purpose of this silly speculation I will say these wings are used for gliding rather than long distance or vertical flight!

This led me to putting these two odd features together for a possible theory regarding Arkveld behavior and biology. If we assume it primarily lived in cold, icy climates, perhaps it used those grippy zygodactyl feet in conjunction with the chainblades to climb up slippery surfaces like icy cliffsides. I think it's possible they would have nested on tall, sheltered portions of these cliffs, climbing up the slippery, rocky faces and gliding down to hunt and drive off competitors. We see at the end of the main story, the nest Nata finds is fairly elevated and rocky as well. White scraps of fur are seen around the nest despite the warm, dry climate of the Windward Planes. It is now my headcanon that the Guardian tucked these fur scraps around the nest instinctually, a remnant of its ancestors behavior from a much colder world.

Now once again, we return to the most glaring feature of this beast; the chainblades. For a while I had just sort of accepted that they were a wacky inexplicable feature, and rolled with the rule of cool. But after some closer observations of its in-game model, I think I might have an idea of what these appendages really are. On Arkveld's forelimbs there are three digits, two fingers and a thumb. The two chainblades connect just below the outermost digit on the wrist, overlapping and interlocking with one another when not actively in use. I suspect these chainblades might actually be highly developed, specialized finger digits. Made up of thick, flexible sinews and interlocking ‘shells’, these appendages are prehensile and can all move independently of one another. Surprisingly, the structure is actually fairly similar to that of Rey Dau, which also features two highly specialized wing digits and lacks ‘finger bones’ within its wing membranes. (I might have another crackpot theory about these two species being closely related as they share a surprising number of features).

Speculating about these chains being really evolved fingers does nothing to answer the question of why the hell they can siphon life force on contact. The ability to grapple and restrain other creatures the same size or larger than itself is pretty incredible on its own, and given its incredibly aggressive nature, Arkveld must have had some insane competition in its time. Perhaps that is why it developed this energy siphoning and conversion system, not just for hunting prey but also as a defense mechanism to subdued would-be attackers. In an icy tundra, competition over prey items, space, and shelter would have been fierce, and resources sparse. It could also be possible that it would syphon this energy to supplement for a lack of prey items.

As we see with the Guardian's instinct (or desire) to eat, an Arkveld is not able to sustain itself with absorbed energy alone. In fact this energy conversion is seemingly used exclusively for offensive purposes. Similar to a (average) Deviljho, it uses this converted dragon element in combat with more powerful foes. But again, this does nothing to explain how it can absorb this energy in the first place. And honestly, I cannot think of any good explanation for it. It would be one thing if it was able to channel an existing elemental energy like fire or lightning, or the pure energy source of wylk, and convert it to dragon. But it is capable of siphoning directly from the player in its grab attack, meaning it is not just able to take elemental or wylk energy, it is ALL life energy. Unfortunately there is really no realistic explanation for that, but the dragon element works in mysterious ways and it's cool as hell so whatever.

Unfortunately, one of the most difficult things for me to try and figure out is natural Arkveld behaviors. The ones we see in game are an unfortunately poor baseline, as they are an introduced species that rapidly adapted to live and compete within every environment we see in the Forbidden Lands. There is no good metric to determine how it might have fared among its native fauna, nor do we get to see any interactions between Arkvelds. Because we never see interspecies interactions we can assume that it is largely solitary, and know that a fight would be mutually assured destruction given it's dragon weakness. We see both regular and Guardian Arkveld dominate pretty much every battle it engages in with other monsters. The only real exception being Jin Dahaad, who typically drives the aggressor off with a few hefty ice blasts.

The most obvious thing is that Arkveld is incredibly aggressive, but it's difficult to understand why. Is it territorial? Competing for food resources? Absorbing energy to sustain itself? Just being a massive prick? All or none of the above???? As I'd previously mentioned, to develop as it did Arkveld would have had some incredible competition, and maybe wasn't even the apex predator of it's ecosystem. The development of it's life drain may have been to ease the pressure of that competition, acting almost like a parasite. It drains a host but leaves it alive, then utilizes that stored energy for actual hunts to fulfil other nutritional needs.

I truly hope in future updates we get to see some more unique Arkveld interactions, maybe even something that is able to properly put it in it's place (looking at you Gog and Shagaru). I have so much fun speculating about this particular monster, it has some fascinating blanks to try and fill. This will probably be the last major blob I make about Arkie in particular for a while, but I may do some more musings about my other favorite critters in the future (Rey Dauuuuuu). If you got this far I salute you and thank you for taking the time to read 💙

[soggyfae]

Spoilers for main quest of Monster Hunter Wilds ahead

I've been thinking a lot about Guardian Arkveld recently, and speculating about guardian biology in general. Specifically trying to wrap my head around how Arkveld managed to reproduce asexually via parthenogenesis.

It's journal entry reads the same as every other guardian, calling it "an artificial specials... imbued with the power of a monster called [insert monster]" but there's more than a few things that set the Guardian Arkveld apart from the others.

I've theorized since my first playthrough that Arkveld may have been the very first Guardian (or at least the first successful one). Tasheen stated that the power of the Wyvern Milk "let them control nature at will", and that for whatever reason Arkveld was "singled out". When Alma asked if it was because it had been extinct during the time of Wyveria, Tasheen implies otherwise but no specifics are given. I believe that Arkveld may have been Jurassic Park cloned into existance during earlier Wyverian genetic experiments. With it's success, they may have used that specimine to see just how far they could push genetic manipulation with the Wyvern Milk, and eventually creating the perpetual Guardians that we see in game. Arkveld's unique natural ability to absorb and convert elemental energy from other monsters into it's own dragon energy makes for a near perfect blueprint to create the Wylk-absorbing Guardians, which also absorb and convert energy for offensive capabilities.

In addition to that, there is the artwork of the 'chained Arkveld' that was shown in promotional material and one of the game's loading screens. Unlike the other Guardians in stasis within cocoons, we can see Arkveld is physically bound in many heavy chains, likely where it spent it's stasis before being awoken by Zoh Shia. It's placement is far more deliberate with much greater precautions taken to keep it subdued, leading me to believe that it was already more predisposed to act out than other Guardians. Unlike the others it was born with an instinct to survive.

It could also explain why it didn't outright die after geeding on so many other Guardians. It's digestive organs, though likely severely atrophied, were still functional enough to keep it digesting meals instead of rotting from within or gorging itself to death. (I'll probably throw out more theories about this in a later blurb)

This could also explain why it still had some kind of reproductive capabilities. However this assumes that the Arkveld species utilizes some kind of sexual reproduction, and with creatures in this world like Nergigante that can basically reproduce like flatworms, it's impossible to say for certain. However, given that Arkveld is classified as a flying wyvern and not some crazy elder dragon, I'm going to continue under the assumption that the Arkveld species does reproduce sexually with the capability of facultative parthenogenesis. (I'm specifically pulling information from reptile examples like some gecko and monitor species as the closest real world parallels I could think of for a fictional prehistoric goat wyvern).

This would mean that every Arkveld that roams the world after the Guardian's death would share 50 or 100% of the original parent's genetic material. And given just how quickly the population managed to establish itself across the Forbidden Lands, it's likely these clones were continuing to reproduce using the same method. If not the population would have a pretty swift genetic bottleneck and inbreeding would probably result in little to no viable offspring within a few generations. On top of that, none of these offspring share any of the characteristics of the original Guardian. As the journal entries and dialog state, the Guardians are constructed with the likeness and features of existing monster species. The Arkveld population is made up of thriving 'normal' wyverns, meaning that whatever their genetic blueprint is, it has not been created artificially.

All this leads me to believe with an amount of certainty that the lone Guardian Arkveld, was not born a Guardian, but a de-extincted creature that was doomed to become an exploited, tortured experiment. Forever yearning to break free of it's chains and act upon the instincts it was born with. But once it does, it's mind had already been broken, forced to endure confinement and passage of time that no creature's mind should be forced to comprehend. They deserved so much better.

[oka-ja]

[tophettheoliveoilman]

The twin horses would never ride together again

[lusciouswhiteflame]

Vacation

[tophettheoliveoilman]

#I LOVE THEM

#this game has a stranglehold on me