Shame 'bout the destination

[vezimira]

topical comic commission for @wkakadrac :D

[wkakadrac]

Since I've seen a number of people share a variety of smaller / lower quality versions of this image, and I was able to take a good shot by dint of having the book, here's Ken Frank's Gnolls from the AD&D 2E book Creative Campaigning (ISBN 978-1560765615).

[vieridebitchtits]

Visit Original Link

…So this is what I’m doing with my time. Lyrics:

On the first day of Christmas, Kenshiro gave to me… A Hokuto Hyakurestu Ken!

On the second day of Christmas, Kenshiro gave to me… Two bladed YoYos and a Hokuto Hyakuretsu Ken!

On the third day of Christmas, Kenshiro gave to me… Three Rasho, Two bladed YoYos and a Hokuto Hyakuretsu Ken!

On the fourth day of Christmas, Kenshiro gave to me… Four Hokuto Brothers, Three Rasho, Two bladed YoYos and a Hokuto Hyakuretsu Ken!

On the fifth day of Christmas Kenshiro gave to me… Five Goshasei! Four Hokuto Brothers, Three Rasho, Two bladed YoYos and a Hokuto Hyakuretsu Ken!

On the sixth day of Christmas, Kenshiro gave to me… Six Nanto Masters, Five Goshasei! Four Hokuto Brothers, Three Rasho, Two bladed YoYos and a Hokuto Hyakuretsu Ken!

On the seventh day of Christmas, Kenshiro gave to me… Seven North Stars, Six Nanto Masters, Five Goshasei! Four Hokuto Brothers, Three Rasho, Two bladed YoYos and a Hokuto Hyakuretsu Ken!

On the eighth day of Christmas, Kenshiro gave to me… Eight Crying Warriors, Seven North Stars, Six Nanto Masters, Five Goshasei! Four Hokuto Brothers, Three Rasho, Two bladed YoYos and a Hokuto Hyakuretsu Ken!

On the ninth day of Christmas, Kenshiro gave to me… Nine Tubs of Hair Gel, Eight Crying Warriors, Seven North Stars, Six Nanto Masters, Five Goshasei! Four Hokuto Brothers, Three Rasho, Two bladed YoYos and a Hokuto Hyakuretsu Ken!

On the tenth day of Christmas, Kenshiro gave to me… Ten Wise Old Men, Nine Tubs of Hair Gel, Eight Crying Warriors, Seven North Stars, Six Nanto Masters, Five Goshasei! Four Hokuto Brothers, Three Rasho, Two bladed YoYos and a Hokuto Hyakuretsu Ken!

On the eleventh day of Christmas, Kenshiro gave to me… Eleven Memorable Techniques, Ten Wise Old Men, Nine Tubs of Hair Gel, Eight Crying Warriors, Seven North Stars, Six Nanto Masters, Five Goshasei! Four Hokuto Brothers, Three Rasho, Two bladed YoYos and a Hokuto Hyakuretsu Ken!

On the twelfth day of Christmas, Kenshiro gave to me… (Over) Twelve Dead People, Eleven Memorable Techniques, Ten Wise Old Men, Nine Tubs of Hair Gel, Eight Crying Warriors, Seven North Stars, Six Nanto Masters, Five Goshasei! Four Hokuto Brothers, Three Rasho, Two bladed YoYos and a Hokuto Hyakuretsu Ken!

[vieridebitchtits]

In case anyone didn’t get to hear it the first time!

[wkakadrac]

I totally wanted to sing this myself before Christmas, but work kept me busy. Had some free time, but my room’s sound carries throughout the home and I don’t think anyone else would appreciate the Hokuto Holiday spirit.

[wkakadrac]

Be reminded of the passage of time. HO HO HO

[vezimira]

bat legion bat girl for @wkakadrac 🦇

[wkakadrac]

Commission fresh off the presses by Vezimira. Highly recommend them: Great prices, contact throughout the work, very helpful in bringing a threadbare design concept to life.

Speaking of: Concept was A Night Lord Sorceress. Kinda thrown under the bus with the Librarium kerfuffle after the Council of Nikaea. As well as the whole "Curze hates his Legion and for many it's mutual" thing. So when she heard about the whole "Some Night Lords just have their bodies violently fail for them", she took matters into her own hands to give Curze & Emps the biggest middle finger. Cue Bat Face and Warp Estrogen fixing… not all their problems, but a bunch.

[wkakadrac]

Fallout & Entomology

Posting not for fancy prose or the like, but just to put some basic thoughts down and see if they resonate with anyone.

Others before me have discussed how Fallout's seeming disinterest in many of its wasteland creatures is something of a shame. However, I feel like its assorted bugs - arthropods in general, really - are particularly neglected by this absence of attention.

Insects are, implicitly, one of the Wasteland's most prolific survivors. In addition to the more normal-sized ones that implicitly continue to exist (such as those that hover around clouds of gore or lend their distinct buzz around certain containers / environmental pieces), you have an enormous variety of enlarged species ranging from the classic Radscorpion to more modern Bloatflies and Stingwings and such. In a few places insects seem to predominantly - even completely- fill entire ecological niches. In others they remain keystone species, whether managing other populations or being the predominant food source.

And this is... functionally unacknowledged, outside Fallout 4 & 76 making reference to increasingly efficient crabbing via Mirelurks?

As per the current date in Fallout, it has been more than 200 years since the bombs have dropped and very few of the setting's stewards feel inclined to examine the sort of ecological repercussions. Indeed, if there's one stance that seems to be most prevalent it's in actively avoiding anything that threatens to detract from the setting's aesthetics: There will always be More Ghouls even as we pass the 200 year mark since the bombs dropped. Intelligent species will be labeled a mistake in hindsight and actively acknowledged only insofar as to canonize their extinction. The wildlife will exist, but go unacknowledged even by ostensibly isolated Vault Dwellers outside "That just happened" quips.

Obviously game design and world building is a highly complicated and lengthy process. This should not be read as critique of anybody's competencies, talent, or anything of that nature. Merely some precision whinging that Fallout has existed as an IP for over 25 years at this point and approximately the most ecological information we have been provided is "Insects sure seem to have thrived" and "A lot of stuff grows two (or more) heads now".

[nukanaptime]

I've been thinking a lot lately about how Rabies is missing in a lot of games that do disease/illness systems and like, yeah, it's always fatal so it's not a great candidate for anything where you could be cured (but it would work for a good perma-death/end game mechanic)

And every time I play fallout lately I think about how there are explicitly rabid animals that bite and attack you but you don't get sick. EXCEPT FOR THAT ONE RAIDER IN THE BASEMENT OF THAT SCHOOL

I kind of wish there was more illness/disease story telling and representation because like. 1 - imagine the super bacteria that's developed and 2 - everything is fucking filthy. A source of clean water is worth someone's weight in caps. 3 - antibiotics exist still and can be crafted but they're just. So fucking generic that it feels a little irresponsible since you can't just take random antibiotics for funsies for whatever you think you have and expect positive results.

Also what different immune systems look like, like vault dweller vs average wastelander.

Vault 81 kind of starts exploring a little of this idea but was really underwhelming in scope at least imo.

It's not fun to think about experiencing but it's definitely an aspect of survival that has a lot of potential to be explored.

[wkakadrac]

The approximate absence and / or heavily restricted supply of medical things many of us would consider "household" or "staple" [NSAIDs, antibiotics, vaccines, sterile dressings slash bandages; all to name a few] is definitely one of those "I understand from a Boomer-Shooter standpoint why it's not included, but cannot be understated from a lore one" things. Likewise parasites, though that may be a bit too squeamish to discuss in any detail for a lot of us.

In many regards this is a huge boon for Ghouls and Super Mutants, something that -was- acknowledged at the time but has been slowly phased out in the shift from an isometric RPG (which can just text-bomb you with a Wikipedia page's worth of text) to a first-person roleplaying game to the modern FPS iteration. Ghouls don't seem to be -especially- resistant of disease compared to anyone else, -but- are extremely resilient to radiation. You know what can't survive flashes of high radiation or constant exposure to moderate doses? A lot of other things! Meanwhile Super Mutants had "resistance slash immunity to disease and radiation" as one of their selling points: Still somehow managed to get sick? Nothing a few hours bathing an Elephant's Foot's glow won't fix!

Though by this same token, the "rabid animals" thing reminds me that a lot of people get a sort of... underwhelming, image, of how a lot of fauna would actually behave. This is particularly obvious when it comes to the smaller arthropods, like the Radroaches [or, and I know they aren't quite true arthropods, Ticks]. Consider how hardy those animals are even naturally, and now make them enlarged and reinforced like Radscorpions. This is particularly terrifying for things such as the Ticks and Bloodbugs of the East Coast as those things can drain 1-3 blood bags worth of juice in a single feeding. Per.

[nukanaptime]

My first time playing FO76 was wild as I sided with the Raiders for the Vault 79 heist. Initially, just to spite the Overseer planning to recreate a palace economy with Vault Tec & 76. Imagine my surprise going through the quest. Picking up the bits and pieces of radiant dialogue. The schism over whether gold should stay buried. Etcetera etcetera. Somebody was definitely cooking on the writing teams then.

it's SO interesting!

My first time going through the main story, I sided with the settlers because I (for some reason?? not sure why) expected it to be easier than if you sided with the raiders, like I expected there to be extra hoops you'd have to jump through as a raider and this was uh. Quite a while ago now, before the nuka world on tour patch.

I'm levelling a 2nd character to explore all the new stuff added since and I plan on siding with the Raiders this time, I find a lot of their dialogue interesting too, or at least more interesting than the settlers.

76 definitely has some interesting writing going on! I think the game gets a little thrown out or disregarded since it's an mmo and the launch was. Interesting. But there's SO MUCH to dig through and so many interesting little stories!

The Overseer is also a really interesting character, she's kind of set up to be sympathetic with how you follow her story through her little tapes until you meet her. And then she asks you to start dropping nukes.

[wkakadrac]

Understandable, considering how much hoops one needs to jump through to even reach the start of that quest line. Especially if it was that early into the quest line's patching cycle. Avoiding too many spoilers, I would definitely recommend the Raider plot over the Foundation one. If / When you get around to it. There's... a few hiccups, but overall - having played both out myself - I'd call it the stronger of the two by far. And that's not just my "Spite the Overseer" talking.

Going around Appalachia you really get the impression that the Raiders are... not quite as they're titled, hence "Crater" being a more apt faction name, but also not entirely inaccurate either. They engage in agriculture, as well as have something of a seafood industry with Ohio River Adventures. They have mechanical specialists and doctors, coming up a few times in the Foundation 'Raider Thief' quests and whatnot. When you aren't on their list there's an encounter where a pair will just... treat you to some freshly caught Radstag, prepared how you so choose even.

They also. Uh. Put heads on pikes. Run protection rackets on farms and mug travelers, when they aren't doing worse. Occasionally resolve petty disputes quite violently and irreversibly.

It comes together in an interesting way. You can see why much of Foundation sees them as a blight that needs to be brought to heel at best and driven from Appalachia at worst. But you can also see why much of Crater sees Foundation as "Us but with better PR and the opportunities to play the part": Crater had to settle in the middle of toxic valley, Foundation set up near a lake and pristine forest. Crater is in a constant battle to maintain their purifiers and scavenge adequate medical supplies, Foundation sits on spare parts and equipment that in some cases they haven't even needed to use yet. Each has members who're native to Appalachia that farm and hunt and build, but one's called "Raiders" and the other "Settlers".

Which is also kind of why the Overseer is interesting too. This peeling back and looking at things in a larger picture that makes one wonder if that sympathetic presentation is genuine or an act, with arguments either way. That she didn't want 76ers dropping nukes casually, just for the implications as they rebuild America(TM).

[hallownest-archive-deactivated2]

[fallout-lou-begas]

[kabutoraiger]

[smoqueen-deactivated20251108]

[wkakadrac]

Crossposting some Night Lords musings

Some rambling in relation to 40K / 30K [Predominantly around the Night Lords Legion] below the cut-off.

Art from 3rd Edition Chaos Space Marines Codex / Index Astartes.

Something I have come to consider a disappointment of sorts is the missed potential when it comes to the Night Lords Legion.

On one hand, they fill a niche that is absolutely needed to drive home the horrors of the Imperium of Man. Even with the most generous interpretations of the Emperor and his Great Crusade, you have an unsightly blemish in the form of the Night Lords being a useful bunch of self-serving monsters that the Emperor tolerated / was willing to entertain a blindspot for as long as he could pretend Curze wasn't That Bad and they got results. And again that's with the most generous interpretations: The Emperor unintentionally making a Leopards Eating People's Faces While The People Are Still Alive Legion and and tolerating it out of pragmatism. The more common / neutral implication being that he absolutely knew what they were doing [wanted them doing it, no less!] and signed off on it because they shaved a couple years off the Crusade atrocities be damned. The worst that he didn't care whatsoever about it and the only reason the Night Lords were abnormal was that they merely didn't pretend to be what they aren't.

This is a vital niche to fill when it comes to displaying the fucked up society that is the IoM and how even in its "Golden Age" there was stinking shit beneath that veneer of gold. You just... don't get it, for most of the other Legions. Especially in newer lore. GW has spent a bunch of effort to try and make the other Legio more 'human' [despite them being post-human galactic conquerors]. Especially with GW reducing so many other baddies into "lol it was Chaos / possession / insanity". The IoM needs something to have been a terrible blemish that cannot be conveniently blamed on Chaos or One Bad Apple Spoiling The Rest [Curze, quite explicitly, hates his Legion, and in many cases the feeling's mutual outside a respect for his capacity to do and enabling of Horrible Things].

But on the other hand. On the other hand. It writes itself: Really? Really? We are supposed to take it at face value that Nostramans are just built different, pay no mind to the sheer coincidence the moment Curze ceded Nostramo to the Emperor's Great Crusade they slid immediately back into the same lopsided government he had overthrown, and that The Administratum Couldn't Do Anything About It the inequalities just rapidly reasserted themselves crime magically skyrocketed after the removal of one single person, and on top of this the Societal Undesirables just coincidentally kept filtering into the Legion?

You have a world - no, I apologize: Explicitly an entire system: Night Lord lore explicitly mentioned in the old Index Astartes how he found out from a system's prosperity soaring - that in the span of a singular generation had its inequalities removed by the removal of every single despot that Curze didn't think he could press his thumb down on hard enough to play nice in the new system, and with Curze's removal the Administratum... magically couldn't do the same job as one person to keep at least one star system from falling back into the same groups' hands? And for that matter practically everyone that system recruited after the first generation was a bunch of horrific baby-eating self-serving murdering societal rejects who had no concern for anyone beyond He Himself And Him?

While 40K absolutely needs somebody to show that the Great Crusade's shit stunk too, that it was an interstellar bunch of murderers and ne'erdowells draped in the legitimacy and glory of a gilded despot, there was just as much potential to use them as a stepping stone of "Gee. It sure is convenient that the Imperium Did Its Best but Some People Are Just So Bad that despite giving them everything they could have ever wanted they still bit the hand that fed them". Or, for that matter, to introduce Traitor Marines who are just. Like. People who grew up watching their star system abolish economic and social inequalities. Dared to buy into the hype of such spreading through the galaxy. And then watched everything crumble around them. With stark division between those whom this broke, those who in desperation [for better or worse] threw their lot in with the Chaotic Powers... and those who just keep the legend of the original Night Haunter alive. Astartes who prowl the edges of Imperial Space and just.... topple the Noble Houses. Convince planets to throw off the yoke of Imperial Rule, whether in good faith or even just to try and make ever more fires for the IoM to have to put out [and thus increasing the odds of something slipping through the cracks or the inadequacies of the system catching up with it].

Adding onto this with some musings from other posts I fully understand that Curze's brutality was brought about by excessive and violent terror. Even the most benign interpretations of his rule over Nostramo pitch him as a murderous vigilante prone to violent fits. But that's fine! There's layers to how somebody like Curze could still call out the Emperor and other Great Crusade's architects / 'greatest' participants precisely and accurately. How Corax seemingly [in newer lore] likewise abandoned their revolutionary leans and within a matter of generations was actively reinforcing Deliverance's former system of exploitation, the two really being mirrors / foils for one another. Works have already established that Curze hates what he and his Legion have become [that the feeling is mutual] and that whatever noble intentions he might have had at any one point he's just as deserving of an executioner's blade well before the Heresy.

I guess I'm just disappointed that the Night Lords were reduced to a singular, unironic and straight-faced hat while every other Legion is given kiddy gloves to go "And that's why Chaos ruined everything". It diminishes the horrors of the Great Crusade, goes uncomfortable places with the idea of Some People Are Just Born Criminal And It Can Be Measurably Tracked In The Genome, and removes the potential for several thematic hooks.

[personaltrashfire]

Gunshot, Hop, Javelin Mint, Perfume, Satiate Shrink, Sleepy, Stun

Assimilated abilities from Brave Fencer Musashi (1998, Squaresoft, PS1) Dumped textures, reassembled.

Either by Tetsuya Nomura, or Koji Matsuoka (likely the latter, but I can't find much of his art to compare; if you ask me these sort of resemble the work of Akihiko Yoshida, but he's not credited anywhere for the game, so it must not be). If they're by someone else, I'd like to know.

Part 2 / Part 3

[personaltrashfire]

B.O., Firefly, Bowl, Sublime, Fence, Map, Clone, D-Kick, Hurl, Steel

Assimilated abilities from Brave Fencer Musashi (1998, Squaresoft, PS1) Dumped textures, reassembled.

Either by Tetsuya Nomura, or Koji Matsuoka (likely the latter, but I can’t find much of his art to compare; if you ask me these sort of resemble the work of Akihiko Yoshida, but he’s not credited anywhere for the game, so it must not be). If they’re by someone else, I’d like to know.

Part 1   /    Part 3

[personaltrashfire]

Toxin, Rip-Off, Acid, Depress, Antidote, 3-Way, Homing, Grenade

Assimilated abilities from Brave Fencer Musashi (1998, Squaresoft, PS1) Dumped textures, reassembled.

Either by Tetsuya Nomura, or Koji Matsuoka (likely the latter, but I can’t find much of his art to compare; if you ask me these sort of resemble the work of Akihiko Yoshida, but he’s not credited anywhere for the game, so it must not be). If they’re by someone else, I’d like to know. Part 1  /   Part 2

[an-eccentric-devil]

[keawi]

[atolm]

Hello everyone! After some interest from fans over time, I am now releasing some of my Ecco the Dolphin fanart over at Inprnt! More images to come in the future as well as original artwork. :D

https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/atolm/

Shop gallery quality art prints by HiraethSeas.