The Grimoire,

Bare bones of the Witche’s Gauntlet Plot


Ohhh, the Witch’s Gauntlet. This was a plot I came up with when I was designing Lileyna (my katane druid princess) and I was reading through the druid’s handbook, and came across a couple of interesting pieces, namely the assassin gauntlet and the

The premise of this story was that there was a princess whose home was being threatened by other countries, and in order to protect it she went into a mysterious and magical forest to find a legendary artifact. With this item in her hands, the opposing countries would have no choice but to back down

This item of course is the Witch’s Gauntlet, a magical glove worn by the reclusive witches that live in this forest

If you have read the original piece I wrote, you are probably aware that the princess got lost along the way

What I didn’t quite get to was the fact that she ended up Right Next To one of the witches.

This witch was actually quite cordial and welcoming to the young princess, patching her up and tending her wounds, despite the girl’s initial attempt to attack her. Finally, the two of them sit down, the witch makes tea, and the princess expresses her wish.

Surprisingly, the witch is actually very open about giving the princess a Gauntlet to help her country-

You read that right- A Gauntlet

Turns out that the Gauntlet is a symbol given to each witch upon reaching her point of maturity, and is designed in function specifically for her, which is why there are so many legends about the Gauntlet’s supposed abilities- it depends on the witch.

There are two problems though:
First, the princess would have to join the witches’ circle and become a fully-fledged member before she can be granted the use of a gauntlet. Fine, whatever- the princess would agree to pretty much anything at this point to save her homeland.
Secondly, and more importantly though, the Gauntlet is actually grown as part of the training process of the Witches.

This process takes about 2 years, and sometimes longer

Obviously the princess does Not have that kind of time, and she says as much

The witch purses her lips and thinks for a moment. Suddenly, she smiles brightly and says she has an idea. She has the girl stand up and follow her over to a small cistern. The princess is confused; there is nothing in the cistern, and the witch speaks in a language she cannot understand. The witch bids her get closer; the princess thinks there might be something in the culvert, so she leans over the edge and looks in- nothing but brackish water, leaves and sticks
Suddenly, the witch shoves her and she falls into the filthy water

And that is when she realizes: it isn’t water at the bottom of the cistern. It is pure black sludge
And it is moving

The witch pushed her into a pit with a slime at the bottom

The princess is panicking as the viscous stuff starts to climb up her legs. She tries to clamber up the pit, but the slime’s appendages pull her back down

As the slime dissolves her clothes and begins to cover her eyes and mouth, she prepares to die

Yet, surprisingly, it doesn’t

She eventually opens her eyes to find that her body is covered head to toe in a bodysuit made of black slime. The stuff fills her mouth, nose, and ears, but does not impede her movements or bodily functions, and actually seems to be… helping…

When the princess finally manages to get out of the cistern, the witch is waiting for her. She explains that while this isn’t exactly a Gauntlet, it should keep her safe and offer many benefits, with the added benefit of being able to be used immediately
The princess is obviously repulsed and shocked, and tries to get it to release her, but the slime will not come away. The witch then mentions that the slime also has the added benefit of ensuring that she comes back for training

So the princess must return home covered in armor made of slime that won’t come off to try and mediate the warring factions. Thing is, it lives up to the expectations. Just take the slime in her mouth for example: it may leave a strange taste in the back of her throat, but it neutralizes all poisons, allows her to breathe in pretty much anything, lets her consume just about anything, and get more nutrition that usual, plus probably like, 5 things that I am currently forgetting. The slime melts or dirties most all clothes and armor places over it, but it also tells most weapons and attacks to fuck off. It allows her to move faster and apply more strength to her actions.

The really hard thing for her to get used to is the horrified stares she gets from literally everyone she meets and passes, especially since she really starts to like the slime…

A short while back my dad told me about this tv show called Salvage Dogs, where these people go into buildings slated for destruction and rip out anything they think is interesting or valuable before the place is torn down

and i thought it would be awesome if something like that happened, and in the walls they found something that shouldn't have been there: a massive vault, a hidden passage, a secret message
Something

Notes for the Ringlord story:

circle meanings:
*inclusion
wholeness
*focus
*unity- (the darker end will be focused on)
nurturing
*cycles
?initiation
everything
perfection
womb
centering
revolution
infinity
mobility
*completion

meanings tend to be universal, sacred, and divine

cycles of time, movements of the seasons, rhythms of time
in alchemical symbolism, the circle is a center of focus

to native americans, it symbolized the sun, the moon, and all their children. it embodies spiritual energy, the integration of energy and matter

to the Celts, circles were protective boundaries, as well as symbols of the cosmos
to the Chinese, the circles often represented the heavens, where the square represented the earth.
Dr. Jung used the circle to represent the geometric archetype of the psyche
this means that the circle also includes us, the individuals, in the grand scheme of all things. when a symbol, any symbol, is drawn inside a circle, it focuses and draws our attention to it, to include them in all the experiences therein. the circle literally beckons the viewer inside its sacredness, while at the same time holding in all that is magnified by it.
these circles include:
planets
suns
clock faces
wheels
seeds
eyeballs
coins
cells
portals
fruit
eggs

can be both masculine and feminine in its representation

heavily associated with the number 10 in order to represent heaven and perfection in addition to eternity. it is the ultimate state of oneness, antithesis to the square, with the octagon in between.

the circle of necessity goes as follows: birth, growth, decline, and death.
the circle is a defense against chaos and formlessness

watching Rin: Daughters of Mnemosyne has revealed something to me:

even in this day and age, if multiple, powerful groups are willing to work together, something as big as an island can disappear and be hidden entirely

think about that: if no one (or very few people) are aware of an island's existence, the only way to know it exists is to see it, in person, by accident

that is... mildly disturbing

Back in high school, i was kind of into warhammer 40k lore, and i was a huge fan of the space wolves
well, i was going over some other lore and happened to come across some writings pertaining to the Imperium's general treatment of psykers, and something just clicked

So i imagined this hive world, and there lived a girl in the lower reaches. this girl was a psyker, and a powerful one, but kept her abilities on the low-down so as not to endanger anyone or call the inquisition upon her head
unfortunately, war came to this world, and the girl and a couple of her young friends were beset by demons. Out of the blue, the space wolves appear and try to beat the demons back. The space wolves are hard pressed, though, and begin to take losses
seeing these protectors thus beset, the girl does the one thing she promised she would never do: she lets her powers lose
...all the demons died
now the precise sequence of events that followed are a bit hazy, but the punchline is that the Space Wolves, thankful of the girl and impressed by her abilities, do not want the Ecclesiarchy or the Inquisition getting their hands on her, so they just fucking take her with them

now when they get to Fenris, they obviously have to give her the usual tests of the Aspirants in order to stay
so she is made to drink from the Cup of Wulfen, and then cast out into the wilderness, and has to make her way a thousand miles back to the fortress. Along the way, she is met by one of the infamous Thunder Wolves, but her powers (backed by the vitality granted by the Canis Helix) allow her to tame the beast, and together they make their way back to the Fang

From there, she is heartily welcomed into the halls of the Space Wolves, and goes on to train and fight alongside them in the years to come

i think i also had some thing where the only reason she was permitted to live was because she was demanded to spend every other decade among the Orders Militant of the Adepta Sororitas, but that doesn't quite make sense, even in this story

i'll be getting back to this one later, but leaving these notes here for the moment:

Underwater breathing- 1
cold resist- 2
fire resist- 2
pocket plane- 1
power sense- 3
toxin/disease resist- 2
night vision- 1


amplify
anti-infliction
durability
human physical perfection
invulnerability
Jactitation
kinetic absorption
power mode
steel skin
super strength
epic
Deus ex

Human physical perfection/impel resolve/ power mode
     Anti-infliction vs Jactitation??

human physical perfection (4) + impel resolve (4) + power mode( + anti-infliction (10)= 26
now to add some negatives

You know those movies where the protagonist starts getting really weird messages on his phone and strange e-mails on his computer, and finds out that he has been pulled into a sadistic game for his own survival?

Gonna take that one and try to throw it on its head


Girl (Nikephoros) is on the web late at night, and gets a mysterious e-mail, inviting her to watch a video; video turns out to be live, web-cam footage of her home and the surrounding area. Nike has been chosen to ‘participate’ in a night-long survival game, where she has to try and outwit the murderous men and women who enter the area looking for her between the hours of 10pm and 6am, and all the while the footage of the event will be streamed to anyone who is interested in paying.

Most people would freak, deny that the event is happening, etc.

Nikephoros? She confirms the details of the game, asks if she gets a cut if she lives, and says that she is game. She asks if she gets any prep time- she gets told she has ten seconds. She types for about 5, and then gives the viewers two thumbs-up.

Turns out that Nikephoros is not only smart and downright fearless, but she is also scarily genre-savvy, and puts on a grand show for the viewers, ultimately surviving the night as well as the couple of assassins who tried to cheat and kill her after the time limit was up.

She then reveals that she managed to back-hack a number of the accounts while she was actively being hunted, and knows who at least some of the parties are. Doesn’t actually do anything with it though, just uses the info to make sure her cut of the take gets safely deposited into a bank account of her choosing.

Finally, she tells everyone that she is game for another round, they just have to give her time to set up for them, bids everyone goodnight (because while it is morning to her, it is night where most of them are), logs out, and goes to get coffee, but not before shooting one last assassin in the face, right before he says something kind of important…

Going back a couple hundred steps here to actually give some background for a couple of the characters I created (or alluded to) in the Aether Pool

First and foremost, Zeta

Zeta was the cambion swordsman who was pretty much the first post I ever made on this blog, and I haven’t revisited him in a long-ass time, but I figured I should probably explain the story I thought up about him

In this story, Zeta was in some deep woods, having just set down his gear to rest a spell, when I dryad came up and demanded he leave. She was obviously prepared for a fight (because, duh, demon), but Zeta just tiredly sighs and starts to grab his gear. Confused, she asks him if he is insulting her, to which he responds that he is simply tired and does not wish to fight. The dryad ends up feeling like kind of shit and tells him of a calm river nearby where he could rest.

He barely gets camp set up however before an elven warband goes by. From what he can hear, Zeta determines that the princess of the local elven kingdom has been kidnapped. He doesn’t even think about his next actions- he just grabs his sword and shield and sprints off. Gets there as the battle joins, and just cuts the invaders down like wheat, kicks down a door, and brings the princess back to the warband with nary a scratch.
The elves are suspicious as fuck and try to kill him, but the princess interposes herself and Zeta just kind of runs off once she is in good hands.

One of the elves’ trackers (or was it the warband?) manages to find him as Zeta is packing up, the dryad worriedly trying to dab at his wounds. It is in the following conversation, it is revealed that Zeta just wants to be left alone, and doesn’t want to keep fighting.


The dryad starts berating the elves for their cold treatment (because she’s realized by this point that he is a legitimate good guy), and what the convo essentially ends up boiling down to is the elven king is requesting to see him
Zeta enters the elven capitol, much to the surprise of the locals, and has a pretty similar convo with the king. The princess is having a moment of hero worship, but still manages to logic shit, make everyone understand that he just wants a peaceful life, and convinces her father to teach her swordplay
Zeta is more than a little confused, but this is the first ‘home’ he’s had in some time, so he decides to tread lightly.
That said, his sword styles vastly impress the elves, who have never seen anything like what he does (which is basically pour the different ‘colours’ of his soul into his sword to produce different effects)

Anyway, time goes on, and eventually spring rolls around, so it is time for the king and his retinue to go visit the human kingdoms. His daughter comes along to visit the daughter of the human king, with whom she is good friends, and manages to drag Zeta along for the trip

Things start to go awry about the time they reach the gate, as the soldiers don’t want to allow a ‘devil’ inside the city walls, much less before the king. It looks like shit is going to go down, but Zeta calmly replies that he will set up camp outside the city, and wait for his pupil there. The elven king and his retinue do not like this (they’ve kind of grown on him, by this point, but one of the rangers goes with him so they know where he is and in they go.
The visit commences, greetings are made, pleasantries enjoyed. The topic of the ‘devil’ at the gate comes up, but kind of gets pushed aside until the next day, when the elven princess (let’s call her Virven) decides she needs to go out and train, and her friend (Tila), having been told so much about him, decides to tag along.

Zeta has only gotten a small camp set up, but receives the two princesses and their bodyguards warmly, pouring them tea and answering a few questions before Virven decides it is time to start. Tila watches in awe as her friend takes her stance, and is in dead shock when she sees Zeta’s display. This continues for some time, until suddenly, Zeta stops and puts down his training weapon. His eyes are fixed in the distance, and he tells Virven and Tila to get inside the tent as he picks up his shield.

Pretty soon, the camp is surrounded by horsemen, mercenaries who heard the princesses were outside the walls and intended to hold them for ransom, figuring that one old swordsmaster wouldn’t be able to stop them. Zeta just draws his shattered blade and waits.

Skipping back to the castle, a city watchmen has spotted the outriders in the distance, and word has gotten back to the king, who correctly suspects his daughter to be in danger. He gathers his soldiers (and the elven king gathers his) and they ride out to where the ranger leads them.

As they arrive, a broken, bloodied man stumbles into them, begging wildly for the king ‘to call of his demon’. The man is captured and a knight his sent to escort him back, but the other soldiers can only sit on their horses in terrified silence. The wide field is thick with corpses- aside from the one survivor, not a single member of the mercenaries survived, and most were cut to bloody pieces.

The kings finally arrive just as Zeta re-sheathes his sword and opens the tent door to allow the princesses to exit

Long discussions continue, but most have something to do with either A) how the kings are in Zeta’s debt for saving their respective daughter’s life, or B) how the fuck he did that

Whether Zeta stayed on after that or not remains to be seen- I never got much further than that- but the story did get to him having a bit more of a peaceful life, if one that has him constantly explaining to his newfound friends that he really wants nothing to do with any more wars
I’ll be getting to the second story in just a moment…

This second story involves a character I don’t think I have ever named (for good reason) but I have given allusions to

This is a world kind of like the one from the Thief games, except a bit heavier on the magic than the mechanical. It has been a WHILE since I looked at any of this stuff and I have other things to write tonight, so I’ll just go with what I can remember

This story starts with a great big formal party, with one of the prime princes in attendance. Suddenly, one of the stained glass windows shatters, and in run a couple of raggedly-dressed thugs. They don’t last long, because directly after them comes a shadowy figure that kind of just tears them all apart.
One of the noblewomen screams- a thug has somehow managed to kidnap her daughter and is on a boat headed across the river. The shadowy figure takes on foot across the water, cuts the man to pieces, and carries the girl back.

The moment the woman’s daughter has her feet on the ground, the noblewoman slaps the figure in the face. It’s hood falls back, revealing to the prince the face of a young woman

It turns out that this woman is a camarilla, a dangerous magic user who joined or was forced to join the Order of [] in order to hunt rogue magic users and defend the populace in general. Thing is, the Order has a reputation that has been dragged through the mud, and they are treated like shit by most everybody.

This is the first time the Prince has seen one of the camarilla, and is kind of appalled at the nobles’ general treatment of her, but her calm demeanor and unconcerned impassivity intrigue him.
The prince ends up following this girl, who leads him around the city before eventually ending in the ancient Clocktower, the headquarters of the Order. He brings up a case he has been given charge of by his father, and wants her help with, but this is just an excuse to be around her for a while. Some awkwardness ensues on his part (walking in on her in the bath, for instance), but they go on a couple of adventures together, until the big bad is revealed to have a very dangerous artifact capable of poisoning the entire city. The camarilla makes preparations to leave the city permanently, taking the artifact with her.

The prince tries to convince her otherwise; she replies that it is her job. He tries to say that someone else can take the artifact away, at which point she finally breaks her calm façade and with tranquil anger tells him that there is no one else.

As it turns out, the nobles don’t really know jack shit about the Order- the Order has very high standards for its entrants, and has never really had too terribly many members, almost all of whom were killed in a past catastrophe. The nobles, who only saw the small numbers, were convinced that they were snubbing the populace, and would not listen to any of the surviving members’ statements. As such, the Order has been in slow decline, which led to more enforcement problems around the city, which started the downward spiral again. Finally, as of ~3 years ago, this girl is all that remains of the order, and has been trying to keep the city from falling to rogue magic users and beasts all on her own.
It is also revealed that the reason she never gave the prince her name (and the reason I don’t mention one here) is because she doesn’t have one. She gave up her name upon entering the Order, and only knows that she is technically not supposed to exist, and that only by protecting the city as a camarilla is her life worth anything.

The Prince is in silent shock after this revelation, as are most of the soldiers and nobles in attendance. The girl takes this as a good time to leave, and does so.
She wanders into the wilderness, until she is well and truly lost, and is about to die to keep the artifact from being found

Big Bad suddenly shows up. The girl tries to stop him from taking the artifact, but in her weakened state she fails. Thing is, the BB actually respects her, and brings her out of the wilderness to nurse her back to health

BB puts her under lock while he starts to use the artifact, but she escapes and starts killing all manner of shit while trying to stop the city from finally falling apart. Climactic battle ends with the Big Bad and the camarilla bleeding out next to each other, both utterly defeated, enjoying a last cigar together.


The prince arrives just in time for the last member of the Order and her greatest enemy to tell him a prophecy about how the Order will rise again to defend the City, and to reveal to him that the City he knows is only the top layer of generations upon generations of construction and rebuilding, and the primary goal of the Order all these years has been to keep the things in the Underlevels from coming up, and that is where the missing members of the Order have disappeared to.
The two of them die, and many years pass.
The story ends with a strange warrior coming to the court of an elderly king, asking for a king given to him a long time ago by a mage of the clocktower

The camarilla (I don’t know what else to call her, this word just fits; leave me alone) is a mage whose primary inspiration was the Murder of Crows vigor from Bioshock Infinite. Obviously, heavily motif’d with crows (all mages have their magic based in something, this just happens to be hers), and it has a number of nifty abilities, since she’s used it so much. Her left hand is permanently morphed into claws, limiting its utility but giving her plenty of use in combat. She can make herself supernaturally light in order to ‘glidestep’ or run on air and water, and she has enhanced strength, speed, and senses. She can speak with crows to get information, and can summon her own supernatural birds to spy, steal, and fight for her. Anything they magpie for her can be inserted into her skin, allowing her to regenerate injuries and pull out things that have been stolen (like keys, coins, and the like). Flesh taken from things also allows her to access memories of the things it was taken from, though she doesn’t get to choose what she sees.
Finally, in addition to these powers, she has access to all things confiscated by the Order (read: that she confiscated), as well as all the treasures of the Order itself. Namely, the cursed sword Ahtzvengraul, which is a monstrous cross between a saber, a cutlass, and a falcion, that possesses all sorts of nasty abilities. It is supposed that most of the damage she takes isn’t actually healed by her crows feeding her, and that it is actually the cursed sword keeping her alive to that it can shed more blood. Note however that it doesn’t just pick a new owner; it Chose Her.
Ahtzvengraul also hates imposters, so when a swordswoman comes into the city and tries copying the dreaded blade’s abilities, it pours its hatred into her blow and outright shatters the weaker magical blade.
Aaalright, I think that just about covers it

This is a concept I came up with watching the first couple episodes of Maoyu- it contains some elements of character, in fact it has a lot to do with characters, but considering the actual story behind it I think it belongs here

As anyone who watches Maoyu knows, it revolves around two people: the Demon King, who forged all the factions of the demons into one unified whole, and the man known simply as the Hero, who forged ahead of his companions to fight him (her, as it turns out).
The story of Maoyu will be covered in the Anime section, but this little bit here is what inspired this piece. I’ve always seen heroes as young, brash, bold individuals who ride out, defeat the evil, and disappear into the sunset. After watching some of Maoyu, I kind of want to see more of what happens beyond, and behind, the scenes. So, naturally, I created a hero of my own (whom we shall name…Hero, duh)

Hero isn’t the typical hero type as we think of it- he is an older man, one in his late thirties to mid-forties in the beginning, and probably pushing his fifties, sixties, and beyond as the story goes. He is a couple fingerwidths taller than the average man, and slightly broader in the chest, but none of that is overtly impressive. Also, he is not a swordslinger- in fact, he isn’t a fighter or a knight, he is a priest. A warrior priest, I will grant you, but a priest. He strides onto the battlefield with his staff in one hand and a prayer on his lips, and his unyielding determination and overwhelming experience end the fight quickly.
The thing that is unique about Hero in particular is that he grew up religious, but thought it odd to devote himself to only one god. If he were going to devote his life to prayer, then why not pray to all the gods? If they all existed, and they all wielded power over different bits and elements of the world- all the things that made the world what it was- were they not all worthy of prayer and worship? Many people thought he was crazy, but he did in fact gain the favor of the bulk of them, and is at least appreciated by most of the others.
Thus, not only is he a strong and experienced combatant, he is also blessed by the gods of pretty much everything. In order to worship them and understand them, he went out of his way to learn of all kinds of things, making him very well-balanced, skilled, and worldly, not to mention connected, renowned, and respected.

Now, as we talk about Hero, there is another man that needs to be mentioned. I don’t really have a name for him, but we shall call him Ur, for Ur-priest. This man was everything that Hero was not- bombastic, raving, biased, etc. He worshipped no god, but was the founder of his own ‘religion’ as it were- he believed firmly that nothing in this world was free, that no one owed you anything, and that if you wanted something you had to fight to defend it. His emphasis on personal gain, survival, and power put him at odds with virtually every person, animal, and god in existence. His drive was so great that he actually stole the power of the gods themselves instead of praying, and used their divine power in that fashion.
How these men became companions is lost to time, but their infamous arguments and debates have not been, and while odd, it seemed that the two of them created a special bond of respect, one where only one was allowed to make jabs at the other, no one else. It came to the point where, in one particular city, ‘followers’ of each of their respective teachings were using the codes and practices to belabor others (I cannot word right now, but basically using the practices improperly). When Ur came across these false followers of Hero, and Hero happened upon Ur’s copycats, each did not attempt to convert, or even laugh at the offenders, but outright chastised
and shamed them for abusing the codes of their companion.
Why do I mention this?

One day, Hero returned from a long adventure, but he came back alone. Ur was never seen again, and Hero left to wander the world by himself. The day he left, many people noticed that he seemed…different. Many of his items were warped, twisted versions, as if his possessions had melded with those of Ur.
They were not far off
Due to some magical phenomena, Hero had been on the verge of death, and Ur had risked his own life to save his rival, only to bind them both into a single being. Hero was the dominant personality, but Ur’s tendencies and knowledge cropped up from time to time.

Hero left, however, because it was what they had both planned to do.
You see, this story is primarily meant to be about what happens after the adventuring is over. When the war is won, the famine is over, the curses have been broken, and peace has been brokered… what does a man like Hero do? People like him aren’t designed for peace, much as they might long for it. When you have spent every waking hour (and most of your sleeping ones) busily tending to other people’s problems, what do you do when all the problems are solved?
You go looking for new ones, obviously, and that is where this story goes
It also has to do with companionship- Hero and Ur had been part of an adventuring party before, but all their companions had left or settled down away from adventuring, which left them at odds as to whom they interacted with, since only their companions treated them as normal folk.
Over the course of the series, Hero would eventually encounter new challenges to be overcome, battles to be fought, and problems to solve, and meet many new people (some of whom became new traveling companions)
Another flavor of distance between Hero and others is actually something I am playing with- he could be so blessed by the gods that they don’t let him die normally. Even though he walks the world (or worlds), and makes new friendships, the world continues to move forward. People leave, things change, cities are built, cities decay. When you are a relic of the past, how do you deal with the problems of the future? Or do you?
Ehhh, I don’t know- am I going overboard with this?

This is an old one for me

By now you guys are pretty well aware that I like to watch movies and mentally change things to see where the story goes. I once did this with the movie Shrek, and the result was…interesting, to say the least. Also, keep in mind that I was a stupid, uneducated high school student when I thought this up, so bear with me.

My Shrek was not the gut-boasting, greenskinned guy whose face plastered pretty much everything for the next decade- mine was closer, in fact, to the typical D&D ogre: much larger than a human, thick-skinned, a bit beastial. One main thing I remember was just how Fucking Massive this guy was- I headcanoned him to be around 8 feet tall with a 6 and half foot shoulder span. Yes, you read that right- this guy was bigger through the shoulders than most men are tall.
This Shrek was also fairly jaded (he fought in pits for several years), but educated. Mostly what he wanted out of life was simply to be left alone. Of course, you know how the story goes, and his peace and quiet is disturbed, causing him to embark on a quest to be granted his home back. This quest brings us to the princess that he ‘saves’, who was in fact placed there at a young age due to a prophecy in her home.

(this would probably be a good time to mention a lot of the details are missing- I came up with the points I wanted, and left the rest out. What about the guy who plays Farquad? What about the dragon? I don’t know- I didn’t think about it)

Well, the princess was…nonplussed, and more than a little scared, but the lack of violence, in fact the ogre-knight’s completely reserved demeanor caught her attention. She actually grew very fond of the monster during their travels across the land, to the point she was reluctant to leave him, realizing how painfully lonely he was, but also how selfless (he stayed away from people mostly to protect them from themselves- he could understand their fear, but their fear would not allow them to understand him).

Shrek eventually decides he does not want to leave the girl to a life squandered by the rather stupid lord who sent him on the quest, and crashes the wedding.

The two of them realize they have feelings for each other, but they also realize that neither of them have any actual experience with intimate relationships (or in shrek’s case any relationships at all that didn’t involve people running from him), so they took it slow. It eventually got intimate, but it was mostly a period of them getting to know each other, and of the princess pulling Shrek out of his shell.

The scene I have most clearly pictured is actually from the second movie. Shrek and the princess (I don’t want to say Fiona dammit- Statsya, there you go) are eventually contacted by people from Statsya’s kingdom, because apparently the prophecy has either been fulfilled or averted, so it’s safe for her to come home. They are taken to the capitol by carriage, and they arrive to a big welcoming ceremony before the castle.
Statsya has a tearful reunion with her parents after years of separation, and everyone is happy to see how beautiful a woman she has become, and say that they have a number of suitors lined up to meet her

…I’m sorry, what? I already have someone.

Who, they ask

Statsya looks behind her- Shrek is nowhere to be seen. She looks back at her parents and asks for a minute. She goes back to the carriage, and sure enough Shrek is still sitting in there. A few words pass before statsya sighs and climbs in, closing the carriage door behind her
It turns out that Shrek wants to turn around and go back to his swamp, not because he doesn’t like it here, but because he doesn’t feel he belongs. This is Statsya’s home, her family, her people. She can live out a good life here, and be happy here, but this isn’t the place for someone like him, and his presence will merely make everyone scared and uncomfortable.

Statsya begins countering his arguments one by one, and eventually convinces him that wherever they are, she will be happy, so long as he is there to share in her happiness, but that she wants him to give everyone a chance. With a sigh of his own, Shrek agrees to meet her parents

The carriage doors open, and the entire carriage shifts. This concerns the crowd- they thought the entire thing was loaded with treasure or something. Much to their surprise, the suspensions releases almost fully as Princess Statsya leads Shrek out by the hand into view of the crowd, and introduces her mother and father (and the line of suitors behind them) to the absolutely massive ogre that she loves.

Things get hazy again after that, though I do remember the queen getting along surprisingly well after Shrek reveals his intelligence and education, not to mention an understanding of her daughter that even she does not possess. The two of them get along well enough; the king does not, at least not at first. I don’t think I had much of the fairy godmother business going on behind the scenes, but I do remember that the king asked him to breakfast one day in the forest, and an assassin was waiting for him instead. Shrek sighs to himself, and sees it as evidence he is not wanted, but he continues to stay.

New plot: the assassin, who survives, is a girl who is also fairly surprised at the ‘monster’s’ humanity, and at his acceptance of things strange and unusual, and finds herself crushing on him a little bit. He actually shuts her down early, but he does encourage her to use her talents in a way that makes her happy, and not just rack up a fortune in blood money, advice that she eventually heeds.

After that, I got nothing. Hope this was worth the read, and I haven’t been boring the lot of you all this time

New one i kind of want to see

kind of a mix between what i want to see out of a vampire story (see earlier posts) mixed with a kind of 'king under the mountain' vibe

young, inexperienced adventurer is traveling with her more experienced companions in a set of ancient ruins. Traps and simple, ruined architecture take the lives of each and every one aside from her, and at the bottom of the ruins she finds a skeletal figure sitting in deep contemplation upon a simple stone chair.
As she approaches, the skeleton moves, revealing itself to be a lich

however, far from being angry with her entering its abode, the monster greets her as cordially as a king welcoming an emissary into his court, only begging a moment to check his timepiece.
It seems that through his arcane studies into the strands of fate that a soul is destined to enter this place at this exact time, a person who will be important to both him as his student and to the fate of a people

thus, the adventurer becomes his apprentice, learning many old secrets, but also taking from his knowledge she becomes a much better adventurer and a much better person.
Romance between them is possible, but optional

hmm
need to flesh it out (shut up), but I like it

Idea for people with powers over light and darkness- for each element/side if you will, there is both a king and a queen. Thing is, these titles are representative not of royalty, marriage, or even relation, but of power

I have heard of Ebony and Ivory
Vice and Versa
Law and Order
But I don’t think I have ever heard of a weapon pair called Might & Right


Every year this spirit asked the boy what he wanted
His first time, he thought long and hard, and then asked to use two years’ wishes at once. He asked for intelligence and wisdom
He spent two years thinking and planning
Starting the year after that he began asking for unusual things. Not toys, not love, not power, but plain things. A giant cavern, a massive number of stone blocks, great numbers of glass panes.
Finally, one year, he asked for great physical strength. Then, he set to work.
When next the spirit returned, over the cavern had been built a massive, cathedral-esque, maze-like castle.

2 endings
The boy asks the spirit to live there, to which the spirit acquiesces.
Or
The boy captures the spirit within the castle, surgically removes her ovaries, and keeps her as his captive lover

The first is how the story goes. The second is what actually happened
The above story is used as a parable to open a story, much like the poem about the old grey lady that was used in Thief: Deadly Shadows
The story is set in a world covered in baroque, maze-like architecture
Come to find out that the story is true- the boy has continued to build up to the present day, and his creations have become otherworldly, both in design and location.
The protagonist of the story was born from that which the boy cast aside- the spirit’s reproductive organs.
The fertility and vitality of such spirits is legend, which is why the character was able to have been born without any direct insemination or maternal life support.
The trade-off? It took time

It also doesn’t really matter what fathered it, especially since the insemination would have been indirect and purely by chance. My first envisioning was a centaur, the second was the Moon Presence from Bloodborne. It really doesn’t matter, but under the circumstances I find it highly unlikely that the character is human, or even necessarily humanoid

Re-imagine of the Yu-Gi-Oh series w/ the protagonist as a girl
In a gaming world primarily dominated by men, the top contenders walk into the finals to find their opponent is this tiny, twig of a girl
And the thing is, magic or no, she wins games (both the primary card game and pretty much anything else) not because she necessarily has ‘unbeatable cards’ or an ancient presence inhabiting her body, but simply because she is a student of the game and a born strategist who knows how to utilize virtually every form of playstyle there is
She is also a collector, so she does Have good stuff, just not perhaps what her opponents were expecting
She is descended from an ancient general, and some of the antags think his spirit lives on in her, but it turns out to not be the case- she is just that fucking good
But she is still a tiny girl in high school, so that comes with its own problems (the first image I had of her was during the school sequence in the pyramid of light movie… yeeeah)
This also sets her up for some hilarious , off-the-wall circumstances, since she is a) a strategist b) is actually in control of her thoughts/actions instead of an ancient, mystical entity and c) is a decent person who just happens to love a game. Oh, and d) gives no fucks
Example: remember back in the duelist kingdom arc where Kaiba stood on a ledge so yugi had to choose between the game and kaiba’s life? This girl, upon seeing this, would walk past all the glowy lights, right up to kaiba, and punch him in the nuts. When he keels forward in pain, she grabs him by the collar and drags him back to safety.
When he complains about that action being against the rules, she says something along the lines of it being against good judgement to put people in shitty moral situations, but she didn’t see that stop him

Need to remember to put up the idea I had that was similar to 7th Garden

just don't have time right this second

In the past, I came up w/ two ideas that originally started as campaign ideas but eventually changed to more of stories because I developed headcanons about them that I didn’t want to get rid of them. I call them the Half-Blood stories- not because they are related in any way, but because they both have to do with characters that were half-human (most of the time) and half…something else. Meant to be a lot about adventure, social rejection, belonging, and finding where you belong.

The first one kind of started from a combination of TS’ Fall of Natacyn campaign and Neverwinter Nights 2, among other things. This story revolved around a group of five people, who were heavily associated with a prophecy involving the fate of the planes. Two of them I had more info for, the other three a little less.

The first guy (the idea around whom the story began) was kind of based on Disney’s Hercules and also (weirdly) around Best’s character from the Fall of Natacyn game, Damian. This kid was particularly special because he half-god. Yeeeah, I know, cliché as fuck, but it made sense when I first came up with it. Son of the sun god, super strong, yada yada yada. A lot of his personality was primarily based on Hercules: kind, loyal, a bit naïve, always wanting to find a place where his incredible strength would earn him friends instead of fear (he was often considered more of a monster than a demi-deity). Kind of an overpowered puppy, now that I think about it. We’ll call him Petros for now.
The second character (who we shall call Despina) was heavily inspired by Neeshka from NWN 2. Unlike her comrades, she was not an actual half-blood, but a tiefling, several generations removed from her fiendish ancestor. Out of all of them, she probably suffered the worst from social rejection, and was constantly trying to display her talents to show that she was useful. If I were to actually write this story in full, though, I would have to change her a little bit, because in her initial rendering she was heavily reliant on her relationship with Petros to feel worthwhile, which just feels…kind of gross now. Kind of obvious, but Despina focused around being a skill-monkey rogue-type.

The other three (I’ll give names as I go):
Sofia- born of human and fey, she was rejected due to accusations of being unnatural and a witch. Unlike Petros (who was forgiving) and Despina (who was reclusive), Sofia possessed a much more thorny disposition, often displaying far more anger than a situation necessarily warranted, and though loyal to her friends often showed a thirst for blood at the first sign of an argument. She was most heavily based around natural magic (some druidic variant), but I think adding in some actual witch ranks for flavor would be funny, in an ironic sort of way.
Vissarion- born from the union of a human and a powerful lycanthrope, Vissarion was a born weretiger. A tall and lean individual, he was more the Byronic hero type- quiet, dark, brooding, oddly magnetic charisma, etc. He was classically trained as a bardic-type, but unlike Sofia and
Photious (who were primarily mages) and Despina (who was a support-type rogue), Vissarion was groomed to be a front-line swordsman (swashbuckler, more than likely)
Photious- a half-dragon mystic, this guy suffered more from culture shock than anything else, but that is mostly because he was warned before he left home to cover his snouted face beneath a mask, and to hide his scales beneath layers of robes. More of a historian and a collector than an actual adventurer, his learned intellect more than once saved the party’s life, and he could hold his own in a barroom brawl or in a magical duel.

The story was really kind of vague, but the beginning details Petros and Despina being childhood friends and eventually finding someone who told them what they were and gave them training (basically Phil from Hercules), and eventually the other three joined them. Photious learned of a prophecy involving half-bloods, they went off to learn more about it. Adventure, adventure, adventure. At some point Despina was captured because her great-grandfather was an archduke of the Nine Hells, and one of the other archdukes wanted some leverage against him, which led the party to storm the Hells to get her back, and if I am not mistaken that was the event that made the realize that, regardless of what the world thought about them, they still had each other, and where they belonged was right by each other’s side.

I’ll get to the second story in a sec

This story I actually feel a bit embarrassed about, because it wasn’t created as a proper story- I just read the Bastards & Bloodlines rulebook, and I ended up liking so many of the different half-breed and artificial races that I just wanted to write them into one story. Still, I feel it would be a slight injustice to not at least mention it, so with that in mind here we go:

It started with a houri, a young woman born of elf and nymph, who ventured from her home, closely tailed by a young piper (human/satyr- this one was a bit on the wild side, but very friendly). As they traveled, they met first one jovian (half-giant, in this case a fire giant), and then a second (this one of frost). The fire jovian was a creature of passion and perfection, one who possessed the personal presence of a king. The frost jovian was a lot like Vissarion, a quiet, brooding creature who somehow possessed great charisma.
This group traveled for some time, sharing many adventures. The houri and the fire jovian began a relationship, but on one mission in particular the group was forced into a bind, and the fire jovian was forced to sacrifice himself for the sake of getting everyone else out alive. The frost jovian, enraged with himself for being so helpless to save his comrades life, departed soon after, promising to return when he could properly protect the remaining two.

The houri fell into a depression soon after, having lost two close friends in as many weeks. They kept traveling, I remember that, and it came to the point where the piper had to hypnotize her with her pipe music so she would relax enough to sleep properly.

Time passed, and eventually they found new companions- a half-orc/half-ogre, a half-gnoll, a watcher, and a hill jovian (I liked the jovians- sue me).
Note: I wanted to add others in, including a krestel (Halfling/harpy), a Trixie (gnome/pixie), and a wyrd (elf/ogre mage) but the cast felt bloated enough as it was.

Like I said, this one was never a proper story; there wasn’t a plot of any sort, so I guess it ended up being more a slice of life adventure story than an actual novel. I…don’t actually have much else to say about this one, although I believe I have mentioned it a time or two before, probably a few pages back on this topic somewhere. If you can find the one about a group visiting a city and for most of them it is ‘their first time’, that would be the one

Going back to the student council president idea for just a sec:

A first-year transfer student has come to the school, and becomes infatuated with a boy who helped show her around when she was lost
She really wants to ask him out, but an Alpha Bitch has her eyes on him, and intimidates her, so she gets a bit depressed.

After school, she is suddenly called out and escorted up to the student council room, where the president coolly asks her a series of bewildering questions, before finally saying that she will allow this. She tells the girl three things, orders her to pay attention, to direct any further questions to a specific student in her class, and informs her that she has till the end of next week
The three things end up being specific things that the boy likes or (more likely) certain events that he will attend or places he will go, where the girl ends up meeting with him, making contact, and eventually asking him out, and all along the girl in her class is giving her pointers or advice, but always in a mischievous, roundabout kind of way.
When the girl finally confesses, and the boy accepts, she leaves and is abruptly escorted back to the president, who informs her that she is behind schedule, but within the permissible time period, so the president will approve the relationship. After the girl leaves, the Alpha Bitch comes in like a storm, but is calmly shut down and told to leave the situation alone, lest she suffer the consequences

The happy ending to this particular scenario is that the bitch seethes on the sidelines as the happy couple goes about their business. The bad ending is the bitch continues to assault and humiliate the girl, but suddenly her home life becomes much more stressful due to her father’s business deals falling through one by one, to the point where he slaps her for the first time, causing her to question what her life has becomes. It is later revealed that the president, using various contacts, had altered the deals to cause them to fail

The president is standing at the window, watching the students mill about in the courtyard below, the happy couple included. Another student comes in, who knows something of what the president is like (this is in the bad ending, and he has heard of what happened to the bitch’s family and made an educated guess as to what happened). He asks her why she did it- she responds that these are her toys, and she does not tolerate anyone else playing with or damaging them, including him (she turns her head to make the statement more pointed).
He makes a comment along the lines of her being very defensive of her pawns, causing her to respond with something along the lines of:

“Pawns? I do so dislike chess- is it not sufficient to call them my toys?”

He, fashioning himself a chessmaster, teases her for her apparent inability to play the game, despite her talent for manipulation, tactics, and overall planning.

“I said I dislike the game, I never said one word about not being able to play it.”

Him being arrogant challenges her to a match, to which she responds with a series of moves corresponding to the boy’s favorite way of taking down other chess players, picks his game plan apart, and mentally and verbally defeats him in 7 moves without ever stepping away from the window or ripping her eyes from the couple below her. The boy stares at her in sudden fear, and she says,

“Lovely game, isn’t it”

god-maker- humans make their own monsters, so why can't they grow 'gods' in tanks and vats?

Sudden concept

On some world, there are many different species that constantly war for supremacy and territory. That is, until one day when a new group appears. Though small in number, this group possesses unnatural skill, inscrutable tactics, and are wholly unstoppable. Within a few short years, the entire world has been dominated by their supremacy, and a civilization is developed under their direction.
Some plot and characters are missing, but it is seen over the years that these powerful warriors never have sex, never take advantage of spoils of war or slaves, none of the women are ever seen pregnant, no children are ever witnessed, etc.

It is eventually revealed that these soldiers come out of a hole in the ground, a hole that leads to a vast series of metallic tunnels. Our unknown protagonists get to witness the ‘birth’ of one of these warrior- when a new one is needed, one is pulled from a ‘blister’ in a cavernous room, deep in the bowels of the system.
Further investigation in the strange, mirage-like library of this cavern reveal that this ‘race’ was the result of an ancient experiment on a distant world to artificially create super-soldiers. Some defect caused the experiment to be shut down, and for the safety of the people who created them the remaining subjects were loaded onto a space ship and launched on a distant trajectory. The ship eventually crash-landed on this world centuries, even millennia before any of the native races had any kind of collective or cultural history, and the only reason they came out in the present day is because the life support in some of the pods began to fail, waking those particular subjects up.

Mix of sci-fi and primitive warfare

things i need to write:
the ringlord story
randall's backstory
the epsilon and the caedo

The alcoholic father who works late, but always brings his drink into his daughter's room to talk about her day, and always tells her not to be like him

the swashbuckler (?) who was to be married to a powerful mage, but values his freedom highly, so he keeps running away
his drider fiancee is surprisingly okay with it, but she does keep tabs on him to make sure he is okay, and woe be to the enemy that actually hurts him
the reverse thing, where it is the girl who is the highly feared mage who will unleash her wrath when someone hurts the one she loves

Weird and stupid, but i'm not just gonna bin it

I want to see a high school superhero bit where the head cheerleader harasses this other girl in her class. Girl proceeds to laugh it off
catastrophe happens. Girl happens to be a superhero (or else just be superhuman) and saves cheerleader

Cheerleader proceeds to fall hardcore for this girl, which is funny not only because only a short time before she hated this girl's guts but also because prior to this moment she was at least slightly homophobic
so the feelings start going to her head, and she finds that she suddenly likes spending time with this girl, and the girl manages to make those grungy-ass clothes look good andOMGWHATISHAPPENINGTOME!?!?!?

Quick blurb from a blip back

remember that time I was talking about wanting spiders and snakes to be a little more respected in stories? Maybe still tricksters, not necessarily good, but certainly not evil? Well, got an idea for at least one instance

(this idea was partially taken from Anaconda, by the by)

Girl in some equatorial country is being chased by men with guns at night. She has managed to hide momentarily in a shack by a river but it is obvious that she is going to be caught soon
Suddenly, she can't breathe- something has wrapped around her waist and is crushing her lungs. then she hears a voice in her ear, something along the lines of:
'Shhhhshshshshsh- can't have you getting caught just yet"

the thing around her waist- which she can't see because dark- drags her a little bit out of the way. Man goes by, doesn't see them. while the have a moment, the force unwraps slightly and the voice tells her to take a breath and hold on. She complies after a moment (she's just happy to have air) and wraps her hands around something bigger around than her leg, moments before it drags her under the water
the thing undulates in her arms, pulling her deeper and deeper into the inky blackness. After what feels like an eternity she feels the presence of something around her, before she can suddenly breathe again. She is in a tight space, and obviously underwater, but she can breathe in this little pocket
the voice speaks again, and it is revealed that it is a massive snake that ate 'some sacred beast' and is now much more intelligent and capable of new things. and, well, since it's an anaconda, it lives and grows until it is killed by something, it has just continued to grow in knowledge for about 20 years. the girl is fucking terrified, but the thing says it's not going to eat her, and she has no choice but to take it at its word

some time passes; the snake says it is leaving. the girl starts to panic, but the snake stops her. it tells her to count to one hundred, and it will be back before she finishes. the voice goes silent. the girl waits
she is alone
so she starts counting. her voice is shaking, and she is pretty sure she is going to die here- the air will run out, and she won't be able to find her way out before she drowns. She reaches one hundred, finally, and the voice speaks from right next to her ear, congratulating her. she asks how long it has been there- 'since about 87'

the snake tells her to hold on again, and out they go, reaching the surface. the men are long gone, and the two of them are now alone

only one scene, i don't know where it would go from here, except that the snake is supposed to serve as a mentor of sorts. also know they were supposed to discuss sexuality at some point, and the snake is surprisingly well-read and knowledgeable of the issues humans have with sex and intimacy.
oh yeah, and the snake also (maybe?) only saved her because he needed somebody to turn the pages in his books so he could read faster

sorry if it is rushed and choppy. gotta discuss class

You know that cliche kind of cartoon bully? big guy, blonde hair, looks like a douche

I had this idea a couple of weeks ago about a guy like that who recently moved to this city, and since he looked like a thug that's how people talked about him
one day, this nerdy kid is looking at an ad for a new cartoon series that is about to start, and this 'bully' comes up behind him

nerd thinks he is about to be humiliated
'bully' starts asking him about the show. the nerd is confused, but answers
'bully': Cool, wanna watch it at my house?

Turns out that he just doesn't like talking to people and doesn't care much what they say about him. he also likes watching cartoons and anime, and he and this nerd end up bonding over cartoons, becoming good friends
they end up getting paired to work on a class project, alongside this girl. they decide to do their project about this particular show; the girl has never had time to watch many shows, so they just kind of introduce her. one weekend of binge-watching later she is immediately hooked.

and their friendgroup just builds from there. One day the girl's car breaks down near the guy's neighborhood, and she walks over, knocks on his door, and asks if she can borrow his phone. He just grabs one of his other friends and pushes her car to his house and into the garage so he can work on it while they all watch a couple new anime episodes.
This entire time, the girl's friend in the front seat is getting whiplash from the outside weirdness of the situation and is freaking out. she gets over it, mostly because everyone else is just kind of staring at her like, 'we do this all the time, what's the problem?'