Jester's Privilege

A 6th-level Disintegrate spell... that does 75 damage on average. Bolaire, you go for the Phantasmal Force. It's batted away. Termina moves around, hits you with a Disintegrate, does not hit you.

Primus Tachonis is an all-purpose personal tragedy creator sure to spur your character to adventure specifically so they can get his ass. Whether you need an old money asshole muscling in on an institution beloved to your PC or an evil sorcerer to slaughter their entire family Primus Tachonis has the magic and the social station to create whatever tragedy is required to serve your backstory.

Primus Tachonis is so versatile as a backstory tool he has professional D&D players raving:

Primus Tachonis killed my character's best friend and now she has to figure out who she is without him! -Laura Bailey I wrote a light backstory because I was still feeling out the setting and my dungeon master used Primus Tachonis to turn my brother into a statue! -Travis Willingham Primus Tachonis is trying to take over my character's magic school and endangering her students, and she will not have that! -Marisha Rey I had intended my character to have a tense but ultimately repairable relationship with his father, but then my DM used Primus Tachonis to rip his skull from his head. Now my character is on a quest to kill every member of Primus' noble house! -Matthew Mercer My character was a happy and established local playwright until Primus Tachonis had his little brother executed. Now he's taken up the sword again in his brother's stead! -Liam O'Brian I needed someone to murder my character's wife and daughter and my dungeon master suggested Primus Tachonis, and I couldn't be happier with the result! -Robbie Daymond Even works on members of his own family! -Alexander Ward

Water is way more hydrating than soda, but soda is more hydrating than nothing. A balanced meal is way more nutritious than ice cream, but ice cream is more nutritious than nothing.

Something is better than nothing. Some hydration is better than no hydration. Some nutrients are better than no nutrients. Some produce is better than no produce.

Then about a week into their journey like

Legolas: *in Elvish, for approximately the 20th time* ugh fucking hobbits, so annoying

Frodo: *also in Elvish, deadpan* yeah we’re the worst

Legolas:

Legolas: ugh fucking hobbits

Merry: Frodo what’d he say

Frodo: I’m not sure he speaks a weird dialect but I think he’s insulting us. I should tell him I can understand Elvish

Merry: I mean you could do that but consider

Merry: you can only tell him ONCE

Legolas: umm well your accent is horrible

Aragorn: *hollering from a distance* HIS ACCENT IS BETTER THAN YOURS LEGOLAS YOU SILVAN HICK

Legolas: y’alld’ve’ff’ve

Frodo: Good morrow to thee, frend. I hope we twain shalle bee moste excellente companions.

Legolas: Wots that mate? ‘Ere, you avin’ a giggle? Fookin’ ‘obbits, I sware.

english would probably have changed less since Chaucer’s time, if a lot of our cultural leaders from the thirteenth century were still alive and running things.

they’ve had like. seven generations since the sun happened, max. frodo’s books are old to him, but outside any very old poetry copied down exactly, the dialect represented in them isn’t likely to be older than the Second Age, wherein Aragorn’s foster-father Elrond started out as a very young adult and grew into himself, and Legolas’ father was born.

so like, three to six thousand years old, maybe, which is probably a drop in the bucket of Elvish history judging by all the ethnic differentiation that had time to develop before Ungoliant came along, even if we can’t really tell because there weren’t years to count, before the Trees were destroyed.

plus a lot of Bilbo’s materials were probably directly from Elrond, whose library dates largely from the Third Age, probably, because he didn’t establish Imladris until after the Last Alliance. and Elrond isn’t the type to intentionally help Bilbo learn the wrong dialect and sound sillier than can be helped, even if everyone was humoring him more than a little.

so depending on how much of a role Thranduil took in his upbringing (and Oropher in his), Legolas may have some weird stilted old-fashioned speaking tics in his Sindarin that reflect a more purely Doriathrin dialect rather than the Doriathrin-influenced Western Sindarin that became the most widely spoken Sindarin long before he was born, or he might have a School Voice from having been taught how to Speak Proper and then lapse into really obscure colloquial Avari dialect when he’s being casual. or both!

considering legolas’ moderately complicated political position, i expect he can code-switch.

…it’s also fairly likely considering the linguistic politics involved that Legolas is reasonably articulate in Sindarin, though with some level of accent, but knows approximately zero Quenya outside of loanwords into Sindarin, and even those he mostly didn’t learn as a kid.

which would be extra hilarious when he and gimli fetch up in Valinor in his little homemade skiff, if the first elves he meets have never been to Middle Earth and they’re just standing there on the beach reduced to miming about what is the short beard person, and who are you, and why.

Pippin, confused: Is he not speaking Elvish?

Frodo, sarcastically: I dunno, are you speaking Hobbit?

Boromir, who has been lowkey pissed-off at the Hobbits’ weird dialect this whole time: That’s what it sounds like to me.

Merry, who actually knows some shit about Hobbit background: We are actually speaking multiple variants of the Shire dialect of Westron, you ignorant fuck.