unprompted !@bladewarde

oooh!!!! okay so i do sometimes keep the in game effects because i do like the theme that her powers tend to help her in combat (haven't gotten a very bad one – minus the magma mephit summon immediately after resing gale – until act iii, mostly just 'resilient sphere' & switch locations with anyone & vines appearing around her to make difficult terrain, an extra action on her turn, or speak with animals – it's been SO generous to her).

but i also picked wild magic for the chaos, especially in early game, so in writing i augment it with two tables that others have made that also lean more into the feywild origin of wild magic. haven't had a thread or an ask where this is applicable in a minute, but they are luxking's & probs_a_nerd's. basically, i roll & evens are probs_a_nerd's, odds are use luxking's & then roll again for the effect.

some highlights include:

a lot of that is where she grew up, but magic meant she had to be perfect about it, & allow no obvious slip ups – & i've mentioned this before, but a good deal of the magic surges that happen in the game are 1. because the tadpole nukes the tenuous control she did learn to have & 2. because she's in a way more high stakes environment than home. back home, she learned everything to perfection, literally had it beaten into her, so she usually had enough of a handle on things to not give herself away. or, then, any surges never could be traced back to her.

all that to say, i know wild magic is, well, wild & there's no rhyme or reason to it, but i kind of co-opt hers into her narrative arc.

there is no happiness or being happy while shoving down a very big part of herself, & her magic is a bit of a stand in for the emotional journey. basically, she deals with a lot of surges in act i, a lot of conflict of having to rely on her magic to survive & in ways she never had to before, & hating it (& herself a bit) for it. the high stakes also expose just how shitty her education was, & she was never supposed to need it. she's spent years basically shoving it down or away or hating it, so now using it, it's a fuckin mess.

that said, in combat, it almost always reacts to protect her, even if she doesn't see it. it's instinct, it's part of her, & in combat they see eye to eye. she only gets one mildly devastating surge in act i, a magma mephit summon. the others are shields, or otto's reslilent sphere, or switching places with her target, or an extra action, or vines sprouting around her to hurt everyone in it. it's actually, surprisingly helpful or, at worst, neutral. she's finally hit by a slow effect only in act iii.

but out of combat? when she uses it for anything, that's when it starts to act up & lash out, & then she gets mad at it, doesn't use it, & the cycle continues for a bit. also, for hilarity, i do use some better tables to give fun effects bc i live to humble her.

i've also mentioned she is watching gale, wyll, & sh & their casting to try & incorporate what she can into her own use, & she definitely picks up some spells from mimicking them. but, over the course of the game as they reclaim more from the tadpoles & she gets more relaxed & open, & also uses her magic actually, it really starts to mellow out, to the point where, in act iii, she doesn't have as many surges anymore. (also helps that she's less stressed out by being in the city).

but yeah i just like the journey of it.

i have her modern bard verse as a pop star but her modern wizard verse? looks like hitting her head or something & seeing ghosts of dead people & doing her damndest to ignore it. this could also go with her bard verse a lil, pop star doesn't want to look crazy to the tabloids. i know it's been done but it's fun to me so it's 100% part of the backbone of her wizard modern verse.

alara reading both of these like

& then i get to have the fun of another sub-branch / sub-arc about coming back. bc dying will absolutely have a big effect on her.

#for the record she hates it.

#alara vc: i look like i aged 80 years. i look like a corpse.

#not only is it a very visible reminder of what happened. but she does NOT have the complexion for it like sh does.

#alara to aylin: does your mother do literally /any/ other hair colour ? can i swap ?

#anyways local girl kind of wants to be special enough to get help & attention from the gods but when she does.

#she says 'actually nvm take it back' alskjdf

unprompted ! @bladewarde

oh, for sure. so, the usual route she chops her hair off after the fight ( well, goes to get it cut ) & i'm not sure if she does after dying. gotta think about it more. but, dying her hair when it's long is, well, a lot of hair & very annoying, & depending on how good the dye is, something quite repetitive, so i can see her defaulting to illusion magic instead.

with shorter hair, i see it being more accessible/easier to maintain, & that might prompt her to chop it off in this verse; instead of purely for a change, also for practical reasons.

Alpenblumen (details)

Theodor Petter