DND TILL I DIE

like imagine you’re some small town nobody who went to high school with this chubby, awkward girl that no one paid attention to except maybe to make fun of her or push her around. The only thing you really remember about her is that she brought her button collection to third grade show and tell and the cool kids bullied her about it for like a month. Smart, real quiet, but just an all around weird girl. Married her nerdy AV club boyfriend and had a kid right of of high school, but you’re small town folk, and that’s what you do, so w/e

a few years later, you find out she was murdered. Sad, definitely shocking, but at the end of the day you didn’t really know her all that well. You give your condolences to her parents, maybe bring over a casserole to her grieving widower, but you and the town collectively move on. The most you hear about the brenattos for the next year is that yeza snagged some big time government contract, which is a little weird for a small town chemist, but hey maybe there was something to veth’s nerdy AV club boyfriend after all.

then out of nowhere, the Russians™ airdrop into your podunk little town, torch some buildings, kidnap yeza brenatto of all people, and peace out. Easily the wildest thing that’s ever happened in this shithole, cause what the fuck. What the fuck was yeza working on?

then a couple of weeks later, dead-for-a-year, button collecting, squirrely little professional doormat veth brenatto shows up, not only alive, but with SEAL team fucking 6 at her side and an AK-47 strapped to her back. What the fuck. Every single one of them looks like they could kill you in 10 different ways, and you can tell at a glance that veth has seen some shit. What the fuck. Her and her hypercompetent looking friends announce they’re chasing after the Russians on foot and leave. What the fuck.

you never see veth or her friends again, but last you heard she’s doing black ops wet work for either the government or the russians. Depends on who you ask. She might or might not have helped broker peace between them. Also old edith wrote and the brenattos are living in Sicily and are millionaires now

merperson: what's a gender

marine scientist: like, are you a man or a woman?

merperson: i'm merfolk

marine scientist: no, like, what's in your pants?

Merfolk: oh man, there are a lot of women here. Haha don’t worry guys, I got this :) *changes into a man to keep a balance because that’s culturally polite for merfolk*

Click through this link i’m losing my mind its gorgeous

the style is called “orsi” and is unique to iran

yes, these are real places! it’s a different mosque in the same city as the first picture (the shah cheragh mosque in shiraz)

I present to you all…

Button Bee’s Candy Roulette!

Aphenphosmphobia or Haphephobia: Fear of being touched.

Arachnophobia: Fear of spiders.

Astraphobia: Fear of storms, thunder and lightning.

Autophobia: Fear of being alone.

Aviophobia or Aviatophobia: Fear of flying.

Batophobia: Fear of heights or being close to high buildings.

Claustrophobia: Fear of confined spaces.

Dementophobia: Fear of insanity.

Entomophobia: Fear of insects.

Frigophobia: Fear of the Cold.

Hierophobia: Fear of priests or sacred things.

Necrophobia: Fear of death or dead things.

Nyctophobia: Fear of the dark or of night.

Ochlophobia: Fear of crowds or mobs.

Ommetaphobia: Fear of Eyes.

Phonophobia: Fear of sound or loud noises.

Pnigophobia or Pnigerophobia: Fear of choking of being smothered.

Pyrophobia: Fear of fire.

Thalassophobia: Fear of open or deep water.

 Let’s say you’ve got a city where there’s tame white doves everywhere. They’re not pests, they’re regarded as sacred, holy protectors of the city, and the whole city cares for them and feeds them like they’re pets. They’re so tame because it’s a social taboo to hurt or scare one. Nice pretty doves :)

 Then someone points out that even if they’re not seen as pests, doesn’t having a completely unchecked feral pigeon population - that not only isn’t being culled, but actively fed and cared for - mean that there would be bird shit absolutely all over the place?

 A part of you wants to say no, because these are your nice, pretty doves. To explain that there’s a reason why they’re not shitting all over the place, maybe they’re super-intelligent and specifically bred and trained to not shit all over the place. The logistics of how, exactly, could anyone breed and train a flock of feral birds go unaddressed.

 An even worse solution would be to not have those birds, editing them out of the world. No, they spark joy, you can’t just toss them out!

 Now, consider: Yes, yes they would, but the city also has an extensive public sanitation service that’s occupied 90% of the time by cleaning bird shit off of everything. One of the most common last names in the area actually translates to “one who scrapes off dove shit”, and it’s a highly respected occupation. And thanks to the sheer necessity of constantly regularly cleaning everything, the city enjoys a much higher standard of cleanliness, and less public health issues caused by poor public sanitation.

The Augsburg concept has one big pigeon house every 500m in which wild pigeons are fed, protected from weather and have nesting opportunities. Cities doing that have WAY less uncontrolled populations (since they can take out eggs if they feel they need reduce the population), way less shit AND a healthy population since it’s easier for veterinarians to notice and get to sick animals.

So I’d say one can of course still keep your general idea……but there’s also those MASSIVE palace-like pidgeon houses and only the most worthy are allowed to enter and directly interact with the pigeons (feed them, heal them, clean their lodgings). One big entrance for the human servants (priests??) and millions of small holes for the pigeons.

- Neck of a snake

- body of a leopard

- haunches of a lion

- feet off a hart (deer)

So is it

Or….

these beasties. For a long time, science had them down as going extinct 200 thousand years ago, but then we found some bones from 36 thousand years ago. Which, y’know, is quite a difference. Since you can bet that any skeleton we find is not literally the last one of its kind to live, many creatures have date ranges unknowably far outside the evidence.

In South Asia there were cultures that described a man-beast/troll forrest giant  who’s knuckles dragged the ground, and everybody from the west was sure it was superstitious mumbo jumbo, but you know what used to live there?

And did you know that some of the earliest white colonizers of the Americas heard accounts that there were natives still alive who had seen and hunted and eaten a great hairy beast, shaggy like the buffalo but much bigger, with a long thin nose like a snake and two giant fangs… so, like, mammoths, you know? but they were totally discounted because europeans of the time were like, elephants live in Africa and aren’t hairy, you can’t fool us, pranksters!

And it’s not just living animals that were badly described, or which descriptions got exaggerated over the course of centuries or through translation errors. Sometimes, people finding fossil bones of extinct animals might have also influenced some myths!

By now this is pretty well-known but it has been theorised that the Greek myth of the cyclops was started when people found Deinotherium skulls. Now you might say, uh, how is it possible to think a cousin of the elephant is a huge human dude with one eye?

Well-

- the big nasal opening kinda looks like an eye if you have no idea what kind of animal had this kind of skull (you can read more about this theory in this old National Geographic article if you like).

Here’s a less well-known one; the griffin is a mythological hybrid with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle. The earliest traces of this myth come from ancient Iranian and ancient Egyptian art, from more than 3000 BC. In Iranian mythology, it’s called شیردال‌ (shirdal, “lion eagle”). Now, it’s been the subject of some debate and it’s not confirmed, but there’s a theory that people might have seen some Protoceratops and Psittacosaurus fossils in Asia and might have interpreted it as “a lion with an eagle’s head”:

People seemed to like the previous list, so I thought I’d make some more.

Honorary Titles (courtesy of Vlad)

Free passage aboard any vessel in the fleet

A scroll of any spell the court wizard can cast

A manual outlining the fundamentals of the local language

A portion of land with a fixer-upper of a keep

The finest hound from the kennels

A large, unidentified, jewel encrusted egg

The captain of the guard as a retainer

A map detailing the location of a mythic treasure

The book of vile darkness

A willow extract that cures headaches

Access to a library where PCs can find a book that will give them a +2 bonus on any one knowledge check should they spend a few hours searching and reading among its tomes (cannot be retried until player has put at least one more rank in that skill)

A painting/statue of a subject of their choice

Access to a restricted area or person (thieves guild fence, head alchemist, the prisons, etc)

10-25% discount on any items in a store

Permission to court/marry a family member without the family taking action against it

Approval to teleport to this (or the NPCs) location at any time, should they need a quick check in or a place to hide. If its a place, the NPC will ensure that the area is stocked with bed rolls, water and basic food, as well as a couple healing items, once a week.

A broken artifact and a rumor of where it can be reforged

A new, trained, animal companion

The friendship, loyalty, and trust of an NPC

A +2 bonus (diplomacy or the like) on any negotiations of rewards to be given from this NPC, or anyone in the NPC’s social network  

I’ve got a few of these on my blog as well. I’ve started calling them Community Lists (and I will add that tag to the older lists someday, I promise).

Yakut fashion, Sakha Republic (Yakutia)

The Litterbug. You see a human man finish his meal and throw this grease-covered piece of parchment to the ground before you hear one of the Guards nearby, who apparently noticed this, shout “Oi! I saw that!” as everyone’s heads turn “Pick it up!” as he points his hand at the same man who quickly picks up the parchment and stuffs it in his pocket before moving on…

Giving Directions. You see two guardsmen on the corner who appear to be speaking to a colourful looking group as they’re giving directions.

Morning Preparations. You see a group of about ten-to-twelve guardsmen all conversing with each other as their superior starts to speak and split them up into groups of twos and threes as they begin their morning patrols around the local streets.

Helping the Weak. You see a trio of guardsmen helping an older man up off the ground as people slow their walk to catch a glimpse, as one of the guards shouts “Nothing to see here! Go about your business!”

Lunch Break! You see a pair of guards exit a small bakery with a bundle of sweet treats wrapped up in layers of thin parchment paper, as they divvy out their lunches amongst themselves as they return to their duties.

Canine Unit! You see a large hound beside one of the Guards, who currently has his hand wrapped around the dog’s collar and seems to be just watching and scanning the streets.

Some Tips on Town Guards….

Who are your guards, anyway? They can come from all walks of life. Maybe they want to prove themselves, or maybe they’re just tired of their old job and signed up in the hopes of seeing some crime-fighting action?

Here, we’re family. The smaller the town, the more likely that any given Guard is going to be emotionally tied to that town, and the more personally they’re going to take any threat to their home town.

A Bribe, good sir? The poorer the Guards, the higher the rate of corruption. According to the rules, some Guards can get paid anything from 2 Silver Pieces a Week to 1 Gold Piece a Day, so surely with enough money, any Guard could be bribed…

Arrest, not Kill. Few guards, if any, will immediately go to violence, most will try to deescalate a situation and try to arrest the individual. 

A Guard may say things such as “State your Name and state your Business!” or “Drop your weapons and raise your hands to the sky!” before they begin running people through with swords and spears.

Magic? Since when? It’s not just Wizards that can be trained in Magic, some higher-paying Guardsmen might be trained to spot common spells and others might be trained to defend against certain Magics like a Fire Bolt or Charm Person…