longstrider

 ´ ･ .  ✶ ━━  is the violence in our nature

just the image of our maker?

ᴏʀɪɢɪɴᴀʟ ᴅɴᴅ/ʙɢ3 ᴄᴏᴍᴘᴀɴɪᴏɴ ᴄʜᴀʀᴀᴄᴛᴇʀ ᴘʀɪᴠᴀᴛᴇ + ꜱᴇʟᴇᴄᴛɪᴠᴇ // ʟᴏᴡ ᴀᴄᴛɪᴠɪᴛʏ ʜɪᴍʙ'ᴅ ʙʏ: ꜱᴋᴇᴜ (21+) // ​🇫​​🇴​​🇱​​🇱​​🇴​​🇼​​🇸​ ​🇫​​🇷​​🇴​​🇲​ ​🇽​​🇽​​🇽​

a dive into — orcish urges unbound, diverging paths, the throes of thralldom, loosening reigns, primal rage, bloodless bonds, and well-beaten lutes.

caard / backstory / art by rhys

She can't be serious? He'd already had to chase her down and play a few rounds of circling about just to catch a glimpse of what she'd been attempting to hide through being utterly careful in not exposing one side of her to rest of the camp as she shuffled by. So to have to practically play chase his own tail to figure out what she was hiding hadn't exactly left the half-orc in a pleasant mood when his gaze finally leveled with the raw red of the fresh injury with its first layer of hastily-applied bandages already bleeding through.

"A scratch is it? No, THAT is a Scratch-" He gestured sharply to the white pooch watching them with a head tilted out of concern (and possibly impatience since it was Birvor's turn to feed the camp's canine companion). "You bloody brainless or something? Figure gangrene is like your next read -a pleasure to pick up?"

When it came to teasing and the brunt of it he'd endured from the time he'd first struggled to sound out regular words thanks to his tusks coming in to the ruthless sport of poking fun at him once he'd grown too fast into his frame that few noble-born neighbors found fun to pose with in questionable situations if only to earn a laugh from their peers, Birvor had found that a cautionary distance from most- if not all elves (save Ren) was best minded. He'd minded it around her- all too aware of how the flirty edge to her nettling words bespoke of the very reason he tended to keep elves at a discernable distance, and bristle once he found himself reeled in too far. Now resting between her legs, he realized how far she'd wound him in, only his usual urge to peel away and rebuild distance was now replaced with one solely focused on closing even more.

Mindful of his tusks while tracing the curve of her neck during his investigation of so called elven trigger points, he briefly forgot just what he'd been doing once the warmth of her scent hit his senses and stirred him to take his fill of it while he still could in their temporary privacy. With shaky huffs that extended the tremor of his efforts into his shoulders curled over and hunched as if to hide her beneath his larger frame, he drank in each scented sound she offered up, free of prying eyes to indulge in filling his lungs with her deeper than he ever thought possible without never being able to hear the end of it. Not that he ever wanted there to be an end to it- much as her lips eventually did offer to drown against his storm-shaded ones.

His scalp prickled as she pulled at his hair- and she would have to give it quite the yank to guide his attention away from tasting the vibrations of her groans that he felt like a tickle in his tusks when the sounds of her enjoyment vibrated up through them. Only once a tug was firm enough did he pause for a shaky grunt of breath, his gaze finding hers momentarily lost as an elk in the crossfire of a bow when she committed to purring at him like she was.

"That right? And how am I 'posed to tease you like, then?"

Gods he's confused. What the hells sort of food aversion had crawled up everyone's arse for it to come to this...lunch swapping/smuggling nonsense?

"Seriously? Just-" With a shake of his head, he relents. "Here. I'll do ya one better." One better being him reaching over to shake the tinned chicken out in one glop into the broth bowl. "There. Chicken soup."

@elkenbulwark : "Listen- I'm just 'olding them for someone! That's the draw of it-"

He's doing a bad job of it too, dropping dragonborn pin-ups left and right as he struggles to collect them back into an organized and unassuming stack slid in between the pages of an equally unassuming book- 'The Flaming Fisting-'

"Sure you are, mate. That's what they all say when their hands are caught in the honey ... pot. " Karlach trailed off. Birvor was the last person she would have thought to be so defensive over his naughty books. Like Karlach, she had assumed that the ownership was something of a common knowledge, but when her eyes settled on the tome in question, she realised something. Something very, very important.

"Holy shit, that's the only one out of the series I don't have - is it good? Is it as good as Necrotic Erotic?"

"Karlach! Really?! This in't about all that-" His ears are a degree more drawn back than usual and tipped a shade of purple brought on from blood flushing throughout the gray-blue of his skin. Her summary of his stuttering and scrambling for the scattered, scantily-clad dragonborn prints (likely accurate though it was) was not exactly helping smooth his flustered state. First it had been that damned Elves Gone Wild nonsense some highly unfunny person had slipped into his bedroll to paint him as some kind of pervert to the whole camp, and now there was this-...granted the prints were just unfortunately provocative trading cards because what would the point be if the collector couldn't admire the scale colors easily, but the tantalizing title he was admitting to have at least thumbed through given the specific spot he threaded his collection back into like placeholders in place of a bookmark was all but damning evidence that he didn't quite realize until she had zoned in on the blasted thing.

With shoulders stiff, he turned the tome over to inspect the title as if he only just noticed what he'd been using to store the prints in before administering an unconvincing shrug. "I dunno? Only just grabbed it out of Gale's chest 'cause they was getting wrinkled up in my pocket." Frown pinned in place with his tusks, he set about shaking his prints out of the tome before offering it over her way with an aimless flick of the wrist.

"Go 'head and have at it then. Not even that good so far-...I mean-!"

He literally just unzipped. Great...no short of weirdos in the woods, it seemed like.

hi there, Ren, it's been a little while, did you miss me? you’re the sheep, I'm the shepherd, not your place to lead me

Cue his ears drawing back closer to his skull as the other prattled on about...what exactly? Some weird sort of flex in that he knew Ren longer than him? He bites down the urge to remind him that of fucking course that was the case because not only did elves live a stupidly asinine length of time, but also this particular elf with his mouth full of upside down tusks and innocuously initiated insults was about as undead as a Withers' erection...and instead gives him an eye roll and a snort shortly before resting his forearms on his thighs from his roost of an abandoned crate round the fire.

Is there never not a moment of her time spent frivolously on flustering him? At this point, he should have expected that at least 93% of what conversation came his way from the upturned corners of her lips was solely intended to churn up a shade of jam across the bridge of his nose so there was no denying (at least in her mind) that she'd successfully dug under a nerve where she could continue to lambast the area with a slew of sweetness that would keep him squirming.

Granted she'd never needled his nerves quite like this before, and it's so unexpected to that it's frankly easier to not believe her casual insinuation than it is to study the slope of her tease-turned smile and issue a huffy exhale while lavender hues lightly linger in his cheeks. If she thought she was the only one capable of teasing, she'd clearly forgotten how adept his usual mockery was, though she had the luxury of earning the playful variety- signaled only with the hint of a half smile tucked behind a tusk.

He's extremely skeptical of the claim (well, bar joke really) that half-orcs had at least half the organs of full orcs- the skin being the most obvious. 'Course, he wasn't one to sit and think about all the strange combinations of outcomes of genetics to definitively say that orc and human hybrids were always unfortunately outfitted with creased and crag-ridden orc skin that simply tried to grow to its full capacity on a human sized frame.

So the whole 'oh, drop over dread already with that orc sized heart attack waitin' to happen' flung at him from yet another tavern tussle with some hobgoblin what couldn't hold their whiskey well was something that gave him a moment's pause and consideration once Canta pried him out of the fray and sat his ass down at the corner of where so puke smelling alley met the park.

His brows furrowed, he shifted around and propped up his knees as he chewed on the idea once he had it in his mouth. "-you think that's why there ain't so many old'uns like us? Wrong engine under th'hood?" He'd blink moments later once Canta offered to check for him by pressing a curious ear to where several leather straps crossed at a buckle over his chest. Though he doubted the fight had helped with the state at which his heart pumped- it was a skip away from picking up the pace anew with them squishing their face around his chest afterwards.

So, something to note (aka answers the question I had about if going half-illithid 'kills' your character and let's the spicy tadpole have control) is that you can suck down pretty much all the tadpoles in game, eat the spicy tadpole and refuse turning into a full mind flayer at the end, and during the epilogue - your character returns to normal.

Birvor had basically all but 3 illithid powers unlocked, and was half illithid in the final battle, and surprise fuckin' surprise- I see his face back to normal at the end of the game with no more illithid powers, and was not expecting to ever see him like that again (at least in his canon run through) so it's like...the game's ending wasn't even the biggest surprise for me.

It was seeing that this character who'd pretty much gone to an unfixable position (and theory wise possibly was dead and being controlled by a spicy tadpole since it was hinted at that once Balduran was infected that he - the actual Balduran was dead and the tadpole was just masquerading as him w his memories) come out of the battle ultimately unscathed and only once he learned to cooperate w/everyone in the end so they wouldn't end up on the same side of the spectrum as him. Part of him probably thought he was going to just die w the brain and was ultimately just helping so his brother and their companions got out the same fate, so having him back to how he started the journey (and yet w 3 acts worth of change behind him now) was so worth the closure. :') ...(don't @ me post bg3 verse, let me be happy for him for a minute.)

More importantly it helped me throw all these little monsters into a character that's race DND wise is usually always the monster, physically show (via the transformation) all the monstrous, cycle of abuse actions he takes throughout his arc and then when I think that's it, he's at the bottom and no one can help him out of this - all it takes is for him to decide he's locked into helping the folks he's been mostly fighting the whole way (fuck all that happens) and their working together helps get his head back up over the water. Even if he's still not friends with some companions (or still just plain antagonistic) he's always going to have that deep down sense of surviving the shit storm with them all.

*necks a hill giant potion, and slots a soul coin in* let;'s go mateeee

"Aw fuck'r-"

His pouty-tusks were on full display once the hand he'd been using to reach for the handle of his hammer (that he fully intended on using to pry up a tent stake and cause a certain vampire's tent to fall in) was snatched.

Shaking off a flinch that came with the suddenness of the unexpected gesture, he surrendered a surly snort. "I'm just sayin' that stake's lookin' a tad on the crooked side. It in't that deep..." But it could be ...if the asshole that stayed in this particular tent got close enough for him to ram it in-

When her hand failed to release his from the correction right away, he raised a brow at her and gave his wrist a little shake followed by a light swing of their arms. "You, uh...stuck or somethin'? I swear m'lettin' it alone now-"

Truth be told, she had hardly mentioned the state of the food back in the hells, where a paltry ration would be coated in a thick enough layer of soot, cinder and ash that sometimes avoiding the tongue had its own benefits. As Karlach looked at the charred hunk of what once been a decent cut of beef, she folded her arms. Perhaps it might've been better to allow their resident wizard the control of the food this evening. Gods, if her mother had seen what she'd opted to serve up under the notion of if it's burnt, it is ready sort of mindset she'd have her tailing her in the kitchen so she can learn through observation and a slew of questions to test whether or not her daughter had been listening.

"I will have you know," Karlach began, and waggled a pointed talon at Birvor. "We were lucky if anything we got was edible. Most of the time we ate it even when it wasn't because it was all we would see for a few days. Had to ration that shit out, too."

Well, he might not have known much about the hells...aside from that awful meeting he hadn't exactly agreed to where he'd mostly just been content to fill his plate of food that was definitely not a pile of rotten, spoiled garbage masquerading as good eats courtesy of the devil that put it there while said devil ran his mouth about how great he was to make a deal with, but he supposed if anyone knew of hellbound food, it was her.

Squinting at the waggled talon, he crossed his arms over his chest as she went about setting him straight on the matter. The matter of choking down charred food when it's all one had, that was. "I'm not saying I won't eat...inedible things -" He paused, retrieving what looked like a lolth candle from his pocket. The pink crystal caught the light a moment like a pretty trinket of an offering that he might have been keen to slide her for a smile...if of course he didn't shove the thing into his mouth and give it a strong enough crunch to sever it in half and begin the tedious process of eating literal rocks -

"-but ya know, I grew up in the upper city. And even the bad thrall sanctioned scraps were still...considered luxuries by most. So, best ignore my spoiled ass critique - " Said whilst chewing and crunching up a literal ass rock.