King Kestrel

I’ve been working on an Alternative History project for a while. This world’s point of divergence comes with the first Mexican emperor never being overthrown, which leads to a series of events that change New-World centric and Euro-centric politics for all time. I call it the “Iturbide Project”, named for the first emperor of Mexico. 

So let’s just say my maps have gotten way better since last year and will continue to only get better from there.

the Iturbide Project, at least in terms of historical accuracy and plausibility, in comparison to reality? it is hilarious at best and pathetically flawed at worst. but hey, I went with what I knew at the time which is still more than the average person and have only been improving since. 

This map is of a reality wherein Hernan Cortez and his party of escorts was not chased out of Tenochtitlan and thus making enemies of the Spanish. the Conquistadores would indeed not have much to conquer, however they were hired as mercenaries by the Cuban Governate to oversee protection for the Christian missions stationed along the southern coast of the Gulf of Mexico. They did get a chance to conquer the “Aztec Empire”, and replace it with the Kingdom of Tlaxcala, a Christian replacement for the supposed bloody and barbaric leadership of the Texcoco Triple Alliance. The hispanic hegemony in the Caribbean became a legitimate investment, spreading Christendom (though, to the ire of the Antillean Sees, not strictly Catholicism) to Mesoamerica over the course of a century.

The links below are to my DeviantArt, and my Reddit.

INGREDIENTS:

4 hamburger buns, split

1 head green leaf lettuce, leaves separated

1 beefsteak tomato, sliced

20 dill pickle slices

FOR THE CHICKEN

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

1 cup dill pickle juice

1 ½ cups milk, divided

1 cup peanut oil

1 large egg

½ cup all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon confectioners’ sugar

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

DIRECTIONS:

Place a chicken breast on a cutting board. With your hand flat on top of it, carefully slice the chicken in half horizontally. Trim excess fat as needed.

In a large shallow baking dish, combine chicken, pickle juice and ½ cup milk; marinate for at least 30 minutes. Drain well.

Heat peanut oil in a large skillet over medium high heat.

In another large shallow baking dish, whisk together remaining 1 cup milk and egg. Stir in chicken to coat and drain excess milk mixture.

In a gallon size Ziploc bag or large bowl, combine chicken, flour and confectioners’ sugar; season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Working in batches, add chicken to the skillet and cook until evenly golden and crispy, about 4-5 minutes. Transfer to a paper towel-lined plate.

https://www.tablespoon.com/recipes/copycat-chick-fil-a-nuggets/2b483ee0-a13e-4a3f-bf0b-9b26099c6e24

Last breath is a fun little spell that lets you have those “Im about to die, but before I do so Ill do this one last move!” moments that are always so fun and dramatic in media. 

And heres a big one today, relentless hunter. You basically chose some poor dude that you know of and set a near unstoppable killer after them.

 For those that dont know the revenant, the creature used for this spell, its a creature in dnd that is born from someone getting really pissed off when they die. So pissed off, that they just straight up say “Fuck it, dying can come later. Im gonna kick your ass first” and get back up to hunt someone down. They’re really cool. 

Of course, the creature raised by this spell technically isnt a revenant, even if it uses the stat block. But, its still kinda scary regardless. 

The idea behind this is that, I kinda aimed more for a spell that a villain might set after the players.

As in like, you and your party are walking through the forests, when suddenly the wizard swears they saw someone following them. Then, later in the night, when the wizard goes off on their own to investigate a sound heard in the distance, they’re attacked. 

After a cry for help, the party comes and fights off the undead creature. .

And then, a week later, theyre back in town. And outside the wizards window? Its there again, watching them.

And then youve gotta figure out what the hell this thing is, who the hell is sending it, and then stop said person sending it while this thing is still hunting you down.

Fun

But yeah, its also interesting to have a summonable undead that isnt dumb, because the revenant has quite good stats. Its not some drone thats just going to follow a person and then walk at them. Nah, this things got 13 int, 16 wis and 18 Cha. It has speech too. 

Of course, using this as a player could be useful too, since its essentially for a necromancer the equivalent of hiring an assassin to take someone out, with an added ability to know when the target / assassin dies too. 

Of course, its going to be quite expensive. 1500 casting cost, 100 GP ressurection cost.

And while this things up, you cant concentrate on spells.

In earlier editions of D&D, clerics were typically proficient only with bludgeoning weapons, with the rationale being that clerics aren’t supposed to shed blood. Further, this rule was often claimed to be inspired actual, historical dicta issued by the medieval Catholic Church governing the conduct of their clergy.

Historically, it’s true that the medieval Church did, at various times, issue rules against members of the clergy owning and wielding weapons of war. These rules were issued because many priests and bishops were also wealthy landowners, and often became involved in military entanglements with other landowners – and at least some of those priests and bishops weren’t satisfied with leading from the rear. Many were apparently very keen on getting their hands dirty in person, and had to be firmly reminded that it’s not great optics for a bishop to be out there lopping people’s heads off.

However, there’s no historical evidence that any priests ever tried to work around those rules by restricting themselves to blunt weapons in order to avoid shedding blood. This is not surprising; for one, Church dicta against priests getting involved in combat weren’t always phrased in terms of bloodshed, and even when they were, nobody could reasonably claim that bashing someone’s head in with a mace doesn’t shed blood! Even so, the idea of priests wielding blunt weapons in order to avoid violating rules against shedding blood is not a modern invention; it’s basically a thousand-year-old urban legend.

Now here’s the twist: some martially inclined priests did make a point of carrying staves or rods in battle, but not for that reason. The preponderance of evidence suggests that it wasn’t about avoiding bloodshed, but about plausible deniability: a staff or rod could reasonably be claimed to be a symbol of office rather than a weapon, and rules against participating in battle typically didn’t rule out simply being present at a battle in order to rally the troops.

So, you know, if you were a priest or a bishop who preferred the personal touch, and somebody was like “we literally caught you on an active battlefield carrying what is clearly a weapon”, you could be all hey, this isn’t a mace, it’s a rod, and it’s a symbol of your ecclesiastic authority. You were present at that battle purely to lend moral support to your side’s troops – and if you just happened to be approached by hostile soldiers, and consequently were obliged to bash their heads in with this heavy metal rod that you just happened to have on your person, well, that’s unfortunate, but self-defence is self-defence, right?

From this,we can take away two things:

1. The tradition of rules-lawyering is embedded in the game’s historical inspirations just as much as its own history.

Track and field club taught all new runners how to properly warm up, stretch, pace, etc. Its a process, and doing it properly takes 15-20 minutes to make sure your body is ready so you dont hurt yourself.

PE didnt do jack shit, they just said "go run a mile" so 70% of the fucking kids sprinted flat out the first lap and basically walked the other 3. Multiple people did it in boots or tennis shoes. I'm amazed more of them didnt pull a muscle or worse in the process.