#lludd

This is a playlist for my dude Gwyn ap Nudd. Help me find a better name bc “The Kings of Light and Sorrow” is already taken by my Gwyn/Ash playlist. Please send any song recommendations for these playlists my way!(Mostly about his perseverance and strength aka not a lot of gentle songs. A lot of Johnny Cash songs so be warned. American Southern Gothic vibes bc I said so.) Link at the bottom.

Achilles Come Down // Gang of Youths

Gwyn being talked into believing himself worthy of things despite what Albion and Crielle say.

Glitter and Gold // Barns Courtney

Total “walk like a badass” song.

“Do you walk in the valley of kings, Do you walk in the shadow of men, Who sold their lives for a dream?” Becoming a king of both courts (respectively, not at the same time) because of the Oak King and the Raven Prince.

Black Eyes // Radical Face

“While I slept you crept in and pulled the rug right out from under me” Augus finding out the truth of his alignment.

Broken Crown // Mumford & Sons

“And I will not speak of your sins, There was a way out for him, The mirror shows not, Your values are all shot” Gwyn mourning Mafydd (god I hope I spelt that right) and swearing to keep his alignment a secret.

Ain’t No Grave // Johnny Cash

“Ain’t No Grave, Can hold my body down” No matter what level of fae he is, nothing can keep him down.

God’s Gonna Cut You Down // Johnny Cash

“Go tell that long tongue liar, Go and tell that midnight rider, Tell the rambler the gambler the back biter” Gwyn saying hey I’m the new king tell everyone and I mean EVERYONE I’m not tolerating any shit.

Black Sun // Death Cab for Cutie

“And there is death upon the vine, There is fear in the eyes of your father” Not that Lludd was ‘afraid’ of Gwyn but he was a little worried about his powers. “Death upon the vine” refers to the end of the family line bc Gwyn ruined any chance of them having more kids.

Sinners // Barns Courtney

“Let’s go have some fun before, They go and put us in the ground” A rousing war song for the unseelie armies.

Blood On My Name // The Brothers Bright

“When the fires are consuming you, And your sacred stars won’t be guiding you, I’ve got blood, I’ve got blood on my name” when Gwyn looses his light in the Ice Plague.

Grave Digger // Blues Saraceno

“Let me be the one that got away” Gwyn escapes as underfae from Albion’s grasp.

I Hung My Head // Johnny Cash

Idk this song reminds me of Gwyn going to Augus the first time after he made that one guy eat his father’s heart (or was it the other way around I don’t remember).

I Won’t Back Down // Johnny Cash

“You can stand me up at the gates of Hell, but I won’t back down” (I warned you there’s a lot of Johnny Cash lmao.) Gwyn standing his ground as king.

Redemption // Johnny Cash

“My old friend Lucifer came, Fought to keep me in chains” Crielle trying to keep him under her control even after her death.

Bottom Of The River // Delta Rae

“Don’t you lift him, let him drown alive, The good Lord speaks like a rolling thunder” this song has two meanings: that one scene where Augus drowns Gwyn and the other is Gwyn training with Lludd and him not letting up on him bc that’s what Crielle (the good Lord) has said.

Old Devils // William Elliot Whitmore

“And they tell me there’s a war without no end, The old devils are at it again” Gwyn and the gang going after David and Olphix who created the Ice Plagus and the fire that burnt Mosk’s family.

Hurt // Johnny Cash

“Everyone I know, Goes away in the end, And you can have it all, My empire of dirt, I will let you down, I will make you hurt” Gwyn feels unlovable and he just wants the kingship to be handled by someone else.

Creating a Feywild Domain I pitched a feywild domain for a compilation that @TheRubyFeather is putting together. Here's a quick teaser. I'll probably write it either way, it was a lot of fun to visualise! #ttrpg #dnd5e

If you’ve missed it, Wizards of the Coast released an add-on for The Wild Beyond the Witchlight that allows you to create your own Domain of Delight following their guidelines. There are a lot of random tables, but overall it helped with some creative prompts for me. I pitched to a collection of domains that’s upcoming (possibly a Christmas release), but I’ve yet to hear back. If I don’t get it,…

I have been thinking a lot about Nodens: an ancient fragment of a complex, multi-faceted divine figure that echoes up through strata of time, language and place.  He is more than dreams, and hunting, and healing, and dogs, and the sea - he is all of this and more.  A great hoard of manufactured silver coins created just for his offering lay at his feet.  The Welsh Llydd of the silver hand came later, building on pre-existing folklore.  Was Nodens missing his hand?

A lack of written records is inspirational and freeing!

(Patrons got this as a printable for colouring)

Oh, yeah, before Augus kind of formally joined the Raven Prince's Court and got his status raise, he was actually invited to the Winter Court (which is an Unseelie leisure Court specifically not run by the King/Queen, and focuses on carnality/food/pleasure/games etc.) as the Raven Prince's guest or the guest of other clients.

The Winter Court, and the Seelie Summer Court are - respectively - open to the opposite alignment for some of the events. And Lludd and Crielle sometimes attended (Crielle more than Lludd), just as Augus has been to a Summer Court before.

So he saw Lludd at a Winter Court gathering.

Augus may have actually thought something along the lines of: 'I'd be curious to know what he looks like when he's broken, I suspect he'd be quite surprised at some of the sounds he's capable of making.' (There was a time when Augus viewed everyone as 'I wonder what they'd look like while broken in my rooms'). But he watched Lludd and Crielle closely, both at the suggestion of the Raven Prince and also out of curiousity, and he noticed then that Lludd was dictating/controlling and - he surmised - possibly domestically violent / abusive. That plus all the rumours and information gathered later meant he thought he had a pretty good idea of what Gwyn's family was really like. Of course he was totally wrong. Because what they present to everyone else is kind of just the tip of a very sick iceberg.

Augus has never been one of those villains to simply 'talk' himself into a place where the person he wants to hurt can fight back easily.

So, because he knows that Lludd is resistant to his compulsions, he would likely move pretty quickly in terms of killing him. As much as Augus daydreams of viciously killing the people in Gwyn's past, when it actually comes down to it on a practiceable level, Augus wouldn't allow his own dreams of torturing folks to get in the way of actually killing a very powerful fae.

Basically Augus doesn't like to underestimate his enemies. Which doesn't mean that he doesn't end up doing that, only that...what he daydreams of happening is not what he'd necessarily do, because he'd be concerned that Lludd would have some tricks up his sleeve if he was captured.

Believe me when I say that Augus has had the same fantasies and musings about both Lludd and Crielle. And knowing what he knows about Efnisien, he wishes he hadn't killed him so quickly.

Okay, firstly, Gwyn was born entirely nice and kind of a sweetheart. His family had *no idea* that he had a dark side or a cruel streak, because both didn’t really start revealing themselves in any meaningful way - unsurprisingly - until after the events of the Drawn Bead, and after Gwyn had started being sent on his war campaigns. But if you’ve read chapter 24 - Soldier - of Game Theory, you know that Gwyn threw up after his first battle, he was so nauseated by what he had done. That’s not generally the sign of someone who shows natural signs of a propensity towards cruelty!