#randomroll

Commissions! Simple illustration of Sahir for @yourundead Simple full body of Victor for @theravenprince Simple full body of Lio for @jagged-edge-and-mess​  Detailed full body and icon of Finarus for @peachiree Detailed fullbody Starfinder commission for @Remenes123 on twitter Random Roll dnd character for @k-howsartblog (story under read more!)  Thank you everyone for letting me drawing your amazing characters!!

commissions!|kofi

The world seemed to be made of so many broken pieces. From the twisted and so easily bought government, to the shattered pieces of Moreau’s own family, pulled and plucked apart by their fathers’ arguments and abandoned by their siblings when old enough to put foot to far away path. It was understandable that Moreau would leave too. They had to. It was difficult to live in a home of sharp edges and tounges, of snapping and snarling, certainly, but to live where words and rules meant nothing? Where promises would be sworn and broken from one moment to the next, on the whim of the dominant parent? That was Chaos. And it could not be borne. As soon as they hit their majority, Moreau left the little village that was embarrassed (arguing in the street? bruises on the little ones? Shameful!!) to hold their family in its walls. They took little, only enough family trinkets (at least the ones left behind by their siblings) to barter armour and weapons and a tutor in the next town along. Certainly not a tutor their parents would approve of, being a mumbling old firbolg who seemed not to notice the mushrooms and moss growing deep into their fur- (how crass!)

But one who seemed to understand the needs of their student, who so eagerly learned how to recognise edible lichen and berries, how to bed down for the night amongst the trees. Desperate to explore or to perhaps just be elsewhere. To be alone.  Desperate to be without the shards of someone else’s being piercing into their heart and head. Somewhere quiet. It was partly that, and after learning all they could from the old firbolg, Moreau certainly took a few months to be the hermit they had dreamed. The Quiet was perfect. The World around them whole and existing without interference. Creatures intertwined with their home, giving and taking between themselves. The broken promises and piercing blows dealt by their parents that had buried themselves within Moreau’s head became distant, soft scars that bled no more. But sadly, quiet minds don’t eat well and as much as Moreau tried, the sweet berries and flesh of the beasts around them did not satisfy their cultivated need for more refined fare. They missed coffee the most. So they would drudge back every couple of months or so, back to civilisation and do a couple of jobs. Hunting for sure, but also guiding people through woods and forests, their known landscape, sometimes fetching things from town to town, the odd culling of a local woodland menace. Little jobs, short and sweet, with enough gold to fill up their pack with brie and bread and teas from far off countries, then back to the woods. Back to where the world was whole. The archaeologist changed that. It was just another job, take a stuffy old elf researcher to some ruins in the deeper woods. A longer job, a bit more dangerous, but Moreau had been on their own for years now, and the more dangerous the job, the more they could charge, so. They didn’t complain. They were used to quieter jobs though. Many seemed to understand or were at least forced to understand, Moreau’s preference for quiet. No interaction, just getting from A to B, maybe a meal thrown in but no dinner conversation. This one. This one wouldn’t. shut. up. On and on about their research, about how it had taken all those years to find this place, how they had been tracking down the shards of the ‘great moonlith’ for years, what it meant to start finally piecing it together. So as someone who relished the silence of a quiet job, It surprised Moreau more than anything that the words of this old Coot, grabbed their attention. It was rare that the words of others did, the firbolg’s teachings had only set in because it was what Moreau needed, what they had paid to hear, to learn, but this? This was interesting. The first trip yielded no fruit, at least for the elf, their research had either been wrong or their prized pilfered already, but for Moreau, it felt like a revelation. Discovering things that had already been set in stone, time and actions that had already been fossilised in the world, and settled, whole and complete.

There was something… good in that. And the monolith? Though Moreau did not quite understand wholly what the Elf meant by doing so or even what it was, the goal to repair it and see it returned to glory seemed…very Good. Moreau was determined to see it through, to see it themselves and the Elf was happy to find an intent listener and quick learner and hired them as their permanent guide. Though Moreau didn’t charge him any less. That would be stupid. The more they explored, the more pieces they found. Small ivory scraps and pebbles.

 Someone had split the pieces up, said the elf, kept the pieces far from each other.

For what reason, he did not explain. He also did not let Moreau touch anything, despite teaching them the tricks of the trade as they went, not the ruins, not the recovered pieces that he would squirrel away in places unknown. You wouldn’t understand, he said. Sneered. Moreau was fairly sure now that he sneered. Anyway, the Elf’s attitude was getting more and more conceited and irreverent to Moreau’s aid, despite the fact that they were now leading and guiding them towards each next new dungeon and their hidden pieces. That they had discovered more information, gleaned from townsfolk and other rangers. That they obviously cared more about getting the monolith complete. Whole. The elf had stopped sharing information, had stopped leaning forward excitedly to share the legends and stories over the dinner Moreau had hunted and caught. His words became shorter, to the point, reminding Moreau of their role often. Guide. Not recoverer. That once it was done, they’d have their money and that would be it. They would be done. Moreau was bitter over the reminder. Not only of their lack of importance in a task that had become their life, that they had learned so much of and were now being denied. But was reminded of others who had broken promises, not yielded to their own words.

Scars were being prodded, enough to break tissue. But it was fine. They could wait. The monolith would be whole again and the world would be still. It was only a few nights after a larger piece had been recovered

(an Eye! The monolith had an eye!? Moreaus mind had chattered long after the elf had slept, unable to think of anything else)

that it changed. The elf had seemed grimmer of late, the more they had recovered, the more tired he seemed, more gaunt. His eyes were dim that night as he told Moreau of his plan to stop the excavations Stop? to burn the maps and guides burn? and split the pieces again. NO.

The elf had only a minute to start pontificating (gods why hadn’t Moreau noticed how boring the old fool sounded, how dry and dull, even when talking of the monolith?) about what would happen if the pieces came together, what evil would occur, how it would doom the world- (Blah blah blah.) before Moreau split his head with their pick. Seemed only fitting, the old fool had bought it as a gift for them after all. There was a moment of guilt. A flash of it, small but ready to swell but it was soon assuaged by the touch of the monolith piece, pulled hastily from a ‘secret’ sewn pocket in the elf’s coat. Ahh. Better. And when they found the remaining pieces, hidden and secreted away by the idiot, it would be even better still. Perhaps better than the woods in the quiet of the day! Perhaps. Anyway. Things were not made to be broken, Moreau thought as they methodically packed their gear away, carefully packing the maps they had worked on with the old (dead) fool, taking the remains of their pay from his wallet. They were made to be fixed, they thought as they rubbed their thumb against cold (so strangely cold in the warm night) ivory eye, now deep in their pocket. And Moreau would see it done. Random roll for @boocio

Tabaxi names are purposefully prophetic, to name your child is to give them purpose and hope for their futures. Named for love, for wealth, for strength, every child given a clear path, something to follow. You must be careful with how you go about it however, for names can have many meanings and perhaps your precious one will not choose the path you lay clear for them.    Keeper’s parent’s had done just that, not only named their child for a healers role, but also enrolled him with an apprenticeship with a great Tabaxi Cleric when he was just a kitten.   (it’s best to get these things done early, intoned his mother Cautious-of-step, to the agreeable nods of her aunts and mothers)   Though a boisterous kitten in his youth, Keeper-of-harmed did well in his apprenticeship, taking on the patronage of Illmater with great solemnity and determination.   The family had nodded and had congratulated him on such a wise choice, and most were secretly thankful his mischievous streak, which had led to many a pulled tail, angry neighbour and on one memorable occasion concerning spoiled milk, a pigs stomach and some very confused black birds, sharp words from the local wardens.     (Keeper had protested the punishment of this crime greatly, insisting that he’d only been fighting back for one of his friends, bullied by the now very wet, sour smelling teenager standing at their door with said Wardens. Keeper’s parents, being of a fine family and wealth, had only smiled wincingly and apologised on behalf of their kitten and paid off the warden in question quickly and quietly.) It was his choice, this god and when asked the reasoning behind it, Keeper only shrugged and said that he was 'following his name.’ After graduating from his elder’s tutelage at 20, Keeper decided that he would be best suited to lower levels of the city, where the people suffered most. It seemed that the conflicts outside their walls effected not only the ones fighting, but also created poverty and violence in the streets within. He set off with the blessings of his parents and started work immediately in the church of Illmater, up to his neatly trimmed elbows in broken soldiers, starving families and mindless officials who could not see the suffering their inefficiency and apathy cost. It was often Keeper who was left to deal with them, Keeper, whose youth and passion to help those crushed under unfeeling feet, made him the perfect advocate to ask for aid. His background of course, also helped, his family name ringing throughout his demands for supplies, for food, for more laws to help end the suffering of the people within the walls.   The clerics could only do so much, he argued, only surface work, when the problem was much deeper, a poison to the body of the city.  The Officials at the beginning had only nodded, and smiled, and placed his written requests to the side, to be blissfully ignored.  But soon the thorn that was Keeper began to grow in their sides.   For the ones who had been healed by Keeper, had not only taken his wisdom of herbs and poultices and his gifts of food, but had also taken his words. The broken soldiers, the families crushed by poverty, the outcasts; they had all listened to his words of right and wrong as they healed, how we the people outnumber those above, how they were holding back on aid and how it could be, if those crushed beneath the foot could only work together, reach up…  and push back. They had listened, the harmed ones, and now they began pushing. Small protestations at first, little riots in the streets, shipments to the officials going missing, shipments of mead and honey and fine silks and on one memorable occasion, a city official waking to find every piece of food in his house gone and his kitchens full of empty plates and wrappers. Little annoyances. But enough for them to take notice.

Keeper was proud beyond belief of his people, as was his family, though they had heard the anger from the city heights and were a little worried for their boy, that perhaps it wasn’t smart to agitate the hive. Keeper dashed away these concerns with a paw; the people had amassed, the damage was done, for you could not kill an idea, he intoned to them over dinner, a celebratory feast to commemorate his fifth year at the church.     But as the dining room’s windows shattered and the lights from his great grandmothers candelabras were snuffed out by the cold wind that could hardly cover the shrieks of confusion from his loved ones, Keeper realised that yes, you could not kill an idea.   But you could do your best to kill the one that started it. It was Dark, too dark for the humans that some silly bastard had sent to do the deed to see and that’s how it happened. A trip, a slip of a blade. The wrong chair.  A scream. It took only a moment for his Aunt to light the room with a spell and apparently only a moment for the humans to do the deed. The wrong one.  Since it was such a big celebration, Keeper had been allowed the place of honour, the head of the table. His father, a jovial smiling Tabaxi had happily taken Keepers usual seat with no qualm. They must have been watching them, Keeper realised, as his family began to wail and sob over his fathers body, they knew.  Keepers thought were interrupted by his aunt suddenly reaching down to seize something from under the table. Something that squealed.   One of the assassins, a human, not quite quick enough to get away in the panic, was dragged out from under the table and slammed bodily onto it by paws easily the size of their face. It took little more for the human to blurt out what they wanted.   Names. And they were recognisable names, after all, hadn’t Keeper sent requests and demands for aid to each? And Keeper, though not the smartest of his kin, remembered these names always, heard through the stuttering tounge of a would be assassin.  It was his mother, wiping the blood from her husbands spectacles with her usual gentleness, that suggested that Keeper run.  His fathers death could become his own, easily. A body in a pyre is but a body and who would come after one who was already ashes in the wind?  “it would give you time” she murmured not looking at her only son but only at the glasses she polished between her fine robes, ‘ to find them all.”  she needed to say nothing more, the deep steel in her eyes, sharp and cruel and so foreign in her kindly face as she looked at him, spoke for her. “ but we should hurry’ she added, leaving the body of her beloved and reaching for the family spear hung over the mantle, one end natural carved wood, the other  a blade as sharp as her grieving eyes.  "it’s best to get these things done early"  And so it was done. A fire burial in the name of the son, with the body of the father (he would approve of this, his aunts intoned, black lace covering their mouths as they whispered over the crackle of flame) and a announcement in the paper of his passing, with enough of the truth in it to light a different flame within those Keeper had cared for, those ready to fight back.  The clerics of Illmater mourned his passing in their way, then carried on. There was still work to do, people to heal. Some of the officials stayed in the city, satisfied that their plan had worked and their lives would not change. Some, paranoid and nervous, ran, to different cities to start again. What happened to the human assassin, Keeper did not know, he left that to his family.  What he did know, was that he would let his fur grow out, grow long past the clipped and clean length he wore as a cleric. It would make him look older, more ragged (his mother would tell him, if she saw him now, how much like his Father he looked!). That he would buy spectacles, filled with plain glass and that he would hide his finery beneath rough robes and his anger behind a smile.   That he would gladly take his Mother’s spear and use it in his quest (better than a sword, for it could be so easily disguised as a staff, perfect for an old cleric) and take the training he had learned so long ago to use it, back into his mind. He had never thought to use those skills as a cleric, he was a healer, keeper of the harmed, as his name proclaimed.   He supposed though, as he set out of the city, to hunt down those who had hurt his city and his family so badly, names can have so many meanings. A random roll for @ghostthatsaysfuck! Loved doing this one, so dramatic!! Thanks again!!

 Harebell didn’t think much of her life before the Trail. It wasn’t something that felt important to mull over, not when there were things to do, wheels to fix, kindling to find and customers to smooth over with her best patter. Harebell prided herself on her patter.  Anyway, most of Harebell’s thoughts centred around how many more miles til they dropped off the next package, the next customer... and how much longer it would be til dinner.   Dinner was her favourite time of day, not so much the meal, but the period of peace and warmth around the campfire, everyone chatting and eating. All were welcome, the odd customer who either accompanied their escorted item or were the escorted, the crew, which waxed and waned in its number but all good people and even the odd stranger who had stumbled on them in the dark. All were welcome to sup and join in the warmth. Dergar was good that way.

The Dwarf had led the armed group for years, her guidance and gruff demeanour making her a strong leader, never trifled with, never argued against. Her scars lent a hand with this, dug across her face and arms, from wars, from scuffles on the job and they brilliantly hid the soft centre Dergar fought hard to hide, the kindness her crew knew only too well.   It was that soft centre that had brought Harebell to the group, a teenage half orc found wandering the roads, dehydrated and dazed.   (Haraan, the horse hand, later told Harebell that he’d never seen Dergar so worried before, and she, a veteran of several civil wars before coming to this line of work! Harebell never forgot this, the memory a warm coal in her chest) Harebell was starved, had been walking for days by the guesses of the crew and had no memory at all of how she came to be. Even after three days of solid sleep, nothing seemed to return to her, not even a name.   Alright, said Dergar, hands on hips and her smile crooked as she stood over the confused orc youth slurping down stew, i guess I’ll give you one.

Dergar, and the rest of the crew, set about teaching her the ways of the Trail as soon as she was able.  no lax hand on my crew, Dergar would say, handing the girl a tool she could not place a name to and set to teaching her. How to fix a broken axel, how to change a horseshoe, important things. Useful things. Harebell was not, particularly good at these things. She seemed to be naturally clumsy and for some reason her lessons never stuck, never made sense. They seemed to twist and disappear in her mind when she reached for them. Dergar’s attempts at teaching her to read and write in common concluded the same way, a frustrated Harebell who struggled the make the words stay still. But she had good eyes, alert and shar, and so was set as the main watch, sitting a top the caravans, waiting for trouble with her crossbow. She was happy to do it, happy that she could be helpful, that she could do something.

Then she was given the harp. To this day, Harebell still doesn’t know who left it on her bunk but there were many that could of, many of her new family that smiled so widely at her first off tune pluckings. It was a strange thing, how this delicate stringed instrument changed her days. Practise filled her spare hours, any moment where her hands weren’t busy, they were softly playing, melancholy tunes and happy songs for the rest to work to. The small pluckings became long compositions, ones that actually stuck in her head and she would happily repeat when requested.   It was rare that Harebell’s night watches were not accompanied by music, lullabies, quiet and sweet.   She was ecstatic, something she could do, something she could do well, something her big clumsy hands didn’t mess up! Harebell could never give up her life travelling but maybe, she could make something, something that she could remember, something that maybe others might remember too.

How nice would that be? A random roll commission for @wiiinterva Thankyou!

Jarret wasn’t sure if they missed the old days or not.

Certainly, their day to day life as the cousin of the king, noble but safe, in no way in line for the throne, was definitely cushier. Cushier than the life of a fighter for sale anyway. And drier, the dwarf considered, using a gloved hand to wipe away the rain collecting on their brow and the long plaits of their beard. The journey to the city was long, but they had taken all the jobs they could in the last. Working for the law, working for private commissions, but the clean jobs ran out fast. They never took the dirty ones, no matter the pay, no matter how much they knew that money could change their life, and the life of-

How easy it had been then, and how young and undeserving of the soft cushions and hot meals brought without a word. Caring for nothing but learning and training to be the captain of royal guard, a position they were born for, a position only family could take.  (Safety in family, their mother said, binding the wounds and scrapes of a young training Jarret, soothing the new calluses with creams, you can trust family.)  The oath was taken after Jarrett passed their training and their majority, with the scars to prove the former and the long decorated beard to prove the latter. They remembered the ceremony, not much of it, so many of the later events shadowed that bright day but they remembered the oath they took, word for word.   They swore to protect, beyond all other law, all other reasoning, the king and his descendants.  An easy thing to promise, in those golden days standing before the throne, jade circles of nobility in their beard and the golden armour gifted to them girding their body. Jarret remembered little of that day but the feeling of rightness, of true righteousness. They had been so young and happy.  And stupid.

There were fifty good years then, fifty kind years where the King’s wife bore the kingdom five heirs. Jarret, whose oath forbade them from a family of their own, loved these bright shining pebbles perhaps as much as their parents. The dwarf’s time was split between that of the royal couple and their children, reluctant to allow another to take on their true duties to the crown, believing they could protect them all. Perhaps that was where it began, where Jarret failed them.

Maybe it was in the hours spent away from the children, some growing close to adulthood but still pebbles in Jarrets mind, was when the eldest’s mind was poisoned. Perhaps during a lesson, a tutor a double crosser, whispering toxic words into her head. Perhaps a sorcerer who crept into her room to bewitch her while she slept. Or perhaps, and this hurt Jarret’s heart the most, a slow march of madness that could have been preempted if only the captain had seen the low rise of it in her eyes.  Sweet Gerder, Jarret thought, eyes closed to the rain in a moment of grief. In any case, the eldest daughter of the king did what she did. She killed her mother and father while they slept, her siblings as they began to scream at the blood on her hands. Jarret, who had been alone, stationed outside their bedroom and burst in the moment they heard one of the children (it had been Erdi, little Erdi’s screams) cry out, was only in time to see Gerder turn, begin to smile, eyes wide and white and knife raised only to cry out herself, a short scream of almost outrage, before falling dead to the floor. It was Duri, Little Duri who hadn’t even grown her whiskers yet, that had done it, the little knife Jarett had carved each of them for protection, still in her hands. Her eyes were as wild and as pale as her sister’s, but no madness in them, only grief and horror.

There was no time, Jarrett remembered, the city in sight now, grey in the rain but a happy sight for their sore and wet body.  No time, as they heard more footsteps coming, so many, so many witnesses. So much that could ruin the lines reputation, ruin the reputation of the kingdom and God’s, the life of the little one, frozen in fear before them, knife still in hand.  She would be blamed, or if not, ruined and twisted by others, perhaps by the ones who caused Gerder’s own defection. If Jarrett missed that, thee could be more that they were not seeing. So many footsteps.  Before the other could arrive, Jarret made the decision. The official story was this; a defector had broken in and slaughtered the entire family. It was believed that one of the children had been taken, considering that their body was not found with the others. The kingdom mourned for their loss and another of the Royal line, lesser but nobility nontheless, took the weight of the crown.  The captain of the Royal guard, in grief and shame, resigned from their post and left the kingdom. Quite right too, was the public opinion, an oathbreaker cannot remain in such a position. The rain let up as they reached the gates. A good thing too, Jarett’s arms were getting tired.  The dwarf gently bounced the weight in their arms, smiling when they felt the wrapped bundle shift and grinning at the sleepily curious face, gaping at the great walls and statues.  Jarett may have failed at many other things, but they were no oathbreaker. Jarett’s last little pebble at least, was safe. random roll for @wiiinterva, thanks again hun!