I love Zevran very.. very much
also just gonna casually plug my zevmancing warden origins fic
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@theladythecla
I love Zevran very.. very much
also just gonna casually plug my zevmancing warden origins fic

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What is the old Dalish curse? âMay the Dread Wolf take youâ?
i love u steph
âwhat could you chumps POSSIBLY have that makes you think you have a chance against me?â
âa sirenâ
Are you familiar with who I am? Well, wonât you end this rather melodramatic suspense and tell me?
Anya Chalotra as Yennefer of Vengerberg in The Witcher (2019â)

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シďž: *â§ď˝Ľďž:* đď¸đ đď¸*:シďžâ§*:シďž
(based on this image)
Todayâs Bisexual Character of the Day is: this clothing advert
Lancaster New Era, Pennsylvania, February 17, 1938
Q&A: D&D by Gaslight
Not 100% writing related, but my friend â whoâs very knowledgeable about military history â wants our D&D campaign to be as realistically medieval as possible while also maintaining the fantasy elements. This is explanation as to why there arenât many female warriors/soldiers/etc, and the ones we DO encounter will be magic users, because if someone can do magic youâre going to put them on the front line. Heâs a great friend and a brilliant DM, but am I wrong for having an issue with this?
No. Intentionally or not, youâre seeing someone try to justify their misogyny using logic that is internally inconsistent. The problem is really fundamental, fantasy elements, especially D&Dâs, preclude medieval power structures and military strategy. It also, very transparently, exposes their misogyny, without them even realizing it.
So letâs start with that last one. The argument for excluding women from front line combat roles is that theyâre unsuited to combat. This is an argument made in the real world where the list of sapient species capable of fulfilling a combat role is somewhat short. Itâs also bullshit. It has no historical basis. Women have operated as frontline fighters throughout human history. Not everywhere. There have been mysogynistic cultures. But, the idea that women cannot fight, and never fought is shockingly unsupportable. I canât remember the last time we linked, We Have Always Fought, by Kameron Hurley, so, here it is, read up, enjoy.
But, when weâre talking about your game of D&D, weâre not talking about the real world. Weâre talking about a world with Orcs, Minotaurs, and other races, all of which have innate attribute bonuses to their strength and constitution. They are, quite literally, stronger and more durable than human fighters.
The inverse is also true, (while 4th and 5th edition changed this), used to be Elves had a penalty to constitution, making them less suited to frontline combat roles. Again, if someoneâs trying to say, âwomen arenât suitable for combat,â while gleefully signing off on male elves, thatâs misogyny.
It is reasonable to have basic stat prereq stats a character would need in order serve in a military. For example, they might not be allowed to enlist if their STR, or CON scores were below 10 or 12, thereâs even some realism in that, most militaries donât want recruits who are physically or mentally infirm. If you think every stat should be at least 10, cool, easy. However, female characters would have no difficulty hitting those thresholds.
Short version: If youâre saying that women canât serve in your D&D military, youâre also saying that humans are unfit to serve, across the board. Thereâs some potential worldbuiling to be had there. For example, in Dragonlance, Minotaurs are frequently employed as sailors. Their physical stat bonuses make them ideal for a rough life on the seas, and many take to it happily.
And, to be clear, those physically beefier races are pretty well distributed through the population in Forgotten Realmâs Faerun. You donât see a lot of half-orc infantry units, in general, because of social stigmas against them, and their numbers arenât that high, but that doesnât play well with the idea of a medieval power structure, or really the way power tends to work in general. In any plausible, medieval, world, those half-orcs would be conscripted into military service in some capacity. This highlights something about D&D, and high fantasy in general, that is easy to overlook: this is not medieval.
Medieval Europe was shaped by a lot of factors. For our purposes, the utter lack of individuals with godlike powers is a fairly significant factor to look at.
Letâs start with a specific phrase: âif someone can do magic youâre going to put them on the front line.â This is very questionable thinking. How, exactly, are you going to convince someone who can cast Cloudkill, that you want them in an infantry role?
Warfare is not fun. Itâs not an enjoyable activity. When youâre talking about a medieval conflict, a lot of your forces are going to be conscripted. So, how, exactly, do you conscript a wizard? Even at level 1, they have access to a host of dangerous abilities that makes forcing to do you want incredibly risky. This before you consider that not all magic users are wizards, and some are decidedly more dangerous to harass.
Wizards in D&D draw their magic from an education in the arcane arts. This means, many wizards actually come from academies or larger organizations. Organizations that would not appreciate having their members poached by a local despot. A local despot who would be hard pressed to survive the ire of higher level wizards and basically 5th or higher level spell.
Clerics, Paladins, Druids, and Rangers draw their spellcasting abilities from their gods. (In the case Druids and Rangers, itâs technically nature itself, but the distinction is more about the spell lists and fluff.) Ironically, if you wanted to see front line magic users, Clerics, Paladins, and Rangers are high on the list. Rangers often serve as scouts, while Clerics often serve as combat medics and Paladins are, literally, holy crusaders.
There is one more spell caster that draws power from an outside source: The Warlock. Warlocks get their power from bargaining with Demons, Dark Gods, Edlrich Horrors, or even more terrifying powers. Yeah, trying to force one of these guys fight for you sounds like a horrible idea.
There are two more magic casters in standard D&D. The Sorcerer and Bard both draw magic from within. Where the Wizard learns spells through study, or the Cleric prays to their god, the Sorcerer just kinda throws a fireball. They donât really understand the intricacies of arcane magic, they simply âknowâ how to cast intuitively, much in the same way dragons do. Unironically, one common origin for a Sorcererâs powers is a dragon somewhere in their family tree. Their magic tends to be chaotic and unpredictable, meaning theyâre not a particularly good fit for any regulated military.
Personal builds aside, Bards are very similar to Sorcerers. As a player, you can make some pretty beefy builds, but as a part of the world, they donât fit well with military campaigning. Though, a chaotic good kingdom could, plausibly, recruit and send bards to war to boost morale of their troops, thatâs not really part of any campaign settings. (Incidentally, said chaotic good kingdom probably wouldnât engage in conscription to begin with. Thatâs more of a lawful activity. Theyâd also be less likely to care about the gender of their recruits, because, again, chaotic good.)
Iâm also skipping over some of the weirder classes that havenât, necessarily, made it into 5th Edition, like the Spellsword, Favored Soul, Spirit Shaman, Archivist, or Warmage. Thereâs a lot of variation here. The important thing to understand moving forward is that, you canât force a mage to fight for you, and you canât have a fantasy version of Medieval Europe if it includes a single level 20 Wizard.
Actually, thatâs not entirely true. You canât have a fantasy version of Europe if you have any characters over ~ level 10.
Something a lot of people miss about D&D is how far up the power scale goes. Figure that your average military will never have characters above level 5. Elite forces and singular champions might get to 10 (though 8 is also a pretty reasonable ceiling for them.) The kings and warlords may get into the elite range, but they could easily be on par with the rank and file soldiers, ~level 3 â 5. And, you expect a level 12 warlock, who got their powers from bargaining with the forces of hell to just bend knee and go die for a petty little mortal?
When you start looking at character progression, after level 10, your character is, pretty much, a fantasy superhero. Your challenge rating table starts rolling over from bandits, druids, mages, and assassins, into mythical creatures, and other âbig ticketâ enemies. Your level 13 party shouldnât be encountering mercenaries, theyâre up to the task of going after adult dragons.
In case you thought that was just your character having the stats, the abilities that your classes unlock in the 11-20 range starts getting out of hand as well. For example, a level 11 Barbarian can, literally, be too angry to die. A level 13 monk gains the ability to speak and understand any language. They can also be understood by anyone. And then at level 15, they no longer need to eat or drink anything. Iâm cherry picking, a little, but these abilities transcend the humanly possible.
This loops back to a fundamental element of D&D: The game is a power fantasy, and itâs built around that. You could not drop a level 11 character into 11th century Europe without them fundamentally altering the course of human history. They are that powerful.
When youâre creating wars in that kind of setting, saying, âIâm going to stick to medieval warfare,â doesnât track. The short version is that you canât have a medieval era in a conventional D&D campaign setting. The diversity of conflicting religions, backed by their own gods, mean you (probably) would not see a unified religion (or any other single body) taking control over a massive territory and forcing the society into a technological stasis.
Magic, frequently, replaces far more advanced technologies. Iâve written about this at length before, but if you have battlefield spellcasters, you now have mobile artillery, advanced communications, remote reconnaissance, and a host of other, âmodern tools of warfare.â As a ruler, you now have political problem, because you need to secure the loyalty of those mages. It may be enough to secure personal loyalty from the individuals, but in larger scale warfare, youâd need the loyalty of the organization training and overseeing them. You cannot simply force to serve you, the way you could round up another batch of peasants for use as shock troops.
The, âproblem,â with Forgotten Realms as a medieval setting is, itâs way too cosmopolitan. Thereâs a lot of physical mobility. Thereâs a lot of cross-racial interaction. Granted, not all interactions are positive, but you have a world that far better understood than what medieval Europe had. Itâs also more technologically advanced.
Remember how I said that mages mean you have access to a bunch of modern technologies on the battlefield? Magic has also seriously impacted technological development. Firearms exist, but are vanishingly rare. This isnât because theyâre new, itâs because theyâre kind of irrelevant. Magic can already do the things that made firearms revolutionary in the real world, and have been able to do that for quite some time.
While medical technology is less advanced, clerics and druids gain access to spells which will outright cure diseases at low enough levels for that to be a fairly accessible service. Even bringing someone back from the dead isnât difficult, (though that is expensive.)
The power structures of the world tend to center around higher level characters (usually in the borderline-superhero range.) With that world in place, itâs basically impossible to recreate the real Medieval Europe with any kind of logical consistency.
There is one last part here, your friend is subverting the intended spirit of D&D. Wizards of the Coast recently published an article on diversity:
One of the explicit design goals of 5th edition D&D is to depict humanity in all its beautiful diversity by depicting characters who represent an array of ethnicities, gender identities, sexual orientations, and beliefs. We want everyone to feel at home around the game table and to see positive reflections of themselves within our products. âHumanâ in D&D means everyone, not just fantasy versions of northern Europeans, and the D&D community is now more diverse than itâs ever been.
The entire article is worth reading, and I encourage you to do so. However, this a takeaway, if anyone your roleplaying group is engaging behavior that makes you feel excluded, or marginalized, itâs something that needs to be addressed.
If your friend is an, âexpert,â on medieval warfare, and thinks that women never fought, it seriously undercuts his research.
One of the ironies with Assassinâs Creed: Valhallaâs release were the idiots who threw a fit over the option to play a female viking. It almost feels like a straw man example, because Ubisoft preemptively released comments on the subject:
But the fact is, and I think whatâs really important, is that it was part of their conception of the world. Sagas and myths from Norse society are full of tough female characters and warriors. It was part of their idea of the world, that women and men are equally formidable in battleâŚ
Thierry Noel
The archaeological problem with vikings is that earlier archaeologists were determine gender based on whether the individual was buried with militant goods without checking if the skeleton was actually male. Meaning, they assumed that all raiders were male, therefore, all raiders they found were male, without checking to see if that assumption was true.
The debate, now, is that quite a few women were buried with militant goods. If we take the original assumption, that means viking raids were coed. Or burying them with a sword meant something different. However, Noel is right, looking at their culture, their myths, and then saying, viking women placidly stayed at home while the men, and only the men raided, is dubious at best.
Throughout history, women have fought in warfare. Not in every nation. Not in every time. But they have fought. Saying, âbut itâs not historically accurate,â has no place in the real world. To say nothing of a world of elves, dragons, wizards, and bards seducing the goddamn spiders.
-Starke
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Q&A: D&D by Gaslight was originally published on How to Fight Write.
Iâm going to preface this with: Iâm not a fan of call-out posts. Iâm going to post on one topic in this post, and another topic in a different post. I put up a read more so you donât all get slammed by a all of text. Because I like to think Iâm polite like that. ;)
Adding a second preface: Iâm probably going to reblog or like stuff from people you may not personally agree with. Iâm liking and reblogging because I like the work, not because Iâm in love with the creator. People still like John Lennonâs music and he beat women.
Anyways, here goes for anyone who wants to read.
Keep reading

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DA Fandom critical -
Everyone here so quick to judge.
Not everyone has the same life experience as you. Not everyone has the same nationality, culture or background. Not everyone has bad intentions. And no one sees the world the same way as you.
We are all in this huge melting pot of life just trying to make it through.
We come here to escape the shit at home, at work, and what we see on the news, to live in a fantasy, to write, to draw, to be creative and share it with everyone in the hope people enjoy it.
What you see of someone on here is only a tiny fraction of that person, it doesn't really tell you their beliefs, their values, their faith, their culture, their political views, their past, their present situation, their mental health, ect. You are making rash judgements that *hurt* real life people based off a dozen creative posts you see, often with little information about the real people behind the blog.
You can't fight to correct the worlds prejudices with more rash judgements. If you don't beileve me, go look up the definition of prejudice.
If you donât like that people are doing a thing in fandom (writing a trope or a ship or anything that displeases you), give up on the idea that you will be able to make them stop doing that.
I mean yes, fandom is fickle and fashions change so itâs possible they will stop. But it wonât be because you got them to stop it. The only way to completely quash some category of fannish expression is by making the fandom so negative and toxic the whole damn thing starts to shut down.
If people in fandom are doing something you dislike, encourage the alternative.
Be really clear about what you want to see more of. Talk about it, request it, comment on it, reblog it, host a week about it. Throw a giant party that looks like so much fun people jump on the bandwagon because it looks like such a good time. Learn how to filter out the stuff you dislike and focus your fannish experience on what you love.
I even mean this when the thing you dislike is genuinely objectionable and bad, like using racist tropes or encouraging bullying or harassment.
You can discourage the bad thing. You can create spaces where the bad thing is unwelcome and will be swiftly deleted. You can persuade any right-thinking person to avoid the bad thing.
You cannot actually make people stop. I think thatâs an important distinction, because people can get confused between two goals: One is to create a fannish experience in which your life is so filled with good things that you rarely ever notice the bad. The other is one in which the bad thing never ever happens, anywhere at any time.
You canât stop all the bad from ever happening, and attempts to keep it from ever cropping up will turn the fandom toxic.
What you can do is let people know what the bad thing is, why itâs bad, and what the consequences of it are.
And then promote the alternatives.
You can create a fandom zeitgeist so strongly tilted in the direction you want it to go that it strongly discourages the thing you dislike. Your life will be so full of positive things, and people will see so many good examples and resources explaining whatâs bad about the bad thing, that incidences of actual badness are few and far between.
And thatâs a much healthier approach than focusing solely on the negative, and devoting all your attention to stopping the thing you dislike.
All of this is more productive than arguing in circles with people who will never agree with you... because they donât know you and will never meet you (probably). Itâs also just more healthy and less time-consuming on what should be a fun hobby.
â90s and â00s movie makeovers in summary.
lore bioware completely ignored or forgot in dragon age inquisition:
thedas has two moons. they left a moon out im
the dalish treasure mages and gift magical children to clans without mages yet in inqusition suddenly extra mage children are all being left for the wolves
dwarves canât enter the fade yet cadash still has a dream sequence with solas
THE MARK IS ON THE WRONG HAND ON THE GAME COVER
zevran exists
Zevran does exist in DAI... war table mission, if you play it right, you can get a ref to him.
Reblog if youâre Pro-Mages but you still like Cullen Rutherford
You recognize that Cullen joined the Templar Order at the age of 13 for altruistic reasons.
You recognized that he was brutally tortured in the line of duty by an abomination and untold horrors, while he was still pretty new to the Order and pretty young.
You recognize that the PTSD resulting from said torture made Cullen into a man whose fear resulted in his dehumanization of mages.Â
You recognize that Cullen was compliant in some pretty horrible things with the Templar Order and Knight-Commander Meredith in Kirkwall.Â
You recognize that he eventually realized the Templar Order he had wanted to be a part of since he was a young boy is no longer the Templar Order he is a part of while heâs in Kirkwall.Â
You recognize that Cullen willingly left the Templar Order, knowing full well that to quit taking lyrium is likely a death sentence. Â
You recognize that Cullen is still working through his distrust of mages in the beginning of Inquisition.Â
You recognize that he treats a mage inquisitor with respect.
You recognize he is truthful with the inquisitor about his past, even if they are a mage.Â
You recognize he is fearful of allying with mages if you choose In Hushed Whispers, but he will respect the inquisitorâs decision.Â
You recognize Cullen can fall in love with a mage.Â
THIS
Haha, a couple months later, this post graces my dashboard through someone Iâm following. With 4k+ notes.
Thatâs a weird feeling.
Also he does basically say in game that he thinks the circles are a bad idea and only exist to bring comfort to people scared of mages and instead Templarâs should be trying to help mages live OUTSIDE of circles safely.
Reblogging with my TED Talk from the old blog, for those of you who havenât read it.
I always side with the mages (though I never play one) and I still stan the fuck out of that man.
THIS!

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she gets it
One thing Iâve learned about writing is âgive everything a faceâ. Itâs no good to write passively that the nobility fled the city or that the toxic marshes were poisoning the animals beyond any ability to function. Make a protagonist see how a desperate woman in torn silks climbs onto a carriage and speeds off, or a two-headed deer wanders right into the camp and into the fire. Donât just have an ambiguous flock of all-controlling oligarchy, name one or two representatives of it, and illustrate just how vile and greedy they are as people.
itâs bad to have characters who serve no purpose in the story, but giving something a face is a perfectly valid purpose.
This is the real heart of âshow donât tellâ