World Building Checklist

It’s been a while since I’ve posted video stuff here but later today is my Oceanus Dragon video so check out my channel if you’d like to see that.

Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPcFsxfrenLv_Nx0oxSmBhA

My husband purchased me 4 items from the Witches and Wellness queer artisan market we visited yesterday :)!

I got a little ring (my first ring ever) with mushrooms stamped into it, two plastic-beaded bracelets with "she" and "T4T" beaded into them respectively, and then a chain, decorated by red gem beads, meant to hold my glasses.

I was considering asking for a witch's pointed hat, but I decided I felt sufficiently blinged out and would be very happy to leave the busy event.

I looked in the mirror a few hours later, the chain hanging from my glasses framed my face with the red beaded accents and it made me feel... euphoric. It made me feel pretty. I didn't have to look away from the mirror until I was finished being happy for myself. I am very lucky to have someone who willingly and happily facilitates my journey to being a happier girl.

Alright! Let's actually talk about this waterfall thing. It is an amazing showcase of many things that I adore from late 90s graphics. I am replicating this in Blender, through mere observation of the final game, so some things might not be exactly accurate to what the PS1 does.

First off, this is what I started off with, straight from the Noesis exporter into Blender.

"Looks boring!" "What are those weird gradient quads?!" Oh we'll talk about those too, don't worry.

Let's start simple, figuring out the Layers.

We've got the base level geometry, then two layers of water, each with a different texture.

Let's focus on the bottom Water layer first. A waterfall's water falls, and the age old trick to replicate that behaviour is to scroll the texture along the mesh by offsetting the texture coordinates every frame.

Simple enough. Not too convincing yet.

Let's do the same with the other layer.

Look at it goooo!

An often-used trick to enhance the waterfall effect is to increase the distance between vertices (or squash texture coordinates) as the geometry goes down.

This affects the scrolling velocity for the texture in each section, making it look like gravity is accelerating the water.

MGS pulls yet another trick on top of that:

Vertices are subtly animated to oscillate, making the water flow seem more irregular.

It seems to be something similar to what is done to geometry when the camera goes underwater in the docks or vents area.

One opaque layer of water on top of another is no good.

Alpha Blending is an expensive technique and it'd not give the desired effect.

Additive Blending is used instead. The lower layer is rendered first, the second layer is then rendered on top, adding the color values together.

Now we get to talk about those weird quads.

They are darkening gradients! Instead of using Additive Blending, they do the opposite, the color value from the texture is subtracted from the scene that was rendered below, effectively creating shadowed areas.

Who needs HBAO+ anyway?

Lighting pass!

I just threw a few point lights to try and replicate the original vibes of the scene.

MGS, instead, uses lighting information baked into the vertices of the scene to create this mood. And what a mood it is!

Here's an additional example of the same techniques used in the bottom part of the same scene. Although the game seems to be rendering that water mesh as (almost?) completely opaque, there is an actual floor mesh under it.

There, I fixed this post. If you enjoy my posts, shit or not, consider supporting me on Ko-fi, I will appreciate it a lot 💞: https://ko-fi.com/parametricpalta

Rant about feeling guilty about ranting.

Do you ever start to type a rant or a vent post and just... delete it all? "It's not worth making a fuss," or "you don't need to air your dirty laundry." Fuck. I want to just talk about my worries and frustrations without feeling upset with myself. I promise I'll actually post this one. I deserve to speak about my feelings, but sometimes it's hard to prioritize my own feelings over someone else's comfort. Stupid.

Free TTRPG Art - Puppeteer Spider

I appreciate the patience!  I am working on this month’s monster now, but in the meantime, have last month’s - the puppeteer spider!  It has a bit more narrow usage, but spiders lend themselves very well to traps and lair setups.  This one could have an extra hypnotic flair.

This illustration is under a CC-BY license, and is therefore free  to use in private TTRPG games and commercially for independent content  creators! If you want a transparent .png and other full-resolution  files, please visit my Ko-fi shop where it’s pay-what-you-want.

The Rust Disciples.

worn axes left to rust and rot in the forest sometimes become these strange creatures when fungi colonizes their handles. if you meet them in the woods, mind your business. if you are cruel they'll hunt you until you either leave their territory or are caught and chopped to bits. if you linger near them too long you might feel compelled to follow them deeper into the woods. you'll hike deeper and deeper with a growing group of the creatures until you get to a small pile of ancient burnt wood and crumbled stone in a clearing so off the beaten path that whatever was there before has almost completely returned to the earth. you will kneel down on soft mossy ground beside the beasts and mourn and laugh and cry and sing until you grow too tired to move. you will then wake up alone, feeling disoriented but content.

you will never find out what god you were grieving.

over on patreon Sean Dehoff wanted conjoined disciples, Kyle Weiss wanted forgotten gods, and Trip Space-Parasite wanted mushroom cyborgs (I'm counting a mushroom with an ax melted into it that's probably full of ghosts as a cyborg. fight me.).

Writing the "Mean Girl" Character

How do we write the "mean girl" without making her another shallow copy of the brainless, pink-clad, cheerleader we see in high teen dramas?

Of course, there's nothing wrong with such a character if you want them to be funny/light in the first place.

However, I can hear myself slowly losing my last two brain cells when I keep reading about such papercut characters for more than an hour - reading clearly requires more effort than watching a class B movie, so I always appreciate when authors put more effort to make the characters dynamic.

No "Mean for the Sake of Being Mean

The classic way to avoid this is to give them a sad backstory. They used to be overweight/ugly and were bullied, or their parents don't care about them enough, or they are too insecure. Obviously these plot points are quiet stale now, but the basic principle still stands - if your charcter is mean, she needs A REASON.

I love reading about a mean character's backstory then feeling, "actually, I would have felt like doing that, too."

Whatever their motivations may be, remember that bullies pick on the weak, not the successful/powerful. While the Mean Girl might feel jealous/inferior towards the protagonist, I hardly think that should be the sole reason why they picked their victim. There must be a flaw in your protagonist that happened to be something that the Mean Girl knows how to exploit, which makes them a target above others.

Give Them A Twist

There are two ways that I can think of: (1) A seemingly nice character is in fact a mean girlie, or (2) A mean character turns out to be kind and well-intended.

Personally, I love Mean Girls who are intelligent/ know what they are doing. They are purposely manipulative:"are you okay?" as if the victim has something wrong with them or providing "constructive" criticism. Or kindly inviting them to a party that she knows they wouldn't fit in.

The conflict deepens when everyone else likes the Mean Girl due to her manipulative nature, making the protagonist doubt themselves.

A Purpose beyond Providing Conflict

Think about what the mean girl aims to gain from bullying your protagonist.

Is she continuously trying to prove herself "superior" so that she can feel better inside? Is she an academic rival who just needs to be the first in everything, even is that means reverting to questionable behavior?

Overly ambitious/perfectionist characters can come off as mean when they feel like others fail to live up to their standards (which only they know about, and are usually up in the sky)

Give Them A Proper Redemption

If you plan on giving her a redemption arc, make sure that she has earned it! The worst thing you can do is make it sound like you approve of the horrible things she has done.

this transition doesn’t mean the character does a complete 180 and is suddenly all smiles and good favors. They can fall back on their old ways of thinking, but is trying to make an effort to step out of their old clothes.

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Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

References:

https://writingquestionsanswered.tumblr.com/post/668302340882857984/how-would-you-write-a-mean-girl-character-without

https://www.writingforums.org/threads/how-to-write-the-mean-girl-character.160729/

I fear my ruin-raiding, slave-taking, trade-disrupting goblin villain still isn't villainous enough. What can be done to really make the PCs actively oppose him?

Sounds to me like the problem is less with the Character's actual Villainy and more with how your party relates to them  as I mentioned in this post, part of of my guiding philosophy when it comes to adventure prompts Is finding ways to make the adventurers care about the greater plot. Thankfully you've given me a lot to work with, so without further ado:

Villain: Rizzko Redcap, and the Plunderer’s Market

“Breathe deep dearies, wouldn’t want you putting up a fight and damaging the merchandise. I’m sure there’s an arena pit or a slave mine somewhere desperately in need of your heroic valor” 

Setup: If its one thing this grizzled goblin alchemist hates, it’s adventurers. Once the oblivious and eager assistant to a mad wizard his clan had come into the service of, young Rizzko’s family was slaughtered by a band of zealous sellswords hired to stop the arcanist’s schemes. As a cruel reminder of that day, Rizzko’s face was horribly scarred as he tried to throw himself in the way of the final blow that ended the wizard’s life. 

Nursing his wounds and his hatred for years, Rizzko ran with a number of outlaw bands before finding his place within a surprising new venture growing in the badlands between kingdoms. Different than any encampment before it, this fortified camp sought to be a place where bandits and pillagers could meet, resupply, and swap loot before carrying on to the final destination. Everyone who’s gone on more than one raid knows that even with the most solid of intentions the fury and chaos produces a very mixed bag of pilfered valuables , and that not every buyer willing to do business over obviously bloody goods is interested in everything you might have. Oh sure there’s always a place for livestock, grain  and gold, but what about the cultural artifacts? the books you didn’t burn? Who wants once preciously guarded relics, and who just wants terrified villagers they can force to work to exhaustion in their fields? 

These grisly economics led to prosperity for those who did business with this “Plunderer’s Market”, and year after year the gatherings grew, until eventually what started out as an impromptu swamp meet became a fortified settlement with ad-hock rules supported by a number of powerful bandit clans. Having perfected his early lessons in alchemy into a real talent with all things noxious and nasty, Rizzko fit right in, in particular thanks to his knowledge of arcane valuables, and the plosions he used to subdue valuable hostages for transport to the market. 

Now the goblin is running his own outlaw band, starting his carrier as an independent villain with a series of violent raids on trade routes and local delves, snapping up anyone and anything he thinks valuable enough to trade. His quest for funds and favors are all in service of  resurrecting the great work of his long departed mentor, a task that Rizzko only half remembers but is fully sure will fulfill his need for vengeance against those “civilized” peoples who hurt him so long ago. 

Adventure Hooks:

One of Rizzko’s favorite tricks is to station his gang in ambush near a local dungeon site, perhaps agitating local monsters to rampage near the village or spread rumors in town about treasure or paranormal activity. When the adventurers are drawn into the trap like bees to honey, Rizzko or his lieutenants wait until they’re exhausted and heading back to town with packs laid down with gold before striking. Hopefully the party notices that someone’s watching them while they’re at camp, otherwise they’re in for a nasty surprise. 

an unforseen windfall has befallen the slaver’s band, as one of the caravans they raided has produced three times the amount of captives the scouts initially reported, some of them high born. With so many heads to account for and not wanting to waste out on any potential investment, Rizzko has moved the captives to a cave system not too far away, and is spending the following days questioning his prisoners about their likely value.  This delay might just give the party enough time to hear about the attacked caravan, find the site of the ambush, and track the goblin’s forces to the cave before they move on or start trimming the “dead weight”. 

Further Adventures: 

Rizzko learned one important lesson from his mentor’s death: never let them trap you in the back of your stronghold. Rizzko is always ready for an intrusion by adventurers, bugging out with the most valuable and portable of the treasure and leaving behind a time-consuming alchemical trap or other distraction to make good his escape. If the party DO manage to track him down ( and not one of his many proxies), they can expect to have him slip through their grasp once or twice before finally being able to nail the slaver down. 

The Sphinx’s Bastards are a rival adventuring party our heroes meet up with over the course of their adventures, alternatively competing for contracts, intersecting on parallel jobs, or even just casually running into one another during a festival.   Led by the one eyed Falconer Daraius, the Sphinxes (as they’re called in polite company) will provide some good natured antagonism as both groups rise to prominence. One day however, the party will hear a tapping at their window: its Daraius’s falcon, with a hastily scrawled message attached. He and his crew have been ambushed during a job and have been taken prisoner by some mad goblin who’s  intent on dragging them out to the badlands to sell at auction.  With the bird to guide them, the party may just be able to rescue their friends and together put an end to the plunderer’s market once and for all. 

Art source 1

Art Source 2 

HEY YOU!

Yeah, you! Are you trans? Do you like reading books? Or watching movies?

Do you like media about trans men/transmasculine characters but don't know where to find it?

That's sooo crazy because I have this little spreadsheet I'm working on where I'm trying to document all media with protagonists/major characters who are FTM or transmasculine.

The spreadsheet currently has 400+ entries spread across the following categories:

Books

Manga

Memoirs and non-fiction

Movies

TV Shows

Graphic novels / Comics

Webcomics

Audio dramas

Books and movies are also sorted by:

Which character is trans (MC, love interest, antagonist, etc)

If the trans character is POC

The trans character's sexuality (Because I saw lots of transhet guys sad about only being able to find gay romances)

If the author/actor is also trans (if we know for sure)

It's free to use, and free to add to as well! Editing permissions are on, and I check on the spreadsheet every now and then to make sure everything is in order and to clean up.

If you know something that isn't on the list, please add it! You don't have to fill in every single column, but fill it to the best of your abilities.

If you don't want to use the big ass long link below, you can also use: bit.ly/FTM-protags

Google Docs

Directory of media with major FTM and/or Transmasculine characters

About short link: <a href="https://bit.ly/FTM-protags">https://bit.ly/FTM-protags</a>,Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/_nekhcore">@_n

I made this because I want it to be a community resource. So even if you're not a trans guy or transmasculine person, please reblog!

Drafting the Adventure: Dungeons Without Walls

I love the idea of dungeons, but there was a significant portion of my life as a DM where they didn’t feature in my games. While Pathfinder and 5e provided a great framework for character building and tactical skirmishes that I could build story on top of, neither was really great when it came time to detour into a  dungeon. My players tended to get confused when we headed out to plunder the local ruin or cave system, spending a lot more time figuring out where they were and what they should be doing than actually doing anything. 

The problem as it turned out was limited information.  I had a picture of the dungeon in my head/notes but I couldn’t telepathically infer that to the party, and the back and forth questions where they tried to orient themselves within my mental labyrinth ate up a lot of session time prevented us from attaining that snappy pace that every table needs to keep the players invested.

Recently though I had an epiphany about overhauling exploration in d&d, and wrote up a whole post detailing how you could build and run wilderness adventures the same way you could a heist or a murder mystery. Because I was already writing a series about dungeon design it didn’t take long for me to realize that this exploration overhaul was 100% applicable, and could solve a lot of the delay and confusion my players usually faced on their next trip underground.  Spoilers: it worked amazingly.

 The key to this overhaul was giving my players enough information to see the dungeon as a sort of abstract checklist, and then giving them the power to investigate and check things off that list in whatever order they wished, when they enter a new level of the dungeon they get a new checklist to fill out which still keeps that sense of exploration. Folk love checking things off lists, and I as a dungeonmaster love it when players engage with the content I’ve spent so much energy creating even if it’s only poking their head in the door to realize they want to run away as fast as possible. Likewise, designing the dungeon this way let me tackle much larger concepts without having to sweat the details of filling up every little room as I would have to in map-centric design.

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