I Taught My Boyfriend How To Play Magic The Gathering And Ive Never Beaten Him :(( I'm Not Even Good

Cerebrilith Large fiend (demon), chaotic evil Armor Class 15 (natural armor) Hit Points 149 (13d10 + 78) Speed 30 ft. Str 21, Dex 13, Con 23, Int 15, Wis 18, Cha 21 Saving Throws Int +6, Wis +8 Damage Immunities lightning, poison Damage Resistances acid, cold, fire, psychic; bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks Senses darkvision 60 ft. passive Perception 14 Languages Abyssal, telepathy 120 ft. Challenge 10 (5900 XP) Magic Resistance. The cerebrilith has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects. Innate Spellcasting. The cerebrilith’s spellcasting ability is Charisma (spell save DC 17). The cerebrilith can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components: At will: detect thoughts, confusion, dissonant whispers 3/day each: darkness, dominate person, gaseous form

Actions Multiattack. The cerebrilith uses Mind Lash if it is able to. It then makes three attacks: one with its bite, and two with its claws. Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 12 (2d6+5) piercing damage. Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 9 (1d8+5) slashing damage. Teleport. The cerebrilith magically teleports, along with any equipment it is wearing or carrying, up to 120 feet to an unoccupied space it can see. Mind Lash (Recharge 4-6). Up to three creatures the cerebrilith can see that are within 60 feet of it each must succeed on a DC 17 Intelligence saving throw or take 17 (5d6) psychic damage. A creature that fails its save by 5 or more is also stunned until the end of its next turn.

Cerebriliths are psionic demons who seek to kill, and then consume the brains of, moral creatures. They also use their powers of mental domination to control communities of mortals to serve them, or simply to manipulate them according to the whims of their Abyssal masters. When not serving other demons, they are found in groups of up to four. They stand around 8 feet tall.

Originally from the Expanded Psionics Handbook

I've been said to have "mom friend" vibes by at least 3 people, two of which affectionately call me "Ashmom."

Just yesterday I had a discussion with my husband about my fashion as a trans girl. He's witnessed so many mtf transitions, because he's been in the community much longer than I have, and his general observation is that trans girl clothing fashion tends to be any combination of young, showy, slim, and thin. My husband was reflecting on this because I gravitate to items he calls "grandma fashion". He wondered why I wasn't the same as other trans women he's seen/met. The thing is, I don't really know. I enjoy what I enjoy.

Now. That being said. On the same day, my Mom, Dad, and little brother, all separate of one another, said I look like a Grandma when they noticed my new glasses chain from the queer market yesterday.

Is this my fate? To be the Grandma trans? I love being motherly and I enjoy caring for the people I love. But grand-motherly? I don't think so.

Funeralopolis is a dread-filled apocalyptic body horror game where you discover a strange crack in your kitchen wall!

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Lorn's Lure is a sci-fi free-climbing adventure scale a massive megastructure in search of a glitchy ghost owl!

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🧦☕🧸A Guide to Writing Cozy Fantasy

Check out my masterpost for more tips :)

What is "cozy fantasy"? 🧺🪵

Cozy fantasy is a subgenre that is characterized by a more everyday approach to fantasy.

While its definition is not as clear-cut (everyone will have a sightly different idea of what it needs to look like), there are some general approaches to writing in this subgenre.

Elements of Cozy Fantasy 🕯️ೀ

A comforting, healing ambience 🍪

Rather than bloody battle and cunning witches, we have our next door wizard baker chumming up his special pumpkin pie.

Every magical book at their deepest core evoke a healing quality, but for these cozy novels, this warm element takes control.

2. "Kindness” and ‘gentleness” tropes 🍂

Found family/community, a sense of togetherness

Kind hearted protangoists

Plots gull of joy, hope or happy endings. Give your readers reassurance that everything will work out. And they do.

Ambience woven in the worldbuilding that gets the reader intitamely close to the world

Slower pace, allow the reader to delve into the story world and build stake in these kind, loving characters.

Slice of life: provide personal insight into the character’s “mundane” lives. 

The plot must take this "happy" nad kind" element as the MAIN theme. Every book provides catharsis at the end, but if the process if filled with dark, dangerous adventures, that's not cozy at all!

3. Cozy doesn’t mean “no/low stake” 📖

No novel would be interesting without conflict and some kind of loss.

Think of “personal” stakes. Cozy fantasy can be grand adventures, quiet magical quests, fairytales or healing slice of life stories.

For example, the protagonist can develop new relationship around town and figure out her passion to express the theme of importance of enduring. 

4. Generally slower pace, focusing more on the inner development of the protagonist and the main side characters.

Cozy Fantasy Starter Recommendations 🎧🌙

Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree

The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna

Can't Spell Treason Without Tea by Rebecca Thorne

The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J.Klune

Bookshops & Bonedust by Travie Baldree

Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett

Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

If you like my blog, buy me a coffee☕ and find me on instagram! 📸

Campaign 3 Class Predictions

This is just what I think the cast might pick as their classes for next campaign (I have no idea what races they might pick, aside from Sam)

Travis - Either a Cleric or a Paladin or a Wizard. He is very much the dad of the group and he has said multiple times that he enjoys strategizing and being able to play an intelligent character.

Marisha - After Keyleth and Beau I feel like she'd choose something with a high charisma to shake things up, so I feel like she'd choose a Sorcerer.

Laura - Barbarian. She has made it incredibly obvious that she just wants to deal a shit ton amount of damage. She might also pick a race that is large like a Goliath, Half-Orc, Aasimar, something like that. Or she might choose something exotic like a Tabaxi.

Sam - I feel like Sam might play either a Fighter or a less standard class like Blood Hunter (especially since we didn't get to see the full extent of a Blood Hunter's abilities in this campaign). I also feel like after playing two Small characters he'll switch it up to a Medium or Large character.

Liam - I feel like Liam might choose either a Bard or a Druid. With both his natural charisma and his incredible insight as a person he'd be naturally adept at either. He also just rocks spellcasting classes.

Taliesin - WARLOCK.

Ashley - Honestly I have no idea on this one. She has played both a Barbarian and a Cleric now, two classes on opposite sides of the spectrum (I mean I know she was a War Cleric so she was still technically a Tank but she was also primarily a Healer). She might pick Rogue as a good medium but I'm honestly not sure.

Again, these are just my personal predictions, I have no idea if they're gonna be right or not, I'm just throwing this out there.

It would be cool if most of the class picked some of the stranger classes or subclasses available now that so many of the Unearthed Arcana material has been officially published. It would also be cool if for their Races they picked more exotic characters like Tabaxi, Genasi, stuff like that. Fuck, even a Kenku or Aarakocra would be cool.

Either way, it's so weird to think about this because this campaign doesn't feel like it's close to ending. At least for me. In campaign one it definitely like the endgame because of all of the build up and the stakes being set super high and everything, but this one just doesn't have that same feeling.

But I am still excited to see how this all ends and to see how the ending of this campaign will affect the beginning and world of the next campaign.

VTM character concepts that I am compelled to share as they have completely taken over my brain:

1. A fledgling who wakes up after their embrace to an “Alice in Wonderland”-style “unbirthday party” complete with some rather grizzly tea and presents. Their sire is either a Malkavian who genuinely thinks they are doing something nice, or a very twisted Toreador.

2.  A Lasombra antiquarian bookseller who takes sadistic pleasure in charging Tremere vamps OBSCENE amounts of money for rare occult tomes. 3.  A Salubri vampire who consensually feeds from those suffering from chronic pain in order to give them a little relief, unknowingly creating people addicted to the kiss in the process. 4. Nosferatu with a gorgeous voice who posts songs on social media without revealing their face. They are often asked to perform at Elysium, provoking much jealousy from the local Toreador. 5.  A Toreador dominatrix whose art form is torture. They work with the sheriff to “extract” information, and are currently searching for a fiend to teach them fleshcraft. Please feel free to use any of these as my brain continues to sprout characters without actually having chronicles to play them in lol.

Villain: His Majesty, King Marlow the Incardinate. Restorer of the Throne and Protector of the Realm. 

“I have bled for my people, for the realm. Is it not just that I ask them to do the same? “ 

Setup: To accuse King Marlow of “Consorting” with demons is as useful a charge as accusing a bird of consorting with the sky.  Fiends placed the sovereign on his throne, do his bidding throughout the realm , and some have even been placed in positions in his court. The King’s priorities are the demons’ priorities, and the realm suffers for it. 

Born in exile as the grandson of a usurped monarch, Marlow was instilled from an early age with an expectation of what he deserved, of the way the world should be, and the great injustice to the cosmic order that his line did not sit upon the throne of their homeland.  These expectations kindled a rage in the boy that could not be quelled, along with a drive that would propel him along a course of greatness at any cost. Growing first into a strong warrior, Marlow became a leader of mercenaries across the continent, accruing loyal followers, battlefield experience, and political allies in preparation for an attempt at retaking his kingdom, or perhaps carving out one of his own. 

Marlow’s plans changed radically when during one of his more bloody conquests, the slaughter drew the attention of a demon that was lairing nearby and came out to join the “fun”. Marlow faced the demon when it proved too great challenge for his men, and managed to defeat it. So great was his bloodlust however, his desire to see the thing dead, that the would-be king leapt upon the creature as it was dissipating back to whatever foul hell had spawned it, dragging Marlow along for the ride. 

None can say exactly what foul pacts Marlow struck with the masters of that realm, but a year and a day after he disappeared, he appeared on the borders of his homeland with an army at his back, the ability to call up the monstrosities of the pit, and a wretched creature whispering blasphemous council in his ear. 

Now restored to his throne, King Marlow seems content to rule as any other iron-fisted ruler might, save that he entrusts his business primarily through bound fiends and other infernal denizens, rather than potentially disloyal courtiers. 

Adventure Hooks: 

When the King wants his will to be known, he sends out “emissaries”, prisoners or simple victims possessed with cackling demons who wear their tormented mortal vassals like one might a prized suit. One of these cackling emissaries, who dresses to accentuate the wounds suffered during their imprisonment and binding, has found its way to the player’s local court, dictating the king’s intentions to the nearby nobles and commanding a feast or festival in its honor. At some point during all this pageantry, the emissary encounters the party and lets slip a secret:  They’re not really possessed, the binding failed on the road from the royal court and they’ve been pretending ever since. Easy enough to pretend to be a mad, inhuman thing, but this is the first chance they’ve had to slip past their guards and other courtiers and drop the act.  The emissary begs the party for their aid, to help them escape, and to help them rescue their noble family still held captive in the king’s dungeons. 

Knowing that the gods are unlikely to look fondly at a demon-backed ruler presiding over the realm, King Marlow has made his intentions clear that he is giving the faiths of the kingdom total total independence from royal authority, save for the Pelorian faith, whos clergy conspired to have him murdered ( obviously) and thus have had their temples shuttered. Though worship of the dawnfather is not strictly outlawed, gatherings must occur outdoors and under scrutiny of royalist officials … which has obviously led to an underground movement of sun-worshipers looking to oust the king from his throne and purge the land from demons. 

To further convolute matters with the faith, the king has invited innumerable strange cults into the realm, making it a haven for religious practices not tolerated elsewhere. 

The King’s demonic advisor is known only as “The Riven”, and manifests as a disgusting tangle of wounds, muscle, and savagery that possesses from the body of a sacrificial victim. Traditionally this victim is a goat, as mortal vessels wear out after a short time, but that does not stop the king from providing more humanoid vessels for “special occasions” famously sacrificing the ruler he usurped and having their Riven cadaver play out a grotesque abdication ceremony.  In Recent months however the court has gossiped about The Riven’s absence, possibly due to the fact that the special sacrificial knife King Marlow uses to summon it was stolen by a  particular master thief who now plans to do ….. something with it. Bounties have been placed on this thief across the realm, and the party can earn themselves a literal king’s ransom should they manage to capture the scoundrel alive. 

Dungeon: Enlanis’ie, Kingdom of the Aurora The Stolen Kingdom

“And so did she travel into the north, to the lands unbeloved by her god of flower and field, to the kingdom of Elanis’ie, where the sky colors dance and the elderlings dwelt, where she scaled the parapets of ever-ice and sought out her mother, who had been born to the kingdom upon her shield, carried from the great battle of the age to seek healing in those immortal halls”

`The Ziiriad, transcription of oratory performance. 

Setup: There are places only spoken of in legend, destinations that can only be reached by heroes after suffering through a long road of trials and proving to both history and the gods above that they are worthy to behold those wonders.

Enlanis’ie was one if those places, a mythical kingdom of the farthest north built off aurora light and glacial ice, which existed only during the depths of polar night. Though it had appeared in innumerable tales over the centuries of its existance, it is most often thought of as a place of healing, where miraculous cures may be sought, or where figures of legend seek their long deserved rest. 

Seeking the expertise of an ancient hero, or perhaps an act of healing far beyond the skill of any mortal, the party traveled weeks into the polar expanse following the path of the auroras in the sky till they catch sight of the Enlanis’ie, or atleast it’s imposing glacial walls. Tall as any fortress but barren of any of the ephemeral spires that feature in so many stories of the impossible kingdom, the party will have to find a way through this foreboding ring of ice and explore the place where the kingdom once stood, 

Adventure Hooks: 

The party’s exploration of these great icy battlements is made no easier by the fact that a blizard has just rolled in, leaving the party no viable shelter besides the surrounding dungeon. Fending off polar beasts and those fey and arcane entities that once fed on the bountiful magic of the eternal aurora. 

Bypassing the walls leads the party to a vast exapnse somewhere between a snow covered quarry and a bombed out capital city, with eerie avenues of hollowed out foundations extending maybe two or three stories in the air before simply ending, stiarways projecting out into the open air connecting to nothing. Among these desolate structures the party will encounter loremaster Anisidora, a venerable elven hermit who wanders the remnants of her home with nothing but a lantern full of captured aurora light to guide her way. Immortal in the way of the most ancient elves, Anisidora is frostbitten and half feral from hunger, but an offer of food and a place by the fire might allow the party to discover the story of what exactly happened. 

To hear the loremaster tell it, this disastrous disappearance is the fault of one Siretiil Glassbinder, A covetous historian who grew tired of living in a technicolor dreamscape and endeavored to preserve the kingdom’s most magical sights in a medium that could not be distorted by the vagaries of the fey magic that gifted the city with all its miraculous properties . Driven by a love of her home that left no room for the opinions of others, Siretiil moved from simply recording and reproducing the wonders of Elanis’ie to outright catching them in prisms, eventually trapping the entire kingdom in a fractal gem that she still carries with her in a jealous madness. If the party presses, Anisidora will confess that Siretiil was her daughter and onetime apprentice, who broke with her mother over the same ideology that drove her to begin glassing sections of the city. Apparently Anisidora was the one thing about Enlanis’ie that she didn’t want to take with her.  Glassbinder could be anywhere in the feywild or material plane by this point, which means that the party will need to add several extra steps to finishing their quest. 

Festivities

by fat-elf