#a few major characters and faction names and locations | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs | Tumgik (2025)

I just found a way to deckbuild and potentially play online multiplayer with my custom cards. This is awesome

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There are plenty of real reviews out there, but I'll just add that the D&D movie is, finally, what I was hoping for when the first discussions about making one popped up in the 80s. It's a fun action movie that clearly is based on the game to a great extent, yet is accessible to everyone. My party of viewers included me, who started playing in the 1970s, and someone who had played a little in the '80s but none since, and someone who had no knowledge of the game beyond its name. No one felt like they weren't the intended audience.

We see a party coming together with a mix of humans and fantasy races, the different abilities of the complimentary classes are highlighted, their backstories unfold along the way to varying degrees, and everyone gets to contribute to the team effort. The theme of 'found family' plays an important role.

Major locations and factions are faithful to an official published campaign setting. The necessary dungeon and dragon both appear. All of the creatures are from the Monster Manual, most being unique to the game from its earliest editions. Most of the magic can be identified easily by spell name, with a few exceptions for the effects of magic items & artifacts.

The main variations from core rules are concessions to movie making that could be considered house rules. The druid wild shapes many times for the same reason you don't see gunfighters stop the action to reload in classic westerns. It effectively showcases the character's most notable ability, just as the bard is shown inspiring others throughout the story, without bogging down in the mechanics of spell casting in a way that also could step on the sorcerer's role as the pure caster.

(Minor spoiler) My favorite moment seeing my own gaming experience on screen would be when the party hears a confusing verbal description of a difficult floor tile puzzle trap and fails to solve it in the intended way, bypassing it to get on with the story.

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You know. something that hit me when I was trying to make a list of side characters for a poll is that like...there really is a massive gap in which places have enough side characters and ambient vibes to have a sense of place. Increasingly, I find that I have to hand it to the Hossberg Wetlands for really nailing A Vibe. It is a bad, creepy, and wet vibe, which is to be fair the point, but like, you can chat with a few wardens and the various quests naturally introduce you to Wardens Greta and Augustin, and Flynn, and Mila and her father, and if you have subtitles on (as, obviously, I do) the ambient chatter that plays as you go through Lavendel names the panicky villager as Fisher. Treviso does a good job with this too - you run into Noa and Neri de Acutis in the market being mean to Ivenci, who deserves it, there's two named fledglings by the stairs out to the ziplines, you can chat with Heir and Chance Candide - and the quests are also painting a picture of a city under occupation. I suspect if you don't uh. get the Shadow Dragons killed, you will get this for Minrathous, and you still have a few major players around like Rana and Elek and a cohering location/faction plot of people being mysteriously taken that eventually lines up with Neve's arc. And unfortunately a lot of the other locations fail to achieve this. Arlathan is great and I get that it's not a city or village, but like, the Veil Jumpers are largely not even named and the chatter until Blood of Arlathan is just like "there are patrols." Rowan actually takes a hot second to show up in Rivain and it's basically just her, and the fact that the Lords of Fortune hangout is a separate location with no real quests that involve finding anything makes it harder to get that same sense of place. And yeah the Necropolis has great vibes and I (conversation eavesdropper & slow traveler through the Crossroads) shouldn't really criticize things as missable as being a problem but yeah so much of the Necropolis is puzzles that get you treasure and not like, a sense of place. I get that it's not really a place where people LIVE, and I maintain that yeah, there's something thematic about Rivain and Arlathan and the Necropolis all being very haunted, but I think something should probably have been done to make some of the locations feel more real in the present. Like ghosts matter because someone had ties to them in life, so there's also a reason the Arlathan hauntings hit a little better (to the point I didn't even see them as scattered the way I do Rivaini and the Necropolis ones) because the Veil Jumpers are at least very cognizant that this is their history. Anyway just a few more people or like, giving the non-faction agent people names and a few things to say would have done a lot.

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WIP Re-Intro: Enna's Prequel

Title: Enna's Prequel (temporary title, subject to change)

Genre: high fantasy

Status: draft 1

Pov: third person dual POV

Setting: Halmond, a small-ish country in the world of Aqurah. The majority of the action takes place in its capital, the city of Halmire.

Universal TW/CW: Murder, complicated family relationships, necromancy, people murdering their own relatives, kidnapping, crime, swearing

Plot/Synopsis: When she was 20, Enna Helder-Kromlin ran away from Halmire, accused of murdering her own brother. Fourteen years later they've returned, at the request of their twin sister, Anne. But when he gets to the city Anne is missing, and has been for nearly a year. Enna must work together with Effie and Bezeo, two new friends Anne had made in their absence, to get to the bottom of just what the hell is going on--not only now, but also what was happening 14 years ago, and who actually killed her brother.

Notes: this is the prequel to Frost & Fire & is set 10-20 years before that story

Tags: #wip: ennas prequel, #c: [first name] + [last name if applicable]

Main Characters:

Enna Helder-Kromlin, any/all pronouns, ~34, half elf. The first of our two narrators, Enna is a thief, mostly, and sometimes a baker. A few weeks ago, Enna got a letter from her twin, Anne, dated almost a year ago, asking him to please come to Halmire because she needs to talk to them.

Anne Helder-Kromlin, she/her, ~34, half elf. Our other narrator, Anne is a thief, and the de facto leader of the second of two factions in Halmond's thevies guild--Oleski. A year ago, she left the city for her own safety, and was supposed to confirm her location within two months, but hasn't made any contact.

Effie Fisarnos, she/they, 64 (~33 in human years), mostly a gnome. Effie is an alchemist, who owns the potion shop The Broken Cauldron, which sometimes acts as a safehouse for the thieves guild. She is also Anne's partner/fiancee, but that isn't public knowledge, and not even Enna knows it. Anne promised to send her a letter no more than two months after she left, but Effie never got one.

Bezeo [last name], he/him, 68 (~36-38 in human years), dwarf. Bezeo is the owner of a traveling food cart that roams around the city. He also invented pizza, and works for the thieves guild Anne is in.

Zephyr Helder-Kromlin, he/they, deceased (died at age 24), half elf. Zephyr was the older brother of Anne and Enna, and fourteen years ago he was murdered. At the time, he was the leader of Oleski, the thevies guild. Enna (though innocent) was blamed for the murder, but she managed to get away. The actual culprit was never found.

taglist maintained below the cut! Ask to be added or removed!

@ihaveneverhadaclue @thelaughingstag @athenswrites

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so I think Ethedis would be a Rivendell NPC with some minor sidequests all confined to the valley. Her quests would be pretty silly, one of them requires some parkour to get up in a tree and do the /sing emote a few times, another asks you to travel to various secluded locations and talk to plants or something, fetch a rare book from Elrond’s library she’s Not Allowed To Have without being seen, stuff like that.

Initially you find her in a tree by the path leading down to the valley, but once you finish her quests she’ll move to the hall of fire.

Weirdly enough thinking about NPC!Ethedis makes me just a little sad, because even though she gets to have a less traumatizing life in Rivendell, she never meets her best friend or Corunir :( she doesn't get The Horrors, but I think deep down she might be rather lonely. One of her quests might briefly mention this, maybe the quest where she asks you to sneak a rare book out of Elrond's library. She might mention offhandedly that the reason she's so eager to bury herself in her studies is because some part of her deep down might want to go on adventures, but being a mere scholar, reading about them in history books might be as close as she's ever destined to get. Then she'll just laugh it off and say she's probably overthinking it.

if you did Before the Shadow she mentions that she briefly encountered a young Ranger wearing a red scarf passing through Rivendell… what was his name… Tossdir, right? she didn't get to speak long with him, but she wishes she could have gotten to know him better, he's probably seen a lot in his adventures!

Speaking of which! Tossdir would still have major involvement in Before the Shadow of course, but I've spoken about all that before. Pretty much glued to Meneldir's side throughout the questline > gets possessed by the Grey Fear and becomes the final boss in Sarch Vorn, > you, Gorwen, and Meneldir have to fight him > save Tossdir > Meneldir dies > questline continues as normal.

Now you would encounter him again later on, you can't just have that big of an involvement in the start of the game and never show up again after all! first you find him in Tornhad next to Gorwen at the cairns, extremely depressed and just Having a Bad Time. I think in Faeron's quests he might mention that he was childhood friends with Tossdir, but he seems so changed since he returned that he doesn't know how to talk to him anymore, but wishes he did, as he seems very lonely.

You'll find him again later on, seemingly in better spirits. in Angmar of all places. Why's that? Well his buddy Galasebdir is there! At this point he's had some time to reconnect with the other Rangers and process his grief, so he's acting a bit more like the Tossdir you remember from Before the Shadow. Both he and Galasebdir would have maybe a couple quests for you, standard Angmar stuff.

He has pretty minor involvement in the Grey Company stuff, probably showing up in the background of a few instances like "As Near as May Be" and "Attack on Zudrugund". You would find him in the overworld in Harndirion as the Brawler class trainer, located next to his buddy Faeron :)

I'm also considering the idea that he might join Faeron and Rhadrog as part of our beloved Agarnaith Crew lol

Margim and Celeair would obviously be in Lhan Tarren, but I'm not exactly sure how the player character would be introduced to their backstory... It's kind of a long story, and the PC would obviously want an explanation for why there's this random Black Numenorean and a Gondorian living together here in Dunland lol. It's... definitely weird.

Well, assuming there was a good way to explain all that to the PC in a timely manner without just a massive wall of exposition text, they would both have quests for you! Any excuse to add more stuff for my favorite faction in Dunland! I think Margim might have one of those little instances where you go help her spar with some of the Stag Clan warriors to make sure they're prepared for the coming fight. the Real Black Numenorean that showed up as an emissary of Isengard really put her on high alert. She doesn't know exactly what's happening in Isengard but let's just say... it smells familiar and she does NOT like it. She'll mention that one of her friends, Wenda, recently moved across Dunland to marry into the Falcon clan, and she hopes that she's alright, as Tur Morva is much closer to Isengard... Do watch out for her if you're heading that way, won't you?

I think Celeair and his friend Gwen (one of Lhan Tarren's other healers who I haven't posted about on tumblr yet but plan to, she has a cool backstory I promise!) would have some herbalist-adjacent quests for you. Heading out into the wild and gathering herbs and whatnot. His inclusion would also add an interior location to the village, that being their healers hut (because I've always wanted that place to have at least ONE interior location I could hang out in!). Of course there might be more quests in there, helping tend to the sick or just talking to them to give some comfort, standard stuff you'd expect to find there. Some of the people there might offhandedly mention that they were at first skeptical of Celeair when he arrived, not thinking they would want the help of a Duvodiad, and especially not one from Gondor. But it turns out when you get stabbed in the knee you can't be too picky about who patches it up, just so long as someone does it! He's been at it long enough to win over most of them. And well, Margim trusts him, and they trust Margim, so that must count for something right?

This is kinda similar to an ask game that went around lotro tumblr a while back, but it’s an interesting topic i like thinking about, so!

Reblog this and tell me: if your lotro PCs were instead NPCs, what would they be like? Would they still have major (or minor) involvement in the epic line? Where could you find them and what sort of quests and rewards would they offer? What would be different about them if they weren’t a Main Character?

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On the eve of the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Russian propagandists and pro-Kremlin bloggers started to publish pictures of military equipment located near the border with Ukraine and painted with the Latin letters Z and V. The letter Z, in particular, soon became a key element of the propaganda campaign justifying the Kremlin’s war of aggression. In the 13 months since the start of the war, the letter’s popularity and visibility have not waned. Today, Z is a distinctive symbol of the most radically inclined faction of the “party of war,” which supports the most brutal combat methods, including terrorism. Acolytes of that ideology currently share a tenuous alliance with the Kremlin. Though the so-called Z-heads’ goals hardly align with those of Putin’s inner circle, many less powerful politicians are eager to appropriate Z for their own benefit. Meduza explains the ideology behind Z and the subculture most strongly associated with this odd symbol.

The following essay was adapted from an edition of Signal, Meduza’s daily newsletter about histories and ideas that can help us understand today’s news. You can subscribe to Signal (it’s in Russian) here.

Whence Z?

There are a few ideas, with varying degrees of plausibility, about who invented the symbol.

The main theory says that, during the period when Russian troops were massing at Ukraine’s border, the letters Z and V marked military equipment belonging to the Western (zapadny, in Russian) and Eastern (vostochny) Military Districts. As early as spring 2022, Meduza’s sources said that the Russian Defense Ministry’s public relations team, headed by Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu’s adviser, Andrey Ilnitsky, had a major role in promoting the letters as symbols of solidarity with the Russian army. The ministry may have been working in tandem with state propaganda television network RT. In early March, the channel started selling t-shirts supporting the “special operation,” emblazoned with the letter Z.

Wagner Group paramilitary cartel founder and catering tycoon Evgeny Prigozhin’s various business concerns may also have been involved the media campaign around Z and V. Political adviser Igor Mangushev, who’s been linked the Internet Research Agency (Prigozhin’s troll factory) claimed that he “and his comrades” thought of using Z on social media. In February 2023, Mangushev died after being shot in the back of the head in the Luhansk region. The circumstances of his murder are unclear.

In the spring of 2022, a wave of flashmobs in support of Russian military aggression swept Russia — they took place at businesses, schools, colleges, universities, kindergartens, nursing homes, and even inpatient psychiatric facilities, and participants flaunted the letter Z. The support of state-funded enterprises allowed these actions to assume a mass character.

Then, Russian officials at various levels started using Z consistently, alongside the propagandistic slogan “We don’t abandon our own.” For example, Mikhail Razvozhaev, the governor of annexed Sevastopol, named his Telegram channel RaZVozhaev, and Sergy Tsivilev, the governor of Russia’s Kemerovo–Kuzbass region, claimed that Kuzbass would be spelled in official documents as KuZbass (this turned out to be untrue).

On social media, Russian celebrities of various calibers diligently promoted Z, from actor and director Vladimir Mashkov and singer-songwriter Grigory Leps to Instagram influencers and TikTok stars. A concert at Luzhniki stadium on March 18, 2022, which coincided with the eighth anniversary of the annexation of Crimea, was called “Za mir bez natsizma” (“For a world without Nazism”) and Z was everywhere: on posters, badges, flags, decorations, and even the clothing of State Duma deputies like Dmitry Pevtsov and artists like Polina Gagarina, who were in attendance.

From the beginning, the symbol also had another, more frightening usage: anonymous vandals painted Z on the apartment doors of activists and journalists who condemned the invasion of Ukraine. Russian soldiers left the letter on Ukrainians’ looted homes as they retreated from occupied territory.

Z developments since the start of the war

The fate of Z as a symbol of Russian military aggression in Ukraine is directly connected to the successes and failures of Russia’s army.

Z was clearly conceived as a symbol of solidarity, as if to say, “We unanimously support the authorities and the army in the ‘de-Nazification and demilitarization of Ukraine,’” “protecting the children of the Donbas,” “de-Satanization,” as well as, of course, the struggle against the “Collective West.”

In the early days of the invasion, the Russian authorities hoped to repeat the marketing success of “polite people,” a propagandistic euphemism for Russian soldiers during the 2014 takeover of Crimea. According to Moscow’s plans in February 2022, the invasion was supposed to happen so quickly that no one would have either the time or the inclination to ask any clarifying questions or express any doubts.

Z’s popularity has declined in step with Russian troops’ loss of initiative at the front. The peak of Russian support for the war seems to have occurred in June and July 2022, sociologist Elena Koneva believes.

Within six months of the start of the full-scale war, support for the “special military operation” began to decline, even according to data from Russia’s state-owned public polling institution. At that point, Z turned up more rarely on the social media accounts of Russian propagandists, war bloggers, and pro-Kremlin influencers.

It became obvious that spontaneous marketing using the letter Z was a fairly bad idea. Putting Z on product packaging didn’t improve sales. Drawing a Z on a shop sign or a store window didn’t bring in more customers. Performers who displayed Z didn’t see their popularity soar.

The letter has also become a source of civic discord. People regularly damage street installations featuring the letter Z, and when the authorities manage to catch those responsible, they charge them not with vandalism but with “discrediting the armed forces.” Last December, vandals in many cities rejected the local authorities’ decision to use Z in holiday decorations.

If Z ever did symbolize the patriotic fervor of a truly mass character, rather than a PR stunt, that fervor quickly melted away to nothing.

But Z is still everywhere

A particular political subculture — we can call it the Z subculture — has recently matured Russia.

Scholars often use the term “political subculture” to label groups of people who generally fit into their current political system, but who hold a handful of views that differ sharply from mainstream consensus.

Members of political subcultures, writes political scientist Walter Rosenbaum, share some ideas with the political mainstream but offer alternative (not necessarily radical) answers to systemic challenges. Examples of political subcultures in the U.S. include such groups as democratic socialists, many of whom are registered as voters with the Democratic Party but, on a range of questions (mainly about social entitlements and the role of the state in economic policy), support much more radical positions than their fellow Democrats.

The Z movement has no strict organizational structure and no specific ideology, though both elements exist in incipient forms: informational networks (chiefly Telegram “war correspondents”), fundraiding for the Russian army, and, of course, promoting uncritical patriotism and aggressive militarism.

Z-heads (the Russian language hasn’t yet settled on whether they should be called zetniks, zetists, or zetchiks) nominally support state policies — if Putin wants war, they want war — but they demarcate themselves clearly from loyalists. They’re critical of how the Kremlin formulates (or fails to formulate) the war’s political goals, and they often question the methods the Russian army uses to try to accomplish those goals.

They want total war and the suspension of “normal life.” They rail against the Kremlin, which hasn’t gone as far as they’d like, and against ordinary citizens, who clearly aren’t ready for such a severe step. This leaves the Z movement far from the mainstream — a legitimate subculture.

The Z subculture is also becoming increasingly aware of itself as a subculture, recognizing its own marginality. The nationalist writer and former politician Zakhar Prilepin once constantly bemoaned the fact that neither the state nor big business supported Z art (literature, film, theater, etc.) and didn’t demand that citizens and consumers become active patriots. Prilepin has quieted down since he left to join the war, though his comrades continue to lodge similar complaints.

The name of one pro-war Telegram channel, which translates roughly to “Z War Junkies,” is very characteristic. Literary historian Mikhail Edelshteyn examined the emerging phenomenon of Z poetry, pointing out that it’s characterized by a cult of death and contempt for all “normalcy.” The lives of its lyric heroes acquire meaning only through extreme danger and existential struggle.

The Z subculture differs from standard-issue Putinism in that it has been ideological from the beginning. Its acolytes have a saying: “Russia’s borders should extend to Pluto’s orbit.” It is a joke, of course, but it contains a grain of truth (particularly since Putin once said that “Russia’s borders end nowhere”). It emerges from an imperialism so radical that current realities, like the existence of an independent Ukraine or NATO, seem little more than annoying obstacles on the road to a utopian global empire.

This ideology is sometimes called turbopatriotism. Though the full-scale war in Ukraine has become an important focal point, turbopatriotism arose well before Russia’s February 2022 invasion. The conflict in eastern Ukraine (which began in 2014) and especially Russia’s invasion in 2022 did, however, crystallize Russian turbopatriotism into its current form.

On the other hand, a public commitment to the Z subculture, for many opportunistic politicians, activists, and businesses, is a clear opportunity to win people over. In the past year, writes Meduza special correspondent Andrey Pertsev, supporting Z has become a kind of homemade career boost for many Russian officials. Long before the current war, Vladimir Putin demanded loyalty above all else from those closest to him. Since February 24, even loyalty has not been enough. High-ranking officials like State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, Putin’s deputy chief of staff Sergey Kiriyenko, and United Russia senior party official Andrey Turchak set the trend, and politicians in lower positions have followed suit. Pertsev explains that the Kremlin is prepared to promote governors and mayors who unconditionally follow the “Z course.”

There is a paradox in this arrangement, though: the Kremlin appears fairly unsympathetic to Z culture, with its turbopatriotism and its demands for total mobilization and self-sacrifice. But the Russian authorities have little choice but to rely on Z culture’s adherents as allies — every other segment of Russian political culture either protests the war or is completely apathetic.

Russian officials from outside of the major cities have caught on quickly to the mood in the Kremlin. They’re prepared to go to the occupied territories in Ukraine, just to climb the career ladder.

For example, in July, one Sergey Eliseyev began running the “administration” of the occupied Kherson region. Eliseyev is not well-known for anything, even in his hometown of Kaliningrad, where he served as the first deputy chairman of the local administration. Eliseyev was back home by November, but his “business trip” to Ukraine greatly increased his political capital in Russia. The excursion also paid well: Anton Alikhanov, the Kaliningrad region’s governor, said that officials in the occupied territories got double pay.

The paradoxes multiply: the Kremlin’s main source of support isn’t actually the members of this marginalized subculture, but those who imagine themselves to be members. Provincial politicians like Eliseyev obviously have no intention of dying under the Z banner; they intend to fly it while living as comfortably as possible. They look on the true Z-heads as useful idiots.

Furthermore, the Kremlin clearly doesn’t want to become seriously dependent on the Z movement. Putin’s inner circle is trying to buy loyalty and enthusiasm for the war. It’s working, for now, but if and when that stops, it will raise the question of who is whose useful idiot.

Postscript

In the 2013 horror film World War Z, which is based on a novel of the same name, Brad Pitt travels the world, battling zombies (hence World War Z). The film was heavily re-edited before its release. In the original version, Brad Pitt appears in one scene set in Moscow, where his character was sent to fight in the zombie war. During a battle at Red Square, Pitt makes an important discovery: the cold Russian winter, which has famously helped defeat invaders before, also works against zombies. They slow down, start to freeze, and become more vulnerable. In the final cut, the entire story line with General Frost and his victory over Z was removed.

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The Last Thing Left (Zemo x F!Reader) 1/9

Ghosts weren’t enough to hold two people together.

While they wait for Torres to locate Donya Madani, Zemo reflects upon his relationship to you, his only tether to his wife and closest friend.

Slow burn, previous relationships, angst, various mentions of death & mourning. You both lost your spouse. You're a regular civilian person. Zemo's wife's name is Heike because of comics.

Note: Main Character is neutral in most regards but the story was written with my own cultural background in mind. (In other words, I won't say what she looks like but I envision her as being black.)

I meant to write a one-shot but, as it turns out, I have feelings for this man.

I'll have part two by the end of the day and hope to update steadily.

***

He looks forward to coming face-to-face with Karli, the girl responsible for the birth of a new faction of Super Soldiers. His plan for her was simple really: He would find her, and then he would end her—just as he did Nagel.

Sam and James lack the conviction to do what needs to be done, and it’s that weakness that makes Helmut invaluable (that and he’s the one with the private jet.) So he bides his time and waits.

Helmut would put an end to Karli and her acolytes. He would make sure of it.

But it’s night now, and he’s tired, so instead of plotting, he prepares a meal in the little kitchen near the cockpit.

James relaxes on the couch and Sam sits across from him in the lounge area, discussing something not meant for his ears. So as he does his work and delicious aromas permeate the air, Helmut decides to let their food cook a little longer than he usually would. By the time he decides to turn off the heat, Sam is contacting an associate—someone he hopes can help them locate Karli’s mentor, Donya Madani.

It isn’t a bad plan, enlisting the help of others, but Helmut knows how strenuous locating displaced persons can be; locating the dead was a much easier feat.

Sam’s associate wouldn’t find Donya as long as she’s alive.

“Now what?” James asks, his voice and disposition bitter as Helmut hands him the plate. He eyes the meal with suspicion.

“We wait” Sam can barely withhold his frustration with James, but he accepts the food with a nod.

“For how long?”

“For as long as it takes.”

Helmut has no burning desire to listen to Sam and James argue on and on about symbols and shields. It’s clear whatever they have between them is fraying—ripping at the seams.

If it wasn’t so painfully ironic (and hilarious to watch,) Helmut would find the relationship between Sam and James a little sad.

Ghosts weren’t enough to hold two people together.

“I know of a place we can go until then.” He says, settling down into his chair. Helmut doesn’t give them a moment to ask questions, instead, he asks Oeznik to adjust their course towards Spain.

He’d know exactly where to port.

And though the journey would be long and annoying, he would handle it as handled every arduous thing: with patience and a glass of whiskey.

Besides, his impending headache will be well worth it; he’ll get to see you again.

***

Before she was his wife, Heike was his girlfriend, and in those days, she longed to see the world outside the trappings of nobility. So she studied abroad for University and adventured out into the world. But despite her dazzling personality, she never expected to have met a friend so quickly. (She confessed as much to him the day after she arrived.)

So when she ran into you—quite literally—while searching for her class building, she was overjoyed. You were headed to the same lecture (as Heike would recount later,) and decided to share a bench as you looked over a ridiculously simplified map.

Heike couldn’t wait to tell him of the ‘lovely Fine Arts major’ she met that day (and every day afterward.)

You were all but joined at the hip ever since; you were there for all their important dates — their engagement, their wedding, the birth of their baby.

But despite your somewhat frequent presence in his home and in his life, Helmut never thought to consider you a friend, not really.

You were his wife’s friend, someone who came to town, swept her up, spoiled Carl, and left days later.

But when Heike hosted dinner for one of her milestone birthdays, your life became entangled with his further. Because on that day, you caught the eye of his closest friend, Dominik.

Dominik had no title. His family had been nobility once, many years ago, but their words no longer held sway in politics or court.

So society wouldn’t care if Dominik married a Sokovian woman or if his partner came from old money. There would be looks, of course, and there would be whispers, (Sokovia was a fairly homogenous society, after all, and with that came many old-world sensibilities,) but most were content to let him be.

Dominik was free to live his life with impunity.

So he might have married anyone he liked—in fact, he might have had an easier time courting a woman more easily swayed by his charm and vast amounts of money—but you enchanted him from the beginning, he didn’t want anyone else.

“They would make such a cute couple, wouldn’t they?” Heike asked that evening, her large eyes filled with mischievous glee. They both had the misfortune of watching Dominik flounder as he spoke to you and Helmut often wondered if she set you up on purpose if she somehow knew that love would run its course.

*

Helmut remembered one particular day; it was hot and he found his friend tucked away in the stuffy library of his family’s estate. He looked studious, thoughtful, things he rarely expected Dominik to be.

The annotated books were arranged in neat piles, obscuring Dominik’s tired eyes.

“What are these?” Helmut asked him, inspecting the pile with curiosity.

He said your name with a sight, almost dreamily.

“She said she likes to read, so I asked about her favorites,” he told him, gesturing “She told me these were ‘essential reading.’ ”

He was never meant to read them all at once, but he was determined to impress you.

Endlessly curious and amused, Helmut decided to read them too. (He found the one on Pre-Columbian art extremely insightful, as was the one on the political importance of diasporas, and of course the one on Marvin Gaye.)

But it wasn’t until a year later, when EKO Scorpion was deployed, that he realized the true depth of Dominik’s feelings for you.

Because usually, when Dominik received one of your amorous letters, he would grin and gloat and parade himself through camp.

“Look,” he would say, waving the envelope around as if it were your banner, “I have someone waiting for me.”

But then one night, after a back-breaking mission near the border of Lithuania, Helmut watched his friend pull your letter from the pocket of his uniform. The night was damp and cold, but he read the letter quietly, thumbing at the wrinkled page.

And he was happy for him, he was happy for you.

It was nice, Helmut remembered, watching your courtship from afar and offering advice where he could.

He was proud to stand beside Dominik on the day of the wedding, proud to watch see your love take root.

Though it took a great deal of compromise for you to move to Sokovia (you didn’t like the idea of living in a country so bloodied by war, you were worried about exclusion and monotony, and you found the film culture’s lacking,) but once you did, he and Heike entertained you on the holidays.

There had been no children between you and him, but there was plenty of love.

There was so much love, in fact, someone found your letter in the pocket of his uniform the day they pulled him from the rubble of Novi Grad.

“Does anyone know where his wife is?” An officer asked.

“Does anyone know where anyone is?” Another replied.

It was an endless cycle of death and sorrow as people dug soldiers and civilians from the wreckage and debris.

Some were alive, most were dead.

People cried.

Families broke apart.

People begged and fell limp in the streets.

Helmut buried his entire family.

You buried your husband and his father.

You had no one left.

*

You made a beautiful speech at the service, one that spoke volumes of love you both shared.

“I loved him,” you said, “and he loved me.”

But when the service was finally over and you stood at the site of his freshly dug grave, you lingered almost absentmindedly, at a loss for something to say.

Helmut joined you, after a while, standing in silent solidarity. You’d done the same just a few days prior. He waited for you to speak.

You keep your eyes cast down as you do.

“I’m standing here and I... I still can’t believe it. I can’t believe they’re gone.”

All because of the Avengers, he thought. They took everything from you both.

“What will I do without him?” When you looked at him, your eyes filled with tears, Helmut knew better than to say what he was thinking. He couldn’t tell you he longed to watch the world burn, that he wanted those so-called ‘heroes’ to have died in the place of those he held dear, that he wanted revenge.

So he said the next best thing instead:

“I’ll take care of you,” he promised.

“Thank you, Helmut. But… I…” You wanted to tell him you’d be alright, but the lie lodged itself in the back of your throat and a sob pushed forward instead.

“Please…” He beckoned softly, “It’s what they would have wanted. Heike and Carl… they adored you. I can do this much at least.“

You were the only thing he had left of the ones he loved.

He didn’t want to let you go.

***

Thanks for reading! Look out for part two! The reader will have more interaction with Zemo.

Next

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The Fire Nation Awaits🌺 An in-depth look at the ever-elusive islands in the era of Korra and when we will finally pay them a visit

[Artwork by Avatar News; not official.]

Note: This article was published before the official announcement of Avatar Studios at the Paramount+ investor day.

“Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked.”We’ve all heard those words a million times. The four elements, and the power to control them bestowed by four subspecies of giant lion-turtles, are at the very heart of the world of Avatar. The balance between them was once upon a time broken by one of the four, the Fire Nation, forming the main conflict of Avatar: The Last Airbender. For much of Aang and the Gaang’s quest at the close of the Hundred Year War, the Fire Nation was a forbidden, far-away location, until the curtain was finally drawn back in the aptly-named Book Three: Firewhen our heroes entered the inferno, undercover behind enemy lines. A dramatic tropical destination! New outfits! Culture shock! Needless to say, it was a big deal.

→ 🌺 The big reveal of the Fire Nation in Book Three: Fire had its own marketing push, matching public anticipation.

When the Hundred Year War ended, the newly-instated Fire Lord Zuko dedicated his life to righting the wrongs of his forefathers and working with Avatar Aang to bring the Fire Nation back into the fold under peace. By the time Aang’s successor debuted as the next Avatar in the titularThe Legend of Korra, Zuko had abdicated the five-pointed crown and his daughter, Fire Lord Izumi, took the stage leading a reformed, rebalanced Fire Nation.

There was no more war, no more enemy lines, yet the Fire Nation became more distant and mysterious than ever before.

Korra’s close encounters with the land of fire

To this day, Korra has never visited the Fire Nation, nor has it been seen at all, nor do we know anything about it in her era. In fact, practically the only thing we do know is that its leader is a noninterventionist, which conveniently gets it out of the way of making an appearance in Korra’s journey as the Avatar so far.

The closest we have come to seeing the Fire Nation in The Legend of Korrawas in Book Two: Spirits, Chapter Five: Peacekeepers. In the midst of the Water Tribe Civil War, Korra sets out across the sea to get help from the royal family, however, she is intercepted by a dark spirit and never makes it to her destination. In the next episode, she washes up on a secret island home to the Bhanti sages, which probably technically counts as Fire Nation territory, but as we know from The Shadow of Kyoshi (more on that later), this faction predates the Four Nations themselves so it doesn’t really count.

→ 🌺 Korra washes up on the beach of Bhanti Island in Book Two: Spirits, Chapter Six: The Sting.

No, as cool as that location and the events of the Beginnings two-parter that happened there were, it wasn’t the main draw of seeing the Fire Nation that we’re still waiting for: seeing how the Fire Nation, which was already industrializing in Aang’s time, changed over the decades, compared to places like Republic City and Ba Sing Se; meeting new characters; visiting new and familiar locations; worldbuilding both new and expanding on what we already learned.

After this aborted tease in Book Two, we never come close to the island country again (at least not with this Avatar and in her era; yes I’m leading up to something...). Instead, the focus turns strongly to the Earth Kingdom in the third and fourth Books, and beyond.

Keep in mind that The Legend of Korraaired for about two-and-a-half years total from 2012 to 2014. Since then, the story has continued in comics. The comics era has lasted from 2015 to present-- seven years to the animated series’ two. In that time, there have only been two comic trilogies due to various production troubles, and neither have touched the Fire Nation. Instead, they directly continue the Earth Kingdom-focused threads started in Books Three and Four of Korra, both originally airing in 2014. Or, in perspective: we had a focus on Republic City in 2012, the Water Tribes in 2013, and the Earth Kingdom from 2014-2021.

Will we finally see the Fire Nation in the next graphic novel trilogy?

This question comes to mind every time new Korra content is supposed to roll around, and the powers that be know it-- it’s a pretty obvious gap in the world of Avatar right now. This franchise is iconically built around four elements and the Four Nations based on them, so one of them being MIA is quite glaring, and for that reason everyone is understandably always asking about it.

The most concrete confirmation we’ve gotten was this AMA answer from franchise co-creator Michael Dante DiMartino in 2016, two years after the show ended and a year before the first graphic novels did come out:

“Yes, hopefully in the [Korra] comics, we’ll have a chance to go to the Fire Nation and see how it has changed since A:TLA.”

Since then, as previously discussed, two comic trilogies have come and gone, obviously not getting closer to the Fire Nation-- and I would actually argue entrenching themselves further away from it.

I want to make it clear that I’m against fan entitlement. Creatives telling the tales they want to in service of the story and the artform is how the industry should run. I’m just hoping to offer some perspective on how we got to where we are almost a decade into the era of Korra and the metatextual pacing of the franchise itself.

Either way, the next Korra comic trilogy has been official confirmed by the editor for Avatar at Dark Horse Comics in this informal statement on Twitter:

We’re not ready to announce any details yet, but we are working on the next trilogy. I really appreciate your patience and hope it’s worth the wait! ✨

There’s currently some kind of holdup for which we really have zero context or information, and we of course have no idea what this next trilogy will be about. (I do speculate a bit on what it could be a few paragraphs down.)

But, like what turned out to be Ruins of the Empire before it, I faithfully made a mockup graphic for my post announcing the confirmation of the next The Legend of Korragraphic novel trilogy. And like before, I chose to completely speculatively and blindly make it Fire Nation-y, as if the next comic could/would(/should?) feature it. This is mainly because I feel like that’s what most people’s eyes would be caught by and thus result in the most successful post (hey, at least I’m honest), but also because it’s just fun.

Here are both images, from 2018 and 2020 respectively:

→ 🌺 Speculative edits I made for my posts on the announcement of previous and upcoming Korra comics before we knew anything about them.

In both cases, the response was huge, and people were super excited about the prospect of Fire Nation content just from my quick speculative mockups. I am of course hoping that the new artwork I made of the Krew for this post will have a similar effect (it’s the first time I just straight-up drew it instead of editing existing images) but again it’s really mostly just for fun.

Anyway, until the next trilogy is properly revealed, we’ll just have to wait and see.

However, that’s not the only place this could happen.

Are they saving the Fire Nation for an animated movie?

With Avatar’s HUGE success on Netflix last year, interest in the franchise rocketed to an all-time high. The streaming wars have begun, and Avatar’s owner and its parent company, Nickelodeon and ViacomCBS, have finally started to notice.

ViacomCBS is launching Paramount+ on March 4th, a relaunch of its existing streaming service CBS All Access. Paramount+ is meant to be a big expansion and refocus to compete with the big hitters: Disney+, HBO Max, and, yes, Netflix. (There’s quite an entanglement there, with Netflix being the home of Avatar’s big year and the upcoming live-action series.)

One of the keys to a successful streamer today is high-profile originals to drive new subscribers. ViacomCBS knows this and they know Avatar has just become among the highest profiles a property can have, breaking records and going toe-to-toe with other big-hitting sci-fi/fantasy/genre franchises. This knowledge goes right to the top of the food chain: the CEO of ViacomCBS mentioned Avatar by name when discussing potential originals for Paramount+.

I have previously discussed how The Search relates to this. The Searchwas the second ATLA comic trilogy, focused on the search for Zuko’s mother in the thick of the Fire Nation, and if you didn’t know, it was originally pitched by Bryke as an animated movie after the original series ended.

I just want to be clear that what I’m discussing here is purely speculative, but this is the only other piece of the Avatar franchise that we know was optioned for animation besides the shows themselves. It’s possible they would be interested in going back to this idea as a Paramount+ original (and it would certainly be popular among audiences), but it is of course set during the era of Aang and thus covers both a time period we’ve already seen, and also by nature of already being released as comics, events we’ve already seen too.

However, the whole point of this article is that there isone major, huge thing we haven’t seen yet, with massive anticipation building for a decade behind it: the Fire Nation in the era of Korra. So, again, this is just speculation, but it’s also possible that they could return to the very smallest seed of the original idea for a The Searchmovie, and do a Fire Nation-focused Korra movie now.

→ 🌺 ATLA’s Fire Nation-focused The Search was originally pitched as an animated movie.

You can skip this next part if you don’t want to see me embarrassingly promote my fan idea 😆 but this is where the artwork I made for this article comes into play. The general idea for it, and the reason I tried to replicate the show’s style as much as possible, is that it’s what a Fire Nation-focused movie could maybe look like. Something as standalone and unrelated to Earth Kingdom drama as possible, with fresh new looks for the Krew to get people excited for something fresh and new! I really feel like the Avatar franchise has so much potential for expanded content like this, that’s why I have high hopes that Paramount+ will make the most out of it! You can see the individual characters’ artwork in larger size here. Ok I’m done back to business.

If the idea of a movie seems too impossible to you, we can also take a deeper look at Bryke’s involvement with upcoming comics instead.

After Korra ended, they officially each went their separate ways. They vaguely consulted on Avatar stuff, and Mike of course wrote the Korra comics, but Bryan was planning on writing and drawing his own original non-Avatar comic series and Mike was releasing his own non-Avatar novels. This all appears to have come to a stop when they signed on to showrun the live-action retelling of ATLA at Netflix, officially reuniting the partnership and committing to Avatar again in a big way. Of course, they ended up leaving that project over creative differences, but it did result in a big, lasting change: this time they remained official creative partners and have indicated they’re still working on Avatar now, together. This is a far cry from the official breakup after Korra, so it begs the question what exactly they’re working on. I of course have my fanciful predictions of a sprawling expansion of the Avatar franchise at Paramount+, but what if it’s actually a combination of the ingredients from beforethe live-action series...

More speculation, but what if the reason for all the mystery behind the next Korra comics is because they will be made by Bryke, with the two of them co-writing and Bryan doing the art for the first time? If that’s the case, they could want to make them a bigger deal than the other Avatar comics have been so far, and maybe that’s why it’s taking so long to iron everything out, have a more significant story, have more of a marketing push, etc. If they’ve been saving the Fire Nation for something big, this could be it.

I personally think this is less likely than a show or movies or something, but it is possible. Anything is possible right now since we know so little about the large-scale direction of the franchise moving forward, just that it’s gonna get big.

⛰️🌋 The Fire Nation in the era of Avatar Kyoshi

We’re not done! Despite everything I’ve written here, believe it or not, the Fire Nation was actually the star of the show in the last year.

With the debut of the Avatar franchise’s first original novels, Kyoshi made a huge splash (in a way only she can). If you haven’t read them yet, you NEED to-- they’re some of the best Avatar content EVER. The Rise of Kyoshi hit shelves in 2019 and The Shadow of Kyoshi followed in 2020. The latter is of particular interest here, because it was almost entirely set in the Fire Nation and featured practically everything and anything you could want from a visit to elusive islands. Though obviously set in a historical period some four hundred years before Aang’s time, Kyoshi’s sojourn in the Fire Nation gave us a huge amount of new information, a depth and breadth of worldbuilding, culture, and character we’ve never really seen in Avatar before. It truly makes the most of the literary medium, so hats off to author F. C. Yee for the passion and effort he put in.

In The Shadow of Kyoshi, we learn about the era of the previous fire Avatar before Roku, Avatar Szeto. Through Kyoshi and her own Team Avatar, we learn about the different clans and islands of the Fire Nation, as they experience the fraught early reign of Fire Lord Zoryu and the conflict between the Keohso and Saowon clans, culminating in theCamellia-Peony War. We get a multitude of fleshed-out perspectives from the upper crust to the flea-bitten underworld, matching the heights of the worldbuilding quality of Republic City. It’s such cool, intricate stuff, and really shows Avatar’s potential (and that’s all just the worldbuilding-- the character work is also top-notch).

That’s not the only place the Fire Nation has shone recently. One of Insight Editions’ awesome scrapbooks, Legacy of the Fire Nation, gave us a tour through the royal family’s history, including never-before-seen looks at young Iroh and Ozai and much, much more.

All this just goes to show that the Fire Nation has been a hot ticket throughout the ages and there’s one conspicuous gap in that history: the era of Avatar Korra. With so much recent expansion and development of the Fire Nation in our world, it would be perfect to see the culmination of it all in the current time period in the world of Avatar too.

If this made you excited for the potential of what the Avatar franchise could look like in the coming years, same boat!

The next concrete date where something could be announced is February 24th, when ViacomCBS will host their investor day and present their streaming strategy, including Paramount+ originals. There’s no guarantee Avatar is mentioned, but I’m keeping a hopeful eye out.

As for comics, Dark Horse’s schedule marches to its own beat, so there’s no way to know when the next drop of information is coming our way.

Could this finally be the comics that take us to the Fire Nation, or could the much-anticipated visit be in another medium like animation? Stay tuned-- as always I’ll post as soon as we learn anything new!

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I've promoted it a few times, but 13th Age does also have some story focused elements to add, though it is also much more combat focused than others. The Icon rules essentially give each player 1-3 free "rewrite part of the story" points per arc (3-4 fights, or one "day" of 13th Age combats), and are intended to give you narrative control over a situation by relating it back to factions and NPCs your character would have a link to. They also can come with inherent complications that can lead to further story developments, and it's often encouraged for the players to work with the GM to determine these complications. They also encourage players to develop and add to the setting, creating new NPCs, minor factions, and locations. And even with how it's combat focused and thus at risk of characters getting killed, it has suggested alternate rules that PCs can only be killed by important, named enemies, and a default rule that at any point the party can choose to take a major story loss to retreat from a fight with all surviving members, escaping the situation no matter what. So if you want to focus on the story over risk of losing characters, it has that as part of the basic assumption of the game.

As a system it's still most focused on combat heavy fantasy stories, but it gives the players more mechanically established ways of inserting story into the narrative, and heavily encourages player creativity and buy in on many more levels than any edition of D&D.

Hi, just wanted to ask if you have any advice for someone who grew up with DnD 3.5e and wants to branch out into other game systems. I would really like something that is more storyfocused but also has a space for more rules light combat.

(Sorry if this ask is too demanding, you can gladly delete it. I just have seen you answer other asks about recomendations and wanted to try my luck)

I can give it the ol' college try, but firstly: the ask that something be "story focused" is a bit too vague and broad and can mean any number of things depending on what the person means. Some people use it to mean "rules light instead of crunchy," while others use it to mean "a game focused on genre emulation," and yet others mean "you know, something that's not about dungeon-crawling and combat." I know this is one of those issues where it might be hard to articulate what it is you want exactly unless you already have been exposed to other games, but it's always worth trying to be a bit more specific.

Anyway with all of that out of the way, I'm going to keep these suggestions within the realm of fantasy. Even though you didn't specify that, I'm going to keep at least one angle consistent between these suggestions, because otherwise this'll be all over the place.

Quest is a game I've recommended a bunch of times for people looking for a game that is broadly in the same genre of D&D (fantasy adventure) but does away with some of the mechanics that the genre of "D&D as it's played on podcasts" does away with. It's a simple d20-based fantasy RPG with lots of room for player input and relatively light mechanics. The perfect type of game if you mostly want to chuck some d20s with your friends while playing a pretty straightforward adventure game with minimal logistics. It's also free!

Grimwild is another one I've found quite charming. It's an interesting one: clearly inspired by D&D 5e (like, the character options are straight from 5e), but approaching that genre from a completely different direction. It clearly takes cues from some more modern indie RPGs like Apocalypse World and Blades in the Dark, but still has its own unique twists on many ideas. Worth taking a look if you're into the broad genre of fantasy adventure but want something that approaches that genre via something a bit more generative. Also has a free version available, with the paid version mainly adding some essays about the designer's rationale for some of the choices in the game as well as advice on how to hack the game to different subgenres of fantasy.

Third I'm going to suggest QuestWorlds. QuestWorlds is technically setting neutral, but specifically meant for pulp adventures where the heroes are larger than life. It's a game with a history going as far back as the early 2000s and has gone through a few names, with QuestWorlds being the latest, and at the time of release it was one of the first examples of a roleplaying game that did not try to simulate its fictional reality via specific procedures but very specifically applied its rules towards emulating story convention. The main issue with QuestWorlds with regards to this ask is that it's very much a toolkit and also it doesn't really have a combat system. It has systems for resolving conflict, and those systems can in fact be used for resolving combat, but it's probably not what you're looking for if you want an actual combat system. Regardless, a very interesting game, but sadly no free version of this one.

Hopefully at least one of those will scratch and itch. If not, do let me know if there's something more specific you're looking for! :)

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You’ll Be Queen One Day

This is something I wanted to say about the current debate ofQueen Sansa.

For a big faction of the fandom, Queen Sansa is only D&D fan fiction and that won’t be Sansa’s endgame in the Books. ¡¡¡NEVER!!!

According to Bryan Cogman, the man named by GRRM himself as the Keeper of the Lore, hints of Sansa’s Show endgame as Queen in the North were there since the Pilot Episode back in Season One:

BRYAN COGMAN: In the pilot, Sansa’s main function was informing members of her family and the audience that the only thing she wanted was to get out of Winterfell and go live in the big city and become queen—except a very different kind of queen than the one she ended up being. So Sansa’s storyline was always meant to have a note of triumph at the end, especially after all that she went through in the middle of the series. It was appropriate that she came full circle at the end. She was the only Stark left in Winterfell and leads the North into this new chapter. She’s the best hope for the North’s future.

—Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon: Game of Thrones and the Official Untold Story of the Epic Series by James Hibberd

"Winter Is Coming"

“In the pilot, Sansa’s main function was informing members of her family and the audience that the only thing she wanted was to get out of Winterfell and go live in the big city and become queen.”

Please take note that GRRM was very involved in the first four seasons of the Show. Especially the first one, he participated in the casting, he was part of the original pilot, he travelled to filming locations, he wrote one episode per season, etc.

Season 1, Episode 1: "Winter Is Coming". Directed by Tim Van Patten & Written by David Benioff & D. B. Weiss.

SANSA: Do you think Joffrey will like me? What if he thinks I’m ugly? CATELYN: Then he is the stupidest prince that ever lived. SANSA: He’s so handsome. [CATELYN rolls her eyes.] SANSA: When would we be married? Soon or do we have to wait? CATELYN: Hush now. Your father hasn’t even said yes. SANSA: Why would he say no? He’d be the second most powerful man in the kingdoms. CATELYN: He’d have to leave home. He’d have to leave me. And so would you. SANSA: You left your home to come here. And I’d be queen someday. Please make father say yes. CATELYN: Sansa… SANSA: Please, please. It’s the only thing I ever wanted.

Watch the scene here.

Curiously enough, the immediately previous scene was a scene of Dany, the one where she said to Viserys: “I don’t want to be his [Khal Drogo] Queen. I want to go home.” A scene straight from the Books:

"I don't want to be his queen," she heard herself say in a small, thin voice. "Please, please, Viserys, I don't want to, I want to go home."

—A Game of Thrones - Daenerys I

What a contrast with Sansa’s scene!

But Sansa’s scene is not from the Books. We don’t have any scene between Sansa and Catelyn at Winterfell.

Sansa wanted romance more than being a monarch. She certainly was not opposed to marry a prince or a king, but her wishes were more about romance, being a Lady in a song, a wife of a gallant knight, and a mother of future ladies and gallant knights.

This is what happened in the Books:

“Honors?” Ned laughed bitterly.

“In his eyes, yes,” she said.

“And in yours?”

“And in mine,” she blazed, angry now. Why couldn’t he see? “He offers his own son in marriage to our daughter, what else would you call that? Sansa might someday be queen. Her sons could rule from the Wall to the mountains of Dorne. What is so wrong with that?”

“Gods, Catelyn, Sansa is only eleven,” Ned said. “And Joffrey … Joffrey is …”

She finished for him. “… crown prince, and heir to the Iron Throne. And I was only twelve when my father promised me to your brother Brandon.”

—A Game of Thrones - Catelyn II

"Joffrey likes your sister," Jeyne whispered, proud as if she had something to do with it. She was the daughter of Winterfell's steward and Sansa's dearest friend. "He told her she was very beautiful."

"He's going to marry her," little Beth said dreamily, hugging herself. "Then Sansa will be queen of all the realm."

Sansa had the grace to blush. She blushed prettily. She did everything prettily, Arya thought with dull resentment. "Beth, you shouldn't make up stories," Sansa corrected the younger girl, gently stroking her hair to take the harshness out of her words. She looked at Arya. "What did you think of Prince Joff, sister? He's very gallant, don't you think?"

—A Game of Thrones - Arya I

Catelyn pushed Ned to accept the betrothal while Sansa corrected Beth’s comment about her being Queen.

* * *

Later in the the Fourth Episode of the First Season, Cogman wrote a scene between Sansa and Septa Mordane where the septa says that Sansa will be Queen someday.

Again, this scene is not from the Books.

"Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things"

Season 1, Episode 4:"Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things". Directed by Brian Kirk & Written by Bryan Cogman.

SEPTA MORDANE: Someday your husband will sit there and you will sit by his side. And one day, before too long, you will present your son to the court. All the lords of Westeros will gather here to see the little prince... SANSA: What if I have a girl? SEPTA MORDANE: Gods be good, you'll have boys and girls and plenty of them. SANSA:What if I only have girls? SEPTA MORDANE: I wouldn't worry about that. SANSA:Jeyne Poole's mother had five children, all of them girls. SEPTA MORDANE: Yes, but it's highly unlikely. SANSA: But what if? SEPTA MORDANE: If you only had girls, I suppose the throne would pass to Prince Joffrey's little brother. SANSA: And everyone would hate me. SEPTA MORDANE: Nobody could ever hate you. SANSA: Joffrey does. SEPTA MORDANE: Nonsense. Why would you say such a thing? That business with the wolves? I've told you a hundred times... A direwolf is not... SANSA: Please shut up about it. SEPTA MORDANE: Do you remember your lessons? Who built the Iron Throne? SANSA: Aegon the Conqueror. SEPTA MORDANE: And who built the Red Keep? SANSA: Maegor the Cruel. SEPTA MORDANE: And how many years did it take to build... SANSA: My grandfather and uncle were murdered here, weren't they? SEPTA MORDANE: They were killed on the orders of King Aerys, yes. SANSA: The Mad King. SEPTA MORDANE: Commonly known as the Mad King. SANSA: Why were they killed? SEPTA MORDANE: You should speak to your father about these matters. SANSA: I don't want to speak to my father, ever. SEPTA MORDANE: You will find it in your heart to forgive your father. SANSA: No, I won't.

Watch the scene here.

* * *

Later in the the Sixth Episode of the First Season, there is a scene between Sansa and Joffrey where the prince says that Sansa will be Queen someday.

Once again, this scene is not from the Books.

"A Golden Crown"

Season 1, Episode 6: "A Golden Crown". Directed by Daniel Minahan. Story by  David Benioff & D. B. Weiss &Teleplay written by : Jane Espenson and David Benioff & D. B. Weiss.

SEPTA MORDANE: My prince. SANSA: My prince. JOFFREY: My lady. I fear I have behaved monstrously the past few weeks. With your permission? Joffrey offers Sansa a necklace. She turns around, for him to put it on her, as acceptance. SANSA: It’s beautiful. Like the one your mother wears. JOFFREY: You’ll be queen someday, it’s only fitting that you should look the part. Will you forgive me for my rudeness? SANSA: There’s nothing to forgive. JOFFREY: You’re my lady. One day we’ll be married in the throne room. Lords and ladies from all over the Seven Kingdoms will come, from the last hearth in the North, to the salt shore of the south. And you will be queen over all of them. I’ll never disrespect you again. I’ll never be cruel to you again. Do you understand me? You’re my lady now, from this day, until my last day. The two share their first kiss.

Watch the scene here.

I think that Sansa & Septa Mordane scene and Sansa & Joffrey scene were written from this Book scene:

“The king is dead.” Sansa could not say how she knew it, yet she did. The slow, endless clanging filled their room, as mournful as a dirge. Had some enemy stormed the castle and murdered King Robert? Was that the meaning of the fighting they had heard?

She went to sleep wondering, restless, and fearful. Was her beautiful Joffrey the king now? Or had they killed him too? She was afraid for him, and for her father. If only they would tell her what was happening …

That night Sansa dreamt of Joffrey on the throne, with herself seated beside him in a gown of woven gold. She had a crown on her head, and everyone she had ever known came before her, to bend the knee and say their courtesies.

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa IV

So far we have:

Sansa:“And I’d be queen someday.”

Septa Mordane:“Someday your husband will sit there [Iron Throne] and you will sit by his side.”

Joffrey:“You’ll be queen someday.”

The Sansa and Joffrey scene even got his own theme, a song composed by Ramin Djawadi called:

You’ll Be Queen One Day

¿Why changing“Someday” for“One Day”? Maybe this curious detail means nothing... Maybe it means something... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Why reiterate some many times that Sansa will be Queen, if it was clear that Sansa was betrothed with the Crown Prince Joffrey Baratheon, the Heir of the Iron Throne? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

“—except a very different kind of queen than the one she ended up being.”

This is not the first time that Cogman alluded of that old say that says:“Be careful what you wish for” in regards of Sansa. He said something similar about Sansa’s arc in Season Five, specifically her marriage with Ramsay Bolton.

Basically, when we decided to combine Sansa’s storyline with another character in the books it was done with the idea that it would be hugely dramatically satisfying to have Sansa back in her occupied childhood home and navigate this Gothic horror story she’s found herself in and, of course, to be reunited with Theon – setting her on the path to reclaiming her family home and becoming a major player in the big overall story.

This stupid line “hugely dramatically satisfying” is BS of course. Men..........

I have the impression that after they run out of canon material, D&D, Cogman and all, decided to recycle old plots. Here with Sansa, they basically gave her ANOTHER ONE GOTHIC HORROR STORY.

Since they didn’t like Sansa’s Vale plot as Alayne Stone, they gave Sansa“another lesson” like Kings Landing and Joffrey:“Be careful what you wish for”.

Sansa wished for a Southern Courtly Life with her Prince in Kingslading, and she got a Ghotic Horror Story.

Sansa started to wish to return North, to Winterfell, to her Home, and D&D, Cogman and all decided to gave her Ghotic Horror Story 2.0 in Winterfell with Ramsay. Sexual abuse included.Men..........

GRRM uses“Be careful what you wish for” theme very often, you just need to read his tale:“In The Lost Lands” or re-read Cersei’s story with Maggie the Frog. And as I just mentioned, Sansa’s wishes for a life at court in the south with her gallant Prince Joffrey. But D&D are just... not so good adapters.

“So Sansa’s storyline was always meant to have a note of triumph at the end, especially after all that she went through in the middle of the series.”

¿How the majority of the fandom interpret these Cogman’s words? This way: “Queen Sansa is a reward for Sansa’s Season Five arc.”

But Season One is four seasons before Season Five, and there were hints since the Pilot Episode...

The fandom: SANSA WILL NEVER BE QUEEN, ¡¡¡NEEEVEER!!!

..............................

“It was appropriate that she came full circle at the end. She was the only Stark left in Winterfell and leads the North into this new chapter. She’s the best hope for the North’s future.”

Full Circle: From wanting to be Queen consort in the South to be the Queen in the North, by her own right.

Sansa’s Show endgame is also very in line with characters getting what they wished for but not in the way they thought. That is like the bit that follows:“Be careful what you wish for” =“You might just get it.”Seriously, go and read GRRM’s tale: “In The Lost Lands.” You can thank me later.

Please also take note that GRRM has repeatedly said that:

Sansa is a major character. Part of the core that dominates the story.

He knows the endgame of the major characters for decades.

You can read more here.

So, if Queen Sansa is only D&D fan fiction, then WHOA! They planned it all since the very beginning, since the pilot episode itself. How surprising! Especially since GRRM was very involved in the Show back then.

D&D wrote the pilot:“Sansa’s main function was informing members of her family and the audience that the only thing she wanted was to get out of Winterfell and go live in the big city and become queen.” AND GRRM LET THEM.

Cogman wrote a scene that was not from the Books where Septa Mordane says that Sansa will be Queen someday.AND GRRM LET THEM.

D&D wrote a scene that was not from the Books where Joffrey says that Sansa will be Queen someday. AND GRRM LET THEM.

D&D commissioned Ramin Djawadi to compose a theme for Sansa called: “You’ll Be Queen ONE Day,” for Sansa and Joffrey scene.AND GRRM LET THEM.

D&D wrote that Sansa’s Show endgame was being crowned Queen in the North.AND GRRM LET THEM.

And if you wanna read about Queen Sansa from the Books, please read these posts: Here and Here.

Good night.

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Honest Hearts: A Rough Rewrite

Hey! I’ve been working on an Honest Hearts rewrite-type-thing for a bit and figured I’d solicit feedback/assemble a post to store some of these ideas.

A detailed explanation of the premise is under the cut, but I’ve made this as a more interesting reintroduction to major locations, along with the characters who live there. I also have some lore consisting of letters, scripture, and holotapes that’s still in the early stages, along with a complete companion wheel for Salt-Upon-Wounds (he’ll follow you around for a little if you decide to help him out). Endings are now finished as well. I’m not planning on expanding this into a full mod, but I’m assembling everything in Twine so I can utilize branching dialogue and mimic skill checks.

I want to keep adding to and editing this because I’m having fun with it, so if you have any input, let me know!

Essentially, the story proceeds as written up until the point where Daniel sends you to either kill the White Legs or destroy their war totems. You quickly realize that their camp is deserted, at which point Salt-Upon-Wounds ambushes you, convo-locks you, and tells you that there’s an entirely different side to things here that you might not have considered.

Factions

The Mormons have established a theocracy in the Utah called Deseret, with New Jerusalem - what was once Salt Lake City - as its capital. Large numbers of them survived the initial apocalypse due to their pre-War focus on strong community ties and disaster prepping; over time, they have returned to the model of self-sufficient agrarianism that characterized the historical Mormon state of Deseret that existed in Utah in the 1800s. Their President, who wields supreme executive power, is also their Prophet. The Mormons believe he communes directly with God, but there’s some discontent in New Jerusalem over his hands-off approach to foreign policy and unwillingness to assemble a standing army. The Elders of the Priesthood are pushing him to allow for some kind of formal military to oppose what they see as revived versions of their ancestral enemies: America, Rome, and the “Lamanites” (this is what Mormons call Indigenous Americans; the “Lamanite” idea has historically been used as a justification for racism, and I’m reflecting that here because it’d be kind of heinous not to). In more than a few respects, Deseret serves as a mirror to the Legion and an exploration of the other side of the coin re: the tactics utilized by colonial empires to present themselves as legitimate while still claiming territory and steamrolling the opposition.

The White Legs are now more explicitly Shoshone, and I’m relying most heavily on the Timpanagos Band for names and historical inspiration (apparently the question of whether they’re Ute or Shoshone is pretty controversial, but I’m sticking with what the Timpanagos have said about it until someone corrects me). After migrating south in the wake of the Great War, the White Legs eventually settled in Ogden, about a day north of New Jerusalem. Initial interactions with the Mormons were friendly, but as New Jerusalem grew and its need for farmland and resources increased, tensions rose before culminating in open violence in around ‘76 or ‘77. Deseret’s party line is that the White Legs conducted a “raid” on one of their settlements and had to be driven away from Ogden; the White Legs claim the violence was not a raid, but a revenge killing after a Mormon killed a young man and was found not guilty by Mormon legal authorities (this is a theocracy, so “legal authorities” here can be understood as indistinct from “the church”). The Mormons established a new settlement on the ruins of Ogden, which they called New Canaan, and the White Legs fled to Salt Lake, where they have been dwindling in number ever since. Salt-Upon-Wounds’ plan to seek entry to the Legion is a last-ditch attempt to save his people from eradication when their neighbors and the land itself seems intent on killing them (not that that makes all the war crimes ok, which is a sentiment you’ll be able to express to his face if you engage him in conversation).

The Dead Horses are a pastoral society from out of Dead Horse Point, and are split almost down the middle along political lines. The more conservative, religious side opposes intervention in Zion. Graham desecrates the corpses of his enemies as an intimidation tactic, and because the Dead Horses’ religion is so eschatological and heavily focused on properly cleaning, preparing, and interring the dead, a big chunk of the religious leadership opposes him on that basis - they think his tactics are ungodly. They’re also worried that any Dead Horses who die in Zion and are interred there will be severed from their connection to Dead Horse Point and doomed to a separate, lonely afterlife. The younger, more progressive elements of the tribe are less traditionalist, sometimes less religious, and overall not as concerned about Graham’s treatment of the dead because of the potential benefit they might be able to derive from him. Follows-Chalk is their de facto leader, and while the Dead Horses don’t formally allocate political power, he’s among the most influential people in the informal tribal leadership. Most of the Dead Horses who’ve come to Zion have done so either because they support Follows-Chalk politically, or for practical reasons - namely, Graham’s access to a dizzying number of guns and his willingness to give them to anyone who’ll fight for him.

The Sorrows are now a terrace-farming agrarian society instead of hunter-gatherers (Zion has a lot of agricultural potential, and there’s already a few farming plots in the Sorrows camp you see in-game, so it’s not a huge departure from the canon). I’m keeping their Mexican heritage, but I’d like to give them some Ainu influences as well - partially for selfish reasons, but also because bears are extremely important to our culture and theology, which gels well with the elements of Sorrows culture and religion that appear in the canon. I’d like to keep the Survivalist because I like him, but I want to expand on their faith. One of the ways I’m doing that is by deciding they can still read English, even though they no longer speak it; it’s basically their equivalent of liturgical Latin. They’re also rigidly matriarchal and in contrast to the Dead Horses (who eschew formal political hierarchies) or the White Legs (who elect a chief who serves until he dies, is deposed, or voluntarily abdicates), leadership positions are allocated through matrilineal primogeniture; Waking Cloud inherited her position from her mother. Religious leadership, likewise, is only available to women. You’ll be able to talk to Waking Cloud about some of the ways this framework is incompatible with the Mormon perspective, and can appeal to her desire to retain power.

Characters

Canon Characters

Joshua Graham and Daniel are largely unaltered except through the addition of lore that gives insight into their cultures, motives, and pasts.

All three tribal leaders (Follows-Chalk, Waking Cloud, and Salt-Upon-Wounds) are either given new backstories, a different set of motives, or different approaches to one another/Graham and Daniel. They’re also explicitly leaders now - what power Graham and Daniel have, they derive from whichever tribal leader they’ve managed to attach themselves to. Of those three, I’m altering Waking Cloud the least and Salt-Upon-Wounds the most. Like I mentioned, I have a companion wheel for him so far and the bones of two other conversations - one, where you meet him for the first time, and the second, where you speak to him before the final battle. Will link as I finish them.

Original Characters

Each tribal leader now has a rival or right hand within their tribe so I can reflect the different ways the values of a specific community can express themselves.

Follows-Chalk’s primary rival among the Dead Horses is a man who refuses to tell you his name. That’s because using someone’s name in casual conversation is considered unspeakably rude, and the fact that Follows-Chalk is willing to share his own with you is, to Mysteriously Named Old Man Character, yet another sign of how disrespectful and laissez-faire Follows-Chalk is about their shared traditions. Old Man Character is suspicious of you initially, but if you speak to him more he starts to warm to you. The goal is to give you a sense that this he’s pretty xenophobic but for good reasons, and despite his political conflicts with Follows-Chalk, has a lot of love for him. He just wants what’s best for his family, and Follows-Chalk is part of that, even if Mysteriously Named Old Man Character thinks he’s making the wrong choices.

Kiiki is Salt-Upon-Wounds’ right-hand woman and intended as a contrast re: the approach to war and its costs. Salt-Upon-Wounds has done some horrible things and gets a fair bit of dialogue about that, but Kiiki is willing to go even further than he has with very little prompting. Her chief copes with what he’s done by trying to assure himself that the ends of war are worth the cost; Kiiki deals with it by trying to convince herself that the means weren't so bad, actually, and that anyone who isn’t nailing corpses to walls is being naive. All of that makes her sound pretty shitty, but she’s nowhere near as devoted to the idea of a Legion alliance as Salt-Upon-Wounds is. It only takes one very low Speech check to convince her that going Legion is a bad move, and one of the paths involves assassinating Salt-Upon-Wounds and installing her as the new leader as a way to stop the White Legs from joining Caesar. I haven’t added this path to the ending Twine because I’d like to finish Kiiki’s dialogues before I do that.

I’m replacing White Bird as the Sorrow’s spiritual leader with a woman named Imekanu. She’s incredibly old, savvy, and knowledgeable - she’s never been outside Zion, but has a store of books in English, Spanish, and Japanese that have allowed her some insight into what caused the war, if not the current state of the world. She’s also aware of the Survivalist’s origins - not because she’s entered any of his hideouts, but because she’s read over the scriptures and has correctly identified them as letters. Her perspective is that the Father in the Caves was a human being, but that doesn’t diminish his religious value. She sees him as analogous to the Buddha or a Catholic saint: human, sure, but still with access to some deeper truths about the purpose of man and the nature of human goodness. You’ll discover that this idea (that the Survivalist was a holy man rather than a literal god) is the most common perspective among the Sorrows, and you can talk to her about how this departs from Daniel’s perspective that the archetypal Father is divine, not human.

Quests

Each tribe has a specific quest that will either lower or bypass some of the penultimate checks that will determine your ending (people are more likely to believe what you’re telling them if you’ve already won their trust).

The Dead Horses: Joshua Graham has been putting the heads of the fallen up on pikes across Zion. The Dead Horses’ religion is deeply concerned with proper treatment of the deceased, and Graham’s decision to desecrate the corpses of his enemies goes against virtually everything they believe. The old man who won’t tell you his name asks you to take the heads off of the pikes and bury them deep in Zion, and to bring Follows-Chalk with you so you’ll have someone to tell you how to treat them properly. Over the course of the quest, Follows-Chalk will share some of his own beliefs about death, and you’ll have the opportunity to share your own. If you complete this quest without sabotaging it, Follows-Chalk will be willing to betray Graham to the White Legs before the final battle.

The Sorrows: This is basically just Ghost of She, but after defeating the Yao Guai you’ll discover a holotape revealing that the girl wasn’t killed by the bear, but by one of the murderers from Vault 22. Waking Cloud will speculate that maybe the Yao Guai wasn’t the ghost of the little girl at all but some other force that wanted to push you to discover the truth. If you wait until the end to tell Waking Cloud about the death of her husband, you’ll have to pass a Speech check of 75 to convince her you’re telling her the truth; completing this quest drops the check to 50.

The White Legs: Salt-Upon-Wounds will ask you to help him sabotage the Mormons’ preparations for the battle. If you help him with this, it’ll drop the Speech check for you to convince him to leave from 100 to 80. It’s not necessary at all to get the tribal confederacy ending, but a new note will appear in your inventory if you finish it and meet a couple other requirements (asking him certain questions, not attempting that one Speech check about religion, etc).

Endings

I’m trying to incorporate as much variety as possible, but there are three main ending paths: siding with the White Legs, siding with the other two tribes, and peace. The basic idea is that the outcome is predicated less on your direct intervention, and more on how other people act based on the facts they have available to them. Most of your influence is through your choices to hide or reveal key pieces of information, and the skill checks you need to access certain endings are less you convincing a character to do something and more convincing a character to believe you’re telling them the truth. There’s one major exception to this, it requires maxed Speech, and the ending it gives you is markedly bittersweet because you’re trying to get a guy to act against his own best interest. I’m writing all the endings up here, and will probably edit them as things change. The post where I explain them in more depth can be found here.

And that’s the story so far! Thank you for reading, and again: if there’s anything here you think is poorly-conceived, let me know. Thank you to @baelpenrose, who’s a grad student in the history of the American West, for helping me workshop a lot of this stuff. If you’ve got expert knowledge on any of the concepts I touch on or are personally a member of any of the groups I’m describing, please feel free to hmu: anon is on, and you’re always welcome to DM me. I’m just doing this for fun, but I still want it to be as not-shit as possible.

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DND Prep: Prepping new Campaigns

it's that time of year again. All my DND Campaigns are endings and it's time to prep a new one. I thought it might maybe be interesting to get a look at how I start a new game.

First thing I do is link players to my worldmap, Trello, and Homebrew.

Here's my hombrew doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/191T0o8LMIu-TLy2gnK_4y7Dqppxya8RNOM31EbEG0_E/edit?usp=sharing

First I look at my worldmap, pictured above. I figure out where we just played, and I try to pick a few locations that are far from there. In this cast the location we played was Istandell, one of my favorite game locations. So I wanted to pick some remote locals.

Ultimately I narrow it down to these 3 locations. Then I start to think about plot hooks and story beats I could draw on. The misty isles lends itself to a high seas adventure. the Sehkhan isles are interesting because 3 countries share a holy city, and that creates a lot of tensions. Then in Karanth I know that Red Hand Reshnak is currently ruled by a despot. So there's an immediate plot hook: heroes on the frontlines of an invasion.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dpvxwMc9tp-ISbJI5noOd4coiVnP66dTPZsoWQ0cv3U/edit?usp=sharing

From there I make a list like this and send it to my players. The players read the 3 pitches and then send me back their votes in ranked order. 1st = 2 points, 2nd = 1 point, 3rd = 0 points. The one with the most points wins.

I do this for a number of reasons. Firstly it allows me to pitch a variety of game 'styles'. So I can see what players are interested in. If they vote for an option but also all seem to agree on a second option I can blend elements of that option in. If there's one idea everyone hates I know to avoid that sort of story entirely. It also gives players agency in picking where their adventure begins and what kind of game they play.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EiIBk33cyRqX78cYo8hkxB9sXABUd2t4drmU0FOzHwk/edit?usp=sharing

Once I have their votes I send a more detailed primer on the region, the relevant history, and the major npcs of that area so the players can have enough information to work on backstories that are as integrated into the local plot as they want. Although, I will help them come up with these connections should they not want to read all this. I do my best to summarize the most important details.

I make a copy of this document for myself, which i expand with more npcs, and secrets of the world, as well as ideas for early adventures. This basically becomes the 'series bible' for this campaign. Effectively it's my one-stop-shop to refresh myself on world lore. I also put in a VERY truncated version of each player's backstory here so as to help keep track of the broad details of each character's personal quest so that I can identify useful plot hooks to draw on and I can remind myself of details during sessions. From there I go into foundry. All the main npcs I will put into foundry.

I try to stay very organized. All this stuff helps me remember who is who. If i have a guy named "Radgriz" just in a list of names it's highly likely I'll forget who he was. But if he's in a town, and even better if he's in a faction, even if I mostly forgot him I have a lot of info at a glace to met me know who he is.

From there, the third and findal thing I will do is to take short notes on certain npcs

I admit I do not do this nearly enough. I often forget to take notes on npcs, especially if they're made up on the fly. Generally just knowing where they're from is enough to jog my memory about who they are. Thought I admit this has bit me in the ass previously. My sincere advice is ALWAYS write down a name you make up as soon as you make it up, so you have some record of it somewhere.

Anyhow. From there I just need to create the first quest. I try not to plan out the plot of the game too much at this phase. I want to be able to adapt and react to player choices. I know what the main villain wants, but especially early I'd rather keep it more episodic and give our heroes time to build themselves up and flesh out their surroundings.

I hope this helps someone!

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Geneforge 1 - Mutagen (2021)

Geneforge 1 - Mutagen is a modern remake of Spiderweb Software’s classic Geneforge series, which spanned 5 games and ran from 2001 to 2011. It is notable primarily for its unique setting and quality writing. I especially like how the game does not squander the potential of its premise and explores many of the ethical, political, and legal aspects of Shaping.

Summary

In the world of Geneforge, there is an order of mages called Shapers. Shapers are capable of creating and modifying living beings simply called“Creations”. There is a very wide variety of Creations, built for different purposes.

You are a Shaper in training, sailing the seas in a living craft as part of training. While doing this, you come near an island that has been Barred, meaning that entrance to it has been strictly forbidden (this can happen due to failed experiments, secret projects, etc.)

At that moment, your craft is attacked and killed by a strange ship. You manage to reach the shore, finding that the island you have found yourself in is far from abandoned...

Freedom

Really good overall. Not only do you have a good selection of playstyles but you also have multiple endings and various faction choices. Additionally, you can explore the world rather freely, stopped only by organic barriers such as strong enemies, environmental hazards, and lack of access tools rather than plot contrivances.

Many quests have multiple solutions, and you also often get multiple dialogue options in reaction to various things.

One weakness I noticed is that there are situations where your dialogue choices make for a simple binary. However, this is not such a big deal in the grand scheme of things and this game still does far better than many others in this department.

One thing I particularly like is that while some of the game’s final decisions determine the bulk of what ending you get, your relationships with the game’s three main factions still seem to have an impact on the ending and interact with your other decisions in complex ways.

Character Creation/Customization

On the surface, I thought the character creation of this game was simply good but basic. You can select one of three classes and spend some points to increase your initial stats and skills. There are no backgrounds, traits, races, or even all that much appearance-based customization.

However, after some hours of playing I discovered that the versatility of Shaping makes things far more complex than they first appear.

The three classes available to you are:

Shaper - A specialist at creating and enhancing various allies. They are weak in combat, but can have the strongest and most numerous Creations. They are also decent at magic.

Guardian - The warriors of the shaper sect. They are the strongest in terms of physical prowess but have very weak magic. Of the three classes, they are in the middle in terms of shaping ability, being able to field some Creations but not as many as the Shaper.

Agent - Allegedly the most challenging class to play. They are highly skilled in“conventional” (non-shaper) magic and average at combat, but not very good at shaping, often acting on their own.

Out of these, I think Shaper is not only likely the easiest but also the most interesting and the most appropriate to the themes of the game. In addition to your basic stats, you can select skills in things like combat, offensive magic, buffs, a few different shaping styles, and three non-combat skills (Leadership, Mechanics, and Stealth).

The Leadership skill serves as a diplomacy skill and also allows you to control Creations with your will. The Mechanics skill allows you to disable traps and pick locks.

The complexity comes from the creations you will unlock throughout the game.

There are nine base creation types (each with an alternate form with slightly different abilities) plus hidden creations you will have to discover as you play.

All creations consume varying amounts of Essence. Often, more powerful creations will have higher Essence costs, and you have a limited amount of Essence to distribute among all of your creations.

You can spend additional essence to enhance your creations with better stats and additional abilities, both passive and active.

On top of that, Essence is also required to cast most spells, so the more of it you spend on creations the less of it you will have for things like healing and combat buffs.

This means that even within just the Shaper class there is a variety of playstyles available. From bombarding the enemy with multiple weaker ranged creations to focusing on just a couple of more powerful ones such as upgraded Drayks, while also keeping some essence on reserve for your own spells.

Story/Setting

The game takes place on the mysterious Sucia Island, which has been barred for reasons you will uncover during the course of the game. You are not alone in this island, as you will soon make contact with intelligent life in the form of Serviles.

Serviles are a common Creation, made to essentially serve as slaves to the Shapers. Many of the Serviles you saw while growing up treated Shapers with fear, awe, and absolute submission.

But that is not the case here. The Serviles of Sucia island are largely “rogue”, and have divided themselves into three factions.

The first is the Awakened. These Serviles remain grateful to the Shapers for giving them life, but wish to deal with them as equals rather than slaves. They believe that all intelligent creations should be treated equally.

The second is the Obeyers, who retain the instinct bred into Serviles and wish to remain loyal to the Shapers, yearning for their return to Sucia. However, dealing with them is still not so simple. If you try to tell them that they should be independent like the other two factions, they will (correctly) see you as a rebel who does not represent the true will of the Shapers or act in accordance to their laws.

The third, and probably most complex, of the factions is the Takers. This is a group of radical Serviles who despise the Shapers. Their name comes from their willingness to take their destiny into their own hands by any means necessary. Many of them treat you with some degree of hostility, but none of these factions is a monolith with a completely unified worldview.

In fact, if you meet the leader of the Takers, you will discover that at least some of them would be willing to forgive everything if granted freedom, they just don’t think it is likely that the Shapers would grant it and are willing to die rather than return to slavery.

And the thing is that this is probably correct. The more you play the more you realize that the sect you grew up in is twisted and would sooner genocide all life in Sucia island than treat“rogue” creations as equals.

One moment that I felt really highlights this is when you meet one of the few Drayks who inhabit the island. Drayks are pretty much Geneforge’s take on fantasy dragons. They are highly intelligent and independent creations, which is the reason why creating more of them was forbidden by the Shapers.

As Sucia has been barred and isolated from the rest of the world for a long time, the Drayk you meet is not aware of this new law. When you inform them about it, their reaction is grim.

The drayk realizes, in that moment, that their entire species will one day go extinct simply because your people will it. Because they were not submissive enough. Not good enough slaves.

The Shapers may have the power to create life, but they are not kind to that life. They are no different from abusive parents who want children to be servants or property.

And this is not even getting into the topic of the titular Geneforge or the other inhabitants of the island...

Overall, I found the story and worldbuilding of this game to be excellent. None of the factions feel one-dimensional and often there are many different points of view within each of them. That makes them feel deeper and more real than many other video game factions, where everyone on the same side is implied to have broadly the same beliefs and there are no schisms, sub-factions, or major differences.

Immersion

Judging how immersive Geneforge games are is somewhat complicated. On one side, this game lacks a lot of the features that make it easier for me to roleplay living in its world day to day.

On the other, the writing and worldbuilding are great and the consequences for various actions sound sensible.

The writing is really carrying this aspect of the game I think, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Gameplay

Combat is in a reasonably good place. It is extremely simple to understand, while still offering some level of depth later in the game. For the most part, combat is also not that difficult unless you push yourself into areas you are not yet ready for.

I do have a number of complaints to make, but want to make it clear that these were never enough to really ruin my enjoyment of the game.

The most significant of these complaints has to do with the way experience is awarded in relation to your own level.

As your level increases, not only enemies but also quests will start granting you less and less experience. I can see why one might make such a design decision, as it means exploration and unique quest rewards will quickly become more significant sources of power than combat alone, but on a purely psychological level I just don’t like to go through a fight and get nothing at all in return, especially since the game does have quite a bit of combat.

This can make some sections of the game drag on. In particular, fights against defensive crystals in a couple of locations can be a bit slow, as the crystals are very durable and dangerous to approach in melee due to how they explode upon death.

Aesthetics

Spiderweb games are known for having minimal budgets, and the area that usually ends up receiving the least funds is the graphics and sound.

So despite being a remake from 2021, this is a game that looks like it was made in the 90s and has no music apart from the title screen’s.

Personally, this does not bother me at all. I think pretty graphics are nice and good music can definitely add to the atmosphere of a game (see Fallout 1 or Planescape: Torment, for example) neither is the core of what I am looking for in a game, especially in this genre.

I do like some of the ambient sound effects though. In particular the corvid cawing in some of the game’s more desolate areas.

Putting the graphics and sound aside, the way the game uses Shaping to establish its setting earns it a lot of aesthetic points, as it ends up with a very unique identity.

For example, Geneforge does not use bows as its primary ranged weapons. It uses living batons that launch thorns. It also largely does not include any generic fantasy races like elves or orcs.

Accessibility

Actually really good, far better than I expected even. Combat is an extremely simple affair, making a functional build with most classes is not complicated, the game’s general mechanics are transparent, and there is both a short tutorial and in-game instructions.

Really if you can get past the presentation you won’t have many obstacles to playing this game. It even has multiple difficulty options, including a casual mode for those who just want to follow the story and don’t want to have to think too much about how to overcome the game’s obstacles.

Conclusion

Geneforge has a lot of what I like in an RPG. Things like character creation, rich worldbuilding, non-linear gameplay, and the ability to make meaningful decisions.

I especially recommend this one to people who want something different from the standard fantasy RPG experience, and also to the type of mega-nerd who will enjoy analyzing the game’s world and themes in detail. There is much to talk about here.

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“Her name implied Joy, for among the three Graces Euphrosyne was the bestowed of joy; and Lynnaeus gave the name to a honey-coloured butterfly prettily striked with black. But this woman, familiarly known as Frosina, who was certainly young and beautiful and very probably foolish and cruel, neither gave nor received much joy in her short life; on the contrary, she proved to be, both for herself and others, a veritable harbinger of death.”

Leonardo Sciascia, Il mare colore del vino (The Wine-Dark Sea), pp. 135-6

Eufrosia (or Eufrosina) was born in Palermo around 1559. Her father was Vincenzo Siracusa, renowned and wealthy jurist, while her mother's name was Vincenza Valdaura. On September 25h 1575, the teen girl married her peer Calcerando (or Calcerano) Corbera. Her husband was the firstborn of Don Antonio Corbera, baron of Miserendino, and Elisabetta Scavuzzo. The Corbera family was a noble and ancient one. If in the past, members of the family had played important roles in the government of the Island (another Calcerando Corbera had been Vicar of the Kingdom from 1449 to 1552), by the end of XVIth century, the family was experiencing a financial crisis (they were forced to mortgage their fiefs' production), like the majority of the other Sicilian noble ones.

Wishing to replenish the family's coffers and to save its face, in 1572 Don Antonio had asked and obtained the licentia populandi (in the Kingdom of Sicily that meant the right, conceded by the King or the Viceroy, to build and populate a village) of his fief of Miserendino (located in Val di Mazara, between Sambuca and Calatamauro), where he intended to build a farmhouse and a tower. Despite obtaining the licentia, he hadn't enough money to start the works, so the title of baron of Miserendino was empty of any tangible valour.

It's then easy to understand the reason behind Eufrosia and Calcerando's marriage. The Corberas needed the Siracusas' wealth, while the latter wanted to socially raise themselves. It's even clearer noticed in the nuptial agreements: out of the 1600 onzes part of the bride's dowry, 1200 were given cash on hand to Don Antonio Corbera. Moreover, Eufrosia's mother bestowed the couple of two fiefs (Maganuci and Traversa di Iato, in Val di Mazara), some warehouses, an oil mill, the ownership and income of many houses and buildings. Vincenza Valdaura would have kept the usufruct of her former possessions, perhaps an attempt to protect the family's belongings from the elder Corbera's greedy clutches. If that was the reason, Vincenza didn't succeed as both she and her husband died one month before their daughter's marriage. On the other hand, Antonio Corbera ceded his son the nominal title of baron of Miserendino, although he reserved the incomes derived from the barony.

Taking advantage of the fact that the young and now vulnerable Eufrosia was now the sole heir of her considerable family fortune, Don Antonio felt he was now free to dispose of it as if it was his own. For example, two years later he forced his weak-willed son and his daughter-in-law to borrow a large sum from the Baron of Cutò to expand and embellish the palace where they all lived and for other luxurious expenses. It's no surprise Eufrosia quickly developed a burning hate towards her father-in-law, exacerbated by Calcerando's submissive character towards his despotic father.

Eufrosia's life changed drastically when she met Viceroy and PrinceMarcantonio II Colonna, newly appointed Viceroy of Sicily under Felipe II of Spain. The Hero of Lepanto was 25 years older than her, brilliant, brave, hailed as the greatest man of his time. In a nutshell, Colonna was in every way the opposite of poor Calcerando.

The Baroness of Miserendino and the Viceroy met in Palermo during a banquet and it was love at first sight. Like Eufrosia, Colonna too was married. His wife, Princess Felice Orsini, belonged to one of the oldest and most important noble families in Italy and Europe.

The relationship between Eufrosia and Colonna progressed so quickly that, in a letter dated 1579, the Viceroy describes himself as having fallen so hard for Donna Eufrosina to the point of feeling as his heart had been ripped out of his chest and beating like a drum. In her answer, the woman (who admits to reciprocating his feelings) begs his Excellency to forget about her. That won't happen.

The meeting with Colonna gives Eufrosia the strength to oppose her husband and her father-in-law. She refused to pay off Don Antonio's debts and forced her husband to fictitiously donate her his property to preserve her dowry.

Her father-in-law was so piqued, he retaliated by accusing his daughter-in-law of cheating on Calcerando with a page. The poor man died after being questioned about his affair with his mistress. Since the Corbera was an esteemed noble family, nobody was charged and the page's murder was left unavenged.

In September 1580, Eufrosina found out she was pregnant with Colonna. She tried in many ways to have an abortion until she naturally miscarried in January 1581. Luckily for her, nor her husband or her father-in-law never learnt about her secret pregnancy.

When the relationship between the Viceroy and the Baroness became public knowledge, Don Antonio was enraged. He went as far as publically menacing Colonna. Fearing for his life, the Viceroy had the older Corbera arrested with the charge of insolvency. Shortly after, on February 2nd 1581, he was found mysteriously dead in his cell. It's almost certain he had been poisoned.

With her father-in-law out of the picture, Eufrosia was now freer to dispose of her financial situation. She obtained the separation of property and even sued her husband, accusing him of having paid off his debts just to please him. She obtained the return of her dowry, but she was still legally married to her husband. In debt, the baron tried to put up a brave face, thinking that openly accepting his wife's affair would have socially and economically benefitted him. In summer 1581 Calcerando accepted an offer to join a mission to quell a revolt of the Knights of Malta. The Baron left for the island, but on August 28th he was found murdered near his Maltese habitation, he had been stabbed. Calcerando was buried in Malta as his widow didn't make any attempt to have the body transferred and buried in his family tomb.

Like it had happened on the occasion of his father's mysterious death, the Viceroy was by many accused to be the instigator behind the murder.

The couple continued their dalliances, with Eufrosia sleeping with her lover in his palace. An anecdote recounts that they were once caught red-handed by Donna Felice. To avoid been seen, a naked and barefoot Eufrosia tried to hide on the balcony. As the Vicereine entered the chamber, she immediately noticed the baroness' slippers. Long since aware of her husband's infidelity and his many lovers, Felice Orsini jokingly asked her husband if those slippers were a gift for her. When the Viceroy shamelessly answered that it was indeed so, the betrayed wife went to the balcony and foud her husband's freezing lover. The Princess then addressed Eufrosia "Bear with me, I'd like my husband all to myself tonight". She then had the baroness generously escorted home.

“Lord Marcantonio [...] was so blinded by his passion that, careless of his viceregal authority and reputation, he became a second Antony to his Cleopatra.” (Leonardo Sciascia, Il mare colore del vino, pp. 136). If the Vicereine once again closed her eyes, the people of Palermo were deeply scandalised when the Viceroy had a new fountain built by the end of the XVIth century at the end of the Colonna Promenade (and near Porta Felice!). The mermaid which decorated it, according to many, looked suspiciously a lot like the Viceroy's already famous mistress.

The lovers' happiness won't last long though. Ottavio Bonnet, a kinsman of the deceased Baron of Miserendino, took upon himself to get revenge for Don Antonio and Calcerando's death. Firstly he managed to remove little Vincenzo Corbera (Calcerando's 6 years old brother and his heir) from Eufrosia's custody. Bonnet then travelled to Madrid to accuse the Viceroy in front of the court. Bonnet's accuses were welcomed by the anti-Colonna faction, which added Corbera's dual murders to Colonna's many misdeeds and managed to have the Viceroy summoned to the capital.

In 1584 Marcantonio Colonna left Sicily, but he would never reach Madrid. On August 1st 1584, he died mysteriously in Medinaceli. According to some sources, he was poisoned by a betrayed husband.

The distraught Eufrosia sought protection from the one person who would have had all the reasons to refuse her, Felice Orsini. Instead of turning her down, the kind and sympathetic princess welcomed her deceased husband's lover to her palace in Rome. Here, the former Vicereine introduced Eufrosia to the widowed Roman nobleman Lelio Massimo. At that time, Eufrosia was 25 and still beautiful and charming, so it was almost natural that at some point Massimo proposed to her. Unfortunately for the future couple, his sons were against this match. On June 18th 1585, a few weeks before the wedding, Eufrosia was lured by her future sons-in-law with an excuse and killed. Lelio Massimo died soon after of heartbreak, while his sons were arrested and executed.

Even the Mermaid fountain's fate was a sad one. In 1820 it was moved to Piano di Santa Teresa (nowadays Piazza Indipendenza), but twenty years later it was destroyed during the Sicilian revolution of 1848. In his stead an obelisk was erected to commemorate the martyrs of the Italian Independence.

Sources:

Leonardo Sciascia, Il mare colore del vino

Orazio Caschetto, Il Vicerè e la Baronessa

Pietro Burgarella, Calcerando Corbera in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani

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Have a plan to kill everyone you meet- Fallout New Vegas Genocide run notes

For some reason, and I can’t say why, I’ve had a hankering to play through Fallout: New Vegas again. There’s always a few quests I haven’t beaten, I guess, 100%% achievement completion or not.

However, video essays on moral choices in video games have been part of my feed recently, and like many, apparently, I’m someone who usually tries to pick the goody two-shoes options. But NO MORE! In this hypothetical future playthrough I wanna try and fuck over every single person, and for once end up with Bad Karma at the end.

I’ve seen a few things online about people doing murder only runs of this game, but I don’t think anyone’s tried this particular undertaking. Specifically, I’m not just gunning to gun down everyone I see, I’m going out of my way to kill as many named characters as possible. Using the Fallout Wiki as a hitlist, everyone it is possible to kill will be killed.

The following are my notes about routing such a playthrough. I hope they’re entertaining enough! :p

New Vegas Genocide Mode

The following characters cannot be killed for any reason:

The Forecaster, Melody, Max, Stacey, Lindsay, Pete, and Hector are all children and as such are undamagable- I’m sure a mod exists but I’m not gonna go download that, I don’t wanna end up on a list.

Festus is a robot whom projectiles pass through and who takes no damage from physical attacks. Besides, his artificial intelligence is limited enough that are you really actually killing anything there?

Vendortron is in an impenetrable booth, and while I’m pretty sure you can glitch into its box, I’m also pretty sure he respawns anyway.

Yes Man can be killed as many times as I like, and I will, but he always respawns so even if you piss off/kill off other factions you still have a path to endgame.

The following characters are mutually exclusive- i.e. you can get one, but not the other.

Ranger Stevens and Cato Hostilius- The missions You’ll Know It When It Happens and Arizona Killer are about being on the opposite sides of an assassination attempt on the President of the NCR. Ranger Stevens only shows up if you’re trying to stop it, and Cato Hostilius is your contact for trying to cause it.

Gabban, Alerio, and Martina Groesbeck- This all comes back to Vulpes Inculta. Vulpes shows up in two events- in Nipton when you first arrive there, and in the Strip when you leave the Tops after confronting Benny. Gabban replaces Vulpes in Nipton if you kill him in the Strip, and Alerio replaces him if you kill him at Nipton. If you don’t kill him at either, he returns to the Fort where you can receive a quest from him involving Martina. To my knowledge, she doesn’t spawn without that quest. I do need to investigate if in theory you can get the quest from Vulpes before killing him and without visiting Nipton, letting you kill both him and Gabban.

The Big Problem: Reputation

There are four characters whom only show up in their faction’s respective safehouses, requiring a significant dedication to not murdering people to unlock. In addition, access to certain quests with named characters (e.g. I Fought the Law) requires not being hated by the relevant faction. As such, we can’t start wantonly killing people until a certain point.

This gets complicated when it comes to the main 2 factions, being the Legion and the NCR. Fortunately, however, after the first act of the main story, reputation with both gets wiped (by Vulpes/Alerio and Crocker), which we can manipulate pretty well. It makes sense to do the NCR first, as reputation with them is more relevant overall and often costs Legion reputation.

This is the route I’ve figured out for how to work around this issue, including every quest that spawns uniquely named characters for us to murder. DLCs and Companions are currently not included, but shouldn’t be too hard to figure out. Except maybe Joshua Graham.

Start the game as a male character (Legion won’t let you in the pit fights if you’re a woman bc they’re sexist) and take Wild Wasteland (necessary for one event).

AVOID THE FOLLOWING LOCATIONS/QUESTS: NIPTON, anywhere with major Powder Ganger concentrations, Ghost Town Gunfight/Run Goodsprings Run, Boulder City Showdown. We’re trying to maintain relationships with the NCR, Powder Gangers, and Great Khans as long as possible.

(At some point get enough Sunset Sarsaparilla Star caps to get Malcom to show up)

Head to Primm, picking up Ed-E and beginning his quest. This quest needs to be continued at minimum until April Martimer spawns in Freeside.

Solve Primm’s deputy problem somehow so Layla spawns later.

Make way to Freeside/New Vegas, however necessary.

Donate medical aid to Julie Farkas, raising Followers of the Apocalypse fame, until access to the Followers Safehouse is granted.

Go to the Atomic Wrangler and get Debt Collector (spawns Caleb McCaffery)

After acquiring the Cannibal perk, proceed down Beyond the Beef by working with Mortimer until Carlyle spawns.

Get and complete Bye Bye Love, spawning Big and Little Beard, making sure to kill everyone involved after Joanna gives the quest How Little We Know (spawns Cachino)

Go to Camp McCarran, and acquire quests Dealing with Contreras (spawns Keller), There Stands the Grass (spawns Keely), and Silus Treatment (lets you into Silus). Suck up to the NCR until access Colonel Hsu lets you into the Ranger Safehouse.

Go to Jacobstown and proceed along Guess who I Saw Today until Norton shows up.

Go to North Vegas Square and get Someone to Watch Over Me, proceeding until Greasy Johnny spawns.

Go to the Great Khan Encampment to get Don’t Make a Beggar of me, spawning Tyrone.

Go to the NCRCF and proceed down I Fought the Law, then betray the Powder Gangers to get Sergeant Lee to spawn.

Go to Hidden Valley and start Still in the Dark, spawning Ranger Dobson and killing him. Complete the quest to gain access to the Brotherhood of Steel Safehouse.

Go confront Benny at the Tops, resetting negative reputation with the Legion and NCR.

Proceed to the Fort and start the Legion questline, making sure to complete Laurifer Gladiator and start The Finger of Suspicion.

Keep going down the Legion Questline, eventually reaching Arizona Killer- make sure to kill Cato after assassinating Kimball and Watson.

If Lucius hasn’t given access to the Legion Safehouse yet, do bullshit for the Legion until he does (e.g. give Aurelius NCR Dogtags)

Once access is granted, it is now safe to start killing everyone! Have fun.

After the blood of your enemies, friends, and strangers covers everything, proceed down the Wild Card route to the endgame, making sure to kill Yes Man after every conversation, so you can get to the Second Battle of Hoover Dam and murder Legate Lanius. Don’t let Yes Man kill Lee Oliver, do it yourself!

As the credits roll, use glitches/godmode to regain control so you can go behind the slideshow and kill Ron the Narrator.

Still during the credits, end it all the only way we know how- blow yourself up, killing the last named character available to kill.

Maybe consider using console commands to spawn in the 2 characters that were mutually exclusive just to kill them. Might as well.

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FEATURE: Every Attack on Titan Character and Which Side They’re On

Attack on Titan Final Season has been a roller coaster of emotion so far. The beginning of the season gave us a long look at the goings-on in Marley, both from the perspective of the Marleyans themselves and the Eldian Warriors who are fighting for them. Now, with Paradis's surprise attack over, we've returned to the original protagonists from the Scout Regiment and are finally finding out what they were up to during the four-year gap between seasons. Things have never been more exciting, but if you think it's a lot to take in, you're not alone. So today, we're going to break down all of the factions currently operating in Attack on Titan, as well as explaining the roles of the still-living major characters in each faction.

Paradis

Historia Reiss

Previously known as Christa Lenz, Historia took back her real name and her right to the throne after the Scout Regiment staged asuccessful coup against King Fritz. Fritz himself was only a puppet ruler, standing in for Historia'sfather Rod Reiss, in a setup meant to keep the people in the walls ignorant of the outside world. Under Historia's reign, scientific progress is allowed and the people are not kept completely in the dark regarding the truth about their world.

Historia is one of two known living characters with royal blood, an important trait as Eren has said recently that contact with Titans who are of royal blood allows him to use the full power of the Founding Titan. Zeke Jaegar's plan to secure Paradis's future is to maintain at least one Titan user with royal blood for the next 50 years or so as Paradis builds its military to stand with the rest of the world without having to use the Titans in the walls as a deterrent to outside aggression, colloquially known as "the Rumbling."This would involve turning Historia into a Titan and having her birth as many children as possible in the 13 years Titan users have to live so that there are a number of people with royal blood to pass her Titan to. For now, Historia has agreed to this plan, and is pregnant and staying in a secret location to birth the child, though she has not inherited a Titan yet.

Hange Zoë

Hange is the current Commander of the Scout Regiment, taking the position after Erwin's death in the battle against the Beast Titan four years ago. Hange is also a Titan researcher; their experiments responsible for much of the knowledge the people of the Walls have, both in terms of how they function and how to effectively combat them. Recently, Hange has been working closely with the Anti-Marleyan Volunteers to advance Paradis's technological understanding, working to build infrastructures like railroads and ports as well as preparing the soldiers in Paradis for battle with enemies in the outside world with access to more advanced military options like planes and anti-Titan weaponry.

Levi

Levi is the leader of the Special Operations Squad, colloquially known as the Levi Squad, which hosts most of the protagonists in the anime. He was raised in the Underground, a city underneath the Capital in the Walls which was originally meant to be the first in a larger project to expand the living space for the people of the Walls until it was ultimately abandoned. To help him survive in the poor and crime-ridden Underground, Levi's uncle Kenny taught him to defend himself, leading Levi to become a skilled fighter and eventually joining the Scout Regiment on the suggestion of Erwin Smith.

With the Scout Regiment, Levi has been defending the shores of Paradis from survey ships sent from Marley. Most recently, Levi has taken Zeke to a forest in Paradis, where he will ensure Zeke doesn't do anything to betray Paradis while they continue to consider Zeke's proposal for an unspecified plan to set the people of Paradis free.

Mikasa Ackermann

Mikasa is Eren's foster sister, having been taken in by Eren's parents after her own were killed in a violent crime. Though one of the most skilled members to ever be in the Scout Regiment, she only joined for the sake of ensuring Eren's safety after he decided to join the Regiment himself. She and Levi are both descendants of the Ackermanns, a family who were once dedicated to defending the king until they eventually fell out of favor with the royal family. According to Kiyomi Azumabito, and corroborated by a tattoo given to her by her mother when she was young, Mikasa is also a descendant of one of Hizuru's lords who was left behind in the Walls after the Great Titan War.

With the Scout Regiment, she has been defending the shores of Paradis from survey ships sent from Marley, and during the battle of Liberio, she expressed doubt regarding Eren's increasing aggression and disregard for innocent lives. Despite Eren's recent callousness, she believes he is still acting with good intentions for her and the rest of their friends.

Armin Arlelt

Armin is Mikasa and Eren's childhood friendand joined the military at the same time as his friends to help pursue his dream of seeing the ocean beyond the Walls. Having earned a reputation as an effective strategist, he inherited the iconic Colossal Titan in order to be saved from death in battle four years ago. He has since been using his power to help subjugate incoming Marleyan ships and to decimate a Marleyan port in the battle of Liberio. He is now unsure of Eren's allegiances, wanting to believe he still has Paradis's best interest at heart but also being disturbed by Eren's newfound extremism.

Conny Springer, Jean Kirschtein, Sasha Braus

Conny, Jean, and Sasha make up the remaining major members of Levi Squad. Like the others in the squad, they defended the shores of Paradis from incoming Marleyan survey ships and are working to help build the infrastructure introduced to them by the Anti-Marleyan Volunteers. As close allies to Eren, each proposed inheriting his Titan powers when Eren's 13-year time has run out, but Eren turned them all down, preferring his friends to live long lives without the burden of the Titan curse. At the end of the battle of Libero, Sasha was felled by the Warrior Candidate Gabi, and Eren's seemingly nonchalant reaction to this turn of events as well as his other actions during the battle have caused Conny and Jean to begin to doubt Eren's allegiances.

Floch Forster

Floch was a member of the Scout Regiment under the Klaus Squad and was a participant and one of few survivors of the Battle of Shiganshina District, led by Erwin Smith against the Beast Titan. During that battle, he expressed an intense fear of dying, specifically wishing for a death that has meaning, and was roused by Erwin's speech about how their deaths would help carry their comrades. Ironically, though, he was the only person in that attack to avoid a grisly fate and later advocated for Erwin to be the one to be saved by inheriting the Colossal Titan over Armin. While cowardice defined him in his earlier appearances, his experience with Erwin at Shiganshina has clearly changed him; during the raid on Liberio,Floch expressed no regret in the deaths of innocents, proposed throwing Gabi out of the airship after she shot Sasha, and, with some other soldiers, has leaked information to the public about Eren's confinement by the Paradis government. Eren and his Attack Titan are seen as symbols of hope among the people of Paradis, including Floch, so the leak has caused strife and distrust in the government. Recently, Floch and a contingent of soldiers formed a guerrilla faction (dubbed Jaegerists) that broke Eren out of prison in order to unite him with Zeke.

Anti-Marleyan Volunteers

Yelena and Onyankopon

Yelena and Onyankopon hail from unnamed nations that atsome point were overtaken by Marley. They and others in their situation were then made to fight in the Marleyan army, where they eventually met Zeke Jaegar. Zeke saved them from a near-death experience, earning their respect and recruiting them to his efforts to free the Eldians from Marleyan persecution. Upon arrival to Paradis, Yelena killed her commander and began negotiations with Hange, explaining their connection to Zeke and offering to share information about and technology from the outside world.

Later, Yelena participated in the attack on Liberio, leading two Titan Warriors to a trap, though they ultimately escaped, while Onyankopon assisted by piloting the airship they used to escape. With the attack successful and Zeke back on the island, she and the other Volunteers delivered Titan serums stolen from Marley to Paradis but were subsequently detained. The Paradisan military soon after uncovered a plot by Yelena to aid the newly formed Jaegerist faction in bringing Eren in contact with Zeke.

Nicolo

Originally one of the captured Marlayan soldiers from the first Marleyan ship to approach Paradis, Nicolo is a skilled cook who ended up using his skills to feed the Paradisans while they built the island's first port. In that time he ended up becoming close to the Scouts, and Sasha in particular and was devastated to learn of Sasha's death in Liberio. He met with Sasha's father at her grave and promised to cook for him in the future. Sasha's family came to Nicolo's restaurant as promised, but with two Warrior Candidates in hiding, leading to Nicolo nearly killing Gabi to avenge Sasha.

Marley

Reiner Braun

Reiner is a Warrior for the Marleyan army, former member of the Scout Regiment, and current wielder of the Armored Titan. The result of a union between a Marleyan man and an Eldian woman, Reiner initially strove to become a Warrior in the hopes of winning the affection of his estranged father.Upon realizing this was futile, and the subsequent death of fellow Warrior Marcel Galliard, he turned his efforts toward imitating the more confident Marcel, aiming to become a leader like him. Reiner, Marcel, Annie Leonhart, and Bertholdt Hoover were sent as children to Paradis in order to retrieve the Founding Titan, but their plans fell apart and only Reiner returned to Marley years later.

Struck by survivor's guilt and conflicting feelings about the residents of Paradis he once fully believed were evil but since became his friends, Reiner has been struggling with a crisis of identity and purpose since returning from the island. However, his desire to protect the remaining people in his life such as Gabi and Falco has kept him going. This enabled him to fight against Eren during the raid on Liberio and most recently recognize the need to take the initiative on attacking Paradis instead of waiting for support from other nations, noting that such a long delay would likely be part of Zeke's plans.

Porco Galliard and Pieck

Theother two remaining Warriors, Porco wields the agile Jaw Titan while Pieck uses the versatile Cart Titan. When he was younger, Porco was the leading candidate for the Armored Titan, but he was passed over in favor of Reiner thanks to his brother Marcel's influence and desire to protect Porco from what Marcel thought of as a tragic fate. Since then, the Jaw Titan has passed hands through various events from Marcel to Ymir and finally to Porco, despite Marcel's efforts. Porco is initially unkind to Reiner, holding little respect for him after Reiner took his place in the Warriors and subsequently failed to retrieve the Founding Titan and protect his brother and the other Warriors. However, having experienced the power of Paradis' soldiers firsthand at Liberio, his attitude seems to be changing.

Pieck assisted Zeke with his attack on Paradis years ago, though was only seen in her Titan form. This was possible because one of the Cart's abilities is endurance, allowing its user to maintain their Titan form for extended periods of time, though as demonstrated by Pieck herself spending all that time on four legs causes the user to have trouble adjusting back to walking on two legs once human again. As noted by Zeke, Pieck is one of the most intelligent Warriors, understanding the Tyburs' true plan right away and recognizing the danger she and Porco were about to be put in when brought to the trap room by Yelena before the raid on Liberio.

Theo Magath

Theo is the main commander of the Warriors and, since Calvi's passing during Eren's attack on Liberio, the general of Marley's military. He is devoted entirely to Marley, using the Eldian soldiers under his command as expendable tools to achieve victory in various battles. However, he is also perceptive, choosing Warrior candidates based on evaluations of how their personalities and skills match up to their respective Titans, and working with Willy Tybur ahead of Tybur's speech at Liberio to secretly plan for Paradis' attack, which he and Tybur saw coming. During their discussions, he also showed some self-awareness about the cruelty of his actions, noting that he and Tybur were "devils'' as much as Paradis for foreseeing such an outcome and going through with it anyway. AfterZeke's betrayal of Marley, he called the Warriors together to tell them about a coming global alliance in order to fight Paradis in response to their attack, but Reiner called for them to retaliate sooner than the alliance can be formed in fear that Zeke's plan may be accounting for that delay.

Gabi Braun and Falco Grice

Gabi and Falco are Warrior Cadets, though while Gabi is the favorite to inherit the Armored Titan, Falco is not as suited toward combat and the stresses of war as she is. Gabi is fully indoctrinated into the Warrior lifestyle, admiring her cousin Reiner and desiring to become a Warrior herself in order to prove that not all Eldians are evil. Her feelings about this have only become more extreme since experiencing the raid on Liberio, during which she snuck aboard the Paradis airship with Falco and killed Sasha Braus. On the other hand, Falco is driven not by a sense of duty toward his country or people, but instead, a desire to protect Gabi from becoming a Warrior herself, egged on by Reiner.

Falco and Gabi were imprisoned upon arrival to Paradis but managed to trick a guard into opening their cell, incapacitating him and escaping confinement. On the run, they met a girl named Kaya, who lives with the Braus family alongside other orphans whose parents were killed by Titans. Meeting the kind Braus family and Kaya, who knows they are from Marley but doesn't tell the adults their secret, has begun causing a crisis of faith in Gabi, who is having her illusion of Paradis being filled with unrepentant devils shaken by these encounters. TheBraus family took Gabi and Falco to Nicolo's restaurant for a free meal, and Nicolo attacks the two upon finding out Gabi killed Sasha.

Wildcards

Zeke Jaegar

Zeke is the son of Grisha Jaegar and Dina Fritz, making him Eren's half-brother as well as a carrier of royal blood. His parents were Eldian Restorationists, and as a child he was sent by them to be a Warrior Cadet in order to spy on the Marleyan military. However, he was indoctrinated by Marley in that time, and the conflicting messaging from his parents and the military-led to him turning his parents over to the military for treason. He went on to become the head Warrior and wielder of the Beast Titan; years after the Warrior children were sent to Paradis to retrieve the Founding Titan, Zeke came to assist them, forcing them to abandon the incapacitated Annie and refocus their efforts on their original mission, until they are driven away in the Battle of Shiganshina District.

He continued acting as the Warrior Chief afterward until the raid on Liberio, which was actually the culmination of a plan between him and Paradis. Years earlier, Zeke sent Paradis a vague outline for a plan to liberate Paradis, including using a person with royal blood and Eren's Titan powers to activate "The Rumbling,"an awakening of the Titans in the walls, in order to deter other nations from attacking Paradis until their military is strong enough to enter the world stage. His betrayal complete, Zeke boarded the airship with the Paradisan soldiers, and on arrival, was taken to an undisclosed forest supervised by Levi and a select number of soldiers while the Paradis military decided whether to trust him or not.

Eren Jaegar

The protagonist of the series, Eren initially joined the Scout Regiment in order to take revenge on the Titans after the initial breach of Wall Maria by the Colossal Titan. Sometime between these events, his father Grisha Jaegar forcibly turned him into a Titan and had Eren eat him in order for Eren to inherit the Attack Titan and Founding Titan. Eren's sometimes unhinged anger caused him to be a problem child for the military, but his abilities in his Titan form proved to be invaluable to their success in the coming years, eventually leading to Paradis' discovery of the outside world and their current efforts to integrate themselves into the world as a fully-fledged nation.

Eren's unchecked feelings of anger and revenge only festered over his time in the military, though, and now he is acting seemingly without regard for the thoughts of his fellow soldiers and loved ones. He initiated the attack on Liberio himself after tricking young Falco into letting him meet Reiner, causing wanton destruction and the loss of many innocent lives. During the attack, Eren managed to eat Lara Tybur, giving him the power of the War Hammer Titan but failed to retrieve the other Titans before Paradis made its escape. Due to his unpredictable nature, and because of his connections to Zeke Jaegar and Yelena, Eren has been imprisoned by the Paradisan military, a largely symbolic act as Eren has stated he could easily escape if he desired with the combined powers of his Titans. During his imprisonment, Hange pointed out that Eren's actions in Marley have only made the world look with more bitterness toward Paradis, but Eren seems unfazed by this, seeing everyone outside Paradis as enemies that must be eliminated. Following Eren's arrest, Floch and the Jaegerists staged a coup and broke him out of jail in order to unite Eren and Zeke.

And there it is —every major character in Attack on Titan, their backstories, and where they currently stand in the ongoing conflict between Paradis, Marley, and even the rest of the world. Though most of them seem to have their allegiances spelled out, there are still mysteries to be had and tensions to be resolved - how do you think it will all shake out?

Is Zeke really fighting for Paradis, and to what lengths will Eren go for his people? Let us know what you think might happen in the comments below!

David Lynn can be found obsessing over Fate/Grand Order on Twitter @navycherub. Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll. Features!

By: David Lynn

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