Doctor, It's Chronic. Maybe Even Infectious ':/

me: if I become the evil overlord I will never harm my minions

[5 years later]

highly throwable imp: hoohoohee

me: hmm

Me thinking about going for another ride right after water tubing

OC commission I did for a friend of mine. Has inspirations from their main FFXIV character, with filled out traits from what they wanted me to write for a D&D campaign I DM'd for them. I'll link their edits with additional BGs in replies.

Another worldbuilding application of the "two layer rule": To create a culture while avoiding The Planet Of Hats (the thing where a people only have one thing going for them, like "everyone wears a silly hat"): You only need two hats.

Try picking two random flat culture ideas and combine them, see how they interact. Let's say taking the Proud Warrior Race - people who are all about glory in battle and feats of strength, whose songs and ballads are about heroes in battle and whose education consists of combat and military tactics. Throw in another element: Living in diaspora. Suddenly you've got a whole more interesting dynamic going on - how did a people like this end up cast out of their old native land? How do they feel about it? How do they make a living now - as guards, mercenaries? How do their non-combatants live? Were they always warrior people, or did they become fighters out of necessity to fend for themselves in the lands of strangers? How do the peoples of these lands regard them?

Like I'm not shitting, it's literally that easy. You can avoid writing an one-dimensional culture just by adding another equally flat element, and the third dimension appears on its own just like that. And while one of the features can be location/climate, you can also combine two of those with each other.

Let's take a pretty standard Fantasy Race Biome: The forest people. Their job is the forest. They live there, hunt there, forage there, they have an obnoxious amount of sayings that somehow refer to trees, woods, or forests. Very high chance of being elves. And then a second common stock Fantasy Biome People: The Grim Cold North. Everything is bleak and grim up there. People are hardy and harsh, "frostbite because the climate hates you" and "stabbed because your neighbour hates you" are the most common causes of death. People are either completely humourless or have a horrifyingly dark, morbid sense of humour. They might find it funny that you genuinely can't tell which one.

Now combine them: Grim Cold Bleak Forest People. The summer lasts about 15 minutes and these people know every single type of berry, mushroom and herb that's edible in any fathomable way. You're not sure if they're joking about occasionally resorting to eating tree bark to survive the long dark winter. Not a warrior people, but very skilled in disappearing into the forest and picking off would-be invaders one by one. Once they fuck off into the woods you won't find them unless they want to be found.

You know, Finland.

It was especially funny since I was very verbally excited and invested in the segments that @fru1tycak3 had had the most friction with.

No major spoilers: the unit-control segment near the beginning was a pretty fun switch up and was really neat in how it contextualized the way Corpus military works. The stealth segments were a blast, and Fru1ty told me I got through the most frustrating parts much smoother than their experience. The stuff I struggled most with was the railjack segments, because I strongly felt like the feedback I was being provided to in completing objectives was unclear.

I really loved the way everything came together by the end, and the experience was really cool. Very much made appreciate the highs of the pre-2022 Warframe experience, as well as highlight the things in the game that don't resonate with me.

Just spent most of the night watching @mintyfreshka play through The New War quest in Warframe, mostly to share in the frustration. He had gone through the Sacrifice the night earlier, watching him really getting thrown by the Umbra encounters foreshadowing what would come in The New War. Although, to my surprise, it went much differently for him. That is, having frustrations in completely opposite places.

It is still the perfect example of what a mixed experience is; amazing concepts marred by bad execution. Pre-2022 Quest Design is an exercise in frustration where your reward is being able to with your Warframe and Weapons.

always go for the head

any tips 4 art

Just now realizing that you listed your species in your bio and I love that for you! Pray tell, what breed of clown might you be? Sorry if this is too personal!

Not too personal at all!

I'm actually a half-breed. My father was a Therapeutic Clown, and mother was a theatrically trained Red-Nose Clown. In the end I inherited the friendly shape and calm demeanor of my dad, as well as the jovial laugh and sort of tongue-in-cheek sense of humor from my mom.

Illustration below-

Hermit crab, but it’s a soul that moves to bigger and bigger discarded bodies as it grows