As the hammerhead we were attached to pulled up faster than any organism of its size had any right to do, everyone in the cabin went from the weightless sensation of freefall, straight into an upward turn that easily exceeded ten Gs. From my kneeling position behind the pilot, this actually put a bit of strain on my posture, and I had to brace myself with a hand against the ground.
This also led me to consider the relationship between magic and these types of forces. I had an evolution ...
2025-05-12 15:19:51 +0000 UTC
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Hello there. Attached to this post is a PDF of v0.2 of the Delver TTRPG system. This update focuses on error corrections, but also includes a healthy chunk of new skills and evos. You can find more details in the patch notes below.
There were no significant updates to the crafting or enemy creation guides, so the most current version of those is still found in the v0.1 post in the TTRPG collection. The same is true for the character sheets and Level 1 adventure Tira's Workshop. Those wi...
2025-05-11 22:39:09 +0000 UTC
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Hi-res file is attached below.
Here's the final version of the first RR commission, which was everyone in the Closet in the style of cel-shading. After chatting a bit with the winner about it, since cel-shading is a somewhat broad category, I decided to go for a comic book style that I enjoy. The artist is Ezedisavino. If you like the style and are interested, you can find him on Fiverr.
As mentioned previously, I am trying to let the artists add their own interpretations to...
2025-05-08 04:59:14 +0000 UTC
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Captain Pio turned to her crew and started speaking in rapid-fire Imperial. “Baltae, Madel, you’re up,” she said. “Cezil, you’re ride-along.”
The team’s entire demeanor shifted in an instant, and they sprang into action as their captain gave them their orders. Madel and Baltae both started pulling armor and equipment from their inventories while Cezil and Guar moved to help them gear up. Pio turned back to Tavio, standing at attention and giving the major her full focus.
2025-05-07 20:54:41 +0000 UTC
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Before I could respond to the Littan mage, Cezil voiced the question I saw reflected in the expressions of the rest of her team.
“The fuck are you talking about, Baltae?” the red-eyed twin asked. There was a touch of exasperation to her tone, like she was hearing a bad joke one too many times. Even so, her posture had subtly changed in response to her ally’s tension, putting her more on balance.
She wasn’t the only one delicately reacting, either. Madel still appeared<...
2025-05-05 14:04:56 +0000 UTC
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Hello, I am alive.
Last week's shittery:
Last week was moving week and as expected it was more difficult than expected. Leasing company came in at the last possible second for us to move in to the new place on the last day of my lease at the old place, meaning we had to have everything prepped and ready to get done in a day.
That was met with mixed success and I've had to do a few runs to clean and get the last of my stuff from the old place before the landlord wants to d...
2025-05-04 22:47:50 +0000 UTC
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Tavio led me through a copse of trees that lined the edge of the small lake where we’d landed, then along the edge of a field of grain similar to wheat. The field’s edge ran up against the grounds of the nearby defensive fort, giving way to a low growth of vegetation that was kept short for a hundred yards around the fort itself.
A quarter mile further was the mew, which was our general destination, whereupon Tavio took me to the base of one of the hammerhead perches. Looking up, I ...
2025-04-29 06:04:09 +0000 UTC
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If you haven't noticed, I'm absolutely terrible at estimating how long something will take me. "Yeah, that'll take me 4 hours" (takes 16). "Oh, I can get there in 6 chapters" (takes 12). "I can get edited character sheets out in a couple of days" (takes 2 weeks).
Anyway, here's character sheets for the party as of Delver Level 16!
SPOILER WARNING: I've done my best to remove anything that is major spoiler-y, but there's definitely some stuff in here that hasn't hi...
2025-04-26 06:36:26 +0000 UTC
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“Want to do the honors?” I asked Xim. The cleric flashed me a smile, then uncrossed her legs and leaned forward.
“Hmm, where should I start?” she said, tapping a finger against her chin. She paused and locked eyes with Baltae, then with Pio. “Okay, I got it.” She scooched forward an inch, while both Baltae and Pio leaned forward slightly to mirror her posture.
“We were on our way to rescue the king of Hiward from the clutches of an evil avatar named Hysteria, when we...
2025-04-25 18:32:53 +0000 UTC
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Our meeting was briefly interrupted by a soft knock, and a messenger appeared to let us know our falcon was ready. Tavio quickly outlined some of the suggested skill levels for the combat areas they’d discovered, which were mainly in the 40 to 70 range.
“And after that?” I asked. Everything on the map beyond the combat zone had no labels at all.
“We will have to discover for ourselves,” said Tavio, looking quite excited at the prospect.
Varrin leaned forward to pee...
2025-04-23 05:23:33 +0000 UTC
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Vote for the commission you'd like to see!
Option 1 submitted by McIntosh Ewell
Option 2 submitted by Retroburn
Option 3 submitted by Forrest McLaren
Voting will close Wednesday, April 23 at 11 pm EST (GMT-4)
2025-04-21 03:37:13 +0000 UTC
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“Right,” I said. “Is this Dungeon the entire Less-Than-Habitable Forest?”
Tavio paused with his mouth open, then grinned and nodded. “It is, yes. The Forest has always been an area of significant mana concentration. It is not much of a surprise that phase two designated the entire area as a Dungeon.”
Tavio stood and produced a large linen map of the southern half of the empire, then placed it against the wall. A hint of mana ran through the thick paper, and the map hel...
2025-04-20 21:32:25 +0000 UTC
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While my confidence in the cosmological integrity of our local reality was eroding by the day, my confidence that I’d done everything I could to be as strong as possible when heading into this team-up with the Littans was pretty good. I opened the portal to the Littan fortress in Eschendur, proud of how much I’d accomplished.
The moment I stepped through and saw both Major Tavio and Captain Pio there to greet us, something about how clean and professional the pair of them looked tic...
2025-04-20 03:43:14 +0000 UTC
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During the time between meeting the Dragons and hanging out with the Littans, I had enough time to ask the Dread Star several questions. Eleven, specifically, and I’d been willing to throw my brain in that cosmic blender as frequently as necessary to get the info we needed. Most of the questions were even relevant to our main problem, which made me proud of my resistance to the temptation of that sweet forbidden knowledge. I’d always wanted to know how many turtles there were and how far ...
2025-04-17 01:41:19 +0000 UTC
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Sometimes, evolutions presented one obvious choice. Other times, they were three different flavors of the same thing. Even when all three options were unique, the power boost wasn’t significant enough alone to feel like I was giving too much up by choosing one over another. Fortitude 70 was none of those things.
Each option was strong enough to become a centerpiece of my build; they represented three distinct progression paths, and I loved each of them like the children I’d never ha...
2025-04-13 07:41:05 +0000 UTC
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While we finished all the other crap we needed to take care of, the party never stopped prepping for our expedition with the Littans. With a little less than three months left, we still needed to snag three more Levels. We’d viewed this as a fairly trivial task, but had forgotten one important detail about an evolution I’d recently picked up.
Heavenly Gates
The Dread Star blesses your travel through the in-between. Your portals and teleports bec...
2025-04-11 21:26:17 +0000 UTC
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I would have said forming a diplomatic treaty in what was essentially a VIP room at an extraordinarily exclusive dance club was an odd sort of affair, but it didn’t even make the top three for weird shit that week. Ishi was very professional, and even when a dozen of Etja’s new friends joined us in our private room, she didn’t let it distract her one bit. In fact, she was able to subtly guide my attention back to where it needed to be every time my own focus drifted to one or more of th...
2025-04-11 00:35:45 +0000 UTC
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“We do not know why the System stopped us from leaving,” said Hep. “But we have some theories. Maybe it believes we are too useful to lose, an irreplaceable tool against the avatars. Perhaps it tries to prevent anyone from permanently leaving the planet, creating a sort of quarantine. Maybe it’s just pissed off that we kept interfering with its business and wants to watch us suffer.”
Hep kept going, laying out more ideas for why and how the System had kept them in Arz...
2025-04-09 18:31:09 +0000 UTC
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“Our sleep was shorter this time,” Hep continued. “I can’t give you an exact figure, but when Violet was awoken by a rich spiritual presence emanating from the planet, I felt that our nap had been perhaps two-thirds of what it had been the prior generation. Silver transported us back, where we were dismayed to find half the surface still ruined by the mana eruption. We also found that the System had been even more active in reseeding the surface this go-around.
“The habitable ...
2025-04-09 07:07:01 +0000 UTC
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Hey folks!
Please comment any ideas you'd like to see for the second Patreon art commission under this post! This week we have a theme, which is DOUBLES. What does that mean? I leave it up to you.
Submissions will be open until Sunday at 11 PM EDT (GMT-4).
Prior ideas from last post are fair game if I see one that fits, but priority will be given to comments under this post.
COMMENT YOUR IDEAS BELOW!
Edit: I'd included...
2025-04-08 20:04:45 +0000 UTC
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Emergency Shit
We have dropped out of red alert status! We're going to have to keep a close eye on some stuff for the new few months, but things are as good as they can be for the moment. Thanks for everyone's understanding and well-wishes, it means a lot.
Writing Shit
Oddly enough, I did a bunch of stress writing to take my mind off of things which means I didn't actually fall that far behind? Trust me, I wasn't doing it because I felt obligated to, the energy needed to...
2025-04-08 05:57:55 +0000 UTC
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I wrote a whole post with a bunch of dark humor, then deleted it all. Short version: After an entire shit-ass week some MORE bullshit happened and I was with a family member in the ER all fucking night. We're fine for now, and things look okay, but the situation is also being closely monitored.
My stress levels are HIGH, my productivity is LOW. Chapters will be on pause for at least a few more days. I'll probably be pausing RR as well in the near future. I'll drop another update early ...
2025-04-05 09:52:14 +0000 UTC
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A plume of smoke escaped Hep’s nostrils, curling up into a cloud near the ceiling high above us. “Thank you for your moderation, Gold,” he said. “We will revisit each question in detail.”
The other Rulers seemed amicable to Hep’s suggestion, and what followed was two hours of compelling narrative exposition, provided with cunning clarity, eloquent oration, and premium levels of emotional appeal.
I let Etja do the talking, of course. Despite my aptitude for dramaturgy, ...
2025-04-02 05:33:54 +0000 UTC
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Vote on what you'd like to see get made! Poll will be open until Sunday April 6, 11 pm EDT
There's a character limit on poll options so I've had to simplify some.
2025-04-02 01:18:53 +0000 UTC
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Hey folks,
My landlord has decided to sell the house I'm living in so the wife and I had to waste a bunch of time figuring out housing last week. They let the lease lapse and we were on month-to-month so they gave us the notice we were supposed to get. It's irritating but nothing nefarious or predatory. They have a good reason for needing to sell as well.
I probably should have moved as soon as they didn't get back to me about a new lease, but moving fucking sucks so I was ridin...
2025-04-01 17:52:56 +0000 UTC
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After I asked for Xim’s whereabouts, the middle throne began to shudder. Its ornate surface bulged and morphed to a crystalline substance, the center shaping itself into a humanoid form. Soon, a woman who looked like she was cut from a thirty-foot-high lapis lazuli sat on the throne with her legs crossed, gazing down at us. Behind her was a brilliant halo that made my eyes water to look upon.
Several attendants entered the room carrying satchels and stoneworking tools, but the halo be...
2025-03-31 05:14:24 +0000 UTC
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Hey folks!
As part of the launch rewards for book 1, I'm getting 3 art commissions done based on YOUR ideas.
Royal Road's ideas:
Royal Road has gone through two rounds (poll is still open for week 2, but unless some comeback happens the winner is probably the one in the lead). They've also begun submitting ideas for week three, so we've got a good idea of what all is going to be showing up from their end.
Week 1 (confirmed) - Fortune's Folly members (including Shog ...
2025-03-26 17:17:08 +0000 UTC
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***
SYSTEM ADDENDUM ADDED BY: USER NAME [Ruler 5]
***
“That bad, huh?” said Xim to a now empty tunnel. She came to a stop, looked left, then right, then up. Arlo’s advice about looking up almost never mattered, but sometimes it did.
This was not one of those times. The ceiling was still there, five feet above her, but everyone else had disappeared.
“And the entrance is gone,” she said to the air ...
2025-03-26 01:19:13 +0000 UTC
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Ishi laid down fire on me like a battleship, lobbing massive AoE attacks from her bows, wand, and staff. I dodged the first volley with Shortcut, taking me the rest of the way towards the tunnel’s edge. I positioned myself so that my orbiting hammers began colliding with the wall, and all twenty crashed into it in a tight grouping.
Each hammer activated a shaped Oblivion Orb, which skewered the wall with a thirty-foot beam of spiraling eradication. I felt a force wrap around my body l...
2025-03-25 00:53:33 +0000 UTC
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The princess let out a very un-princess-like swear as the world turned ninety degrees from her point of view, accompanied by an arrow in the back. The spell on the arrow activated, creating a spatial distortion that twisted in on itself and tried to compress its contents into a space the size of a small marble. The effect traveled with Ishi as she careened towards the ground.
The princess spun and slowed just in time to make a sloppy superhero landing, cracking stone and kicking up plum...
2025-03-24 19:01:40 +0000 UTC
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