R. A. Salvatore - Forgotten Realms - Homeland

 

Guess what? I got myself all the Legend of Drizzt books in the audiobook version. That's like... Almost forty books. I've read the first few a long time ago in Czech as actual books. Back then, I had no clue about audiobooks and they were not really common yet anyway. But now, I'm watching D&D on youtube and getting back into some other things, and voila. I feel like reading some Drizzt. So I got myself the whole collection and here we go. I usually listen to audiobooks while I'm at work. When I'm alone in the office. 

Drizzt is a dark elf - a drow. And he doesn't fit in. He has an actual functioning moral compass. The only other drow that has similar views and beliefs is his biological father, Zaknafein Do'Urden. Unfortunately, he dies at the end of the first book. Bummer. He's my second most favorite character. So, Drizzt learns how to fight from him, then learns other things from the academy. 

All in all, the whole first book is just showing us how Drizzt doesn't fit in the typical Drow society and how evil they actually are. Their goddess, the spider queen Loth, is pure evil. Honestly, I've always liked these books. Though, as I first read them in Czech, I keep thinking back to what the translation of certain names was and honestly, I mostly can't remember. 

Portrait

 

Just a little something I painted based on a D&D character from the Dungeonbreaker D&D group from Dicebreaker on youtube. 

~AnnElfwind

Written on the 22nd of January, 2021

Good? Bad? Dark? Light?

So, yesterday (or was it today?) I got the idea to rehash an old post. It talks about the difference between evil and darkness. And I went on a tangent there. One that really took away from the main idea of the post. So, before we get into it, I'll get that tangent out of the way. 

It talked about the elements and how I categorize them. Most people would think that there are four main elements. Well, in my opinion, that's just wrong. I say there are seven. And this way of thinking was heavily influenced by Naruto and even more by Dragon Fable. So, seven elements - Fire, Water, Air, Earth, Lightning, Light, and Darkness. Naruto also gave me the idea of secondary elements. And DragonFable gave me the idea of almost anything being an element. Considering they have elements like Void, Silver, ???, Ebil, and many others (Including Bacon). And this classification of elements is a big part of the reason why I don't consider evil the equivalent of Darkness. 

(We are not getting into the topic of Evil and Good being elements too!!! Blame that one on DragonFable!!!)

So, if Darkness is an element, how can it be the equivalent of evil? I mean, you can do as much evil with fire or lightning. I believe that all elements are, at their core, neutral. And it's up to the people who use them to decide if they are used for good or evil. And it's that way with everything. Nothing is, by itself, aligned to either good or bad. It's always the intention behind the use of objects (elements) that decides whether it's good or bad. 

To give a bit more real-world example. A Gun. It's just an object. It is neither good nor bad. Not by itself. But it can be used for both. And that is something that depends on the wielder. It can be used to murder someone. It can also be used to hunt and thus provide food for an otherwise starving family. 

It's not things/objects that are good/bad. It's actions. Most of the actions you do during your day can be classified as either good or bad. I'm not disputing the existence of a neutral action, but I also believe that a true neutral action is rare. 

Good and evil can't simply be classified as going either right or left and neutral straight ahead. There's no way that the paths are that simple. A lot of the time, you won't even know what alignment your actions actually have until much later. And while sometimes, it may seem or indeed even be that simple, again, I don't believe that this is the rule. More often than not, your actions will have ambiguous consequences instead of a clear alignment. 

And as much as we probably all want to do good instead of bad, I also think that this makes the world more interesting. The way it's not always black or white. The line is blurred. Always has been and always will be. 

As they say in stories, you can't have the good without the bad. Just make sure that if you're throwing a neutral into the mix as well, it's not a chaotic one. (Learned that one through D&D)

Well, that's about it. I'm not sure if I managed to stay on topic better this time, but at the same time, I think this is a bit more cohesive than the old post. And if nothing else, it's definitely longer and I consider that one a nice bonus. 

See you in the next post. 

~AnnElfwind

Written on the 24th of June, 2020

Oxventurers

Yup, Oxventurers. I love their streams. And I'm now a hardcore D&D fan. For those of you who don't know, D&D stands for Dungeons and Dragons. A paper and pen RPG played usually with a group of at least three where one of those is the Dungeon Master and therefore the Narrator. 

Or, as Johnny from Dicebreaker says, he's literally everyone else in the world. And he's the Dungeon Master for the Oxventurers. So he has to know, right? :D Well, okay. So, these guys, they normally run the Outside Xbox and Outside Xtra channels, but sometimes they, like every other Friday or so, play D&D with Johnny from Dicebreaker as DM. Or GM sometimes - stands for Game Master. I like DM better though. But it's essentially the same thing. 

I know very well that some of the D&D games can be really serious, but that's the fun thing about the Oxventurers. Their games can generally be described as chaos on crack. And I love it. It's always the highlight of my day when they play. My favorite so far was when they obtained the hammer with the sixty skeletons. Or, I love everything sans maybe the first three campaigns, as I didn't start from the beginning. 

So, apart from that, I love it. And how they derail their GM so badly all the time. Well, not all the time, but sometimes, it's really epic. I would very much like to tell you, but I just don't want to spoil anything. Really, if you like RPG and silly gamers, try it. Oh, but don't be a Dob. Which, you won't understand just yet, but I guarantee that after watching two or three oxventures, you will know. So, I said that Johnny from Dicebreaker is the DM and I think you can deduce that one of the Oxventurers is called Dob (Half-orc bard portrayed by Luke). Well, there is also Andy as Corazon, human pirate rouge, then Mike as the Dragonborn Paladin Egbert, then Ellen as Merilwen the wood-elf druid, sometimes bear, sometimes cat and sometimes a giant octopus. And the last one is Jane as Prudence the tiefling warlock who likes to solve most of the problems with Eldritch blasts. 

Yeah, weird bunch but it goes well together. 

Oh, I know which Oxventure is good! The one that became famous for Merilwen's Meat Grinder. Well, Corazon helped. With Grease. I know, it makes no sense, but you'll understand. Soon. If you watch it. 

I also recommend this video. It's Johnny confessing how the Oxventurers derailed him so far. It's great! It's funny! And it explains some of the things going on in the Oxventure D&Ds. 

I know I'm basically just singing praises here, but please hear me out. This is really great! It's funny, but at the same time, they can get serious in a tight spot. Sometimes. Not very often. It's still mostly chaos on crack. But it gets me laughing so hard tears are streaming out of my eyes. So, try it. Watch them. And if it's not to your liking, well, you tried. It's not like I'm gonna force you to watch them if D&D is not your thing, but if you don't know whether you like it or not, maybe consider giving it a try before you outright reject it? 

~AnnElfwind

Written on the 18th of July, 2020