Hello once more to my favorite collection of fleshbags! I'll admit right off the bat, I can't tell if I imagined, hallucinated or otherwise dreamed sharing some of these topics already, so I'm going to go on as if I have never spoken about them! First off, obligatory music section, spoilered for your convenience. [spoiler] PPC - Not even going to try with this one. Best psych rock this side of The Mollusk, though. Just look for [url=https://open.spotify.com/track/6e7LEf6iDAkshuWbpnqcKN?si=9882bdc8d4f24192]Hymn for a Droid[/url], Found God in a Tomato, or Nek instead of trying to decipher the band name. Whitechapel - Not a crazy recommendation, I know. Anyone interested in the death-adjacent scene has heard of them. Plenty of folks were pretty unimpressed (Though I love Kin and The Valley, Lovelace especially), but their newest album, [url=https://open.spotify.com/album/7lnkxd7w0YcE18CZ6COEJj?si=2ldsgYoOT7SIsXLcsvurCA]Hymns in Dissonance[/url], is much heavier, and a slightly different style. If you didn't like The Valley or Kin, try this one out. Reignwolf - Grungy blues rock? Maybe??? I dunno man, genres confuse me. Well, either way, they are a consistent go-to for me, usually right beside CRX and Tallah. Their angst is a lot quieter, more contemplative than Tallah, but they are still… “angstier” than CRX, so a nice middle ground. Maybe I’m geeked and just saying things, but I tend to liken them to Nirvana, at least I listen to both for similar reasons. Audioslave - Do I need to say anything? Just Soundgarden 2. Frankly, I prefer Audioslave. Conan - Some of the best sludge metal you'll find. Straight up. Somehow isn't even entirely about the devil's lettuce, like most Sludge "[b]also known as stoner metal for a reason[/b]" Metal. Their vocalist gives me chills. Check out [url=https://open.spotify.com/track/39CaPDt376foHcN84nE25v?si=e9c047a3b503490b]Volt Thrower[/url], PLEASE[/spoiler] I think that’s enough for now. Now for some characters. Yeah, original characters. The big O.C. I’ve a massive [url=https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PKaMgyzy1MpdXOOzSuv49S_djDhQWYUa2HTDwMIVEa4/edit?usp=sharing]REFERENCE[/url] document that I've retooled a few times. This has... maybe 2/3rds of all the characters should, but maybe more will come soon. Most importantly to me, though, is a couple of the characters specifically. This Reference is self-indulgent, by the way. It's really a document giving me easy access to look back and say "oh yeah, X did Y with Z, or A hates B" kinda thing. ANNO-DAEMONIS is a story I've decided would be best represented in comic/manga format. Graphic Novel, if you wanna be a tad prudish. I'm still fleshing out designs and character traits, 16 main characters is silly and frankly stupid for a main cast, though I'd likely only ever focus on 5, maybe 6 of the Sinners. Dante, if you couldn't tell, is my favorite, and the first one I concepted that started this whole mess. That is to say, I'm not likely ever going to create a graphic novel for these poor guys, I've not the time, talent, or time to develop the talent for something like that. I've also been considering a few DnD characters, who, by the nature of the game, are much more toned-down in scope compared to most of the characters on my Reference. Since they aren't on the reference, I'll give you a tidbit here. Leagus, the Foresworn, Warden of the All-Mother [spoiler] He's a hexblade warlock for abilities solely, I don't really care about the class' flavor. His God... wait, I appear to have forgotten her name. Oh well, All-Mother works well enough. She's the patron god of all carapaced creatures that walk the land, as the mother of the Bugs. Leagus is her Warden, an individual blessed with a large heaping of her power through special body modification (A quirk of the All-Mother that isn't super important right now, but almost all of her followers are missing some part of their body, which has been replaced by insectoid parts). He can summon and de-summon his right arm, as his right arm *is* the hexblade in question, and is able to manipulate the arm to cast spells. The arm has a vaguely insectoid shape (Think Queenie from HxH Chimera Ant arc, or dare I say, it Beru from *gag* Solo Levelling.) but is composed entirely of a magical ash. Not much else I wanna cover rn, just waiting for a good place to use this guy. Him being a previous noble who was banished from his house and now leads a minor cult I feel could create an interesting dynamic. [/spoiler] Twice-Dead, Unnamned Undead. [spoiler]The second character... isn't named. He has a weird thing with names. I was inspired by a Korean webcomic I was reading at the time (Corpse Knight Gunther), so this guy has several elements from Gunther's story. He is explicitly half-dragon. Not Dragonborn, Kobold, or what have you, but his Mother fell in love with a Dragon who was disguised as a human, and thus, he was born. His father was only around for about year before he disappeared, as he was, in fact, a DRAGON, and had Dragon things to do. When he was 14 he began to manifest some of his more beastly qualities, kinda like a -blam!- up -blam!-. For all intents and purposes, he is a dragonborn, but his nature as actually literally being Human/Dragon gives him some interplay between his inherent beastly instincts (brought out by his Barb/Paladin class) and his intelligent, human side. He died a century ago, his body only granted the honor of being buried in a tomb thanks to his Mother's status in a small nation of former criminals who all worship the same God of Forgiveness (All of this is worldbuilding that I did... a long time ago. Anyways, He's now undead, raised as a thrall (Oath of Devotion) to a young and upcoming noble's daughter. She is greatly hated by her cousins, so her only living family, a widower uncle and powerful sorcerer sacrificed his life to raise the most dangerous man he could think of, simultaneously binding that man's soul into a contract of Devotion to the Young Lady. In his life he was named the Once-Slain Gladiator (he was hung for a murder spree brought on by his Mother's death, survived just barely by his willpower), but now calls himself Twice-Dead. I had a bunch of reasons to characterize him this way. I wanted a character that was Undead, firstly, and I decided a half-dragon barb would serve well to fill the same role as Gunther. Secondly, I realized that him being raised again gives him a chance to be (previously) a powerful fighter who did many feats of strength, and even had folklore, but also not facing the "Powerful Hero- wait, he's level 1" Dilemma that some people fall into with these kinds of backstories. After all, all the training and strength he developed did not follow him into unlife. [/spoiler] I promise I tried to shorten those. I did try. Well, there's more characters in the depths there, alongside a half-finished conlang, magic system, and a couple worldbuilding notes. Lots of reading, so I don't expect a soul here to indulge my autistic obsessions, but... I mean, might as well put it out there, eh? I'd write up about a few more, just for the sake of it, but I gotta go to work... If you happen to have questions about these guys... feel free to ask 👀. Haha jk. Unless...?