And now I can add "catcalled by a student" to the list of indignities and harassment I have dealt with this school year as a trans public high school teacher.

I am so sick of this

That sucks. Sorry to know that.

Gotta love how cats can make themselves comfortable pretty much everywhere. XD

Sahkil, Penqual

Image © Paizo Publishing, accessed at Archives of Nethys here

[Sponsored by @justicegundam82. The penqual fits in with the tumblak as PF2E sahkils that are a bunch of humanoids squished together. As such, and because their foci (claustrophobia and agoraphobia) are often seen as "opposites", I wanted the flavor text to include some reference to them both. The original stats make them a Huge swarm of Medium creatures; troop rules didn't exist in PF2e yet, but that seems like the logical mechanical niche in both editions.]

Sahkil, Penqual CR 15 NE Outsider (extraplanar) This seething mass consists of a mob of humanoid figures. Each of them is subtly disturbing in appearance—they have dead black eyes, no noses or mouths, and their fingers and toes are long talons. The mob moves as a single unit.

Penquals are sahkils that represent agoraphobia and the fear of crowds. Although they resemble a mass of separate humanoid figures, each penqual is indeed a single entity, their bodies held together with thin fleshy appendages like umbilical cords. They tend to wear clothes and disguise themselves as a group of mundane humanoids when hunting on the Material Plane. Penqual attacks tend to focus around festivals, markets and other places where crowds gather, where the monsters can mingle unnoticed while on the search for those who are already showing signs of discomfort and anxiety. Penquals and tumblaks, the sahkils of claustrophobia, view each other as rivals, and debate the relative merits of confined versus open spaces in causing dread.

Penquals do not bother with individual attacks, instead attempting to devastate all opponents in their reach with a flurry of claws and fists. Their look of fear renders creatures slowed in addition to afraid, and penquals delight in prolonging a futile chase for a few rounds before grabbing an enemy and tearing them apart. Penquals enjoy making people edgy and uncomfortable in addition to overwhelming them with terror. A penqual might use nightmare and antipathy spells to stoke tensions for days or weeks before a scheduled mass gathering, where they abandon subtlety and indulge to bloody violence.

EXACTLY what do these Sakura stans want?!

They just can’t get it through their thick heads that Sakura is literally the most useless female lead out of the main Shounen girls.

She’s NOT useful like Nami who basically drives the plot by not getting the straw hats lost.

She doesn’t even heal as well as Orihime who can literally bring characters back from the dead! SHE WOULD’VE SAVED NEJI!

Like stop setting yourselves up if you can’t handle the truth 😆

Sakura can NEVER compete with my orange princesses 🥰💕

Orihime isn't exactly an high bar to clear...

DON’T Stand With Them: Part 3

Name: Paul (Jp: Shinji)

Series: Pokemon Diamond/Pearl

Description: A stone-faced, cold-hearted young Pokemon trainer who seeks power at all costs, is utterly ruthless in his training and battle methods, and will abuse or throw away any “weak” Pokemon that fails to meet his standards.

So why do people “stand with him”?

Continua a leggere

Sounds like major claptrap to me. What are they going to do, ask everyone if they are Sakura fans, and forbid them from partecipating if they are? XD

It’s funny to contrast for magical girl animes the rival is just like kinda rude and tsundere-ish and sometimes not even consistently to everyone and just only towards the protagonist specifically but overall a good person

while in shonen animes the rival regularly is like a genocidal war criminal but he’s chill now OKAY lmao

I just think it’s a REALLY funny contrast🤣

Except that Vegeta is like, a hundred times better written than Sasuke. Sorry not sorry

Mind Flayer, General Information

"Elder Brain Variant" © Wizards of the Coast, by Nino Is. Accessed at Art of MtG here

[While the OGL 1.1 debacle was going on, I said that I was going to keep my distance with Wizards' IP for a while. Why the change? Well, Wizards accidentally (on purpose?) released a bunch of previously Product Identity monsters into the Creative Commons, including the mind flayers. And I had been contemplating the illithidae as my next D&D monster project for a while, since I was commissioning art for the modron hierarchs.

My take on the mind flayers is going to be, like many of my versions of D&D monsters, somewhat iconoclastic. Namely, I don't like the elder brain very much. At least, not as they are typically interpreted, as the masters of a hivemind of unquestioningly obeying illithids. That makes the basic illithid into a minion and a drone. The combination of controlled by elder brains and the ever-increasing emphasis on ceremorphosis makes the mind flayers feel like the Borg. Which is less interesting than the original 70s and 80s version, where it was a species made up entirely of evil masterminds. I want to re-inject some of the respect for the normal illithids into this version.

My flavor text draws inspiration from all of the various mind flayer interpretations that have come before. A major source of inspiration was "The Sunset World", an article from Dragon 150. The various creeds were a big deal in 2e, as illithids played major roles in both Planescape and Spelljammer, but have been all but forgotten since them. I'm ignoring the time travel element from 3.5's Lords of Madness, but I am using their interpretation of mind flayer emotions. I am also finally giving them a mechanical weakness to bright lights, which somehow has been flavor only for the last 47 years.]

Mind Flayer The mind flayers are a species of hyper-intelligent, imperialist aliens that view other creatures as slaves and cattle. Their empire spans over dozens of planets, but is currently in something of a declining period due to slave revolts, conflict with the Dominion of the Black and other misfortune. Mind flayers are known for their decentralized organization and various means of travel and conquest. Some use spaceships, but most travel from planet to planet using the Astral and Shadow Planes as corridors. The mind flayers hate bright light, and the late stages of their planetary conquests include changing the atmosphere or stars of planets in order to reduce their illumination to a comforting red hue. The hub of their empire, although it is likely not their home world, is Ssirik-Akuar, the Sunset World.

As the name suggests, mind flayers use mind-influencing magic to control their enemies and allies alike. But they are also avid consumers of brains. A mind flayer can survive on an omnivorous diet of meat, fungi and plants, but grows listless and unhealthy if it does not regularly consume the brains of sapient creatures. A mind flayer can inject its tentacles straight into the brains of its victims, pithing them. Most of the time, this brain-dead individual’s brain is consumed by that mind flayer, but pithed victims are required for the mind flayer’s bizarre reproductive cycle.

What are thought by some to be different species of mind flayers are in fact different stages in a complex life cycle. The most commonly encountered mind flayers, illithids, are the equivalent of males. The elder brains that illithid colonies gather around are the equivalent of females. Illithids periodically fertilize the elder brain’s eggs, and the elder brain lives in a pool of slime crawling with mind flayer tadpoles. Illithids insert these tadpoles into the pithed body of a Medium-sized, mammalian humanoid in order to allow their young to reach maturity. Inside a host body, the tadpole insinuates into the remaining nervous system and eventually replaces its tissues like a cancer, transforming the body into an illithid. A few tadpoles, fed special enzymes by the elder brain, grow into ulitharids instead. An ulitharid is essentially an immature elder brain that spends decades learning as much as it can and coordinating the efforts of illithids before metamorphosing into a new elder brain. Most mind flayers do not concern themselves with matters of gender, and most of their bodies have lost the secondary sexual characteristics of their former lives.

Mind flayers are supremely arrogant, and their interactions with other species are usually exploitative and predatory. They present themselves as being without emotion, but in truth they are capable of regulating their emotions more directly than other creatures by consciously releasing chemicals. An illithid’s emotions are typically disdain, spite, arrogance and a lust for power. They rationalize their fears as concern and self-preservation. Almost all mind flayers consider themselves part of one or more “creeds”, which are philosophical callings that influence how mind flayers pursue their goals of conquest and consumption. Mind flayers do not discriminate between sources of power, and arcane, divine and occult magic, as well as alchemy, are common pursuits.

Mind Flayer Deities The primary god of the mind flayers is Ilsensine, the God Brain. Mind flayers consider Ilsensine to have been the first elder brain. According to the Venerator Creed, Ilsensine’s priesthood, when an elder brain dies, its knowledge passes to Ilsensine. Ilsensine’s unholy symbol is a green brain with two tentacles, and its favored weapon is the tentacle. Those few worshipers of Ilsensine that aren’t mind flayers treat unarmed strikes as their favored weapon. Ilsensine is lawful evil, and their domains are Charm, Evil, Knowledge, Law and Magic. Ilsensine’s subdomains are Hatred, Memory, Slavery, Thought and Tyranny. A cleric of Ilsensine can use the Hatred subdomain to modify the Evil domain.

A recent emergence in mind flayer culture is the rise of the Creed of Thoon. Thoon is a mysterious entity associated with the Plateau of Leng. Thoon’s followers are devoted to violent expansion, extracting vital essences from their victims along with brains and harnessing them into strange constructs that blur the line between living and non-living. Thoon’s unholy symbol is a complex rune made of tentacles, and its favored weapon is a heavy flail. Thoon is neutral evil, and its domains are Artifice, Evil, Madness and War. Thoon’s subdomains are Alchemy, Construct, Nightmare and Tactics.

Mind Flayer Mechanics “Mind flayer” is a subtype of the aberration type, with the following characteristics:

Reblogging this because I thought it'd be ideal to present my next conversion. I hope @thecreaturecodex won't mind.

Anyway, since we're talking about old D&D glories, here is a conversion for the Mind Flayer Vampire! Hope you guys enjoy! ^^

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MIND FLAYER VAMPIRE

Image (c) Jim Nelson from Lords of Madness: The Book of Aberrations

MIND FLAYER VAMPIRE CR 9 CE Undead

This nightmarish thing is a hunched, grey-skinned humanoid wearing nothing but tattered rags. Its bloated head features four overlong tentacles where its mouth should be, and its blank eyes burn with feral hunger.

Mind Flayer Vampire         CR 9 XP 6’400 CE Medium Undead Init +9; Senses darkvision 60 ft., see in darkness; Perception +18

Defense AC 23, touch 16, flat-footed 17 (+5 Dex, +1 dodge, +7 natural) hp 13d8+39 plus 13 (115 hp) Fort +7, Ref +9, Will +11; +4 vs. emotion Damage Reduction 10/silver; Resist cold 10, electricity 10; Immune undead traits; Spell Resistance 24 Defensive Abilities affectless, channel resistance +2 Weakness light blindness, sunlight vulnerability

Offense Speed 30 ft., climb 20 ft. Melee slam +16 (1d6+7 plus energy drain), tentacles +14 (4d4+3 plus grab) Special Attacks energy drain (slam, 2 levels, DC 19), mind blast, pith (tentacle)

Statistics Str 24, Dex 21, Con -, Int 6, Wis 17, Cha 16 Base Atk +9; CMB +16; CMD 31 Feats Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Improved Initiative, Multiattack, Power Attack, Stealthy, Toughness Skills Acrobatics +18, Climb +15, Escape Artist +8, Perception +18, Stealth +20; Racial Modifiers +4 Perception, +4 Stealth Languages Aklo, Qualith, Undercommon (cannot speak); telepathy 100 ft.

Ecology Environment any underground Organization solitary Treasure none

Special Abilities Affectless (Ex): A vampiric mind flayer gains a +4 racial bonus on all saving throws against emotion effects

Mind Blast (Su): As a standard action, a vampiric mind flayer can create a 60 foot cone of mental energy. All creatures in the area must succeed a DC 19 Will save or be stunned for 3d4 rounds. A creature that is stunned may attempt to recover from this condition as a full-round action with an additional DC 19 Will save. Mind flayers are immune to the effects of a mind blast. A vampiric mind flayer can use a mind blast three times per day, and must wait 1d4 rounds between uses. This is a mind-influencing effect, and the save DC is Charisma based.

Pith (Ex): A vampiric mind flayer can make a coup de grace attempt as a full round action without provoking attacks of opportunity against a helpless or pinned opponent. The coup de grace must be made with its tentacles. This coup de grace does not function against creatures that have no head or no brain, and creatures with multiple heads are not killed if they fail the save (although that head is no longer functional).

Sunlight Vulnerability (Ex): A vampiric mind flayer exposed to direct sunlight is staggered on the first round of exposure as well as suffering the effects of its light blindness weakness. It is utterly destroyed on the second consecutive round of exposure unless it manages to escape.

The existence of vampiric mind flayers is an enigma that baffles and frustrates most students of the arcane as well as the mind flayers themselves. Nothing is known about the circumstances that lead to their creation, though it is known that they are not derived from vampires feeding on mind flayers. It is therefore assumed that these undead mind flayers constitute a unique form of undead. For their part, living mind flayers consider their vampiric kin an abomination and will go out of their way to destroy them by any means necessary.

A vampiric mind flayer is mostly a feral, unthinking beast. The process that turns them into undead wreaks havoc on their intellects, reducing their towering geniuses to little more than the instinct to hunt and kill. Though, as an undead, the vampiric mind flayer doesn't need to feed, it is nonetheless possessed by an inescapable craving for brains, which it tries to slake upon any kind of creature it comes across. Fortunately, vampiric mind flayers are solitary, as they usually see their undead kin as competition and try to drive them away or destroy them anytime they meet.

Vampiric mind flayers are patient and tireless hunters, willing to stalk their prey for days on end in order to feed on their grey matter. In combat, they rely on their mind blast to lock enemies in place, and weave in and out of battle to keep the opposition on the defensive. They will attempt to separate a group of enemies and pick them off one by one, but once the battle is joined, they will fight ferociously, and almost always until destroyed.

Demon Lord, Orcus

Image © TSR Inc, by Todd Lockwood.

[Sponsored by @tar-baphon. Orcus is one of the iconic D&D villains, and through the SRD and plausible deniability (he's a Roman god!), he's in Pathfinder as well. In Pathfinder, he is deliberately not a power player, and my flavor text takes that already metatextual decision and runs hog wild with it.

A note on the art: I feel like Orcus is emblematic of when D&D was seen as dangerous, and this piece absolutely feels like it should be the cover of a Black Sabbath album. It's no surprise that I was fascinated with the anti-D&D strain of the Satanic Panic when I was a kid. Also, although there has been some course correction in the 5e era, there's a trend with Orcus in a lot of art, including his official Pathfinder depiction, of making Orcus buff. Let Orcus be fat!]

Demon Lord, Orcus CR 28 CE Outsider (extraplanar) This humanoid is a corpulent giant with skin mottled like a decaying corpse. He has great black bat-wings growing from his shoulders, hooves for feet, and the head of a goat. He clutches a short staff, tipped with an oversized human skull.

Orcus, Prince of Undeath CE male demon lord of death, necromancy and wrath Domains  Chaos, Death, Evil, Magic Subdomains Demon, Divine, Murder, Undead Favored Weapon heavy mace Unholy Symbol a goat’s head with curving horns Worshipers liches, necromancers, sapient undead Minions boneclaws, deathdrinkers, demons, other undead For information on his Obedience and boons for his worshipers, see Book of the Damned

Orcus is one of the most powerful demon lords in the Universe. But not on Golarion. On that world, his is one of a number of undead cults, and not nearly the most popular. Orcus has a clear hierarchy to what undead he considers truly worthy, with those created from contagion seen as inferior to accident, and those inferior to those who intentionally seek out undeath. His most dedicated worshippers on Golarion are liches, some of whom have learned the secret of crafting a phylactery by teasing apart the Prince of Undeath’s wisdom from his threats. The followers of many other undead-focused religions, particularly vampires and ghouls, see Orcus as pretentious and unworthy of dedication, although few are foolish enough to directly oppose him.

Orcus himself knows that his star has fallen. In his extensive research into planar lore, Orcus has learned that he was once the most feared being in another universe, who went on a killing spree that left several gods dead and an entire race of lawful outsiders duped into being his pawns. That Orcus cannot accomplish this level of power in this version of reality vexes and frustrates him, and he takes his rage out on his minions as much as he does his foes.

Orcus is a genius tactician, although his temper sometimes gets the better of him. He enjoys combat as a distraction from his cosmic-level sulk, and as a way of expressing his power over others. He typically opens combat with a time stop to summon allies and cast defensive spells on himself, and then unleashes a potent death effect as soon as the duration expires. Against creatures that can resist his negative energy and poison, he uses dispelling magic. On more than one occasion, Orcus has beaten a cocky archmage to a pulp by centering an antimagic field on himself and wading into combat.

Orcus in the Great Game Orcus’ response to the brewing theomachy between Mormo and Lamashtu is cautious optimism. He desires more power in the Abyss, and Lamashtu could open the door for him to seize it. Kabriri and Zura are at the top of Orcus’ hit list, but views a direct assault on them as currently too risky to be worth the effort. If one of them were to make a move against Lamashtu and be punished for it, or if they were struck down in the scramble for power following Lamashtu’s (theoretical) demotion or demise, Orcus would happily swoop in to finish them off.  And if Mormo is capable of legitimately slaying a god, Orcus will be very keen to study her techniques.

Wand of Orcus (major artifact) The Wand of Orcus is the Prince of Undeath’s scepter of office, and it never leaves his side. Lesser versions have appeared in the Material Plane, often created by Orcus or one of his high-level clerics. The real Wand of Orcus is a Huge +5 anarchic, unholy heavy mace. In the hands of a demon, it grants a +4 profane bonus to Armor Class. The first time the Wand of Orcus strikes a living creature in a round, that creature is subject to a slay living spell (DC 30). Weight 24 lbs.; CL 25th

I LOVE YOU FOR THIS! :D

Oh, and also thank @tar-baphon on my part!

State of the Codex March 2024

It is not a secret that I have had a bad year.

I am a school teacher. And a trans woman. This is my first year using she/her pronouns full time in the classroom, after a multi-year period of social transitioning. It has put a target on my back.

Over the course of this year, one period in particular has been a wellspring of hate. Homophobia, transphobia, racism and sexism. Not all of it directed at me personally, but a barrage of students showing over and over again that they are hateful and that they want me to know it.

Administration has gotten involved. Multiple students have been transferred out, but it feels like playing Bigot Whack-a-Mole. And now that the students know that they're under scrutiny, they've gotten subtler. Today someone left me a message. Subtle enough that it has plausible deniability, targeted enough that I know that someone intended for me to find it, and to know that they think of me as a man. I have my suspicions, but I don't know who did it. I feel gaslit, emotionally abused. I don't feel safe.

Someone else is going to be teaching that period for the rest of the year. They succeeded in chasing me out. I am exhausted and relieved.

And would like to know that I am loved.

Please, reblog and comment on monsters you like. Leave nice things in the tags. Send a friendly ask. If you want to make a material contribution, go to the support page. I want to feel like I'm valued and supported right now, because I have spent the last six months feeling like the wrong kind of monster.

Thank you

The messages of support, acceptance and love that I got from this post were wonderful. It has been a long and a hard year, but I know that it will be getting better from this point. And it was so lovely to hear from everyone from people I consider friends to first-time followers!

Thank you all so much.

You are most welcome. :)

“Why are so many trans girls into werewolves and robots and slime and monsters?”

Because society views us as monsters. And when you’re viewed that way you have two options.

The first, you can break yourself. You can take a knife and carve off all the corners, take sandpaper and smooth all your rough edges, you can take everything remotely variant about you and you can try and obliterate it in order to make yourself acceptable to people who do not know you and never will.

The second option is that you can say “okay, if I’m a monster I’m going to enjoy being a monster. I’m going to take those rough edges and rough them up some more. I’m going to take all my sharp corners and make them knife edged. I’m going to embrace how weird and broken and fucked up I am and I’m going to make it a part of me. I’m going to love, fight, live, and die as a freak, but I’m going to do it on my terms and no one else’s”

I’m never going to be cis. I’m never going to be straight. In fact I’d rather die than be either of those. So I’m going to take what I am and make it my power instead of my shame.

Never capitulate my friends. Resist and bite, be yourself forever. Sawing your edges off only makes you bleed, if someone loves you they'll love you and your edges. For every person that shuns you for it, there's someone covered in edges that loves you for it. I love you, edges and all. Please never hide them.

State of the Codex March 2024

It is not a secret that I have had a bad year.

I am a school teacher. And a trans woman. This is my first year using she/her pronouns full time in the classroom, after a multi-year period of social transitioning. It has put a target on my back.

Over the course of this year, one period in particular has been a wellspring of hate. Homophobia, transphobia, racism and sexism. Not all of it directed at me personally, but a barrage of students showing over and over again that they are hateful and that they want me to know it.

Administration has gotten involved. Multiple students have been transferred out, but it feels like playing Bigot Whack-a-Mole. And now that the students know that they're under scrutiny, they've gotten subtler. Today someone left me a message. Subtle enough that it has plausible deniability, targeted enough that I know that someone intended for me to find it, and to know that they think of me as a man. I have my suspicions, but I don't know who did it. I feel gaslit, emotionally abused. I don't feel safe.

Someone else is going to be teaching that period for the rest of the year. They succeeded in chasing me out. I am exhausted and relieved.

And would like to know that I am loved.

Please, reblog and comment on monsters you like. Leave nice things in the tags. Send a friendly ask. If you want to make a material contribution, go to the support page. I want to feel like I'm valued and supported right now, because I have spent the last six months feeling like the wrong kind of monster.

Thank you

Know that you have my utmost support, and that I will always appreciate you and root for you. There is nothing wrong with you, there is something wrong with those who don't accept you.