POOHEAD189

Current Mood in One Gif

Gold & Glory: AU thread

The noises of yelling behind the iron studded doors gave Markus the indication of just how close he was to being verified. Anyone in ten paces could see the murder in Captain Flintbrook's eyes, but the last man to speak was a bit too into his own authority for him to actually notice. It was not going to do for Markus to kill or be killed in order to enter the room, so Emmaline thought fast. Chamon was the wind of gold and metal, but metallic chemicals took all kinds of forms. She reach into the sack of coins at Markus' waist and snatched it, causing him to turn around, confusion on his face. She placed her finger to her full lips and began to incant a spell with the seven coins in her palms.

"Oi you! We're talking to you lout! Keep moving and take that cloaked figure with you." The guard threatened.

With a flourished of her hands that seemed akin to a strange faux pas in any other circumstance, the coins disappeared. Behind Emmaline, Markus saw...Emmaline? Seven of them! Uncloaked and wearing the duchess's dress, sashaying across the street and giving the guards suggestive looks, their breasts thrust out on display. Markus understood immediately, taking the true Emmaline by the hand and pulling her forward with him as the guards watched dumbly. They might have been sentries, but they were pirates first and foremost. And a pirate never passes up a good thing, some chasing after them and others still enchanted for another few brief moments. Sketti laughed at their idiocy, striding past them with his shaking beard.

"Good job," Markus told her, unlatching the huge oaken door handle. "Don't let it get to your head though. We need to stay alert."

"'Get to my head? You look at me just the same wa-'" She said, yanking on the door handle like a dog with a toy. Markus snatched her hand in his strong grip and drew her gaze, whispering to her. "That is not what I meant, and tonight we can stroke more than our egos. But as of now, we're about to step into the court of the Pirate Lords. Keep your mouth shut unless they ask you a direct question, understood? And do not tell them you can do magic. Pirates are superstitious enough as is."

His dark eyes bore into her until he saw her nod, and he opened the door; far too loudly for his liking. The door, more like a small gate, swung open with an ominous moan that drowned out most of the yelling and bickering within the atrium. He glimpsed through the crack in the door, but once he saw many pirates already looking he way, he knew there was no going back. Markus Flintbrook pushed the door open fully, warm light pouring onto his face. It encompassed Emmaline as well, and even so cloaked, it showed her curves in a way that betrayed the fact she was a shapely woman. Sketti stepped between them, chest out and surveying the room.

The room was tall, reaching at least two dozen paces skyward. Kraken bones and Dragonscales hung limply upon the ceiling next to extravagant chandeliers. Framing the room were two halves of a wrecked ship, hollowed out with seats carved into it for the lordly retainers to sit and give second hand votes, whilst the pirate lords themselves sat on a great table of ivory and seabeast bone at the center of the room. The noises of the pirates ceasing, Markus saw every eye in the room turn his way. To his credit he merely stared back, not batting an eye at the sudden change of mood.

He did not know much about the pirate lords individually. There looked to be nine members. Two Tileans, an Arabyan, a Norscan, a Brettonian, Two men of the Empire, a Dwarf slayer who was missing one more limb than Sketti, and what looked to be an Estalian Bravo. Behind them all was someone even Markus recognized. In a sweeping red coat with gold filigree and a matching hat, three large exotic bird feathers standing atop his admiral hat, and a white beard that could make even Dwarfs jealous, sat Jaego Roth. The leader of the Grand Alliance and High Lord of Sartosa.

"Who dares enter this sacred meeting?" A lanky corsair asked, hanging over the railing of his seat just above Markus. He looked bald across his entire body, and it seemed he had been raddled with plague. Yellow eyes and only half his teeth were visible from where Markus could see. "Have ye a spot on the council?"

"Not yet." Markus said, eyeing the Lords as he spoke. The room erupted in laughter, leading with the rasping cackle of the weak limbed pirate above them. Only Jaego Roth and three of the more conservative lords did not share in the ridiculous mirth. Markus shared a look with Sketti, who only grinned. The Captain decided to take control of the situation, reached into his coat and pulled out a pistol. The deafening shot that blew the head off the lout that interrupted him caused the laughter to cease, and the headless corpse of the lanky corsair slid off the railing and hit the ground before Markus' feet in a heap.

Guns and cutlasses were drawn, and Markus took no time in retrieving his other Druchii head, holding it by its black hair, unbagged for all to see. It hung like some grisly lantern that emitted a foul odor rather than light, and for the moment no one attacked him as he strode forward. "I seek a letter of Marque for me and my crew!" He called aloud, echoing across the room. "Will you hear my claim and grant my crew membership, or did we go to the wrong den of sea thieves?"
@Penny

Post Hide Request

Done!

Dungeon Builder Monster Extraordinaire

@Mae Will look at the PDF and decide asap.

Dungeon Builder Monster Extraordinaire

Alright people! Let's make sure we're still going strong! I wanna decimate an adventuring party!

Tips for writing POC, LGBT+, and other minority characters in RP

I'm about as straight as an arrow, but I am of mixed race and I've been in both a lower income multi-ethnic school and a high/middle class predominately white school during my formative years. Honestly I never noticed too much of a difference. Kids are kids and people are people, in my estimation. It's honestly as simple as that. If you write your character as a person and not a caricature, you should be fine.

I am glad this thread was made, truthfully. It irks me some people are afraid to write as colored people or people of a different sexual persuasion. They're afraid because people do call others out on stereotyping, sometimes rightly, but most of the time in poor taste in my experience. For instance, I do remember a female friend of mine reading some writing and telling me that 'women don't like X in bed' whereas my sexual partners have asked me to do the very things my friend said were a no-go. And people who criticize your writing will act like that often.

My point is, people have unique experiences. Your sex, gender, sexuality, or race might change a few minute details about your life (depending on the severity of your society, of course). But at the end of the day, they're just small parts of your greater identity. If someone wrote about either of my parentage's experiences, even if I or they hadn't experienced said thing, I wouldn't call it wholly wrong per say. They have just as much right (and chance at being correct to someone's view) to write a character that way as I do writing for a 13th century mongolian protagonist.

Gold & Glory: AU thread

Once they docked, Markus eyed the wharf with suspicion despite the apparent revelry. Drunk men stumbled about on the docks while hawk eyed men stood in direct contrast, seemingly looking for anyone they could steal from or extort. In order to get their 'letter of marque' from the Brethren of the Coast, he needed to make it to the court of Pirate Lords. After he called for his men to stay on the ship, he approached Emmaline. Morgan barked for the men to stay sharp and keep their weapons polished.

The golden woman watched the dock, looking so much like a lost maiden at sea. He draped a cloak around her shoulders, one hand gliding down her back to her waist as he said. "Cloak your form. The less eyes on you the better. And yes, you're coming with me." For a moment, Emmaline felt his hand sliding past her belt, but rather than anything lewd, she felt a pistol placed in her belt loop. "Don't shoot unless I tell you to."

He looked her dead in the eye, before a smirk appeared on his face. "Morgan! Stay with the ship. Once we come back, we can haul this shit off and sell what we got. I'm sure dark elf hides and weapons sell a high price." He remarked. They would keep a few of their superb crossbows, and the armor was useful, but the men were too superstitious to ever accept wearing anything of druchii made. Markus, on the other hand...

"Oi! I'm comin' with ye." A thick accented voice rose above the clamor of men speaking. The one handed slayer walked out of the crowd, thick muscled and covered in tattoos of khazalid. He smiled like a jackal. Markus saw six pistols stripped on baldrics across his meaty chest. "I've been here 'afore. Sketti Hammerhand'll see ye through."

Markus shrugged, not truly minding. The Dwarf might prove useful. The bridge to the dock was laid down, and Markus and Emmaline stepped off together, Markus holding her hand to keep her steady as the ship bobbed up and down. A dockmaster stood awaiting them, though he looked more like a renegade tax collector. Pock marks marred his face, and he had a smile full of ivory teeth. His wide brimmed hat looked worn and perpetually realigned so it flopped around him.

"Whats yer business here, fella? And..." He looked at Emmaline up and down, unable to gauge her thanks to the cloak. "Lady?"

"Why are they celebrating?" Markus asked him, not even deigning to look the man's way. He snorted, unused to the casual treatment except by men who knew him, like as not.

"Celebrating the founding of the republic." He said, ostentatiously trying to sound learned in history. Markus nearly laughed, forgetting Sartosa pirates claimed to be a nation in and of themselves. It made sense they would try and appear more official than a collection of thieves and murderers on a godforsaken island. "And I need to know who you are, and fifty golden crowns for docking. A lack of payment will-"

Markus held out a bag for the man, who's jaw dropped at the sight of such gold. Emmaline snickered when Markus dropped the bag into his awaiting hands. It was wet in his palms, and he opened the bag to see the severed head of a Dark Elf. He yelped, dropping the head and letting it roll fully out of the bag. Markus kicked it into the water. "There's more where that one came from, so we can afford to let a few go. We're here to join the Brethren. Now where do we go to see the lords?"

"Y-You uh uhm, you go through Market Street, a-and go past crown's row. Then the festival will be held on Sartosa keep!"
@Penny

Tense and Perspective in Roleplaying

I just realized I typed "first person" rather than "third person" and now I wish I, myself, was past tense.

The Blackwood

@Fetzen Rest assured as soon as I make another RP, you'll be invited. Most of you will know, likely.

Meanwhile, see about joining @Gunther RP! I wish I had the time for it.

Gold & Glory: AU thread

Four days later...

The murky waters sloshed along the barnacle covered rocks that made Sartosa's southern shore so perilous. The land beneath the waves waxed and waned like waves themselves, running aground careless ships and halting any attempts by foreign navies to make it to shore, at least in one piece. Luckily, Markus had been here before, but only once, on his first outing as a sailor. Morgan had been here half a dozen times, and so he was navigator as they slowly made their way through the current; a 'sweet spot' only pirates knew of. How this ship was able to make it there without representation would surely be spoken of later, but as for now, Markus simply wished to make it to shore.

The last four days, he had gotten acquainted with Sir Beauchamp, a disgraced gentleman turned sailor of Lyonesse, as well as Sketti Hammerhand, an eccentric Dwarf slayer. The two had not been traveling together until both of their vessels were attacked by Druchii, but they had become friends since their captivity and Markus welcomed them aboard with open arms. He needed someone who spoke fluent Brettonian and Sketti was apparently a good gunsmith and engineer, if his claim of being the 'best in Barak Varr" was to be believed. He'd let them prove their worth.

What was more difficult was proving Emmaline's worth to the crew. True, they had been fine with her as the cook's assistant, but the fact she was a sorceress wasn't entirely well received, even with Markus' approval. Not to say all of them were of such a mind. The lookout named Ostand, along with Hafdan (who she healed with more traditional means) and Frankfurt had no quarrel with her. Even Morgan was warming up to her, though he did poke fun at her every now and then. An old dog having fun with someone who was clearly a greenhorn, bumbling about the ship as the waves shifted the floors oddly in rougher weather.

But the wind had been with them, and with Sketti happily aiding in their repairs, Morgan and Reeve and the rest of the crew got the Hammer underway in the matter of a day and they saw Sartosa's ramshackle spires in the distance just on time, right as the sun set on the fourth night.

Suddenly, the night lit up in flames. The sky exploded in incandescent colors as loud 'pops' and 'poofs' filled the air. Markus' crew screamed at one another and ran to and fro, grabbing weapons or hiding below decks for fear of a bombardment, only to realize they were fireworks. Markus had stepped out onto the deck, watching the apparent festivities curiously. No wonder no ships had halted their approach.

"Guess they're celebrating something." Morgan said behind him, raising his head so he could see past the wide brimmed hat atop his head.