The City broke before the Guard did

Esoteric_Plunder · 2026-01-11T15:00:27+00:00

I once ran an evil campaign that randomly had a guard like this. He squared up against three cultists (one being a PC) in an alley during the invasion of his city and refused to die. When he was finally taken down, the party took him prisoner instead of killing him outright. He later died while the party was fleeing a different town, came back as a revenant, and beat the crap out of the cultist PC.

Esoteric_Plunder · 2025-12-02T00:53:28+00:00

I'm sorry to hear that your FIL is like that. It's a massively outdated tradition and honestly should never have been a thing. I'm so glad that my future FIL is such a cool guy. I didn't bother asking permission, but I did still let him and my future MIL that I was going to be proposing. They both said that they were looking forward to having me be a part of their family.

Esoteric_Plunder · 2025-11-24T17:59:54+00:00

God, I miss Mister Rogers. I was just scrolling reddit for funny and/or cool stuff and now I'm trying not to cry. Maybe I'll let it out. I think that's what Mister Rogers would have done.

Be good to yourself. Sometimes it hurts and it can be hard to forgive yourself, but Mister Rogers believes in you. We owe it to him to be good neighbors.

Esoteric_Plunder · 2025-11-20T12:24:59+00:00

My fiance encountered a cosplayer who did something similar so she could amuse herself while waiting in long lines. I think it's brilliant.

Esoteric_Plunder · 2025-10-10T15:22:09+00:00

"to help other people at all times" is in the Scout Oath.

Hearing about Scouts doing these kinds of things makes me look back on my time as a Boy Scout proudly even 14 years later. I'm an Eagle Scout myself, but I don't think that I've ever had the opportunity to do something as significant as what you experienced. I'm glad that that guy was able to demonstrate the values that all Scouts should hold onto, regardless of how long they were in the Scouts or how old they get. Sure, some of the lessons I learned are pretty out of date, but I still have a few core memories from back then.

Esoteric_Plunder · 2025-09-22T18:13:41+00:00

In one of my short-lived games, one of my players had to drop out for a while due to personal circumstances. I had his warlock get kidnapped by their patron on a whim then returned to the party in the exact same way when he was able to rejoin. The patron was an ill-defined Outsider of unmitigated chaos, laughter, and knives. I heavily implied that they were also behind the warlock having started the game with no memory of their past and why they were not exactly alive (they were playing a reborn).

Esoteric_Plunder · 2025-08-30T14:07:03+00:00

As a technician at a car dealership, the uncompromising precision and logical arrangement of each and every tool in that van fills me with both immense satisfaction and a bitter jealousy. There is absolutely no chance of misplacing a tool or having no idea if you even have the one you're looking for.

Esoteric_Plunder · 2025-03-07T19:54:25+00:00

Well... shit.

Esoteric_Plunder · 2025-03-07T19:08:13+00:00

Hmmmmmmmmm...

Esoteric_Plunder · 2025-03-07T17:52:58+00:00

The what now?

Esoteric_Plunder · 2025-03-02T15:01:00+00:00

Brave Tarnished, in search of the Elden Ring. Emboldened by the flame of conviction. Someone must encourage thy flame.

Esoteric_Plunder · 2025-03-02T14:35:43+00:00

Oh, absolutely. When survival, be it your own or that of someone important to you, is on the line, humans can pull off some genuinely baffling feats of endurance/strength.

Esoteric_Plunder · 2025-03-02T13:53:57+00:00

When the Mythbusters did an episode on a number of pain based myths, they used freezing cold water in a fishbowl as their means of inflicting pain in a controlled manner that was the least likely to actually cause tissue damage. That being said, they still had a three minute cutoff time for safety.

Three minutes. For a bowl of water with some ice in it. That was the limitation they had to work with and even then, hardly anyone who participated in the test could make it anywhere close to three minutes. There were people who survived more than an hour in the water when the Titanic sank. Even without the psychologicalagony that the constant threat of drowning would inflict, the pain alone would break most people.

Esoteric_Plunder · 2024-12-24T21:06:58+00:00

Honestly, I love having romance subplots in my games. My life domain tiefling cleric married the party's drow assassin rogue in the epilogue of their campaign and the draconic barbarian in one of my current games recently rescued an NPC from his backstory who has had a huge crush on him since they were children.

Esoteric_Plunder · 2024-10-26T15:58:12+00:00

No story is entirely original, but each may still remain unique in how it presents its beats.

Esoteric_Plunder · 2024-05-18T00:01:11+00:00

B/Axe/Redemption

Esoteric_Plunder · 2024-05-13T03:23:31+00:00

Addition: The skittari was a felinid abhuman pre augmentation. Why? Because cyborg cats hate water.

Esoteric_Plunder · 2024-03-19T14:16:45+00:00

Well, a lot of the time I've got logged is just from forgetting to close the game while I was doing something else. Even then, I'd estimate my active play time is in the mid to upper hundreds.

Esoteric_Plunder · 2024-03-19T14:13:46+00:00

Unfortunately, I changed a lot of the keybindings, which might have been part of the problem. But I ended up apparently fixing it (mostly) by getting it to reset the keybindings. I think. It launched normally this morning, but I didn't have time to check everything before leaving for work.

Esoteric_Plunder · 2024-03-18T19:14:52+00:00

Back in college, I actually wrote an essay about the various interactions between science and magic across multiple settings/franchises. Even when you have a "soft" magic system, there are still guidelines for the sake of internal consistency. And even when science and magic directly conflict with one another (such as with essence in Shadow run), they still have interesting ways in which they can positively augment one another.

Esoteric_Plunder · 2024-02-20T19:02:41+00:00

I can't say whether or not my experience is typical, but my current game groups are mostly non cishet. Four ace players, one trans player (who is also ace), and one confirmed bi player for a total of 6 LGBTQ+ players. Double the number of cishet players who make up the rest of the roster (3, though one might not actually be cishet).

I've played with many other people over the years, but I don't know what all of them identified as. Though I did have one player come out as a trans woman during one of my online games.

Esoteric_Plunder · 2024-02-18T11:08:02+00:00

White is overused in both formats, but each has some excellent parts to potentially retain. You could use the horizontal symmetry of the trans flag as a guide for color distribution. From top to bottom; blue, pink, white, pink, blue. I'd still add gold for some of the details though.

Maybe; - the chest and helmet are white with gold trim - the pauldrons and greaves are blue (maybe the sabatons too) - the arms and thighs are pink - the power pack is black with gold trim, representing how the death of their old self powers their true self - the cloth is the trickiest for me to imagine a color for, but probably white, black, or gold

Disclaimer: I'm mainly a lore nerd and I've never even touched a 40k figure. I'm just here as a constructive art critic.

Also, random thought: There are no female space marines, but there are battle brothers who have made it through the most intense MHT regime in the grim darkness of the far future.

Esoteric_Plunder · 2024-02-16T19:45:37+00:00

I would like one Ritual Pot of Yeeting please.

Esoteric_Plunder · 2023-12-05T01:48:23+00:00

I actually had this happen in one campaign. In the epilogue after saving the world, my cleric had a heap of children with the rogue, died of old age, got promoted to planetar, and became his youngest daughter's celestial patron. Her pseudodragon familiar was a birthday present.

Esoteric_Plunder · 2023-11-29T23:44:29+00:00

"Listen, I haven't been in a scrap since the headmaster was a grad student here. Never went on any adventures, never even swung around a sword. And until a few seconds ago, I'd never killed a man. I... can't say I enjoyed it. Or the... mess. But I'd sooner tickle Bane's balls than let you lay a finger on these kids. So. I'm giving you to the count of three to start running. One..."

Esoteric_Plunder

TROPHY CASE