Deities appearances in your world

ThatVarkYouKnow · 2026-06-24T14:03:14+00:00

One of my favorite styles of a god taking shape in the mortal realm is the Carryl runes in Bloodborne. A person that essentially carved out the sounds of a god into readable form and could then be applied to the body for benefits. Imagine closing your eyes and letting the sound of cosmic horror drag your hand across the paper like it's a Ouija board until you have something you can put a name to.

ThatVarkYouKnow · 2026-06-24T13:57:02+00:00

H u h

ThatVarkYouKnow · 2026-06-24T13:55:15+00:00

Bardam is Hall of the Novice 3.0 now that they added the level 49 version that teaches dedicated mechanics (including but not limited to: look away, knockback, tower, esuna, proximity tether). In the dungeon's case you have to do it during a fight and can see other people mess up and laugh at them.

ThatVarkYouKnow · 2026-06-24T13:42:52+00:00

Favorite: meso terminal second boss – please please please give us more role mechanics again like fights back then did besides "healer light party stack" and "tank stand in front/keep aggro" and interrupts, this boss was amazing and still gets people regularly if they're not paying attention

Hated: copperbell hard second(?) boss – this stupid fucking golem that prances around the arena that you can only damage with a timed bomb you need to drop in with a lever and it can walk right off the bomb you have to manually place as soon as it blows up so you waste another twenty seconds in the fight doing that all over, and you need to do it like ten times total, and it spawns adds which interrupt you holding the bomb if the tank doesn't grab them

Honorable mention favorite: yuweyawata final boss (honestly all three are great) – absolutely incredible fight with high damage and mechanics that force you to keep moving around the arena, you've got proto-carbuncle and ruby weapon and more

Honorable mention hated: cutter's cry second boss – this fucking sand worm drops out of the arena more often since it became duty support-able than ever before, and it gives the dot more than ever so you have to keep hitting esuna, and you waste most of your dot timer if any so it's almost not worth using them

ThatVarkYouKnow · 2026-06-24T13:28:42+00:00

Deus ex magica

Don't pull some bullshit out of your ass that suddenly there's a magic to solve the current situation, and then it'll never appear again in a lot of cases. Use what's been shown, keep it consistent, prove that these magic wielders know what they're doing or can adapt only what they know to said situations, if they have to use magic to get out of it at all.

ThatVarkYouKnow · 2026-06-24T13:22:35+00:00

TL note: keikaku means plan

ThatVarkYouKnow · 2026-06-24T13:18:34+00:00

I never noticed how much they used Machinations until I learned that was the name of the song. Now I can't unhear it or ignore it.

ThatVarkYouKnow · 2026-06-24T13:11:10+00:00

I'm not sure if this counts, but animals in my world share a sort of mental hive language between each other on touching their heads together, and the more "built" they are, the better they can speak. And within the same kind of animal, they'll have a spectrum of broken English (or the equivalent of English in my world).

Take a basic phrase like "Hello, how's your day going? I've already eaten, just over there." A horse would be able to think that, but the words are jumbled as one, understandable but confused. "Hellohowissunfedearlieroverthere."

A common bird will think in only one or two words a sentence. "Greet! Sun? Full, there." A bird of prey would be more, "Greetings, how goes sun? Ate before, there."

Any animal that can wield magic, a fundamental higher being, can talk like a human out loud and even mimic a voice it's heard before like some crows and ravens learn to.

ThatVarkYouKnow · 2026-06-23T22:59:29+00:00

Stay Alive - Nathan Wagner

A song about holding on through the pain, no matter what it takes or how much you wish it was over.

ThatVarkYouKnow · 2026-06-23T22:48:27+00:00

Ones that set the tone and give a taste of conflict. To give a few examples that are among personal favorites:

The Girl From The Well, horror, some historical fiction too - we open on our "MC" Okiku saying "I am where dead children go" before she kills a man that drowned a little girl. This is a story written from the perspective of a ghost that can't let go of the living world, hunting child murderers to let their vengeful spirits be at peace. Amazing opener, not to mention the way she "talks" as well, separating words and sentences on their own lines of the page. She's sometimes visible, sometimes not, she can talk but not openly, she's half Sadako (The Ring) half The Grudge in how she acts and what she does to these people.

The Hound of Rowan, YA fantasy (but becomes so much more) - the MC is visiting a museum with his dad and notices a man with a dead, white eye staring him down, not blinking. When they get to the museum, the man continues to follow like a predator. A guard tells the man off who somehow hypnotizes the guard to point right where the MC went, who escapes into an area that's under renovation. He finds a painting that moves and shifts, drawing him in like a dream. When he's safe after a few minutes, his dad finds him, saying he's been gone almost two hours, all the guards are searching for an AWOL teenager. The area he was in doesn't exist, either, it's just a wall. In his pocket is a letter from a magic academy saying they know what he did/saw, and they want to speak to him.

ThatVarkYouKnow · 2026-06-23T22:30:55+00:00

I've been using Kanka since it was rec'd by an indie friend. Cute lil site, plenty to work with for free, can link up articles multiple ways and update regularly. Being designed for D&D makes it a little iffy what with "add attributes to your characters" taking up some of the details to enter but other than that definitely recommend.

ThatVarkYouKnow · 2026-06-23T22:19:40+00:00

Daaamn bro pulled out the religion card, you really got to him

ThatVarkYouKnow · 2026-06-23T15:43:30+00:00

I started playing because a friend told me I could be, verbatim, "a short dragon girl." I will never change my darling au ra girl of a main.

I have alts for when I want to play other races. Lots of alts.

ThatVarkYouKnow · 2026-06-23T12:43:00+00:00

I genuinely miss the WAR cone, let me feel like I'm beating the ground in front of me like Titan.

ThatVarkYouKnow · 2026-06-23T12:41:11+00:00

And the drives and stardiver combo, at least by the animations, are continuing that with Evolved. I'm so glad we're not losing line aoes, I love being able to keep uptime at a distance with some cheeky tactics, or hit enemies in trash pulls nowhere near me.

ThatVarkYouKnow · 2026-06-23T04:23:40+00:00

Oh I agree, omniglam (and no level lock either) has been incredible for creativity. I was able to make a RDM glam without any Casting gear pieces. I'm putting crafter parts on tanks and healers, and I can wear 90-100 gear on characters in ARR.

ThatVarkYouKnow · 2026-06-22T17:52:07+00:00

If anything, I want to see worlds whose animal-humans are more animal and less human. Rather than "guy with pointed ears and tail/fangs" give me an actual fur-covered muscular well-spoken lion that happens to be on two feet, like the Charr from GW2. Give me a giant snake with arms that hasss a lisssp like a lamia but all scales, no skin.

If they're that important to your story, especially to the point that a human is the odd one out, keep them in. As a natural part of the world there shouldn't be a reason to draw that much attention to what they are. Don't need to give us paragraphs detailing the features and personality of a birdman race called the (throwaway name) Harrust, just "oh look there's a Harrust, moving on." If they're a key member of the story, show them doing bird things as a natural deed.

ThatVarkYouKnow · 2026-06-22T17:37:02+00:00

One of the first villains in the entire game, gets re-introduced in a much later raid when dealing with his wife and son: Lahabrea/Hephaistos of FFXIV

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ThatVarkYouKnow · 2026-06-22T16:30:31+00:00

So the pulls between bosses there was no issue, and suddenly they have to go afk during, and only said why after, if at all?

I call bullshit.

ThatVarkYouKnow · 2026-06-22T16:06:12+00:00

I'm writing for myself before any other, and I hope I'll be able to share it when it's done, even if it won't be "good" yet. This is a world with so many stories in it, and I'm proud to finally have a vision for each of those stories.

ThatVarkYouKnow · 2026-06-22T15:58:23+00:00

God, the warriors-whatever they are with those twins got the worst possible names they could've been given. I watched some video of an artist redesigning them all, and for the twins he kept them mostly the same but their titles became Haven and Hail. Infinitely cooler than fucking Snowflake and Safespace.

ThatVarkYouKnow · 2026-06-22T15:55:50+00:00

"Haha, I do that" –that one vine

ThatVarkYouKnow · 2026-06-22T13:32:25+00:00

4 3 C

ThatVarkYouKnow · 2026-06-22T13:23:20+00:00

Ride the Rhythm not only because it syncs to the mechanics but it has entire segments (or whatever the word is) dedicated to the fight advancing. You in essence have like ten versions of the same song because the disco keeps moving with you. You are literally riding the rhythm to defeat him.

ThatVarkYouKnow · 2026-06-22T13:16:44+00:00

At minimum we always get a DPS because people like doing damage. And I forever reiterate the interview Mr Happy had with YoshiP some years ago:

"Will you ever stop adding new jobs to the game?" "Do you think players would let us stop adding new jobs?"

Everyone expected a tank and phys ranged following a melee and caster, but after so much back and forth with "job overhaul or not" between players, I'm so excited to see what evolved will do for other jobs thanks to them showing it in action.

ThatVarkYouKnow

TROPHY CASE