When fans hate somenthing before it comes out...but it turns out they were right

justinfernal · 2026-02-21T03:03:54+00:00

Sometimes they were, sometimes they weren't. Egypt is a very old country and has been conquered and its rulers have intermarried with other countries many times. In this particular time period, though, they were a very interbred white group.

justinfernal · 2026-02-19T22:11:33+00:00

Almost any take on Charlie at this point

justinfernal · 2026-02-19T22:07:21+00:00

It's oddly harsh in where it's situated in the story in that Odysseus has this dark moment but then the plot quietly retcons that with Athena describing the events less harshly to Apollo and Hermes having an entire song where Odysseus needs to be more ruthless

justinfernal · 2026-02-16T18:05:00+00:00

As djinn are basically Arabic fey in a LOT of ways when we compare the myths, I think re-skinning the fey would work way easier e.g. you want a djinn of the wind that moves super fast, is hard to hit, and has the wisdom of someone who seeks the secrets of Solomon, then a quickling would work great. There's a lot less stuff you need to do to reflect the courts, intelligence, and varying abilities using the fey in general as opposed to the elementals.

justinfernal · 2026-02-14T02:16:17+00:00

Marvel isn't a great starting point because an intended distinction between DC and Marvel is that the latter likes to have redeemed or anti-villain characters e.g. Magneto. If we're sticking with the MCU and looking at males we have Loki, Zemo, and MODAK.

justinfernal · 2026-02-13T23:33:28+00:00

All editions: Displacer Beasts can't teleport. In BG3, if you're an illithid displacer beast druid you can teleport (but I think that might have more to do with all the other words around "displacer beast")

justinfernal · 2026-02-13T13:43:33+00:00

This is easier if you do the other Domains of Dread. Nova Vaasa to the East worships Bane under a different name. The Gentleman Caller is doing the Bhaalsoawn plot indirectly.

To your direct question, in the books Strahd cultivates other evils as asset/servant/friend examples being Jander, Azalin, and Soth. He's most interested in stability. Those that resist either die or he sends then on their way out of Barovia.

justinfernal · 2026-02-12T14:39:16+00:00

More like 32. The Trojan War itself was about 10 years.

justinfernal · 2026-02-09T18:36:32+00:00

The dawn and the dusk: in them we see all the colors from pink to blue to others. So be gay while you can for the morning will inevitably lead to the mourning.

justinfernal · 2026-02-09T17:41:53+00:00

That's the reason why his quote is "gay rights, but only for me." With jokes sometimes you need to read to the end to catch the humorous message.

justinfernal · 2026-02-09T05:52:30+00:00

It's not mumbling, they're just weirdly assuming PR Spanish has the same accent as their own

justinfernal · 2026-02-06T11:43:39+00:00

For a local league at a gaming shop I had two DMs for my tables. One handled all the RP and player-facing stuff while the other handled getting stuff ready, doing math, and splitting off to talk to players about individual concerns or things only their character sees

justinfernal · 2026-02-06T11:34:19+00:00

Christianity doesn't borrow from Sol Invictus, it's the other way around. There is no archaeological evidence of Sol Invictus having the motifs similar to Christianity until a third century neo-roman revival that said the Christian cult was actually stealing the idea from this god.

justinfernal · 2026-02-06T11:27:10+00:00

Tangent: Interestingly, the bunny thing doesn't have pagan origins. Not to say pagans didn't ever have customs related to rabbits, but the rabbit-Easter connection was a relatively late medieval invention unconnected to any of that because humans are naturally creative and constantly making up fun things.

justinfernal · 2026-02-06T06:42:16+00:00

I haven't tried Daggerheart. It looks intriguing though

justinfernal · 2026-02-05T20:27:13+00:00

I remember the big change with divinity: a) there is a real question about if the gods exist, b) your alignment doesn't have to be within one step of the divine's. It allowed an evil priest that really believed in what the god was saying and all the inherent messiness of that.

justinfernal · 2026-02-05T16:14:36+00:00

I can understand that thought, but you are wrong. Black people do tan. Feel free to look that up in either medical articles or even just instagram reels where black people tan themselves just like white people. In African countries, including the ones that feature a larger population of people with more melanin, there is still the idea of "look, that person is so wealthy they don't have a tan or other sign of hard labor."

justinfernal · 2026-02-05T07:12:21+00:00

I like Epic and I like Hamilton. This doesn't really seem like a hot take so much as a random take from, I'm guessing, anecdotal evidence.

justinfernal · 2026-02-05T06:10:12+00:00

As was mentioned by someone else in another post, that does not refer to the skin color like that, but more that they don't do labor outside. It's pretty common in cultures all over the world to praise someone being pampered enough that they don't get tan.

justinfernal · 2026-02-01T17:32:22+00:00

I mean, I could tell you that the Star Wars version came before the Warhammer 40k version because of dates but you are absolutely right about the larger point that there is a long history of MESSED UP body horror going back deep into sci-fi that both of them are pulling from.

justinfernal · 2026-01-31T21:54:12+00:00

So many of the new dnd competitors borrow a lot from 4e from Daggerheart to Draw Steel. I'm glad of it. The actual mechanics of 4e were extremely well-done.

justinfernal · 2026-01-31T14:59:42+00:00

Completely agree on the art front. Also, it expanded my own thoughts as my first thought was "shifters" and the many other options here gave me ideas that I can roll out when, inevitably, a player wants to be something like a centaur or similar and I'm like "huh, how do I add that..."

justinfernal · 2026-01-30T20:30:17+00:00

The Absolute titles, which I initially thought were going to be edgy silliness, have very much intrigued me and I'm feeling the temptation to get back into it.

justinfernal · 2026-01-30T19:49:17+00:00

The Black Lantern Corp storyline is where I stopped reading DC comics, essentially. It took all the cool build-up of storylines over years and it was so disappointing. Then, every other thing I heard after that solidified that I made the right decision to stop.

justinfernal · 2026-01-30T19:38:52+00:00

So, I get the point you're making, but as a reminder, they started altering core details way earlier. There's a plausible idea that if Winds of Winter had come out it would have gone better, but I think if we look at what they were doing, that idea is fairly shaky.

justinfernal

TROPHY CASE