On Portals And Trees...

I'd like to know the origin of this limerick

My staff has murdered giants/ My bag a long knife carries/ To cut mince pies from children’s thighs/ With which to feed the fairies

Wow, this artist's work is studio ghibli level amazing. The use of simplistic forms to portray a highly detailed narrative; it really does "paint a picture" (story) in my mind. What a world they have created.

Ikegami Yoriyuki

If animals as different as these two can get along with each other this sweetly, why can't we put our differences away and do the same?

This is so cool, imagine if you were playing a rogue. I can't think of a more fitting way to roll skill checks.

How does the lock dice work?

Sorry this took a minute to respond to, things have been nuts over here...

Okay! So, it’s actually a very simple design! The whole thing comes in two parts, like this:

On the left is the lock-shaped housing, on the right is the lockpick, which has all the numbers 1-20 arranged around the outer edge of the disc. The bottom of the lockpick disc comes to a point, like a spinning top, which is exactly what it is.

You thread the lock over the pick so the pick emerges from the keyhole in the lock, like this:

Now your lockpick die is all set. When it’s time to do a skill check, you hold the lock down with one hand for stability, and you twirl the lockpick with the other like a spinning top. After a moment, use your finger to nock the lockpick firmly down and reveal the result of your “roll”.

The window above the keyhole shows the number. In this case, I “rolled” an 18.

From behind, you can see the disc has teeth all around the edge, and there’s a point at the bottom of the lock that will catch between those teeth when you nock the pick to ensure it lands properly on one number instead of coming up between them.

And that’s how the lock-and-pick d20 works!

I love these characters. New D&D PCs anyone?

Bird Warrior - Character Design Challenge by selected artists: Đặng Trường, Bruno Jacob, Isaac Jadraque, Thomas Dumey - Locki, Liam Rogge

This is amazing, sign me up?

Barnes and Nobles is gonna start serving food and alcohol.

Everybody’s cracking jokes about how it’s a desperate attempt to stay relevant in the age of Amazon.

But you know what? Props to them. This is exactly what Blockbuster didn’t do. At no point was Blockbuster like “Hey, movie rentals aren’t the lucrative enterprise they once were. Perhaps it’s time we become known for our cheesy garlic bread.”

These are beautiful, I recognized the first from Exandria Reborn but I'm trying to place where the 3rd (with the oxycotl) is from.

Art by Zuzanna Wuzyk

Fandom Book Club

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

Sam Winchester’s pick

“This book goes into the mind of a totally psychotic killer. I loved it.”

Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Poe Dameron’s pick

“I thought Katniss Everdeen was such a good leader, she reminded me of my fearless leader General Leia Organa.” 

Tales From The Loop by Modiphius 

Mike Wheeler’s pick

“It is like Dungeons and Dragons, but set in the 80s and we solve mysteries and fight robots instead of shadow monsters!”

Magicians Book by Lev Grossman

Harry Potter’s pick

“Would my life have been easier at Brakebills? Probably not!”

Uprooted by Naomi Novik

Will Byer’s pick

“There’s a dark and scary place called Wood on the edge of a village and a wizard named Dragon who steals girls from the village. This book reminded me of the upside down.”

Good Omens by Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman

“A demon named Crowley,  the anti-christ and the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse? Sounds perfect.” -Crowley (the king of Hell)

Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

Finn’s pick

“I really identified with Elias because we both took issue with the ideologies and rules of the governing powers we worked under. Without that experience, I might not be what I am now: a rebel.”

Pie & Whiskey by Kate Lebo, Samuel Ligon

“This book didn’t have any pictures of pie or whiskey, but for a book with words it was pretty freaking awesome!” — Dean Winchester

Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger

Kylo Ren’s pick

“This book has so much angst and rebellion in it. Holden Caulfield understands me.”

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

Ron’s pick

“This book made me feel a lot of feelings. Stupid sad mouse. And there’s a guy and an intelligence spell that goes wrong I guess.”

Dune Dune by Frank Herbert

Princess Leia’s pick

“Sandworms are terrifying no matter what universe you’re in.” 

The Power by Naomi Alderman

Rey’s pick

“I felt very in tune with the girls in this book. I read this while doing force training and felt like Alderman’s girls got stronger along with me!”

Hild by Nicola Griffith

Hermione’s pick

“I felt I learned more from this girl’s story than from weeks of divination class. She is also uncommonly bright with wild hair so I found her very relatable.”

Starship Troopers by Robert A Heinlein

Finn’s pick

“I really indentified with Johnnie Rico and what it means to be a soldier in a war you don’t really believe in (or understand.)”

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

“Chuck Shurley ain’t got nothing on Vonnegut. Vonnegut is good.” — Dean Winchester

Grunge Sponge Plaid Set of 2

“This is exactly what those flannel-wearing morons, the Winchesters would use.” — Crowley

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

Sam Winchester’s pick

“So get this, 2 guys, one named Dean, go on a road trip. Sounds familiar, well, minus the monsters.”

Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson

Poe Dameron’s pick

“Admiral Holdo made me read this. I have to admit, it helped me a lot.” 

Redwall by Brian Jacques

Ron’s pick

“I got so hungry reading this book. These mice are always eating delicious berry cakes and whatnot. Plus it is full of ferrets and rats with swords. Wicked!”

Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson

Hermione’s pick

“I find this every bit as engaging as Hogwards, a History.”

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Princess Leia’s pick

“I would recruit the crew of the Wayfarer in a second. The Rebellion could use their heart and capacity for hijinks.” 

Wizard of Earthsea Earthsea by Ursula K Le Guin

Will Byer’s pick

“This book made me wish I had magic to defeat the shadow monster in my world.”

Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa

“I really dig this Edward guy. I get it. My younger brother is taller than me, too. But I’m the better hunter.” — Dean Winchester

A Series Of Unfortunate Events Bad Beginnings by Lemony Snicket

Harry Potter’s pick

“I identify with the Beaudelairs more than I’d like.” 

Renegades by Marissa Meyer

Rey’s pick

“The Renegades reminded me of the Jedi Order - fierce champions of justice and hope, but almost too idealistic.”

Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay

Sam Winchester’s pick

“This guy Dexter kills the bad guys but man is he twisted.”

Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero

Mike Wheeler’s pick

“A group of teen detectives have all grown up and the men-in-masks are now real monsters.”

The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey

Eleven’s pick

“She is like me.”

Love this!

Bookwyrm

There is a bookwyrm in the library.

Note the spelling. Not a bookworm. A bookwyrm.

No one is entirely sure when it snuck into the Elsewhere University Library, but one thing has become entirely certain: it is never, ever leaving.

And why should it leave, with a veritable unlimited floor plan filled to the bell tower with delicious, fragrant tomes to claim and hoard and sample.

An ink-black serpentine wyrm that originally was not much bigger than a rabbit, it used to scamper here and there in the library looking for open tomes to slurp the words out of (it is a terribly messy eater, much to the librarians’ chagrin). The words it eats etch themselves somewhere onto its dark hide, though it has consumed so many letters in so many languages that it is difficult now to see where new bits of prose are added.

Students have been warned repeatedly over the years not to feed the bookwyrm. But there are always those who do not heed the warnings of the librarians. It used to be a funny pastime for students that had become stuck in one section or another of the library’s labyrinthine stacks to feed scraps of paper with vulgar words to the then tiny bookwyrm and then try to find where the offending epithets manifested. The bookwyrm was not terribly picky about the words it ate back then, because it was always hungry. Whether they were in good taste or bad, it didn’t matter; its appetite was insatiable.

And this kind of recklessness is why it grew so large in such a, relatively, short amount of time. It sprang up to the size of a cat one semester, then a large dog a year later, and then eventually… well, to the point where it’s a very good thing that the library has a mostly Other architecture, because it surely would have burst the building by now. And the bigger it grew, the more territorial it became. The more it hoarded tomes in certain sections (it really seemed to savor Anne McCaffrey’s works, but would never be found anywhere near Hemingway, for example). The more aggressive it became to students and librarians alike who needed the books also.

Hoping to avoid another calamity like the last wyrm that took up residence on the campus, the librarians decided to make good use of their new pet. With a copious amount of parchment and ink, they lured the bookwyrm down down down deep into the seldom used catacombs of The Library and set it to work. They knew that once it was presented with its new collection that it would never stray far from it again. And there it stays.

It was a constant conundrum that the librarians faced in the early days, when the Fair Folk and students were beginning to… mingle. A place filled with a vast amount of knowledge like The Library is always bound to have certain… archives that are better perused by no one. Ancient texts. Tomes of ages, dated further back than it is currently recorded that written word existed. The language of the birds, poetry of the stars, and truths that would shatter the mind. Words that needed to be preserved but not necessarily studied. Not by the Good Neighbors, and certainly not by incoming freshmen. Absolutely not by school administrators.

A tiny bit of such knowledge is dangerous. A little more is a disaster. Lots of that knowledge, though, would present a crisis of cataclysmic proportions. These are the books, bound in iron and chains, locked with enchantment and dusted with bottled oblivion, that the wyrm keeps. Guards. Claims. Hoards.

Not all words fade with time. Some grow sharp teeth and attack from the dark instead.

So if you are lost in the library and find yourself in a place that is blacker than spilled ink, smells of iron and sulfur, and sounds like an ancient bellows, turn around and leave out the way you came.

Yesterday, if possible (which, in The Library, of course, it always, always is).

These are beautiful. If you've never watched critical role, it's never too late to start.

The Mighty Nein

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