Runes-and-Tunes

LGBTQ+ writer and Heathen Magician

  • They/them, He/him

Welcome! I'm Bard. Been around the sun 28 times and I've been writing for about 15 of those years.
You'll probably see a lot of memes here, but my original posts are probably gonna be me throwing my writing and worldbuilding into the void. I hope y'all enjoy my little bit of cosmos and I'll do my best to make it an enjoyable space!

Also go to my partner's page! She's amazing and I'm lucky to spend much of my time with her. Her page is also prettier than mine, because she's a lot smarter. https://cohost.org/mathsbian?page=0

posts from @Runes-and-Tunes tagged #The Global Cohost Feed

also: ##The Cohost Global Feed, #The Cohost Global Feed, ###The Cohost Global Feed, #Global Cohost Feed, #global feed, #Cohost Global Feed

I know a lot of folk hate Beowulf for being the subject of many a high school essay, but I genuinely love it.

First, it's pure vibes. Basically starts with "shut up and listen" because it was always told to a bunch of loud drunk people.

Second, it's the reason we have Fantasy. If the Church got what it wanted and Beowulf was burned off the Earth, we'd never have Tolkien.

Third, Danes come to England to do something cool instead of pillage! Imagine hearing this story at the time it was being told: you have heard of Danes and how they kill and think they're all walking anti-heroes. I assume that it being an English story about a heroic Dane is a little bit of a bold choice at the time.

I can make a hundred cases about Beowulf that better educated and weller read folk have already made; but I hope that this take is a new one: I think the plot of Beowulf would make for an excellent 1-20 campaign.
Just imagine that your party of folk already know each other, and have been asked to take care of a monster in ANOTHER COUNTRY. The journey alone could get you to level 5, and by the time you get there you can fight Grendel: a monster that can look literally however you like, he just has to hate parties.

I could go on and on about how the Beowulf DND module could evolve into a kingdom builder, but I could always build it myself.



So people dunk on Star Trek: The Next Generation over their head of security: Lieutenant Commander Worf. He's a Klingon, a warrior people that were previously enemies of the United Federation of Planets.
I'm sure y'all know what I'm talking about, but to recap: Worf is head of security, and established as one of the toughest people on the ship- yet loses most fights he gets into to establish the strength of the one he's fighting. Folk call this The Worf Effect, and it's used all the time to make villains seem that much more powerful.
So why does this happen IN Star Trek? Well, Worf loses fights because he's built for politics. Not combat. Yeah, he's tougher than most of the humans on board, and his CULTURE requires him to be the first into a fight; but Worf started the show as an ADMINISTRATIVE officer, and among the security officers, he is still just that.
Worf's extensive knowledge of warfaring people, and their weapons; his inspiring ferocity that brings even seasoned Klingons to fervor; his space tactics! All these are what make up for Worf's (in comparison to non humans) frail constitution. He was never raised to be a warrior, but he was destined to be a general.



So is nobody gonna talk about how a big chunk of the post apocalyptic united states gets taken over by a twice lobotomized bisexual mail runner? Or the fact that Courier 6 usually teams up with the Boomers, (fascists) the broken down California branch of Brotherhood of Steel, (isloationists) and sometimes doesn't even take over the strip- leaving it to the immediate or inevitable destruction by The Legion?
Just a thought in case you wanted to run a Fallout ttrpg and didn't know who your big bad would be. Of course it's you. Courier 6 isn't made to run a landscape like The Mojave, even if they're well set with Helios 1 and The Dam- they have allied themselves with some dangerous, ill intentioned people and that's not even considering Legion playthroughs.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions, so they say, and I think any outcome of Fallout New Vegas leaves the Mojave primed for another attack on The Dam, and whoever is left controlling it is left with a lot of mess without a lot of hands to clean it.