Rites of Sharess

Definition of Clergy: Any of the "official" members of Sharess's worship in as much as the cult has official ranks. Examples would include Clerics, the Acolyte background, and the "Courtesan of Sharess" background I homebrewed for Caress

Will add to this as I think of others.

Initiation as a Clergy

I pledge my path to walk entwined with Sharess.
At her word my body is bound.
At her wish my pain is given.
At her need my wrath is directed.
At her whim my passion is unleashed.
Her loves shall be my blood.
Her foes shall be my prey.

The Tail of the Cat - Caress Melani Journal - Session 1-2

"Ophala tells me you are leaving us soon." the draconic words drifted through the incense filled room gracefully, blending with the calm and meditative atmosphere rather than cutting through it. 

The young woman sitting within the hazy cloud opened her eyes and turned to look up toward smiling, curvy, stooping woman with the steel grey streak through her hair. The other woman was setting down a bundle of folded clothes. She smiled politely and answered in a musical, sibilant tone as she stood to her full height and stretched out. The smoky incense left the room feeling comfortable warm, almost like lying in the sun.

Caress Melani - Tyranny of Dragons - Yuan-Ti Paladin

Art by Silky-Noire

 

A Courtesan of Sharess and Yuan-ti pure-blood whose life was changed by the interference of the Goddess of Sensuality. And now she moves through life doing as her mistresses does, spreading joy and protecting those who need protection. She strives to be someone whose existence makes the world better.

Personal Notes: Caress is a character concept I've had sitting around for a while now, because the concept of the Yuan-Ti emotional nature interacting with the surface elements of Sharess's worship was interesting. 

When I first created her, I wasn't consciously aware I was ace and hadn't outright said I was neurodivergent. Since I've said it outloud, she's become a character I'm even more interested in exploring. 

I want her to be a story about positive sexuality, explore how to navigate sexuality as a conscious ace, and other such things. Still a bit nervous of messing this up, but have friends that have more experience in this mode of gameplay and story than I do. I expect there won't be too many chances to explore this stuff with her, but it's still very exciting.

Caress Melani's Playlist 

Caress Melani's Character Sheet 

Rites of Sharess

Raw Session Notes 

Sessions

• The Lost Mines of Phandelver
  
• The Tail of the Cat - Session 1 & 2
• A Dagger Darkly - Session 3
• Session 4 - Caress spent it in the inn attending to her duties. (I was absent)
  
• Graceless and Sightless - Session 5 
• Bones and Bullies - Session 6
• Remnants of Ruin - Session 7
• Moonlit Laughter - Session 8
• The Bandit King's Pets - Session 9
• Rite to Blight - Session 10
• The Cult and the Dragon - Session 11
• Bounded Waves - Session 12
• Plans Ghoulish and Guarded - Session 13
• Squashing a Spider- Session 14
• The Bloated Bounty
• Much Sadness About Larry - Session 15
• Shields, Scales, Shadows, and Shit - Session 16
• Worms and Ringers - Session 15
• A Curious Evolution of Dragon Cults
• Welcome Brawl at the Lodge - Session 16 
• To the Point of Exhaustion - Session 17 
• Danger Looms Large - Session 18 & 19
• Hidden Space and Serpentine Wiles - Session 20
• Cover of Darkness - Session 21
  

Caress Melani - Playlist

 This is the spotify playlist for Caress.

Originally, I choose most of the songs on fairly shallow or at least knee-jerk reaction, but I did go through and think it out a bit more. It's a long list so some of the themes and statements get repeated.

Caress Journal Page

Caress Character Sheet

Caress Melani - Yuan-Ti Paladin

Yuan-ti Pureblood Paladin of the Ancients 6th Level 

Background: Courtesan of Sharess

 

Journal Page

Playlist 

Str 10
Dex 14
Con  14
Int  10
Wis 12
Cha 18

HP: 53

AC: 19 (Barrier Tattoo, Shield of Arrow Catching)
Paladin Save DC: 16 (Amulet of the Devout)

Yuan-Ti Save DC: 15

Speed: 30

Proficiency Bonus: +3

Jiangshi Survivor - Dhampir Bard of Spirits - Dungeons and Dragons 5e

Sentinels of the Multiverse just some thoughts

 Some basic situations.

Turn Order

1. Villain Turn
2. Hero Turns (3-5)
3. Environment Turn
4. Rinse Repeat

Villain Turn Order

1. Start of Turn Effects
2. Play Card
3. End of Turn Effects 

Hero Turn Order

1. Start of Turn Effects
2. Play a Card (by default only 1 Card)
   
3. Use a Power (by default only 1 Power)
   
4. Draw a Card (if you skip BOTH steps 2 and 3 you draw an extra card)
5. End of Turn Effects 

Juri Como's Hero Career

 Okay, time to figure out what sort deeds Juri achieved during her period as a hero. Hero is as far as we're going here because I want to put my thoughts on demigod elsewhere. For one thing, demigod isn't complete yet, though we are getting to see bits and pieces of it now that the kickstarter is going on. It's enough to do some planning with but has the caveat that mechanics may change when the actual games come out. So, anyway, let's move on to figuring out the deeds.

Looking at my GM's summary list of stuff we did we have the following (in her words).

• Utgaard-Loki sets you moving on finding Kaguya under threat of being tougher than you.
• First meeting with the Sumiyoshi of setting out.
• Kaguyahime's requests are impossible.
• Austria, healing the toxic cave.
• Red Stone of Aja = get, Kaguya = Marry, Life = Awesome, Kaguya's immortality = stolen by Utgaard-Loki...oh no.
• The marry here relates to one of the other band-mates, a Chosen of Artemis.
  
• Amaterasu hates you now for letting some 'more immortal than even other gods' immortality fall into titan hands.
• Second meeting with the Sumiyoshi of travelling.
• Island of anonymity, hiding from everyone, getting in a fight with a scion of Odin in front of all those camera phones is not hiding you trashpandas.
• Ruya joins the party. Ruya melts the forest. Ruya wrecks the anonymity on the island even worse than you guys already did. Nice Job Breaking It Hero. The Teotl also hate you for this now.
• Third meeting with the Sumiyoshi of arrivals.
• We like Laura, we should recruit her. Oh shit, how do I break her being a corpse puppet to this group?

The next item on the list is "Welcome to Demigod, enjoy the buffet." And while that would indicate that the adventure with the cannibal spider adventure is the point at which the players entered Demigod, and in 1e that was correct, but there you started at Legend 2 and 3 moves of Legend put you to 5. And given my ideas for Juri's Theophany, it presents a good bookend for an adventure involving a spider Juri had to fight being the story putting her into the last rung of the Hero tier.

Combat Hurricane

So, before moving on to converting Juri's 1e adventuring career into 2e deeds and such, I think I'm actually going pull out a series of charts I put together once upon a time to figure out a little bit about Juri's webcomic and the anime that was eventually based on it. So, I didn't know too much about save a couple of things: she borrowed from the adventures of herself and other Legendary types for her story arcs, it was an interdimensional shounen action extravaganza, and people meeting her kawaiiko self might have trouble believing that it is something she wrote and drew.

However,  while her art was a constant thing she used, her webcomic was only mentioned now and again as a background thing. Like she used her fans to get things done and some of her fans actually became her yokai followers later. But there was little discussion of what her webcomic was actually like.

So, here we go.

Scion Conversion Juri Como

Juri Como is a character I played in a first edition Scion campaign. She is a daughter of Bentaizen and an Australian man....whose name I sadly can't remember because he never actually showed up in game or became relevant. Her early childhood was spent sheltered from enemies by a clan of jurougumo before being delivered to her mortal father in Sydney. So, she has a bit of a friendly attitude toward spiders in general. Juri grew up to be a webcomic mangaka who became a popular success but she was always aware that she was special.

As an archetype, Juri was about a couple of things: being unbelievably cute and adorable; spiders; pretending to be an complete airhead to screw with people, and turning her manga into literal magic.

During her time as a hero, Juri was gifted with her "Fire Rat Kimono" and that caused fire to become a part of her nature. She gained the service of a number of spider-yokai that were fire-spiders rather than the typical watery jurougumo or earth-dwelling tsuchigumo. Said yokai were the spirits of fans of hers that had died and been resurrected as yokai in her service.

I don't have a real inkling of her Origin adventures since we jumped right into Hero, because that's what you had in 1e.

 

As a note, her webcomic, which was getting an anime, was titled "Combat Hurricane" and I never really designed it much, dealt more with the fans and such than anything.

So, now it's time to build her directly as a 2e Scion.

Gender and Sexuality in Divine Blood

Return to Divine Blood page

 

Some of this is inspired by real life but a lot of it is just created for the setting. I put a note next to one item in particular that gave a pre-reader a concern as to whether that was actually a thing that happened in real life. Also note that I am cis myself, so I have limited perspective on some of this stuff. I have help from people that know more than me and they've generally approved of this write up. If I can get a good write up for 2nd mechanics done I plan to include something like this in the book. 

The General Public 

 

The average human considers sex to be an intensely personal and intimate subject not to be discussed in open conversation. Many major religions include a concept that sex is at best a distraction from greater issues and at worst a dangerous lure to sinful behavior. Individuals that espouse a philosophy of being more open about sex and the discussion of it are often characterized as making excuses for promiscuous behavior. This is to the point that most cultures avoid giving their adolescents anything like a proper education on how sex and sexuality works. In this culture of avoidance and willful ignorance, deviations from the norm stand out and tend to make people feel uncomfortable.