MichaelLlewr

The God of Gods, who had been called Ao since he left his old stellar sphere aeons ago and usurped control of Abier-Toril’s pantheon at the nascence of human civilization, was now retired.  Countless ages, their triumphs and tragedies, had passed before His all-seeing eyes, and each one wearied him more than those before. Glory and conquest faded to responsibility and mundanity, and even the yoke of duty felt uselessly loose. A careless shrug and it was unseated, and so what good was any of it? He’d built, with the blood and bones and souls of Toril’s inheritor gods, a great crystal sphere around the worlds that orbited the star Amaunator. A bulwark against the hostile Elder Gods in spaces beyond time and reason, and though cracks and seams had appeared, and been mended, the barrier had held. But it had come at great cost, and although Ao had presented an uncaring, uncompassionate edifice to the gods that had agreed to serve Him, each loss needled into Him until the weight of tragedy

All of the recipes are copyrighted to their respective creators, I just decided to gussy them up for the holidays in lieu of actual fiction. The idea comes from a site called BishounenInk, which is still around, as much as any of us are these days. The advent calendar was my favourite part of the site, so I carry on the proud tradition with these holiday/OC-themed recipes for you to enjoy. Lu’eth’s one-pot Darkenbeast The last mortal Thalassar has a few talents one might not expect of a former Weapons Master: magecraft, ancient languages, and culinary arts. Although he will eat whatever is available without complaint, given an opportunity Lu’eth is actually rather particular about his tastes, which is why he mainly only cooks for himself. This means he also has to clean up his own messes, and one-pot meals are his go-to. This one can be made somewhat fancier for special occasions, like the year’s end.  You will need: 1 newly-hatched darkenbeast chick (For those without access to

A very long time ago, The first thinking beings in the world, inevitably, realised that they were going to die. Some realised this imminently, as their fates rushed to meet them in the form of sharp teeth, slashing claws, whirling torrents, and a thousand other ways to perish. For others the realisation came upon them less lethally, and from those sudden fears, anxieties and sorrows, the first psychopomps were born. These first beings took the shapes of skulls and shadows, gently shepherding the departed souls from the mortal realms to the Land of the Dead. In time they took on more fantastical shapes, as the minds that dreamt them up gained more mental leverage to imagine the realms beyond death, and the ranks of the psychopomps swelled. The suffering that led to death was given shape and form - these spirits took the form of eyeless birds with faces obscured by elaborate masks, and in time became known as nosoi. When the interloper gods arrived, attending their Overgod, they

Dawn was several hours off but the spring sky was already lightening from fathomless black to deepest violet-blue, the stars winking out one by one as the beginning of a new day marched inevitably closer. Shai Melarn watched them disappear, not really understanding why such a thing happened, only that it consistently did, whenever the sky wasn’t covered by clouds. His brother Coranraun likely knew why, but presently he was asleep, his breathing deep and even in the bed beside his own, which had now sat unused for several days. Shai was restless, and these last few days he could barely force himself to take Reverie in a chair for a few hours, before he’d find himself pacing their shared room again, wracking his brain for a solution to the multitude of problems the brothers now faced. Shai Melarn was not a thinker though, and this was unfamiliar territory for him. Throughout his life, he had relied on Coranraun to come up with plans, to dictate courses of action, to allay his fears and

*All of the recipes are copyrighted to their respective creators, I just decided to gussy them up for the holidays in lieu of actual fiction. The idea comes from a site called BishounenInk, which is still around, as much as any of us are these days. The advent calendar was my favourite part of the site, so I carry on the proud tradition with these holiday/OC-themed recipes for you to enjoy.* Kalis's’ Winter Blues The Betrayer doesn’t have a lot to feel blue about these days, and Midwinter in Arcadia is a time of revelry and excess, particularly in Welv’vorrath. The drink began as an experiment with various ingredients, and was picked up by some of the departed Masters studying at the Beacon. They argued that it could be used to commemorate the long-overdue extinguishing of the Blue Fire that had plagued Toril for a century and change, and Kalis, the big enabler he is, did nothing to discourage these and wilder theories about its origin and the significance of its colour. In reality

Hewley had been a celestial for as long as he could remember, which was all of maybe a month, and in that time the grey and black silvanshee felt like he had performed his duties admirably. Enough so that his lord and creator Torm had entrusted him with a very important task: to guide a young dark elf child and instill in him the power and teachings of a Chosen. To that end, Torm had given his Messenger the smaller and more mundane shape of a large tabby housecat, though Hewley could still speak. Approaching the child without alerting hostile forces had been simple enough, as there were a lot of cats in Moonshadow Vale, and many of them were familiars of Xanather's students. The presence of an additional feline in the tower that housed five-year-old Zaknafein and his fathers was hardly noteworthy. One might have even expected that a talking cat would be hardly anything to bat an eye at in a place so thoroughly steeped in magic, but Zak was clearly not used to being approached by

*All of the recipes are copyrighted to their respective creators, I just decided to gussy them up for the holidays in lieu of actual fiction. The idea comes from a site called BishounenInk, which is once again updating. The advent calendar was my favourite part of the site, so I carry on the proud tradition with these holiday/OC-themed recipes for you to enjoy.* Riordan’s “Halcyon Holdingdays” Mug of Cheer You wake up out of a 70 year coma to find a colony on the brink of collapse from a self-made socio-economic nightmare combined with the looming threat of starvation, and what’s the first thing you think? Is it “Oh my God, I’m dead and this is Hell!” ? No! You’re Riordan McPhee and you think to yourself: “I can’t deal with this sober!” So whether it’s the stress of living through the death of democracy, surviving a global pandemic, evading corporate assassins and ravenous wildlife, or trying to make it through the next 48 hours without murdering your in-laws, we could ALL use a

Kael Mizzrym had never been invited to so much as a dinner party during his mortal life, so the idea of attending a grand Midwinters Eve celebration at the Gates of the Moon, as a guest of his lover's father, was firmly beyond his ken. Kalis had tried to reassure him that he only needed to be present, and did not have to pretend at idle conversation with anyone who made him uncomfortable. Which of course was everyone. Standing among the gods of Faerun as a peer wasn't something the new demigod was used to, and he was too wary of their politics to trust himself to speak around them. But it became apparent early on that his anxious mood was going to drag the Betrayer down with him, and he didn’t want that either. Kalis Thalassar had the twin benefits of more casual familiarity with the gods, and the naturally incorrigible nature that made such a thing at all possible. Presently he was trying to feign only passing interest in the conversation he was having with two members of the