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The Ravening War - Blog Posts
EVERY EQUATION
I C A N S E E E V E R Y
E Q U A T I O N
I C A N S E E E V E R Y
E Q U A T I O N
Why stop at fire, water, earth and air? We’ve got 14 other para-elemental, quasi-elemental, and energy planes floating around in the ether.
Start an Eiselcross-based EXU miniseries with “Ice.” Start some gothic western D20 side quest with “Salt.” because the first scene opens on spooky salt flats. Use your imagination, people!
Am I only saying this because I want to see a professional DM start a campaign with “Ooze.”? No, why do you ask?
Imagine if Raphaniel Charlock finds out where his visions come from and it’s this ancient deity adjacent to the hungry one.
They dare not speak its name.
Insinkerator the Screeching One.
Raphaniel touching the mycelium (I think it’s mycelium) really is Matt returning the favor for Patia touching the Arboreal Calyx.
No context Ravening war ep3 spoilers
The “Fellowship of Destiny’s Architects”(FDA) comes from a long pedigree of conceptual puns that D20 has been cultivating:
SW: spoilers for a LOT of Dimension 20
Sinatra’s Law (the Imperial Axiom) being “If I can make it there, I can make it anywhere.”
NY traffic flowing against the literal laylines of the city, and that’s why it’s so labyrinthine and bad
In the same setting, JJ’s analysis of the particle physics of the Unsleeping City (Nothing is faster than a New York minute)
The Pirates of Leviathan insurance scam being based on a literal “act of god”
The Ramsian Doctrine (Junk food)
The whole thing with Jacques Tomaté and whether a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable was actually introduced in the original Crown of Candy
Gnosis being Clippy
Feel free to name any I haven’t thought of.
All I’m saying is after years of Brennan stinkers, Matt wanted to get in one of his own.
My sincere hope for this season is that the appearance of a Cruller ancestor will grant Lou the dubious honor (through Delissandro’s careful charm and seduction) of fucking Calroy’s mom.
Lady Amangeaux Epicée du Peche from the Ravening war, she’s really interesting and has a great design 🥺
Her story just has the right amount of tragedy and sweetness to it
does Lady Amangeaux Epicee du Peche, rightful queen of Vegetania, warrior of Fructera know that she is my mother because i swear to god she had best survive this series
Spoilers for Ep 3 of The Ravening War
so like did i think pamelia rocks was gonna die this episode, yes
but God Damn Lou Wilson absolutely tore my heart out with this one yall. i may never emotionally recover. and then the WIDE range of reaction of what theyd just done mmmmm.
very good episode. but also gimme the adventuring party like asap i beg
coming back out of the my hole to say that if anything happens to that little wine grape baby ms aabria iyengar i will be VERY UPSET
A right hand man. A trusty sword. A friend.
Deli finds comfort in his new acquaintance. Colin Provolone is a sturdy and simple man— quick and skilled in battle, a loyal and reliable in service, and also a good friend. Deli, with boyhood now smudged against the edges of his face, grows into his position of The Meat Lands.
Colin keeps the promise he made years ago to a disgruntled mother in the corner of an expansive hall in Comida. He listens and enacts the advises and discussions made for the benefit of this land far from home. He keeps guard and wrestles the yawns that strangle his throat and eyes as politics are discussed. All standing, never leaving, the right hand of Deli.
Colin watches Deli through the days, this leader guided with a willpower of steel, the love and dedication to the unification of his home watering his quick growth and maturation. Two years and Deli had become a fearsome, confident and ambitious young man.
Then Deli lies a gift upon his shoulders— Skald Colin Provolone, meaning poet (sing the songs of heroes, be my witness, carve my name into history, approve of my works).
And when Deli uses this title, Colin doesn’t question. He only grips his sword tighter, stands straighter, observes steadier. Deli’s sword and shield. His skald, his poet.
And at night he meets a softer, kinder Deli. They sit on the edge of Deli’s bed, talking and laughing about smaller matters. Sweeter things, like childhood and gossip that whisper down the hallways. He watched Deli’s expressions pour out, an innocence that splays across his face. He finds delight in those times, a remedy for a past he tries to forget. Light laughter, “simple is always how we’ve kept things”, and drunkenness fills the air between the two.
Two quiet years. Then comes blood.
And blood and blood pours from a carriage and drips, viscous, hot and real from hands and blades.
A quiet shatter in friendship. A trusty sword clanks at the feet of Deli and the familiar, light scent of cheese drifts far away from the house.
For the first time in two years, Deli is alone. A void renders behind him where his skald, his poet, would be standing.
And then five years pass and Colin sees Deli again. Scars rip at his face and he explains in whispers the ambush which landed him with it. Colin examines Deli’s face and finds little. A hardened and rough man. Colin thinks Deli resembles his mother.
Colin thinks about how he might’ve been able to prevent it, how he would’ve kept his promise, how he would have been able to protect him or die trying. Deli’s sword and shield, his skald, his poet.
There, Colin watches Karna die and the light leave Deli’s eyes. He watches the replaced Skald (and he thinks about the way Deli reached out to her with this title that fit her so effortlessly) shredded into a million pieces and he hears something in Deli die along with it.
This time Colin saves him. He nurses his old friend to stability and yet the “yeah, we’ll talk later” never comes as he watches Deli walk off into the sunset, now a man that would never be the boy, the friend Colin knew five years ago. A man with a cold and lifeless portrait, his soft edges ragged and a heart half rotten.
A sword. A shield. A skald, a poet. Colin keeps a promise to a mother and son made seven years ago. A protector, dedicated and loyal. He swings his sword quietly, precisely, dangerously against the ones who killed all his friends, dead or alive. Colin Provolone, sole survivor of the Saprophus, the poet of dead heroes.
The Rook’s exchange.
A flower, clutched and crushing in her hands, the blue-white staining and eating her fingertips— a cyanotype. She gazes across the battlefield. She sneaks into the bedchambers of a beloved she kept too close, kept too far.
Karna stands in replaced positions. A Colin sized position. An Ariana sized position.
Her heart skips a beat as she skims over Deli’s haphazardly hidden notes. She finds motes of anger, of resentment, of despair and heartbreak at the corners of rapid heartbeats. She pulls and tugs at them, rearranging herself. Presentable. Useful. Disposable.
She slides her note underneath the pillows of Delissandro Katzon’s bed. A quiet confession. A hopeful confession. She must survive.
She is dying, she is a child, she is in love. She hopes and she fears as tears crawl down her face and the rot eats her body. She knows the ways of war and the smell of murder better than the scent of a well prepared meal in the comforts of home. She knows the quick breath of death and the slow of a pulse better than the warmth of a family and the embrace of a lover. “She died nine years ago”.
At the bottom of the earth, in the embrace of Heart of the World, her story ends in a realm unknown to the rest. All the fighting to survive, the lies and the murder, the whispering of secret secrets and the blood dripping from the end of a blade. It all comes to a rest. Karna gives in to her exhaustion with an exhale (exhale, exhale). Eyes closed and a prayer to no god. A Hunger greets this tired warrior.
Cold steel rips apart her torn body. She dies and no one will mourn her. She dies and no mother, no sister, no lover will leave flowers by her gravestone, no eulogies sung, an insignificant name.
She dies and she looks at the face of her lover. A letter remains underneath his pillows. Will he mourn for her?
“The only secret I have left, is that I love you” and in a title that was never made for her— “Signed, Sklad Karna Solara of Scoville”.
The Pawn resigns.
My next analysis has to be about The Ravening War and its allegories to chess.
The dichotomy between dice and its superstitions and randomness with chess and strategy and wit has to be studied under a microscope.
Especially in a story like the Ravening War where the characters each have such a distinct style of movement to clutch power and gain momentum in the story. Not to mention that they make references to the game itself many times!!
Very very interesting.
Amongst a group of a queen, a powerful bishop, a skilled spy and a to be chief, only Colin Provolone, a Dairy Island runaway, really escaped Saprophus.
He whose secret forced him to escape his homeland, stay undercover, speak nothing, want nothing. He whose morality throws his sword at the feet of his good friend, a devotion severed by the burden of death, and to think that war was all he was good for.
And yet, he makes it out of the rot-filled cave. He saves Deli, half-dead, his body lying still at the mouth of the cave, and still half-dead as he walks over the horizon, never seen again. He protected Amangeaux, one who is forever indebted, her regret buried a thousand miles down a cave non-existent, a life owed to a memory of those lost and now lies dead beneath their feet.
Colin Provolone begins this journey a sword and shield. He protects and devotes and craves belonging. His allies are bloodied and shattered and their purpose lies dead, forgotten to war and revenge, names erased to the world they so desperately etched their nails into.
Yet Colin Provolone survives with a purpose so driven. He is a quiet survivor, a noble protector. He remembers his allies, their hubris, their desperation. He swings his sword so that this world may know peace a little longer, that the war may have served a greater good, that the blood spilled may have been worth it.
In nobility, in morality, in wit and in war, Provolone survives the manipulation, the secrets and the ravening war with greater purpose than he started with and more gained than lost.
Knight takes King.
Crying real tears after the final episode of The Ravening War
What the fuck
I have so many thoughts about Deli, Colin, Karna and Ariana that I cannot put into a coherent sentence as of current so this Tumblr post is all I have to say
Evan and Jammer, Raphaniel and Deli
Something something about Brennan and Lou’s friendship across the table
Help me break my art block, please!! 😭
