35 | Canadian | she | infp | capricorn | slytherin | biromantic | demisexual | poly of the polyfidelity vein | Mostly pop culture, hot takes, and LGBTQ+ reblogs but with a mix of a wide variety of other weirdo cult culture and book interests thrown in for good measure.
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really hilarious and unsexy when hetero romantasy authors refer to love interests as males and females. you sound like david attenborough narrating a special documentary on two turtles humping in the mud
“Humans are inherently selfish–“ Then why do so many cultures value hospitality, to the point of dictating it in their religions? Why is it so common for hosts to offer their visitors their best food, and as much of it as they can? At some point, multiple cultures decided that they knew what it felt like to be alone and vulnerable, and promised each other to never let those who stay with them feel that way. That doesn’t sound very "inherently selfish” to me.
Concept: a D&D adventure where the party stops to rest at a village inn where they seem to be the only guests. The village appears prosperous and well taken care of, but its inhabitants are strangely morose and blunt-spoken. Whether the party decides to investigate or attempts to move on, it quickly becomes apparent that something is terribly wrong: any effort to initiate violence or utter untruth fails as the offender is wracked with terrible pain, unkind words stick in the throat unspoken – and worst of all, anyone who attempts to leave the village becomes confused and finds themselves coming back the way they came. When (politely) questioned, the villagers will say only that the party must speak to the wizard whose tower lies to the east.
Upon reaching the wizard’s tower, the party is met by a slender, youthful-looking man with an unnaturally deep voice, who greets them with distracted courtesy, and – after making brief introductions – reveals that he knows why the party is there, and that it’s indeed all his fault. Thirty years ago, the wizard attempted to cast a blessing of peace and prosperity over the village, but the spell went awry: the enchantment proved to be much more powerful and long-lasting than intended, and its notion of what constitutes a breach of the peace far more expansive. Not only does it prohibit physical violence, but also insults, lies both overt and of omission, and simple failures of courtesy. Even leaving the village seems to be construed as an act of abandonment, and therefore of emotional violence.
Luckily, the wizard believes he’s discovered why the enchantment has become a curse. Though it was intended to ensure that people would be kind to one another, it ironically rendered its own fulfillment impossible, as the villagers began to treat each other well out of fear of reprisal rather than true good will. A sufficiently great act of genuine kindness, unalloyed by self-interest, would shatter the enchantment in an instant – but how can such a thing be brought about, in a place where all have been made strangers to love?
“This is why we consult with experts on this sort of thing.” Albert grumbled.
Wizards had a delightful sense of the transgressive, which Albert approved of, but for a profession so intent on learning they were, in his experience, bad at planning.
“Hooboy did that town get unlucky.” Albert’s exhibit A, Roderick Rockhammer, interjected. Roderick’s bowed legs dangled from one of the wizards tabletops, where he was reading through a spellbook (quite uninvited.). “I ain’t been unalloyed by self-interest since… well, since I was in dad’s coin purse, so to speak.”
The other gnome present, a sorcerous cutpurse named Fassil, nodded. Roderick’s dwarf cousin, Borin, nodded his helmeted head. “Can confirm.”
“Their misfortune started long before we came to town.” Albert said. He idly dusted his top hat with a clawed, scaly hand as he thought aloud. “This hairy rodent- some offense intended-”
“Some… taken?” the Wizard replied.
“-Good to know we’re on the same page - Anyhow, this hairy rodent has gone and thrown a paradox at the city.” Albert looked around the tower for a chair suitable for the tail-enabled and, finding nothing, sat upon an upside-down cauldron that creaked under his reptilian mass.
“Why don’t we just go down there, like, do a nice thing for an old lady, and be done with it?” Borin interjected.
“It wouldn’t work.” Albert replied. “Lets say I go down there to perform some act of kindness to save everyone, even if I did it while cloaked by the spirits to be unseen and completely anonymous, my own desire to assist and the potential satisfaction that comes from it would render it still an act of self-service, because SOMEONE had to go and make a LIVING SPELL that also happens to be a nihilistic adolescent pedant!”
“This one of those spells that stops when the caster dies?” Fassil asked.
“No!” The wizard shouted.
“We’d bring you back.” Fassil grumbled.
“Oh, trust me, if that was an option, I’d have brought it up.” Roderick replied, making no effort to hide the scrolls stuffed in his robe.
“As ironic as it may sound coming from me we can’t solve all our problems with murder.” Albert shook his head. “Much less this, dongus’s problems.”
“Dingus.” Borin corrected.
“You mammals have too many names for your generative organs, anyone ever tell you that?” Albert snapped. Before Fassil could chime in, Albert continued- “Besides myself. Anyhow, the curse prevents any act of charity from being an act of charity if the person is remotely aware of the curse, or gets any kind of benefit from the action. If it’s done on accident, it won’t count.”
Fassil looked up. “We set up an ambush on the road, we take whoever it is prisoner, and work up this story about how we’re going to the town to loot it and burn it to the ground. We let ‘em escape, and then when they run to warn the town, boom! Whole thing’s done!”
Borin raised a mail-clad hand. “But anyone running to the town would also be looking for safety, or reward, we might have to do that a hundred times before someone’s only thinking of the village’s safety.”
“I gots it!” Roderick smirked. “We got all kinds of magic scrolls and whatnot here, we summon and unleash a beholder on the town!”
The room fell silent.
“Why?” Albert finally asked.
“One, because it’s awesome.” Roderick grinned. “And two, because it’s got an anti-magic eye and it’s a big o'l frickin’ asshole! Beholder goes floating into town all zap-zap, bwahaha, fear my roundness!”
Roderick mimed the rampage as he spoke, knocking a number of books from the table he was rampaging over.
“In the middle of all the chaos, people are gonna do a dozen kind things a second to help out their friends and escape the place, and inside the anti-magic eye-beam the curse can’t complicate-it-up!”
Borin raised his hand again. “But if they’re not in the curse, how does the curse know they’ve done a kind thing to break it?”
Everyone went back to pondering.
“Are we sure we can’t kill the wizard?” Fassil asked after far too few seconds.
“YES.” The wizard replied, expecting to not be the only one saying it.
After a long pause, Albert stood up to his full saurian height. He straightened his waistcoat in the way that meant he was about to opine. Borin, recognizing this, got comfortable.
“Gentlemen, we have forgotten our roots as Professor Albert O. Sauros and the Electric Lizard Experience-”
“That is not our name.” Fassil corrected, rightly.
“Regardless. The problem is simple. This isn’t a problem for wizards or adventurers, it’s a problem for entertainers! This, my friends, is a problem for the circus.”
“Proverbial or literal?” Roderick asked. “Because if it’s proverbial-like, I still feel like we’re on the hook here.”
“Literal of course!” Albert grinned. “We hire a circus to come set up about a quarter mile outside the town, we invite the whole city to fun day at the circus! Everyone, man, woman, child, no cost!”
Fassil snapped their fingers. “Yeah! It ain’t abandonment if they’re all goin’ together to do something fun!”
“The curse would have to let them go.” Roderick interjected. “It would FORCE them to go. Missing out on the circus, depriving them of that joy? Such injustice couldn’t stand!”
“And once everyone’s out of the village-” Albert grinned with his many sharp teeth. “Dealing with the curse is simplicity itself.”
“Howso?” The wizard asked.
Roderick hopped up on the table and walked over to the wizard. Between his hunched, rickets-riddled form and the height of the table, the two mages were eye to eye.
“Same way you solve any problem that gets too big.” Roderick said. Eye to eye, he could see pure, honest glee in those crazed orbs, along with the scroll of meteor swarm gripped in his gnarled hand.
“Long range arson.” Roderick continued.
“No town.” Fassil added.
“No curse.” Borin piped in.
“No problem.” Albert finished, with a flourish of his hat.
