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While I was only a distant bystander to her antics, but they were all very interesting to catch glimpses of and gave the impression of a lot of underlying turmoil.

[SECRET SCHICKSAL FAMILY RECIPE]

This is late to the point of irrelevance, but during my holiday hiatus last December and thereafter I missed my chance to transfer my last pc to EE EFU, so he was forced into retirement. I had a lot of fun with Devin as a RSD, and I wish I could've played him to the end and gave him the wide-eyed, narcotic-induced crashlanding into the fugue he deserved (or permadeath from alchemy), but them's the breaks.

My distant dwarf pc taught me at least one thing: I really suck at playing "brave protector" characters well. So.. I didn't!



Devin liked to keep secrets where he could, specifically of how he once had a finger in almost every pie of Lower, regularly mingling and dealing with all its elements, from Ascensionists, to Hoarans, to slime cultists, to necromancers (so many necromancers), to the occasional goblin - though many of these relations were governed solely through being afraid of them. He'd have betrayed any of them to save his own worthless hide given the chance. He disliked involving himself in the many conflicts between these groups and would've rather got inebriated on the sidelines while enjoying the carnage show, but often enough he found himself caught in them anyway as a working class Lowersman.

Just look at this glowing endorsement from the late BOM!


[hide=backstory]As a thayan wizard's slave, Devin was the product of post-Darkening alchemical experimentation. His master wished to discover the precise causes of growths and mutations in specimens like the Roachmen, and deliberately submitted him to early stages of such transformations. In order to test a possible preventive measure, the wizard perfomed arcanic brain surgery on him to nullify magical influences. It succeeded for the most part (his ear grew an insect antenna out of it and had to be cut and burned off), but consequentially made him resilient to all magic in the process, alongside some horrendous personality side effects and drastically reducing his life expectancy - which spurred his dangerous appetite for narcotics and other artificial ways to soothe his imbalanced cognition.

His magical resilience slackened the inhibition magics put on him by his master and allowed him to escape. In the Underdark he plied alchemical crafts learned from his master, including using potent personal "medications" on himself since his time as a wizard's slave gave him tolerance for the otherwise highly toxic ingredients that were in them. He had a terrific and terrible life of constant anxiety, awful jokes, and wanton teetering towards drug overdose.

tl;dr
Former alchemist slave of a red wizard. Was experimented on by master researching post-Darkening mutations. Magical brain surgery prevented his controlled mutation, but made him magic null and drug dependent for any semblance of mental balance. Uses RSD brews as "medications."[/hide]

[hide=jokes i should've been FD'd for telling]Some logic behind his facepalming comedy.


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Devin tagged along with a necromancer who was on a constant quest for "succor."

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During a DM event where a bunch of players gathered in a divination circle and could physically not lie when asked questions, Devin used his turn to ask an elven Lower terrorist revolutionist the most imperative of all inquiries.


[hide=Unused jokes]
There's a lot more awful jokes Devin didn't tell more than once, or never at all, which I had lined up for the right opportunities. Read at your own peril.


What is a sorceresses' intuition called?
Intuwitchtion.


What do you call a monk with no arms?
A man of dis'armony.


If clothes could speak, what would they say?
"This socks."


What do you call a Scrappers' crossroad?
A junktion.


What's a positive way to see a cave-in?
A miner problem.


What's an extortionist's preferred armor?
Black mail.


What does an apathetic farmer say?
"Sow what?"


How do you know when you've amused a sea monster?
When you're kraken them up.


Why can't you trust a minotaur?
Because they're unbelievabull.


What accessory would a water elemental wear in daylight?
A rainbow.


How do alcoholics commune with the dead?
They conduct the spirits.


What's the only thing that can make a dwarf sick?
An ale-ment.[/hide][/hide]
[hide=Varad-Azuul Meeting]
Devin worked beneath the prefect of the canal ward for a time, learning alchemy under him and pushing drugs on his behalf. I don't have many pictures from that time, but I do have two from when we got to meet the head of the Varad-Azuul family.


[/hide]
[hide=Adventure time]Two from a long substance-induced BOM quest which originally started out as a simple drug courier job.



Another DM quest into a drow spider hole. We were searching for a weapon that was lodged in the carapace of a spider titan, and the weapon had a history of inducing unbelievable bloodlust. I don't have screenshots of the battle royale that ensued after we killed it unfortunately. I spent most of the adventure uselessly bloated with poison debuffs.


Devin got some tips on the nuanced, delicate art of goblin surgery.


A distant shores quest got botched and we had to abandon it, so we instead went through a long and gruellingly painful DM quest which ended in killing a kua-toa "demigod" after solving a number sequence problem.


With wereboar pc Lars Stimplesinsson. One of our quests was spiced and we killed a "Dread Lord" goblin cooking bacon from a dead wereboar. We had to pull some stops for that fight.
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[hide=Miscellaneous Shots]We watched a portal master pc get judged for his crimes against the ooze. He had to choose from +20 portals, of as I loosely quote, "ONE WILL LEAD BACK HOME THE OTHERS.. WILL NOT." Needless to say, he chose one which petrified him.


Devin got kidnapped and robbed by a secretive Spellguard wizard, but in return for "providing" a piece of history (a Mark II baublium bazooka which Devin pinched from a "Safety Engineer Tag" months before), he took Devin to the Red Lantern for some classy drinking.


A couple random shots of the more eccentric company that Devin kept down in Lower.



[/hide]
[hide=Loot]Missing a piece or two, specifically a cool scrapper belt Caster made; it was a "force field generator" that had 1/day ghostly visage on it, even though as RSD I couldn't actually use it.

This came from a DM quest where a bunch of pc's and I had to run through a puzzle of billowing flame obstacles that went off in patterns. Our token curio for not going the way of Johnny Cash.


I don't know if this helm was actually unique, but I got it from an elf who commended Devin on his reckless disregard of personal safety after helping ooze cultist pc's stage a "jail break" on the Watchhouse to rescue one of their members from arrest.


This was from the BOM quest mentioned in the last dropdown. Devin found a hallucination of himself, and tag-teamed his own pc group in a fight with it, and after lucidity returned he found this halberd. A weapon so ridiculously powerful that only my own meta incompetence could still make its application mostly underwhelming.
[/hide]

RSD is a really fun and different way to play a Fighter. It opens up cool concepts if you glance through the brew selections and build around them (Devin was mainly dex boost, Herbalist's Touch, and spell resistance). It's crazy how much utility and possibility there is in this single Fighter perk, and every fellow RSD I met had an interesting take on it.

A very specific thanks to Gracken and his dwarf Geidgier Schicksal who wonderfully played an alchemist tutor, and made me really see the beauty of RP potential in the crafting system on EFU before it (justifiably) got removed. Learning how to craft on an OOC and IC medium under him, and inheriting the SECRET SCHICKSAL FAMILY RECIPE for making junksnuff through alchemy/herbalism so I could sell it to players, was the height of my time on Devin.

As someone who currently plays a grotesque addict, I've always felt that slime-squatting addiction is lackluster in flavor beyond its presumed Covenant benefits.

Maybe some minor (5-10%) acid immunity due to acclimating to ooze corrosion?

It was always good to have angry (non-drow) elves taking up residence in Lower. Seething melancholy suits the elven cultural evolution in the server theme very well, yet I don't get to see it performed to any meaningful extent very often. Thanks for the fun down in the gutters.

What. A. Badass. In my return from hiatus, Halabad was a cornerstone of life in Lower. It's gonna be a lot quieter without him.

Whenever I log on to Devin Warder with +3 addiction checks and fail all of them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zlXJB6ZxxU

It always struck me odd that Azure Drow Wine didn't have text messages like sverblin black coffee and other addictive substances do. It could use blue/cyan text as something like:

[PC drinks down a glowing blue wine.]

Really liked Jastra in her time, since my pc (Devin Warder) was otherwise surrounded by Ibrandulites, necromancers, slime cultists, and monster pc's who scared the hell out of him. She brought out the best in an otherwise cowardly, self-interested drug addict.

Heh, "one last favor." Nice fatalism, that was. Whether or not it was his intent, Rylgos struck me as a pc doing what nearly everyone else failed to do; unite Lower. Was happy to see things not only held together after the death of Phyrra, but continued to flourish.

Although I think RSD is already really versatile in my experience so far (and potentially powerful for a non-app lifestyle choice), something extra for level 8, even if it was just a slightly reduced DC when using herbs in combat on yourself and/or others, to give 8 a little more flavor, wouldn't be misfounded -- self-serving as that might sound.

Some exclusive selection of brews or perk_skills at 8 (or higher) that have negative drawbacks would also be a pretty novel concept. The perk's mechanics have always reminded me a little of The Witcher in a way, especially now with the new Aberration Bane brew.

Theme of the Barony von Shicksal pseudo-faction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULeDlxa3gyc

Or if you're an utter simpleton on Windows 7 like me, you can open the TGA in PictureViewer, then just copy-paste the screenshot into MS paint, then "Save As" it in JPG.

My only friend in disgustingly cringey humor. A great time alongside Bariakas, even if (or perhaps, because) most of that time was pure intimidation and constant hints of betrayal.

Interacting with and getting extorted by a bunch of junksnuff-fueled gremlins was hilariously fun. Hope to see some different flavors of monster pc groups in the eventual future.

Batmanning done right.