@shellgames@mstdn.games
@shellgames@mstdn.games avatar

shellgames

@shellgames@mstdn.games

Vidyagame stuff for nice people who love stories. Nebula/WFA-nominated novelist, permanoob gamer, cancer brat. LAVARU BION SIK. (A division of Elkoss Combine.)

Discord: mishellbaker#1595
Steam ID: 76561198030808357
PlayStation: ShellSh0ckPS
BattleTag: ShellSh0ck#11185

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

shellgames, to random
@shellgames@mstdn.games avatar

My latest random game hyperfocus: Origins! It's been long enough that it's like new again.

I've decided to play as Thedas Me. But since it's "origins," my Amell mage has my birth name, Rebekah. She represents young me: idealistic, spiritual, gifted, sheltered, lonely, certain that she's Special, driven by emotion and quick to believe in legends and all things mystical. I'll tag and thread my posts in case anyone wants to follow (or mute) my playthrough. :)

shellgames,
@shellgames@mstdn.games avatar

I gave her blonde hair and an unfortunate nose, because we're being honest here.

So far in the story I have immediately turned in my errant best friend Jowan to First Enchanter Irving, because young Rebekah was nothing if not a compulsive rule-follower and heart-eyed devotee of male authority figures.

#RebekahAmell

shellgames,
@shellgames@mstdn.games avatar

#RebekahAmell must have bangs, of course, as I had them until well into my twenties.

shellgames,
@shellgames@mstdn.games avatar

As both punishment and reward for pretending to go along with Jowan as he broke into the Tower's repository, I've been recruited by Duncan into the Grey Wardens, to fight Darkspawn in the south. Hey, no worries, as long as there's an older man to tell me what to do, I'll be just fine!

#RebekahAmell

shellgames,
@shellgames@mstdn.games avatar

I, #RebekahAmell, have now arrived at Ostagar to join the Grey Wardens and bolster King Cailan's forces against the darkspawn. Joining me here are two other new Warden recruits, both human men. I flirted a bit with roguish Daveth, since I can no longer vent such impulses on that gormless young templar Cullen. I did not flirt with Ser Jory, as he greeted me with "I didn't realize they let women be Grey Wardens" and I was busy resisting the urge to set him on fire with my mind.

shellgames,
@shellgames@mstdn.games avatar

Duncan turned me loose in the camp - the first time I have ever been allowed to wander anywhere unsupervised. Drunk with the heady spirit of freedom, I immediately demanded an audience with Teyrn Loghain, the second most powerful man in Ferelden.

Given that the MOST powerful man - His Majesty Cailan, Golden Retriever King of Ferelden - had already taken it on himself to greet me and Duncan at the gate with tail awag, Loghain seemed to find this all relatively normal.

#RebekahAmell

shellgames,
@shellgames@mstdn.games avatar

At this war camp of all places, I finally meet Senior Enchanter Wynne, a silver-haired Creation specialist who'd been living at the same tower as me for years but had never been assigned to teach me. If she had, perhaps I'd have passed my Harrowing sooner... or at least had a decent female role model.

In theory, Senior Enchanter Uldred is hereabouts somewhere too, but he's one of those Dangerous Libertarians the Chantry has always warned us about, so I avoid him at all costs.

#RebekahAmell

shellgames,
@shellgames@mstdn.games avatar

Now that I've explored every inch of the war camp that I was not actively barred from, I'm ready to track down a Warden by the name of Alistair and find out about this "Joining" ritual that Daveth, Jory and I must undertake to become Grey Wardens.

Ugh, I JUST passed my Harrowing. At least this time I probably just have to kill some darkspawn instead of going into the Fade. That requires a draught of concentrated lyrium, and nothing could be worse than drinking THAT stuff.

#RebekahAmell

shellgames,
@shellgames@mstdn.games avatar

#RebekahAmell here again to tell you there IS something worse! It all began when I met Alistair, junior member of the Grey Wardens... and former templar. Thanks to my misadventures in helping implicate my best friend Jowan as a blood mage, I had just gotten out from under the eyes of the Circle templars... and who do the Wardens put in charge of me? This guy. Sigh.

shellgames,
@shellgames@mstdn.games avatar

For our Joining ritual, we had to follow Alistair into the wilds to get darkspawn blood and find some treaties in a chest in the ruins if a Grey Warden fortress. The darkspawn were horrifying, but we managed to kill more than enough to fill the required vials with their toxic black blood.

When we arrived at the ruin, though, we found a destroyed empty chest. Meanwhile a peculiar young barbarian woman found us.

#RebekahAmell

shellgames,
@shellgames@mstdn.games avatar

The mysterious young woman (witch, the men insisted), told us that her mother had taken the Grey Warden treaties to protect them. It was kind of her to take us to her house, and kind of her elderly mother to give us the papers, and yet the men insisted on being endlessly rude to both of them.

I will confess that something about the mother did unnerve. She seemed to know a bit too much about everything, including us... but all the more reason not to antagonize her, right?

#RebekahAmell

shellgames,
@shellgames@mstdn.games avatar

The girl, Morrigan, led us safely back out of the wilds, then disappeared. With all our objectives achieved, we returned to Duncan only to learn the horrible secret of the Joining, and why the Grey Wardens are immune to darkspawn corruption...

We all had to drink a concoction containing their blood.

YUCK.

#RebekahAmell

shellgames,
@shellgames@mstdn.games avatar

I would like to say it went well. But I cannot. Daveth was the first to drink, and died swiftly. Ser Jory panicked when his turn came and drew a blade on Duncan... which did not end well. When it was my turn I choked the stuff down, immediately lost my senses and had a vision of a huge, nightmarish dragon. But hey, at least I survived... right?

#RebekahAmell

shellgames, to random
@shellgames@mstdn.games avatar

Sometimes it blows my mind that the WoW tabletop-style RP guild/writers group thing I started 3 years ago is still going strong. I wanted 5-6 regular players; we are currently about a dozen. People just didn't leave in the numbers I predicted.

There are a lot of reasons it worked, but the main one is selecting the right leadership team to begin with. Also I think it fills a need no other game guild or writers' group does, because it's both.

shellgames, to random
@shellgames@mstdn.games avatar

Devs would do better at avoiding player burnout and still achieve player retention if they focused less on making certain shiny GOALS harder and harder to reach and more on making the game just fun to, you know, play. While playing it. At whatever level.

shellgames, to random
@shellgames@mstdn.games avatar

Every time someone uses the word "grinding" to refer to something they willingly do in a game I wanna ask, do you have any idea how tedious that sounds? You could use literally any other word and what you're doing would not sound quite so excruciatingly dull and pointless.

The minute a game feels like a "grind" I am out of there so fast.

I am DEEPLY opposed to the addiction-based models that some games use to keep you spending endless hours having zero fun. Life's short.

shellgames, to random
@shellgames@mstdn.games avatar

I know that generally speaking, video game romances are about tension and complication and so you're not going to just meet some nice pastry chef and have 2.5 kids. BUT HOLY FORKING SHIRTBALLS, BG3. Every single person in the game is extraordinarily hot and also the kind of person your mom, therapist, and best friend would all team up to chloroform you and lock you in an underground vault just to keep you away from. Every possible version of that. 😂

shellgames,
@shellgames@mstdn.games avatar

If you're about to say, "Aw, well _______ isn't so bad" GET YOURSELF A THERAPIST BEFORE YOU DATE, DARLING FRIEND.

shellgames, to random
@shellgames@mstdn.games avatar

Some good Eder content in the latest episode of my real-time, unedited #PillarsOfEternity stream! As always, table of contents in the description will help you skip around to the parts that interest you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QicVZ9oDDTc

shellgames,
@shellgames@mstdn.games avatar

@WanderingInDigitalWorlds I really love having him along too. He's such a nice combination of big beefy farmer boy + slightly philosophical, and in Deadfire it's so interesting to see how he reacts to the other companions. And in the first game I loved how he was constantly making snarky comments about Durance. XD

broximar, to tes
@broximar@masto.ai avatar

I'm on a boat

(I bought the boat)

#ESO #Gaming #MMO #VideoGames

shellgames,
@shellgames@mstdn.games avatar

@broximar I LOVE THAT BOAT

shellgames, to ElderScrollsOnline
@shellgames@mstdn.games avatar

Speaking of projects people were pretty sure I'd abandoned: I've just posted a NEW novella in my #elderscrollsonline fanfiction series, bringing the total word count of the project to almost 93,000!

Looking for some reading material? Curious about ESO and its lore? Do I have a treat for you!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20750714/chapters/49304945

shellgames, to random
@shellgames@mstdn.games avatar

Got my second video up!

https://www.youtube.com/live/cZ7A2P8ymB0?feature=share

shellgames,
@shellgames@mstdn.games avatar

@WanderingInDigitalWorlds I'm adding some of those to my to-play list :D

shellgames,
@shellgames@mstdn.games avatar

@WanderingInDigitalWorlds I think Morrowind is the only one in your list that I have not only played, but finished! Absolutely epic and one of the standards I hold all other game stories to.

shellgames,
@shellgames@mstdn.games avatar

@WanderingInDigitalWorlds The worldbuilding in my trilogy was 100% inspired by the "different people tell different versions of the the truth and you have to figure out what's going on for yourself" approach from Morrowind.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • JUstTest
  • kavyap
  • DreamBathrooms
  • thenastyranch
  • magazineikmin
  • tacticalgear
  • cubers
  • Youngstown
  • mdbf
  • slotface
  • rosin
  • osvaldo12
  • ngwrru68w68
  • GTA5RPClips
  • provamag3
  • InstantRegret
  • everett
  • Durango
  • cisconetworking
  • khanakhh
  • ethstaker
  • tester
  • anitta
  • Leos
  • normalnudes
  • modclub
  • megavids
  • lostlight
  • All magazines
    •