Aaaa, your art is wonderful! This is the first time I've seen any fanart related to my campaigns, I'm honestly feeling a little choked up right now. I deeply appreciate your hand's sacrifice & will treasure this adorable harem!

Out of curiosity, what are the names of the three lovebirds? They all look so stylish!

You're /entirely/ welcome! For the record I'm very pleased to hear this as it means I've appropriately wreaked my revenge. Reading your devlogs + replies in addition to just witnessing everything you've put into your games is what made me decide to sit down and draw something as thanks and appreciation. Because I feel like I can't quite convey it in words. >:(

(Plus, we have too many jokes about Sable now so I was clearly honour-bond to execute at least one of them.)

I'm glad you asked but I also hope you realized you're inviting me to hand you a wall of text! Sorry not sorry! You brought this on yourself:

The handsome troll up front was the player character of friend-who-introduced-your-mods/shadowrun-to-me. Soren has the exact same portrait as you picked for Sable,[cdn.discordapp.com] so that was quite interesting once he ran into the man himself... Especially considering how portraits work in the dialogue selection menu. My friend told me he got them mixed up all the time especially in battle, since he'd statted Soren as a physical adept. Wonder how Sable felt flirting with his warsword-toting mirror image.
(Soren's story doesn't end as happily as he teams with Zielor to scorch Shiawase as payback for Sable's death.)

The dwarf off to the left, meanwhile, is currently being played by friend-who-I'm-forcing-to-play-Caldecott! (Not that I'd have to, they're enjoying it, and they turned down my offer to buy Hong Kong for them in exchange for extra coercion leverage so I'm not quite forcing them per say.) My friend initially scoffed at the idea of Relik[cdn.discordapp.com] flirting but quickly changed their mind after seeing it in action. Or rather, they were initially playing 100% Relik, but then switched to 75% Relik and 25% curiousity about how the romance route plays out:

引用自 Friend, directly from stream commentary：

it made me laugh enough where i was like "ok there's no way i can choose any other option"

引用自 Friend, just now：

The sophisticated dialogue lured me in
tall, dark, and handsome. ;)

I kind of threw them straight into Caldecott without any prior training playing the HBS campaigns at all, so Relik's first meeting with Sable consisted of proclaiming he was a knight in shining armour, before quickly crawling off into a side room to avoid immediately dying on the next gunshot, thus letting Sable handle the mook-slaughtering...

引用自 Stream chat transcription：

Me: "You? Knight in shining armour? More like Sable hard-carry your asses."
Friend: "Mhmmmm. Sable is the horse. I'm the knight."
Me: "HAHAAHHAHAHAHAAAHH WOW. TOTALLY NOT AN INNUENDO."
Me: "Sable is definitely a horse's name though."

引用自 Friend, much later：

Sable: the finest horse I've ever met
Come on, he's one letter away from Stable

I asked my friend if they wanted to add anything about Relik and now you, too, have the pleasure of being subjected to this pun:

引用自 Friend：

since my character was ported from a medieval rp, does that mean he's a Relik of the past?

The human in the hotseat is the player character I've been taking through your campaigns (Yes, friend-who-introduced-me told me I shouldn't do that but it amuses me to do just that. Or just that I put a LOT of effort into splicing together his custom portrait and I will *absolutely* use it any chance I get! So bite me) Roman[cdn.discordapp.com] is a charismatic face and his whole deal is looking pretty and whacking the rest with a flaming khopesh. In Caldecott, Rafik picked him up almost-literally out of the trash years ago after Roman attempted to offer him adult services. A bit awkward of a first meeting in hindsight, especially as Rafik and Kora later became something of adopted-parents-slash-brother-and-inlaw.

引用自 Liveblog adventures：

HA
FIRST THING SABLE ASKS
IS WHATS YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR PARENTS
roman: you mean rafik and kora?

There isn't an overabundance of room to Face or diva your way through missions, but Roman capitalised on offering flirtatious comments to anybody and everybody and promised Kora he'd break Sable's heart first. (Lucky for him he kept his good looks even after the bombing incident, hm?)

引用自 Liveblog adventures：

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/404721584771825675/590026183698022401/unknown.png
flashbacks to:
roman proposing an extraction just for him
roman, playing along as knight-in-shining-armour
roman, charisma 6

引用自 Liveblog adventures：

Roman, leaning into the hot mic board Ship Unsinkable, making full use of sultry 'pirate' vocals: "I'm here to plunder your booty~"

In another life, he was a shadowrunner rumoured to also be an adult trid star frequenting Kali's haunts, but I think in Caldecott he just ended up getting annoyed by the HPF repeatedly slinging fireballs at his newly-revived bf...



EDIT: bonus shenanigans for your viewing pleasure.

引用自 Friend：

Sable: "I must admit, I've had my eye on you from nearly the moment we first met. I've met all sorts of people in my journeys around this continent, but there's something truly unique about you."
-cuts to Relik and Rafik crawling on the floor at a quarter health, then sprinting into the nearest room and hiding while Sable does all the dirty work-

引用自 Me：

Truly unique about the way you... Er.... crawled out of danger

引用自 Friend：

"Your ability to scrape so closely to death... then panic and somehow end up successful... it is undeniably something to admire."

引用自 Me：

“How you’re capable of leaving yourself so vulnerable and yet have your position of leadership go completely unquestioned is incredible to behold!”

引用自 Friend：

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/444293643642339328/590765211825209363/image0.jpg
I can't believe that just happened

引用自 Me：

HAHA HA
I seem to be temporarily speechless

引用自 Friend：

The undertone of this dialogue is clearly "Wow, such detail to these muscles! And the shape of them, simply breathtaking to witness. It seems these arms cling to death more often than they do enemies!"

引用自 Me：

HA HA HA HA HA
He’s just shocked how you can be both so jacked and completely wasted in any fight

引用自 Friend：

Absolutely

引用自 Me：

Built these muscles crawling out of the doors of hell more than once

Yessss, my cunning plan to learn the backstories of the characters has succeeded! Thank you for the write-up and the chat snippets, I laughed out loud reading these. What a hapless but fun group! I love reading about how players flesh out their characters' backgrounds and personalities like that.

I'm a little surprised that Soren was able to pick Sable's portrait, I thought that I'd removed it from the character build options - might be a bug for me to investigate!

And great job on Roman's custom portrait! I really like how the style fits in with the official portraits, while being a very distinctive and intriguing presence. Cheers!

Haha, fell right into that one!

My friend tells me it was a long time ago so Soren's portrait might have been a result of "trying to customise it or something" ... So possibly not a bug, but amusing on its own!

I'll leave you a few memes that came from yesterday's stream. Friend is nearing the end of Caldecott but these were pretty memorable:

引用自 Relik, struggling to get across to the wastewater facility：

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/444293643642339328/591466890065477642/unknown.png

引用自 We had a bunch of trouble with Rafik missing his shots, so more-experienced friend gave some pointers...：

Soren-Friend: Check his stats and consider getting Aim
Soren-Friend: Which improves accuracy

Relik-Friend: Out of context that sounds like a burn
Relik-Friend: "Rafik, have you considered... Aiming?"

Me: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/444293643642339328/591471831769153546/unknown.png

引用自 Circus...?：

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/444293643642339328/591486475221073920/image0.jpg
Sable, post-heist:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/444293643642339328/591667771629109307/unknown.png

Bonus circus shenanigans:

引用自 Me：

And I’m just sayin
Tag your char as a circus performer
I suggest sword juggling for sable with some fire eating thrown in
Roman is probably a trapeze artist

引用自 Relik-Friend：

Persi is like the animal expert that handles the elephants and lions except they're all drones

引用自 Me：

Dorbi wants them to fly through huge rotating rings of fiery death
She just specializes in hugeass fireballs because who DOESNT want to see hugeass fireballs
I’m not sure if she’s the kind for that kind of dramatic but
Makes a huge fire show and makes it seem like it backfired(ha) really badly in the last huge HURRAH
Like ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ INCINERATED
But nope totally fine
The Phoenix lives
Roaring applause

引用自 Relik-Friend：

Yesssss
Relik's beard would get so singed every show
He takes off his glasses and his eyes are the only part of his face not covered in ash

引用自 Soren-Friend：

Soren...
Sheesh IDEK what he does

引用自 Me：

Clearly Soren is Sable’s body double
They both juggle swords at each other or something
Roman is chilling up in the whatever you call it up there

引用自 Relik-Friend：

Roman but The Greatest Showman au

引用自 Me：

Rafik is just the dude that opens the cage to let the drones fly in
And also stands at the safety net

引用自 Relik-Friend：

He's there to make sure the audience will be healed if need be

引用自 Me：

Kora happily sells plush toys to kids and concessions
Nicest lady ever

引用自 Relik-Friend：

He's there to make sure the audience will be healed if need be
Aww she would

引用自 Me：

Key word the audience
Are we missing anyone ...
The guys that aren’t on your side run the midway to scam you of your money

引用自 Soren-Friend：

The midway?

引用自 Me：

Uh
The uh
With the game booths and faire rides
The UNWINNABLE game booths
And the very dangerous faire rides

引用自 Relik-Friend：

I like imagining Relik as the ringleader who juggles the hoops

引用自 Me：

HAHA YES

引用自 Soren-Friend：

Literally
Ring
Leader

引用自 Me：

Does he do the announcer voice

引用自 Relik-Friend：

I would love that
So much witty commentary would be had

引用自 Me：

Some people are surprised but the dwarvish charm is in there

引用自 Relik-Friend：

Indeed
So many terrible dwarf jokes and puns too
Oh my god
Relik would be shot out of the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ cannon

引用自 Me：

HAHA

引用自 Relik-Friend：

GOGGLES ON

引用自 Me：

YES

引用自 Relik-Friend：

READY FOR LAUNCH
HIGH VELOCITY DWARF COMING THROUGH

引用自 Me：

BOOM! Shot out of the big tent
You don’t hear him announce again until dramatic reappearance

引用自 Relik Friend：

Yesss

引用自 Me：

Rafik has to take over and he brings Awkward Dad Energies
It’s Kora being supportive and Rafik being bashful that makes the audience really warm up to them

引用自 Relik-Friend：

RAFIK ON THE MIC YES PLEASE
I love that
Very good concept

Very good concept, indeed! A circus AU would be amazing. I can imagine Horatio as the popcorn salesman who hates selling popcorn, or "Doctor" Tolar as the person firing the cannon with complete disregard to safety. (And I genuinely chortled at the waste water facility meme. Poor Relik! You'll get there, buddy!)

"I hate popcorn. The smell is awful and the grease doesn't come out of your clothes! I keep overcharging for the soybutter but people still ask for more. Don't they know popcorn lung is a deadly disease?"

I bet the cannon is rented from Tolar and she charges exorbitant prices for it. Despite it being fifth-hand and pretty much cobbled together from scrap metal and rusty screws.

Update that Relik did indeed get there! It took several more cycles of running around but, 22 hours and 97 saves later, Relik-Friend has finished your campaign! And they'll be happy to finally be able to read this thread ha ha.