Glad the wait is finally over- Dress it up or down is my type of style.. This cute #romper is by @poorriches just in time for #juneteenth celebrate my culture in #freedom* What can i say I like #variety #flipmode #loafers #heels #purse #flats #rompthem #fashionforward #lalife #fashion #blackgirlmagic #poorriches #clothing #blackownedbusiness #options #lgbt #kisses #bootypoppin #zara #express #oldnavy #callitspring #blogger #thickgirlready
Known to the gnomes of Markovia as the nilski konj vojnici, to the Hin plantation-owners of Covington Farms as los mercenarios gigantes del río, and to the human field-workers laboring near New Arvoreen most-often simply as “those big goddamn bastards,” the giff – as they are called in their own guttural, roaring language – represent a recently-contacted species of huge, violent, powerfully-built, terrifyingly-focused, and dangerously cagey combatants.
In the little-over-a-century since their discovery by the Hin, platoons of giff have already carved a bloody name for themselves across the wilds of Verdura – and far beyond – as unparalleled river-guides, rowdies, strike-breakers, mob debt-collectors, private enforcers, heavy-weapons units, siege engines, bodyguards, and elite soldiers of fortune.
Brought to you absolutely free to enjoy, to test & to share – as always – by the fine folks of my Patreon.
original image by the incredible Claudio Pozas, here
Giff gain a +2 size bonus to Strength and a -2 size penalty to Dexterity (already included above). Giff also suffer a -1 size penalty to their AC and a -1 size penalty on all attack rolls; they gain a +1 bonus on combat maneuver checks and to their CMD, and suffer a -4 size penalty on Stealth checks.
A giff takes up a space that is 10 feet by 10 feet and has a reach of 5 feet.
Base Speed: Normal speed (0 RP)
Languages:Standard (0 RP); giff speak their own eponymous, curiously poetic language, and most are – in the modern day – also conversant in Low Kozah-Talosii (usually spoken with a thick, pompous Verduran accent).
This bastardized dialect, the so-called “Common tongue” favored across Pyrespace for use in international, intercultural, and interplanetary trade, is a degraded mongrel variant of High Kozah-Talosii: the ancient root-tongue of both Arvorean and Brandobarin, still employed by the Church of Yondalla for use in sermons, hymns, and in all official records.
Big Damn Guns: Giff are treated as gnomes for purposes of the Experimental Gunsmith Archetype. (0 RP)
Darkvision: Giff have 60 ft. darkvision (0 RP); giff have relatively poor eyesight while out of water, which is easily corrected with simple lenses – such as a monocle – for use while reading. This vision is not poor enough to impart a mechanical penalty on Perception checks or attack rolls made by the giff.
Natural Armor: Giff have +3 natural armor (4 RP)
Natural Attack (Headbutt): Giff receive one natural attack, which is treated as a gore attack that deals 1d8 bludgeoning damage. (1 RP)
Natural Swimmers: Giff have a swim speed of 30 feet and gain the +8 racial bonusonSwim checks that a swim speed normally grants. (1 RP)
Powerful Charge (Headbutt): Whenever a giff charges, it deals twice the standard number of damage dice with its headbutt plus 1-½ times its Strength bonus. (2 RP)
River-Sense: Giff can sense vibrations in water, granting them blindsense 30 feet against creatures that are touching the same body of water. (1 RP)
Spell Resistance (Greater): Giff have spell resistance equal to 11 + their character level. (3 RP)
Sporting: The species-wide love of warfare exhibited by the giff draws a sharp line of distinction between “sporting” and “unsporting” combat (see below). (-1 RP)
Sporting combat includes arm-wrestling, fisticuffs, darts, cards, dice, checkers, chess, billiards, cricket, rugby, skeet shooting, tennis, and golf, alongside tests of boasting, carousing, headbutting, toast-giving, swimming, push-ups, and a complex, ritualized sort of thunderous, unarmed mixed martial-art performed solely while stripped down to breeches & undergarments, usually in ankle-deep to waist-deep water, ending in pin or submission, which – up to a point – also serves as a type of flirting.
The military mentality of the giff even makes special allowances for a variety of “sporting” duels to the death. Establishing a proper duel requires a huge number of complex ritual elements that – in the end – mostly boils down to both giff formally acknowledging that:
Both giff are armed with approximately the same quality of weapons & armor (warhammer, combat knife, pistol, full plate, etc.)
Both giff have equal access to military support, including healing
Both giff have a grievance, no matter how petty
Both giff are suffering approximately the same level of injuries
Both giff have made arrangements for their estate, and for the treatment of their body after death
Once a “sporting” challenge to the death has been agreed-to by both parties, anything up to and including outright murder of one’s opponent is considered fair game.
Several major holidays each year celebrated by the giff include a “violent dueling festival” as part of their celebration; to outsiders, these events have a very bizarre, genteel, 1800s-Victorian-Teddy-Roosevelt-meets-The-Purge sort of feel to them:
“Happy holidays, friend; best of health this year to you and to your kin. And I say, old chap, don’t suppose it’s high time for a kukri-duel, eh, wot wot? Seeing as you got drunk on my finest brandy, made a pass at the missus, wiped your prodigious buttocks with my table linens, and micturated in my hedge-row as of Christmas last, well … in lieu of an apology, what say I have Jenkins fetch the carving blades, eh? See which of has the moxie, shall we? Cheerio and have at thee then, old sport?”
If this formal challenge to a lethal sporting-duel is declined, the challenger must make all possible accommodations to guarantee the immediate physical safety of the giff she just challenged (at least until such time as the two giff part ways once more): providing the giff with weapons, armor, food, water, medicine, reading materials, a place to sleep, liquor, smoking tobacco, and anything else a gentleman or lady of high breeding could reasonably expect to have access to (even while imprisoned).
In short: if the challenged giff dies immediately after declining a duel, it is considered very embarrassing for the challenger.
For his own part, the declining giff must treat her challenger with the very utmost level of respect … or risk being guilty of unsporting conduct, a fate far worse than mere death.
Any giff who finds herself about to violate the terms of properly “sporting” conduct instantly becomes aware of the error, just as if she were wearing a phylactery of faithfulness and, at all times, actively contemplating the thought of doing bodily harm to another giff: this behavioral limitation is not built as a trap for players to accidentally stumble into, but – instead – as an interesting roadblock to navigate around.
If two or more giff find themselves forced into a position of armed conflict against one another on a battlefield, both groups traditionally retire for at least a day of drinking and sorting-out ranks; on rare occasion, one platoon will join the other; more likely, all giff involved in any part of the operation will quit their current hirings and look for work elsewhere.
Any giff who engages another member of her own species in any type of unsporting combat – attacking another giff with a weapon, for example, or with magic – immediately suffers a -2 penalty on all skill checks, ability checks, attack rolls and saves; she continues to suffer this penalty until such time as she is able to make amends: presenting her victim with a formal written apology, or seeking our her victim’s family to beg their public pardon.
Each month, this penalty increases by 2. Guilt is a poison that grows by degrees, after all: ever-gnawing.
While she is suffering penalties in this way, if the giff is presented with the chance to punish herself – or a non-giff opponent! – while presented with something that reminds the giff of her betrayal, she may find herself compelled to do so regardless of the consequences:
Any time her betrayal is directly brought to her attention, the giff must make a Will save (DC = 10 + her character level + the Charisma modifier of the wronged giff). Failure means that the giff falls into a rage of abject self-loathing, completely focused on her own guilt for a number of rounds equal to the DC, above. Until she has finished with this exercise in hate, the giff can take no action other than to harm the reminder of her failure or enable herself to harm it: grappling a human shipmate who mentioned her old friend so that she might headbutt the human while strangling them, for example, or calmly loading a shotgun so that she might shoot the human dead in cold blood.
Note that the giff, while wracked with guilt & grief, is not required to do anything or harm anyone: she may simply stare at an old photograph and feel sad, for example, ignoring everyone around her.
During the fury of this black tempest, the giff suffers a -2 penalty to her AC.
Once the giff successfully makes amends, either with the wronged party or with the victim’s next-of-kin, all of the above penalties are removed. Entire subsets of giff society – mediators, arbitrators, and negotiators – are explicitly adapted to making absolutely certain that any errors in sporting conduct among giff are resolved quickly, and to the satisfaction of all parties.
Should she fail to make amends before her death, any giff who has harmed another giff in an unsporting way invariably rises again as an undead horror of some kind (often a blood knightorgraveknight): reborn as a rotting, lurching mountainside of infinitely destructive hated.
Note that the Sporting Racial Trait is not purely social, but rather acts as a species-wide ingrained psychological virtue: two giff living on Fenris who never expect to see the wide rivers of Verdura again are still bound by the rules of “sporting” conflict; neither could shoot the other in the back any more than either of them could grow wings and fly to the moon.
Undead giff do not possess the Sporting Trait, which is seen – by living giff – as the most abhorrent and disturbing quality imaginable.
Note, also, that the desire to behave in a sporting manner extends only to fellow giff: Chaotic Evil giff will routinely massacre unarmed non-giff by the thousands, bellowing with laughter as they do so, and even a Lawful Good giff will rarely think twice before sucker-punching a crude human making drunken threats and impolite remarks at the bar.
——-
Giff Timeline:
1603 A.D. (118 years ago): The colony of New Arvoreen is established on Verdura; giff make contact with Hin (and their human servants) for the first time.
1620 A.D.: First generation of giff who have always known about the existence of Hin, humans, and – most importantly! – firearms fully comes of age.
1636 A.D.: New Arvoreen is significantly expanded.
1667 A.D.: Nation of Markovia – the technological-marvel nation named for its Founder, Monarch and Supreme Leader, Dr. Adlai Markovitch – founded on Verdua; diplomatic trade established with New Arvoreen.
1669 A.D.: City of New Arvoreen significantly expanded.
1702 A.D.: New Arvoreen significantly expanded; land officially cleared for Covington Farms, soon to be the largest agricultural facility in the system; rates of forcible immigration of indentured humans to New Arvoreen tripled.
Giff Ranks: Lieutenant, General, Colonel, Major General, Lieutenant General, Lieutenant Colonel, Captain General, Brigadier General, Field Marshall, Major, Captain, Sergeant Major, Commandant General, Wing General, Lieutenant Colonel General, Staff Sergent, Master Sergent, Master General, Grenadier General; note that “Lord” may be added to any military rank, alongside the designations of “First” and “First Class” (for example, “First Lord Brigadier General First Class”)
Giff military ranks are, effectively, meaningless noise to everyone except the giff themselves: every member of the species is a decorated officer of some complex rank within some elite military company or another, but such ranks are largely ceremonial and may be inherited, purchased, or passed through elaborate, bombastic ritual.
Further, the only thing preventing a young giff from forming an entirely new military organization & immediately naming herself – of example – Supreme Acting Field Commander and Secretary General of the Armies and Navies at Wartime is – up to a point – her own willingness to do so.
Male Giff Names: Any invented male Hin name.
Female Giff Names: Any invented female Hin name.
Giff Family Names: Any invented male Hin first name
Society
The giff are military-minded, and organize themselves into squads, platoons, companies, corps, and larger groups. The number of giff in a platoon varies according to the season, situation, and level of danger involved.
A giff “platoon” hired to protect a gambling operation may number only a single soldier, while a platoon hired to invade an illithid stronghold may number well over a hundred.
The giff pride themselves on their weapon-skills, and any giff carries a number of swords, daggers, maces, and similar tools on hand to deal with troublemakers.
A giff’s true love, however, is the gun. A misfiring weapon matters little to the giff (occasional fatalities amongst soldiery are simply to expected); it is the flash, the noise, and the damage that most impress them.
Even unarmed, the giff are powerful opponents. Against non-giff, they’ll often wade into a brawl just for the pure fun of it, tossing various combatants on both sides around to prove themselves the victors.
Once a weapon is bared, however, and the challenge becomes “unsporting,” the giff consider all restrictions off: the challenge is now to the death.
The giff prize themselves as top-quality mercenaries, and to that end take great pride in owning – if not always wearing – elaborate suits of full-plate armor. These suits usually include massive helms featuring hyper-detailed, semi-realistic images of exotic monsters on the crests, inlaid with ivory and bone along the largest plates.
Armor repair is a major hobby among the giff, although great skill at the craft is surprisingly rare.
The giff are deeply suspicious of magic, magicians, and magical devices; their legendary foes, the Five Tiger Princes, are despised for their esoteric abilities as much for their wicked deviltry.
The giff are, for the most part, happiest among fellow members their own race, intermingling broadly with the Ghoran – whom the giff utilize as an edible, inexhaustible workforce – and the Tengu: another unofficial “servitor race” of the giff, most often used as messengers and household servants.
Ghoran living on giff lands are stoic: dutifully tending the fields of the giff in exchange for protection from ten-thousand other, vastly more predatory dangers. For all that giff treat the ghoran as disposable – a ghoran living on Verdura produces one seed each year, and can grow a new member of the species in a single month – the giff do not want the ghoran hunted to total extermination. That, for the ghoran, is saying something,
Tengu, on the other hand, are deeply prized by the giff as staff, usually in the roles of personal assistants, groomers, decorators, butlers, bartenders, man-servants, attaches, major domos, and maids. Since all giff are “wealthy land owners,” to one degree or another, the true power & prestige of a giff can be accurately measured by the number of tengu he employs.
Giff otherwise consider anything larger than them deeply threatening, yet also complain bitterly – in private – about the fragility of the smaller races. Outside their own platoons, the giff are happiest among military organizations with a strong chain of command.
For this reason, giff hold the Church of Yondalla in exceptionally high regard.
Giff especially despise the catfolk: although they don’t speak of it to outsiders, a century ago the giff were on the verge of extinction: hunted for sport and trophy by servants of the Five Tiger Princes, their people nearly cut to nothing and their lands held by only a few remaining families. Since their acquisition of firearms – and the arrival of the Hin – the catfolk have broadly retreated.
Every giff – male, female, and giffling – has a rank within their greater society, which can only be changed by a giff of higher rank. Within these ranks are sub-ranks, and within those sub-ranks are color-markings and badges. The highest-ranking giff gives the orders, the others obey. It does not matter if the orders are foolish or even suicidal: following them is the purpose of the giff in the universe. A quasi-mystical faith among the giff – who claim to worship, in a vague way, the Golden General Bahamut, who was killed and eaten by the cowardly Five Tiger Princes in order to steal his strength – confirms that all things have their place, and the place of the giff to follow orders.
This makes the giff very happy.
Giff platoons can be hired from their sprawling, palatial riverside plantations and mountain hunting-lodges by anyone looking for muscle. The social leaders among the giff are contractors: these specially-trained giff review prospective employers according to ability to pay, then make a recommendation to powerful warlords and famous adventurers among the giff. The leaders, in turn, consider the danger of the job, and whether taking it will enhance their giffdom.
Giff jobs are usually paid in firearms & gunpowder, though they often will accept other weapons and armor. Aboard ship, the giff require their own quarters, and will often request to bring on their own large weapons. They favor fire-projectors and bombards for ground work, and will happily blaze away at opponents regardless of the tactical situation.
The giff require the ships of others because they have – for the most part – no spellcasting abilities among them.
Giff of both sexes serve in their platoons, and both fight equally well. Giff young are raised tenderly until they are old enough to survive an exploding arquebus, then are inducted fully into the platoon.
The giff practice equality among the sexes in battle and in childrearing. They live about 70 years, but do not take aging gracefully. As a giff grows older and begins to slow down, he is possessed with the idea of proving himself still young and vital, usually in battle.
Muchas veces los planes no nos salen como los teniamos planeados, pero hay que estar preparadas para ello y siempre tener un plan B y un C para recurrir a ellos, y no son para para evadir la situación, sino para hallarle solución…
Y pasa en todos lados he, en la escuela, en la familia, con los amigos y con uno mismo, que es de los procesos mas dificiles, a veces no conocemos al grado al que podemos llegar y hacer las cosas totalmente diferente a como las teniamos planeadas.
Ever notice you’re increasingly horny during that time? It’s not in your imagination… it’s in your body! Those raging hormones increase libido before/during your cycle. So what do you do?
HAVE SEX:
“Sex during a period is as safe as it is at any other time, the decision about having sex will be entirely personal, based on both partners’ comfort level.”
There are a few important points to keep in mind if you should decide to have sex during periods:
Be cautious about pregnancy. It’s rare, but women can conceive during their period. If you don’t want to get pregnant, be sure to practice birth control even when you are on your period.
Be cautious about sexually transmitted diseases. You are not at a greater risk for catching STDs during your period, but you are still at risk. Period sex still requires latex condoms for protection from infection. Women who have HIV should probably refrain from sex during period bleeding because even with a condom the sheer amount of blood present makes transmission much more likely.
Even though you may not feel that you’re at your sexiest during PMS and your period, you can still have sex — and it might even improve your mood.
There are a lot of things that you can do besides engage in intercourse. And the following will serve to keep things exciting until you stop seeing red.
Blow him That’s right, perhaps you’d be willing to make it about him, if not only because you want to please your man.
Sensual games The two of you can play fun sexual games. For instance, while one does the kissing, the other person has to resist kissing back. You can even have him massage your back and chest with his hands, mouth and penis if you like. He can rub himself between your breasts, kiss them, lick them, have a jolly old time, chap!
Fantasize about next time Delving into a conversation about sex can sometimes be just as good as sex itself. Jump into a fantasy about what sex would be like if you were having it right then and there, and mimic everything you imagine doing but keep your clothes on (and bodies rubbing against eachother).
Back door man Perhlaps anal sex can resolve his uncontrollable need to get into a tight, wet area of your body. So long as you're wearing a tampon or you put a dark towel underneath, this can be quite a delectable experience.
Shower sex Yeah, I know I said that you don’t necessarily have to have sex, but it’s more likely than not that the two of you will get so turned on by the aforementioned suggestions that you’ll simply have to copulate at any cost. And since no one wants to stain the sheets, why not hop into the shower together, clean one another and then get busy?
Diaphragm, man Many women say they feel very confident when having sex while wearing a diaphragm. If you have already considered period sex, it can't hurt to try it. So slip one in and enjoy.
If you know you’re getting a refund come tax time, filing your taxes can almost feel fun. But if you suspect you’re going to owe the IRS money you don’t have, it can be hard to even start the process.
According to a NerdWallet survey, of those who failed to file by last year’s extended July 15, 2020, deadline, 24% knew they owed money but were unable to pay, and 18% didn’t know if they owed, but…
Lagos singer L.A.Xreleases his new single “Options’’ alongside breakout musician Ayra Starr to kick start the new year in style.
Led by a downtempo production from ATG Music(Headie One, Tiwa Savage), “Options” offers themes of love and heartbreak driven by melodic guitar riffs and vibrating drum patterns.
Exploring his sonic range, the track highlights L.A.X’s ability to create sultry serenades amplified by Ayra’s infectious chorus.
Make sure you click hereto see the details for L.A.X’s upcoming London concert
Watch, Share and Enjoy “Options”
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