lmao @ people saying “this is not america!!” because this IS america….. this country was literally built off of racism, genocide, and slavery so of course the hatred is gonna continue. stop trying to absolve america of its racially charged atrocities and hold it accountable for being oppressive to minorities since the dawn of its civilization
its not even a hundred years from WW2 where nazi ideology & white supremacy quite literally got millions of ppl systematically murdered, and some ppl still act like nazism is “just an opinion” and that “everyone’s entitled to an opinion” as if it was something akin to a favorite color or food preference instead of a violent, manipulative, dangerous propaganda
An nescis, mi fili, quantilla prudentia mundus regatur?
(Do you not know, my son, with how little wisdom the world is governed?)
Axel Oxenstierna, encouraging his son before the negotiation of the Peace of Westphalia
Nerdy Fact #1434: Wonder Woman was originally based on two women: the wife of creator William Marston and one of his former students that both he and his wife had sexual encounters with.
Elizabeth Holloway Marston and Olive Byrne were among a number of women who contributed to the original Wonder Woman, and they’re fascinating people in their own right.
Elizabeth Holloway Marston was a brilliant woman. She earned three university degrees in psychology and law at a time when few women received any tertiary education. She was a successful career woman who assisted her husband with his work and was frequently the breadwinner of the family.
The main reason she was able to continue working after having children? Olive Byrne, who was not simply a casual “sexual encounter”, but the Marstons’ lover and life partner. To enable Elizabeth to work, Olive stayed at home and raised both her and Elizabeth’s children. She also wrote for Family Circle and contributed to Marston’s research.
Elizabeth is credited with pushing her husband to create a female superhero, and after his death she worked hard to preserve his vision for the character, urging DC to employ her as the comic’s editor (she was ignored).
Wonder Woman’s bracelet’s are Olive’s bracelets: Olive was known for wearing a pair of wide silver bracelets, and Marston had these in mind when he envisioned Diana’s bullet-deflecting accessories.
Marston died in 1947, but Elizabeth and Olive continued to live together until the end of their lives.
Wait. Clarification please. Are you telling me that the creator of Wonder WOMAN WAS IN A POLY-AMOROUS RELATIONSHIP?
Yep! They were in a poly relationship and had four children together, two by Elizabeth and two by Olive.
(And for those who’ve asked about sources, the Marstons’ story is covered in detail in The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore and Wonder Woman: The Complete History by Les Daniels)
Wonder Woman was inspired and shaped by not only a man who was incredibly progressive and awesome by todays standards let alone the standards of the day he lived in but also by a fierce, intelligent and awesome bisexual woman
This is one of the many reasons why the ways DC has ruined Wonder Woman in their pursuit of making the book as backwards and heteronormative as possible pisses me off…
Not a fierce and intelligent and awesome bisexual woman.
Two fierce and intelligent and awesome bisexual women.
You are correct 😀
Imagine growing up in that house
“Mom wants to see you.”
“Psychology mom or bracelet mom?”
“Bracelet mom.”
According to Lepore, the kids called Elizabeth “Keetie” and Olive “Dotsie”!
That is adorable.
I have reblogged this before and will continue to do it until the day I die. The origin story of WW comics is as fucking great as the character herself.
Fun fact: Olive’s bracelets were a gift from William and Elizabeth, and were basically an alternative to a wedding ring, since she couldn’t legally marry them. Diana’s bracelets, 70+ years later, are a symbol of that relationship.
Another fun fact: There’s a movie coming out about their relationship, starring Luke Evans and Rebecca Hall and Bella Heathcote that was written AND directed by a woman (Angela Robinson)
She died in her 20s about 1700 years ago and is believed to have ruled over a desert valley in ancient Peru, where her elaborately tattooed body was buried with weapons and gold objects.
But a glimpse of the former priestess, the Lady of Cao, can now be seen in a replica of her face, which was unveiled in Lima on Monday.
Using 3D imaging technology and forensics archaeology, the replica was based on the mummified remains of the Lady of Cao’s skull and ethnographic research, and took 10 months to create, Peru’s culture ministry says.
Culture Minister Salvador del Solar says the goal was to bring the world closer to one of Peru’s best archaeological finds and remind Peruvians of their rich cultural heritage. Read more.
the big mans a lad i have fuck all, he lets me have a kip in a field he showed me a pond
I think my favorite part is how the first three are totally comprehensible to a modern reader, and then the fourth one is just “Wait, what?” You can practically see where William the Conqueror came crashing into linguistic history like the Kool-Aid Man, hollering about French grammar and the letter Q.
That’s 1500s Middle English. That’s cheating. For true incomprehensibility, you need to grab passages from the 1100s, when everyone is trying to figure out how to communicate between franceis and West Saxon (Old English).
what’s the difference between ninjas and stage crew?
ninjas move silently around walls, stage crew moves walls around silently.
BUT YOU KNOW WHAT IS SO GREAT
The depiction of ninjas as dressed all in black comes from traditional Japanese theatre. Actual historical ninjas didn’t dress in black because it’s conspicuous as hell in the daytime and even at night in the dark a person dressed in solid black tends to stand out; dark grey or blue is better for hiding in shadows. Usually they just wore ordinary, like, people clothes which are far better for blending into your surroundings in than a specialised professional costume.
BUT YOU KNOW WHO DID DRESS ALL IN BLACK LIKE THAT
the stage crew in a theatre
and it was a generally accepted convention that the black-clad stagehands were invisible, so they could be on stage at the same time as the actors and move things around and the audience would just mentally CG them out
but then one day because a director was a GENIUS, during an otherwise normal performance of a play, suddenly a stagehand stepped forward, assassinated one of the main characters and then melted back into the background
THEY WERE A NINJA
AND THE AUDIENCE LOST THEIR MINDS BECAUSE IT WAS AMAZING
and eventually it lost its mind-blow value because after a while everyone had seen a play like that, so although the “stagehands wear black and are invisible” convention continued, the new “ninjas wear black and are invisible until they choose to strike” convention became established, and from then on fictional ninjas have just worn black because it looks so cool.
So in fact the answer to “What’s the difference between ninjas and stage crew?” is “You will never know until they stab you.”
Okay this is the first time I have heard the second half of this information and it’s so much better now.
Under D&D rules, a dagger does 1d4 base damage. The average human has a Strength score of 10, adding no bonuses. Several of them, due to the military background of many, likely had strength or dexterity scores of 11-14. But only two or three, and quite a few would be frail with old age, sinking to 8-9 strength. All in all, we can only add a total of +1 damage per round from Brutus.
An estimate of sixty men were involved in Caesar’s actual murder. Not the wider conspiracy, but the stabbing.
Julius Caesar was a general, which is generally depicted as a 10th level fighter. Considering his above baseline constitution and dex, weakened by his probable history of malaria, epilepsy, and/or strokes (-1 dex modifier), and lack of armor at the time of the event, he would likely have something along the lines of AC 9 and 60 HP. The senators would likely hit him roughly 55% the time.
So the Roman senate had a damage-per-round of 66, more than enough to kill Caesar in one round even without factoring in surprise round advantage.
Now THESE are the kind of statistics I wanna see!
So as a giant nerd with the 5e player’s handbook in her purse DM, I’m going to quibble with your math just a tiny bit. Just getting Caesar to 0 wouldn’t do it – he’d have to fail his death saves or be reduced to -60hp to autodie.
First of all, I think given the facts, we can safely disregard any surprise round damage or advantage. Caesar had ample warning of the attack prior to its execution, both from rumors of the plot and portentous omens. This, combined with historical writings that state Caesar attempted to flee, would indicate that there was no surprise round and Caesar was active in the initiative order from the first event.
Accepting your numbers, 33 of the 60 conspirators involved should have succeeded in their attack rolls. This includes Climber, who successfully restrained Caesar, and Brutus, who did an additional 1 point of damage. 3 of the 33 attacks, statistically, were critical hits. If we assume that everyone was using a dagger, no one besides Brutus had damage modifiers, and no one besides Climber used their attack for anything other than a grapple, then the final damage total of the Roman Senate is 71 points of damage. (28 regular attacks at 2 points each [56] + 3 critical attacks at 4 points each [12] + Climber’s grapple [0] + Brutus’s attack at 2+1 [3])
Here’s where it gets hairy. According to historical record and autopsy, only 24 of the 60 attacks landed. (23 stab wounds, plus Climber’s grapple.) This indicates that:
Caesar had a much higher dex mod and correspondingly higher AC/initiative
Some of the conspirators used their actions to increase the DC of Climber’s grapple, rather than attack.
A combination of the above.
Further complicating matters are the following facts:
Caesar attempted to flee, but was blinded by the blood in his eyes, and fell prone.
He not leave melee range, so none of the 60 conspirators received attacks of opportunity against him.
Any attacks after this point had advantage.
The official autopsy and historical record states that the second strike to the chest was a lethal wound, however, the actual cause of death was ruled to be loss of blood from multiple stab wounds.
This single wound was struck late in battle after Caesar was already bleeding out.
Caesar definitely spoke after Casca and Brutus’s attacks, indicating that he was not yet unconscious and these were not the fatal blow.
Either two attacks landed after Caesar was unconscious, each registering as an automatic critical and therefore two failed death saving throws OR
The final attack to land did enough damage to instantly reduce Caesar from 1HP to a number equal to or below his starting HP, resulting in instantaneous death.
With all these facts in consideration, I think we can surmise the following.
Caesar, despite being feebled by age and illness, had a higher dex modifier than the original post credits him with. This aided him in AC, but due to illness, his HP was significantly lower than the average level 10 fighter. Additionally, he must have rolled very poorly on initiative, or else many more conspirators would have hit him while he was prone.
Caesar entered the senate chamber. Climber, who led the initiative round, approached Caesar and grappled him. Immediately after, Casca and Brutus attacked Caesar, both landing non-fatal wounds. Caesar used his first round reaction to grapple Casca in return, grabbing his arm. Casca called for aid, and some other 57 conspirators rushed to help. Given the final numbers, it’s likely that some used their action to dash or add to the DC of the grapple. Most of them acted before Caesar, attacking while he was grappled but not prone. Because of his high AC, many of these strikes missed.
On his turn, Caesar attempted to break the grapple. Caesar rolled a 1, prompting him to become prone. From this point on, attacks against him had advantage. When he was near death, a rogue, (assuming level 10) landed a critical hit with sneak attack. The presence of rogues is supported by Caesar’s words to Casca earlier: “Casca, you villain,” if we assume “villain” is meant, literally, as criminal, and not a metaphor for “stabhappy person”.
What’s awesome is we can use the rogue’s attack as a control for our estimation of Caesar’s HP.
Using the quick build rules in the PHB a human rogue at that level could have a dex as high as 20. For the sake of argument we’ll nerf him down to 15. That gives him a total dex+prof modifier of +6 with a dagger. So for final damage we’re looking at 1d4+5d6+6. That averages out to 23 including the modifier. Maybe around 30 if he rolls extremely well. And, if he struck after Caesar was unconscious, he’d crit automatically. So we’re looking at an average of 40 and a max of 75 points of damage. That gets us right to the sweet spot of the OP’s estimated 60 HP, with a good roll.
So there you have it. The average damage round of the Roman senate is around 70ish points of damage, but against a grappled and prone foe with the aid of one asshole rogue, it’s more in the 120 range.
Really good, and more in depth, analysis.
For clarification on one minor point, “Casca, you villain, what are you doing” is “Scelerate Casca quid agis?” In the original Latin of Suetonius’ account; sceleratus is more much in line with the modern use of villainy- a vile, wicked, debased person- than fur, furcifer, latro, raptor, or any other term a Latin would use for a rogue.
Steel Phoenix Studios 