Hark, Adventurers! How is everyone faring? Go on an exciting quests this week? Tell me about them! Also, this week I'll be honouring everyone's favourite princess (especially God's), the one and only SHADOWHEART from Baldur's Gate III. Shadowheart was a no-brainer for my romance option my first playthrough, and every playthrough afterwards it's a struggle to try anyone else. She's a dark and brooding cleric (until you respec her, anyway) who also secretly loves flowers and can't swim. She has a past shrouded in mystery and doesn't trust easily, which makes it all the more heartwarming if you can break through and become her confidant. Also, she's super hot, right??? Who's your favourite BG3 romance option? Love, CPawx

Hark, Adventurers - another WCW is upon us! For this one, I'll go back in time to what I think was my first fantasy-genre crush - more one of admiration, since I was only 10 years old. And that was on: LYRA BELACQUA, aka LYRA SILVERTONGUE from Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. Lyra is a young girl who lives at Jordan College in an alternate version of Oxford when we first meet her. In Lyra's world, every human has a companion - called a daemon - that takes on an animal form. Lyra and her daemon Pantalaimon fall into adventure fairly quickly when she inadvertently saves her uncle and comes into possession of an Alethiometer - a device which can tell truths about anything, but only to those gifted enough to read it. The original trilogy, beginning with The Golden Compass, was the first fantasy series I read and it still holds up as an adult. Pullman also revisited the world with three new books, which just wrapped up last year. The ending wasn't super amazing but I was happy with it. It's also worth noting there was a TV adaptation starring Dafne Keen which was incredible. Happy WCW, Lyra!

Great news, Adventurers! It's WCW! This week’s Woman Crush Wednesday is: MOIRAINE DAMODRED, an Aes Sedai from Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. Moiraine (Mwah-RAIN) is an Aes Sedai (magic wielder) of the Blue Ajah. She has a noble background - her uncle was a king - and is incredibly cool, calm, and composed. She is one of the most important characters in the series, as she is the one who finds our group of main characters and whisks them away from their mundane lives as farmers - for the safety of them, and the world as they know it. Intelligent. Powerful. Determined. Ferocious. Nearly unstoppable. I was ten years old when I first read Eye of the World (book 1) and I was immediately team Moiraine. While not from the D&D universe, Moiraine is easily one of my top fantasy women crushes - and she would be a mighty sorcerer if she ever plane-shifted. More about Moiraine The Eye of the World Tai'Shar Tar Valon! CPawx