The Tabula Avatar Universe
is a Mega Crossover fanfiction series written by Speaker-to-Customers. When the Trio get their hands on the unbroken memory crystal from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode 'Tabula Rasa' they download the stored memories into the PC game Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn.
In a strange and lethal new world Buffy and the Scoobies find friends, romance, and deadly peril – and a magic that changes the entire galaxy in ways that no-one could have predicted. Back in Sunnydale, Randy and Joan, Rupert and Anya, Willow and Tara, Alex, and Umad make unexpected new friends and face astonishing dangers. Watching both worlds, the Trio make strides to that strange and awesome goal of Character Development.
And then the SGC gets involved... Which spins out into a case marked for the NCIS...
Story Threads:
- The core story, Tabula Avatar, which deals with the Scoobies' adventures and events in Sunnydale.
- The one that starts with The Whole of the Moon, where Shar makes her way through the planes.
- The one that starts with Debt of Blood, where SG-1 walks into Neverwinter Nights and events follow them back to Earth.
- The current capstone, A Plague of Serpents, which brings them all together.
Notable Side-Stories:
- The Alternate Universe of Professional Relationship and Harry Potter and the Veiled Professor where a Baldur's Gate vampire teams up to fight crime and her friend teaches at Hogwarts.
The series as a whole provides examples of:
- Alien Arts Are Appreciated: The richness of Earth music wins many fans and even seems to be preferred by magic itself over the native generic bardic songs. This trope also applies to many Earth imports such as watches, bras and sunglasses.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Turns out that many of the dark deities of Faerûn, if given the opportunity to grow beyond their status of two-dimensional game characters, will network and make better choices.
- For Want Of A Nail: The memory crystal that is accidentally crushed as the Reset Button in Tabula Rasa, isn't.
- For a closer look at the immediate aftermath of the Scoobies not regaining their memory, see one of the inspirations for this story: Kallysten's and Kantayra's Tabula Rasa Ad Aeternum.
- For a closer look at the immediate aftermath of the Scoobies not regaining their memory, see one of the inspirations for this story: Kallysten's and Kantayra's Tabula Rasa Ad Aeternum
- Light Is Not Good: Sune, goddess of beauty, will drop anyone who loses physical attractiveness, even for scars acquired in saving people. Especially horrible considering that those who are rejected that die before finding a new patron god will be made into bricks for the Wall of the Faithless...
- Our Vampires Are Different: Due to the game not having a check for adjusted PCs, vampires are only burnt by their native sun.
- The Power of Rock: Given access to this new music, bards are redefined as extremely effective magic users with unpredictable results.
- RPG Mechanics 'Verse: Xander's aware of how Dungeons & Dragons' magical weapons scale with pluses and minuses. When he proves it as a working model, it's named after him.
- That certain enchantments work differently between the first story and Neverwinter Nights due to the edition change is Lampshaded by the characters.
- Running Gag: Expect every raised eyebrow to be compared to some other ascent, possibly involving Sherpas.
- Sliding Scale of Vampire Friendliness: Buffyverse vampires count as positive energy creatures, so they lack a level drain ability. As they are able to feed safely from willing victims and survivors of their attacks heal at a normal rate they rank as being friendlier than D&D vamps.
The core story, Tabula Avatar, provides examples of:
- Dark Is Not Evil: Viconia, one of the Generally Evil Drow, has her alignment shift away from the extreme, thanks to good works and Character Growth. Even in canon, when left alone between games, she tries to live a simple, non-threatening life. As she's the most vital core of Shar's worship thanks to her nearness to the 'realness' matrix that is Dawn, this affects her patron goddess of shadows as well. Later, Shar gets Vhaeraun and his followers to come along.
- Do Wrong, Right: Buffy's shocked when Dawn swears in Ilythiiri. Tara makes her say it again, this time with proper grammar.
- Meaningful Name: Sorkatani is named after the mother of Kublai Khan.
- Our Angels Are Different: Egeria evolves from a minor Shard of Selûne to a kick-ass dual-wielding Herald in leather.
- Rewriting Reality: As a group, the Trio make at least two deliberate adjustments to the running code of the Scoobies' new reality, each time with unexpected results. The first makes a fight rather more dangerous, the second sets off a story arc.
- Save Scumming: Often when the Trio reload from a saved game Buffy and Sorkatani receive prophetic dreams of the overwritten future.Sorkatani: Sometimes I dream of dying. Those dreams make no sense at the time but later I will find myself in a situation that I recognize. I make sure that I do not do what I did in the dream, and I live. It scared me at first but now those prophetic dreams are almost a comfort.
- Shout-Out: Spellsinger is referenced as Giles' inspiration for how bards should work. He and Spike also have a ton of UK-based in-jokes that leave the rest of the cast scratching their heads.
The Whole of the Moon and its sequels provide examples of:
- The Igor: Kelemvor's scribe Jergal, who always speaks in capital letters.
- Light Is Not Good: Selûne's kneejerk reaction to Shar's kind approach is to lock her in a prison of moonbeams and throw a party. Then her alter ego Sehanine Moonbow sets up an Attempted Rape.
Debt of Blood and its sequel provide examples of:
- MacGyvering: Few obstacles can stand up to the team given enough time and the minimum of resources. That said, this trope is Discussed and Averted several times.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The Hero of Neverwinter dies in part because the protagonists don't understand healing potions.
- Sufficiently Analyzed Magic: The Illefarn song portals are sophisticated enough that they can tap into the Stargate network and probably work on the same principles.
A Plague of Serpents, a story that joins most of the series' threads, provides examples of:
- Earth-Shattering Kaboom: One of the first signs of things going wrong is one of the Tears of Selûne, a set of very prominent orbiting asteroids, exploding...
- Mission from God: Chantry joins up with Kelleth's party because her patron Talona, goddess of disease and poison, believes that important things will happen along the journey.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Chantry is badly scarred because, unlike the other acolytes of Sune in Neverwinter, she stayed to help the victims of the plague and so caught it herself.
