tactyl-ymon

[tactyl-ymon]

DnD session recap - Acceptance and Agony

So we left off after a very emotional moment between Sutha and Eridol where she realised he couldn't be what she needed at the moment and then Veiraen hugged Eridol and Eridol hugged him back for the first time since they’ve known each other

After some light preparations, the group sets off with Eridol's cleric mentor Bradul and they're still very busted carriage towards the holy city of Varildesh, with the carriage all busted it'll take about 4-5 days travel with a quick stop over in a nearby town

The first few hours go smoothly despite everyone being on guard the whole time and them all slam dunking Eridol into the cushions in the back because tiny baby man's been through a lot and he needs a nap. After sunset, he's joined in the back by Septima, Donnatello our new barbarian and Whisky

Not wanting to be rude, Eridol starts a conversation with Whisky in gnomish because he knows she speaks it, he tiredly asks what actually happened with Sutha and after several half truths and abysmal deception checks he realises Donnatello also speaks gnomish and Septima cast comprehend languages so now everyone can hear what's going on. someone just says "Well why don't you just message Sutha if you trust her so much"

And he does.

“Sutha, you said you nearly killed my ... companions, I need to know what happened. They're being obtuse.” And after several tense minutes, the magic flares to life and in him mind he hears “They questioned whether or not I would want you to come back for me. They refused to leave me be after 2 warnings. I'm sorry”

so Eridol rightfully furious that they'd say that but also understanding that he was still technically in the wrong for leaving decides to drop the subject. Septima had goodish intentions despite his complete lack of social awareness and Whisky straight up thought she was asking a friendly question because she believes that everyone wants to be her friend all the time

So he moves on and asks whisky about how he noticed she seemed a bit distracted during their last fight with the hydras and she didn't seem to want to go near the water, she mentions a very bad history with water and asks if Eridol remembers the last time they were in the water and because he was very drunk and just got a lifetime of trauma back absolutely doesn't remember

She mentions being on the beach after the dragon fight and having to swim back and her nearly drowning and Eridol saving her. Eridol feels very bad about nearly letting her drown and begins rummaging through his bag for some potions of waterbreathing he's got and gives them to her. All in all a very nice moment between them

It's just then that everyone can begin this very faint buzz in the air, slowly getting closer and closer along with the sound of old rusted carriage wheels, the buzzing whine getting louder and louder every second until it's deafening and not wanting to get caught in whatever this is unaware, Eridol orders everyone out of the cart as a precaution. In their haste, everyone fails dex checks and tumbles into SWARMS OF BEES

like tens of thousands of bees

we see a small procession of carts coming our way, each with several old timey bee keepers and many a swarm

Eridol having a general dislike of bees and knowing that he just got stung a good 70 times in an instant decides thats enough of that and moves off to the side of the road and casts spirit guardians so it'll encompase our cart and horses and still leave enough room for the carts to get by

Weirdly the beekeepers are not exactly happy about Eridol killing thousands upon thousands of bees and begin shouting at him to turn whatever this is off, he refuses because one round in that took of a third of his health and he has people to protect. It's on the third cart that one of them pipes up and politely asks if he can remove the spell, he politely declines because his people are a priority for him and he does apologise. Suddenly the beekeeper casts a spell and everyone gets encompassed in a tight dome of earth and rock.

Eridol drops the spell because hey safety is safety and he isn't cruel

A good 10 minutes later the spell drops and everyone gets back on their way, slightly swollen and pincushiony. a few hours later they see slight firelight up ahead and what sounds like muffled discussions, with Septima's god like perception he can see it's 4 eladrin ladies discussion things and the group all being tired and weary decide to try and see if they could pursuade the eladrin to let them stay at their camp for the night and wanting to make a good first impression decide someone should go talk to them first. But who would be the most innocent and unassuming of them all I wonder?

Eridol gets yeeted out of the cart with veiraen being shadow backup in the woods in case anything happens and Eridol begins walking slowly and unarmedly up the road towards them. Casting light on himself so they can definitely see him coming. After a ... rocky introduction where one of them got spooked and accidentally shot their crossbow at the tiny man. Septima and Whisky do a septima and whisky and begin yelling innapropriate questions from the darkness, with Whisky asking what booze they have and Septima just answering their questions because the man has observant and is a terrible person

Then after confirming that we mean them no harm and could help with securing the camp because of our numbers We get given the ok to come forward and Veiraen just skulks out of the bush behind them which gets Eridol nearly shot again

The eladrin introduce themselves as Summer, Spring, WInter and Fall and say they often travel to the material plane to discuss which season is best and ask the group their opinions. Septima says spring because nature boy go woo, Whisky says winter because she loves just stretching out in front of a cozy fire on cold nights, Eridol says summer because Falthresh being entirely a western hemisphere country tends to have wonderful sunsets and Veiraen was too busy looking for trinkets to answer

Most of the group goes off with the eladrin to drink and swap stories and be merry with Eridol and Septima taking watches in the camp itself and the surrounding forest.

After Eridols shift, nobody really comes to relieve him and he basically just nods off from exhaustion and then the dream happens

Eridol finds himself alone in a grey foggy void, the faint whislte of wind the only thing outside of his breathing and the blood thrumming in his ears. Armor and weapons as new as the day he got them and he begins to feel a burning on his right side, as blindingly painful as when the brand was first applied and tar like ooze begins cascading out of his side. Every beat of his heart causing more and more to flow out into the void

As Eridol is left close to vomiting and doubled over the goo begins to take form and Eridol begins to fear the worst that this is Bane himself and Eridol will never see his friends again

The goo crawls up itself into an imperfect mirror of the gnome, with crazed anger filled eyes and clawed hands balled into fists but otherwise it mirrored every twitch and heave of breath and I have to roll initiative to fight myself

Eridol's first thought is of course violence and both Eridol and Miradol cast spirit guardians at the same time as they rush into melee, each taking blow after shattering blow and Eridol coming out slightly worse each time.

Then he tries to get rid of it, both casting Banishment on their worse half. Then he tries to cast silence on it, his mirror self doing the same and in the silence they each drop their hammers and continue trading blows, Eridol swaying and practically dead on his feet as the pantomime boxers become more and more exhausted.

Eridol stops and breathes. dropping silence and trying to open up his connection to tyr, casting channel divinity, not to fight, not to win, but just to forgive, to understand and to find balance and Tyr responds, not a booming voice or a solitary judgmental eye but a feeling like a calming whisper and Eridol looks at his counterpart, nearly as dead as he is, but still standing defiantly almost goading him into another attack

Eridol breathes and casts healing word on his other self and begins apologising to the embodiment of all his negative emotions. “I have hurt so many people trying to deny what you represent, I let this fester and rot and I can’t let that happen anymore. I have so much to rightly be angry over, but anger alone isn’t what needs to happen anymore. So, together then, hopefully in balance, to serve Tyr and protect those who need it" and it fades away. Eridol is left in the empty expanse. A single blue light flickering in the distance like the first rays of dawn as it grows warmer and brighter until it is almost blinding and Eridol accepts it

He wakes up before dawn, to a very worried Veiraen holding a damp cloth to his forehead, pain everywhere and a small lightness in his chest that wasn't there previously. Like it's almost slightly easier to breathe all of a sudden. He asks Veiraen if he can help him get out of his armor and he checks the brand on his side, still there as it always was unfortunately.

He gets his armor back on and a vaguely worried Whisky comes up and hugs Eridol and after a second, he shrugs and hugs her back. Whispering "Nobody will believe you if you tell them I did this"

Unfortunately, Septima sees all and Eridol forgot how quick whisky can be so she locked him in the hug, shouting to get everyones attention and not letting go until everybody mentions that yes they see Eridol hugging her back and we ended the session

[tactyl-ymon]

DnD session recap - Storms and Sadness

Another 2 sessions in one recap in what continues to be my Clerics no good week from hell. Whole lot of emotions in this one, so fairly warned be ye. There’s two links to additional in game notes and things for some context to help flesh out stuff. 

We started out hurtling down a mountain in our carriage under a heavy unnatural storm, being pursued by many demons and one of the horses snaps it's leg and the carriage tips. Eridol gets thrown into a tree and spends the next several hours heavily injured. Veiraen cuts off 3 of his fingers trying to butcher the horse for food. We manage to right the carriage and just before setting off Eridol gets the idea to leave a distraction behind by stuffing his old chain mail with a sack of rice and casting light on it which is just enough to distract the literal horde of flying demons long enough for them to make it to Eridols home town and the contingent of guards waiting along with Eridol’s mum... and his fiancé, Sutha ... and his clerical mentor, Bradul Septima sees Sutha first with his 2000 passive perception and recognises her both because Eridol just talked about her and because Eridol subconsciously uses her image as a spiritual guardian. He and Whisky start yelling "Oh you’re Sutha, Eridols fiance. He's over here. He's right here on the carriage" Sutha comes over to the still very hurt and exhausted Eridol and picks him up in a big crushing hug before asking how he could just leave like that, 4 years without a word and then show up out of the blue with these strangers going on about demons. Eridol apologises but says that this isn't the time to talk about this ... Which goes about as well as you could expect and Sutha throws him down and walks off. Eridol and his mentor briefly talk about how him coming back means things will need to be answered for and that the military will come looking for him and that he can't keep running which Eridol kind of flatly mentions he knows and that's part of why he's here. Everyone gets to meet Eridols parents which goes awfully because literally nobody in the group knows how to talk to people. Veiraen immediately introduces himself as his dad, Whisky grabs photo albums and starts giggling at baby photos and Septima goes all snitchbot and tells everyone about all the things that have happened to Eridol the past year. This commotion gets Eridols dads attention and he comes down and is immediately hard core racist towards Veiraen which Eridol is having none of and threatens to throw him through a window if he starts shit again. Big "I'm gay and stronger than you" energy from the boy. Eridol goes to sit outside to try and collect his thoughts and after a bit Septima comes out and silently sits next to him in the pouring rain. Then the demons show back up, perched on top of the carriage and screech some guttural thing that everyone in 120ft hears in their mind Having been seen the demon flies away and Septima has the idea of asking Eridol who else does he care about that might be taken to get to him and he says just Sutha. Septima animorphs into a direwolf to try and find her scent and is led upstairs to Eridols old room that she was apparently staying in but gosh darn it the door is locked. Guess how long it stays that way with Veiraen around? After a mild amount of breaking and entering, Septima picks up her scent again and takes off with Whisky to try and bodyguard Sutha. Veiraen takes a look around the newly available room and instantly zeros in on the old yellowed note that Eridol left Sutha before he ran away, a note that she had read every day to try and understand and like a bastard, Veiraen read it to himself and then just put it back so nobody would know Septima and Whisky track down Sutha in a bar several blocks away and they bond over how Eridol runs away from things and Septima pipes up saying that since he's known Eridol he hasn't run away from things and has been trying to make the world a better place and then the absolute worst thing happens. Sutha quietly asks them if Eridol came back for her, Septima being unable to read a situation says "No, he brought us here to try and find information from the religious archives" and Whisky says "would you really want him to come back for you?" So Sutha gets up to leave the bar and very clearly says for them not to follow her. They follow her. Sutha gets ready to shoot them with her crossbow and says again not to take another step towards her, she just needs time to process things. Septima takes a step towards her as Whisky is asking that they just want to make sure the people Eridol cares about are safe. Crossbow goes off and because Sutha is a military trained artillerist, the resulting explosion leaves an earth shattering kaboom in the night air. The lingering smoke parts and the crumpled unconscious bodies of Septima and Whisky barely cling to life in the city’s newest pot hole. Eridol and Sutha have a very emotional conversation over all the things he's done wrong, all the things he's trying to do better, how he had to learn how to be a person again and that he always loved her but understands why she would hate him and even if it were just for a few days he wanted her to stay here, so she could at least be safe, he'll stay away if that's what she wanted and then he tries to give her back their wedding ring and says that there is too much happening at the moment but that Eridol genuinely hoped that they could have another chance after all this was finished. Sutha stares down at the tiny man bearing his soul and it just isn't enough and Sutha says to keep it and leaves the house in a rush. In the hastily emptied room Eridol finds an old blueprint of his that she had scribbled on years ago, saying how much she loved his mind. Then morning comes and Eridol tries something. He casts detect magic on himself to try and figure out how those demons were able to track them and the brand on his side lights up like Christmas. Shades of divination, necromancy, abjuration and something else Eridol can't recognise. With that confirmed, Eridol tries something else much stupider in hindsight. He casts dispel magic on the brand. Immediate agony and the boy is unconscious Everyone hears the scream and the distinct sound of a tiny gnome falling down and runs upstairs to find Eridol white as a sheet but still breathing and the brand on his side changed from an open hand to looking curled in like it was grasping something Eridols mentor dumps a massive heal into him and Eridol tells them about what he was trying to do. Septima asks Eridol if it would be alright to try again and with a shaky nod Eridol casts death ward on himself and they try again. Septima calls on his connection to the green to help strengthen their cause and it is not enough and they all hear a very distinctly not Eridol sounding voice come out of the tiny man "By my will, you do my bidding" The brand itself twisting on Eridols side to reach out and grab Septimas arm, black goo numbly racing up past Septimas elbow before shuddering to a halt, his own will just enough to beat the influence and stop a second mark of bane appearing. The group knew about soul bound curses beforehand but one straight from a god sure is something else Stabilised and conscious Eridol asks if they not do that again for a bit and the group discusses options. Obviously this whole demon cult needs to die no matter what Eridol says about greater evils and priorities but they would like to wait a day so Eridol can get his strength back. Eridol does not like this idea, reasoning that the demons already know where they are and the quicker they can make it to the religious city the safer everyone will be while they do research into things. The group wants Eridols parents to come, but the boy knows they won't, his mother has too much work left to do and his dad is way too racist to survive the journey sitting next to Veiraen but ultimately it's their choice. His mother comes in and basically says how he is incapable of letting them through the walls around his heart and they won't go with him

While Eridol lays in bed dealing with the fallout of the last several minutes he begins writing a letter, about an hour later, everyone experiences the telltale sound of of wood and metal tearing itself apart from out in the harbour as an impossibly familiar ship appears from a rip in space, followed by a tidal wave and several finned monstrosities. The ship and all of it’s crew, including the recently departed rogue Emmi and her mother, Sharona, collide with the nearly empty dock. In the minutes it takes everyone to run down to the docks, the ship is heavily damaged by a duo of hydras that had followed them through an arcane gate.

The battle is fierce and several sailors are lost before the hydra fall, discussions are had about how the hell Emmi and her mother are here as they left on a boat half the world away like a week ago. Emmi points to a keystone her father had found ages before he disappeared that since being reconnected to the prime material plane allowed them to shift to the elemental plane of water but it had also brought this continent spanning storm with them that had been causing issues since they had left. They’ll be out of the way once the ship gets repaired and take their surviving crew to a nearby tavern to drink their sorrows and remaining brain cells away. The group makes their way back to Eridols old home, mostly empty as his parents had left to their respective jobs. Everyone piles into the living room and attempts to make themselves comfortable as Eridol trudges back up to his old room he shared with Sutha, stopping outside as he hears the frantic scribbling of quill on parchment. After a tense moment, they share a weak laugh about having the same idea and Eridol brings out the letter he had penned maybe an hour ago. Sutha reads it quietly, never looking at Eridol before collecting the rest of her things and marching downstairs, singling out Veiraen and handing him the letter before quickly hugging the drow and asking that he look after Eridol. The moment ends as abruptly as it began and Sutha leaves for parts unknown, leaving Veiraen holding yet another note from Eridol and he begins reading it. After finishing, he slowly makes his way up the stairs to the quiet bedroom where Eridol is still standing and he kneels down and hugs the cleric and after several seconds, Eridol hugs his friend back and quietly begins crying into his shoulder. 

[tactyl-ymon]

DnD session recap - Demons and Disappointments

We open several days after Tactyl Y’mon’s devastating defeat in the Principium fight pits against a group of frankly better equipped fighters who tried beat the magic of friendship and teamwork into everyone and Emmi leaving for horizons unknown on a ship with her mother, with everyone else partway through a series of group training exercises under the watchful eyes of Sukaren and Core, each offering their own version of helpful criticism to strengthen the groups teamwork. After several drawn out battles and training montages even Sukaren is left speechless although whether that was due to her being impressed by the groups teamwork or frustrated by their upsetting amount of dumb luck is yet to be discovered. As the group catches their breath, Core approaches and asks if the group think they’ve had enough only to be met with a mostly exhausted sounding chorus of yeses before Core smiles like a proud parent and mentions that one of his acquaintances, an elderly seer who lives in Principium has had a dream about the group and asked everyone to come see her when possible for guidance and that they should leave now before Sukaren finds another beast for them to fight so she could keep criticising them. While walking to the city, the group encounters their sometimes dragon, sometimes halfling, all time nerd friend, Fulgur who seemed excited to discuss what the group saw of the outside world and the seemingly endless storm overhead. They discuss how everyone felt a vague pull in their hearts towards the portal that led here, the druids in Kincaid village who knew most of the group from when they came and how time didn’t match up outside, Septima and Fulgur discussed old friends and acquaintances like the high elf inventor, Hattori, disgraced and kicked out of their society due to the nature of his experiments and who was responsible for Septima’s current form. With Hattori’s mention, Whisky pipes up that she knows a high elf named Hattori as well, in a jungle far to the east, he was her old teacher and taught her everything she knows about fighting, although he was very secretive about his life outside of her direct teachings. As fate would have it, most of the team has encountered him or his works with Fulgur mentioning that the hammer dangling from Eridol’s side was also made by him and the rapier that Veiraen stabbed himself with was also the inventors creation. After several silent beats, conversation continues on to the Night Roc that still lives in the Jaunted Pillars and the dragon Nervilyth that escaped it’s soulbound prison with part of Septima’s essence. With the mention of the undead dragon, Fulgur falters and tells us that should be impossible, Nervilyth should have died centuries ago before Osteria was created. After several minutes of the possibly millenia old dragon umming and ahhing over how Nervilyth still being out and about is a bad situation for literally everyone, the conversation moves back to the very large bird that tried to eat everyone after their impromptu trip through the sentient fast travel system known as the slyph. The group give as many details as possible about the night roc, the general surroundings of the Jaunted Pillars and how it’s become an overgrown mushroom forest that you should absolutely not burn because it’ll mess you up, but if you ask nicely, the group does have 2 pounds of the stuff in the bag of holding … for science. With the impromptu drug deal out of the way, the group discusses how the Roc almost ate Eridol and some possible spots the bird could relocate outside of the fungal hellscape that was poisoning the forest and was definitely not the type of environment to raise a child, even if that child is very large bird that could probably deepthroat a cow. The group leaves Fulgur outside his shop as they continue southward through the city towards the newly gentrified slums of the city to the patchwork tent of the elderly seer that had asked for them. We see the physical embodiment of what you think of when you envision grandma vibes but with dirty, short scraggly hair, enough teeth to count on one hand and milky non responsive eyes. Introductions are made over fresh brewed tea. Core explains that the seer had seen glimpses of the past that seemed to tie in with our undead dragon problem before she interrupts and mentions that we carry a strange scent with us, earthy, very potent, possibly magical and while everyone instinctively looks at Septima, she scoots over and somehow suddenly deaf to our protests begins rummaging through our packs until she finds the magic mushrooms and gets very excited. Mentioning these will do nicely and would allow her vision to extend to encompass us as well so we could see what she sees, makes it easier than having to put into words what she sees. With everyone weirdly eager to take a trip with their new grandma, we arrange ourselves around a fire, all hold hands and get our edible on. The tent disappears around us as everyone feels a pull in their brain far to the east, they find themselves sitting far above an empty expanse of desert, a monstrously large range of mountains to the side as time begins to rewind itself. A bright flash appears and the expanse of desert is replaced with a continent spanning city, bejewelled and twinking like the night sky itself. Centuries and millennia pass in an instant. The mountains themself begin to shudder and shake as the rock recedes and forms into a immense draconic skeleton, the earth shudders open and closed over the eons as golden flesh returns to the great wyrm and it jerks back to life next to a burning and nearly destroyed city, fire curling back and returning to the dragon in a sick reversal that left large patches of the city undisturbed. As time begins to slow it’s reversal and begins slingshotting back to where we came from the seer points to the golden great wyrm, proclaiming it as Aggadon, a powerful tyrant who’s bones hold together the earth itself. The city under attack is Aggadon’s Reach, the home of Septima, Fulgur and others from centuries ago. In the seconds before the city disappears in a flash, we see several small coloured dots racing towards it from all directions. Blue, Green, Black, White and Red. Septima is the one to confirm that they were Nervilyth and several other dragons that had come to shatter the hold Aggadon’s bones had over the earth itself and usher in a new age of destruction. As the vision fades, everyone finds themself in a grey expanse before a flash of violent purple light can be seen from within the seers still unresponsive eyes as she begins writhing unnaturally on the ground, she screams that the dreamwalker approaches and to run before the screams are cut short and she stops convulsing, body still contorted in a grim knot, rising slightly off the ground like a marionette on its strings. Her eyes replaced with a void of stars as she looks through everyone present and in a cacophony of voices says it looks west for strength and with a flick of her hand, three small specks of light appear in the seers withered hand as Core, Septima and Veiraen fall to the ground dead. She looks past Whisky and Donnatello, towards the small faltering figure of Eridol, a look of annoyance flashes across the elderly face as the voices whisper “God-touched” before the rictus grin reappears and the seer’s body begins folding in on itself. Each sickening snap and scrape the only sounds in the void before the body drops, whatever forced connection severed by the entity calling itself the dreamwalker. The expanse disappears and everyone is back in the tent. The already muffled sounds of outside were muted by the carnage inside the tent. Eridol screams and begins shakily reciting the prayers to resurrect the fallen comrades. Whisky and Donnatello try to make the seer comfortable while Eridol works. It feels like hours later when he finishes, Core, Septima and Veiraen conscious and the seer clinging to life. The group determines that whatever this is it’s above what they can deal with and petition Core to let them take it to the remaining council members of Ostaria. Upon hearing the news of what they have seen the council members mention that there is little they can do here. These entities are far older than anything their libraries would contain and if the group needs information they would need to leave the general safety of the country and travel abroad, quiet discussions occur about the available destinations and two options are given that garner a split vote. They could travel to the libraries of a magical city to the east or the religious archives of Eridol’s home country of Falthresh, far to the west. With a an even split of votes on where to go, the group splits, Septima, Whisky and Donnatello set to gather supplies and organise transport while Veiraen goes with Eridol to the large central temple in the city for Eridol to ask for guidance from his god as to where they should travel first. The Travel trio organise a lush carriage for the group with horses to pull it before coming across a travelling salesman the group had recently encountered and somehow charmed into liking us. Mentioning that he could teleport us to either location if we really needed but it would be up to us to make our way from there. Meanwhile at the large central church in the city Eridol tries and fails to commune with Tyr as Veiraen watches, growing frustrated the cleric asks if Veiraen could step outside and wait for a second as he begins another self pitying attempt to garner the gods attention, talking about how he is lost and needs guidance … he needs orders to server Tyr better. The room goes dark as Eridol finds himself in a misty void very similar to the one he found himself in earlier that day, the only light source being an immensely large, bright blue eye. As it slowly turns to focus on the small cleric, wisps of smoke begin to rise from the ground and form into several humanoid shapes. Before Eridol stands ghostly visions of his old military scouting platoon, they stand perfectly still, like a moment paused in time before turning towards Eridol and the very air itself shakes as an all encompassing voice shouts “YOU DISHONOUR THEM” The figures reach out pleadingly for Eridol as spectral gauntleted hands reach up and drag them down into the fog. The light begins to change to a sickly green as the figures are consumed and Eridol falls to his knees clutching his side, a familiar burning sensation tracing its way across his abdomen. Eridol sees flashes of the people he’s failed, of his home, of his family before he is back in the small church room, a worried drow rogue standing over him looking at the very clear unholy symbol of Bane branded into his side. Eridol heals the wound to the best of his abilities and asks that Veiraen not tell the others about this, not yet anyway. Veiraen, disappointed that Eridol is still so unwilling to trust him and the group, agrees not to say anything for now and they leave to catch up with everyone. With everyone back together and the obligatory showing off of the fancy new fantasy campervan the group sits down and Eridol mentions that he’s changed his mind and thinks they should go to the religious archives in Falthresh and that there’s definitely nothing that happened to influence his decision. After several pokes and prods from Whisky and Septima, Eridol mentions the vision he saw in the church and knowing that he would be physically unable to answer any questions on his own about what it represented, decides to cast zone of truth on himself and the deluge of secrets come out. He shamefully tells the group about his time in the military, his bonds with the platoon members, the cultists who ambushed them, the dungeon under the mountain they ended up in, the torture he endured at thehands of a so called Scholar until he broke, the despicable acts he did under their influence that earned him a heretics brand, the rescue by clerics of Tyr and not knowing what became of his found family, his abandoning the military, abandoning Sutha, his fiance and his family and his begging to the gods for strength to stop anyone else from following in his footsteps, the possible fate that awaits him once they begin travelling and that he is trying to do better, but he understands if they can’t forgive his past. The silence that follows is broken eventually by Whisky asking if anyone else needs a drink after that and that they’ve got a long day of teleporting half a world away to look forward to tomorrow. The group wakes early the next morning in several different shades of hungover and makes their way outside the city to the temporary camp of their travelling salesman companion and after an impromptu shopping session that nets the group several enchanted items, the destination is set, an oasis a couple miles out from the Falthreshian border crossing to avoid any military presence at the border and to avoid questions about why a carriage of heavily armed individuals is just appearing within the country. The salesman mutters some things as he does the mental math for the teleportation circle before very confidently rubbing out one of the glyphs and replacing it with a slight variation. The smell of chalk dust and ozone fill the air as the magic sparks to life and everyone boards the carriage and trundles through the gateway. It takes several seconds for the spots in their eyes to clear and see not a small, little oasis in the dunes but a mountain looming above them, gnarled and sinister trees surrounding the group on all sides and Eridol’s gut drops. He realises he is infinitely familiar with this mountain and the secrets held beneath it, everyone sees the panic and fear setting in on their small friends face as he wildly takes control of the carriage and begins rocketing in any direction away from it. The carriage narrowly missing trees and ditches large enough to bury a horse, until they don’t and several group members are launched forward into boulders and fallen trees and under one particularly angry coach horse with a broken leg. In the minutes it takes them to untangle themselves from the woods and heal the horse they hear a loud inhumane screeching come from above and a voice in their heads “Scholar Al-Halrazi sends his regards” as a giant demonic entity bashes its way into the camp, throwing an already injured Eridol closer towards death. A swift and brutal battle ensues before the creature falls and disappears in a violent explosion of sulfur and soot. Their victory is short lived as a flash of lightning illuminates the countless unnatural forms from within the clouds as dozens of Vrocks begin diving towards the group, intent on taking their prizes and Eridol does something he desperately does not want to do, he calls for his mother, telling her about the demons on their tail and hoping she can gather whatever help they can and intercept them outside his hometown of Brightbattern. Without waiting for an answer, everyone piles back into the carriage and continues their panicked descent trying to dodge divots and demons alike, hoping and praying that their message didn’t fall on deaf ears. 

[tactyl-ymon]

DnD session recap - Service and Struggle

I’d been trying to write this recap since mid december because god there’s just so many emotions in game at the moment and it’s very draining to write about. We got a new barbarian and lost one of the rogues as they had to move interstate

We open with a lone figure paddling through an otherwise still ocean as the moonlight silhouettes a large country that wasn't there a month ago. The figure, drawn forward by a feeling in their gut that this is where they're supposed to be, makes landfall and begins lumbering through the forest as fast as her turtle like legs will allow. It is hours of running peppered with the occasional break to curse whoever thought making towns so far apart was a good idea before our new friend sees the telltale signs of town gates, a place called Merigan it seems. As the guards size up the towering tortle laden with weapons, they shakily ask the barbarian her name and what business she has. Donna Tello Tortellini introduces herself and says she's just looking for a place to sleep for the night, the guards look warily at her large frame and then mention if she's got coin there's a tavern nearby that probably had a room, otherwise there's a stable a few streets away if they promised not to cause a ruckus, the last group they had let camp there were just a constant bother to the guards and town in general whenever they came through. 

Donna Tello asks about the group and it being another in a long line of slow nights the guards escort her towards the tavern, surely nobody could be that much of a nuisance? The guards tell her all about the wicked group that calls themselves Tactyl Y'mon, about the time they had pretended to be ghoulish monsters attacking the town gates and the time they'd arrived with a lively boulder that was very protective over a busted old cart that they wouldn't let anyone get near and the time they had managed to save several townsfolk including the town leaders wife and then tossed his house after staying there the night and got several of the guards drunk, stole one of their pants and jumped through a familys roof before screaming and jumping through their window. As Donna Tello thanks the guards for the hopefully tall tales and mentions she'll definitely try to avoid the group if she can, she enters the tavern for the night and to think about where she might find some decent coin to help her explorations.

It's just before dawn the following day as Eridol is startled awake by the telltale whines of his dog signaling that he needs to go out before the very not telltale sound of his dog screaming about how he needs to pee. Which is enough to slip Eridol's already shoddy grasp on reality with everything that's happened the last few days, this has to be a dream … or insanity, who cares, best to just throw away the whole suitcase of emotions at this point and take his suddenly very talkative dog for a walk. The important questions are asked on their jaunt through the keep, “Could you always talk and were just shy?” “If this were fake, you'd tell me right Pickle?” “Where do you enjoy pats the most?” It's around here that Eridol gets a very familiar reality check in the shape of a golden dragonborn standing just outside the gates of the keep talking to one of the guards, former friend and one time follower of the god of murder, Drackuss. 

With nowhere to run, no weapons to defend himself and no backup Eridol is faced with doing the one thing he swore he would never do, have an emotional conversation with someone who shattered his trust. But Eridol still has his last trump card to get out of the conversation. Freeze up and become unresponsive. Whether Drackuss actually notices or not is irrelevant, the former paladin barrels through what amounts to an apology for how he acted when he tried to brutally disembowel one of their companions before going on a one man murder quest across the country, but how Eridol was part of stopping him doing awful things and he owes the small cleric for that. Eridol breaks and shouts that as far as he is concerned nobody owed him anything, whatever help Eridol gave was balancing a ledger or trying to make up for his own failings. Repayment for all the times that Drackuss had saves the party from otherwise lethal blows. Repayment for Eridol being too far in his own head to notice anything was wrong. Repayment for one of the earliest memories Eridol has of the dragonborn spending days in a rundown church trying to save sick children from a plague. That version of Drackuss deserved a second chance to make his own path but Eridol didn't have to be a part of it and that if Drackuss actually cared what Eridol thought they wouldn't even be having this conversation.

Several familiar shapes creep into the periphery during the silence that follows. The remaining members of Tactyl Y'mon, Whisky, Veiraen, Septima and Emmi wander up from the keep as Core, the groups sometimes government contact and Sukaren, a very imposing blue dragonborn who had been in charge of the front lines to the entry portals to the country march up from behind Drackuss. Core begins by formally thanking the group for everything they had done to shift the country back into the prime material plane and that word had gotten around that the group was at least partially responsible for the shift, people were calling us champions and the like and that there would be some exhibition matches being held in the main city and the group was invited to participate in two back to back. That one would offer a much larger challenge, but if the group could come out victorious in both they'd receive a significant reward for the show. 

Core also goes on to mention that there seems to have been some unforeseen fallout from the whole fabric of reality shifting back into place thing. Hundreds of criminals seemingly disappeared in an instant at the time of the shift back to the material plane. Murderers, cultists, thieves all set to wither in the dark for the rest of their lives gone in an instant with no evidence of what happened and with the official business out of the way, Core suggests walking to the nearest town to spend the rest of the day drinking all of that away like the semi-functional alcoholic sponge he is, the group not ever really needing a reason to drink but having just so many they could choose from decide to go with him. Drackuss shrugs, mentioning that he did what he needed to and that Sukaren and him were heading back to Principium to continue training.

As the two lumbering lizards retreat back to their training regiment, half of the group wanders into the keep to put on pants leaving Core and Emmi standing outside in awkward silence as the last moments of dawn fade away. With nobody else around, Core once again mentions that Emmi’s mother, Sharona really wants to talk to her as soon as possible. That she has so much to apologise for and that she had a plan to find out what happened to Emmi’s father all those years ago. That if Emmi was willing, Sharona would be waiting outside of Principium on a ship for the next week. The silence that follows is almost deafening as she considers the chance in front of her. Inside the keep, Veiraen approaches Eridol and asks if he really meant what he said about Drackuss, that everything he’d done was just rebalancing a ledger and whether that extended to how he thought about the rest of the group. Eridol still not quite over everything that happened outside quietly says that he doesn’t know, that he genuinely cares about everyone and is so afraid of losing people he cares about again. Eridol realises what he said and stiffens before taking a breath and apologising. Everyone deserved better than he could offer, but that he would be a better friend if Veiraen would give him another chance. Veiraen agrees before asking if he could stab Eridol again for funsies and the status quo of bickering siblings is restored like nothing happened. 

Several hours and jugs of grain alcohol later, the group find themselves in a tavern inside Merigan and are alternating between loudly trying to guess what they’d face in the fight pits with Core and how to best announce their awesomeness to the waiting crowd, it’s around the third shout of ‘We’re Tactyl Y’mon, we could fight a swan” that the shouts get the attention of the large tortle barbarian who had been sitting at the bar who with the fading memories of the guards saying to avoid the group, she gets up and introduces herself, saying that she had overheard the group was going to be in some upcoming exhibition matches at the main city’s amphitheatre and that she was a decent fighter and was looking to gather some gold for her travels if the group thinks they could use the extra set of hands in the fights. This is basically all the group needs to hear before collectively welcoming her to the rag tag family and then several rounds later getting around to asking her name. With introductions out of the way and a new friend made, the group staggers slowly back to the keep, singing songs the whole way.

In the coming days, the group train half heartedly before making their way to the capital city of Principium. They enter the familiar halls of the arena that the exhibition matches are held in to raucous applause and quickly take a win in the first fight, much to the joy of the crowd watching. A quick break later and they re-enter for the second match. Whatever the group was expecting is blown out of the air as from the other side of the arena enters faces very familiar to the group. Core, Sukaren, Drackuss, Rorstaad the council member, an old lizardfolk monk ally and a lumbering form of a hill giant with a grudge against the party’s cleric all appear across from them and against the superior combatants and the well oiled teamwork of their opponents Tactyl Y'mon quickly begin to fall. Eridol and Emmi fall within seconds, Veiraen temporarily falls shortly after but by the time he gets his footing again there isn’t anything that can be done. It is only 20 seconds after the fight begins that it ends. Sukaren spits that their time is worth more than mopping up such disappointing fodder. The crowd watching all of this sits deathly quiet, no cheers, no boos, no movement as Tactyl Y’mon quietly leaves the arena, thoroughly defeated by their betters.

Minutes later in the waiting room of the fight pit, Tactyl Y’mon sit and lick their proverbial and literal wounds as Core and Sukaren enter and as Core splits off to speak with Emmi, Sukaren attends to everyone else in what amounts to a “I am both mad and disappointed in all of you” conversation she goes over how this proved to her that the group is not worthy of the champions/defenders of the realm status that the commonfolk believed about them. They were nothing but mercenaries who had bumblefucked their way to success, idiots with no real skills or teamwork, just lucky that they hadn’t faced a serious threat. Sukaren dared any one of them to prove her wrong, to say something that would justify how poorly they just performed. We leave the session with Core and Emmi having a whispered conversation about what’s really important and Emmi rushes out of the room in between all the shouting, making her way to a ship docked nearby, wordlessly hugging her mother before helping her pull up the anchor and pointing the ship towards the setting sun over the ocean.

[tactyl-ymon]

DnD session write up - Remorse and Revelations

Boy howdy, who knew a global pandemic could disrupt social gatherings? Anyway, straight into it kids. Enjoy.

We open with everyone still laughing on an empty beach, catching their breath after narrowly escaping a collapsing demi plane that held an imprisoned dracolich that fed off peoples memories and the revelation that they'd been in said hell plane for a month when Eridol, Veiraen & Whisky all collapse on the ground trying to stop their skulls from retching open as the magic Nervlyth had used to repress every memory from before coming to Ostaria shattered and lifetimes of memories snap back into place. While Whisky and Veiraen take a few minutes to shake off their psychosis, Eridol is trapped in an kaleidoscope of his worst memories and is probably stuck that way for a while, whisky offers to stay back and drink the pain away/keep him safe until he's somewhat functional again and the other three decide they need to debrief Core and the council and with their magical fax machine out of commission it means a jaunty several hour trek through the woods to the capital city and we have our first proper split party of the campaign.

It's around sunset that Whisky notices Eridol doing something besides mutely staring directly at the sun and drinking too much beer and she asks if he's ok after everything they went through and in between too large gulps of booze and those gross sad snot bubbles you get when you cry too hard he tells her about his fiance and how happy they were, about the friends he'd lost to cultists of Bane, the torture they had put him through, the brand on his abdomen that won't go away no matter how many times he burns it off. He tells her about being freed from the cultist camp by clerics of Tyr, he's about halfway through explaining how he ran away from his fiance when he clams up, realising what he was saying and without thinking, gets up and mentions that they should really catch up to everyone else or at the very least head back to the keep so it's safer than camping on the ground near a possible exit from hell space and before Whisky can stop him, the tiny heavily armoured drunk wades into the water and begins paddling for the mainland and Whisky has no choice but to wade in after him.

Because Eridol has the emotional processing power of a particularly dense rock, he's too focused cramming everything he just said back in his head that he doesn't immediately notice that he can't hear Whisky swimming behind him anymore. In a panic he frantically scans the water that accompanies this thought shoving itself to the front of his mind he notices several small bubbles clearing the surface 20 feet away and Eridol does what he does best, which is stupidly dive and swim to the bottom of the lake to find a thrashing Whisky tangled in some kelp. He gets her free just as the bubbles stop and she goes limp. With the fear and adrenaline of having someone else he cares about die, Eridol drags her along with his exhausted chainmail wearing self out and with his limited resources, immediately channels all his remaining energy into a single healing prayer and using it to force the water out of her lungs. While Whisky is busy taking her first of many new breaths, Eridol is babbling about how this is his fault and he can make it better as he begins digging through his pack and shakily offers up a small, rough cut gem necklace. Offering apology after apology even as he slumps into unconsciousness.

Whisky silently tries to take stock of the situation which now includes one severely passed out and heavily waterlogged gnome with a pendant laying on the sand just out of reach and with a single solitary “fuck” she scoops up the necklace and begins thinking on how to move what is effectively canned dead weight and decides the best option would be to get the armor off him and at that point he's basically just a toddler sized sack of potatoes. With the armor off, Whisky gets an unhindered look at the hodge podge of scars that make up Eridol's torso. Skin knitted back together over burns, cuts and punctures, a deep cut through one shoulder surrounded by lots of interlocking circles and a large patch of heavy burns on his right side that he would normally keep hidden. She takes all this in for a moment and decides the most immediate need is to draw a large charcoal penis on his forehead before bundling the tiny man up and dragging him through the forest back to the keep before dumping him in front of one of the fireplaces for the guards to find and wandering off to bed.

Meanwhile, the adults of the group were finishing their several hour trek to the capital and began to notice small camps dotting the farmland outside the city, growing more and more dense until they were smack in the middle of a makeshift tent city. Taking a moment to look around they see the normal array of humans, elves, dwarves and the like but also a greater population of half orcs, goblins, bugbears and teiflings than would have been allowed this close to the city before the slight jaunt through time and space. As they wander through the shanty town fearing some kind of attack had taken place within the city walls to displace everyone, they learn that the newly formed ruling council ordered the lower quarters of the city to be upgraded to decrease the gap between the elite at the centre of the city and the less wealthy that surrounded them. Continuing through the city gates and past the city wide work sites, they come to where the ostentatious council building should be. In its place stands a squat, single storey wood and stone hall, a few small meeting rooms sit on either side of the larger council room. A short queue of the days remaining business slowly filtering through the rough wooden doors of the central chamber, which Veiraen, Septima and Emmi attempt to bypass because they’re big damn heroes, but faced with several town guards and a fairly aggressive half orc with a hard on for bureaucracy at the head of the line, they are momentarily pushed to the back of the queue until the council chamber doors open and Core pokes his head outside, spots the responsible half of the adventurers group and merrily ushers them inside to debrief.

They enter the central chamber to find the two remaining council members, Rorstaad, the human and Sharona the high elf. While Rorstaad remains seated, on seeing Emmi, Sharona immediately strides over and hugs the daughter she had magically forgotten for so many years. Emmi doesn’t say anything but just shrugs off the affection and Sharona meekly walks back to her seat and the trio take turns covering the basics of what happened after they had left through the Slyph’s portal, how they found themselves in an overgrown mushroom forest which paralysed or caused hallucinations in some of the party when it was burned. Whisky’s impromptu growth spurt. Fighting off a giant bird that looked like the night sky itself. Following Septimas sometimes moral compass through the woods and to the druidic village of Kincaid, jumping through a tree into a voided hellscape of nothingness that contained a highly intelligent undead dragon that had been eating peoples memories as a way to sustain itself after Septima, Fulgur and Fafnir had sealed it there a few centuries ago. They go on about how the dragon asked for two people to sacrifice their lifeforce because he just wanted the freedom it deserved, that was all and after a clever ruse from Septima all hell breaks loose and then he kind of dies twice because nobody really knows how warforged work and now the dragon is free. Somewhere in the material plane, maybe. Things got a bit fuzzy after that point. But with the dragon gone, Ostaria is now back in the material plane properly and there’ll be no more weird amnesia things going on so it’s a win win really. 

After taking a moment to take all that in and pour himself half a bottle of wine, Core tries to change the conversation and ask where the other members were? It was strange not to see the group together and with the magic words uttered, Septima gladly mentions how Tornur disappeared as soon as they made it out of the mushroom forest and left a note saying he was called for something and they left Whisky next to a non responsive, shaking Eridol back on the beach they tumbled out onto. Hearing all this, Core pours the other half of the bottle of wine into his cup and downs it in an instant, takes a deep breath and begins very uncalmly explaining why literally all of those are horrible choices. They can deal with Tornur when the time comes, but why did they think leaving the easily spooked, emotional powderkeg of a cleric basically on his own was a good idea? Septima mentions it was fine, he had been like this since Veiraen set him on fire before trying to break his curse on top of a mountain with Fulgir the sometimes dragon a few days prior to them leaving. Veiraen to his credit who had mostly been standing there quietly trying not to draw attention to himself doesn’t shy away from the slew of verbal abuse Core throws at him, only offering a small apology before retreating back into himself. With the initial debrief over, Core dismisses the trio but asks that they get in touch with Eridol and Whisky to make their way to the city just in case the council needs some additional information. Septima opens his hand and like the disney princess he is, snatches a bird out of the air and asks that it deliver a message to Eridol about Core needing to speak with Whisky and him, before the trio make their way to the short barracks building they had been using before the keep was built. 

In the morning, Eridol is woken up by a bird landing next to his head, slowly opening its beak and without moving begins emitting a message in Septimas voice, Eridollets out a shriek and immediately scoots several feet backwards in terror at what is obviously a literal nightmare. Animals can’t talk. The bird repeats the message a few times before Eridol calms down enough to realise what’s going on and quietly thanks the bird and it closes its beak and takes off through a nearby window. The gnome takes in whatever that was before realising that this is definitely not the beach he passed out on and he is definitely half naked on a couch in the keep, with no idea on how he got there Eridol grabs his armor from the foot of the couch and scuttles upstairs to get ready before getting Whisky who successfully stifles a laugh at the large charcoal dong on the tiny mans forehead and they set off to the city, encountering the same large tent city surrounding Principium as they make their way towards the bar the rest of the party were waiting and spend several hours drinking and carousing with the locals. During the impromptu pub crawl, Whisky and Emmi take a spot of gambling with bar patrons, Veiraen makes several attempts to apologise to Eridol who refuses any attempt to have the conversation and Septima befriends a travelling merchant and they begin talking about how the group has a lot of money and money can be exchanged for goods and services and Septima being the good boy that he is decides he should get gifts for everybody, but he doesn’t have much money on him so he asks a very drunk and distracted Eridol for the bag of holding because that’s where all the gold is. Eridol can’t see any faults in this logic and begins handing the bag over before Emmi swats the bag out of his hands and glares at the tiny drunk who sheepishly shrugs before being distracted by a dog and runs outside to pet it.  Emmi and Septima have a short discussion with the merchant about where he’s set up and that they’ll come by in the morning to check out his wares but for now they’re just going to keep drinking and enjoying the company. After a fairly extensive shopping montage that got the group some new weapons, armor and several magical wands for future shenanigans the crew makes their way back to the keep, trying not to discuss the tension between Veiraen and Eridol on the way. It’s a couple hours after midnight, with everyone capable of sleeping being out like a light that Eridols door quietly opens and Septima creeps in and grabs Eridol’s mount and occasional emotional support dog, Pickle from the base of the bed and taps his newly bought staff to the dogs head, asking him to be the friend that Eridol desperately needs at the moment and blessing it with enlightened intelligence and the ability to speak before whispering not to wake Eridol just yet. Which lasts a whole 5 seconds after Septima shuts the door behind him and Pickle begins headbutting Eridol and licking his face and yelling his buddy’s name excitedly and saying how much he loves his tiny master. Faced with all of this, Eridol not sure if this is a dream or that all the psychosis finally caught up to him and he does the only thing that makes sense and begins hugging his dog and quietly crying into his fur for the remainder of the night. 

[tactyl-ymon]

DnD session recap - Hearts and horizons

IT’S TIME TO D-D-D-D DND. Two sessions worth because the world is falling apart and I’d forgotten how to word for the last 3 months. Slight housekeeping thing, We’re down a wizard for the foreseeable future and one of the rogues is teleconferencing in for a bit because of personal stuff. I feel the need to tell everyone that between the 3 IT/networking admins in the group, it took us several hours to remember wired internet was more stable than wifi. Shame us. Shame us so it won’t happen again.

With that all out of the way, let’s get to it.

We left off in the aftermath of an emotional bombshell between Emmi and our sorcerer npc patron, Core with Emmi asking how long Core knew her mother was Sharona, one of current ruling council members. Silence hung in the air between them and with the emotional depth of a spoon Core silently take a step backwards, closes the door between him and Emmi and leaves the keep. With no additional information gathered, Emmi returns to whatever drink remains in her room for the night.

Early the next morning, Tornur and Veiraen return around the same time, Veiraen with his self inflicted chest wound and Tornur with healers kits for the group to counter Eridol’s complete failure to react and heal Veiraen after Septima went ape. With the group reunited we receive an urgent message from Core to meet him at the slyph tower, something bad happened. So everyone gears up in relative silence and makes their way to the giant tower outside principium that supposedly links the prison bubble we’re in to the rest of the outside world to find Core and the massive door to the tower having been cut to shreds from the outside. The sylph either unable or unwilling to tell them if anyone had come through recently asks if they would like to travel. Septima steps forward and answers that yes they would and that the thrum of magic pulling him would be closest to a place called the Jaunted Pillars, the sylph explains in their round about way that payment is required to travel, those touched by magic will find it easier but if a sufficiently powerful spell is cast anyone could technically make the trip. Between Septimas eagerness to find whatever missing piece is calling to him, Eridols need to beat something up and Tornur’s general badassary spells are cast on everyone unable to do it themselves and one by one they throw themselves down the slyph’s well with their destination in mind and after a completely innocent description about bodies joining as one and rapturous bliss and the vague feeling of drowning everyone drags their way out of the weird person shaped stargate and into what would have at one time been an exact copy of the tower they were just in … if it weren’t for the pungent and weird spongey material making up the walls that disappeared into the darkness above them.

While Emmi takes one look at the door and decides nobody has time for that, she splits off and starts climbing to try and find a window or hatch in the roof, she climbed hundreds of feet before finding a small ledge and anchoring a rope to it before letting everyone know. Meanwhile down in the peanut gallery we had decided to move on from ripping and tearing at the weird mushroom flesh and moved straight to trying to burn a hole through. As Whisky moves forward into the paltry hole we’d made so far and breaks into a coughing fit due to the noxious smoke being given off by the burning flesh, she falls to the floor screaming and convulsing. Tornur and Septima begin using their various magics to remove the smoke and Eridol rushes in without a thought to get Whisky out of the smoke. Using his last bit of strength before also succumbing to the smoke to throw Whisky out of the hole to an awaiting Veiraen. While Whisky froze and saw terrors, Eridol giddily laughed and began scooting around like an excitable child or a dog with worms. With all this going on the ground, nobody paid attention to the thick noxious cloud wisping its way up towards the roof and towards an unsuspecting Emmi clinging to a wall several hundred feet up. With a brief coughing fit and an unfortunate locking of the joints she falls. Unable to call for help or try to move, the seconds stretch and warp from the mushroom fog in her brain and gravity does its job. 100 feet, 200 feet, she falls 350 feet before Veiraen notices a glint of metal he recognizes moving far too fast for comfort and instinctively casts featherfall. Emmi slows immediately to a crawl, coming to a distinctly non violent meeting with the ground.

With two members of the group dealing with full body lockjaw and one scooting around on his shield like a tiny angry roomba, the still thinking members of the group decide to maybe stop burning through the fungus and give Emmi’s whole roof hatch plan a go after everyones able to move. About an hour later, the relative silence of the room is broken by 3 distinct groans and strings of words best not repeated as Whisky, Emmi and Eridol come out of their respective trances, all varying degrees of sore and weirdly less anxious than before huffing fantasy paint thinner. We all make our way up the inside of what was once a nice looking tower and up through a narrow bramble path towards the now blackened sky and clamber out into a clear, open space made up of dead trees and after a brief sigh of relief from leaving mushroom city, people start noticing things. Pieces of fragile silver looking material, larger than any of the party litter the dead branches and as everyone slowly takes in their surroundings and things click together, one by one they all silently turn towards the centre of the nest and see the gigantic unhatched egg and before anyone can yell to scatter an impossibly large bird the colour or a starlit night crashes into the nest, knocking Eridol unconscious with the blow. With the cleric down and a very large and territorial night roc to deal with, the group splits. Septima, Whisky and Tornur run interference while the rogues and the bird play a nice game of keep away with the sometimes near corpse of the tiny healer, now with authentic battle damage.

What little dips into consciousness Eridol did experience were spent trying to keep the Roc’s attention on himself with large damaging spells and heals as required for the others. With it’s attention divided, Whisky takes the initiative to stun the bird while Septima lashes out with vines from the tree to ground the bird in place. While the rest of the group takes to the sides of the nest to flee, Eridol bears down on the bird with quite a lot of misplaced fury. Both beaten and bloody and extremely near death, the bird begins scrambling back. Taking what would have been it’s precious last seconds of life to try and hide the unbroken egg in the centre of the nest. Seeing the mother try to protect its young snaps Eridol out of his rage and with shame thinking about what he almost did, he heals the bird slightly before leaving. In the time left on Septimas sealing spell. The group silently makes their way to a cramped little hole in the trunk of one of the large perimeter trees, as far as their weary legs will take them from the nest.

Not wanting to waste the moment and wanting to get this over with before the post fight shakes sets in, Eridol calls over to Veiraen to discuss where they stand. With the group tending to their wounds in the background and the oppressive silence of the forest around them, Eridol begins by thanking the drow for keeping him alive in the last fight before explaining about how Veiraen’s done things he can’t forgive. Since they’ve known each other, Veiraen has only ever acted in his own interests, often at the expense of others. The final straws being setting Eridol on fire while he was trying to cope with the latest death he hadn’t been able to stop and Veiraen running off to the forests to try and deal with his psychosis and endanger Septima and a new ally rather than ask the group for help. Emotionally, Eridol mentions that he will still try to keep Veiraen alive like everyone expects him to, but he doesn’t have to like the rogue or forgive him to do that. As far as Eridol is concerned, Veiraen is just part of a job now. The rogue quietly nods before heading back to the group, leaving the cleric to his attempts to contact the groups sorcerer patron as well as sending an apology to the roc for entering its home and endangering its as yet unborn child. If the roc ever needs assistance, it can find them.

With everyone asleep and Septima taking his usual spot of standing awkwardly over someone for the night like an overprotective gargoyle, Eridol takes a mostly uneventful first watch until Tornur gets up and mentions needing to go take care of something and Eridol still being a bit mortally wounded and vaguely concussed just groggily waves at him and slurs something about not taking too long. It’s maybe 30 minutes and two unanswered calls later when Eridol starts getting suspicious that it shouldn’t take this long to go to the bathroom and goes to boot up Septima to help find the wizzing wizard. Knowing how vast the forest is, Septima animorphs into a direwolf to track by scent and with his weary gnome jockey aboard they take off into the night hot on the trail of unwashed dwarf. After about 10 minutes the trail begins to go cold and they come across a piece of parchment stuck to a tree with “This one has been called. I’m sorry” written in a familiar script with the recently purchased bracers of defence and one of the necklaces the group uses to communicate. The only gift not returned was the crossbow Eridol gave Tornur which is brought up sulkily before the duo return to the group. Septima mentions Eridol should get some sleep as he returns to his weird t-posing gargoyles perch over whichever party member will get the biggest reaction upon waking up. While the party slept the remainder of the night away, the last traces of magic surrounding Whisky, the tiny feline monk disappear and she begins to grow to her proper tabaxi form in her sleep. Thrashing around silently like a horror movie creature, flesh contorting and stretching until her previously 2 foot tall frame maxing out the height slider just under 7 feet and she returns to peaceful sleep, at some point wrapping Eridol in her new lengthy tai as Septima passively watched the whole thing instead of intervening or waking the group because it was funnier to not get involved and he is seemingly powered by low level chaos.

Night turns to day and as is tradition and the silence is broken by a mixture of confused screaming and levels of dead eyed resignation normally only felt by retail workers at the nba all star who replaced the tiny monk overnight. The shouting only got worse once it was revealed that Tornur was gone, seemingly summoned by an unknown entity which will definitely never come up in the future. With no further surprises, the group packs up their camp and a whimsical “Follow your heart” sequence begins except its through the bad type of fairytale forest and we’re following the urges of a chaotic warforged with severe memory corruption. Several hours of trekking pass as the forest thins out and becomes less “evil” before we find a worn path through the forest which we begin to follow, still being guided by septima towards his missing piece until we see two figures off in the distance. After hastily diving into the shrubs to not be seen a plan is devised, one of the group is to get out on the path and walk towards the pair to see if they’re friendly while the others creep through the brush to jump in if required. Now obviously it has to be someone who looks the most harmless and disarming at which point everyone just turns and looks at the sometimes gremlin of a cleric and with a sigh, Eridol wanders back out to the path and begins walking as non threateningly towards what we now know are a human and a warforged. After about a minute of walking, the human sees Eridol and confusedly grabs some binoculars to confirm what he sees before promptly yelling and throwing up before both him and the warforged point their spears towards the now halted gnome who puts his hands up and begins yelling at the pair about being a bit lost and looking for somewhere to stay. 

Eridol carefully proceeding towards the pair trying to be as disarming as his crippling mental issues allow the human gets a look of recognition over his face. Proclaiming that he knows who the tiny cleric is and it’d been months since the gnome had come through on his religious quest. As Eridol tries to hide his sheer panic behind pleasantries about how he unfortunately doesn’t remember the hunter at the moment and that maybe they should introduce themselves. The construct just continues scanning the horizon but the human introduces himself as Jeremiah, current perimeter guard for the village of kincaid and that this is way above his paygrade so Eridol needs to come with him to see the village leader. Sensing a complete lack of hostility Eridol agrees, but first asks Jeremiah to not freak out over something real quick as he calls out to the rest of the party who were hidden in the undergrowth several feet away.

After the guard stifles a definitely manly shriek, his face gives way to recognition and curiosity as he seems to remember Veiraen and Whisky and then to pale reverence as he sees Septima. Before stuttering that they definitely need to inform the village leader about the group. The group and their new guide wind through the forest until they come across a village built in a clearing, cozy buildings and vegetable plots intermingle throughout the town as humans and half elves go about their business. An impossibly tall tree waving limply in the background, bands of decay and discolour damaging an otherwise pristine forest. Jeremiah leads Septima and by extension everyone else to the local tavern before excusing himself momentarily as he runs off and returns with an older looking half elven woman who exudes druidic power and introduces herself as Liana Cypher, current leader of Kincaid village and currently very confused as to how we’re all here, especially Septima because he left through to the sanctuary over a century ago and that should have been a one way trip to safety. If septima was capable of showing emotion he would have assuredly been annoyed as he matter of factly informed the druidic leader that where they had come from was no sanctuary, but rather a prison that we had escaped from through the magical equivalent of a secret tunnel and that Septima was being pulled somewhere close by whatever approximates a gut feeling in a magically animated mannequin. This gets Liana’s attention and she asks if Septima would like to talk in private while the rest of the group got settled in the few rooms available in the inn. Eridol spends his time deep in prayer frustratedly asking for guidance and receiving nothing. Veiraen slowly meditating through a song on his violin about the connection he had with whatever was inhabiting his prior sword. As the song reaches its peak he sees the briefest echo of the spirit of Cricket smiling at him before it fades away. While the angsty teens do their thing, Whisky and Emmi sample the local wines and ales … for research purposes, obviously.

Septima and Liana make their way through the remainder of the town towards the great deku tree, Liana going through how for the last few hundred years people have been drawn to the tree and it was supposed to lead to a safe haven but since Septima and his cohorts had gone through over a century ago, the tree and its surroundings had slowly started showing signs of disease that the abilities of the town could only slow but not cure, almost like there was something within the tree itself leeching the life out of the forest. As they reach the base of the great dying tree, the reverberations within Septimas’ soul seem to harmonise with ... something. Whatever he has being pushed towards is so close, almost close enough to reach out and touch, but as his hand grazes over the tree it can only feel the barest traces of life travelling through what he knows should be a vibrant spectacle of life. Liana asks if Septima would need to travel again like last time and is met with a brief murmur of agreement as he contemplates what needs to happen. The pair begin their short journey back to the tavern, with Liana reminiscing about the first time Septima had come through on the way there before bidding the group goodnight and leaving Septima to wrangle several drunk/passed out teammates which are promptly ushered/thrown into their respective rooms for the night. Come morning and septima lays out the plan, we need to travel into the great tree but make sure not to complete the journey to find what he needs and to help save Ostaria from the whole “reality shattering and destroying everyone” thing we had been sent to fix. With everyone in agreement, a message is sent and Tacty’l Ymon soon find themselves at the base of a once great tree alongside Liana who mentions that to find what they seek, they will need to trek to the top of the canopy and jump. Which is met with varying degrees of enthusiasm from the group. They travel for the better part of 30 minutes up the side of the tree until they reach the near bare canopy and look down a familiar well shaped tunnel through the innards of the tree ending far deeper than the trunk or physics would allow. Eridol feels his thread of divinity thrum slightly and he makes a silent prayer before imparting a mote of protection onto Septima. Liana asks if the group is ready and begins the ritual required to open the path between planes. With a whisper she proclaims “Fall through the leaves like sunlight and be reborn in the roots” and runs a dagger up her forearm, silver liquid spilling out and falling down the trunk in a solid sheet before ushering the group to jump into the definitely real portal that’s down there in the dark. One by one they fall through the darkness for what feels like hours before taking what feels like a hard bend and stumbling out in a heap into an endless flat expanse with no visible source of light. Withered near identical trees waving slightly despite the lack of a breeze spot the otherwise empty landscape as the Septima feels a strong tug and begins moving towards the horizon with the group silently in tow. Time seemed to stretch and contract around them, making it impossible to get a bearing on how long they marched past the near identical trees after what seemed like weeks or hours a blip on the horizon appears and grows into a seemingly dead and petrified version of the tree they had fallen through to get here. A malformed knot of flesh and stone rings the considerable tree like a cancerous growth. Shifting and unfurling as we approach. Before us stands a mostly decayed large red dragon, what little flesh remains is mottled with patches of stone and petrified wood, fusing it to the base of the tree and keeping the dragon in place. It’s cold undead eyes pass over the group, lingering on everyone but Emmi before resting onto Septima, both feeling the pulsing connection that ties them together, a piece of Septimas essence hidden deep within the dragon. A booming voice pierces the stillness of the place. The dragon introduces itself as Nerglyth and it would like to be free. We all learn that several hundred years ago it was held here by Septima, Fulgür and Fafnir and that over time the dragon had found itself being used as energy for the tree, until the dragon found that could go both ways and began leeching energy out of the tree and memories of those who had travelled through it. Nerglyths voice was all encompassing as it tried to goad Septima into finishing what he started before turning to smile at Eridol and ask if he was here to make another sacrifice and we were offered a choice, complete the ritual it needed to leave and we can have the piece of Septimas soul keeping it tethered here. It just needs two more lives, paltry in the grand scheme of things really. The semi petrified red dragon began to shift and extend itself away from the tree which in addition to proving how utterly gigantic it was also allowed a low hanging branch to come into view of the group. The branch contained 2 figures hanging from nooses along the branch, one almost ethereal and one fully visible. Free hanging nooses are visible throughout the rest of the tree. Veiraen and Emmi both recognised the bodies at the same time as the children taken to be sacrificed by the mistress and her makeshift coven as Eridol becomes transfixed by the girl swinging in the noose. The girl he had to use to complete part of the ritual leading to a possible escape to the material plane. Regret and anger and shame tunnel his vision until all he can see is the girl. Both he and Septima put themselves forward as sacrifices, each wanting this to be over and not willing to let someone innocent take their place. As they wordlessly begin their walk towards the dragon, Eridol falters slightly. A small surge of recognition making him take stock of the situation they’re in. Whatever this creature is, it is definitely undead and extremely powerful. For an abomination to be this smart isn’t unheard of, but letting it loose into the world is to be avoided no matter what. Eridol stops and says as much to the group, much to the disappointment and anger of the dragon. Over Nerglyth’s snarls and insults, Eridol goes to turn back to the group asking Septima to come with them, there has to be another way to fix this and they know what they’re up against. Septima continued forward towards the behemoth undead figure until they are feet apart and with a shout of “Get the heart!” begins shifting into something more wild, but Nerglyth as smart as he is saw the betrayal coming and a wave of necrotic ice washes over the druid and most of the party in an instant. The ground erupting into slippery jagged shards impeding all but Whisky from moving freely and with a roar the fight for our little piece of reality begins. Whisky and Emmi take up the offensive as Septima begins searching for what brought us all here. Both Veiraen and Eridol have major issues with the terrain, either from the rancid icy breath or draconic shouts that tore at the ground beneath them, leaving them buried up to the neck. As Veiraen and Eridol worm their way to freedom, Septima gets a lock on his missing piece from deep within the dragon and shifts into a mouse to more easily search the colossal moving carcass. The group continues their assault to distract the dragon with Emmi leaving wounds that would gravely injure other foes and the others doing what they do best, annoy anything larger than themselves. Septimouse slowly creeps through the putrid organs, careful to not draw attention to themself until they finds a small pulsing orb and it’s at this exact moment the dragon notices a missing warforged and the group watches in terror as it unleashes a torrent of gross mourning breath into its own ribcage, slamming into Septima with enough force to revert from his mouse form and knock the druidic construct unconscious. The spark of divine protection doing its job and bringing him back from the brink of death, but it’s too late, the stone binding Nerglyth to the tree snaps and sloughs off its form. A life has been given as required and freedom is so close. A surge of necrotic energy lashes in towards the barely conscious druid, leeching what remaining energy the druid had. WIth the last few moments before fading into unconsciousness, Septima reaches out for his missing essence, hands grasping at the shard inches away from his fingers and he sees a large draconic claw reach in and pluck it away. The group watches in awe as the dragon begins limping back towards the tree that held it for so long, Emmi Veiraen and Whisky trying to slow it down and inflict as much damage as possible, while a panicked Eridol reaches around his holy symbol and plucks part of his own essence, forcing it unceremoniously through a hole in the dragons chest and into the still twitching body of Septima. The drid makes a hasty exit through one of the freshly gaping wounds left by the group or the dragon itself and can only watch as Nerglyth presses the shard of Septimas essence up to the trunk of the tree and with an earth shattering kaboom a tear in space forms within the trunk. Booming laughter echoes through the landscape and in an instant Nerglyth is gone. The pressure of the tear grows stronger and stronger as this small pocket of reality collapses in on itself. Septima instantly shoots out a wall of vines to try and stop everyone from being sucked in, but the pull is too strong as both he and Veiraen tumble along the ground and tree towards the rip in reality. Knowing how close the dragon was to redeath, Veiraen desperately throws his daggers through the void as both he and Septima catch themselves feet from the opening. Septima reaches out for the sliver of his soul that had trapped Nerglyth here as a large coil of rope rushes past them before snapping taut. Eridol, Whisky and Emmi acting as anchors from their restrained spot on the ground giving them something to climb away from the yawning hellmouth. The pull of the hole only gets stronger as they begin making their way back up the rope and Septima dislodges his fragment from the tree. What little is left of this sparse landscape continues to fold in on itself as time bungee corded around as Septima becomes more self absorbed than normal and for the first time in centuries is whole again. He opens his hand and another smaller portal opens near everyone and they all tumble through at the last possible second for dramatic tension. The silent blank reality pocket is replaced in an instant with the sound of waves lapping on a shore. As one, they look out over the ocean in front of them and see a clear division of sea and air. A horizon that wasn’t there the last time they stood on the shores of Ostaria. Eridol excitedly contacts Core to tell him that they did it, they fixed everything and is met with incredulous joy from their sorcerer companion. The walls surrounding Ostaria had been gone for over a month, Core had been trying to contact us every day since trying to get an update. Tacty’l Ymon stands silently on the beach as Core congratulates them. They had done it. Hundreds of thousands of lives got to continue without the immediate threat of reality collapsing around them. We end the session with Eridol and Septima falling over laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation with the remainder of the group following suit shortly after.

[tactyl-ymon]

DnD session recap - Curses and Consequences

You all know the drill by now, big session. lots of emotions, didn’t know how to format things coherently blah blah blah all add onto this being like a month late. Enjoy my literal labour of love because this one write up easily took about 20 something hours of note taking, writing, formatting and stuff.

We open with a worried trio of Whisky, Veiraen and Eridol knocking on Emmi’s door after she ran away from the assembled group outside the keep and spend the night watching Emmi drink her weight in wine and make sure she doesn’t die. Once Emmi passes out because she’s more wine than elf at this point, the group decides best not to waste the remainder and get summarily sloshed between them. Veiraen and Eridol have a deep and meaningful conversation about how mysterious Septima is and Veiraen says Septima probably can’t even do a backflip and you can’t trust someone that can’t do a backflip. Eridol wants people to trust him and not seeing any flaws in the logic,tries to do a backflip in full armor to prove he can. Which goes about as hilariously as expected of a jacked toddler in a tin can. The gnome shaped thwack is loud enough to be heard throughout the keep and the ensuing laughter breaks our dwarven wizard’s concentration from his reading. Tornur comes to ask us to keep it down because he’s trying to do some research. Eridol promises they won’t make any more noise and immediately casts silence before trying to do another backflip because he is a stubborn tiny man. Somehow he pulls it off. Veiraen, Whisky and Eridol silently celebrate before the silence is dropped and suddenly we’re not so silently celebrating anymore. We hear the telltale sounds of a disgruntled dwarven wizard stomping down the hallway and operation “oh shit, hide” begins. Eridol trips over a rug and unsuccessfully dives under Emmi’s bed, Whisky dives under the now disturbed rug, Veiraen just kind of melts behind a curtain and Emmi remains passed out in bed. Tornur boots the door open and it doesn’t take long for him to see the half of a shiny gnome sticking out from under the bed and casts web on everyone before telling everyone to be quiet and leaving us in our sticky situation. With that, everyone feebly tries to get out before realising that they can’t move and I guess it’s just impromptu nap time. While everyone is either passed out or studying, Septima decides to go for a walk to talk to some direwolves because we’re all agents of Chaos, but he’s on a different level and wouldn’t you know it, he finds some direwolves. Somehow against all odds he turns a 4v1 combat scenario into the wolves allowing him to lead them back to the keep to meet everyone else and maybe protect the lands surrounding the keep if we agreed to occasionally feed them and protect their den when needed. He asks the wolves to stay put while he brings everyone in the group out so they know what’s going on. After searching all the rooms he finds the majority of the group passed out, covered in wine and decides the best possible way to wake everyone up is by standing in the doorway and using druidcraft to make it smell like smoke and make crackling fire sound effects. Veiraen and Whisky wake up, panic and somehow knock themselves back unconscious. Eridol wakes up, smells smoke, sees the giant in the doorway and decides the best course of action is to jump out the window. After an impromptu second storey pratfall, he heads back inside and freaks out one of the guards with a frankly unnecessary head wound before saying everything’s fine and promptly passing out again. Septima asks Tornur for some help dragging the remaining members downstairs and they pick up the now bandaged and passed out Eridol on the way and wake everyone up just outside where the wolves are. The wolves take an immediate interest in Whisky and as Eridol ineffectively steps in front of her to act as a barrier, she begins petting the alpha into submission. Septima begins explaining that he’s asked the wolves if they could patrol the outskirts of the keep and in return we occasionally feed them and keep their den safe. With everyone somewhat agreeing to this deal, we all head back to the keep proper and pass out from our night of hard drinking/studying like a nerd/wolf hunting. Emmi wakes up to a trashed room and a note from Eridol to come to the training grounds just outside the keep if she wants to blow off some steam and help with something. As Emmi makes her way out to the little arena, she sees the rest of the group watching Eridol train several of the keep guards and offer a challenge to them, whichever of the guards can hit him hard enough to drop concentration on a spell will get 10 gold. A few of the guards accept the challenge as Eridol casts 2 spells on himself and beckons the guards to start. It goes on for a while before Septima feeling this is unfairly weighted in Eridols favour dispels the effects and with his magical safety net dropped, Eridol starts having to actually dodge spears and swords now. He recasts one of the spells but it doesn’t stop a guards spear from finding his abdomen. With the spell broken and a new flesh wound to deal with Eridol hands the prize off to the guard and sits on the ground to heal for a bit before asking if anyone in the party wanted to put on a bit of a sparring show for the guards still watching and takes his place in the middle of the small arena. He realizes his immediate mistake of not saying it was a one on one match when Septima, Veiraen, Whisky and Emmi all take points surrounding him and Eridol hunkers down to the inevitable arse beating he’s about to receive. Which does not come. After several rounds of almost everyone silently agreeing to stomp Veiraen, the impromptu battle ends with Emmi and Veiraen unconscious, Whisky forfeiting and Septima a very fast giant ape thanks to some meddling from an amused Tornur in the stands. Eridol gets to healing everyone as the very fast giant ape with the brain of a not very smart but very fast ape decides play time’s not over just yet and starts beating on Veiraen and things go to far before anyone can do anything to stop him. With the sight of Veiraen dying again and the necklace around his neck turning that horrifying shade of red because of it, Eridol slips back into himself, completely unresponsive. With Eridol out of commission, Tornur drops haste on Septima while Whisky and Emmi start tackling the now exhausted ape before he anything else can happen. A flurry or blows and crossbow bolts knocks our druids concentration enough to come back to himself and drop the spell as Tornur is trying to get Eridol back into reality with a thunderous slap. With the cleric being forced to act but without the materials on hand to bring Veiraen back, Eridol casts gentle repose as he yells for someone to get the bag of holding.  Tornur casts haste on Whisky as she speeds back up to the keep to get the components and makes it back faster than is legally possible. Eridol shakily casts revivify to bring his friend back from the dead for a second time, the collar around Veiraen’s neck flaring back to life seconds later, immoblising the rogue long enough for the protective collar to seep back into his mind and quell the murderous intent he’s had since coming through the portal and massacring several people. Everyone except Whisky and Emmi wordlessly makes their way back to the keep as the two decide a nice stiff drink is required and set off to the nearest town to get shitfaced. After too much ale and many unsuccessful attempts to dodge Whiskys questions about why Emmi was so focused on drinking herself into an early grave, Emmi opens up about the memories she recently rediscovered. The life she thought she had was all a lie, her family, her relationships, her reasons for becoming a sailor. Everything. She thinks back on how Sharona took such an active approach to her sailing education, everything shifting under the realization that this was her mother. A mother who loved her family so much she would rather live without Emmi than see them both lost to time and the ocean in pursuit of their husband. But some things just can’t be helped as Emmi unknowingly had spent her life continuing to learn from her mother. Whisky stating that at least she has the full picture now, so at least theres that silver lining and asks if Emmi would like to go confront her mother about it which is met with the universal facial expression of that being a hard pass. They continue drinking the night away and talking until words lose meaning and have to let the horses lead them back to the keep to face the overwhelming hangover that awaits in the morning. Back with the rest of the group just after leaving the training grounds, Veiraen trails back and pins Eridol to the door frame of the building, asking for the remote to the inhibition collar around his neck. After receiving no answer from the still traumatised gnome he lets him go and Veiraen goes to sit in front of the fireplace and Eridol fights losing himself until he gets into his room. Ending up in a small crate in the corner to shut out the world. It’s about an hour later when Veiraen comes to ask Eridol for the remote again, slipping into the room and finding the hyperventilating, disassociating mess of a cleric in his panic box. Still not getting the information he wants, Veiraen decides he needs to snap Eridol out of whatever this is as gently as possible, not like Tornur slapping him back to reality. Veiraen pours a vial of oil over the shuddering gnome and retrieves his tinderbox. Fire obviously the way to get what he wants in this delicate situation. It takes a few seconds for recognition of the situation to violently rip Eridol out of his own head, with survival instincts kicking in, he puts himself out and punches Veiraen while Veiraen tries to pin him and ask about the remote again. Veiraen leaves without a word and Eridol thrown out of his episode locks the door and sets in to read and to think about where he stands with Veiraen for the remainder of the day. An hour later Veiraen tries to ask again, but finds the door locked and barricaded from the inside and not knowing when to quit he starts climbing the wall of the keep to Eridols window.  A few feet from his prize, the window opens. Eridol having heard the pitons being hammered into the stonework, comes to find his traveling companion hanging from a rope. They exchange a glance before Eridol quietly gives an ultimatum. Drop whatever this is or Eridol will have to stop it and he doesn’t have the energy available to bring Veiraen back if it comes to that. Veiraen asks for the remote again and Eridol mentions he doesn’t have it anymore. Ask Septima. Eridol doesn’t wait for a response and closes the window,  back to standing guard for a fight he prays doesn’t come sneaking through the window. Dawn comes and hoping to avoid Veiraen for as long as possible, Eridol takes Tornur to the main city to find some additional spells and protective measures from their new ally and sometimes adult bronze dragon, deciding to spend the night in town while Tornur copied his new spells to his book, that was definitely the only reason to stay there for now. Back at the keep, Veiraen had been having issues finding our green friend because without an actual bedroom or the need to sleep, Septima had taken to shutting down in the most inconvenient places around the keep in an attempt to scare whoever finds him, you know, for fun. Veiraen finds him early in the morning hidden in a darkened corner of the larder after a scream and string of curses from one of the kitchen workers alerts the rogue to his current hiding spot. Veiraen asks Septima for the remote and is summarily refused, Septima saying he was instructed by everyone, but by Core especially to not give it to him. Veiraen states that he just wants to find a way to disable it for a while so he can figure out how to handle the urges it suppresses for himself so he doesn’t end up hurting anyone around him and argues that it was Core that put the collar on him in the first place after he came through the portal and shouldn’t be trusted. Septima realizes that Veiraen genuinely believes this, but he won’t hand over the remote. But maybe Fulgür the sometimes dragon can help them with momentarily blocking the necklace while Veiraen does what he needs to. With that, Septima and Veiraen start meandering towards Principium, unknowingly arriving several hours after Eridol and Tornur at Fulgür’s magic shop where the dragon was still in the form of the Halfling wizard that also came through the portals with them and Septima so long ago. Before explaining why they need help, Veiraen offers up all the remaining gems that he had taken from Fulgür’s cave system unknowingly with an apology. Veiraen goes into how he knows the collar is dampening a harmful intent, when he came through the portal he felt a need to inflict violence on everyone around him, he killed so many people and felt good about. The collar held the urge in place but he needs to be able to explore it and what it means for him. After a careful inspection from Fulgür, the dragon recognizes an inkling of the same type of fey energy that hid his true self and Emmi’s memories affecting Veiraen. Fulgür agrees to help him with his experimentation and an agreement is made to head out to the cave Septima and Eridol found him digging in originally to be away from anyone. Fulgür casts fly on the two non dragons and they fly out of the city, far to the south away from prying eyes and possible victims should this go poorly. They reach the cave system and Veiraen asks that he be restrained and disarmed before they start, both Septima and Fulgür agree and through a combination of hold person and entanglement he is restrained and his weapons but under Fulgür’s foot for added security and dispel magic is cast in an effort to suppress the collar but the collar shatters from the force of the dispelling enchantment, the small bead  of murderous intent flares to life as Veiraen begins trying to fight off his new urges. As Fulgür and Septima can only watch, Veiraen, as restrained as he is seems to be fighting a losing battle against the fey curse affecting his mind and causing the want to rip and tear those around him. In his mind he hears a voice, the voice of his sword cricket pleading to let her help, he just needs to hold her and she can help. Veiraen begins begging for his sword, whispered under the strain of the efforts he is taking to fight off his urges. Fulgür unsheathes it and offers it without hesitation. With sword in hand, Veiraen redoubles his efforts to fight the curse on him and sensing his control slipping under it’s fog he pins himself through his foot to the ground. With Veiraen pinned and slowly losing this mental battle a decision is made. They need divine intervention to break this like the last ones encountered. Septima shifts into a giant constrictor snake to help restrain Veiraen while Fulgür uses his mighty draconic speed to make it back to Principium to find Eridol as fast as he can. When Fulgür finds the gnome and mentions Veiraen needing help with a curse, it overwhelms whatever negative feelings the healer has for the rogue and they depart as fast as is dragonly possible. Shortly after Fulgür departs the cave, Veiraen hears the calming voice of cricket in his mind over the pulsing of blood in his ears. “This is not a fight you can win, oh bearer mine, there is something I can do that will end this. Will you accept?” With no other options Veiraen accepts this incredibly vague offer from a sword he can’t tell anyone about and for the first time since breaking the collar his mind goes quiet, the murderous intent still there but momentarily contained.  Feeling him stop tensing, Septima releases him and in one smooth motion, Veiraen removes the sword from his foot, spins it around and as if by it’s own will Cricket is driven into Veiraen’s heart. As it completely disappears into his chest, Veiraen can feel the fey curse wither into nothing and for the first time since coming through the portal, with neither good or bad influencing his actions or a collar to inhibit him, Veiraen is completely himself. As he breathes, a figure appears in his mind. A humanoid woman clad in gleaming platinum armor with a shield as large as herself, she smiles and bows at her wielder before fading away, a duty willingly fulfilled. The silence that follows only broken by his raspy breathing and the pulse of his blood in his ears as an emotionally drained and slightly holey Veiraen collapses into a fitful sleep. Septima shifting into a dire wolf to help keep him warm until he wakes. It is a few hours later when Fulgür arrives with his tiny gnome shaped ball of fury who is ready to kick someones arse. Their arrival loud enough to wake the exhausted Veiraen and his wolf buddy. Veiraen starts making a heartfelt explanation of what happened and how he needed to feel like himself and how everything worked out in the end and that  he’s sorry as he draws the gnome in for a hug and for the first time since they’ve known each other Eridol refuses to accept this justification. All the conflicting emotions that he has about Veiraen come boiling to the surface and Eridol yells at the rogue for his stupidity at not thinking of the possible consequences all the time, for dying, for setting him on fire, for not telling anyone his plans and for putting himself and Septima in potential harms way if this went poorly. The gnome turns and begins wordlessly making his way down the mountain rather than spend another second with his companions. With Eridols sudden outburst and departure, the remaining trio discuss what happens now, Core needs to be told obviously and the others will learn eventually. Considering the weirdness between Fulgür and Core after their last meeting, he’s out and Veiraen quietly asks if he can spend the night at Fulgür’s cave rather than go after his friend. This leaves Septima to Terminator run his way to principium because without usable lungs he can’t get exhausted. After several hours of walking silently with a death grip on his hammer, Eridol ends up in a clearing and the realization of how alone he is sets in as every emotion he was trying to push down explodes at once. He leaves a trail of destruction in his wake. Every spell and strike used as an outlet for his anger and frustration as he tries to beat the forest into submission, trees splinter as divine energy flares, rocks shatter with every hammer strike and Eridol finally comes to grips with things as tears stream down his face. It’s past dawn when he makes it back to the keep, two days of emotional exhaustion and no sleep take their toll as he oozes into bed and Eridols justifiably worried dog lies down on his gnome, because he’s a good boy like that. As Septima Forest Gumps his way across the countryside, he eventually makes it to our sorcerer companion’s home in the capital city and his internal snitch programming activates and in his calm, emotionless monotone Septima lays out exactly what happened with Veiraen and the collar and Eridol walking away and also the country is probably going to shatter in like 9 months, to the increasingly panicked caster and they begin making their way back to the keep to yell at two people specifically and everyone generally. The two slip into the keep in the early morning light and with no Veiraen in sight decide Eridol is the next best one to talk to and make their way up to his room. They discuss what happened and try not to notice the near death grip Eridol has on his hammer while clearly lying about how fine he is. Septima mentions how you shouldn’t let death scar you which is enough to trigger the saddest gnome to mention it’s a bit late for that and sheds his armor to show off more scar tissue than is legally allowed. His torso a patchwork of almost surgical scars, abrasions and a series of newer burns wrapping around his right side in a haphazard attempt to cover something. Septima just quietly looks the gnome over and begins unwinding his wrappings to show his own scarred body. Core and Eridol are faced with old husks of wood showing deep gouges and burned to char in places, whatever essence granting him life pulses and dissipates through the joints and cracks in the surface. Obviously in this sad boys body club, Septima takes the crown. Having seen enough of the body horror, Core asks if someone knows how to get in touch with Veiraen, we need to discuss what happens next with the portal and possible destruction of the country in several months. Eridol quietly mentions that he can and sends a mental text to the rogue to come and to bring Fulgur as well. Core leaves and runs into Emmi in the hallway outside, who had been woken by the noise. Seeing her still seemingly drunk from the night before, Core asks if she’s doing alright and gets a pretty hefty no before Emmi drops the equivalent of a bomb and accusingly says “How long have you known Sharona was my mother?” The silence afterwards is deafening as Core tries to process that and we end the session there

[tactyl-ymon]

dnd session recap - Dragons and Divinity

Straight into it this time, because ya boy prewrote most of this just after the actual session which was still like a month ago. Score one for excessive note taking in advance for once.

We open the session with everyone exhaustedly rallying together between the centre portal and the camp to buy everyone time to secure the civilians and Sukaren shouting for all her men to evacuate back to the camp as the portals shudder back to life for the second time in a day and spews forth a new threat in the form of a Manticore and a Chimera that explode out towards the group blisteringly fast. A thrilling battle that I don’t have the energy to transcript ends with Septima having shifted into a giant anaconda and systematically breaks each of the chimera’s necks while Tornur ends the Manticore with a well placed firebolt as it was trying to escape, everyone silently watches as the Manticore drops from the sky and bounce off a nearby cliff into the ocean below. With everyone on edge, we worriedly wait for a couple minutes to make sure the portal is properly closed as Sukaren orders some of her men back out to pick up and begin harvesting the creatures that came through for parts. Eridol asks if they can get in on this because he has a burning need to take trophies and after a heated exchange Sukaren begrudgingly hacks off one of the chimera paws and throws a couple of Manticore barbs towards Emmi and Whisky as personal trophies and orders us all to get the hell out of her camp and not come back. Eager to not annoy the commanding dragonborn anymore than they need to everyone starts hobbling back towards their horses to head back to the keep, Septima confirming he saw what he needed to calculate how everyone fights together. As we make our way towards the large wooden gate that separates the military complex from freedom, we find ourselves surrounded by guards with several extremely large siege weapons pointed at us. With a collective shrug because of course this would happen, we are barred from leaving by several guardsmen who recognised Veiraen as a butcher who murdered multiple people on coming out of the portal so obviously we’re all criminals for being with him and need to face justice. Despite our pleas to just let us leave before Sukaren notices we’re still here and kills us, Veiraen is put into chains while we contact Core and ask if he could come out to confirm that we work for him. Core arrives, we get squared away while Sukaren takes notice of the only person she currently hates more than us and stomps over to totally not try to choke Core for entering her camp and after our customary prodding she confirm that something is happening with the portals, they let something else in. This gets Core's attention and him and Sukaren go to talk in private while we are finally let go to gather the horses and wait outside. On the way outside, Septima slows down from the group and animorphs into a gecko to go back to listen in on the conversation between Core and Sukaren, seeing Core try to appeal to her that they're working towards the same goal before the sorcerer notices the out of place gecko watching them. He tries to throw a magically imbued rock at the lizard but only succeeds in beaning the angry, armor plated dragonborn directly in front of him. Core feebly apologises before pointing out the lizard to Sukaren as well and with something that she can finally murder without getting a stern talking to from the council she draws her sword and starts advancing towards the gecko Seeing his chance to escape, Septima books it around a corner and into the dark tunnel out towards where we all are as he shifts back into himself before a hasted Core and Sukaren burst into the scene screaming something about a lizard and asking if anyone had seen it. A round of no's come back before Sukaren returns to the camp muttering things best not repeated and we all head back to Principium for various errands and to sleep. Whisky and Tornur head out to continue work on branding for the ale they're making back at the keep, Septima and Emmi return to our old barracks to rest along with Eridol's dog, Veiraen goes to make more poison with his new brewing partner and Eridol goes to speak with the owners of the city fight pits, the brieg brothers about a necklace he received as payment for his last fight along with questions about how it was made. Veiraen finds his brewing partner has expanded from just making poisons to also brewing elixers and potions for anyone who can pay. They discuss the fine art of business and killing people while finishing an elixer for an elderly couple and then another vial of bloodfire poison with the remaining materials Vaeraen had on him Eridol learns that one of the brieg brothers is also a follower of Tyr, one who sports an impressive gnome sized back tattoo of Tyr's holy symbol and scripture. This brother, Doug, is responsible for enchanting the death wards necklace that he received and after Eridol mentions that he had broken a connection to Bhaal on one of his travelling companions and was looking for a way to hide them from any future divine interference Doug takes him down to his workshop to begin the prayers and rites to change a ring of mind shielding that Eridol had taken from Drackuss into something that would also hide him from the divine. It takes four days of non stop prayer to layer the needed divinity into the item, ensuring that it would soak into the wearers soul as a shroud of protection. With that, we jump another 6 months into the future, Septima and Veiraen have created a viable and sustainable potion brewing company called "Gone today, here tomorrow" to outfit the military manning the portals, Whisky and Tornur have been selling their ale to anyone who would buy it as well as creating a mostly automated process that any of the keep staff could handle to maintain production for when we are away, Emmi had spent her time fishing and training with her new swords and Eridol spent his time refining his new ability to enchant divine magic into mundane items. Working with infusing divine light into glass rods to make what is basically fantasy glowsticks. In a dark prison cell somewhere in principium, for the first time in 13 months, intelligence and understanding return to Drackuss' eyes. Taking in his surroundings and the burst of memories that he can now process, he begins trying to break the chains holding him which alerts the guards who come to investigate. With a softly growled "Get Core" Drackuss informs them the feeblemind spell he has been under is broken, the guards tripping over themselves to get away from the prisoner and inform Core of what happened. Core arrives to talk to Drackuss, they discuss how Drackuss fell to Bhaal's incessant whispers and promises of power and that what he had done was still his choice to make in the end. His choice to kill a former ally to deepen the connection, his choice to listen to the messages Core and Eridol sent to try and get him back and not kill a child as bhaal wanted, his choice to try and kill another ally. Core mentions that Eridol had severed the connection to Bhaal and had been working on a safeguard to stop this happening again, they both agree that Eridol cares too much and that's what they like about him. Core leaves temporarily to inform the rest of Tacty'l Ymon and gets one of the guards to bring some stew for Drackuss as he hasn't been able to eat anything that wasn't baby food for the past year. After receiving the confirmation, Eridol gears up and goes to tell Veiraen that Drackuss is awake and wanted to speak, Eridol wants Veiraen to come as well before informing everyone else and they all set out for Principium. They all arrive at the cells Drackuss is being held at to see Core enter and remove the bindings from Drackuss' arms and while Eridol slinks to the back of the room, everyone else has their fill of berating Drackuss for the attempted murder and everything else. Drackuss takes it all in stride. Eridol steps forward and without actually looking at him begins telling Drackuss about how he was too powerful a divine champion to let fall into the hands of an evil god and how he's been working to break the connection between Drackuss and Bhaal before offering a choice, take the ring he helped enchant to make sure this never happens again, hide your presence from the gods to make sure that they cannot interfere with your search for power and be offered a chance to work away your crimes. Drackuss says he will accept the offer with one condition, when the time comes he would seek out Eridol's assistance to kill Bhaal. After a tense moment, Eridol accepts the terms and offers up the ring which Drackuss slides onto his finger, the magics taking hold in his soul and making him practically invisible to anything beyond the divine gate. Drackuss asks about his other rings Eridol took off him when he found them all in the feeble mind stupor. Eridol silently gives the family ring and ring of cold protection back to Drackuss and goes to leave, asking Core if he could see him outside when they're done.  With eridol's departure, Core lays out a rough plan for what happens next. Drackuss will remain in solitary confinement for the next month or two to finish his sentence before being enrolled as a combatant on the front lines to protect the country against whatever comes out of the portals for an undisclosed period. Once confirmed, everyone filters out of the prison and Core goes to talk to Eridol. Eridol tells Core that he's paid his debt to Drackuss and doesn't want to see the dragonborn again, but when Core trusts him enough to outfit him in armor and weapons that he would need something and gives Drackuss' tarnished flametongue longsword to the sorcerer to put with whatever remains of the armaments Core had waiting for him. Core takes the sword and nods as Eridol turns and begins leading everyone back to the spooky fun bone room to talk to the skeleton they all found when the tower arrived. Everyone dings to level seven after a quick break for emotions and they set off to talk to a skeleton loudly proclaiming how much Eridol loves this sort of thing to Eridol's general dismay. After a grossed out eridol casts speak with the dead on the bones they learn more about the Slyph and the world outside Osteria. Namely that of the three destinations they've been told of Jaunted Pillars would be the safest and that the skeleton used to be a wizard named Falfer Osman, this triggers a memory for Septima. He knew Falfer back when they came through the portals together so many years ago with a third. They ask the wizards skeleton what were the names of everyone who travelled with them to Ostaria and receive confirmation that Septima was there along with another, Fulgür. With the magic depleted, Septima begins describing his original travelling companions, he can't remember what Fulgür looked like and when he tries it is just an ever changing mass of features, but Falfer was a halfling with curly hair and glasses which matches the description of the local shop owner who had disappeared several months ago from one of the magic shops Veiraen and the rest would frequent. But he's been dead for centuries so the standard Tacty'l Ymon freakout begins, was he a ghost all along? Some kind of changeling? 3 goblins in a trenchcoat? we may never know. Septima has the idea to try and cast locate person but with it's limited range and our landlocked speeds, nothing initially shows up. Another idea is had, Septima has the ability to transform into an eagle and with Eridol concentrating on the locate spell they could cover most of the small country in under a week. Eridol protests, mentioning his general fear of heights before someone reminds him of the featherfall ring he's got on that would stop him from becoming a gnome pancake if he fell. With no other defence, eridol pouts before agreeing. Everyone sets back to the keep while Core helps set up the optimal search pattern for Septima and Eridol. The two set out and spend several days with Septima acting like a flying taxi for the terrified gnome cleric before they finally get a ping, near the top of a mountain far to the south of the country. Septima glides in towards the mouth of a cave and they see what had pinged the spell. A large adult bronze dragon frantically carving things into the stone at the back of the cave before it digs its claws into its head and temporarily reverts to the halfling form we were searching for, this happens again and again while Septima and Eridol look on horrified. Eridol asks Septima what they should do, they can't fight a dragon on their own, before they can say anything else the dragon reacts to Septima's name, violently turning and stalking towards us. Septima asks Eridol to not mention what he's about to see to anyone as he drops his hood and mask, showing his wooden warforged face for the first time since joining the group and calling out to the dragon like old friends. This gets the dragons attention and it stops charging towards us before clawing at it's head again and shifting back to the halfling momentarily before returning to it's draconic form. While Septima tried to sooth his friend, Eridol decided he had to do something, mentioning he had an idea and for Septima to trust him. With septima's blessing he announced himself to the dragon and started moving forward, reciting a prayer and asking for Fulgür to cooperate he attempted to dispel whatever magic was affecting the dragon. After failing and realising the nature of the magic was more akin to a curse from the fey Eridol tries again, this time praying for Tyr to help him remove the affliction. Not wanting to see his friend in any more pain, Septima helps guide Eridol's hand. As vines and flowers weave through Eridol's armor from Septimas' connection with nature to help guide the divine energy into Fulgür, Eridol breathes and opens himself up fully to Tyr's divine energy for the third time in his life. Willing it through himself and into the dragon. cleansing the dragons curse and as a reward for his continued dedication, Tyr claims another sliver of Eridol's soul. The magic fades and for the first time in centuries, Fulgür the adult bronze dragon is himself again. He takes flight into the thunderstorm that had set in and enjoys his freedom as Septima thanks Eridol and Eridol, still reeling from Tyr's gift, numbly mentions that it was the right thing to do. They watch Fulgür twist and dance in the sky in silence until he lands, thanking them both before Septima asks why he was using the form of their friend and after Fulgür's prompting, about the tower we had found and the issues with the portals we had witnessed. We settle in for a lore dump. Ostaria was created to be a prison of sorts, located behind a protective barrier outside the material plane, an amalgamation of chunks of different countries with one entrance through the carcare tree portals and a now not so hidden exit should things get too bad. About a hundred years into their stay, a culling of the population was needed, with Falfer doing the deed before dying from the lingering effects of the magic. Unable to find their friend, Septima shut down and Fulgür began using Falfer's appearance as a way to monitor the remaining people trapped here without giving away his nature, over time he began forgetting who he was and believing that he had always been Falfer. With the rituals completed to reopen the tower, Fulgür states that we had set a series of events in motion that required action to ensure that the country does not tear itself to shreds when the barrier drops. With the time we had already taken to complete the rituals, there was little more than 11 months remaining. We all agree that the rest of the group needs to be told and Eridol contacts Core to get to the keep along with anyone who isn't already there and Septima and Fulgür work out the best way to traverse the sizable distance back to the keep. Flying is obviously the best option, but Fulgür being the proud dragon that he is refuses to carry us on his back, to end the discussion he reverts back to his halfling form. A spell is cast to let them all fly, once again against Eridols wishes because at least last time there was something to hold onto and he could shut his eyes to concentrate on the locator spell. After a brief prodding from Septima and Fulgür, Eridol psyches himself up, he just faced down a dragon and helped break it from a centuries old curse, this was nothing. With laughter and vaguely gnome shaped screams, they set off through the storm. Septima and Fulgür deciding to have a race like old times and Eridol not wanting to spend any more time in the air also partaking. They rocket through the air, each trying to slow down or stop the others in their tracks, Septima throws up a wall of wind to stop the smaller two and with a laugh shoots into first place. As they continue to trade spells and places for the winning spot, Fulgür waits will the last moment and dispels the fly spell on Eridol, making him fall short of the finish line by about 20 feet as both Fulgür and Septima secure an easy win between them. We wait for everyone to arrive in our war room and as everyone fills in Fulgür questions Septima and Eridol on how much everyone can be trusted. With a small "I trust everyone in this room with my life" from Eridol and affirmation from Septima, Fulgür mentions he should show them something before continuing so that they will know he tells the truth. Everyone filters outside and in an instant the halfling form is dissipated and the intimidating frame of an adult dragon stands before everyone. Cue the freak outs from everyone, especially Veiraen at the implication that he basically brought a magic hand grenade into a shop run by a massive dragon and oh god that could have ended so poorly. After everyone calms down, Fulgür turns to Core and they share a moment, the gigantic head of the bronze dragon swooping down to rest in front of the Draconic sorcerer as Fulgür recognises something inside Core. Whatever they seemingly shared was too much for Core and our government sanctioned patron teleported 500 ft away and started running back to town, away from Eridol's confused yells about needing to talk to everyone. With the remainder of Tacty'l Ymon still here, Fulgür began explaining what needed to be done next to safeguard Ostaria and to bring down the barrier to the material plane. We would need to enter the portal between realms to find a key and break it. Those of us touched by magic would have no issues using the Slyph, but those without would need something cast on them as a safety to avoid being ... consumed by the Slyph. Emmi speaks up at this point as one of the few unable to cast magic which gets Fulgürs attention, he remarks with a sad smile that she looks a lot like her father, a sea captain of high renown, which Emmi refutes. No, her father was a noble who never spent time on the seas. Confused, Fulgür peers into Emmi and notices traces of the same magic that had kept him a prisoner in his own mind. Asking Eridol if he can break this curse as well. Without hesitation, Eridol moves up to Emmi and asks her if this would be alright and with confirmation he begins reciting his prayer to remove whatever curse is holding Emmi. With Septima's vines and flowers once again creeping over his armor and guiding his hand, Eridol has just enough energy to weaken the bindings enough for Emmi's real memories to come to the surface and shatter the curse that had been put on her. Emmi begins remembering her life growing up on the ocean, with her father, the captain of the Shepard and her Mother, her mentor and now member of the ruling council, Sharona. She remembers the laughter and love they all shared and she remembers when the shepard sank. They had been travelling out to sea, along a thin strip of ocean said to funnel out of ostaria, when it happened. The barrier was coming down on them, with moments to spare, her father had flung Sharona and Emmi outside the effects of the barrier and towards the back of the ship. Like a match, the ship splintered and broke where the barrier forced itself down and in an instant the ships bow is ejected into the horizon, taking her father and several crew members with it. The remaining parts of the boat shot back from the force of the barrier, now unbalanced began to upturn and break away. It is a miracle that any survive at all to make it back to land. Whatever remains of the ship sinks to the sea floor in pieces. Emmi spends the most of her teenage years stealing or commandeering whatever floating thing she can get her hands on, desperately trying to make her way out to find her father despite her mother's pleas for her to stop. Sharona can't bear to lose Emmi as well. In a fit, Sharona calls on one of her friends, a wizard currently residing in Principium with curly bronze hair and glasses to help protect them both from the heartache of loosing the beloved captain. A spell is cast on them both. Memories shift and drift away like dreams, Emmi's family shifted to a noble household that she can acutely remember, a life spent dreaming of adventures and pirates and a calling to the ocean that left her disowned and a runaway. A life then spent working under the tutelage of Sharona, her mentor and definitely not her mother. The spell ends and Emmi unable to process everything stammers out a response and turns back to the keep to drink and collect her thoughts. Fulgür, apologises and starts back towards the city, there is much to prepare if they are to succeed in protecting the country and it's inhabitants. We end the session with Septima walking his friend back through the forest towards Principium, talking of times long past. Tornur returning to his brewing workshop to tinker with the machines and Whisky, Veiraen and Eridol all meeting outside Emmi's room, with booze, distractions and companionship to help their hurting friend.

[tactyl-ymon]

DnD session recap - Lore and Losses

Ok, initial heads up. I am like 90% sure this is actually 2 sessions crammed into one, but I’ll be honest I genuinely can’t remember. So you get a biggun today. Like any of the previous one’s weren’t also ridiculously large.

We pick up this session with Emmi walking back into the city following a successful few days relaxing on her ship pulling up scavenged treasure from sunken ships and just generally enjoying the weather after a fairly stressful week when the necklace Core gave her to communicate with everyone starts going off, something about explosions and people dying and Drackuss. If she doesn’t say anything, maybe she can just turn around and go back to fishing but as fate is want to do, she runs into everyone trudging after their tiny gnome healer and they fill her in on why they’re moving towards a very possible death at the hands of their compatriot turned foe if he is still in the barracks. Eridol uses what little energy he has left after his stint in the fight pits to put a protective ward over Veiraen and begs everyone to stay outside and try to protect each other as he and Core enter the barracks to make sure it’s clear. They check room after room and find nothing but some missing supplies. Drackuss is gone. Eridol needs to know what happened, Veiraen starts going over the details of the fight in the alley and Core mentions remembering the shield Drackuss had as being Olgum’s and being linked to Bhaal.

All the stress from the past few weeks latches onto Eridol at once before he can try and squash it down again, images of children he couldn’t save, all the times he couldn’t get to someone to heal them in time, Drackuss attacking him while being mind controlled, having to face grieving parents and tell them their son was dead only to have him miraculously return to life minutes later, nearly killing Merla, not being there to stop Drackuss from attacking everyone else, not seeing any of this coming … everything comes to a head and Eridol just starts walking out of the city without a word. Luckily someone sees him leaving and after realising that he’s not responding to anything the group quietly follows him westward. He walks for hours, long after the sun sets and rain starts bucketing down before he collapses in a field and everyone quietly puts up the small tent they have and takes watches keeping an eye on him.

It’s late morning when Eridol wakes up and while being completely emotionally drained, eventually asks why they’re camping and why is he soaking wet, the last thing he remembers is getting to the barracks. Emmi and Veiraen fill him in that he just kind of went very quiet afterwards and decided to just leave and no one could really stop him before asking what happened. Eridol mentions that he hasn’t been doing alright since they got to the underwater temple and he saw that first dead child and things have only gone downhill from there, having the person he trusted most in the world to take care of the group if anything happened fall like this was something he couldn’t even have begun to consider and it hit harder than it should have. In a moment of conversation they all figure out that this seems to have started back in the mistress’ temple when Drackuss tried to pray in a ritualistic circle to Bhaal, Yurtris and the great old one that the mistress had used in her rituals to generate a coven for herself.

Tornur and Whisky begin throwing around Bhaal’s name in conversation, joking that Drackuss has always been like this as long as they’ve known him, Eridol immediately refutes that he wasn’t always like this and tells them about Drackuss helping sick children and taking blows that could have killed other party members because that’s who he always was beforehand and a brief theological history of Bhaal and the other members of the trio of gods that look over the domain of death before meekly apologising and letting himself be led back to the city. They drink and discuss on what to do next, Eridol believes they should contact the other towns to warn them and leave immediately to find Drackuss and stop him before anyone gets hurt while Tornur believes they should stay and wait to hear from someone first so they’re not wasting their time looking into possible dead ends. With neither giving up either argument, it’s put to a vote and the group stays put until they get a lead. Drinking continues until Eridol gets up to use the bathroom and impulsively sends a message to Drackuss. “Whatever forced your actions, I will break its hold. I hope the next time we meet it can be as friends, but will prepare otherwise” he whispers to the ether. A few minutes go by before he gets a response frol the AWOL dragonborn “Once I have attained the power I seek, I will return”. Eridol sighs and quietly returns back to the group, not saying much more as the night continues.

While Eridol’s in the middle of an emotional breakdown surrounded by his friends, Drackuss has made his way out of the city and settled into the foothills near an allied goblin stronghold we visited several months ago and brokered a peace treaty with, knowing that word would soon travel about him, he’s been luring and killing any patrols that come by to make sure he goes unnoticed. Strangely this doesn’t last as long as he might’ve hoped as one patrol managed to slip his grasp and he couldn’t kill them all before the warning horns of the stronghold blare and he is forced to make a quick getaway with his newly summoned fiendish steed. At some point on his path to Bhaal’s chosen victims, Drackuss receives some messages from Core trying to get him to come back. Bhaal bids he finish his work and complete a ritual before it is too late to fully become a champion of the god of murder and Drackuss finds himself, sword ablaze, outside a small cottage containing a small half assimar child that Drackuss himself had brought back to life in an act of miraculous twisting of fate earlier in the campaign.

As visions of carnage filter through his head, showing all the possible ways he could dispatch the inhabitants, Drackuss falters just a little. Remembering the messages he had received from his friends and companions the past few days, mixing with his own feelings of accomplishment at granting the child a second chance and in a forceful show of will, he overcomes the whispers of the god of murder long enough to walk away from the cottage and ride off into the hills. Bhall not being exactly pleased with this turn of events, points him towards a new target that is currently being sheltered in a forest nearby that would fulfil the needs of the ritual. He eventually comes across a small village hidden in a small clearing, this is where his prey is hiding. As he observes the village, he notes it appears to be being overseen by another previous member of Tacty’l Ymon, Raven, the wood elf druid as she’s talking to several people about upkeep and the like. She is hiding all manner of fey and monstrous races that appear to have come through the portals linking the country to the outside world and find the trapping of civility a little too much. A rustling from a nearby tent catches his attention and his prey exits out to the village. Our halfling barbarian, Merla. Ran away because she couldn’t face the possibility of jail after murdering a peasant. She would fit the ritual requirements just fine the whispers urged Drackuss as he sprung into action, sending his wolf to attack Raven and the others as a distraction while he slowly creeps through the bushes to close the gap between himself and Merla. The wolf gets a good swipe at Raven before she panics and wildshapes into a mouse as several townsfolk rush to grab weapons and another druid who looks similar to Raven gets between the wolf and the remainder of the towsfolk. The druid wildshapes into another large carnivore and the battle begins as Drackuss continues to creep towards the confused halfling. Drackuss makes a charge for his soon to be sacrifice as the two large wolves battle in the other side of the small clearing but unfortunately the monstrous villagers notice him before he can attack and now aware of his presence, turn towards Drackuss. Knowing an unwinnable fight when he sees it, Drackuss attempts to flee, calling his wolf as he goes, firing spells and curses off at the party following him and nearly hitting the other druid with a nasty curse that is quickly shaken off.

Drackuss’ wild magic surges and he is lifted into the sky, a brief ability to fly bestowed by chance at the most opportune moment. His escape almost complete, he feels a wrenching in his skull as he succumbs to the feeblemind spell thrown out by the other druid. All intelligent thought leaves his mind as he continues to rocket upwards through the air, only knowing that landing right now would mean pain and death. He continues to rise until the wild magic surge allowing his flight wears off and he begins plummeting to the ground, seconds stretch as the world tumbles around him and he crashes through several trees and into a small lake far enough away from the village that he wouldn’t be easily found. He feebly calls out to his steed and the telepathic bond they share allows it to find him and unable to listen to the whispers of Bhaal he falls back to his base instincts for protection which in this instance is boiled down to “Find eridol, he will protect us” and so the wolf pads off with his master to find help and return to the group.

In the few days since returning to the city, not much had happened for the remainder of Tacty’l Ymon. Everyone was anxiously waiting for instructions and pottering around the barracks. Eridol and Veiraen are in the midst of a heated prank war because someone, not naming names, may have ruined veiraens chances at a date with another drop dead gorgeous drow assassin, Tornur and Whisky are beginning plans for starting a brewing company and Emmi is looking into any additional information into the tower and the slyph and the whole “We’re imprisoned in a bubble outside the material plane thing and if it’s not fixed there might need to be a genocide to avoid overpopulation” thing that’s going on in the background while we deal with our personal dramas. Core comes to see us in the early afternoon saying that he’s found something about Drackuss being seen near the goblin stronghold we allied with ages ago when this whole thing started and possibly sighted in one of the villages to the east. Everyone gets their standard ready up montage while Core wrangles up a contingent of guards to come with them just in case and the groups march out to end this. We march for a few hours in grim determination before setting up camp for the night and sending the guards onward to the town just in case he’s still there.

The first watch goes on without incident and Veiraen and Eridol take the second watch, Veiraen tries to get Eridol to discuss what he’s feeling towards Drackuss and everything but they are interrupted by a loud scraping sound outside the limits of their vision. Everyone is woken up as the sounds get closer and closer before a very large and imposing dire wolf enters their view carrying a bloodied and confused looking Drackuss straight up to Eridol. Arguments are had about what happened to him and what happens next while the wolf refuses to let Eridol leave Drackuss’ side. Tornur and Core work together to realise this was powerful magic that caused this and that as Drackuss is now, he’s no threat to anyone. A decision is made by Core to remove Drackuss’ weapons and armour and escort him back to the city. Eridol bundles everything up and puts it into the bag of holding, making note of the shield to Bhaal and Drackuss’ now tarnished blade having a lingering sense of tainted divinity around them. Everyone discusses what happens with Drackuss now, he obviously isn’t in any state to stand trial for his actions at the moment and can’t be left to roam freely. So for now he’ll be imprisoned while Core and Tornur look into how to break whatever spell took Drackuss’ mind from him, Eridol mentions the tainted ritual that was underway and was affecting the sword and shield and angrily states that he’d look into these before retreating back inside himself like the conflicted, emotional turtle trying not to succumb to like 20 panic attacks that he is.

The group separates with Core taking a now de-armored Drackuss off to a holding cell and mentions that construction on the keep we’d been promised starts shortly so everyone should look forward to that. The next morning comes and the barracks Tacty’l Ymon live in had started to stir with Veiraen making his way down to the kitchen where he finds a hastily scribbled note from Eridol that states he’s sorry but he had to leave. He’s taken the bag of holding minus the party’s collective funds and both his and Merla’s dogs, he needed to go to work out some things before he can face everyone again. Core can contact him if it’s an emergency and he doesn’t know when he’ll be back. A sloppily written post script mentions to not let Veiraen stab anyone and to only let someone stab Veiraen if he deserved it. The rogue crumples up the note before anyone else comes down stairs, adamant to not tell them about Eridol’s apparent betrayal.

We skip forward 7 months, Eridol is still missing, Veiraen, Whisky and Tornur have been spearheading overseeing construction of the keep, Drackuss is still being taken care of in a prison cell inside the main city by Core and several guardsmen and Emmi had entered a very open ended agreement with what looked like a magic item salesman for some new armaments that took the shape of a fabled sea captains boots, swords and cloak before retiring to her ship to fish and excavate sunken treasure when everyone gets a message from Core that he’ll be dropping by the keep in a weeks time with someone he’d like the group to meet and he expects everyone to be there. Emmi returns first, bringing all manner of gifts from her expeditions and is welcomed with open arms. Eridol tries to sneak in a few days later but is found by Veiraen who wants nothing to do with the gnome for how he just up and left everyone like that. How dare he try to come back now and act like nothing happened. What was he even doing that was so important that warranted such a shitty note and no other communication for months on end. Eridol apologises for how he acted, it was wrong of him to run away like that, everything got too much and he couldn’t face everyone like that but he can’t tell Veiraen most of what he was doing while he was away but some of it was working to break the connection between Drackuss and Bhaal as well as researching how to implant objects with divine energy. But he’ll do anything to make it up to Veiraen and the rest of the group. Veiraen mentions he’ll let Eridol in if he lets Veiraen stab him with a poison he’s been working on.

With out much of a choice, Eridol accepts and is lead into Veiraens alchemy lab where Veiraen mentions that the best way to apply the poison is directly to the blood using some kind of stabbing implement, like this handy dagger here. The light stabbing happens and Eridol doubles over in some of the worst agony he’s ever felt as his blood literally boils inside him. The pain is too much and Eridol sees himself back in the underground lair, Drackuss’ sword melting through his armor and splitting his chest open and he panic casts Spirit guardians for protection and Veiraen braces to be attacked by the spirits, but they harmlessly float through him before Eridol passes out into a shivering, disassociating heap on the ground. Veiraen cycles through his emotions very quickly as this all occurs, going from Smug determination to excitement to see the poison in action to mounting concern to fear and then to immediate concern as he spends the next 30 minutes trying to calm Eridol down and get him responsive again. Once their impromptu spooning session is over, Veiraen asks about the spell Eridol cast and why it hadn’t attacked him like it has in the past when they were fighting in the pit. Eridol groggily mentions that subconsciously he must have realised Veiraen wasn’t going to hurt him and that he only remembers it feeling exactly like Drackuss nearly bisecting him which kind of drove him over the edge in a panic.

With hopefully all the revenge pokes out of the way, everyone heads outside to wait for Core and their mystery guest. They arrive and Core introduces us to Septima, a heavily bandaged and covered druid of indeterminate race with glowing green eyes who really doesn’t appreciate Veiraen’s jokes. Introductions are made and Core mentions that he found Septima squatting on an abandoned isle to the south and figured we needed another set of eyes on us considering Drackuss was still out of commission due to the whole feeblemind fiasco. We see Core off and Septima asks if there is any way he could see how everyone fights, to make sure this will be worth his time. We set off to the portals to the north that let refugees and any number of beasties in every dawn. The group travels to the military encampment surrounding the portals and are met with initial resistance as some of the guards recognise Veiraen from when he came through initially and kind of went on a psychotic rampage and maybe killed several people. With tempers rising on both sides, this gets the attention of the commanding officer, a heavily armored dragonborn named Sukaren who comes barrelling over as Septima divides everyone with a wall of wind long enough for everyone to calm down. Sukaren demands to know why we’re at her outpost unanounced and we “calmly” explain that we’re a group of mercanaries who need to test out a new team member and thought why not come and help out the hard working military men and women keeping the kingdom safe and the monsters at bay. Kind of a two birds, multiple stones deal because lets be real our aim is bad at the best of times. We promise there’s nothing nefarious going on, we just want to fight something and then we’ll be on our way. Sukaren begrudgingly agrees on the proviso that our wizard and one of the rogues join up with different groups of infantry for the fight while the rest of us fight without assistance before pointing us towards one of the emptier infantry tents for the night as she stomps grumpily back to her tent warning that if she needs to come out before the sun’s up there’ll be hell to pay.

Everyone gets woken up before the dawn to begin preparations before walking out to the fields between the portals and the military camp and the group is split per Sukaren’s orders with Emmi being led to on of outside groups and Tornur being led to the other while the remainder of the group takes point in the centre and orders are given. The portal will open and civilians will come through first, they will be disoriented and confused, you will have 60 seconds until the monsters appear, once they’re dealt with everyone can retire for the day. Get all the civilians behind the front lines and moving towards the military camp before that happens. The large central portal shudders to life and we start yelling for the small group of civilians that wanders through that they really need to get a move on and with several successful checks we get everyone booking it to the camp and a trumpet breaks the silence signalling the monsters arrival and several tigers, lions and displacer beasts run through flanking a large earth elemental before the portal closes. A vicious fight ensues before it ends with Whisky turning the elemental into gravel with a flurry of rolling punches to the amazement and fear of anyone watching. With everyone exhausted and glad to be done we start heading back towards the encampment as everyone hears an earth shattering kaboom behind them as the portals reopen and we end the session there.

[tactyl-ymon]

Dnd session recap - Broken bonds and bodies

You know what, this is becoming kind of a standard disclaimer at this point. But sweet fuck I am bad at doing these write up’s in a timely manner. Not that it matters, but I’m trying to get better I promise. Anyway, on with whatever I can remember from a session from about 2 months ago!

We start with a bit of a rewind and some Vieraen shenanigans that took place part way through last session. While everyone is out finishing a dark ritual to summon a tower, Vieraen is out to be a menace. He finds some children in an alley and asks them if they know how to delete someone or if there is anyone who would know … how to delete someone. They end up taking him to a ramshackle tent in one of the slums with basically the most kiwi orc ever known named Jake Johnson and then get to talking about poisons and just how good they are. After a bit of back and forth, they come to an agreement. Jake will help Vieraen make some dope poisons, but he needs to test them on the drow rogue … and by test we mean stab viciously in the gut to see how the poison affects someone,. Seeing nothing wrong with this, Vieraen gets poked and takes a ludicrous amount of damage. After a fairly long session of knifey stabby, Vieraen leaves his new friend, both with a greater understanding of how poisons hurt and several minor stab wounds he heads up to one of the main magic shops in town to try and sell some things and get a fancy new dagger. He starts talking with the Halfling shop owner about the dagger he wants and what it would take to reduce the price before he pulls out one of the gems he’d picked up from the tunnels leading to the witches den on our last group assignment. Fun fact about the gems he got, they’re all really good at containing a specific type of magic and the one he was trying to sell was a fully charged fireball set to explode at the slightest nudge. Somehow not noticing the halfling’s wide eyed terror that this drow hooligan basically just walked into his shop with a live grenade, Vieraen mentions he’s got like 10 more in his bag if the owner would be willing to trade. Things escalate, the shop owner wants Vieraen out of his shop, Vieraen reeeeally wants that dagger though. Vieraen mentions he’s not leaving without that dagger as the shop owner uses the moment to cast a suggestion that Vieraen should leave. Under a compulsion to gtfo, Vieraen wanders outside and the shop owner locks up behind him. With that taking up most of his day, Vieraen heads back to the barracks to sleep everything off and wait for everyone to get back from whatever errand Core sent everyone on.

Seeing as the weird sylph didn’t eat anyone in their sleep, the tower crew heads back to the barracks for a quick breakfast and fill Vieraen in on what they found before everyone gets a message from Core about a bar fight nearby he needs everyone’s help with. Feeling the need to brawl, Eridol and Drackuss lead the charge and as they slam open the tavern doors they find absolutely nothing. No brawl, just a couple drunks from the night before passed out on the bar and Core getting playfully batted at by probably the most adorable cat anyone had ever seen. Core introduces his new friend as Whisky Whiskers, she’s a 2 ft tall munchkin cat person and also a monk, also she drunk Core under the table last night.  Honestly, it would have been more adorable if she wasn’t here to keep an eye on Eridol and his constant teetering on the edge of a mental breakdown. With introductions made, Eridol asks if this was the bar fight he needed help with and with the magic words said, Drackuss starts a one man brawl with the drunks at the bar, breaking a chair over one and piledriving one through a table that leaves most of the poor man’s blood on the outside. Everyone tries to stop the dragonborn juggernaut, but it’s our new friend Whisky who manages to stop the beatdown with a stunning strike that lasts long enough for everyone sober enough to act to restrain Drackuss while Eridol feverously heals the men. Drackuss’s holy medallion slides to the floor in several pieces but this goes unnoticed by everyone but Drackuss and as far as he’s concerned, the less people who know about his broken oath at the moment the better. Drackuss apologises, he’s just been so antsy for a proper fight recently and this got the best of him. Eridol is too busy healing the patrons to notice and everyone else didn’t really care that much. Drack gonna drack.

With nothing really to do for the next day and a half due to Core needing to do more research on the giant tower that apparated out of the earth and Emmi heading back to her ship several towns away for some me time, everyone else decides it’s time to hit the bath house to relax and mostly to clean Eridol because even without the gore from the past few battles still hanging off his armor making him smell like ham and sadness, he’s still not really been taking care of things. Most of the group grabs a communal bath to chat and everything while Drackuss gets a bath on his own away from the group. Whisky gets to know everyone and generally makes Eridol uncomfortable with all the invasions of his personal space, asking if he’s ok and just generally not letting him mope, the group starts drinking away the day and having as much fun as a group of hardened adventurers can do in a communal bath house. Drackuss sneaks out of the bath house and heads into one of the nearby forests, driving by an urge and whispers in his head he ends on coming across the camp of one of our previous allies, Olgum the hobgoblin fighter. They have a tense conversation while Drackuss draws his sword, proclaiming he’s been sent here to retrieve something Olgum doesn’t deserve anymore. A shield Olgum has but refuses to use properly. A shield used to solidify a connection to Bhaal, the god of murder. Drackuss needs it and he intends to take it one way or another. It is less a fight and more an execution as Drackuss murders his once friend and ally. With the final blow a new connection is made between Drackuss and the evil god he now serves. He takes the shield, a ring and some trinkets before setting the camp ablaze and returning to the bath house, the rest of the group none the wiser because we’ve been drinking together in the  bath for the past 4 or so hours. They all talk about plans for the next few days, Vieraen wants to head back to the magic shop to see if he can talk that dagger into his pants and Eridol mentions everyone should come to the pits tomorrow to see him fight, it’ll be great. This is definitely not a cry for help, don’t worry about it.The crew heads up to the fight pits to cheer for Eridol as he tries to let off some steam against a hill giant they had all fought as a group several weeks ago that had a bone to pick with the tiny gnome who burst his chest open last time. Bets are placed and buffs are sneakily applied before they fizzle out entirely when Eridol enters the ring. The fight starts with a bang of holy light from Eridol that sends the giant reeling. The show is fierce and comes to a head when the giant throws several boulders, most of which hit Eridol as he is feebly trying to close the distance to the giant with his tiny gnome sized legs. They trade blows for what seems like hours until both are left broken and bloody with just enough energy for one last clash. Eridol gets off a fantastic hit to the ogre’s side, mirroring the last killing blow he gave the giant in the group fight while the giant swung down with his literal tree trunk of a club, hitting eridol dead on. The crowd grows quiet as the dust settles and only one of the combatants is visible. The giant’s hand twitches and a gnome wriggles out from under the tree trunk. Bruised, bloodied and broken but somehow victorious. The crowd erupts in cheers as the fight pit’s healing field brings the giant back to consciousness. Both fighters bow to each other and the crowd, glad to have put on a show and bury the hatchet in each other as it were. The group comes down to Eridol’s prep room to see the gnome slumped against one of the walls, letting the rooms healing aura mend some of his shattered bones as the bruises set in and he starts the process of making sure everything heals properly. Congratulations are given and Eridol gives a shaky thumbs up in response before basically passing out. Thoroughly spent from the fight and mumbling that he’ll see everyone back home once the post fight shakes go away and Eridol gets to take care of what he thinks is a concussion.

Vieraen mentions that they should go back to the magic shop in the mean time and off they trot to the Magical emporium to find it still locked and no signs of life. Which is weird, this place never closes, especially not for days at a time. The group decides this is a mystery worth solving as the poke and prod the building for clues and they end up in one of the back alleys all looking for a secret entrance. Not wanting to cause a scene, Drackuss decides to disguise himself as Core, our government official patron so he can hand wave away any nosey villagers who notice us totally not criminals slinking out behind a shop full to the brim with magical artifacts. After several more failed attempts to break into the place either to look for clues or so Vieraen can steal his dagger, the group decides they should notify Core because this is worrying and obviously someone further up the chain should be told about this. Core arrives out the back of the shop to see the group and his doppelganger that was Drackuss as they go over everything, Core admits it is a bit weird that the shop is closed and if they have any other ideas to get in. Vieraen thinks for a second and pulls out the fireball gem that honestly started this whole mess and mentions if they throw it at the door it should get through and as a group they all decide that yes, this is the way forward and the gem is yeeted at the building. The gem containing a charged fireball. Surprising literally everyone, it explodes and sets some of the neighbouring fences on fire but with no damage to the shop, y’know because it’s a magic shop and has preventative measures for this. Someone mentions that they should get Eridol down here to help treat any of the mild injuries, Vieraen takes it upon himself to call the cleric over their necklaces. With non existent panic in his voice he shouts “Eridol, you should come quick, someone’s about to die”, which gets a genuinely panicked response from the still recovering cleric that he was on his way.Realising that Eridol would be expecting to see some kind of injury, Vieraen turns to Drackuss and asks the now evil paladin if he could “Stab me real bad” which is really all Drackuss needs to hear as he turns on the drow and Vieraen realizes sometime between the first and second hits this was maybe a mistake because Drackuss is actually trying to kill him. Chaos ensues as Vieraen attempts to get away from his would be executioner, Whisky jumps up and tries to stun the dragonborn as Core and Tornur trade throwing themselves in front of the drow rogue with arcane shields a plenty to absorb the hits. No one knows what is happening, Drackuss is on the war path and obviously willing to cut them all down to get to Vieraen. Someone gets on the necklaces to let Eridol know that Drackuss has gone insane which is another heaping spoonful of terror Eridol tries to keep down as he is running through the streets, still covered in gore from his exhibition match in the pits. While Core and Tornur protect Vieraen, Core yells for Whisky to get out and that she needs to find Eridol. Whisky nods and takes off as fast as her tiny feline legs can go. Now without one of their trump cards to slow drackuss down, Tornur comes up with a plan and conjures a thick cube of webbing to restrict the raging paladin and slow him down long enough for Core to cast haste on everyone and get a glimpse of the cursed shield in Drackuss’ possiession. Between the haste, Vieraen’s innate knowledge of the city and Drackuss’ restricted movements they all get away and start running back towards the fight pits to regroup and call on the city guards. With his prey getting away, Drackuss knows the opportunity is lost and starts heading back to the barracks to either funnel everyone into a killbox or to gather supplies and leave to survive another day.

Halfway across the city, Eridol is running as fast as he can towards the magic shop and where the fight should be taking place, hoping the panic he felt from Vieraen’s message mingling with his abject fear that has been there since Drackuss cut him down are hidden well enough by his pure need to protect his friends. Between being so exhausted and being nearly out of spells he almost misses Whisky as she clambers over a nearby roof. He does the only thing he can think off and pushes divine light into his shield to use as a beacon. The two meet up shortly before the remainder of the not evil friends turn up. All looking worse for wear, no one knows what’s going on. Eridol realizes that Drackuss would need to head back to the barracks to pick up supplies and that they would either be walking into a trap or an empty building. Without a second thought, Eridol asks that everyone stay safe, turns to Core and says “We will take care of this … I … I can take care of this” not trying to hide the panic and fear as he starts running towards the barracks, Core curses under his breath and turns to Whisky, Vieraen and Tornur and says he would understand if they don’t want to come before getting in touch with some guardsmen and running after Eridol. Of course nobody listens to either of them as Vieraen, Whisky and Tornur book it after their tiny guardian towards a very possible death.

[tactyl-ymon]

DnD session recap - Towers and Tribulations

Guess who’s bad at doing things? It’s me! Hence why I’m currently 3 sessions behind on these writeups and this one’s taken me too damn long to finish this one.

We start the session with everyone wandering back towards the main city and splitting up for now, Drackuss goes to spend the night at his favourite temple where he has a free room, Eridol and Merla are camping in the forest outside of town because of the whole “Merla’s wanted for murder” thing and the rogues trudge back to the barracks to crash for the night. Partway through the night, Emmi gets woken up by Eridol and Merla’s dogs, Pickle and Flufferbuns, scratching at one of the bedroom doors upstairs. She decides to let them in because it’s not her room if they destroy anything. Pickle goes and sits on Eridols bed like the good boy he is, but Flufferbuns gets a whiff of something that reminds her of Merla and starts digging at the floor, this of course gets Emmi’s attention so she dramatically rips the rug off the floor and sees the slightly warped floorboard that Flufferbuns has started pawing at. Cracking it open she finds a very bloodsoaked blanket hastily hidden in the floor. So the obvious thoughts come to mind “This must be Merla’s … but Merla’s too proud and not smart enough to hide something like this. Eridol’s hiding something” So with this knowledge she replaces the floorboard and takes the blanket to the only other lawful person on the squad, Drackuss to figure out what to do about it.

After climbing the frankly ludicrous amount of stairs to the temple, she finds Draccus deep in prayer and offers up the mystery she’s found. A blood soaked blanket, hidden by one of the tiny folk in the group. Either it’s got something to do with Merla or Eridol’s been taking his frustrustrations out on something and trying to hide it. Drackuss looks at all the available information and decides they’ll get their answers in the morning, satisfied with that plan, Emmi heads back to the barracks to sleep and we get to spend some time with the tiny ones in the forest. Eridol and Merla have a quick heart to heart about how Merla’s doing with the whole murder thing and it’s starting to sink in that there’s no getting her way out of this, Eridol sadly brings up that actions have consequences and we need to be held accountable for what we do, even if he understands why she did it. With this final nail in the coffin, Merla breaks into a sprint to escape her friend turned reluctant prison guard. By the time Eridol realises, she’s out of the way of most of his abilities. In a panic he releases a guiding bolt, which hits too true and causes Merla to trip over a root ... sending her neck first onto her axe. After a string of gnomish cursing he runs over and stabilises her before getting in touch with Core to fill him in on the attempted escape and very near murder. Receeving instructions to tie her up and bring her to the gates, Eridol strips Merla of the majority of her weapons and begins carrying her towards town. Feeling deeply conflicted between following the teaching of his god which require justice above all else and having had attacked someone he cares deeply about, Eridol doesn’t notice Merla slipping her bonds and taking off into the woods until it’s too late and she’s too far away to catch up. He sends a bolt of divine energy after her knowing full well it’ll dissipate before reaching her. With a solitary fuck and his fondness for a friend winning over his sense of duty to Tyr he sits down in the road and for the second time since waking up in a prison cell with no memories, Eridol fully opened himself up to Tyr to meditate on whether he did the right thing trying to stop Merla. Drifting off, he finds himself surrounded by an expansive white void, he blinks and before him is a monumental set of scales unmoving as a statue. Perfectly balanced and behind it a single, all encompassing blue eye staring down on the frightened gnome. It takes 30 minutes to come out of the trance, ample time for Merla to have made an escape. Eridol gets up and wanders back to Principium. He meets Core at the town gates and mumbles that Merla got away before straight up lying to the government official about not knowing which way she went. Eridol shrugs off Merla’s pack and her axe, gives them to Core and wordlessly heads back to the barracks and oozes into his bunk to sleep off that “I nearly murdered someone I care about then had to face down my divine sugar daddy to see if I made the right choice” migraine. He awakens to the telltale sound of Drackuss stomping towards his door wearing full armor, fighting the instinct to grab his weapon Eridol stands and really hopes his trust in Drackuss can outweigh his fear at being cut down by that flaming sword again. The door slams open and the ever imposing figure of Drackuss fills the frame, Eridol stamps down his fear before noticing the slightly less imposing figure of Emmi behind Drackuss. They know about the bloody blanket under the floor and that Merla didn’t put it there, they need answers. WIth no reason to hide it anymore, Eridol tells them the truth. He found Merla had used the blanket to wipe off her axe after killing that peasant, he was going to look into it when he had a chance but they had to all leave in a hurry for their last assignment so he hid it so Merla couldn’t get rid of it in the mean time ... but that’s not really of use anymore and he retells how Merla failed to run before succeeding to run away. Everyone receives a message from Core to meet him later in the day and we all get dressed up to head over. With a quick stop over at a local tavern, eager to get drunk enough to deal with whatever fresh hell Core points us towards and never talk about it ever again. We enter to find Veiraen already there making a scene trying to swindle some drunk out of their money before he comes over and with the deftest of fingers manages to steal a control to what equates to a fantasy shock collar he’s currently wearing before legging it out the door with a cheeky grin and a brief “Fill me in later” before setting off for solo shenanigans. Knowing nobody can catch the man when he’s like this, we settle in to have a few drinks to generally grumble about life which leads to drunkenly exclaiming that Core is secretly a devil and an argument over what kind of devil he would be. This gets the attention of a particular dwarf sitting at the bar, a wizard named Tornur specialising in transmutation who up until this morning had been working for the large fight pits in the city helping to maintain their incredibly complicated magical fields but had been sequestered by our wonderful sorcerer patron for an unspecified amount of time

We drunkenly accept the newcomer for a few rounds before heading off to Core’s place for our next group assignment. Which is very similar to the last assignment, head back to the mistress’ underground temple and finish the last ritual to unlock the towers of perdition and hopefully find a way out of the country before population control becomes a necessity. But first some good news! For everything we’ve done so far, Core has gotten the ruling council to agree to give us a plot of land and have a keep built, he just needs everyone to sign some paperwork first to say we agree and being the drunkards most of us are, Emmi, Eridol and Drackuss eagerly sign and cojole Tornur into signing as well. With all the members of Tacty’l Ymon who were present signed and accounted for we head off back to an accursed underground temple that was used by a weird hag and several cultists which is a sobering enough thought to ward off the booze haze everyone except Drackuss was in on the way there. We make our way towards the underground temple in relative silence to finish what we started. A ritual to possibly find a way out of the country, the ritual goes off perfectly and everyone feels a earth shattering kaboom as somewhere in the country, a gleaming tower appears in an instant. Everyone treks back to the city and Core once again tries to get Eridol to open up about the frankly worrying amount of emotional stress he’s putting on himself and receives a quiet “There’s more important things to worry about”  before Eridol moves further away from everyone.

As we exit one of the large forests between the towns, we see it. A single break in the horizon, impossibly tall even at this distance. A tower of perdition. With nothing else to go on, we trudge towards the tower and the small crowd of people who had come to see the new addition to the landscape, a flash of Core’s credentials and the gawkers disperse as we enter the tower to a frankly underwhelming experience. The tower is a singular room containing the usual stuff you expect in an interdimensional hell tower, some books, a skeleton, a stone well, a weirdly animated brick that paralyses whatever it touches. You know. Stuff. As we all look around, Tornur finds a hidden compartment with a singular vial of pearlescent liquid inside and calls it out to everyone. Core demands that Tornur gives it to him immediately, going so far as trying to snatch it out of the dwarfs hands. Without hesitation, Tornur refuses and asks what it could be to get Core so possessive. Core says he doesn’t have time for this and points Drackuss towards our new companion with a dismissive “Get the vial and don’t kill him”. Before anyone else can react, Drackuss has his flaming sword out and strikes Tornur across the side of the head. The distinctive flair of divine magic empowering his strike and making the damage so much worse. Drackuss peels the red hot steel out off Tornur’s fractured skull, taking several sheets of flesh off the mortally wounded dwarf as it goes.

In the few seconds it takes Eridol to make his way over, he is already chanting words as he transfers part of his essence into Tornur. He gives more than he means to in a panic. But still bone fuse, muscle repairs and breath returns until all that is left of the wound is a large red band of scarring running mostly into the dwarfs hairline. Drackuss hands the vial over to Core and apologises to Tornur, he didn’t mean for that to be so much. Core explains that this is a vial of allmagic. Highly unstable, transformative, concentrated magic that shouldn’t be able to exist and is too dangerous to be left in unprepared hands. While the fantasy Mexican standoff eases up between the men, Emmi is searching the room and finds something in the well that gets everyones attention. A figure made of a silvery liquid appears and exits the well. Calling themselves a slyph and asking who wishes to partake,  we have a maddeningly circular conversation with the being who gets the majority of the group to let her test if they are able to travel except Eridol who thinks someone should not let the weird water person mess with their head that they met 5 minutes ago in the weird otherworldly tower. The slyph mentions that this continent was quarantined from the material plane centuries ago for reasons beyond their knowledge, but for a price she can allow travel. With this, everyone decides to break for the night. Tornur and Core return to the city to finish some business and research their respective needs while Drackuss, Emmi and Eridol stay in the tower for the night as security. While Drackuss and Eridol take turns whipping coins and books down the well to pass the time, Emmi dreams of her life.

A silhouetted figure she knows is her mother

A broken ship sinking into the ocean

Things slipping away under a veil of magic

[tactyl-ymon]

DnD session write up - Rituals and Recompense

Alright, another dnd session down and another woeful amount of notes I was too immersed to expand on while the game was going on, which is coming back to bite me in the arse months later when I’m writing this. Strap in friends, this one is a doozy about 3 months in the making and my drama loving arse wanted to wring as much closure out of this as I could.

We pick up after a hard won fight against a supercharged hag, everyone alive but some worse off than others. Drackuss, our dragonborn paladin noticed that Eridol the gnome cleric was staring off into the distance, having a panic attack and clutching the very fresh near death blow that he suffered at the hands of a mind controlled Drackuss not 15 seconds ago. He approaches Eridol and I have to make a wisdom save, which I fail horribly. In Eridol’s panicked mind, Drackuss is coming to finish him off again, he needs to protect himself now while he can. Subconsciously, Eridol casts Spiritual Guardians to keep Drackuss at bay. Drackuss takes this as Eridol being mind controlled and as Drackuss is want to do, kept coming at him. I make my second wisdom save and Eridol comes back to his senses, immediately drops the spell, apologises to Drackuss and walks down stairs to deal with a large-ish pile of bodies in another room while everyone finishes up with what they need before a long rest. The rogues gallery, aka Emmi and Veiraen go to town picking over the remains of an assassin that had killed Veiraen a few sessions back (he got better) and nearly killed Emmi more times than is really necessary. They get some nice poison for their troubles. Merla, the Halfling barbarian was gloating about she took down not 1, not 2, but 3 of the big bads and honestly she deserves it, no one would have been alive if she hadn’t curbstomped the majority of baddies between us and the BBEG. Ivellios our elven wizard had disappeared at some point either during the fight or directly after, scattered to the winds to be an NPC until further notice. Our sorcerer npc, Core and Drackuss are inspecting a circular dias in the room emblazoned with 3 very distinct religious symbols for fantasy Cthulu, Bhaal - the god of murder and Yurtris – joint god of death and disease. Drackuss wanting to gain insight on the dias, prays to his god for guidance and information and this goes about as well as can be expected when you pray in an evil temple adorned with the symbols of multiple evil gods. A save is asked for and thank whatever gods you follow Drackuss succeeds because the alternative was his alignment flips and I’ll be honest I don’t think anyone could really take him even if we weren’t all emotionally drained and near dead. Everyone except Core and Eridol trek back to a central room and sets up camp for the night, Core and Eridol forgo a nights sleep, Eridol to take care of the pile of bodies and prepare them for burial with gentle repose and making a list of descriptions to give to the townsfolk to identify the dead. Core to try and talk to Eridol about the frankly worrisome behaviour he’s been showing recently but doesn’t really get a response. While sleeping, Drackuss receives a vision from his god, Lendys. In a previous vision, he had been given a choice of paths to take, one leading towards familiarity and faith, the other towards power and ruination. Drackuss had chosen the path of power and now as he looks around he sees the mangles corpses of his friends and travelling companions. Everyone wakes up and the trek back to town begins, Eridol carrying the corpse of the small celestial half orc child that was taken for the hags sacrifice, no one really talking about everything that happened because if nothing else, we’re all emotionally stable adventurers who know when to talk about our problems. We make it the 8 hours back to town with the majority of the group splitting off to buy a cart and provisions to travel back to the capital city we’re staying in while Core and Eridol go to take the childs long dead body back to his family for closure. We get there and have a heartfelt discussion with the mother who declines Eridols offer to talk to her son one last time and asks them to leave with the body so the parents can grieve in peace. While we begin walking back to town to find a graveyard the scene cuts back to the rest of the crew, now with rations, transportation and Merla and Eridols dogs in tow with Drackuss sitting down to meditate aka rolling on his occasional wild magic table and this rat bastard rolled the holy grail on the massively expanded wild magic table he and the DM agreed on. He opens his eyes and finds a small, floating candle with a note around it “Make a wish and blow me out” the note says. Feeling a sense of immense guilt over what happened, Drackuss clears his mind and blows out the candle. Seeing no immediate effect, he thinks maybe it was a hallucination. Cue Eridol screaming in the distance, because the PREVIOUSLY DECAPITATED CHILD starts twitching and wriggling in the makeshift wrappings Eridol had bound him in, this causes him to drop the body and panic casting destroy undead because this was not the plan, sweet babies this was so not what was supposed to happen. Eridol is screaming, Core is screaming, the kid is weirdly not screaming. It’s chaos because even in a world of magic and gods decapitation is usually a forever thing, neither of us know what happened and we get in touch with everyone else because someone’s got to know what happened. Drackuss mentions seeing a candle but Eridol and Core are barely paying attention because a literal miracle just happened and the dawning realisation that they now have to turn around and march back to the grieving parents we just devastated and go “Hey, you know how your kid was dead? Well, he got better. Ok, have fun” and then we can never come back to this town, so we both decide to just accept it and run. We end the session travelling back to the capital city, sun at our backs and a bottle of very expensive wine with Eridol and Merla camping outside of town for a few days because of the whole “Merla is technically wanted for murder” thing while Drackuss heads off to the main temple in the city and the rogues head back to the share house with the dogs.

[tactyl-ymon]

DnD session writeup - Hags and Head games

Hey so dnd happened on the weekend and I’m still kind of not sure on how to deal with everything.

So, dot point breakdown because a lot of things happened and I don’t want to grammar properly  

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[tactyl-ymon]

Maaaan, there’s been so much awesome rp in our dnd campaign the last few sessions. You’ve got my cleric trying to deal with ptsd and amnesia, leading to him kneecapping a farmer in frustration and just generally being more brutal in and out of combat trying to find another kidnapped kid Our rogue, having a moral panic about what to do about Eridol and conflicted about how the first thing he saw after being revived from death is someone literally forcing their lifeforce into him in a panic so he’s turned to his talking sword to act like a conscience, asking it how they could protect people and the only answer he got boils down to “Kill them first before they can kill your friends” Our paladin, conflicted between following his gods tenets that require him to punish Eridol for the whole kneecapping thing or having to punish someone he cares about and him using this as a justification for multiclassing so he doesn’t have to face his god Our other rogue, having a deep and meaningful conversation about being tortured with our npc sorcerer.  Good times

[tactyl-ymon]

D&D session 12 - Kobolds and kidnapping

We’re back after another month gap to play some d&d with the main crew, unfortunately our wizard and soon to be returning druid couldn’t be there so we were given a choice to either continue with the story or take a break and have a drag out brawl of a level 4 battle royale. We decided to continue with the story and have the paladin and I jaeger the wizard for the session. Last session wasn’t much of a story heavy one so I’ll go into that a bit as well at the start. Last session we were back in town after some shenanigans which equated with us finding out some people had been going missing over the last week, the latest of which was a barmaid we know’s daughter. Being good adventurers we took the quest to go find the missing people with an npc guide named Emma who was being played by our druids player to see if she would enjoy playing again. Emma was a ranger and was real good at following the missing peoples tracks until she wasn’t and we ended up following a different set of tracks to a canyon and fought some gryphons. Our wizard got crushed by a boulder and our paladin then threw that boulder back at the gryphon and killed it. Just, the ballerest of moves really. After we kill the other gryphon, Emma the npc goes all hoarder and steals the gryphon eggs because she’s really into animals … reeeeealy into animals.

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[tactyl-ymon]

D&D sessions 8&9 - No pudding before bed

So, I forgot to do this last fortnight but we just finished for the weekend and I figured it was better to do them both at the same time. For everyone who couldn’t be arsed finding the previous post from a month ago, the group were sent to look into a sickness that had been affecting townsfolk. We had stumbled upon an Orc priest who seemed to be the origin of the disease and after a brief bout of murder we ended up in the main city in the kingdom to speak with the ruling council and their resident seer. We were pointed towards a ruined outpost to the north that hadn’t been visited for several years. Making our way there we found what looked like an entrance to an underground bunker and decided to make camp for the night in a nearby building. 

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[tactyl-ymon]

So we just had a fucking dnd session that came out of nowhere

I need to get this all written down because … hoo, that was a session. Break down is under the gap for anyone bored enough to read it. We’re down a few people because of life, so we’re finishing off some downtime between plot hooks.  The tl:dr is our wizard is too proud/racist to ask the rogue for help and attacked the paladin when he asked instead and then no one tells me what is happening and this was supposed to be a shopping episode oh my god

Characters there were:

Drackuss - dragonborn conquest paladin Ivellios - High elf evocation wizard Vieraen - Drow rogue/bard Eridol (me) - Gnomish war cleric

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