#Dragonborn!quentin

[larkscribbles]

Left to right: Cyone (Nerevarine), Avery (Hero of Kvatch) & Quentin (Dragonborn).

Shaking my Elder Scrolls OCs for enrichment. If my elder scrolls protags met it would be over for Nirn the dynamic would be insane! [speedpaint]

[bluebrush09arts]

Sad times commission for Ry on Discord. We lost our one and only dragonborn to a kraken and nobody is taking it especially well. Muan was there since the very start and was Quentin's best buddy on the crew. Now he is a rogue without his bard, half of a dynamic troublesome duo. We'll find our lizard again.

Please do not trace or reupload my art

Commissions | Ko-Fi | Twitter | Discord

[fagweave]

What does your Tav look like?

My, own personal, playthrough is actually a Durge, Leron! Currently our Tav is torn between a system-wide OC (Quentin/Lionheart) and a Dragonborn Druid name Tavmyus. I don't have any shots of them, but here's Leron. 🎸

[caranelguild]

Under the direction of Ziud the bosun, our adventurers land the Celer Gontalus in the river harbour of Traskyelin. They observe the city cavalry escorting the crew of the Toesucker and do not notice any prisoners taken from the fallen Middleman. Upon the laying out of a docking plank, officials from the city are immediately on board requesting our adventurers come with them to tell their story.

Our adventurers are led down a wide avenue towards a beautifully designed building at the center of the city. The city features a number of canal paths, sensible in light of the city’s main denizens: water genasi. A smattering of other peoples wander past, too - families, mostly, dressed poorly but looking happy. No dark elves are seen.

Past an elaborate fountain, the legislative building is an elaborate construction of glass, stone, and wood - one half of it a massive dome of triangular glass panes. Our adventurers are led inside and left in a waiting room, where they are served simple fare, wash basins, and quick medical administration. Soon, a small page boy arrives to lead them up to a cast iron spiral stair, at the top of which they are told waits the mayor of Traskyelin, a man named Hamir.

His penthouse office resides beneath the peak of the glass dome and features a complicated computing device being worked by a technician at one side. He joins our adventurers in a collection of chairs in front of his long desk and offers them “kaffee,” a coffee-like beverage with a dark berry flavour. 

When prompted, our party’s story remains largely consistent: they had taken off from Samar and were shortly set upon by pirates, who pursued them through the day and overnight. The mayor seems willing to accept this story, and when told that the city admiral has arrived to give a briefing, wraps up the current meeting.

“While Captain Quentin may object,” the mayor says, “we believe the loss of a valuable merchant vessel is more than made up for by the acquisition of a little-damaged war galleon; we are willing to offer you accommodation in Traskyelin as well as repairs to your own vessel free of charge.” He offers our adventurers a large gold coin with his sigil, which he explains will divert any expenses to his own office. He calls in the page boy, introduced now as Tomas, to guide the strangers to the shipyards and to a place to spend the night.

Seeing Captain Quentin and Ziud in the lobby beneath the mayor’s office, our adventurers take the time to thank the bosun.

Following Tomas through Traskyelin back to the harbour, they learn from him for the cost of a muffin that the city has become a haven for diverse people groups fleeing threats of violence in surrounding Tulean towns - victims of escalating “Patriarchal Wars” and developing marginalization. Traskyelin, a quiet town in an out-of-the-way river valley, has become a safe haven for many refugees.

When asked about a local library or other repository of knowledge, Tomas tells of the cafe strip, where folks gather to facilitate and participate in diverse dialogues. Often, topics are advertised at the Posting Wall, which Tomas offers to take them to. They pass for the time being and arrive at the harbour, where the flash of the mayor’s badge convinces a shipwright to repair the Gontalus in a day and a half to two days instead of the first estimation of three.

Then Tomas leads them to one of the city’s only hoteliers, mentioning that while there are many establishments of short-term housing for the refugees, the city sees too few visitors to warrant many inns. He leads them to one of the handful that do exist, an establishment known as Bethel’s House.

There, Tomas leaves our adventurers. They approach an old dragonborn lady in the small office, where Damaia shows the badge and asks for a room while the others hold back and eavesdrop on a Tulean couple sitting in the cramped lobby.

These two dark elves, with a baby in a carrier beside them, are whispering passionately to each other.

“Look,” says one, a male, “the lady has said there is no room for us. Let’s just try another establishment.”

His partner, a female, argues, “No! It’s ridiculous! There are plenty of keys hanging up behind her - she’s just denying us a room for no reason! In fact,” she says louder, “I bet these fine folks are being given rooms right now!”

Guilty as charged, our adventurers look askance at the old dragonborn. She sits back on her stool and crosses her arms over her fluffy bathrobe. “Look,” she says, “we just don’t admit their kind here. I mean, folks with babies.”

“Folks with babies?”

“Yeah, I’ve got a pretty full establishment right now, and I’ve promised all my guests - I always do - that they are entitled to a quiet night’s sleep! So the policy is, no babies!”

“I understand,” says Hardric. “Oh, and by the way, I’d prefer not to sleep with these softbody companions of mine. Could I get another room?”

The others are handed their key and head up to the third floor. Hardric is given a key of his own, but goes over to coo-coo at the baby before heading up the stairs himself - and oops! Accidentally drops his room key in the baby’s basket.

Halfway up the first flight of stairs, it occurs to him that he will need to provide a distraction so that the Tulean family can sneak up to the provided room. Hardric comes back down and tries a few approaches, but Bethel stonewalls him.

The lizardman jogs up the stairs to alert his companions to the predicament, and Damaia and Sekos take up the challenge.

“Oh dear me,” says Sekos. “We got all the way up to our room but I just couldn’t figure out how to get the key to work! Would it be too much trouble - ?”

Bethel groans and complains, but leads them all the way up the stairs - her joins popping all the way.

Hardric meanwhile leads the family up to their second floor room while the host is distracted above them. The father, who introduces himself as Jacyph Well, thanks Hardric profusely; he explains that his family fled Nos due to a situation he does not detail.

Once Bethel has passed on her way back down to her office, Hardric heads up to the third floor room to spend the night with the softbodies.

They are awakened in the early morning by a knock at the door. It is Jacyph, distraught. He tells them that he and his wife were awakened in the middle of the night by a cold breeze. They found their baby Emman had been stolen. His wife Mayr is currently heading to alert the authorities, but after the reception they received from Bethel, Jacyph does not hold any hope for assistance there; he begs our adventurers to help him.

Immediately, they’re on the case. They start in the second floor room, where they find the window forced open by a crowbar. No other evidence is found until something is noticed on the wall - the faint, wavering shadow of a person leaning down to grab something. This shadow belongs to nobody in the room, and is fainter than any of the live shadows; it’s a lead. Sekos notices the sinuous wipe of a shadow trailing down from the window - if she hadn’t been looking for shadows, it would appear to be nothing more than faint discolouration on the building wall.

The group takes up the shadow trail in the alley below the window, where they find additional wipes of shadow residue and the occasional, very faint, silhouettes of a person holding a baby carrier. This trail leads them to a drainage grate in the street a few blocks away.

Here, our adventurers suggest Jacyph find his wife. He finally tells them the whole truth: he admits that his baby was born possessed of incredible innate magic, and suspects that whoever stole him must have sensed his power.

Parting from Jacyph, our adventurers lift the grate from its place and drop down into a greywater sewer. In the dim light coming from the entrance above, they find one last shadow shape indicating a direction and the set off splashing down the tunnel.

When arguing voices, hollow and wordless, echo down the corridor to them, Damaia conjures a sewer rat familiar to investigate ahead. Seeing through its eyes, the Damaia-rat finds a raised platform a few hundred meters away from where our adventurers paused. On this platform are five ragged individuals, surrounding the missing baby and arguing about how to activate his powers.

Damaia despells the rat and explains the situation to the others. Hardric casts some stealth magic on the party and they advance. When they are in range, he attacks one of the thieves, an aarakocran, with a blast of radiant magic, and a splashing combat ensues.

The greatest threat comes in the form of the shadow mage, who is able to slip in and out of the shadows in the matter of a second. The aarakocran is the first the fall, then a spear-wielding elf, then a man with a spellgun. After a sickle-wielding person is cut down trying to flee, only the shadow mage remains - and when they become corporeal to grab the baby, they are cut down from every angle.

When Sekos bends down to check on the baby, he grabs her finger and a golden halo bursts from the connection, expanding until it surrounds the whole party . . .

Emman grants them a Wish.

[badface]

Some sketches I've done through the week, here are the members of the Anti-strahd party <33 You got Marzi as the tiefling fighter, Adelaide the cleric Aasimar, Fairen the gnome wizard, Blaze the dragonborn barbarian and Quentin the Half-elf warlock ^^!

[zenaquaria]

The Passing of A Friend and A Sister

BOY this weekend’s past Axia sessions hurt like HELL. It started nice and fluffy and cute, waking up after a cloud trip that morning. Our Dragonborn sleeping off a hangover from catfolk rice wine, the rest of us decided that we’d go look to meet up with Thunder’s twin brother, Ebonflow “Ebby” of Ocean Wave.

Little did we know just how bad this was going to be. First it put into perspective just what Thunder’s ghosting of the Emperor did to the family originally, though Ebby still wanted to help us, and then it all went downhill from there. The Emperor has (many) half-fiend catfolk children he uses as his enforcers and spies and bounty hunters. Three of those showed up. They killed Ebby’s wife as an example of not turning in wanted fugitives, then engaged us.

We learned that when these Children of the Emperor die, they have a contingency that pops. One of those contingencies took our dearly beloved disaster monk NPC down with him as she landed the final blow. And it shattered Thunder -and Cammy, Quentin, and Brooklee; as we watched the younger half-elf woman we loved as a sister disintegrate into a pile of ash before our eyes in a sickly green flash of magic... 

We’re going to get her back come hell or high water. And make the Emperor pay.

Do not repost, edit, alter, trace/copy, use/redistribute my artworks without my permission.

[rosexknight]

Two idiots in my D&D campaign that Cammy is in. Dragonborn’s name is Muan, and is owned by the local himbo on Discord. Second is Quentin, owned by @bluebrush09arts

[askfriskandcompany]

So what do we have so far? (As in names for Queer Quest Characters)

So far...

* Quentin the Queer (half-elf fighter)* Adelaide the Ace (gnome archer rogue)* Lola the Lesbian (orc barbarian)

And the ones that aren’t out but are vaguely planned are...

* Billy the Bi (dwarf dagger rogue)* Petra the Pan (tiefling sorcerer)* Trucy the Trans-woman (high elf wizard)* Trevor the Trans-man (wood elf wizard)* Emi the Enbie (aasimar cleric)* Garret the Gay (dragonborn paladin)

...I have this vague backstory about how Trucy and Trevor knew eachother as children, then got separated when their village was attacked by marauders, then when they individually both decided on new names for themselves, they each decided to name themself after the other. As in, Trevor’s deadname is Trucy and Trucy’s deadname is Trevor. Then they met again later, figured out who eachother were, and they’re dating now.

-TQ

[redskysailor]

Are you gonna use the tag "#coronaquest" for DnD updates?

no its for coronavirus eek 😳😳 i lump all the dnd stuff i reblog under #dnd

but if you’re interested! here’s info on my campaign and the characters bc i will take Any Excuse to ramble

Dunmar’s Drop is a campaign im doing with some of my best irl buddies, named after the town it takes place in! tagged as #dunmars drop or #dunmar’s drop

✨Player Characters✨

Nick: our favorite tiefling bard prince, played by my dear friend Lily! (tagged as #nick but i don’t think he has any posts yet oops)

Joe: half-elf grave cleric, and Nick’s best friend! played by my best bud Reeve. she has a suspicious allergy to metal and graveyard dirt, which is uhh... really weird for a grave cleric... hmmm....... (tagged as #joe)

Elyn: firbolg druid that might maybe be in our campaign but she’s played by my friend Eva who’s really busy so we’re not sure! she’s rly cute tho i love her!!

✨NPCs✨

Vir: hey, this dude sucks! he’s a stinky warlock. well, at least for the sake of game mechanics, that’s his class. but he runs an alchemist’s shop in town! or he used to, anyways. long story short he tried to kill Jake and he is now living in a cell in the cellar (ha!) of the local tavern. (tagged as #vir)

Keldron: real old pyromancer wizard! love that guy! he’s sort of taken over vir’s shop, as he feels in part responsible for his old pupil’s actions. (tagged as #keldron)

Jake: he’s babey! as in, he’s really young. why is this child in our party? jake is an artificer... sort of... he used to be Vir’s apprentice, in training to become an alchemist. since that didn’t work out after the whole almost-getting-murdered thing, he’s now combining his somewhat limited alchemical knowledge with some new info on magic (courtesy of Keldron) and his own hobbies. this combination of science, magic, and tinkering makes him an artificer! (tagged as #jake)

those are the main NPCs! minor NPCs are DeLacey, owner of Boudreaux’s Beer ‘n’ Board (the local tavern/inn), Garron the cool gargoyle dude (currently imprisoned under Vir’s old lab), Gam Gam, owner of Gam Gam’s General Goods, Quentin, the stablemaster, Percy, the stableboy, Cadmus, the blacksmith, and Thaddeus, the local priest and librarian.

i don’t know if i have any posts for this yet, but i’m also running The Lost Mines of Phandelver with my family. this will be tagged as #lost mines of famdelver or just #famdelver !! characters are Grimmor Twoblade (dad! half-orc barbarian sailor lad), Aurora Evers’more (mom! high elf paladin), Thea Birch (lil sis! dragonborn rogue), and Ida Marigold (littlest sis! forest gnome ranger) :•]

i also tag a lot of dnd stuff as “#brynna”. Brynna is unrelated to Dunmar’s Drop and Famdelver. she’s my character! (finally, i get to actually play!) i use her during sessions at the D&D club at my school, which i’m an officer in. she’s a firbolg life cleric and i love her with my whole heart. i could talk about her for hours but this post is getting really long and i don’t wanna be annoying so aaaaaa Thank You So Much if you made it this far!!

(ps brynna’s best friend is named wild bill he’s a minotaur barbarian played by my friend amaya. they’re feuding right now but they love each other. they have friendship lockets)

[menxinxuniform]

Open to: Submissives, Bottoms & Versatile that will bottom

Connection: My muse has just inherited the throne to his kingdom, and your muse is approaching his throne - whether as someone requesting something of him, someone offering something, or an adviser... or anything that would make logical sense.

Finally. After what seemed like eons, his birthright had finally arrived. His father, the former king of the dragonborn empire, had passed away due to old age at the age of forty-four thousand and that meant that the throne was to be passed to his heir. But his heir wasn’t his eldest son - no, his heir was his youngest son, barely under two hundred... making him the youngest to ever sit upon the throne. Most saw him as nothing more than a whelp, a boy king, but those that knew of his experiences on the battlefield and his bloodlust and ambition knew that he would make a worthy king and bring the dragonborn empire to greatness.

Leaning back against the chair, feeling the weight of the moment, Quentin - his name roughly translated in the humanoid tongue - couldn’t help but enjoy this moment. And when he heard the grand hall doors open, his reptilian eyes flicked open, the orange sclera almost demonic looking to the more humanoid species as he waited to see who would come to seek an audience with the new King.

[cursewoodrecap]

Session 5: Askew

This episode: We meet some very strange people, and go to a very strange place.

Contractor Darius firmly escorts Valeria and Gral out of the Baroness’s hall, but he’s chill about it. Nothing personal, we’re just trying to keep the talk about this madman on the down low. We’ve had some suspicious activity around here lately, see. We Cursebreakers got our hands on some important books recently, and Witness Beatrice was just getting started on translating some of the more suspect tomes. Two days later, the library mysteriously burned to the ground. Now I’m not sayin’ it was the Penitents. We don’t have proof. But...well, you see why we’re being careful with news of anyone touched by the Curse.

Gral and Valeria are quite understanding, but they’d also like to take Darius up on his offer to meet this “madman.” Why not go right now?

Meanwhile, Clem goes armor shopping and meets some nice lesbian weaponsmiths at Hammerstein and Sons - Ms. Hammerstein, and her business partner Ms. Sons. Sadly, she finds out that armor and silvered weapons are ‘spensive. Shoshana is wandering the city, noticing that while people give her funny looks, nobody really gives her any crap about her mildly cursed appearance. Clearly, this is an opportunity to hang out in bookstores and impulse-buy unhealthy food. Nobody invites them to come interrogate the madman. Ahem. Anyway.

Darius brings the two adventurers into a narrow hallway in the repurposed mining office that the Cursebreakers took over after the library burned down. Several offices have been converted into sturdy jail cells. Only one of them is occupied. There’s a bed, and there’s easels everywhere, holding half-finished paintings, ink drawings, and charcoal sketches. Pots of paint and other art supplies are scattered around haphazardly.

“He’s weird but we’re pretty sure he’s harmless,” Darius tells them. “Bea comes in to cast Detect Magic once a day to see if he’s up to something, but she’s never found anything.”

Valeria inspects the various half-finished paintings. They’re mostly landscapes. She sees:

-a frozen ocean crashing up against bright purple cliffs, under a sky with five moons

-an owl that turns into a lizard partway through, casting a human shadow. The ground beneath it is breaking apart, opening a pit to darkness.

-a cavernous landscape filled with bones, a grim city looming in the darkness above

-the biggest canvas is full of nothing but very finely-detailed abstract shapes in a psychedelic swirl of colors. Only a small patch of the huge canvas is filled. There is no overarching pattern, just random but elaborate shapes and lines.

Sitting at the big canvas, there is a gaunt elf in ragged clothes. Fresh clothing is folded nearby within his reach, but he hasn’t touched it. Gral notices that there’s something weird about him - the elf’s proportions are juuuust slightly off, pushing him slightly into the uncanny valley. He turns to face them. His eyes are very, very wide, and they are all-black and full of stars.

He notices the group and politely inquires: “Hello. Is the key here?”

“The key?”

“Yes, I think I could be ready to leave soon.”

The adventurers ask if he knows why he’s in here.

“The very nice knights gave me this room to work on my paintings. They’re things I saw when I was elsewhere. I like to refresh my memory.” He points at the grim city. “I’m missing something here….”

Gral politely introduces himself and Valeria.

“Hello, I am the painter. Well, a painter. I’m the only painter here so I might as well be The. Unless one of you paints? No? Very well, the Painter I am!”

Gral inquires of Darius how long ago this odd gentleman was found. Darius says it’s been maybe two or three months? Not long after the mists started happening. The Condotierri found him wandering in a farmer’s field.

Gral turns to the Painter: “Do you know about the lake nearby?"

“Oh yes!  I’m very familiar with it!”

“Have you seen the mists?”

“No. Although it makes sense that there would be mists, that’s where mists should happen.”

Valeria brings us back on topic. “How did you get to ‘elsewhere?’”

“Oh, the Key brought me.”

Gral: “...What, or who, is the Key?”

“That is a very complicated question. I’ve asked the Astronomer that many times, and he was always frustratingly vague.”

“The Astronomer?”

“Yes, the Astronomer, he’s the one who told me about the Key. I’m working on a portrait of it!” He gestures to the huge abstract canvas. “I can only remember it sometimes.”

“Where did you meet this Astronomer?”

“In his house by the lake, that’s an awfully silly question.”

Valeria: “...Tell me more about your paintings. This one is super nice, tell me about it!” She points to the ocean landscape.

“Oh yes! That was beautiful, one of the first places I went from the Astronomer’s house. I don’t know if the others made it through in time. I lost my sketchbook somewhere. Unfortunately I didn’t have my paints with me.”

“...you went to these other places with others?

“Oh, well, that was the idea, but I ended up alone. The Astronomer, The Musicians, The Alchemist, the Sculptor, the other Painter – frankly he’s hideous and the world is better that he was left behind, or stuck between – I didn’t look back, there was too much to see in front of me.”

Valeria elbows Gral. “You’re a musician.”

“So I am! Did these musicians happen to be orcs?”

The painter doesn’t know what “orc” means, so Gral takes off his mask and asks if the musicians looked like him. Nope. Glancing between the orc Gral, the dragonborn Valeria, and the human Darius, he decides the musicians looked like - well, nobody here, but Darius more than anybody.

Moving on to the next painting, Valeria points at the owl-lizard creature. “What kind of creature is this?”

The Painter looks angry. “That’s the Destroyer. We had worked so hard for so long, and at the last moment, the triumph of success, it interrupted us.”

“What did it do?”

“I was on the other side, so I was only able to see, but not warn the others. It destroyed our art, our collaboration. What was to be a bridge is now trapped between the two, between here and there. Sometimes there’s a bit of a connection, but… that’s when I’m able to work on the portrait. I remember the Key.”

Valeria: "...Is the Key a physical object?”

“Are you?”

“…Generally speaking, yes?”

“Not entirely, no, but less than you are.”

“Is the key alive?”

“Partially. Partially. It was killed, but it’s alive. Maybe. It should be more. These are some very odd questions!”

Valeria is pretty frustrated by all the riddles. “It doesn’t sound like your key is entirely anything!”

“Well, it might have been one day. If there’s any of it left. That’s why we tried so hard to reach it. The Astronomer especially. He was the first to see it. He organized the collaboration. I was the only one to make it through. 

It hasn’t been so bad since I’ve been back. The small one comes to play chess with me, but she’s really bad at it. Doesn’t know any of the rules.”

“What happened to the Astronomer?”

"He is where the house is. I don’t know which side of the house he’s on, this one or the other side.”

Next painting. What’s up with this city of bones?

“The Key wasn’t WITH me, but it helped me. It sent me places. And yes, it was a rather gloomy place, I did not care for it. Impressive visual, but poor lighting.”

“Was anything there alive and moving?”

“Alive no, moving yes. I’ve left those bits out, it’s more of a landscape. What’s the opposite of still life? Moving dead? I’m sure the OTHER painter would have loved it. But I capture sublime beauty, thank you very much. Is that all? Thanks for the appreciation, but I must get back to work on the portrait. I remembered some of it last night, and those memories don’t stay.”

Gral: “Where are the other collaborators now?”

“Some of them might be in the house, some might be wandering. I barely know why I’m here! I doubt the Astronomer left the house, he loves it. It was his place.”

Valeria asks whether the Astronomer would mind if we paid the house a visit.

“Oh, he loves guests!” An insight check reveals the painter is entirely sincere, and madder than a box of rabbits

He turns away from our heroes and gets back to work, almost trance-like in his movements.

Darius is pretty impressed. “You caught him on a good day. Usually he’s worse, you can’t get him away from painting at all. The paints keep him calm. Me or Quentin will try to talk to him, but this is the most we’ve gotten in a while. He’s usually better after the mists come, which is NOT a comforting thought.”

Gral is fixated on the idea of other worlds. When the terrible creature came upon his expedition, Gral saw a kind of warping in space. “The painter’s madness resembles some of the whisperings upon the air when that creature growled. I think there is truth to what he’s saying, just not our truth. And we know there’s something at the lake. Have you found the Astronomer?” 

They haven’t. In fact, this is the first time he’s ever been mentioned. The guy hasn’t really given us anything about what he saw in the mists. You might want to talk to Bea about the astronomer? She used to be local record-keeper. She has a shrine to Torme in the basement - all the books she could recover from the library fire. Don’t spook her, please.  Also, Quentin’s gonna want an answer about the Mornheim expedition sooner rather than later. 

It’s roughly around here that Clem and Shoshana’s players insist on Showing Back Up. Shoshana is eating some sort of absurd ice cream wrapped in fried dough, because no one was there to stop her.

Gral recounts the audience with the Baroness and the meeting with the Painter, and tells Shoshana and Clem the harrowing story of the Curse’s Champion. “I know the Champion’s in the painter’s story somewhere – not sure if it’s the Key, or the Destroyer. But I don’t like any of it. He has probably seen the Champion.”

We ruminate on the idea of this Key taking things Elsewhere. “When the Champion attacked, it ripped the space around it. Maybe it took the encampment’s tents somewhere else instead of destroying them?”

Maybe this Key is a connection to other dimensions. If that’s the case, Gral contends, the connection is sentient. And sometimes mean. Perhaps, if he had followed the beckoning whispers that accompanied the fearsome beast, maybe he would have ended up in the fantastical places in the paintings.

Our problem: CAN we do anything? We’re low-level, dimensional portals are probably not weak to “being hit with sword,” and we have to face the possibility that, like in a Fantasy HP Lovecraft novel (he’s very racist toward orcs), we will be exposed to Weird Shit Man Was Not Meant To Know and end up as nutty as the painter. Also, like, the dead rising in Mornheim might be a priority?

Gral holds firm. “I can’t overstate how important this is. Sooner or later – I don’t know the agenda of this champion, but everyone in this town will die at its hands.”

He bows his head. “I’ve been living for a long time to just see this thing dead, but when I heard its growl last night I just wanted to run and hide. Still. I’ve heard it speak, so I believe it has a body. And if we can find out what that body is - if we know what it is, and where it is, we can figure out what its weakness is.”

Undecided if or when to investigate the Astronomer’s lake house in regards to this mystery, we decide to first take Darius’s suggestion and speak to Witness Beatrice, the cleric of Torme who rescued books from the library fire.

As we go down towards the basement, Clem pulls Gral aside. “Gral, I’m so sorry – I didn’t know that any of that happened to you. I kind of understand where you’re coming from, back with your unit. So if you ever feel like you need to talk, please know that I’m here for you.”

Gral shrugs. “It’s not something I like to remember. Part of me’s scared, part is mad, part is excited I can finally kill this thing. But I have to know what it is first if I’m going to have any hope of killing it..”

Clem nods grimly. “Believe me, I would LOVE to help you kill this thing.”

We head down to the basement. It’s cluttered with bookshelves - some carry old mining records, but most are groaning under a haphazard collection of singed books. There is a small shrine to Torme, the god of knowledge and law, in the corner. It takes a moment amidst the clutter, but Gral spots a small halfling woman muttering to herself and organizing one of the shelves. Gral takes his mask off, knowing that most non-orcs find it unsettling, and calls out a cheery, “Hello!”

She looks up at us from behind big ol coke-bottle glasses. We are all super visually intimidating and armed, because adventurers. She eeps! and hides behind a shelf. “DARIUS!”

Darius scolds us for frightening her after he specifically told us not to, and tells her it’s okay, these guys came and brought Morozov a dead body and an animal skin - wow, okay, that doesn’t actually help make them less scary. Anyhow they’re allies.

She insists he leave his bird, Daikon, down here with her if we’re gonna be large and scary and stuff.

Turns out that when the library burned, she had just begun a research project on several rare texts that might have clues to the Curse: “The Song of Druids,” “The Temptation of Fiends,” and a gruesome collection of essays on undead compiled by a mad necromancer.

Gral asks if any of the texts mentioned keys or gateways.

Bea: “Portals to the Abyss, maybe? I didn’t get very far before the fire.” She shows us a glass case. There are several fragile books inside, badly burned. 

She also tells us the Painter’s name is Johann. “I don’t think he knows how the rules of chess work? He picked up a pawn and started painting on it and said that it was a fish. Then he put it in my water glass. Which makes sense, in a way? But I was drinking that.”

When we mention an Astronomer with a lake house, though, something rings a bell. She hunts through the shelves for an old book of maps, left over from when this was a mining office. One of us tall folks kindly gets it off the top shelf.

There! On one of the islands in the lake. There’s supposed to be a home here – right over the cave system they were mapping. A manor house, belonging to one Artyom Vlemisk. A land grant from the old baron to his friend. Bea thinks back: “Yeah, astronomer Artyom! I remember when he came to town, just when I was starting out – he had a bit of an artists’ colony out in his observatory. I mean, we assumed the artists’ colony died a long time ago. Daikon did a sweep, over the entire lake, and we didn’t see the house anymore. When mists first came, we assumed they all got Got. A lot of the people close to the lake have died in the mists, especially down in the fishing village.”

Bea uses a neat magic trick to instantly transcribe us a copy of the map. She was up by the lake not long ago -  she stopped by when Darius was surveying the lake bed (using Daikon, who was an octopus at the time) & Quentin was off with Ser Balderich. There’s some guys from Sturmhearst College who set up on edge of lake. They say they’re here to “study the anomalies,” and they’ve set up shop in an abandoned church, calling it a “staging ground.” It might be easier to get them to take us across to the island - the fishermen probably won’t want to risk their boats. They’re led by a Professor Quercus, who specializes in “aberrant biology.” Bea marks the church on the map for us.

With business out of the way, Valeria can’t help but feel a Powerful Need to do something nice for Bea, and produces her book of tales of the Peacock Knight to help Bea rebuild her library. Bea has a copy of the same tales, but it’s a singed and battered old one, and Valeria happily swaps it for her pristine illustrated copy so the library can have something nice. 

We decide to go down to the lake to check it out. We still have five days before we have to give Ser Quentin an answer about Mornheim, and since the mists just came last night, we are maybe less likely to get caught in them again if we go soon. Also, we’re just gonna take a casual look around for an afternoon; we don’t have to get into anything too crazy. Right? 

We bop on down to the lake. Sure enough, there’s a damaged old stone churchy building, patched with leather tarps. Lights are flashing behind the windows. Someone has put a wooden sign up out front, reading “Sturmhearst College of the Natural Sciences, Holzog Annex. est. [last Tuesday]” 

A pair of hulking dudes all in black leather, with big hats and owl masks stand impassively at the gate, armed with big ol’ clubs. They eerily turn in weird unison to look at us as we walk down the path towards them. Clem waves. Valeria waves. Shoshana finger guns. One of them awkwardly tries to finger gun back.

There’s a bell on a pole near the front gate, labeled “please ring for entrance.” Shosha theatrically pulls the ding dong. A figure in a long-beaked bird mask peeks out of the door. “Um, yes, we’re not buying any, go away.”

“Hey, can we use one of your boats?”

“Uh. You’d have to talk to the professor, I guess. I’m just a researcher”

“Oh, is the professor the one in the bird mask?”

“Is this a joke? ...No, really, is that a joke? I’m studying humor. Well, the humors. I’ve been theorizing that maybe comedy affects the balance.”

Behind him, through the door, there is a cacophony of noise. Growl, clatter, crash, explosion! The researcher goes to check, we wait a moment, and then the door opens. “The professor is now available.”

The researcher, who we dub Frederick, leads us into a decently sized church. Folks in bird masks are hurriedly dragging something into basement. It’s under  a tarp. It’s vaguely dog shaped, but big. It also looks like a buncha stuff just got crashed over. There’s another owl guard standing there, holding a weird contraption. It’s vaguely smoking, crossbowlike, and smells of ozone? Whatever it is, I want one the next time we go in the woods.

We are approached by a fellow in a white leather coat, wearing a fancier bird mask than the others. He walks up to Valeria. “Ah! Hello there! Mister…mis…are you a boy or a girl?”

“Um, Kyr Valeria Argent, she/her pronouns?”

“Ah, good. My usual method of determining gender of reptilian organisms would be quite rude!”

IT SURE WOULD, I BET.

“Anyway, why do you want a boat?”

“For science?” we try. Before he can call us on the cliche, he distractedly dives under a table and grabs at a rolling object. 

“Sorry, sorry, I didn’t want to lose the orb! It got knocked down during a…football game. That we were having. Yes. I don’t want it to accidentally take root, it would be an awful waste!”

We inform him that we are investigating what used to be a manor built on the lake. An artist colony, disturbed by the mist. Perhaps even movement between dimensions! Have you ever heard of anything like that?”

“Oh, how fascinating! Have I heard of such a…transference? WHAT NO OF COURSE I HAVEN’T. BUT IT WOULD BE QUITE SOMETHING.”

Insight check: he’s lying through his beak. He IS super fascinated by a transference on that scale, but yes, there is super shady shit happening here. We don’t push further, but he bustles over to a table of various strange objects.

“A quest as worthy as this must be done post haste! And I should give you some assistance! That is what one does when asking a group of valiant heroes to quest for knowledge, yes? Take one of these things, they’re magic. Student inventions, you see.” He offers us three options:

1: A rectangular wooden box with a weird putty inside. The putty apparently works similarly to the Mending cantrip, but is especially intended to repair things that have been burned.

2: A ceramic tile with a hole in the middle and a tortoiseshell on the back. It’s a method of acquiring fresh water – it absorbs water from air, or uses a form of the Create Water spell. He’s not really sure! Boop the shell button and you get a stream of fresh water.

3: A weird misshapen orb of plant matter they found in woods. If you throw it to the ground, it makes vines happen. Frederick got stuck in it! You could use it to make rope, or climb a wall. It grows quite quickly if planted or thrown! 

We choose the burn repair gel, hoping it might help Witness Beatrice.

He also insists on giving us a red journal in which to record our notes. We all acknowledge he is definitely using us as unpaid research assistants.

“Oh, by the way. Standard procedure for sending out expeditions: do you know what a homunculus is?” (Valeria does. It’s like a familiar, but crafted out of alchemy. They’re not necessarily evil? Super weird, tho.) 

“I have one named Gray. Though he’s really rather more of a blue color. He’s got quite a keen sense of smell, so in case you do not return, please let him sniff you so we can track you and recover your research notes. What’s that, Frederick? Oh. Oh dear! To shreds, you say?” 

Frederick nods.

“Well! Please leave an article of clothing, perhaps a sock? He will have to smell you later, when he’s a bit more put together.” Gral gives him a bit of sleeve. He tells us to stick together, so they can find all of us if they track Gral. Splitting the party is not university policy!

As we’re merrily heading out, the DM admits he’s surprised he kept a straight face for the whole scene. And then slyly tells us to google the meaning of the name “Quercus.”

The Professor’s name. Is Oak. 

...the laughing DM narrowly avoids being pummeled, by virtue of being several hundred miles away. Valeria’s player is revealed to have been a willing accomplice in the whole gag. 

For the record, the three items he offered us? A Char Mender, a Squirt Tile, and a Bulbous Orb.

Revenge will be had, DM. When you least expect it.

Aaaaaanyway.

They let us borrow a dinghy, which we all pile into - nobody has boat proficiency, but we do fine on the basis of nobody wants to spend an hour doing a “did anyone fall overboard and get wet” sidequest. A fish looks at us. It has three eyes. It is not a chess pawn.

We can see houses with docks on the edge of lake. They’re badly damaged and falling apart. There were never many people on the lake islands, but when the mists first rose, everyone on islands got real dead, real quick.

The middle of largest island is where the astronomer’s house was. This is not a particularly deep tangle of wood. The whole place seems pretty tame. The trees aren’t too thick, and there’s a paved road right to a large clearing.

According to the map, there should be a large house here. There is not. Instead, there is a giant hole in ground. We peer into it and see the splintered but surprisingly intact remains of the manor house – like a sinkhole opened up directly under it. Valeria throws a rock in the hole, as an experiment. We observe normal rock in hole behavior, and write it down, for science. It’s about a 50ft deep hole. Seems like there was a cave down there? The house is awkwardly sitting in it, looking weirdly intact for a house that fell in a sinkhole.

We rappel down into the pit. It’s weirdly quiet. Closer up, we can see the house has been painted all over with weird geometric patterns and lines. There are bits of carved stone nailed to house in a big massive design of shifting colors and shapes. The designs are broken up a good deal by the collapse of house. Seems like even the house itself was a giant weird abstract art project? We wonder if it’s the same pattern as the Painter’s “portrait,” but we don’t roll well enough to figure out if it is.

Heading in, we find ourselves in a crumpled hallway. The weird patterns continue along the walls. There are 4 doors; 2 on each side. The end of hallway is rubble.

We open the closest door on left: it’s a painter’s studio. There are easels and spilled paint, and there’s a human skull on floor. There’s sketches. Looks like this painter was painting the skull. Shosha takes a sketch, for souvenir reasons. The art is all really macabre, lots of battle scenes There’s a rack of weapons and a mirror, clearly for art references. One wall has a crazy mural of impossible battle scene. Knights are fighting weird monsters. There’s fire and shooty glowing lights. The characters don’t have the cultural context to describe wtf it is, but the players are told it’s very King Arthur vs. Flash Gordon. There’s also a nice, if cliché, Rack in Chains painting.

Next up is the sculptor’s studio. Lots of big marble blocks. The pattern on the walls has continued through both rooms. In the middle of the room there’s an unfinished sculpture of...something weird? It’s clearly unfinished, but there’s, like, an arm and torso stickin’ out. Wtf is that supposed to be? Also, there’s a bunch of symbols and shapes carved into the wall and into blocks of marble, as if the sculptor was practicing them. They get more regular. Some are carved on statue. Shoshana tries to copy them into our Pokedex journal, but starts getting headache staring at them for so long. Roll initiative. Wait, what?

Wait. That shape wasn’t there before...is it moving? A carved fold in sculpture opens up to reveal a maw of stony teeth. A blue-purple tendril emerges from the mouth and the whole thing kind of inverts itself into a big teeth-and-eyes-everywhere guy. WELP. SCP jokes are made.

It proceeds to smack Shoshana with a pseudopod. Hissss! She instinctually swats back, Primal Savagery giving her unnatural claws. But it’s immune to acid damage, which her claws do for some weird mechanics reason. RUDE. Gral fails to insult it. Then, a clatter of metal - the swords from previous room flying through the air! There is a crackling as lightning comes out of the pattern along the walls. The lightning grabs the swords and pulls them through the air along the lines of the pattern, like a Mag-lev train, and attack Valeria and Gral. Clem smacks a mimic with a sword, which is very helpful, since it has just reduced Shoshana to 0 hp. Gral Healing Words her up, though. Shosha MAX DMGs Burning Hands, killing the mimic. A dozen mouths open as if to scream, and what comes out is a weird discordant song. It burns and starts to shrivel up in front of us. Valeria snaps one of the swords, Shoshana flames another, and the final one rolls a natural -3 and self-destructs in shame.

We decide we no longer want to be in the sculptor’s studio.

The door across the hall opens into a large lounge. There’s a bar, bookshelves, and tables. We flip through the books. Most are about art history. They’re super moldy, though. We also find a book of cocktails, written in Kevan, and immediately start making puns. The Boozenomicon. The Negroni-nomicon? By the Mixologist of Minsk. Miska-TONICS? Mixa-tonics? Obviously by Sturmhearst University press. Clem also finds 2 bottles of fancy high-elven vodka, worth 25gp each. Valeria finds scattered sheet music for 2 songs: one is called “Requiem for the Prisoner;” the other is “The Opening of the Ways.” Naturally, she gives the music to the bard.

Next up is the kitchen. The scattered mess and wall patterns continue through it. Chained to the wall, we find a heavily annotated cookbook. Clem takes it and decides to flip through. It’s written like an eldritch recipe blog, and we definitely gotta have it. Loot!

An awful, acrid chemical scent is coming from the next room. It appears to be the alchemist’s lab, which is definitely not a thing you put next to a kitchen, home designers. We all roll Con saves versus being sickened by the fumes. In the middle of the room lies a decaying body - the alchemist herself. A medicine check reveals a head injury - she was likely concussed or knocked out when the house fell, preventing her from escaping the toxic chemical fumes of her shattered laboratory. 

Gral finds a notebook labeled “Property of Dr. Alicia Keene”. It describes certain paints that she was inspired to create – formulas for various pigments and art materials. “While I do not have a direct role in the collaboration, I was inspired to create the wondrous pigments Johann and Musalt will need for their parts, though some of the ingredients for the pigments must be acquired from Beyond. Artyoum has assured me that the Lurker and his Hounds will not bother me as I gather them.”

We also gather three potions, labeled A, B, and Q. The DM has not decided what they are yet, but he’ll stat them at some point, if we ever remember we looted them. Shosha also finds a sealed tin labeled “Paint: Reserved for Collaboration.”

Clem, as we loot evidence, notices a weird puddle. Drip. Drip. She looks up and a slimy mass is clinging to the ceiling. It drops onto us and tries to eat us, but we skedaddle outside the room, far outpacing its slow oozing speed.

As we climb upstairs, we start to hear faint music. It echoes down a long hallway filled with doors. Like dumb teens in a horror movie, we go directly toward it.

Inside the conservatory, the painted patterns swirl in complex detail across the floor, centering on a single music stand. The walls are lined with mirrors, but we notice with unease that we don’t reflect in them. The reflection seems to show the room we’re in, but instead of us there are two women, distorted and lanky with unnaturally long fingers, surrounded by floating musical instruments. One is playing a violin, the other a flute. Gral, having read the sheet music, recognizes they are playing “Requiem for the Prisoner.” 

As we enter the room, they look at us and stop playing. They spare a glance at each other, raise their instruments once more, and continue playing. But this time, it’s a different song. We hear the opening bars of “The Opening of the Ways,” and the patterns across the floor begin to glow faintly. Cracks in the mirrors begin to emit the same soft glow, and the odd colorful light begins to extend past the edges of the mirror. Mist begins to pour from the cracks.

A sensible adventuring party would have fled, escaping the house before things could go very, very sideways. The DM explicitly gave us the option. But since when has “sensible” ever described an adventuring party? We wanna see what’s gonna happen. 

We are declared certified Dumbasses by the DM, and we are about to go on a very strange journey through the looking-glass.

All PCs are now level 4.

[larkscribbles]

Artfight profile for Dragonborn!Quentin

FUS ROH DAH guy with a book that works like google

[bluebrush09arts]

August Patreon rewards!  Had some fun ones. Thanks you guys for supporting as always! Appreciate it so much

Patreon is currently the easiest and cheapest way to get regular art from me. Tiers match commissions but at a bit lower of a cost, if that’s at all interesting to you, consider taking a look! 

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[yetanothernewcharacter]

organization

more for me than anyone else but yknow whatever ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[character name]: shit for that character

General: generic stuff about OCs or ttrpgs

DnD: does what it says on the tin. specifically dnd stuff like stats or dice or backgrounds

new baby: inspiration for any as-of-yet unnamed character who is still a brain child (ie i have a nebulous vision in mind based off of a post/inspired by something specific and i want to remember That Specific Thing)

fodder: meme stuff

fashion: clothing inspiration

personal: does what it says on the tin. stuff that’s me, Francis, speaking to myself, Francis.

doodlebug: art done by me!

doodlebug friends: art done by my friends!

will add more as they become relevant

Updated List of Characters as of 4/25/21:

Dimble, Viktor (and Daedalus), Brynn (and George), Maudlin (and Juniper), Quentin (dragonborn), Jasper (tiefling), Mhurr Shump (the Stump), Heehk (originally Aarokokra now Owlin), Aeyleth (the A-Men cleric, but considering renaming her), unnamed warlock baby UPDATE: have named him Willow

[followmeintotheotherworld]

General Information

Otherworld is basically a dimension full of supernatural creatures. It’s where magic comes from. It’s similar to the human world just full of otherworldly creatures.

There are different portals connected to the human world, and vise versa.

Time goes by faster versus the human world.

Otherworld is ruled over by the high sorcerer (which is like the president) and the council (which is sort of like congress). The council is made up of the top five supernatural races on the hierarchy after sorcerers — Demons, Vampires, Fae, werewolves, and angels. It used to be four excluding angels.

There are five sectors...

Big City — The Demon Sector. Vast population of every species. Home of Big Burger. High chance of getting mauled by a raccoon. Never take the night train if you value your life and/or sanity.

The Banks — Werewolf sector. High population of werewolves, sirens and gorgons. Almost more water than land. Has the best seafood.

The Countryside — The Fae sector. High population of fae, dragonborn and minotaurs. Lots of dragon farms. Dangerous creatures like unicorns hanging around.

 St. Quentin — The Vampire sector. High population of vampires, demons, djinn, shapeshifters and zombies. Lots of crime. Responsible for 79% of the worlds serial killers. Has some really affordable castles.

 Anna Barbara — The Angel sector. High population of angels, fae, shapeshifters and sirens. The place where stars are made and tax evaders come to rest. Lots of gated communities. Being filthy rich is the only way you’re surviving here tbh.

The races of Other world are...

 Sorcerers

Demons

Vampires

Fae

Werewolves

 Angels

 Dragonborn

 Sirens

Djinn

 Gorgons

 Minotaur

 Shapeshifters

 Zombies

[backtothesketchbook]

Right, I was gonna write about our first D&D session. It was really fun! Everyone got into character and did fun crazy things and we started an adventure! DM’ing is STRESSFUL though! Definitely got some rules wrong, and some things didn’t go as smoothly as hoped, but I’ll get better as I go along and had a bunch of fun regardless. Planning to keep a journal of our adventures here, so here’s the first installment:

Four travelers - Laslin, a dwarven girl recently parted with a group of nomadic druids, Dubhe, a tiefling woman playing a dissonnant harp, Ceriel, a young elven girl just set out from a monastery, and Hammer, a dragonborn on a quest to bring honor to his draconic god - headed eastward, and hitched a ride on the cart of shoddy salesman named Quentin Wittingham. Headed to the the city of Sapphera, they aimed to stop for the night in a nearby town. Just before they reached it though, they spotted a man on lying face-down on the road. Upon investigating they were ambushed by goblins. Combat ensued. Quentin hid. Both magical insults and copper wares were flung by Dubhe. Goblins were smashed by Hammer. Punches were thrown by Ceriel. Spells were cast by Laslin, before one of the goblins almost cut her in half in one strike (I rolled a nat 20 and then a 6 on the d6, dealing 14 damage to Laslin’s 15 max hp). They pulled through though. After they took out the goblins they investigated the body they’d stopped for. It turned out to be some kind of guard, wearing a symbol: a black rose with a sword behind it. They take the body and proceed to the town.  They discover a lot of tents outside of the perimeter of the town and are stopped by a soldier, wearing the same symbol with a black rose. She tells them they can’t travel beyond the town because of some incident. They inform her of the dead body they found, and she hurriedly brings them to a man named Aster in a tower just outside of town. Aster is an elf, seeming to be in charge of this organisation with the black rose symbol. He explains the situation to the group: They are the Order of the Black Rose, an organisation dedicated to peace and order. Recently the north part has been taken over by the undead, up-heaving the town and making the north part, and passage through inaccessible. Between this, the fact that the force of goblins to the south has been increasing in power, and the usual bandits, the order doesn’t have the manpower to maintain peace for long. He asks the group for help: he wants them to investigate the goblins down south and retrieve an item that was taken from the dead soldier they found. After promise of reward they agreed to help come morning. The soldier they met at the the entrance of the town, Malia, brought them to the local inn. Quentin bowed out. They met Myrrha, the inn’s owner, and Donheim, the town priest who was on the lower half of a bottle wine and didn’t appear pleased with the recent appearance of Aster and the Order of the Black Rose. In the morning Ceriel and Laslin investigated the town and came upon the wall that had been put up in the middle of the town square to protect the southern part of town from the undead. After a natural 20 on an athletics check Laslin got a peek to the north side of town. While a guard scolded them Laslin got her face grabbed by the claw of a zombie. After a short encounter (which I def mishandled) the soldier took out the zombie. Laslin and Ceriel returned to the inn just as Dubhe and Hammer were getting ready to leave to speak to Donheim again. And that’s where we had to leave it for the first session!