#and lord knows any good party needs its spellcaster

[epiclad]

Bregan D'aerthe Still on a mad BG3 kick… so here I am doing more FR stuff in my spare time! Redid an old Bregan D'aerthe piece from 2010. Tried for a "Randomly stumble upon a hidden area in the Undercity Ruins only to be greeted in the dark by an unusual collection of brigands led by an even more unusual drow" type scene, because lord knows I desperately wanted that to happen.

Modelled Jarlaxle's face after Richard O'Brien (because if you're as old as I am and you've seen him on The Crystal Maze… you'll know why I can't imagine anyone else as Jarlaxle).

Mood music

[renegadesfic]

The Radiant Sun - Chapter 2

So, this is happening! Chapter 2 is here! Again, as said in my last post, you can read this on AO3, where all appropriate tags and summary can be found. And from there...

The polished, nearly spotless gate that stood before the group raised at the chamberlain’s signal, startling the would-be adventurers. Aiyise let out a small yelp of surprise, covering her mouth in embarrassment as the rest of the group looked at her. “Sorry,” she said, turning away a little in a vain attempt to hide her nervousness.

“The king and queen are holding court at the moment, so you will have to wait until they are finished before you speak to them about your… assignment,” Lord Venmoir spoke, presumably through gritted teeth. “I suggest that you all be on your most professional behavior - it is not every day that a group comprised mostly of children meets the royal family.”

“You got it,” Razor said, giving a lazy faux-salute. “Best behavior. Absolutely. You got it.”

Verona shot him a look. He looked back, shrugging his shoulders at her. “What? I’m good at behaving! I do it all the time!”

“You are not known for your professionalism,” Verona hissed under her breath.

“I am extremely professional. The professional-est. I’m so fucking good at this.”

“You probably shouldn’t swear,” Avaciel cut in. “Most nobles don’t like that sort of thing.”

“Well, most nobles are stuffy assholes who need to remember that just because other people have less money doesn’t mean they’re not people, so-”

“Hold your tongue, boy,” the chamberlain snapped. “You will keep any snide comments you have about nobility to yourself while in these halls - unless, of course, you find yourself particularly interested on what life is like in the dungeons.”

“Sir, yes sir,” Razor saluted again. “I’ll definitely remember you said that two minutes from now.”

The chamberlain pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed - rather dramatically - before leading the way into the castle’s front hall.

The castle, for its part, was just as beautiful on the inside as it was on the outside, if not more so. High stone ceilings held aloft by intricately carved marble columns arched above the group as they made their way toward the throne room, enchanted braziers lighting the path before them and illuminating the art adorning the walls. On either side of the hall just inside the door were statues of, presumably, historical ancestors of the royal family, and while the left wall held tapestries of varying sizes and shapes, the right held portraits of people - one with the distinct features of House Satra, the others an assortment of various races, some clad in armor and with weapons on their backs, others holding staffs or other spellcasting focuses. They looked regal - one would suppose they must, if their portraits were to be hung in such a place - but more importantly, they looked, at least in the painting where they were all standing together, like friends.

“Who are those guys?” Razor asked, stopping to look at the group portrait.

“You don’t know?” Aiyise stopped next to him. “Well, I guess you did say you didn’t know about the war… how much do you not know?”

“You could say I lived under a rock for most of my life,” he shrugged. “Probably almost nothing, really. I’ll tell you some of my story later if you’re up for it.”

“We’ll presumably be busy for a while if we’re going to look for the princess. We’ll have time for stories then,” Avaciel nodded. “Those guys, by the way, are the adventuring party that sealed away the Draconic Eternals thousands of years ago.”

“The who?”

“The… Draconic Eternals? The biggest threat the world ever faced?” Aiyise blanched, seeming almost offended.

“Still don’t know who they are.”

“They were massive evil dragons of lots of different colors that tried to kill or enslave everybody in the world.” Avaciel simplified.

“Oh. Huh. Good for them then? The adventurers, I mean. Not the dragons. Glad the dragons didn’t do that. I’d hate to not be alive.”

“They were led by King Endryth Satra,” she spoke again, “the most revered ancestor in the royal family’s entire history.”

“Cool? I think?”

“Very cool. It was kind of a big deal, historically.”

Razor squinted at the portrait. “So which one of them is he?”

“The one in the middle. High elf.”

“There are two high elves in that picture.”

“That’s why I said the one in the middle,” Avaciel sighed. “Do you really not know any of this? Were you a hermit or something?”

“Well, I did technically live underground and isolated from the rest of society, so yeah, kind of.”

“The Below knows this stuff too,” Alixa cut in. “At least sort of. Everybody’s heard the story at some point, even the dark elves, even though most of us hate the people on the surface. Most people read it as kids.”

“I read it over and over when I was little,” Aiyise was still staring up at the painting. “It was one of my favorites. I’ve always wanted to be an adventurer - that’s why I left home in the first place.”

“Well, there probably won’t be any super evil dragons to seal away this time, so we won’t be quite that cool. But hey, maybe something else will come up! Maybe we’ll seal away some super evil… wyverns?” Razor puffed his chest out. “Yeah. Wyverns. Definitely.”

“Basically the same thing,” Avaciel said, but she was smiling a little.

The chamberlain turned from his position at the entrance to the throne room to face the group again. “The king will see you now. As I said… your best, most professional behavior.”

“I knew I was forgetting something,” Razor said. “Thanks for the reminder, man!” Without further hesitation, he skirted around the chamberlain and through the slightly open door to the throne room, walking in with the confidence of someone who was much more suited for this sort of place than he could possibly be.

The rest of the group followed.

The king raised his head at the group’s entrance, the chamberlain rushing to step in front of Razor. “Your Majesty, I have, at your request, brought a group of volunteers to partake in the search for Princess Kyria. These people are-”

“Thank you,” the king said, and waved a hand for him to step aside. “Hello, and thank you to all of you for coming here. I assume you’ve been briefed on the situation?”

“He told us the princess was missing. That’s about it.” Alixa pointed at the chamberlain. The king turned to face his aide, frowning a little.

“You didn’t give them more to go on than that?”

“I… assumed, Your Majesty, that you would prefer to give them the details once you had vetted them further,” he grimaced a little. “My apologies.”

“I’m sure they will do fine,” the king responded, looking over the group as he did so. “What are your names, all of you? And what brought you here?”

“I,” Alixa started immediately, “am Alixa Vyazen, Lady of Knives. I left the Below as a child and became an adventurer in an attempt to, y’know, not die down there.”

The chamberlain glared at her. The king made no such gesture.

“Avaciel… Splendor,” the oldest of their group spoke, a notable pause before she gave her last name. “It is a pleasure, Your Majesty.”

“My name is Aiyise Novias,” Aiyise said, looking even more nervous than before. “I come from Endburough, in the hopes of being a professional adventurer someday.”

“Shade,” the figure spoke, still managing to stand ominously behind everyone else, intentionally or otherwise. “Shade Castlekeep. I’m an adventurer.”

“Verona Summerstep. I’m here because…” she paused.

“Because we need money and have nothing better to do,” Razor cut in.

“Stop that,” she admonished, but she couldn’t deny it.

“And you are…?” The king turned his attention toward the boy.

“Razor,” he said, simply and confidently.

“Do you have a last name, Razor?”

“Nope. Just Razor. Never been more or less.”

The king studied him for a moment, with what seemed like a healthy dose of curiosity. “Well, hopefully I don’t need to write up any legal documents for you any time soon,” he said.

“Considering that I probably don’t exist in the eyes of the Hall of Records, I also hope not.” He grinned, throwing a peace sign.

“Should you return from this mission successful, we’ll see what we can do about getting that amended.”

“Nah, I’m good. I like not existing legally. It makes it harder to put out a search warrant.”

There was a small, but not quite unnoticeable, twitch at the corner of the king’s mouth. It seemed like he was trying not to say or do something, but it wasn’t quite clear what. He might have been stifling a laugh, though the chamberlain seemed significantly less amused.

“Alright then. I suppose, with that said, I’ll give all of you the details of what I know. My daughter, Kyria, was tracked two days ago after her disappearance in the night. The trail of what our adventurers were able to follow led to a long-abandoned asylum a few miles outside Fallenoak’s city limits. Our original Defenders, as well as the groups that have gone after them, have gone missing since their arrival at the last mentioned location, and we have heard nothing from them in multiple days.”

“Are they dead?” Alixa asked, rather bluntly.

The king’s expression hardened. “I’m not certain whether any of them remain alive, but there is a high chance that whatever took Kyria may have killed those sent after her. You will need to be extremely vigilant.”

“Wait, wait, hang on,” Razor interrupted. “You said the official adventurers you employ didn’t come back, and other professional adventurers didn’t come back. So why do you think we will be able to find her and come back?”

The king looked him up and down, seeming to think about something for a few moments. “I’m not sure,” he finally said, “but I do think it nonetheless.”

“Fuck yes. I love when people think I can do things.” The boy looked more than a little pleased with himself.

“We trust,” Lord Venmoir hissed, “that you will do your due diligence and attempt this task to the best of your ability.”

“Oh, yeah, definitely. I’m not gonna not try. I just wanted to make sure we were all on the same page that there’s a good chance we go in there and die.”

“There is… a chance of that, yes,” the king said. “But I do believe you will be able to accomplish this.”

“We appreciate your vote of confidence, Your Majesty,” Avaciel bowed slightly. “We will do our best.”

“I am certain you will. For the rest of what I can tell you, there’s little, but I offer this information. The Spirit Garden Sanitorium was abandoned almost 80 years ago, after seemingly ceasing activity randomly. No bodies were found upon prior investigation, and nothing has ever been seen around the site, though it is several miles from the city and much of the rest of civilization. Kyria’s trail was followed there from her bedroom window, and as I said, our adventurers were last heard from just outside the grounds of the Sanitorium. If you’d like to investigate her chambers before you leave, you are welcome to do so - Lord Venmoir will be happy to escort you there. Other than that, you are free to leave whenever you’re ready, so long as you let me know when you are going.” The king took a deep breath. “I wish you luck. And I hope desperately that you can find her.”

“We will do everything we can,” Aiyise affirmed, “and we’ll come back as soon as we’re done.”

“I have faith in you. Perhaps more than could be expected.”

Razor looked back at the group. “So, do we wanna check out her room, or…?”

“I think it might be wise,” Avaciel said. “We can see if there’s anything in there that might give us a clue as to why she left, or why that’s where she went. Maybe something that can at least give us some insight on what made her do all this.”

“So what, we’re reading her diary or something?” Alixa asked. “That’s kind of nosy.”

“Whatever is necessary,” Avaciel looked at her, a little disapproving but perhaps more amused.

“Oh, I wasn’t saying I didn’t want to. I love being nosy. I was just acknowledging that it would be.”

“If she’s actually been kidnapped or something, she’s probably not going to care about us snooping through her teenage woes. We need to make sure we check everything,” Verona added before turning to the chamberlain. “Can you show us where her room is?”

“Of course,” he grimaced again, gesturing for the party to follow him. As he moved to leave through the door on the opposite side of the room, he turned back to look at the king. “Sire… are you certain these six are the ones for the job?”

“Absolutely,” the king said. “In fact, I’ve been sure of very little in my life more than I’m sure of this.”

[nerdythebard]

#13: Doctor Strange [Marvel]

By the Eternal Vishanti, I welcome you back!

Today we're making the Sorcerer Supreme of the Marvel Universe-616, Doctor Strange. This spell-slinging master of the mystic arts has been my favourite superhero for quite some time now, and I'm always excited whenever we get something related to him. Now, just a quick note – this build is going to be based on the comic book version of Strange, not the MCU one. We're having real spells and incantations, not some thinly-veiled Clarke's Third Law. #LetMagicBeMagic.

Next Time: The Gods call for us again. The Dragon King blesses us with his presence.

Now then, let's examine what we need to become the mightiest mystic of the Multiverse:

Arcane Artillery: Doctor Strange holds enough mystic knowledge to give Mind Flayers an indigestion. What he doesn't know, he can look up in his Sanctum Sanctorum's library. We need to be prepared to have a spell for almost any situation.

Mystic Fists of Fury: Before opening his Third Eye fully, Strange spent some time in Kamar-Taj under the tutelage of the Ancient One, practising his combat skills in case he was ever in a situation where magic would fail him.

The Old Favourites: Whatever incarnation of the character we encounter, Doctor Strange is almost always certain to have the following items on him: the Eye of Agamotto, the Cloak of Levitation, and occasionally the Book of the Vishanti. After the Last Days of Magic event, Strange found a likeness for weapons like shortswords, staffs, and axes.

---

Stephen Strange was an ordinary human, but due to the years of exposure to otherworldly mystic forces, his biology changed to not accept regular human food anymore. This sounds like a good excuse to make him Variant Human. We get a +1 to two abilities of our choice (Intelligence and Constitution), we know how to speak Common and one other language of our choice, we get to pick one skill to be proficient in (Investigation), and we get to pick a feat. The Medic feat gives us a +1 to Wisdom, proficiency with the Medicine skill, and the ability to tend to our party members' wounds on short rests (Medicine check [DC 15], if successful - the player can use the maximum value of their Hit Dice to regain Hit Points).

Although he started as a simple physician, the turning point of Strange's life was his training in Kamar-Taj. He gained skills and knowledge, vast enough to call himself a Sage. From this background, we gain proficiency in Arcana and History, we learn two more languages, and we gain the Researcher feature; when we're to recall a piece of lore, and we don't know it, we usually can figure out where to find the information (be it a library, a temple, or somebody's private collection).

ABILITY SCORES

Intelligence is our primary stat, serving as our casting ability and our pride. Next is Constitution, all casters need to keep it high. We follow that up with Wisdom, lessons of the Ancient One granted us both humility and broadened our horizons.

Dexterity is a little low, but we'll take care of that later. Charisma is next, even after his training was complete Stephen can be a bit of a jerk and refusing to hear anyone but himself. Finally, we'll dump Strength.

CLASS

Assigning a D&D class to Doctor Strange was a very (and I mean very) difficult task. Starting off, I had to disregard his Sorcerer Supreme title, because in D&D sorcerers are born with the ability to wield magic. Strange had to study and practice to get his powers, so that makes him a Wizard. Kamar-Taj is also dedicated to studying the teachings of the Vishanti, a trinity of god-like beings who give the Sorcerer Supreme their powers, so that would make Strange a Cleric. Finally, he also draws powers from deals he made with otherworldly entities (such as Cyttorak, the Faltine, Munnopor, Watoomb, sometimes even Dormammu himself), which screams 'Warlock', except there's no way to incorporate multiple patrons without homebrewing. It wasn't easy, but I am satisfied with what I've created. Hopefully, you'll be, too.

Level 1 - Monk: We start just as Strange started, by honing our body first. Monks get the d8 Hit Dice, [8 + Constitution modifier] initial Hit Points, proficiencies with simple weapons and shortswords, and proficiency in one set of artisan's tools or a musical instrument (I'd go with alchemist's supplies). Our saving throws are Strength and Dexterity, and we get to pick two class skills (Insight and Religion).

Monks start with Unarmoured Defence. When we're not wearing armour, or holding a shield, our AC equals [10 + our Dexterity modifier + our Wisdom modifier]. We also get Martial Arts, which gives our unarmed strikes some more power. We can now use Dexterity instead of Strength for our unarmed strikes attack and damage rolls, we replace our Strength modifier with a d4 for damage of our unarmed strikes, and if we use the unarmed strike (or a monk weapon) on our turn as an Attack, we can use a bonus action to make an extra unarmed strike.

Level 2 - Monk: We get more mobile with Unarmoured Movement. Our ground speed increases by 10 feet if we're not wearing armour or holding a shield.

We also get access to the Monk's signature feature, the Ki energy. We start with 2 Ki Points, which we can spend on the following abilities:

Flurry of Blows: Spending 1 Ki Point after making an attack, lets us make two unarmed strikes as a bonus action;

Patient Defence: Spending 1 Ki Point lets us take a Dodge action as a bonus action on our turn;

Step of the Wind: Spending 1 Ki Point doubles our jump distance for the turn, and we can take the Dash or Disengage actions as a bonus action.

Level 3 - Wizard: We finally begin our study of spells and arcane arts.

Unfortunately, multiclassing into Wizard does not give us any additional benefits. We do, however, get Arcane Recovery. Once per day, during a short rest, we can choose a number of expended spell slots and refill them. The number must be equal to half of our Wizard level (rounded up), and the recovered spell slots cannot be 6th-level or higher.

Wizards also start with Spellcasting at their 1st level, and they know both cantrips and ritual spells. Our spellcasting ability is Intelligence, but unlike many other casting classes we do not get a full access to our spell list. Instead, we start with six spells in our spellbook and get two more each time we level up. Then, we can only prepare and use [Our Intelligence modifier + our Wizard level] spells at once. Describing all of those spells we pick would make this post over a mile long, and I've made that mistake with Sypha. To not make this a chore for you guys, I decided that from now on whenever I make a Wizard (or, a build where Wizard is a majority), I will simply list the spells we pick without descriptions. Let's be honest, if not here, you'll certainly find those in a different build. Alright, let's begin! First, we get to pick three cantrips:

Fire Bolt

Mage Hand

Minor Illusion

When it comes to our starting spells, let's take these six. Remember, we can only prepare a certain number, and we start with only two 1st-level spell slots.

Alarm

Detect Magic

Fog Cloud (to represent the Mists of Munnopor from the comics)

Shield (of the Seraphim)

Magic Missile (as a stand-in for the Daggers of Daveroth)

Sleep

Level 4 - Wizard: We get to pick our subclass, our Arcane Tradition. For Strange, who can be any combination of Wizard, Cleric, and Warlock, the best choice is to pick Theurgy from 2017 Unearthed Arcana. Theurgists are religious magic-users, who focus more on the arcane research rather than prayer and worship.

With Divine Inspiration, we get to select a Cleric Domain and a deity we wish to follow. Ask your DM if it's possible for you to worship three gods as a collective, a magical triumvirate. For your own Vishanti I suggest Mystra, Mother of All Magic, Azuth, the Lord of Spells, and Savras, the All-Seeing. For a Wizard, I'd say there's no better choice than Knowledge Domain.

We also get Arcane Initiate, which lets us replace spells we learn as we level up with the cleric spells of our chosen domain. What's cool about that feature is, other wizards cannot copy those spells from our spellbook. If we get all of our chosen domain's spells, we can keep replacing spells we learn with spells from the Cleric spell list.

Finally, we gain the Cleric's unique skill - Channel Divinity - except in our case it becomes Channel Arcana. We start with two effects: Divine Arcana and the effect granted by the chosen domain. Unlike Clerics, we can use the Channel Arcana once per short or long rest.

Divine Arcana lets us use a bonus action to control the flow of magic in the area. The next spell we cast gets a +2 to its attack roll or saving throw DC.

Knowledge of the Ages grants us quick insight into a skill we're not familiar with. For the next 10 minutes, we're proficient with one tool set of our choice or proficient in one skill we choose.

We gain one more 1st-level spell slot, and for this level's two spells let's get Feather Fall, and Command from the domain list.

Level 5 - Wizard: At this level we unlock 2nd-level spell slots, and we can access 2nd-level spells. Let's get Hold Person (for Strange's famous Crimson Bands of Cyttorak) and Icingdeath's Frost from 2021 Unearthed Arcana: Draconic Options (for the Icy Tendrils of Ikthalon).

Level 6 - Wizard: Time for our first Ability Score Improvement! As is the rule of thumb with all Wizards, boosting our Intelligence is a priority. That's what we shall put the 2 points into.

For this level's spells, we get another cantrip (Light), and let's take Locate Object and Mirror Image (to represent the Images of Ikonn).

Level 7 - Wizard: We unlock 3rd-level spell slots. Let's get Dispel Magic, and we can get Fly to finally get a representation for our Cloak of Levitation.

Level 8 - Wizard: We get our first subclass upgrade. Arcane Acolyte grants us the 1st-level benefits of our chosen domain. For Knowledge domain, it's Blessings of Knowledge; we learn two languages of our choice and get proficiency in two skills... which we pretty much are proficient in already. To not waste a feature, ask your DM if you can double your proficiency bonus for those two skills instead. If you get a 'yes', pick Arcana and Insight.

For this level's spells, let's get Counterspell and Magic Circle.

Level 9 - Wizard: From here, we get access to 4th-level spell slots. Banishment and Dimension Door seems like exactly what we need to keep enemies at bay and have fun with portals.

Level 10 - Wizard: Halfway through the build, and we get an ASI. Let's cap our Intelligence at 20, with those two points.

For this level's spells, let's grab Arcane Eye and turn back a little and get Speak with Dead from our domain list, as it is one of few spells not available to Wizards.

Level 11 - Wizard: We get access to 5th-level spells. With Contact Other Plane and Legend Lore, we become an even bigger magical know-it-all to aid our party.

Level 12 - Wizard: For our subclass upgrade, we get Arcane Priest, which grants us the Knowledge Domain's 6th-level benefit - Channel Divinity: Read Thoughts. One creature within 60 feet of us must make a Wisdom saving throw, or grant us access to its surface thoughts (emotions and active thoughts, no deep secrets or hidden motives) for 1 minute. During that time, we can also use our action to cast the Suggestion spell on the target; they fail their saving throw automatically.

We also get our final cantrip for this build (Sword Burst), and we get two more 5th-level spells: Planar Binding and Wall of Force.

Level 13 - Wizard: We unlock 6th-level spells. With Globe of Invulnerability and True Seeing, we upgrade our Shield of the Seraphim and give our Eye of Agamotto even more mystic abilities (as it should have had!)

Level 14 - Wizard: Time for another ASI! Let's put one point into Constitution for better HP chance, and one into Dexterity.

Arcane Gate finally gives us a proper yellow sparkly portal thingy, and let's get Chain Lightning for some much needed offensive capabilities.

Level 15 - Wizard: We're getting into 7th-level spells at this level. Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion allows us to recreate our very own Sanctum Sanctorum, and with Project Image we can get Strange's Astral Projection.

Level 16 - Wizard: At this level, we get our final subclass upgrade (and we cross the 100 HP mark, yay!). Arcane High Priest grants us the Knowledge Domain's 17th-level benefits. Visions of the Past lets us spend at least 1 minute of meditation to receive information about a specific object we're holding, or our immediate surroundings:

Object Reading - we learn of the object's previous owner. We know how the person came into contact with the object, how they lost it, and a significant even in their life tied to the object.

Area Reading - we see the events that transpired in the specific location (up to 50-foot cube), going back a number of days equal to our Wisdom modifier.

For this level's spells, let's get Plane Shift and Teleport to double-down on Strange's interdimensional travels.

Level 17 - Wizard: Time for 8th-level spells.

Illusory Dragon is a nice nod to the great "Doctor Strange and the Sorcerers Supreme" series (go check it out, it's awesome!), and Maze is another good banishment-type spell to have. Just don't use it on minotaurs.

Level 18 - Wizard: For our final ASI, let's put two points into Dexterity, leaving us unfortunately with an odd number (hopefully, you'll manage to find some ability-increasing item or benefit in your adventure).

For this level's spells, let's grab Power Word: Stun and Demiplane is a good combo to immobilize a foe and send it to the Shadow Realm Mirror Dimension.

Level 19 - Wizard: We unlock the pinnacle of D&D arcane, the 9th-level spells... that is, unless your DM introduces High Magic, which is... whew, a league of its own.

Time Stop and Foresight give us those Time Stone abilities (for all you MCU degenerates. Yes, I know what I said, but Strange was given the Time Stone in his new run, so I did not lie!)

Level 20 - Wizard: Our capstone is Wizard 18, which gives us the Spell Mastery feature. We get to choose one 1st-level spell and one 2nd-level spell from our spellbook and make them our signature moves; we can now cast them at will, without expending a spell slot. Shield and Hold Person seems like a good choice here.

For our final spells of this build, we cannot go without Astral Projection, and let's get Imprisonment a chance.

---

And there we go! Doctor Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts. Let's see what we've created:

First of all, we're the epitome of Wizard, we're a great utility caster and a pretty good support, with Internet-like capability of finding information. We're don't have a lot of damage-dealing abilities, like Sypha did, but remember - Wizards also get spell by finding them in the world and copying them in their spellbook. This here is only what we get automatically. Go and roam the world in search for that Fireball!

We have AC of 14, but with Shield (and later making it pretty much permanent) it can get up to 19, and we have 130 Hit Points on average. Our speed is also a little better, with 40 feet of movement (plus flying thanks to the Fly spell).

Unfortunately, our Charisma and Wisdom are not great, so those saving throws might be difficult. Our Strength is also not the greatest, so we're pretty much forced to fight with magic.

---

And that is it! Next time, we return to SMITE for a few builds, as I absorbs information about Fire Emblem: Three Heroes. Also, the game devs just released a teaser for Morgana le Fay, and my first reaction was 'Hexblade Warlock'. Do you agree?

Anyway, hope you enjoyed it and your day is going great. I'll see you next time!

- Nerdy out!

[monstersdownthepath]

Monster Spotlight: Vault Builder Xiomorn

CR 20/MR 8

Lawful Neutral Medium Outsider

Planar Adventures, pg. 252~253

Today, we have a big one. The Xiomorn here are divided into two castes, the Mythic-tier Vault Builders, which we will be reviewing, and the lesser guardians, the Vault Keepers, which we won’t be, as the Keepers are merely tragically neutered versions of the Builders. In ages long ago there was no division between the castes, just the perfect Xiomorn numbering exactly 65,536, the number of facets in the “perfect” gem found by the benevolent and kind Elemental Lady of Earth, Sairazul. Originally Good-aligned, the Xiomorn were corrupted by the significantly more malevolent Elemental Lord of Earth, Ayrzul, who showed them (possibly fabricated) visions of their future destruction at the hands of the Yithians, driving the poor race mad with desperation to escape their foretold doom. Without their goddess to guide them--Sairazul imprisoned by her vile counterpart--they’ve turned countless worlds and races into their petri dishes in their hopes of changing their future.

In exchange for knowledge, they sacrificed the Mythic power of exactly half of their number, assuring that there will always be exactly 32,768 Keepers and Builders, this number utterly impossible to increase through any means the Xiomorn have found... but painfully simple to shrink. Vault Keepers can be created through the might of the Vault Seed, the artifacts responsible for the alien Vaults of Orv deep below Golarion’s surface, but if a Vault Builder is killed through violence, they are forever destroyed. This makes them extremely cautious creatures, paranoid of their future and of any creature that can potentially destroy them and end their lineage, but in their attempts to avert their destruction, they’ve become unholy forces in and of themselves. Ayrzul was right to covet their power, but even smarter in fearing it, for if they ever find out the truth of their future, there is no force that could stop a march of 30,000 of these creatures.

Undoubtedly, one of the most powerful features a Xiomorn has at its disposal is their Item Shaper ability. They are treated as though they possessed all item creation feats, and require a mere hour of work per 1,000gp in the item’s cost rather than a full day... Unless the item in question is made of stone or crystal, in which case the item requires 30 minutes to craft and costs the Xiomorn only half as much GP to make. This ability even allows them to make Constructs at this accelerated pace, assuring they can make and ARM entire armies in just a few short days and assures that, if they know you’re coming, you’re going to have to contend with every terrible device capable of countering you they can put together. Not even just the stuff in the books, either; as travelers across the Great Beyond, they may have access to items and technology unseen on Golarion, giving the DM the perfect excuse to outfit them with all sorts of horrible devices with which to malice the party!

As creatures from the Plane of Earth their wealth is effectively limitless already, but they go a step further by not even needing to really mine their home plane; they can use Create Demiplane to manifest bubbles from which they can draw what they need. What, it doesn’t work like that? Maybe not for you, but for the infinite power of these perfect creatures, it’s child’s play. Their Xiomorn Spellcasting allows them to select 40 levels worth of spells from the Wizard spell list to cast each day (though each spell may only be cast once), not only eliminating what petty inconveniences stood between them and crafting more advanced items, but allows them to manipulate the confines of their created demiplanes to generate endless wealth for themselves. How, you may ask? I could go into the exact method, but that can get boring when we have so much more to talk about! Plus, as a DM using one of these creatures, you can merely handwave it away. They can use Mythic magic, for god’s sake! Anything is possible! And through Xiomorn Magic, they also get Create Demiplane, Mythic Move Earth, and the Mythic spell Terraform for free on top of whatever other spells they get and ALSO on top of their normal spell-likes, which includes PERMANENCY 1/day to assure their demiplanes stick around until their experiments are finished.

It’s through their incredible magical potential that they know how best to utilize the Secret of the Vault Seeds as well. Though the method of producing them was gifted to them by Ayrzul in an attempt to corrupt them to unknown ends, the Xiomorn quickly perfected them, able to nurse the Vault Seeds to create miniature self-contained worlds. Able to Gate across the cosmos as needed (or select Interplanetary Teleport through their magic), Xiomorn capture and summon creatures from everywhere to place inside their Vaults for reasons only they’re fully canny to. Not only do their Vaults form beautiful, alien environments below the world, but while in a Vault they created, the Vault Builders have insurmountable Regeneration, and their existence as an Elemental assures that the most reliable methods of shutting them out nonlethally (paralysis, stunning, and sleep) are impossible. Protected by DR 10 that’s only bypassed by the tall order of a weapon being adamantine, bludgeoning, and Epic, and shielded by SR 31, combating one of these Xiomorn on their home turf is next to impossible without some wacky Mythic shenanigans of your own!

Which it can turn against you. Swiftly.

Being struck by any one of a Xiomorn’s four claws not only deals 2d4+10 damage, but causes flesh and bone to transmute into green crystal. This Crystalization manifests as 2 Dexterity drain, which is doubled to 4 if the claw critically struck. The drain is dangerous enough, but suffering from even 1 point of Crystalization “gifts” the victim with the Earth creature subtype, making the victim vulnerable to the Xiomorn’s 3/day Command Stone, which acts as Dominate Creature to any creature made primarily of crystal or stone... or anything with the Earth subtype. Command Stone can even work on Constructs normally immune to being Dominated, though it will “only” last 27 rounds in that case. I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again: oftentimes, the most dangerous thing to the party are its own members, and a Xiomorn can hijack up to three of them a day to its own ends.

The final unique trick Xiomorn possess is their Crystal Burst, able to manifest an explosion of razor-sharp but beautiful crystals anywhere within 120ft of them once every 1d4 rounds, the burst dealing 20d6 slashing and piercing damage to everything within 30ft of the epicenter. With Wall of Stone and Spike Stone available to them 3/day, Xiomorn can easily cut allies away from one another or shrink the battlefield to the point their Crystal Burst can slam everyone at the same time, or hedge out anyone capable of actually harming them so they can close in on something softer, squishier... and seize control of them. Or just use Flesh to Stone on them and contort their bodily horribly with Stone Shape.

All’s fair when survival is on the line, and Xiomorn will fight harder than almost anything to remove any and all threats to themselves. Such is what they’ve been tragically reduced to.

You can read more about them here.

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #28: Alexander

Welcome back to Fate and Phantasms! Today we’re building everyone’s second favorite (or most, idk how that drama working out) person named Alexander, the Great! Iskandar Lily is a bad-ass kid with a bad-ass horse, so this build will be part Cavalier, part Oath of Glory Paladin. 

As always, a spreadsheet for the build can be found here, and there’s a level-by-level breakdown under the cut!

Background and Race:

Alex the Great technically has some god blood in him, but you can’t really access it while you’re a kid, so Human it is. That being said, you are pretty great at being a human, so why not be a variant too? This means you get +1 in Charisma, because he’s a precocious little tyke, and Dexterity, because he doesn’t sit still. You also get one skill proficiency, and you won your horse by noticing how much it doesn’t like its own shadow, so you’ve got a lot of Perception. Finally, pick up Mobile as your bonus feat. With this, your speed is increased by 10′, you can ignore difficult terrain while dashing, and if you make an attack against someone they can’t hit your with an opportunity attack. Those first two won’t matter much by level 5 (spoilers!) but that last bit might still be useful, I don’t know exactly how this and mounted combatant works when combined (more spoilers).

You’re most famous as a conqueror, but you haven’t even started soldiering yet, so you’re still a Noble. This gives you proficiency in History, because you’re a part of it, and Persuasion, because you’re just goddamn adorable.

Stats

First, put your highest score into Charisma. You literally have two skills based on how charismatic you are, so you’re naturally pretty good at it. Second is Dexterity; you’re still a kid, so you can run and tumble around like no one’s business. After that is Strength- you have been trained in swordplay by this point, but you’re not swole just yet. Fourth is Constitution; you’re a growing boy, your bones probably heal pretty easily. Finally, put your last stats in Wisdom and Intelligence. You’re actually pretty sharp, but you are still a child. And also we don’t really need those stats.

Class Levels

1. Paladin 1: Your godly bloodline might not be enough to qualify you for Aasimar status, but you can still pull some strings to become a paladin. First level paladins get Divine Sense, letting you see extraplanar entities trying to sneak up on you, and Lay on Hands, giving you a little sack lunch from momma Olympias that you can share with your party if you want.

2. Paladin 2: Second level paladins get a Fighting Style (yours is Dueling btw, makes your shortsword super deadly), Spellcasting (using charisma as your casting ability), and a Divine Smite (burn spell slots for extra damage). Surprisingly, there’s zero smite options that involve lightning damage, but maybe you could talk to your DM about changing that. When you start slinging spells, you have first level slots, so I’d suggest looking at spells like Compelled Duel and Heroism so you can be like your heroes in the Illiad as well as Thunderous Smite, since it’s the closest you have to a lightning sword with rules as written.

3. Paladin 3: Third level paladins have Divine Health, making them immune to disease. They also take up a sacred oath to which they dedicate their lives. You’re following in the footsteps of great heroes, making you a shoe-in for the brand new Oath of Glory from Theros. Glory Paladins gain oath spells that are always prepared, starting with Guiding Bolt and Heroism at this level. You also get two Channel Divinity options that can be used once per short rest. Peerless Athlete can be used as a bonus action, and for 10 minutes you have advantage on athletics and acrobatics checks, a doubled carrying capacity, and an extra 10′ of jump distance on both high and long jumps. Inspiring Smite is also a bonus action, and after divinely smiting someone you can use it to give 2d8 + your paladin level temporary HP split up amongst any number of creatures within 30′ of you; because you’re just so great that people want to keep fighting next to you.

4. Paladin 4: At fourth level, you get your first ASI. Grab the Mounted Combatant feat, giving you advantage on attacks against unmounted creatures smaller than your horse, the ability to redirect attacks at your mount at you, and evasion for your mount. As you’ve probably figured out, those abilities don’t matter at this level because you still don’t have a mount. Don’t worry though, you just have to hang in there for a level. It’s this kind of foresight that made you Lord of Asia.

5. Paladin 5: At fifth level, you gain an extra attack per action, as well as 2nd level spells. This includes the ever important Find Steed spell that lets you summon a celestial warhorse to act as your Bucephalus. As a glory paladin, you also gain new oath spells. Magic Weapon does exactly what it sounds like, making your weapon magical with a +1 bonus to attack and damage, because if you can’t make it electric you can at least make it really cool. Enhance Ability gives one creature (or two, if you target yourself while riding) advantage on a saving throw of your choice, as well as 2d6 temporary hit points if you chose Constitution, 2x carrying capacity if you chose strength, and zero falling damage from heights of 20′ or less if you chose dexterity. Honestly, the fact that you don’t have imperial privilege strikes me as pretty weird, given your freaking huge empire. Just don’t tell Nero that you got this.

6. Fighter 1: Now you may have a horse, but that doesn’t mean you’re good at riding it. To fix that, we’ve gotta take a detour. First level fighters get another Fighting Style, so grab Defense for extra AC. You also get a Second Wind, letting you regain health as a bonus action.

7. Fighter 2: Second level fighters get an Action Surge, letting you tack an extra action onto your turn once per short rest. Show that action economy who’s boss with four attacks in a single round.

8. Fighter 3: At third level, fighters get their subclass. As a cavalier you’re Born to the Saddle, giving you advantage against being thrown off your mount. Falling off your mount for less than 10′ also doesn’t cause falling damage, and mounting or dismounting Bucephalus only takes 5′ of movement. You can also apply an Unwavering Mark to enemies you hit. This mark lasts until the end of your next turn, and forces the creature to have disadvantage on any attack made against someone who isn’t you while they’re within 5′ of you. If they do attack someone else, you can make an extra attack on them as a bonus action the next turn. The attack is made with advantage, and you add half your fighter level to the damage. You can mark creatures an unlimited number of times, but can only make the attack a number of times equal to your strength modifier per long rest.

9. Fighter 4: Use your ASI to round out your Dexterity and Strength scores.

10: Fighter 5: You would gain an extra attack this level, but you already got one as a paladin.

11. Fighter 6: User your next ASI for more Dexterity, meaning more damage and AC.

12. Fighter 7: Seventh level cavaliers learn a Warding Maneuver, letting you react to anything within 5′ of you getting attacked. You can add 1d8 to their AC if you’re wielding a weapon or shield, and if the attack still hits, they have resistance to the damage. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your constitution modifier per long rest. You’re just a swell guy, helping your friends out like that.

13. Paladin 6: Back in paladin levels, you gain an Aura of Protection, adding your charisma modifier to any saving throw made by an ally within 10 feet of you. You’re just so great that even a fireball doesn’t seem like that big a deal when you’re around.

14. Paladin 7: As a glory paladin, you gain an Aura of Alacrity, adding 10 feet of movement to your speed, as well as the speed of any creature that starts their turn within 5′ of you (hint: this includes your horse). Between this and mobile, you almost don’t even need your horse (jk, you need your horse a lot. Make sure he knows what an important part of your life he is).

15. Paladin 8: Use your next ASI to max out your Dexterity for more damage, AC, and sick horseback riding tricks.

16. Paladin 9: Ninth level paladins get third level spells, including your oath spells Haste and Protection from Energy. Both of which will make Bucephalus even cooler than he already is, a mighty feat in itself. Some other spells to check out around this level are Elemental Weapon, the only way to get lightning damage on your sword with rules as written, and Dispel Magic, the Gordian Knot cutting of spells.

17. Paladin 10: As a tenth level paladin, you’re so calm and collected that you and friendly creatures within 10′ of you can’t be frightened.

18. Paladin 11: You now have Improved Divine Smite, adding 1d8 of Radiant damage to all weapon attacks you make regardless of spell slots burned.

19. Paladin 12: You toughen up a bit as you age, so use your last ASI for more Constitution.

20. Paladin 13: Your capstone level brings you fourth level spells, including your oath spells Compulsion and Freedom of Movement. For normal spells, you can use Death Ward to cheat two deaths for the price of one, if you cast it on yourself and Bucephalus. You can also find a greater steed at this level if you really want, but that kind of defeats the whole point of this build.

Pros: You are very mobile, both on and off your horse, and you can spread that goodness around to the rest of the party as well. You’re also great at being on a horse, with plenty of skills to protect your mount and make yourself (and it) greater.

Cons: Being on your horse isn’t necessary, but it is a big part of your build, and there are some situations you just can’t bring a horse with you. You also don’t have much in the way of ranged attacks, so flying or faster enemies can be a hassle. Finally, unlike rangers, paladin’s mounts don’t get better with leveling, so at higher levels you may find yourself pumping more healing and protection into Bucephalus than other members of your party. I totally agree with that decision mind you, but the other party members might get jealous.

[lichlairs]

Checkout our new post over at https://lichlair.com/daily-monster-56-demogorgon

Daily Monster #56: Demogorgon

Today we’re talking about one of the most iconic monsters in Dungeons and Dragons. Not only that, but with the recent interest in this particular creature after Stranger things, I think it’s safe to say that at least a few newbies have found the hobby through it. Without further ado, let us discuss…

The Demogorgon

The basics

Alright, here we go, this one might just take a little longer than usual so let’s just get right into it.

Like our Tiamat article from a couple of months back, Demogorgon is definitely not the kind of monster you want to just throw at your party willy-nilly. Even just looking at the numbers for the stat block triggers my fight or flight instinct. We’re looking a solid +2 DEX for this monster’s lowest stat, granted, considering Demogorgon is a size Huge I would still think this is pretty great. Demogorgon’s WIS and INT are both more than acceptable at +3 and +5 respectively, but chances are that if you end up fighting this thing, you’ll want to watch out for its +7 CHA, +8, and +9 STR. That’s right, this thing has a 29 in strength.

Not only is this thing incredibly tough with an AC of 22 and a giant hit point pool of 28d12+224, but it also has some crazy saves and resistances! I’m talking about +10 DEX, +11 WIS, +15 CHA, and +16 CON to saving throws. Actual bananas… but even if you do manage to hit this thing, you still have to worry about overcoming Demogorgon’s resistance to Cold, Fire, and Lightning as well as its immunity to Poison and non-magical weapon attacks. And of you’re hopping to put this bad boy under some negative condition like charmed or frightened, you might want to think again because this chaotic demon has a handful of condition immunities as well. At this point sneaking your wait out might sound like the best choice but even that is unlikely considering Demogorgon’s Perception of +19, Truesight of up to 120ft range, and passive perception of 29.

Although communicating with this demon should be an easy task thanks to its telepathy of up to 120ft rage and its ability to speak all (and I do mean all) languages, I don’t recommend lying to the Prince of Demons; +11 to Insight might not sound like much after some of the other numbers we’ve discussed, but it’s still plenty.

Demogorgon gets an Innate Spellcasting ability that uses his CHA and has a crazy save DC 23. Using this feature he gains access to the following spells:

At will: detect magic, major image. 3/day each: dispel magic, fear, telekinesis. 1/day each: feeblemind, project image.

If you thought we were done listing all the ways in which today’s monster is a tough one to chew then you’re wrong; not only does he have a Magic Resistance that gives him advantage on saves, but thanks to its Two Heads, he also just gains advantage to save from pretty much every other condition that wasn’t in his list of resistances already.

Now that we’re done listing its features and attributes, it’s finally time to discuss some of the weapons at Demogorgon’s disposal. As a creature of legendary proportions Demogorgon has a multiattack and both Legendary resistances (3/day) and Legendary actions to compliment its array of attacks.

While under normal circumstances a Tentacle attack might not sound all that scary, getting hit by Demogorgon’s tentacles means having to make a save against hit point reductions. This basically means that it won’t matter how many clerics you have in your party because no healing can recover damage taken from these attacks.

Next we have Demogorgon’s infamous Gaze attack; any creature can choose to succeed on the save imposed at the cost of not being able to look at our demon until its next turn. Those who choose to hold his gaze must make a DC 23 CON save or suffer one of the following three effects:

Beguiling Gaze: on a failed save the target is stunned until the start of Demogorgon’s next turn or until the demon breaks eye contact.

Hypnotic Gaze: on a failed save the target is charmed until Demogorgon’s next turn, making it so that our demon can dictate their very action and move. Note that this cannot be use in conjunction with the Maddening Gaze legendary action.

Insanity Gaze: on a failed save the target suffers the effects of the Confusion spell, minus getting to make a saving throw, of course.

Today’s monster can take two legendary actions each round of combat. The first of our two options is a pretty simple Tail attack that does some pretty good damage but nothing else to boot. The second one, however, allows us to use Demogorgon’s Gaze an extra time per round as long as we only choose between Beguiling and Insanity.

All in all, this huge fiend definitely packs a punch. It’ no wonder he’s nicknamed the Prince of Demons. For those of you following along, today’s monster is considered a CR 26 creature of chaotic evil alignment.

The lore

Historically speaking, although there is some debate about it, the word “Demogorgon” is mostly accepted to have been the product of miscopying ancient documents. While this initial misunderstanding of Greek equaled our Demon Lord to a primal god, Christian writers slowly turned the word to represent a demon in hell.

In terms of our favorite pastime, Demogorgon first appeared in the world of Dungeons and Dragons back in 1976 when it was introduced along with Orcus as part of the Eldritch Wizardry supplement. This is one of those monsters that have been a staple of the game for as long as there has been a game.

Today’s monster goes by many nicknames: Prince of Demons, Sibilant Beast, Master of the Spiraling Depths. Demogorgon reigns over the Gawping Maw deep within the Abyss (88th layer to be specific) where it has built itself a massive castle, Abysm, with two spiraling towers shaped like snakes, one for each head.

Speaking of heads, one of the most important features about the Demogorgon’s appearance is its two very large simian like heads, each of which has a name and a distinct personality. The first head, Aameul, is the more charismatic and deceptive of them, always making plans and trying to find ways to separate itself from its tin head, Hethradiah, who represents primal savagery and destruction rather than cunning. The rest of Demogorgon’s body can be described as a combination of scales and fur, with broad shoulders and two tentacles instead of hands.

Even though the word “scientist” might not be the first thing you think about when you see depictions of this creature, Demogorgon does in fact have a bit of a hobby in creating twisted creatures. As if being an 18ft tall mutated simian with two heads wasn’t enough, he can count on the creatures he has created such as retrievers, ettins, and death knights= as well as a steady supply of hezrou and other nefarious beings that he keeps under his command.

Although his cult isn’t as numerous or common as that of other demons and evil entities, the Sibilant Beast can count on the support beings like the kuo-toa, troglodytes, and even human beings. In fact, it’s not entirely uncommon for warlocks to seek pacts with Demogorgon.

There is a lot more I could cover for today’s monster, but for the sake of not having article end up being longer than the Wikipedia page, I believe I’ll leave it at that.

The execution

Oh boy, this is a big one. I definitely wouldn’t recommend throwing this at your players until they’re near max level or have some sort of godly support to back them up. This is the sort of BBEG you leave for the end of the campaign, that’s for sure.

So, okay, let’s get a couple of things situated before we being. The first of these is the fact that, unlike other evil entities, Demogorgon is unable to planeshift, which means that, if you really really want your party of adventurers to fight him you’ll have to make them go to him and, as fun as raiding Abysm sounds, I think I’d pass, personally.

The second thing we need to know is that while he cannot be summoned into the material plane, extremely powerful individuals who worship him might have the ability to summon an aspect of him, which is actually where we get our statblock from.

The way I see it those are our two real options on how to push for an encounter with this monster. I think a way to even the battle field a bit more and give your party a little more of a chance to survive this encounter would be to have Demogorgon be focused on a different goal while the party assaults him. Perhaps now that an aspect of him has been released into the Material Plane he’s on his way to destroy Waterdeep or something. This would leave your party with a couple of rounds to unleash their worst on our Demon Lord before it finally turns to deal with the annoying flies buzzing around it.

An interesting idea for this combat would be to have the first half of it focus on minimizing Demogorgon’s damage, and surviving the effects of his presence in the Material Plane before decides that getting rid of our pesky adventurers is the best call. On top of having stuff like flying giant boulders that are being tossed about by our Demon and the expected chaos of it barging into a city, you could also decide to spice things up by having a few of its faithful servants show up.

One of the things that I enjoy the most about combat both as a player and as a DM is to have choices. Would the players decide to deal with the chaos around the city and save innocent lives? Or would they focus on trying to dispatch our Demon Lord back into the Abyss?

Aaaand that’s it for today. If you enjoyed this article and want to see other similar content, don’t forget to visit our social media so we can let you know when we post new articles. We put up new content every day of the week!

[dunamanticarchivist]

Critical Role Latest of the Lateblogs C2E31 Commerce and Chaos

Well I think this is the longest I’ve held off watching CR 2 since binge-ing the first 13 episodes in a marathon procrastination for roughly 3 days. Which might be a good thing, that I’m giving sufficient priority to things around me. But not being able to browse twitter and tumblr cos spoilers has been rather killer. Now, for a relaxing shopping episode of... critical role. Also that title is amazing

Only 3 and half hours boo hoo

Or did they take out the break in replays?

Oh boi a Sam Riegel southern special

A true blue ‘murican musical masterpiece

ENCORE ENCORE

Oh thank god I thought they took out the audio for the cheesy intro

That wouldn’t be the same any more would it

RIP Sam Riegel, but RIP Matt Mercer first

Dafuq Nott is now inventing flechette rounds in fantasy settings

Holy shit thats gonna be dangerous - one potentially explosive arrow

Im surprised Travis isnt asleep yet

Okokokokokok there are shenanigans afoot with letter forgery

(Ok i got spoiled a bit for this bit, but still)

Liam’s face palm is mood

FROM THE TOWN OF NIGERIA

Jesus there will be a million repercussions spilling out of this and plot ends for Matt to refine into knives to murderinate them with

Oh no this will not end well. At all. RIP erbady’s heart

Diamonds, fucking diamonds 

Ah there is Travis’ eyeroll. RIP him

LETS GO TO PUMAT’S (i saw a pumatprime logo that looks like amazon prime it was awesome sry i forgot who to credit it to on twitter)

Dese kids MOAR PUMATS 

Bath time again?

GIMME THEM BRACERS 

Thats really helpful Jester you should never bargain

A mighty girth....hmm not the group name you are looking for

Interesting spell selections. Feather fall, expeditious retreat, catapult. All 1st levels and uses reaction, bonus action and action. Very versatile

“This longsword”. Travis instantly becomes interested in shopping again. BAD FJORD BAD PUT DOWN THAT LONGSWORD. NO DONT EAT IT AGAIN BAD

The sword that was broken, potential plot point

Dust of deliciousness wtf that sounds absolutely baller

Cleaning out the pumats

ALL THE FUNKY ENCHANTMENTS someone please make the thinking meme for pumat 

The dancing sounds like a Otto’s Irresistable Dance a lvl 6 spell enchantment.

8000 gold for that. Interesting.

As an economics student, I am incredibly fascinated by the price systems that exist in Exandria (so 400 gold for +1 weapon)

Lotta pigeons hooting in here

Tfw when your hobo wiz is charming af

Only 100 gold off, its something but thats less than 5% off the bill (total should come up to 2400 golds ish)

Paper and ink in the same box, I too like to live dangerously

Marisha’s grabby hands for the bracers *squeeee

Matt, you have no idea how heavy paper can get

“May I go to the library” jesus that brings me back to childhood I loved my school library

MOAR SHOPPING RIP TRAVIS ROUND 2

We now have an official cook and potion maker on the road, its gonna be lit

Suvo’s Secrets ooo what a name. 20 ft by 20 ft. The first thing that comes to mind is how a Fireball would put the place to flame. I need help

Holy fuck thats a big dragonborn

Im calling it thats a hoarding hag of a dragonborn

FROM YOUR MOTHERS CHEST really Matt you forget the Ruby of the Sea was a prostitute for one second. Just one second. Meme mode ON

1 gold for fucking garlic they have no fucking sense for money 

They should have just brought Nott along and stole the whole bag

Jester please once again, never negotiate for prices.

Also if Matt was in the mind to fuck with them, they could literally be paying for the privilege of being cursed

Fjord bailing, shopping must have been super depressing

SABIEN??? SABIEN???? GIVE ME PLOT GIVE ME BACKSTORY

Bummer to have a week of failed investigation

ONLY CAT FRUMPKIN

Zenoth still being creepy af

Jebaited monk training Day 1: Time to fucking read

Roleplaying lvl 6 subclass features pretty good

Lotta bows there

Correction Laura: everyone be a Cobalt Soul monk

“I dont get to kill those guys?” aww man

Info dump lads this is a wiki filling episode erbady take notes

The Chained Oblivion? With all the manacles I think that’s shaping up to be BBEG of this campaign

STILL NOT A GOOD ENOUGH REASON TO USE THE WORD PENETRATE

Magical experimental in Solstryce? This is not a particularly helpful turn of events

I wonder does the eye serve as a spellcasting focus

THEY SPLIT THE PARTY DOWNTIME MOST DANGEROUS TIME

Lots of charming ASMR voices with the Gentlemen and Fjord

oh shite its cree another WHERE’S MOLLY???

Ya he ded

Eyyy here we go (i got somewhat spoiled for this defacing of temples)

The ‘healers’ got a cloak for Nott the bravest rouge. Yes. But this is entirely wholesome and soul saving

Clearly the cast isnt all the religious or that serious about it

The platinum dragon is now.... a farmer. Very agricultural

-3 to deception at disadvantage. Still a 13. Absolutely golden

This is heresy and we are all going to hell

I HAD JUST HIRED HER goddamn they are horrendous at this skulduggery 

OH SHIIIIT 5 CROWNSGUARDS one of whom appears to be a spellcaster

fuck some kind of forcecage? Ottiluke’s Resilient Sphere does damage?

ALL SHALL FALL TO THE CHARM OF JESTER LAVORRE

RUN YOU IDIOTS RUN

Jesus christ I didnt know I could get anxiety from watching a getaway scene

Good lord Jester virtually blew through her entire long rest of options in one night of revelry

Oh god here cometh the heartbreak

Thats alot of vague speak in the manner of gods

Dafuq the god is real? He can touch the dodecahedron? This sounds like a great amount of fuckery

Holy shit the time indeed passed I forgot there needs to be a break

NO REST WE GO ON LIKE CRITTERS

Taliesin is playing his INT 9 well

Lets go vacationing in the Bahamas/Nicodranas/Menagerie Coast

PLEASE CAST PLEASE LESS PEE AND POOP JOKES IM TRYING TO SNACK

Yes that is exactly how Jester would cast sending someone once wrote fanfic like that. It is obviously now canon

REVENGE FOR NOTT THE BRAVE KILL ALL THE GOBOS

Paper = power

ITS MORE THAN THAT AAAAAA ITS SO WHOLESOME

Everybody gets a dead people tea healing potion

Aaaand we’re back to the beginning

A delicious transitory episode, and hmmm a one-shot 2 weeks from now? Fascinating. 

[thefairefolk-rp]

August Beedle | FC: Pedro Pascal | TAKEN

Age: 712 Species: Pooka Faerie Court: Solitary Occupation: Chieftain of the Fox Clan Gender: Cis Man Pronouns: He/Him

Appearance

August would almost appear like any noble at the court, if not for the slightly wild and unkept look about him. The King of Thieves is a vain man, decorating himself with his loot. Some have gazed long and hard at the rings on August’s fingers, or an earring glinting in his ear, puzzled by how similar the trinket looks to something they’ve lost. August fancies himself to be as sophisticated as any lord, his glittering things and finely cut garb proclaiming him as the true king of thieves.

August is quick to joke and compliment. He smiles often. The fae chieftain is good at feigning kindness or interest if it will benefit him in the end. It is hard to know what he is truly thinking due to his acting skills and well woven lies. His face may say one thing, while his mind says another. The smell of magic hangs around August like a cloud, hinting at his powerful magic ability. His pet lynx, Lyka is often winding around his legs, at times becoming possessive of her master’s time.

Personality

August is not a man to be trusted. Any treaty or deal made with him is only kept if it continues to benefit him or his clan. The Fox Clan are primarily thieves, feared by any traveling on the roads in the wild lands. August is often called The King of Thieves, a title he relishes. But, those who don’t know August for the trickster he is can easily be lured in by his silver tongue and charms. August is a man of many faces, morphing his persona to those around him and saying what they want to hear. August most often appears relaxed and in good spirits, quick to joke or laugh. But, there is something far more calculating beneath the surface. August would just as easily laugh at a joke as he would laugh over the body of an enemy. The Fox Clan chieftain is a skilled pick-pocketer, quick with his hands and sly in his actions. August’s greed is vast. He is always hungry for more, willing to take risks in his strategy if it means attaining more wealth. The faerie is clever, using his smarts to outwit others. August has no qualms with underhanded tactics or playing dirty, believing honor to be overrated. The solitary faerie has succeeded in many of the things he has attempted to accomplish, in large part due to the fact that he would do things others wouldn’t to reach his goals.

Background

August was once the right-hand man to the chieftain of the Fox Clan, appearing to be a loyal subject.  But, in the shadows August used his position to gather allies, making promises and negotiating terms to start a coup that would place him as chieftain. His clever plan proved to be fruitful, August able to murder the leader of the Fox Clan and take the clan for himself. August keeps his men happy with a cut of the profits. They are loyal to him, knowing if they do well their leader will always throw a bone to his underlings. The Fox clan are thieves by trade, making much of their money through thievery. They are responsible for most of the carriage robberies and muggings that occur in the Wildlands.

August’s ambitious nature drove him to make an alliance with the Unseelie court when the Fae War broke out. He knew they would be in need of strong soldiers, promising them many of his most powerful spellcasters to aid them in the fight against the Seelie court. During this time, August had a brief but passionate affair with Kasha Greywolf, the leader of the Wolf Clan. But, the two ended on bad terms, forming a rift between the two clans. Kasha and August are known to even snub one another at public events. Since the war ended, August has taken advantage of his new connections, sucking up to those he finds useful. The Unseelie court has made him a very rich man. His vacation home in the Unseelie court, only an hour carriage ride from the Fox Clan camp, has become famous for its wild parties. Bonfires, nudity, dancing and drinking are a day in the life. August is a known cassanova, hosting many of the rich and famous in his home and his bed.

Relationship

Enemy of Kasha Greywolf

Half-Brother of Raven Beedle

Romantically pursuing Kit Scarlet

[spicynbachili1]

Japanator’s Anime Binge Log: Goblin Slayer

Killin’ Goblins in the Name Of

It’s time again for your semi-regular look at the season’s best and brightest anime! Welcome once more to Japanator’s Anime Binge Log! Last time we took a look at the latest chapter of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, a show that, while not universally-liked, is almost universally respected. 

This installment goes a bit deeper into the weeds with a show that managed to alienate a good chunk of its audience from the get-go: Goblin Slayer. Studio White Fox’s adaptation of the hit novel/manga stirred up a hornet’s nest of discourse with a divisive first episode, but what’s the verdict, now that about half its cour is over? That’s the question we posed to the staff and a couple of us deigned to answer!

If you’ve got a suggestion for the show to cover in our next Binge Log, don’t hesitate to tell us in the comments!

Goblin Slayer Studio: White Fox Director: Takaharu Ozaki Airdate: October 5, 2018 Watch it On: Crunchyroll The Blurb: Need some goblins slain? Give this dude a call. 

Staff Impressions:

Marcel Hoang

Oh boy, here I go with Goblin Slayer, one of my soft recommendations of the season. This is the series where I say I like it and when people ask me if they should watch it, I say, “Yes asterisk,” because I verbalize the asterisk that is the catch.

There are two sides to this asterisk. First is obviously the important part which, let’s be honest, you may not be reading this sentence anymore because you just gotta type a comment right now about the controversial rape scene in the first episode. I can try to say words, but ultimately I’m not eloquent enough to even begin saying anything about it. Let’s just say that I think we can universally agree that it was bad. In fact, the whole first episode, even barring the big oops scene is pretty bland and wholly disconnected from why I like Goblin Slayer. That part is the asterisk I mentioned. Everything I like about Goblin Slayer comes later and has nothing to do with the first episode. Hell, I don’t even need the part of the first episode that depicts the character, Goblin Slayer, as a badass, edgelord, goblin killing machine. Even that isn’t all that high on my list of why I like the guy.

Now I’m speaking as someone who is just watching the anime. Asides from the rape scene, the other things that pops up most often whenever Goblin Slayer gets talked about is how messy an adaptation it is and how the manga and then the novel are way better and have more to flesh out. But the thing that I like about Goblin Slayer so far as a limited anime viewer, is the characters themselves. Plus, these characters only get further developed from their respective mangas and novels anyways.

The hallmark is of course good old Gobby Slayer at the front. If you ignore the first episode, Goblin Slayer isn’t a huge badass. Adventurers around him think he’s a dirty, weird maniac who only kills trash mobs yet has the audacity to be considered a highly ranked, silver adventurer. He barely talks, barely interacts with people around him, and in general if you spend any amount of time with him you’ll either want to leave or just be creeped out. But that’s what the people in the show and even the viewers outside the show see. What I see is an autistic man who is living life to the fullest, on his terms. Clearly that’s just my interpretation, but the fact of the matter is that Goblin Slayer isn’t just disinterested with anything that doesn’t involve killing goblins, he’s almost incapable of it. He does try interacting with people, like trying their alcohol or discussing a plan, but it comes out so cringingly awkward, especially when he knows people around him get offended so he even goes so far as to further clarify his point after a conversation. That happens often when Priestess points out the problems in his plans and he simply replies, “I see. Ok then.”

Things pick up when a steady cast of characters get introduced, everyone only having their titles as named such as High Elf, Dwarf Mage, and Lizard Shaman. But not only do we see these demi-beasts bounce off each other, such as the natural friction between an elf and a dwarf, but we then see them interact with Goblin Slayer, who is barely human.

One point I see as a take it or leave detail is the hard fantasy. Plenty of people are turned off by hard fantasy because it’s been done to death already. Normally I’d agree, but Goblin Slayer even then doesn’t make it plain old hard fantasy. Goblin Slayer is straight up Dungeons & Dragons, right down to the dice being rolled in the OP. Magic isn’t some vague power but is a limited resource to adventurers. Goblin Slayer even asks the spellcasters, “How many spell slots they have left.” Lizard Shaman requires totems to be used in order to summon familiars, and a later boss fight involves the fireball spell in a context that is familiar to anyone who’s played D&D, particularly when one party member says to scatter but another replies, “To where?” because in D&D lore, fireball spreads out in all directions and even around corners for 20 or so feet.

Basically what I’m trying to say it, the real first episode is episode two. Throw episode one into the dumpster and toss a match in there, because nothing of value was lost.

Oh, also, before I forget, Goblin Slayer really needs some consistency on how they animate the character. Sometimes he’s respectably drawn and animated and you think he’s a proper character in a dark fantasy anime, and other times he’s this huge block of dark anime CG, and there’s no rhyme or reason when he shifts between the two. He will literally have a conversation with the adventurer’s guild marm (which should admittedly be easy to animate) then in the next scene as he walks to the side to talk to Priestess he’ll be CG. But then when he’s walking away to the door to leave, suddenly he’s animated again and not CG? Goblin Slayer isn’t just proficient at killing goblins, he’s also capable of switching between animation styles too.

Josh Tolentino

I’m right with Strider on this one: Chuck that first episode in the damn trash, because it frankly does the show a disservice. Contrary to what a public relations consultant will tell you, there IS such a thing as bad publicity, and Goblin Slayer brought a mess of it on its own head with that first episode. I don’t blame anyone at all for being turned off the show by the big scene: It was graphic, shocking, and utterly transparent and cynical in its flailing attempt to establish the show as “dark fantasy”, where “dark” is the same kind of cringe-inducing edgelord BS that drives the likes of marketing campaigns for Dante’s Inferno (the game) or similar juvenile awfulness. 

That said, that’s actually the worst thing about it, since the novel (I’ve read the first volume) establishes the edginess so much better, without having to use an explicit rape scene to do it. Given the same scene is in the manga, this is a classic case of a scene getting “punched up” for dramatic effect and resulting in unforeseen consequences. It happened to Marvel comics with the whole character of Hank Pym, and it happened to Goblin Slayer with episode one. And for what? To emphasize that Goblins – a race that is almost never portrayed as good or even tolerable – are bad? That’s honestly as pointless as writing an op-ed in a Vatican newspaper titled “The Case Against The Devil” and thinking that’s a controversial take. 

But enough about that. Goblin Slayer is a fun, atypical sort of misanthropic power fantasy that absolutely revels in how the character of the Goblin Slayer just isn’t like anyone else, for better and for worse. He’s strong, no doubt about it, but he’s not like Kirito, Goku, Superman, or Tatsuya Shiba. He’s not special, or chosen. In fact, other people are the actual chosen ones, and by episode five we’ve already seen a few of them – the characters who would be the leads in a stereotypical Dragon Quest-derived JRPG. Instead, Goblin Slayer’s hypercompetence is the result of his utter and complete dedication to the trade of murdering goblins. His expertise is clearly-hard-earned, but the show doesn’t pretend he’s any kind of aspirational figure. Occasionally it even deigns to hint that this dude with the cool helmet might not be right in the head. 

Of course, the one thing it doesn’t want to do is make Goblin Slayer look genuinely bad. Like a badass, certainly, but not truly unappealing or unrelatable. Despite being shunned and mocked by the other adventurers, he still makes friends with a full party of competent people that desire his company. And his skills constantly land him in situations that threaten to take him away from the goblin-slaying he so craves, interacting with the fringes of the epic struggle against the Demon Lord. In its way, Goblin Slayer as a show is like Konosuba for peopel who think they’d do a better job than Batman. 

And that can be pretty fun to watch, all thing considered. Just skip the first episode. 

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[everyonesomething]

Session Nine

The Lich turns and stares at the car. Then back at Grim. Then back at the car.

The Lich: "Well."

Pepper: "I think you just broke about the only thing it cared about."

Edith Runekill makes a face like :D

The Lich: "That's extremely irritating."

Edith Runekill: And then: >:D

Malkas: "Nice shot. Now we all die?"

In this session we make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other's mold...y. Moldy. Because it's a lich.

The set-up: We head downtown and under downtown looking for hints about the lich's whereabouts in Waterdeep.

The Game: Everyone enjoys a leisurely breakfast at the Steele household, then it's off to the local dispatch office to check in on the lich situation. The lichuation. The lich situation. The office is in a bit of a panic—dealing with a lich is not high on anybody's list. They figure they've got him contained to a building downtown and are hoping someone can take him by surprise going in under it through the sewer system.

Grim knows from experience that there is Always goddamn sewer access

Pepper motions at Grim, "Might wanna find a locker for your things, I think."

Grim completely and blatantly ignores Pepper.

Rude.

The office informs us they only managed to find the lich while scrying for a missing employee—he went down into the sewer a few days before and hasn't been seen since. Also he had their only map of the labyrinthine Waterdeep sewer system.

Grim: "You had one map"

Helia (GM): "We normally don't have ANY map."

Grim: "Public funds at work, huh."

Edith Runekill laughs. A bit too loudly.

Helia (GM): "Listen hat, this ain't the sanitation department. Now do you want to shoot a lich in the face or don't ya?"

Grim looks at Edith and then at Mal like is she ok

Grim: "You're lucky I do, pencil-neck."

Malkas just smirks at Edith and gives kind of a shrug at Grim.

Grim cannot believe the incompetence of public officials in the city

Sydney Gaydos: "Not to worry Gumshoes! You have the Great Detective, and she does not need any map for directions."

Pepper looks impressed, "You've got the whole sewer system memorized?"

Sydney Gaydos proudly. "Yes she does!" no she doesn't.

This is gonna go great.

We get into the sewer—luckily it's the storm overflow kind and not the sewage kind—and Grim spots a mystery light down one of the access tunnels. Before we can investigate, we hear a voice calling for help. The voice identifies himself as Steven, the missing city worker the dispatch office was talking about. He's injured and trapped behind a locked gate. While we follow his voice, the light keeps dancing in and out of view—once it phases through a wall it's clear that whatever it is has nothing to do with Steven.

We find Steven, who is indeed trapped behind a gate in a dead-end tunnel. Also he's a Beholder. But it's 1933 and they aren't all so terrifying anymore, depending on how you feel about bureaucratic nerds.

He tells us he was chasing off some undead (40 ghouls! Regrettably, Steven does not join the party) in the sewers when bad luck shut the gate behind him and he doesn't have the key. Mal picks the lock and lets him out, then we fill him in on the situation. He agrees to help us—unlike Sydney he does have the sewer system memorized—and off we go again.

We enter a small antechamber and find our mystery light hovering in the center of the room. Edith identifies it as a will o' wisp.

Then it electrocutes Grim. Then we murder it. Then some group bonding!

Grim lights a cigarette, her fingers still shaking a little from that cool electric shock

Malkas: "Do you need a breather?"

Grim looks at Edith like Mal must be talking to her

Malkas is looking at Grim. "That looked like it hurt."

Grim takes a moment to realise she is the one being addressed

Edith Runekill: "That thing got you pretty bad..."

Edith Runekill looks concerned.

Grim: "Takes more than that to put a dent in me. Let's not waste time down here."

In response, there's a sudden feeling of Wrong that hits our spellcasters—that's Edith, Sydney, and Pepper. Being a paladin, Sydney clarifies that it's Evil and Wrong and just up the stairs above us. Grim, having the most initiative and cunning of us all, goes to check it out.

Grim drops the grate hatch on the floor with a spectacular clang.

And now the lich knows we're there.

We find ourselves in a garage with it, some undead, and the missing car.

The Lich: "Ohh, looks like you have some customers."

The Lich: "You'll have to turn them away. You're busy."

Edith Runekill mumbles a half-remembered prayer to Auril under her breath. Maybe praying to a neutral evil goddess won't help much, though.

Grim: "Reckon our business is with you, actually"

Edith Runekill: "Y... yeah!"

"We got a bone to pick with you!"

Pepper: "This. Is not. The time for jokes."

Grim just looks at Edith

Edith Runekill: "What did I just... oh."

Edith Runekill just wanted to look cool and brave.

The lich fires off an attack at Edith, but it's neutralized by the anti magic field Steven puts up around us. Bless you, Steven.

Grim, our party diplomat, takes point.

Grim addresses the lich

Grim: "You got a name?"

The Lich: "Oh, I imagine so."

Grim: "You wanna share it?"

The Lich approaches, "Not particularly."

Grim: "If we're gonna do this cat and mouse bullshit, seems polite to get acquainted."

The Lich: "Why don't you call me ... Lord Nasher?"

The Lich laughs.

Grim: "Couple reasons, but I guess you know 'em."

Edith Runekill: "S-somehow I can't quite believe that."

The Lich: "And you say you're Grim. Ha. You wasteland dregs never did have much imagination."

Grim pulls the trigger at the Lich, but her shot goes wild.

Our uh. Diplomat.

Hm.

To be fair, having a lich read your mind and then insult you based on what he finds would throw anyone off their game. Which is why Grim just goes to punch his gross skeleton face, next. As luck would have it, she slips in a pool of oil before she gets to him and just settles for spitting insults and just spitting.

The Lich: "Oh! And here I thought the future would be dull. What funny little children you are!"

Grim: "Motherfucker, I am gonna put you so far in the ground the gods couldn't raise you."

The Lich: "The gods couldn't kill me, Little Grim."

Grim: "That's why they sent me."

The Lich: "Oh you had THAT one in the chamber, didn't you?"

Edith Runekill: "You're... you're gonna regret hurting those people back in Neverwinter, you... you..."

The Lich: "You know, that really was just bad luck. I would have much preferred them in one piece.” He turns to Pepper. “But... you know how magic is, sometimes."

Pepper grins wide. "Can't make a pizza without splattering some tomatoes right?"

The Lich laughs genially at Pepper, "Oh, but we do our best. Don't we?"

Edith Runekill: "We're... gonna put you deeper underground than a... a Waterdeep pizza???"

Sydney Gaydos "...!" She puts herself between Pepper and the Lich's line of sight.

Edith Runekill: "Help me out here, Pepper," she hisses, "You always make this look so easy."

Malkas: "Its fine babe that was good i love you its fine"

Grim: "What do you want, bones?"

The Lich: "I'm just hear to get this wonderful mechanical beast fixed."

The Lich: "And the living proved ... less than agreeable."

"So."

Grim looks towards the car and suddenly perks up

Grim then neatly and spectacularly puts a bullet into the car's engine block. For diplomatic purposes.

Now the lich has to talk to us. Ha ha! He taunts us in that usual “I'm hundreds and hundreds of years old and supremely evil” sort of way and Edith takes some wild stabs at who he really is. We're not exactly sure if she's right, but he seems impressed by her all the same.

Edith Runekill: "What's your angle? Trying to bring back the good ol' days? Zulkirs bossing everyone around? Gonna be the next Szass Tam?"

The Lich: "The next?"

Edith Runekill: "Oh."

"i think"

"we might be in trouble"

"more so, i mean"

The Lich: "You have a good head on your shoulders, Edith Runekill. I'd hate to remove it."

Edith Runekill touches her neck, without really noticing.

Edith Runekill: "You were so bad even the Zulkirs wouldn't fall in line, Tam. Five to six were against making you regent, was it?"

"Even Old Thay was disgusted with you."

"And Old Thay was pretty awful!"

Szass Tam: "Lovely to know my legacy is still known."

Szass Tam: "You're a clever girl, aren't you?"

Szass Tam is utterly focused on Edith, "You know, the gift of Undeath...."

Szass Tam: "It is nothing to fear."

Malkas steps fully in front of Edith now.

Edith Runekill looks him right in the eye.

Edith Runekill: "Fuck you."

Grim smirks

Szass Tam cackles.

You could've had a friend and an exciting new career path, Edith!

Szass Tam, our lich buddy, tells us he's off to Baldur's Gate and gets some of his helpful ghouls to push the now non-functional car through a portal. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief.

Until some of the undead mechanics left behind attack us. They really give us a good wallop this time around, but ever-faithful Millicent is there to help us not die.

Canned Cleric: "holy shit"

Grim would not admit it but that actually feels Considerably less terrible

Edith Runekill: "Millicent!"

"We love you!"

Canned Cleric: "yeah!"

Pepper: "I'm getting you a whole can of oil when we're done."

After a rough start, we get our footing back in the back half of the fight with the usual: Sydney smashing, Mal and Grim shooting, and Pepper and Edith blowing them up with magic. We make it through to the end, though Edith's hat is a casualty of being burnt to cinders. We nearly died, but Edith and Mal offer us a soothing balm in the form of a history lesson.

Malkas: "Szass Tam was the regent Lord of Thay."

Malkas: "Did a whole Coup of it during the spellplague. Marched his undead armies across the land."

Edith Runekill: "After a protracted power struggle with the zuliks, who were a council of wizards who ruled Thay."

Edith Runekill: "And, I mean, they were still Thay wizards? They were still really, really powerful, and really, really evil. But... less so than Tam."

"Hm, would his phylactery be in Thay, still? Whaddaya think, Mal?"

Malkas: "That's who that guy is. Ancient, evil and basically undefeated."

Edith Runekill: "All this happened a few centuries after my usual period."

Malkas nods, "Yeah but ... Thay's not like it used to be. Who even knows what happened to it. It could be interred in the basement of Carnival Carnival."

Edith Runekill: "Late 1300s, or thereabouts."

"The end of his reign is a bit murky."

Back at the office the city clerics patch us up and we make plans for what to do next. Edith and Mal are going to call their museum colleagues for any information on Thay and possible lich or phylactery findings. Then some more group bonding? Some more group bonding!

Grim: "Been a while since I had backs between me 'n trouble."

Edith Runekill: "Ah," Edith says.

Edith Runekill: "Must be hard runnin' around with... well, with a bunch of chatterboxes like us, huh?"

Malkas untucks his pants from his boots.

Grim: "Yep."

Malkas looks 80% less dorky.

Pepper: "You don't talk THAT much, Edith."

Edith Runekill rolls her eyes, laughing.

Malkas snags her cigarette.

Edith Runekill: "You talk soooo much!! I kinda admire it, really. Like, even in fights and stuff, you're just making jokes? You keep your cool."

"I tried to calm myself down like that and look how it turned out."

Pepper sniffs, it was meant to be a compliment.

Malkas: "Maybe it's a panic response."

Edith Runekill: "'We've got a bone to pick with you?' What was that, Edith? What were you thinking?"

Pepper grins "If I'm talking, I'm not dead right?"

Grim: "Train will get us to Baldur's Gate. Next direct one leaves tomorrow."

Malkas: "Well. That'll be the next stop."

Edith Runekill: "So we got some time to catch our breath."

Grim: "Best supply up while we can."

Edith Runekill: "I need new clothes. Don't really... don't want Ocila to see me looking like this."

Malkas: "Want to go look at hats? If we go back home without, like, shopping bags, my parents will ask what the hell we did."

Edith Runekill: "She'd worry."

Pepper: "I'm all for lying to Mal's mother."

Malkas: "And then they'd ground their twenty four year old son."

Grim looks at Pepper. The one person she has not warmed up to whatsoever.

Bonding!

Here's some more lich quotes that didn't fit in above but I couldn't leave them out.

The Lich: "Whatever a Pizza is."

Szass Tam: "Oh. I'm jumping the crossbow anyway, aren't I?"

Edith Runekill: From behind Mal.

"Come on, you know what a gun is."

Szass Tam leans against the car and picks up a discarded pair of sunglasses off a shelf.

Szass Tam puts them on.

Szass Tam: B)

[meonlyred]

The Story So Far: Part 4

Transcript of our D&D game written by our DM Amy: Character Art by meonlyred or dreambled

It was decided early the next day they would head again to back Phandalin. Over the previous few weeks Corrin had made attempts to contact his orc tribe but had heard nothing back from them. After sending a letter to Gundren in Phandalin to see if he knew of any orc activity in the area and getting a response back saying it had been quiet, Corrin was concerned about what may be going on. So the group packed up and set out again down the High Road to Triboar Trail. After several more days travelling, something the kooky cadre had become proficient in, they arrived again at Cragmaw Castle to find the orc camp in ruins and signs of battles all around. Slowly making their way through the destruction, they were attacked by two large and strange looking creatures they later learned were called trollkin. After a somewhat challenging but still brief battle, the trollkin were defeated. Upon their bodies they found a strange symbol, a black fist holding a black arrow in a tight grip. Entering the castle, they were greeted by Sheshka, a spellcaster and trusted warrior with the Red Arrow tribe that aided them in Wave Echo cave. To their surprise she had learned a few words of common and ushered them to the alter room of the castle where her, Brughar, and several other warriors were holed up. They also found here a young wizard woman with wild red hair, calling herself Meriana. She had come to the ruins to study them, and was cautiously welcomed by the orcs. The learned then that a rival orc clan, the Black Arrows, had attacked Brughar and his people, proclaiming the Red Arrow tribe to be weak and a disgrace to orc kind. They killed many of the people, children included, but some managed to escape to the Neverwinter Wood where Brughar said they had caves and several other hidden safe spots. Brughar and the others stayed behind to try and keep the attackers distracted with the aid of Meriana. They were weary and injured, and supplies were dwindling, but now that Corrin and the others had showed up and taken out the trollkin they had a chance to retreat and join the rest of their people. Before they parted Brughar imparted on Corrin some words of advice he was surprised to hear coming from an orc, suggesting that war and vengeance were not always the best actions.

Taking Meriana with them the group continued on to Phandalin, where they discovered Gundren had become the new Townmaster of the village and that rebuilding was already taking place. One of the most notable additions was a small temple to Tymora. Where before they had barely a small luck shrine dedicated to her, there was now a small temple being ran by Sister Garaele, a cleric of Tymora and member of the Harpers who had requested the aid of our novice champions on their first visit to Phandalin. Mara also discovered her friend Halia Thornton had taken off and left the Miner’s Exchange in quite a hurry, and another member of the Zhentarim had taken her place and was looking for her. Once settled in the group was asked by Gundren to run a few small errands in support of the operations taking place at Wave Echo cave, which the group had a small share in. The first task was to make their way to Triboar and retrieve mining supplies that he had commissioned the creation of in hopes of opening up trade between the two villages.

They set out following the trail eastward and arriving 3 days later in Triboar, the journey being uneventful. They made contact with Nathan Redwater, the blacksmith in Triboar, who said he needed one more day to finish getting the rest of the supplies together and suggested they settle in and maybe partake in the upcoming festivities,  a holiday known as Ser Cuthbert's Day where the town celebrated their founding. They began to hear strange tells of a grey man haunting the fields outside the town, stories of animal mutilation, and of the disappearance of a young mother and her child. They were called upon by Cordelia Oldfield, the Lord Protector of Triboar, to look into these issues while in town. She had heard of the things they did for Phandalin and hoped they could be of aid to her people as well. The party began making their way through town investigating the claims, speaking to Dorn Stonewood the abusive husband to the missing woman, Travik Quickmoore a nervous Gnome farmer who had suffered the loss of cattle to strange mutilations, and Father Longfellow a half-orc priest of Tymora who told them of the old graveyard. They made their way outside of town where they themselves had a brief encounter with the gray man. They attempted to communicate with him but found it impossible to do so. Making their way to the Stonewood home, they found it badly damaged and signs of a struggle all around. Pip, being rather observant and skilled in survival, quickly picked up a trail and lead the group into the woods. As they followed the path to its end they were attacked by a ghastly pack of demon dogs. Upon defeating the beasts, they found the missing wife and child of Dorn hiding in a bramble patch. Injured, hungry and cold, but still alive. They quickly escorted the woman and child to the temple where they were given to the care of Father Longfellow. The crew then made their way to the old graveyard where they again had a run in with the grey man and again failing in an attempt to communicate with the apparition before it charged the group and disappeared. As they entered the graveyard they were surprised to see a group of undead wandering the area, and strange glow coming from the center. They fought their way through the skeletons and zombies, noticing many dug up and desecrated graves as they went. When they arrived to the center, they were attacked by the horrendous visage of an undead necromancer. It was then the group realized Corrin had been possessed by the grey man they encountered, and a battle between him and the necromancer ensued. Embolden by this divine power Corrin quickly defeated the necromancer, and the grey man left his body. They learned this was the spirit of Ser Cuthbert. He had been disturbed from his long sleep by the presence of this necromancer and had been attempting to warn the village of the danger facing them. Unable to gather the proper strength to do so, he took the chance to possess one of the group so he could help protect the village he founded and loved.

The festival for Ser Cuthbert's Day was full of food, drink and revelry. The adventurers, never ones to turn down a good bash, partook in as much as they could. Mara of course made sure to make the "rounds" with the townsfolk and got to know as many as she could. They set off the next morning with the mining supplies in tow and made it safely back to Phandalin, where Gundren once again asked them for their aid. He requested their assistance in scouting down south of the town through the mountains and the Kryptgarden Forest in hopes of laying a road and shortcut to the town of Red Larch. He informed them he had sent a scout ahead already and intended for them to meet up with her and give her aid. They set out, ONCE AGAIN, and made their way through a small mountain pass Gundrens men had created, leading to the Kryptgarden Forest.

Upon entering the forest it did not take long to realize something was amiss. The forest was unusually quiet and a strange smell filled the air. They cautiously made their way further in. After fighting several strange blighted plant creatures they ran into Gundrens scout, a tall woman with long dark golden brown hair, golden brown eyes, and a black as night dane by her side. She introduced herself as Vibeke Thorne of the Lords Alliance, and her companion as Petunia. She informed them of the weird and unsettling things she had found and took them deeper still into the woods. Before they could get much further they were confronted by an elf and a large bear. Fortunately it took only seconds for the elf to recognize them and for them to recognize her as the druid Reida from Thundertree. She introduced her ally as another druid, Olonan, as he quickly reverted back to his elven form. They informed them of the blight and corruption overtaking the forest and how their tribe had suffered many losses. They were lead to a hidden cave where the remaining druid tribe members were taking shelter and brought before the elder and archdruid of the tribe Torleth. She told them of the Life Tree they worshiped in the center of the forest, and that she believed the corruption started there. They could not help but notice the druids seemed to be acting strangely melancholy and somewhat combative. The group took it upon themselves to head to the center of the forest and search out the cause of what was happening. Reida left a head to check the site of the tree, and the rest were guided by Olonan.

The closer they got to the center of the forest the more they noticed decaying and dying trees and plants, the presence of strange fungi and a brown mucky liquid. Mara found herself much more affected by the foulness they were surrounded by and found her mood dropping quickly. When they finally arrived to the Life Tree, they found it to have been cut down. Its roots now surrounded by the dark murky liquid, covered in an odd assortment of growths and polyps as well as decaying corpses. Two dark elves stood at the center, one with flowing robes and long jet black hair, the other in a strange carapace armor. To their horror they had Reida in their grasp, and before the groups eyes slit her throat and dropped her body at the base of the tree stump. The two introduced themselves as the Black Star and Black Blade, sisters to Black Spider, seeking revenge for his murder. The one in robes summoned forth two demons and a harrowing battle ensued. They proved themselves formidable foes, but the group managed to defeat the demons and gain the upper hand, eventually converging on Black Star and killing her. Unfortunately Black Blade managed to summon a portal and escape. Checking Reidas body, they found she had perished, and noticed the growths and water appearing to absorb and feed off her blood. As they collected Reidas body, Torleth came through the forest edge and made her way to the stump of the tree, proclaiming it needed new life to cure the pollution. She exchanged words in an old sylan dialect with Olonan, before removing her clothing and kneels on the stump, giving her own life in sacrifice. In her place a small tree with soft pink leaves began to sprout.

The walk back to the shelter was quiet and somber. Once returned the druids took Reidas body to prepare it for funeral rites, and the group spent the night quietly gathered around the fire. They spent the next morning helping the tribe pack up as they prepared to leave and head for the High Forest, proclaiming the Kryptgarden unsafe to live in for now. Vibeke announced she was heading back to Waterdeep and the main headquarters of the Lords Alliance, and extended an invitation for the gang to accompany her, they agreed.

[dungeonsandberries]

Session 5: The Slums of Tidesoria

We were called to submit to inspection by the guards. I heard that they are sometimes more lenient towards pretty girls, and so I began to lay on all the well-practiced adulation I was accustomed to giving the guests of my master. My ploy worked a bit too well, I think, as the lecherous look the guards were giving me made me fearful that they would expect more of me than honeyed words and the potential for my favor.

Thankfully, a nobleman was present overseeing the guards who recognized Felfedau. A young, honorable man named Adal. He seemed to think well of her and demanded the guards let us pass, and scolded them for trying to take advantage of the situation. I laid on a bit myself as revenge, reminding them that one of the women they were so taken with was a priestess of the goddess of death, and that she might mention this moment during her evening prayers.

Colet met back up with us when we got inside, staying true to his promise. He even stayed with us during our trips through Tidesoria in case we needed anything else. I didn’t think his aid would be needed, but I admired his desire to return Maevia’s favor.

Tidesoria was a far cry from the refined courts I used to occupy and perform for, but after a week of overland travel, it seemed like a veritable oasis in the desert. I did enjoy the beauty of nature and the freedom to do as I pleased, but game meat could not compare to gourmet food, and a hot bath was welcome after the days of bathing in frigid rivers. I admit I may have spent a bit much, but I don’t regret a single copper I spent.

I met back up with the others in Tidesoria’s market, where I replaced my rope, and almost spent far too much gold on a nice dress I saw. I reminded myself that the only reason I could afford the dress is because of Veilour, and he did not gift me that coin just for me to spend it on such frivolous things. I did pick up the journal that I am now writing in, however.

Marv lead us to an auction house, where Felfedau was able to acquire an interesting magic item: a coat with magical pockets that could store a large amount of material without weighing down the wearer. We should make a point of coming back here whenever we cross through Tidesoria, as we may have far more gold in our possession with which to bid on these magical trinkets.

Marv lead us towards the slums as night began to fall, and our party noticed that we’d been stalked by a peculiar rat during our whole stay. We identified it as a plagued rat which carried a strange magical disease, and we tracked it down and killed it. I thought it strange that such a simple pest animal should have the intelligence to stalk us all day, so I suspected a wizard’s familiar, but my magic saw no evidence that it was anything but a mindless beast.

Either way, the fighting caused quite a bit of commotion, making Marv apologize to the residents. I found this peculiar, as I had already figured him to be a gruff low-life, and it would serve as a precursor to the shocking revelation within Marv’s home.

He lead us to a large boarding house, where a number of people resided happily and greeted Marv warmly. We also found out that he had an adopted son, an energetic and adorable boy named Jimmy, as well as a gorgeous amami girlfriend named Maybel. This was not at all what I expected out of the home of an emaciated orc with a drug addiction.

Marv explained to us that it was Jimmy who could help us identify the Phantom’s Teardrop and my collar. The boy had a way with magic items, it seemed. I was skeptical, but we had come all the way here, so I thought it was worth a shot. Jimmy took the Teardrop first, and retreated into his room to examine it.

We spent only a few hours in the company of Marv’s friends, and yet they were some of the most pleasant I can remember. These people lived in a run down house in the slums, having to share food with each other to survive, and yet they seemed genuinely happy. They contrasted in every way from the nobles I once served, who had all the amenities one could desire, but they were surrounded by sycophants. It was these people who deserved the comforts of wealth, I thought. So I did for them what I could, playing my music for them as we waited for Jimmy to finish his examinations.

Jimmy came through for us. He revealed a tricky curse upon the Phantom’s Teardrop. The fact it looked like it could stab the wielder was intentional. The weapon would graft to the wielder’s arm, effectively replacing their hand. A steep price to pay for its power.

With that done, I looked at Veilour, and realized he had accomplished his goals with us. I feared this might mean he would leave us soon. I also realized in that moment that I would have to depart to avoid bringing bounty hunters down upon Marv’s friends and family. I pushed these thoughts out of my mind as I moved with Jimmy into his room to let him inspect my collar.

Jimmy was able to unlock the secrets behind it after a short while. I was relieved that it simply required a more powerful Remove Curse spell. Marv cautioned me that finding such a powerful spellcaster would be difficult, but it didn’t matter to me. I at least knew what I was looking for, now. He then surprised me by saying he was looking into a theory of his to get my collar off. I didn’t know what to say to his generosity, but I will have to turn him down, I think. I simply cannot in good conscience risk bringing trouble to his door.

We sat down for the dinner that Maevia and Felfedau helped prepare for us, while Marv abstained to another room in the house. He emerged a short time later, visibly disturbed, and ran out of the house. When he returned, he was in a panic, and began to ward the house against intruders. It seemed as though that plagued rat may have been a sign of something more sinister after all, as Marv suspected evil magic was afoot.

Our group immediately came to his aid, and not long after getting outside, we were ambushed by a ghastly frog creature, who focused its attention on Felfedau, trying to steal the valuable gem Artolus had given us. Maevia and Veilour ran to her assistance, but I only had just realized we were under attack when the frog’s accomplice made their presence known.

The world went black. I could see only darkness. A terrible, frigid cold descended upon me. My white dragon heritage afforded me more resistance to the cold than most, yet even I felt chilled to the bone. Terrible, indecipherable whispers surrounded me, along with a horrid slurping sound, and I could feel… things moving around me, things which I feel as though I should be grateful I could not see amid the blackness.

But I was not alone in there. Marv was there with me. Using his magic, he banished the darkness, allowing me to see our friends once again as they put down the frog beast. But I could not think of them, only of the horrors I had been subjected to. Only a few seconds had passed, but they felt like an eternity.

Then Marv located the source of the magic: an evil wizard. I felt more hatred towards him than any I had known for what he just did to me. It is fortunate that Maevia got to him before I could, and knocked him out so we could question him, for I fear that I may have killed him in my rage.

We pulled him into an alley, where Colet followed us for some reason. I felt slightly suspicious of him at this point, but a quick glance into his thoughts showed no sign of treachery. So instead, I turned my magic upon the wizard, probing into his brain to find answers for why he was attacking us.

Before he realized what I was doing, I tore a name from his mind: Lord Aurmilx, the infinite lord of the sea, which he needed our gem for in order to summon. It was then he realized what I was doing, and forced me out of his mind, and blocked me from further attempts at scrying him for information, other than the words “base” and “north.” No doubt that this was the same water cult that had taken over Artolus’s base.

Maevia and I were content to torture him for more information. Felfedau stepped in on his behalf, insisting against it. We then thought to kill him, but the man almost seemed to want to die, so I advised against that course of action, as well. We ruled out handing him over to the guards, because if the gate guards were any indication, they were corrupt. They also might just execute him.

Then we remembered Felfedau’s monastery. A church of the death goddess would make a fitting prison for a cultist, we decided. So we dragged him through the city, somehow avoiding contact from the guards as we went, heading to Felfedau’s church...

[recentanimenews]

How to Make Your Own Goblin Slayer

One of the most immediately-apparent things about Goblin Slayer from the first scene is that it is almost literally just a game of Dungeons & Dragons, but with an animation budget. In the first episode alone, a girl goes to the adventuring guild to become a Priestess class adventurer, and meets up with 3 other adventurers: a Monk, a Fighter, and a Wizard. In terms of D&D, this is already a pretty good party composition, and could be the starting point of any normal campaign.

It's not just the adventuring structure of the world, either: Goblin Slayer leans into the references. From the dice motif, to the gear people use, to spells lifted right from the pages of the Player's Handbook, seemingly everything has a direct tie to the game. In the first episode, the Wizardcasts Fire Bolt, a common D&D cantrip. In episode 8, Sword Maiden, a spellcaster famous for helping to defeat a Demon Lord, uses Resurrection on Goblin Slayer. In D&D, Resurrection is a 7th level necromancy, showing how high-level an adventurer she must be. As the story progresses, more and more examples of how much the show is like an actual D&D campaign pile up. If everything else in the show is basically D&D, then what does that make the titular Goblin Slayer? Let's stat him out so you can play your own Goblin Slayer in your next session of tabletop!

When making a new character in D&D, one of the first things to figure out is their background, class and race. The show makes it extremely apparent that Goblin Slayer is a male human from a rural village. This means that race is easily handled, but background is a bit trickier.

Of the default backgrounds in D&D’s Player’s Handbook, the closest to Goblin Slayer’s actual background is Outlander. It doesn’t quite fit, since Outlanders are supposed to be so far removed from civilization that they might be hunter-gatherers or nomads, but the next closest option is Folk Hero, which doesn’t match up at all, aside from the character being from a rural town.

Figuring out what class Goblin Slayer is requires some process of elimination. He has never shown the ability to use magic, so he probably isn’t one of the spellcasters, and due to his weapons and armor, he is unlikely to be a Monk.

That leaves Barbarian, Fighter, Ranger, and Rogue as possible class options. He has shown some traits of both Ranger and Fighter, so it is likely that he is a multiclass adventurer with one level in Ranger to get goblins as a favored enemy, and the remaining levels in Fighter for solid general combat ability.

With class, race, and background out of the way, the rest of the character sheet is mostly filling in the blanks and making a few choices from a list of options. For Ability Scores, keep in mind that as a human, Goblin Slayer gets an extra +1 to all his scores.

  From highest to lowest, Goblin Slayer’s Ability Scores should probably be:

Dexterity, as it both makes him harder to hit and makes his shortsword do more damage due to its Finesse trait, allowing it to deal damage with Dexterity instead of Strength.

Wisdom, so that Goblin Slayer can track goblins more easily and see any traps they may have set. 

Constitution, so that Goblin Slayer can contend with poisons and noxious fumes, and also to give him plenty of HP to work with, so even if a goblin hits him he can shrug it off.

The remaining three stats do not matter as much, but the highest one should probably be Strength, so that Goblin Slayer can still lift heavy objects and pass Athletics checks without too much concern. For the sake of roleplaying, having Charisma as the lowest stat makes sense for Goblin Slayer

Now to fill in Goblin Slayer’s proficiencies: his Outlander background gives proficiency in Athletics and Survival, while starting as a Ranger gives proficiency in saving throws for Strength and Dexterity, and also gives three skills from a list of available options. Goblin Slayer would have Investigation to be able to see traps and alternate routes in caves, Perception to notice hidden enemies and objects, and Nature to assist with tracking and knowing what local plants and animals may be able to help him.

Goblin Slayer starting as a Ranger also gives him proficiency in light and medium armor, shields, simple weapons (like the club we see him use) and martial weapons (like the shortsword he normally uses).

With that, the biggest hurdles of the character sheet are finished. His features and traits are dependent on his level. Due to the guild having 10 ranks very closely associated with how strong an adventurer is, while D&D has 20 levels, each rank in the guild is going to correspond to 2 levels in D&D. This means that Goblin Slayer is a level 16 or 17 adventurer.

  The first level of Ranger grants the Favored Enemy trait. For Goblin Slayer, this essentially means that he can track or recall information about goblins more effectively and can speak goblin. Ranger level 1 also grants the Natural Explorer trait, which grants a few benefits to checks and travel concerning a specific terrain, like grasslands or mountains. Since Goblin Slayer has not shown a specific preference for one type of terrain over another, D&D Goblin Slayer is going to have grasslands as a favored terrain because that appears to be similar to where he grew up.

D&D Goblin Slayer then gets 16 levels of Fighter. First, that gives 6 ability score improvements of +2 each, so he adds another 12 points to his Ability Scores. Additionally, he gets:

Second Wind, which lets him heals in battle and keep fighting, like he does in episode 7

Action Surge, which grants him a second action during a single turn

Two extra attacks, for a total of three, each time he attacks

Two uses of Indomitable per long rest (effectively per day), which lets him reroll saving throws

At Fighter level 1, Goblin Slayer can choose a specific fighting style. Because he generally works alone and using a one-handed melee weapon, the most likely option would be the Dueling fighting style, which grants extra damage for his setup.

Once Goblin Slayer reaches Fighter level 3, he gains a Martial Archetype, his Fighter subclass. Of the options, Champion makes the most sense, given Goblin Slayer’s brutal efficiency when clearing out a nest of goblins. With a level 17 character, the Champion Archetype grants

Critical hits on rolls to attack that land on 18-20 (critical hits, automatic successes that deal extra damage, normally only happen when the 20-sided die lands on a 20)

Remarkable Athlete, which adds half of Goblin Slayer’s proficiency bonus to any Constitution, Strength or Dexterity check (at level 17, full proficiency bonus is +6)

A second fighting style, which would likely be Defense, which gives +1 Armor Class when wearing armor, making Goblin Slayer even more difficult to damage.

The only remaining bits are equipment, personality and other proficiencies. The proficiencies are by far the easiest, since they are given by the class, race and background from before. In total, Goblin Slayer has proficiencies in one musical instrument, and two languages of his choice along with Common. These are completely up to the player, since in the show we have never seen Goblin Slayer speak another language or play a musical instrument.

As for Goblin Slayer’s equipment, all we can write down is a shortsword, leather armor, commoner’s clothes, round shield and some throwing daggers. We’ve seen him with a torch, and he has other equipment around his belt, but we never see his entire inventory and treasure laid out to count. Likewise, we do not know exactly how much money he has, only that it is enough to cover expenses like rent, armor repair, and seemingly anything else he might need on a day-to-day basis.

Finally, there is personality. Luckily, by premise of the story, Goblin Slayer is a pretty easy character to get a read on what he wants and why.

  What is his ideal? To rid the world of every single goblin.

  What is his flaw? He is socially ignorant and so focused on his goal that he doesn’t really converse with anyone, or even know how to.

  His bond? This one is actually difficult, since it is hard to tell if he is actually bonding to anyone, but it is likely the guild, since it is where he goes to find goblin-slaying work.

  With all that in mind, what is his alignment? Likely Lawful Evil. He takes perfectly legal jobs, but he carries them out ruthlessly and brutally.

The remainder of the first page is simply filling in the blanks with basic calculations. With leather armor, 20 Dexterity, the Defensive fighting style and a shield, Goblin Slayer’s Armor Class is 19. His initiative is +5 because of his Dexterity modifier, his speed is 30.

HP is a touch more involved, because it is calculated per level. By level 17, Goblin Slayer should have approximately 140HP, depending on various player factors. Hit Dice are 17d10 due to all of Goblin Slayer’s levels using d10’s for HP and gaining 1d10 Hit Dice per level.

That’s it for page 1! If that seemed extremely tedious and intensive, it’s okay. Page 2 takes much less time, and since Goblin Slayer doesn’t use magic, it’s also the last page.

  Episode 8 gave an entire scene of adult Goblin Slayer out of his armor, so we know at least a bit about what he looks like. Fair skin, grey hair, maybe late 20s?

Height and weight are trickier, so we are going to leave them blank since they don’t factor in to the mechanics of the game and the player can roleplay Goblin Slayer without needing to know exactly how much he weighs.

Allies and Organizations is surprisingly easy, since Goblin Slayer only really interacts with the people he is allied with. The party, the guild, his childhood friend.

The show has shown various bits of Goblin Slayer’s past in a few episodes, so we can fill in his backstory easily. He grew up in a rural town that was attacked by goblins, he had as his sister was attacked, he regretted not being able to do anything, and so has carried that hatred with him all his life, learning to fight specifically so that he could kill goblins. Now, he is a silver rank adventurer, the highest rank likely to be out in the field. To this day, he only takes quests to kill goblins, trying to make villages safer by killing as many of them as possible

The compiled character sheet:

  And with that, we have proven that yes, Goblin Slayer can be turned in to a D&D character with little effort. From his simplistic-but-driven personality to his single-minded drive to kill all goblins, almost everything about him correlates to some kind of skill or ability in the game, and those that don't fit right in as quirks for more fun while roleplaying.

  Are there any other characters you would like to see statted out? Are there any other game systems that Goblin Slayer can slip into as easily? If you're making a Goblin Slayer for your own game, did your decisions differ? Let us know in the comments below!

---

Kevin is a freelance features writer for Crunchyroll. He's been watching anime for as long as he can remember, and his favorite shows tend to be shonen and other action series.

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[monstersdownthepath]

Spiritual Spotlight: Angazhan, the Ravenous King

Chaotic Evil Demon Lord of Apes, Tyrants, and Jungles

Domains: Animal, Chaos, Evil, Plant Subdomains: Decay, Demon, Fur, Growth

The Complete Book of the Damned, pg. 18~19

Obedience: Ingest hallucinogenic jungle plants and then beat a complex rhythm on a large drum made of human skin and bones while chanting prayers to Angazhan. Benefit: Gain a +4 profane bonus on saving throws against diseases and poisons caused by exposure to the jungle or inflicted by creatures native to jungles.

Heurgh, Angazhan has some pretty restrictive requirements here, and his Benefit really only works against a single environment, making Angazhan one of the most environmentally-locked deities since Dagon! It’s fitting, considering Angazhan is basically only worshiped in Darkest Africa the Mwangi Expanse, a massive and terrifying jungle he’s had his six-fingered hands buried deep into ever since humanity began settling the land. Since worship rarely ever leaves a jungle home, any player character wanting to serve the Ravenous King had better make sure they’ll be sticking close to the vine-draped homeland, or they’re just completely out of luck! Not just because they lose out on the benefit above, but because they lose out on a good number of Boons too!

anyway, it’s a difficult alignment to set up for and keep a secret, if you’re trying to hide your worship of the Tyrant King. You COULD pass off the drum as being made of animal tissues, but the loud chanting to a known and famous Demon Lord and the fact you’re likely to be seeing stars and colors due to your Hearty Breakfast is much harder to explain if someone kicks your door in. The fact you need both jungle drugs and a drum means this Obedience is utterly ruined if you get robbed or have your equipment stolen, though at the very least it’s easy enough to replace your belongings... if you’re in a jungle. If you’re not, getting a new drum is simple, but a visit to the black market may be necessary to restock on your Hearty Breakfast.

The benefit is notably weaker than other benefits of a similar theme; a few deities are generous enough to give universal protections from poison and disease, but Angazhan punishes you for going where he cannot tread. Fitting for a tyrant who likes having people under his thumb, but annoying for someone trying to actually extend his reach. In a jungle area, however, it’s MUCH more impressive than it looks in a vacuum; many, many, many, MANY horrors within the deep and mysterious tangles rely on poisons or disease to fell their enemies and their prey, so the added protection will always come in handy!

Boons are acquired slowly: the first once you reach 12 hit dice, the second at 16, and the third at 20. However, the Evangelist, Exalted, and Sentinel Prestige Classes can be entered as early as level 7; doing so grants you the Boons at levels 10, 13, and 16 instead. Servants of demons may also take the Demoniac Prestige Class; you don’t get the Boons any faster than E/E/S, but you may select which Boon set you get, and you get cool demon-related powers!

------- EVANGELIST -------

Boon 1: The Jungle Consumes. Gain Pass Without Trace 3/day, Tree Shape 2/day, or Spike Growth 1/day.

‘Consumes’ indeed; Spike Growth can render a frankly offensive amount of terrain completely inhospitable (ten 20ft squares!), shredding 1d4 HP off every creature trying to pass through a single 5ft square and threatening to halve their movement speed for a full day every time they take damage. As anyone who’s played as or fought against a Druid can attest to, Spike Growth is useful for exactly two things (slowing an enemy’s retreat or advance) but it’s amazing at doing so. The sheer amount of terrain the spell covers and the length of time it covers for (an hour per level) makes useful for stopping everything from a charging dragon to a charging army... provided your foe has less than 4 DR. In order to halve someone’s movespeed they need to actually take damage from the growth AND fail a Reflex save, meaning even the meager DR 5 you’re likely to encounter at levels 10+ is enough to make Spike Growth completely irrelevant.

If you can use it against a foe who’s not immune to it, though, it’s absolutely stellar. Moving through even a single 20ft square triggers four separate Reflex saves to avoid having one’s movespeed halved for a full day, and--as written--the halved speed can’t be undone with Fast Healing or Regeneration, the victim MUST find a Cure spell. Perhaps the biggest downside is that using it to its fullest potential--that is, to cripple a charging swarm of foes--is unlikely to happen, delegating it to crowd control versus a small amount of enemies.

It’s leagues better than the niche Tree Shape, but Pass Without Trace also has its merits, hiding up to 10 people from sniffing noses and prying eyes for half a day, letting you and your allies effortlessly vanish into the foliage. Indeed, all three of these spells are extremely useful in the jungle setting Angazhan demands you remain in, so if you ARE actually hiding around in the Mwangi Expanse, all three of these can be genuine picks depending on if you plan to be a trapper, a stalker, or a sentree that day.

Boon 2: Canopy Crawler. Your feet become prehensile and apelike, allowing them to act as a second pair of hands for every purpose except wielding a shield or weapon, such as to execute somatic components, to aid in climbing, to hold objects, and to maintain your Dexterity bonus to AC while climbing. In addition, you gain a climb speed equal to your walking speed +10, and can attempt a Climb check in place of the following checks: Acrobatics checks to swing or leap between branches and vines; Stealth checks to remain hidden within trees, and you can move at full speed through them without penalty; and Stealth checks to snipe from trees, the penalty for doing so reduced by 10. 

The way this ability is written in the book is kind of a mess, so I tried my best to shuffle it into a more easily digestible form.

Anyway: Freaky monkey feet! For all your freaky monkey feet needs! One of the more unique Boons in the game, and unlike most highly unique Boons, this one is still highly useful! While your handfeet can’t wield weapons or shields, you can use them for more or less anything else while your actual human hands are occupied. Sleight of Hand? No, my friend, I’m on a completely different level.

The big star here is the free climb speed, which automatically gives you a meaty +8 to Climb checks, making the various skill checks it replaces much, much easier to exploit. You become an expert of gorilla... guerrilla... Gorilla Guerrilla Warfare, soundlessly moving from tree to tree and hurling spears or firing arrows with nary a peep but for the whoosh of the weapon through the branches and leaves, moving from position to position as easily as playing hopscotch. Even if you never invested in Stealth at all, you can suddenly pour ranks into Climb and become an ersatz Rogue for the party, leading a silent charge against the foes of the Ravenous King’s cult. 

Side note, this ability combines beautifully with all 3 of the spell-likes from The Jungle Consumes, as your brachiating movements put you above Spike Growth, Pass Without Trace makes you utterly impossible to nonmagically track if you attack at night, and Tree Shape lets you become a horror movie villain that vanishes the instant it appears you’re about to be ‘caught.’

Boon 3: One With The Jungle. While in the jungle, you gain blindsight to a range of 60 feet, you gain a +2 insight bonus to AC and on saving throws, and you are never flat-footed or surprised. You ignore cover and concealment caused by natural features of the jungle, as the very plants and stones twist out of the path of your attacks and spells.

An eternal Diet Foresight if your reward for remaining in the Ravener King’s grip, but this ability--unlike Canopy Crawler--is entirely blank if you adventure outside of your god’s chosen locale, a punishing loss of an otherwise incredibly strong defensive ability. Being impossible to catch by surprise is good enough on its own, especially at levels where enemies can have Sneak Attacks exceeding +4d6, poisons that cause people to hemorrhage ability scores, or fatal grappling embraces, to say nothing of what happens if a spellcaster gets the drop on everyone. The +2 to AC and universal bonus to saving throws will struggle to make a difference, but it’s a rare insight bonus and will thus stack with all your existing bonuses... and, of course, it lasts forever so long as you remain in a jungle.

I enjoy that the jungle will shuffle aside to let you shoot and swat your enemies without penalty, making my ‘treetop sniper’ suggestion in Canopy Crawler even more viable. Now, as long as you can see even the smallest portion of your target, the natural world will bend and sway to avoid your blows so that they always strike true, letting you attack enemies without the possibility of them retaliating unless they begin cutting down the whole jungle... at which point they’ll have much bigger issues than just you.

------- EXALTED -------

Boon 1: Jungle’s Wrath. Entangle 3/day, Bull’s Strength 2/day, or Summon Monster III (1 fiendish ape, 1d3 fiendish advanced baboons, or 1d4+1 fiendish baboons) 1/day.

Bull’s Strength is always nice to have to give the beefy members of your party, giving them an extra +2 to attack and damage rolls for ten or so minutes at a time, among other bonuses. Strength bonuses are some of the most boring but practical things you can hand out, because you never know when you’ll just need to do something as simple as moving a large rock or hit something for 2 more points of damage than normal. Having it at twice a day means it’ll likely carry through the most important battles or puzzles you’ll face.

Entangle, however, tends to be the better option here. See everything I said above about Spike Growth? Paste that here, as well, but trade off the damage for the ability to grapple everything trying to move through the 40ft radius(!) of plantlife you’ve affected. In some ways it’s better than Spike Growth, utterly halting the movement of anyone heading through it if they fail their save rather than halving it, and being difficult terrain even if the victims succeed, which halves their speed anyway.

Seeing summoning abilities on a Boon is usually good, but the painful limitation of only being able to summon various demon apes means it severely lacks its normal Swiss Army application. It’s only really good if you need either a distraction, or something heavy moved, both of which could be accomplished with Entangle and Bull’s Strength without it being tied to a creature with subhuman intelligence. At the very least, apes have humanoid hands and can thus perform tasks very few other summoned creatures could do, such as wielding weapons.

Boon 2: Summon Child of Angazhan. 1/day as a swift action, you can summon an Advanced Fiendish Girallon, 1d3 Advanced Fiendish Dire Apes, or 1d4+1 Advanced Fiendish Apes as if you had cast Summon Monster VI.

In spite of my mockery of the Boon above, the ape restriction here is anything but painful. ... well, it’s painful for anyone who’s not you, mind. An Advanced Fiendish Girallon is a CR 8 monstrosity with enough damage output and resilience from the Fiendish template to punch above its weight class. A Girallon is a four-armed, Large-sized ape beast with five attacks (and Rend!) a round, with enough agility and maneuverability to run down fleeing foes or chase them through just about any terrain easily.

It’s also your best option among the summons; the Dire Apes and normal apes are nice, but the chance of summoning a single Dire Ape or a meager 2 fiend apes means a Girallon is the best go-to unless you need a lot of bodies rather than one large one. The Fiendish template is really what gives this ability the oomph it needs to shrug off most of my criticism of Jungle’s Wrath, granting even your normal apes a bit of Spell Resistance and elemental resistance to Fire and Acid... though, notable, both the normal ape and the Dire Ape have too few HD to gain the advanced benefits of the Fiendish template, and none of the creatures here have high enough Charisma to make the Smite Good ability granted to them useful, even with the +4 to all ability scores from Advanced.

Perhaps the biggest gold star this power has, however, is the fact that it can be used as a swift action. You can instantaneously flank an enemy with a murderous gorilla and then stab them in the back when they rightly turn around to look at said murderous gorilla in disbelief, or you can blast them with another spell, or you can do any number of other things with the distraction you’ve just created. Don’t forget that Summon Monster VI also has a range of Close, letting you hurl a demon gorilla at an enemy from 25+5ft/lvl away. The downside, however, is that SMVI also has a duration of a meager 1 round/lvl, meaning you’ll often run into the issue of saving the use of this ability, often until you no longer need it.

Boon 3: Jungle’s Might. You gain a +2 profane bonus to your Strength score and a +2 bonus on Fortitude saving throws.

Useful but boring. It’s moderately better than most stat-buffing Boons thanks to the additional Fortitude bonus, but final Boons typically give +4 bonuses, not +2. There’s no flash or pizazz here, nothing to really expand upon, so lets move on!

------- SENTINEL -------

Boon 1: Tyrant’s Roar. Gain Command 3/day, Sound Burst 2/day, or Suggestion 1/day.

I almost got mad because I mistook Sound Burst for a different, much worse spell. Nope! That was sonic scream or whatever, one I’m so unimpressed with I didn’t even bother looking it up. Sound Burst is significantly better, anyway, able to stun a small crowd of enemies in a single casting, which is exactly what you--as the Sentinel--want to happen. Either because you’re holding back an enemy(/ies) for your allies to get into place, or because you’re holding them still so you can get in close. The damage it deals is pitiful, but it’s automatic even if they succeed against the stun effect, and you never know when 8 damage to up to a crowd will make a difference!

Like most of Angazhan’s blessings, it gets better if you’re in a jungle, as the hostility of the Mwangi Expanse means invaders are likely to be clustered together as tightly as possible to prevent attacks from all angles. Punish them, hard.

Command is in-character for the Tyrant King, and it rewards creative uses beyond the ‘come,’ ‘stay,’ and ‘drop’ commands, though those serve their purpose well enough. I’m quite partial to KNEEL, which fits Angazhan rather well! The only problem is that its low saving throw scaling means it’s unlikely to affect enemies that matter, and in combat it’s often much better to just rush in and start slapping. Out of combat Suggestion is king, though it’s an odd choice for someone who tends to force people to follow his orders through violence and threats rather than relying on coercive and subtle magic. Personally, I’d let the Face of the party or the dedicated enchanter rely on Suggestion, and carry Sound Burst around for those times you need to explode people’s eardrums.

Boon 2: Reign of Terror. You add your Strength modifier to Intimidate checks (this does not stack with Intimidating Prowess or similar feats and abilities) as well as your Charisma modifier. Once per minute, you may use Intimidate to demoralize a single creature within 30ft as a swift action, or all creatures within 10ft as a move action. When using Intimidate to demoralize a creature in this way, if your result exceeds the DC by 5 or more, the creature is frightened for 1 round and then shaken for the normal duration; if your result exceeds the DC by 10 or more, the creature cowers for 1 round, then is frightened for 1 round, and then is shaken for the normal duration. When you use Intimidate to demoralize an ally, instead of being shaken, that creature gains a +2 morale bonus on attack rolls for the appropriate duration.

While normally Boons are built to be taken advantage of by any class within the margins of those who can enter the Prestige Classes in the first place, sometimes you get one that forces you into a specific path. This one highly, highly rewards having both a high Strength and a high (or at least neutral) Charisma, and focusing a feat or two into making your Intimidate as high as possible can see you sending squadrons of enemy combatants scattering and trampling one another to get away from you. I love, love, LOVE that there’s no per-day use restriction on this power, only that it can be used once per minute, meaning you can bring it out in more or less every fight you encounter.

Exceeding the victim’s Intimidation DC by 10 or more causes them to cower, a status affliction barely above paralysis in how terrible it is to be suffering, opening them up to a whole round of being beat on without any ability to retaliate. Even if they survive the round of helplessness, they’re forced to run from you and use whatever resources they have available to get as far away from you as possible... which can be a blessing or a curse depending on what they were carrying and how badly you wanted it.

Being able to Intimidate a single foe as a swift action or a whole crowd surrounding you as a move action is strong, especially if you can bolster your prowess enough to always score 10 higher than their DC (a challenge, but not an insurmountable one)... And even if your enemies are immune to being intimidated either because they’re mindless, starved, or immune to fear, you can use this ability to give your whole team +2 to attack rolls for 4+ rounds. It’s more of a consolation prize than anything else, but note that the final sentence does not say “in this way,” meaning you can use Intimidate normally without needing the 1/minute bolstering to give your allies a bit more accuracy! Wasteful, but viable!

Boon 3: Unchallenged Tyrant. When you perform your Obedience, designate a number of present and willing creatures equal to your Charisma modifier; these are your Thralls. This designation lasts for 24 hours or until you next perform your Obedience. 3/day, you can infuse all Thralls within 50 feet of you as a swift action, granting them a +4 bonus to their Strength and Constitution scores and a +2 bonus on initiative checks, and granting any teamwork feats you have as bonus feats *for an number of rounds equal to your hit dice. If a Thrall dies within 50 feet of you at any time, you gain the effects of Death Ward (CL = half the Thrall’s Hit Dice, to a maximum of CL 20th).

*this ability originally had no listed duration, making it quite awkward and insanely powerful. I’ve added one that makes sense.

Oh, not bad! Another reward for buffing up your Charisma! Even if it’s just to a +2 bonus! And it’s a fine one, too, letting you enchant your allies with a discounted Barbarian Rage, including a bonus to initiative checks to help them move before your enemies even know what’s happening! THREE TIMES a day!!! And--wait, wait, there’s more? You also transfer ALL your teamwork feats to your Thralls? Teamwork feats are pretty powerful but wholly rely on your allies being willing to give up their own feat slots for them, and they utterly fail to work if you aren’t working together or become separated by enemy shenanigans. This ability (along with the Inquisitor’s Solo Tactics) turns those empty feat slots into something truly game-changing due to applying them to all of your Thralls at once. This means that, even if you don’t or cannot join in the fight, they can still use teamwork with each other, and all you need is one of them to be nearby to make use of feats like Lookout (if one of you can act during the surprise round, all of you can), Precise Strikes (+1d6 damage if you’re flanking an enemy)... or, perhaps the most useful of them, Coordinated Charge, allowing you and your allies to all charge the same target.

It doesn’t take a genius to see why Coordinated Charge is one of the best you can use with this ability, as the +Strength and Con bonus means you can turn even the weakest member of the party into another source of damage however small. It also means all of your melee battlers can get into the fray immediately, and if used in combination with Lookout, it can turn an enemy ambush into a pile of severed limbs and broken armor before they even realize what they’re up against.

I also like that if any of your Thralls die, you get a free Death Ward. If you know you’re going up against a necromancer or an Undead with Energy Drain, making an incredibly weak but tasty-looking creature one of your Thralls and sending them in to die is one less spell slot your Divine caster needs to use on you. I’m amused by the idea of blessing one member of your Sack Of Rats and just crushing it in your hand if you ever need a ward. If you have the Charisma for it, definitely try it out!

You can enter Monkis World here.

[ciathyzareposts]

Spellcasting 301 – Sand castles in the sand

By Deimar

Ernie Eaglebeak’s Journal #3: Beating the GLYs is proving to be harder than we anticipated. Of course, we had already beat them at weight lifting and partying, but now we have to build a sand castle, belly flop and a drinking contest. And that’s not even the end of it. But we can’t stand down now. Afterall, we are fighting for our right to PAAAaaaaaaaaaartyyyyyyyy.

Will I find some of these chapter’s photos in Shutterstock?

Ok, inventory and finance management is getting on my nerves. The item limit is stupidly low, which means that when venturing far from my stash place, the Plaza, I can only take the spell book with me, check what I am going to need there, restore and move along. The time limit gives you some breathing room, but not enough. In the end most of the time I am just skipping going to timed events like some of the contest to fully explore and gather items in new areas so I can replay the zones being more optimal with my movements. It gets tiresome after some time.

The other problem is finances. With the starting gold plus the 200g you can find in the sack that dropped from the carpet you are set at the beginning. But then the game starts to open up and I am starting to suspect that in the end I will have to buy everything in the town. And there are very expensive things out there. As I commented in my previous post, I suspected you can sell things in the pawn shop and I was right. The designers even let you click on the signpost in the wall to get a nice interface to manage transactions. I have been selling what I consider trash, such as the empty gold sack or other containers (I feel sorry for Sid and Otto as I sold their bag and suitcase, but it is for a good cause). Those give very little money, but enough to buy some of the least expensive things. Items bought from other shops give more money, but I am refraining from selling those as they might be useful later on, even if they have been already used in a puzzle, like for example the studfinder and the two-by-fours.

The bane of my existence

The only other source of money I have seen is the casino. I’ve spent quite some time trying to see a pattern in any of the three games there. First you have a Squat machine, a simple slot machine. I have never even getting close to winning anything. Then you have blockjock, a card game where you have to bet on whether the next card revealed will be lower or higher than yours. Of course, the cards are completely original and there is no clear hierarchy of values so whatever you choose you always end up losing. The last one is the maze. A mouse is freed in the center of a maze and you have to bet which gate he will use to get out of the labyrinth. The casino uses different mice for each round, with names such as Herman B. Squeak, Uncle Twitchy or Lord Rodent. As this one seemed like the game with more chances for winning, I spent some time annotating results, trying to see a pattern in gates, rodents and the like but to no avail. The game even doesn’t let you save inside the casino. Everytime you enter the casino you are told “This house is crookeder than me pappy’s back” so I guess there must be something you can do to cheat these gamblers and until then you are going to lose every single time, but it is eluding me for the moment.

If I continue having problems with my money, I will probably end up reading Ilmari’s clues from a few post ago as I waste a lot of time taking things to the pawn shop and paired with the inventory limit it is getting annoying. With that said, I managed to make some progress and saw more of the following contests in the tournament and more zones. Let’s start with the morning following the party.

Castle building

The next contest is sand castle building, on 1.30pm on Monday. As there was some time before the contest and I still had no idea what to do, I went for a walk to see the shops that were closed during the weekend. The first one is the surf shop, which sells only two things. The first one are a pair of dehydrated falsies. I am guessing that one will be useful for the wet t-shirt contest. The second is an absorption pill. As that didn’t tell me anything I bought and tried to eat it, with the message being that now I could swallow a ton a water, so I think this one will come in handy for the drinking contest.

Shouldn’t they sell some actual surf stuff?

The other closed shop is a dance club called the “Club Club”. “Why?” I heard you asking. Well, it is a prehistoric themed dance club, where boys have to hit their dance partners with a foam club in the head to ask them to dance. Neat, but not very useful at the moment.

WIILMAAAAAAAAA!!

Seeing as those seemed like dead ends, I waited for the sand castle tournament. Everyone was there at 1.30pm and it seemed like the YUs, as per usual, were doing extremely well an the Pharts were doing… something, I guess. As per usual. Trying to make a castle ended up in nothing but with Sid complaining about in his youth he used to be very good at building castles. PEAWEE to the rescue!!. The regression spell usually reverts things to their infant selves. Used on Sid makes the trick and he remembers how to make sand castles, but he needs a shovel. A quick restore and a trip to take the shovel from the stash and the contest is won. So far so good.

Come on, Sid made an entire city, the only a castle and we only get 10 points over them? This tournament is rigged!!

You have some time between Sid finishing its sand city and the contest ending but I don’t see anything else to do. I am still wondering if there is any way to make the YUs score worse, as there seems to be time to do so but nothing I tried worked. In any case, now we are ahead for 185 to 150.

Wild wild north east

After the contest ends, a wave conveniently cleans the beach showing a metal object under the YUs patch of sand: a right-hand ratchet. UPPSSY (spell of opposites) on the ratchet makes it a left-handed ratchet which is exactly what the workerman at the Stream of Consciousness needs to repair the bridge. I mean, after giving him the bolt from the hardware store.

At least I didn’t have to also repair the bridge for him

This opens the way to a new section. A wild west themed section of the map. First we find a roc nest with some plumage from the bird. If you are like me and have no idea what is a roc, it apparently is a Persian mythological big bird of prey, with several appearances in The Arabian Nights. I really hope solving anything in this game is not related to knowing more about the legend of the roc.

Seeing this image I am starting to wonder if I will have to try to mate with a roc… The specification of a MALE plumage seems fishy…

Continuing north we reach an old wild west town. With a saloon, a bank, a prospector shop and an entrance to the mine, which I guess is the same mine we can access from the Mouth of Cave. When trying to enter the saloon, a fairy comes and says that it is closed at the moment. Seeing as this is the “west” exit from the town, there is probably some way of entering.

Apparently it thawed when we passed by over it

The bank presents less problems to enter, but inside we can only find a sleeping banker. We can wake him up, but he offers no services to us.

He is just so happy to see anyone…

The prospector shop is way more interesting. They sell a lot of miner stuff but you need a prospector id card to buy. The only two things you can buy without one is a torch, at 179g, and a bulb repair service at 24g, which is exactly what we need to level up our sorcery at the guild hall.

Outside of the shop, at the mouth of the mine we can find another item from the carpet. A trunk containing a level 4 spell, KITCHEMY (lead to bread), and a piece of denim. Getting inside the mine is of no use, as it is pitch black, so it is time to rewind, sell quite a few things and see what’s on the mine. Oh, and get the bulb repaired.

Once inside, it looked to me like the mine was going to be your typical run-of-the-mill text adventure labyrinth, as every room from the entrance had 8 exits leading to copies of the same room. After trying to map it for a while I realized that it is not actually a maze at all.

Going west in almost any room takes you back to the mouth of the mine. When you go east in any room for a few steps you end up in the same room, but with water pouring from a whole. You can jump in the water and end up in the Stream of Consciousness. Going further east makes a giant squid appear from the water and block going further to the east. Nothing I tried made the squid go away, so there must be something to be done with it. Also, at some point I managed to get out of the mine via the mouth of the cave but I haven’t been able to reproduce it.

Maybe an alien from another dimension that will make everyone on Earth unite and fight together against the common enemy?

Under the sea

Having finished exploring the Northeast as far as I could go at the moment, I redirected my efforts towards the guild hall and the bulb repair quest. Once I returned it to them, I went up a level in sorcery and got another quest, requiring pearl dust to level up even more. Wanting to test my new powers as soon as possible, I decided that the spell at The Point that transforms humans to merfolk was the perfect challenge.

Gandalf the blue!

So I dropped everything at the base of the lighthouse to travel the treacherous path to The Point and opened the spell box. Lo and behold, now I was a merman. Just regular Ernie but with more scales. Once here, you can choose between diving into the ocean or into the harbour, so I decided to go with the great big blue.

I was greeted by a wonderful sea bed full of corals, with some fishes going around in the screen. The only thing that could be taken was a berry underwater plant. I decided to try to eat the berries and as soon as I did I was transformed back into a human and taken to the harbour by a pair of merfolks. I really appreciate that you can’t die in this game, but things like this with a potential dead end get on my nerves. Luckily, the spell box that allows you to become a merman doesn’t disappear after use, so you can go underwater as much as you like. At least until you get bored of walking from the wharf to the Point.

The berrie of my existence

In any case, once back in the water, I decided to try the underwater harbour section just to see a boot inside a lobster trap, which immediately remind me of the lobsterman in the wharf. After a few turns, the trap is raised to show a crab hiding under it, but you can’t take it. With nothing to do there at the moment, I followed the only available path to the west.

Then I reached a sunken ship, with an oyster just sitting outside. The oyster contained a pearl inside, so I took both. Inside the ship I found a medallion with an inscription saying that whoever wears it is protected by the god of the sea. Which useful underwater, so I started to wear it. Following the only path available I reached the outskirts of a merfolk city. And the portable bar I dropped from the carpet.

I think the image follows the solemn Disney tradition of hiding a penis somewhere

And then the time limit on the spell ran out and I was dragged once again to the wharf without any of the items I was carrying. Funny, are you feeling it yet? So back to the water I managed to get into the city and meet a gorgeous mermaid that seemed interested in Ernie. She takes Ernie to her room (seduced by his charm I guess, whatever it may be). There we can take a look at a parchment in the floor showing a map on how to get to a throne. Of course, you can shag the lady fish, but I will leave that to your imagination.

I hate when people don’t simply send the location on Google maps…

The final room in our underwater trip is the merfolk museum. The museums talks about the city of Sitnalta, a sister city of Mer City that was shoot up to the skies long ago and lost to the merfolks. It contains a throne, a replica of the real one in Sitnalta, with a plaque saying that there is a legend about returning the four seahorses of the Apocalypse to the throne to restore the former glory of the Mer people. So at last I know what the seahorses are all about. And the fourth one is just there also, inside an egg in the museum. Now I just need to know how to reach the real throne using the map in the other room.

Merfolk roolz!! Long life the seahorses!!

The last “puzzle?” here is how to get the items out of the water, but with the trap moving every few turns it was an easy answer. You just have to open the trap and empty whatever you want out of the water inside. Of course, the time limit on the spell makes this operation take a few trips, but all is good and sound once everything is outside.

Back to the tournament

But not everything is shiny. I spent a lot of time exploring and trying things in the new scenarios. Coupled with the time spent tidying up my finances, in the end I didn’t have much time to prepare for the next two events. At some points I even sacrificed them to keep going on. Still, I tried both of them with little to no success.

The first contest is a belly button dive in the pool of the hotel at 10.30 am. Once the judge and her entourage arrives, they put up a stratospheric diving board to see who makes the biggest splash. I tried several things here, like for example using the roc call to see if it would pick up one of Ernie’s brothers to a bigger splash, or the mutation of the KITCHEMY spell, BOTCHEMY (peel to steel), or try to jump myself, but nothing worked. Everytime, the two Pharts on the contest do a horrible performance and the YUs are awarded 175 points to 50 for us. Basically, none of the other previous contests matter anything because this one gives a lot of points.

Come on, falling on your head from that height will make more of a blood splash than a water one. I call cheating!!

There is also a drinking contest a 7.30 the very same day. And it goes equally bad. The contest is a two parter, with the first bar consisting on seeing who mixes more drinks in the alloted time, and the second one consisting in drinking the first part results. After a first successful attempt, I managed some progress by giving Vince, the Phart in charge of mixing drinks, the portable bar I found at the bottom of the ocean. Although the contest goes a little bit better, it is still far from a competition, as the portable bar is broken and not working properly. UPPSSY the mini bar makes it a big bar, but still is not enough to win the contest. For the drinking part, I think I will only need the absorption pill, once I manage to mix a bazillion drinks.

Madam, Have you checked your spine? Feels a bit too curvy…

And with that I think it is as good a time as any other to finish this post. I will keep working on trying to win those two contest and probably will have to replay some of the game to have more time and better finances at this point.

Final remarks

Some of these might seem obvious after reading the post, but many of them have only occurred to me while writing about my experiences. I think it might be interesting to you to know what I am thinking about how to approach following sessions.

The medallion might be the way of defeating the giant squid in the mine, so it is one of the first things I will try

It dawned on my that I can possibly wear the roc plumage before using the call and trick a female roc. If this is a way of winning the diving contest or just how you can get to the sister Mer city is still unknown

There must be a way of returning the mining town to its former glory or otherwise the closed saloon or the bank serve no purpose. PEAWEE maybe? Actually, I might need to do something with the water at the Stream of Consciousness. Try some spells even.

No idea what that KITCHEMY spell can be used for. The only thing I can think is that there will be a escape from a prison by eating the lead-to-bread changed gate. Although the rust spray seems like it can be used for the same purpose.

I am not sold on changing RATANT to its mutated spell yet, even though no mutated version of any other spell has been of any use.

Somehow a plate of magic mushrooms appeared in my inventory at the Plaza. Maybe something I left has changed but I can’t see what

The Laxative at the grocery store will be probably used in the arena

Still have no idea how to open the closed door at the aquarium or to take the key from the rummy at the groggery.

Ok, ok. But only because you asked to play in NAUGHTY mode… Pervs

Inventory:

9 pieces of gold

Bathing suit (worn)

Glasses (worn)

Spell book

Golden Seahorse

Auburn tube, umber tube, sienna tube, brown tube, tan tube, beige tube, sepia tube

Kaleidoscope

Studfinder

Two-by-fours

Instruction Sheet

Confirmation Letter

Trophy

Cloak

Text book

Nose shield

Deflated pool float

Otto’s suitcase (spare tie)

Pimento Moss

Some suction cup-covered gloves (left by Batman)

Package of breadsticks

Shovel

Conch

Boot

Tuft of male roc plumage

Left-handed ratchet

Treatise

Sweet smelling seahorse

Plate of magic mushrooms

Parchment

Medallion

Oyster (pearl inside)

Egg (fuzzy-feathered seahorse)

Portable bar

Denim

Miner’s torch

Potential items:

Diamond ring (1500g from Pawn Shop)

Pulverized pearl (15g from Hardware Store)

Strawberries (6g from Grocery Store)

Laxative (39g from Grocery Store)

Bread (3g from Grocery Store)

Rust Spray (10g from Souvenir Shop)

Roc Caller (79g from Souvenir Shop)

Greasy food (5g at Beach by Snack Bar)

Slimfish (33g from Fish Market)

Dehydrated falsies (45g from Surf shop)

Absortion pill (30g from Surf shop)

Spells:

Level 1 spells BIP (produces soft music) BIM (produce soft mucous) FOY (create daiquiris)

VOY(create dungarees)

Level 2 spells FRIMP (levitation) FRUMP (legislation) SPUNJ (enlarge tree root) SPURJ (enlarge wee fruit) Level 3 spells RATANT (spell mutation) RATTAN (shell mutation) PEAWEE (regression) POWWO (digression) UPPSSY (spell of opposites) DOWNSY (spell of opossums) Level 4 spells KITCHEMY (lead to bread) BOTCHEMY (peel to steel)

Map:

Score: YUs – 700, Pharts – 265 (I think it’s quite even, don’t you agree?)

Session Time: 3 hours Total Time: 10 hours

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There’s a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please…try not to spoil any part of the game for me…unless I really obviously need the help…or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, I’ve not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/spellcasting-301-sand-castles-in-the-sand/

[dungeonsandberries]

Session 4: Saving Slaves

In this episode, the party pillages a barracks full of guardmen just doing their job. We’re heroes!

Thankfully, the tiefling, dragonborn and human women were more friendly and asked to speak with us rather than fight. Their names were Dedrum, Frowiba and Afuna, respectively. The first two seemed of an amicable sort, but Afuna chose to remain silent our entire conversation and gave us strange looks from afar. I cannot say what was on her mind or even how she regarded us.

As it turns out, the trio was from Ursalia, and served Lord Garit of Ursalia. They explained that Lord Henfrey of Tidesoria and Countess Jahane of Gunnato had neighboring provinces and were close to war, and both of them held slaves. Their hope was to use the orcs as a distraction, allowing them to attack and distract the local guard enough to slip in and free the slaves. But with the orcs dead, their plans were ruined, and with only a week or two at most before it would be impossible to rescue the slaves.

I was horrified to learn this, and wished I could help, but I didn’t see it being possible. That is, until my companions began to speak. Veilour and Felfedau impressed me once again with their selflessness, both volunteering to step in and create a distraction for them in place of the orcs. This was doubly impressive to me, as both Veilour and Felfedau risked much by going along with this plan, being from the provinces in question and risking becoming outlaws by aiding the slaves. Maevia also seemed willing to go along, as freeing the slaves was just the kind of trouble she seemed to be in search of. It was simple for me, being an outlaw in Gunnato already and with a personal desire to see other Ursalian slaves freed, but my companions had no stake in the conflict and stood to lose much, with no promise of reward.

Of course, not all of our group was so selfless. Marv wished to be paid. I do not think less of him for this, it was a rational thing to desire payment for such a risky endeavor. Unfortunately, the Ursalians had no payment in mind for the orcs to give him in their stead, and the payment was simply going to be the spoils the orcs could take from their raids. However, I saw no need for such good plunder to go to waste, and suggested we simply pillage in their stead as our payment. A suggestion which seemed to please Maevia.

With this settled, we opted to go about this now, before open fighting broke out and our window to rescue the slaves could close. Our original target was going to be farmland, which is where the orcs were going to be directed, but most of our group found the idea of attacking the farmers distasteful, even if we had no intention of hurting the farmers directly. We opted instead to attack one of the military outposts.

In order to protect our identities, I loaned some of my costume clothes to my allies and used my disguise kit to obscure everyone’s appearance. I can only hope it was enough to avoid getting bounties placed on our heads.

In retrospect, this was an insanely foolish plan. Attacking a fortified keep with only six people and no siege weaponry, and with most of our group hoping to take down every single soldier inside using non-lethal means. Thankfully, I had just the trick to help us here. Using my magic, I influenced the gate’s guard to open it for us, and the fighting broke out immediately.

Even holding back, the battle was nothing beyond our capabilities. We rushed through the gate after overwhelming the few posted in the front, as Veilour used his own magic to bathe their archers in darkness, blinding them and eliminating another of their advantages. Maevia made her way up one of the battlements and began fighting back all of the guards who came her way, while Felfedau and Veilour took the other side. Marv and I, meanwhile, focused on hunting down their own spellcasters and eliminating them from the fight, as Marv caused chaos by setting the keep’s stable on fire and panicking the horses.

When it became clear that we were going to win, one of the soldiers attempted to flee. Rather than stop him, I began to feed him false information that we were bandits and that we would attempt to hold the keep against the reinforcements that would come, and then I allowed him to flee. My hope is that it would stall the defenders even longer as they prepared to retake the keep from bandits.

By some miracle, we not only won the fight but did so without taking a single life. Even so, we intended to make it look like we were bandits. We stole whatever we could and stripped the guards of their gear, before tying them up inside their barracks. We also found a bit of Laborer’s Respite and a bottle of wine which simulated its effects, items which I did not expect to find in a military keep, but I hoped would help Marv determine the endeavor was worth his time. When I received magical word from our Ursalian contacts, I gave the signal to my allies for us to leave, and we fled the keep.

We met back up with our contacts on the road where we first met them, and I was overjoyed to see that they had made good on their promise, and a large number of liberated slaves stood behind them. Until now, my only concern had been my own freedom, and I felt fulfilled to know that I could lend my aid in the liberation of others.

Looking upon them, though, I thought of how blessed I truly was that my old master had purchased me and cared for me as he had. These people looked exhausted and malnourished. I, meanwhile, was educated in the arts and clad in fine clothing. A feeling of guilt crept into my mind once again at the fact I had escaped my master after he had shown me kindness, but I pushed it out by reminding myself that if I hadn’t sought my freedom, these people may not have been able to secure their own liberty.

And, of course, I am more impressed than ever by my companions. By their heroism and skill. What we did would make for a great story. A pity I could never share it without branding us all as outlaws. ‘Tis a cruel world in which we live.

Dedrum and Frowiba were grateful to us, but Afuna was still cold and distant. Regardless, they told us that we had secured a home in Lord Garit’s court. I have a home, now. A place I know I can retire to, one that would keep me safe. I would have gone with them right then… but I felt compelled to stay with my companions, instead. Besides, I still needed to get this collar off.

Before they left, I requested that they ask the slaves if any knew my parents. Frowiba returned with one man who claimed to know my mother. Her name was Lillian. A rather unremarkable name, but to me in that moment, it meant the world. I finally had a name for my mother, my parent who I knew the least about, whose face I cannot even recall. She was sold after her lord ran afoul of financial difficulties, so she was not among the liberated slaves, but I have more hope now that I might one day meet her.

With our business with the Ursalians concluded, we continued our journey to Tidesoria. I felt in greater spirits on this trip, and I enjoyed seeing the sights and sounds of the road. The food, on the other hand, was less pleasant. I know Maevia is a chef, and I’m sure she did what she could with what we could forage, but it was still bush meat. I can only hope she hasn’t noticed me flavoring my food with magic to taste like the fine meals I was accustomed to, in flavor if not in texture.

Alas, nothing ever seems easy for us on our journey. Not even something as simple as entering a city. We arrived to find the gate guards scrutinizing everyone attempting to enter, with a long line waiting for us. It was during this queue that we were approached by a young lad, who would later introduce himself as Colet. He seemed to know Maevia, who had bested him in a pit fight, but had allowed him to keep the prize money, which, in turn, allowed him to pay off a debt of his.

Maevia’s generosity had returned now to aid us, it seemed. The boy offered to smuggle in our goods, as the guards had been “confiscating” precious items they found among the people they interrogated at the gate. I clasped the gemstone in my collar, and cursed the fact it looked like jewelry, and hoped that they would not try to remove it from me. For our other valuables, however, we entrusted them to Colet to smuggle in for us. I hope the lad upholds his honor and does not try to run off with our goods.

It was then that we saw someone at the gate get arrested for carrying Laborer’s Respite. With a nervous laugh, I pulled Marv aside to help him conceal his own drugs in places the guards would hopefully not search...