#big yarr energy

[theladysherlock]

The Deep One? Eat my ass / More like get Deep Fried, am I right?

-

So the thing about Jam Mechanics' Get Deep Fried is it sounds exactly like what would happen if you took Ethan, my College of Fools bard from the last campaign I played, and put him in our current Cthulhu-Inspired campaign. And then he decided to pull out his guitar and cast Vicious Mockery on our BBEG at a Fifth Level.

Anyway please listen to Get Deep Fried it's very fun

[ID Under Cut]

ID: A young half-orc man in a red jacket, gray shirt, dark jeans and red sneakers aggressively playing an acoustic guitar. One hand is raised in the air above his head. Behind him are the words "Who Called This Son of a Bitch" and the "I" in "bitch" is censored by his hand. The background is a bright orange with yellow triangles all converging around his raised hand.

[balatrodnd]

Check out my other work over at balatro.carrd.co

The Treasure of Captain Goldfang! A rapids boat encounter where the party is hanging on to a rickety boat flying down river through a pirate-controlled jungle following the legend of the ancient pirate captain Goldfang. “Captain Goldfang. The legendary big boisterous cat-man pirate. I heard a tale that the guards finally caught him by employing a strategic use of Pspspspsps.” -Ida Holly Here be the last will and testament of the dread pirate king Captain Goldfang Cronen, Terror of the seas and amasser of a horde of treasure that’d make a dragon blush. I lived a life of plunder and gluttony fat on the liquor of the land and never wanting for a single thing but now my time on this mortal land comes to its end-setting sail to unknown waters. Me father always said the Goldfang boys only die at the end of swords or the end of ropes. So to whoever what reads this here massive I present to you my last dagger in the back of fate. Me treasure is out there at the end of the river rapids with rocks like teeth, through the bones of me old crewmen, and into the guts of me ship rotten now as the hearts of its swabbies. Should you whistle in the darkness the walls will fall and there too you can claim it be yours as I did. That terrible treasure of captain Goldfang. Yarr! This map is a second shot at my river rapids map I made about a year ago now but this time inspired by pirate-treasure hunting adventures. Specifically, I was inspired by the goonies and one-eyed willie’s treasure, but more in tone and energy than anything else.

Grab this map tonight at patreon.com/balatroart

[inkribbon796]

Leap of Faith Ch 3

Summary: The group finally reach their destination, and it is as cult-filled as the brochure said it would be.

A/N: all titles for the story come from JT Music’s “Take a Leap of Faith”.

<= PREVIOUS

Chapter 3: I’m a National Treasure

If Marvin didn’t hate Illinois before, he did now. Both of them were with Magnum and Roman in the same cage. Magnum in particular was half rolled into a ball to fit in with them. Eric had been separated from them in the chaos. 

Sailing had been easy enough but the instant they started moving towards the temple they were immediately ambushed and captured by the cult they were looking for. It had been a temple carved into a cave. They had been able to track them because of Marvin’s innate magical ability. Roman had almost gotten his nose crushed up into his skull for trying to be a bit too eager to take on ten people at once.

“This is your fault,” Marvin glared at Illinois.

“My fault?” Illinois huffed. “What about this is my fault?”

“How about the part where you were laughing about the fact that we were in a book and your maniac brother was controlling us. Maybe you should have taken the whole thing seriously.”

Illinois used what tiny space he had to try and kick the door at the top of the cage off. But he lacked the room and the leverage to put any kind of power into it. “Kay, Maury, just because you’re the main character here doesn’t mean you can act like a know-it-all. If you really knew Artie, you’d understand.”

The adventurer punched the cage wall, looking around in random directions as if he was trying to find something. “I’m not going to die here, Artie! Go jump off a bridge, you asshat!”

“We are right next to you, why the hell are you shouting!?” Roman shouted back.

“Because my asshole brother is trying to kill me, but I’m not going to let him,” Illinois argued. “The Old Man is going to kill you, you jealous douchebag!”

The adventurer began frantically looking at the top of the cage.

“Maybe Eric’s looking for the keys?” Roman tried to be helpful, trying to summon anything but there was something wrong with the cage they were in because he couldn’t use his imagination powers. In fact he was getting a little lightheaded.

Illinois scoffed. “Yeah right. We’ve got to save ourselves. If he didn’t run for the hills, he’s hunkered down in some corner.”

“Hey, asshole,” Roman snapped back, bracing himself against the bars of the cage. “He would never abandon us.”

“Trust me,” Illinois laughed dryly. “I’ve had all kinds of travel partners. The cowardly lions I’ve worked with always get themselves killed.”

Any other insults Illinois was about to say were swallowed up by a series of loud explosions and then Eric came running out of the tunnel, looking panicked and worried. “Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!”

He slammed into the side of the cage door and began climbing up as Illinois watched him.

“Holy shit,” Illinois commented. “You came back.”

There was a look of realization crossed his face, “Wow, guess you guys were right we aren’t in a book.”

“Now you believe us?” Marvin demanded in exasperation.

“Artie’s real big on playing with tropes, but he never breaks ‘em.” As Illinois spoke, he scaled the cage wall so he could get closer to Eric. “Alright kid what do you see?”

Eric was pulling at a latch, “I-It won’t budge.”

“That’s okay, what type of latch is it?” Illinois said. He couldn’t see the lock from this angle.

“It’s made of . . . uh, um, rock with some weird writing,” Eric answered.

“Let me up,” Marvin ordered.

“I c-an do this,” Eric promised and began shaking out his hands before placing them directly on the latch and the whole thing rippled out into an explosion. Eric screamed, jolted with electricity.

With Eric off the door, Illinois swung his legs up and kicked the door open, jumping on top of the cage. Immediately he was helping the others up. But he did look back at Eric and smiled warmly. “Pretty brave thing you did back there, kid. You okay?”

“Ye-Yeah,” Eric was beaming as he readjusted his glasses. “Re-ally?”

“Yeah,” Illinois smiled. “I thought you’d leave us high and dry to huddle in a corner. I’m glad you proved me wrong. You’re a real hero, you know that?”

“Y-ou really th-ink so?” Eric was tripping over his words a bit more than usual.

“Oh I know so,” Illinois jumped off the cage to let Magnum have the room he needed to climb out. “Now let’s get outta this place and find the treasure we really want.”

“Yarr,” Magnum agreed, the earth shaking a bit as he jumped down. There was a sound of someone walking down the tunnel. Everyone ducked around the corner and when the guy appeared in the entranceway, Magnum hit him in the face, knocking him out.

Illinois directed Magnum to toss him into the cage.

“Okay, five bucks says he’s not alone,” Illinois said. “Kid, how many did you kill when you ran in?”

“I-I-I didn’t,” Eric looked on the verge of the breakdown.

“Did you knock them out?” Illinois went for a softer tone, holding up his hands placatingly.

Eric looked away, “I-I didn’t . . . try to hurt them. Couldn’t . . . touch them.”

“Okay, we can work with that,” Illinois told him and then looked around the room. “Bunch of commandos, and no guns. Great.”

“Ye gonna shoot ‘em?” Marvin asked.

“If it’s me or them, I’d rather get out of this in one peace, if it pleases the court,” Illinois defended.

“Self-defense,” Marvin agreed, giving Roman a hard look who seemed uncomfortable but threw his arms up in surrender.

“Magnum,” Illinois asked. “Plan B.”

“Gotcha,” Magnum smiled and pulled out several sticks of wood, and a string.

“Thank you,” Illinois told him and began assembling a crossbow.”

“How long have you had that?” Roman asked.

“Didn’t want to pull one of these out for just anything, I’ve got one shot, and I think I saw some pretty weak supports in the main room.

“Are yah mad?” Marvin growled.

“Oh, definitely,” Illinois smiled back. “But it’s our best shot out. I can make the shot, I know I can.”

“I don’t want to be trapped in a cave for the rest of my life,” Roman reminded.

“We won’t,” Illinois winked, “I’ve got us. I just need to make sure that they’re all to one side. You got a spell to help with that Maury?”

“That’s basic ventriloquism,” Marvin reminded, rolling his eyes. “Course I can throw sound over a room.”

“Awesome,” Illinois grinned.

Slowly the two began making their way out of the cave.

“Kay,” Marvin whispered. “How are you actually doing this?”

“I have the ability to affect probability, but I can horde it for a specific moment,” Illinois explained. “So I’ve got one shot cause the bow and I can’t give you my luck to do it for us.”

“Don’t miss,” Marvin told him.

“I can’t,” Illinois boasted and the two got close to the main room where five more guys were standing around looking agitated. Marvin heard that odd humming that he’d caught when the four of them had been dragged in. It was almost like a siren’s call.

While Marvin had been distracted between the ventriloquist spell he was doing and his thoughts, Illinois took his shot. The adventurer was aiming for one of the degraded supports of the temple that was helping to support the roof of the cave.

He looked down the sights and took a deep breath. On Illinois’s next exhale, his finger moved and the arrow flew. All it did was embed itself into a wood panel but it set off a chain reaction in exactly the right spot to make the pre-existing wood rot cracking the wood. The rock above started to groan under the weight.

“You guys okay?” Eric asked as he walked in.

“Get down!” Illinois jumped onto Eric, knocking him to the ground and shielding him with his own body.

The sound of falling tunnel was louder than Eric’s screams,which Eric and Marvin’s ears didn’t know if that was a good thing or not. It seemed to take ages for the collapse to stop and dust covered all of them.

Eric was whimpering in terror, curled into Illinois until the rumbling and crashing sounds of rocks finally stopped.

“A-Am I de-ad?” Eric coughed up dust.

Illinois picked his head up and saw that the tunnel collapses had luckily stopped inches from their hallways, sparking all of them and mere hairs away from Illinois’s foot.

“Not yet,” Illinois grinned as he looked at the edge of the new tunnel.

“They de-ad?” Eric gulped.

“Well fookin’ forgive me if I don’ grieve fer a bunch ‘a human sacrificin’ cultists,” Marvin started picking himself up slowly.

“You two okay?” Roman was running over, the room they’d been caged in was unscathed. Magnum was trying to squeeze himself through the much smaller tunnels.

“That was amazing,” Eric praised Illinois. The adventurer held out a hand to help Eric to his feet.

Illinois seemed to puff out his chest a bit at that. “Yeah? Glad you think so.”

“Where’d yeh learn ta shoot like that?” Marvin asked.

“Practice,” Illinois boasted. “Crossbow’s a bit different of a beast than a gun or a bow and arrow.”

“I guess, never fired out anythin’ more than magic,” Marvin agreed.

“Let’s get what we want, an’ get out of here before the cult of silly hats frees ‘emselves,” Magnum reminded.

“Right,” Illinois agreed.

The group began heading towards the entrance when Marvin stopped. “Hey, there was this weird room down the other hall, I wanna check it before we go.”

“You crazy?” Illinois reminded. “We should cut our losses. There’s other temples and weird places around the area we could look for.”

Then Marvin heard the low hum again, almost beckoning him down the other way.

“We came here to look fer somethin’ an’ I’m not leavin’ without it.” Marvin was starting down the tunnel, it was a wide entrance. Not quite big enough for a car, but certainly big enough to fit two average-sized wheel barrows through side-by-side.

“We just,” Illinois was stalking after him, clearly trying to stop him and pull Marvin back. But Marvin had stepped around the corner to see a large room. Immediately when Marvin saw it he knew some awful things had happened in this room, a dark energy was permeating the entire place. Murder, kidnappings, blood sacrifices.

Illinois stopped too, looking into the room. “You feel that too.”

Marvin nodded, looking around as he drew a couple protective symbols on the floor. “We found it.”

There was something like an altar set up to view a full mural. Drawing that looked like some type of ritualistic sacrifice in front of a dark mass that didn’t look human.

“Think this is it?” Roman asked, taking out his camera.

“Better be,” Marvin answered, he glanced over at Illinois who was staring up at it with awe and shock in his eyes, his mouth slightly a gap open. “Or we just trekked through mosquito-infested jungle and got captured for nothing.”

“This,” Illinois gasped, Eric hiding behind him, “this is incredible! The board’s never going to believe it.”

“Can ye read this?” Marvin asked.

“Some,” Illinois admitted, not looking back at Marvin for longer than a second, as if transfixed by the mural, which should have probably alarmed Marvin more than it did. “Well, I can read the Cariban. But it’s old, real old, I’d need a couple days, and books back home, to decipher all of this stuff out. It’s intermixed with a language I’ve never seen before. Doesn’t look like any of the other Marajoara or Mesoamerican languages I’ve seen, but I doubt I’ve seen all of them.”

“So you could read some of it?” Marvin quizzed. “You could figure out some of it.”

“I could decode all of it,” Illinois promised. “It’s obvious that multiple cultures lived here, I get one of them, I could find more.”

“Really?” Marvin eyed him up and down.

“Yeah,” Illinois smiled. “We could learn more about pre-colonial American traditions and religion with this thing. Think of the possibilities! Wish I’d picked this for my thesis instead, but that doesn’t mean I can’t publish the shit outta this thing.”

The adventurer walked closer to the mural. Roman accidentally snapping a picture of him in frame as well before moving out of the way to get his shot back again so he could get all the writing he needed. He ran his hands over the dark mass, marveling over it. “You came here for these? You boys planning on summoning an eldritch demon or something.”

“Nah,” Marvin answered. “We’re hoping to contain them.”

Illinois just stared at him, his expression in between cautious, and concerned. “Well good luck. You’re going up against Dark right? There’s not a soul in Egoton that hasn’t heard of him.”

“Wasn’t our original idea, but if we can get ‘im too, we will,” Marvin promised.

Illinois actually chuckled at that. “Yeah, maybe if you got the drop on him and know what you were doing. Good luck with that.”

“So what’d you catch on that,” Roman asked, still taking pictures of the mural.

“It’s detailing some type of process of communication, what I don’t know yet, but the pictures don’t look like they’re talking about anything like that so I don’t know yet.”

“We’ve got a guy who’s savvy with old languages, but if ye find anythin’ make sure ye let us know, always good ta have a second opinion,” Marvin told him.

“If you can get me copies I can absolutely do that,” Illinois agreed before looking around. “Hey, where’s Mag go?”

“Look at what I found!” Magnum called out from a neighboring room that was connected to the room they were in. The heroes and Illinois rushed into the other room to see the room had ceiling to floor boxes full of things. Some of the boxes were  filled with food, others of them had jewelry and money. A bunch of it had sparkles of blood on them.

“Well this must be how some of the commandos have been shipping stuff out of the city,” Illinois walked over, pulling a box out of the stack to rifle through it. “Make sense, there’s been lots of missing people through the years.”

“Is there any way to return it?” Eric asked.

Illinois just smiled up at him. “Brave and kind to a fault aren’t you?” Then he looked down. “I’m not seeing any names or return addresses and there’s lots of people who would lie to pocket some of this stuff. Looks expressive too.”

Eric frowned, but Illinois slowly and carefully pulled out a necklace from the pile, muttering to himself as he worked to untangle it from some of the others. It had a small jade rabbit on it.

“Here,” Illinois held it up once he’d freed it from the other necklaces, “Since there’s no way to return it, you should have this one.”

Eric looked back at Marvin and Roman. “Is this a good idea?”

Marvin sighed. “It’s like twenty bucks in the middle of a busy street,” the magician agreed. “Sides, the Captain’s gonna take it when we’re not looking.”

“Yard, ye know me so well,” Magnum smiled.

“Probably cause yer a pirate, it’s kinda yer job,” Marvin agreed. “Most ‘a this should go ta the local population, help out the local economy.”

“I think I can arrange that,” Illinois promised, but held up the necklace. “But this should be yours, Eric.”

“Really?” Eric blushed.

“Yeah,” Illinois smiled slyly. “You deserve to walk away with something for your hard work.”

Illinois carefully clasped the necklace around Eric’s neck. In the end, everyone but Marvin walked away with something. The magician was hesitant to touch anything that could possibly be cursed. Eric got his necklace. Illinois pocketed something Roman didn’t get to fully get a good look at what it was. Roman got a dagger with a jaguar carved into the hilt. Magnum and his crew made off with a lot of treasure, the rest would stay in Illinois’s Jeep with the adventurer. The crew used Illinois’s Jeep to get back to the ship in one trip.

While they were on the ship riding back to the Manaus port they’d pushed off from, Marvin took Roman’s phone to start taking notes of the inscriptions. Looking at the mural depictions of the black mass itself unsettled something in Marvin’s stomach but he kept everything for King to translate in case the inscription was another part of the language itself.

They made it to the port in good time, Magnum and his crew immediately restocking for the trip home. During the exchanges, Eric watched Illinois step off the gangplank and onto the dock.

“You leaving?” Eric asked, a bit hurt.

“Well yeah, I’ve still got research to collect,” Illinois told him. “Term papers don’t write themselves.”

“You sure?” Roman asked. “It’s no problem to drop you off.”

“I’ll be fine, get out of here before you worry Artie,” Illinois groaned.

“If we say yes, will you drop it,” Marvin answered, smiling.

“Absolutely not,” Illinois jogged back up to the ship, holding out his hand. “Here, Eric I can give you a call when I get back to town. We can go to this really nice fair that’s going to pull up to town when I get back.”

Eric blushed, pulling out his phone, “Sounds like fun.”

The adventurer winked, clicking his tongue and began inputting his number. “Wait a couple hours before calling, my phone’s dead.”

“Right,” Eric held the phone close to him.

Illinois finally got back onto the dock and watched as Magnum directed the ship to pull away. Eric leaning over the railing and waving at Illinois until he was too far away to see clearly.

Once the adventurer was a speck on the horizon, Roman leaned over. “Spill,” Roman begged. “I live for romance, it’s literally in my name.”

“Could ye two hens keep yer lovebird crooning down?” Marvin shouted. “I’m trying to figure out how ta kill demons.”

“Love can vanquish evil,” Roman proclaimed.

“Sure, uh huh,” Marvin dismissed. “Whatever you say, Charming. Just take it a couple steps away from me so I can concentrate.”

“Oh let him have fun,” Roman goaded, gesturing to Eric. “He’s got a hot Brazilian boyfriend.”

“Did ye hear that dipshit talk?” Marvin scoffed, smiling a bit. “Fooker was American.”

“Oh can it, Copperfield,” Roman smiled back,  but was pushing Eric away a little farther away from Marvin. Roman already started to give Eric rather lofty advice, and in Marvin’s mind it was woefully unhelpful, for dating someone. Marvin left them to it, it let him concentrate on the pictures, and Roman would be back to pester the magician for his phone again anyways.

The three heroes on a sailing ship with a pirate crew, and before long Marvin would join in on the fun.

[theladysherlock]

Photos Taken Seconds Before Casting Dimension Door to Ditch Your Father's Red Carpet Premiere of Fantasy Fast and Furious 18 Because You Want to Hang Out with Your Girlfriend

ID under the cut!

ID: Two people are holding hands and standing on a red carpet. On the left is a blonde half-elf woman with green eyes wearing a green dress and silver high heeled shoes, holding her silver shawl over her shoulder as though she’s preparing to leave. On the right is a taller half-orc man with dark hair and yellow eyes wearing a teal suit with a white shirt. The first few shirt buttons are left undone. He’s also wearing brown dress shoes and a thick leather bracelet. The two of them are grinning at each other. 

Behind them is a wall covered in fake brands. One in a serif font says “Southern Comforts Hotel & Casino.” One in a calligraphy font says “The Crestbrookdale Times.” One in a sans serif font says “fun little drink”. One in a sans serif font and surrounded by a circle says “car brand.”

[theladysherlock]

If you're using the character questions post as an ask meme - hit us with 5 and 9 for both Ethan and Mina

I hadn't planned on it but I'm sure as hell going to now!! Thank you for an opportunity to spout some nonsense I love to do it

5. What was the last time they cried, and under what circumstances?

In the final battle of the campaign, Ethan's mom (one of our most beloved NPCs) got swallowed by a giant entropy monster and, unlike every other character that got eaten, did not get spit back out when the monster died. He had only reunited with her a few weeks ago, and had spent a good chunk of that time desperately trying to keep her alive, so needless to say he did not take it well. (She's alive, somewhere, but that's a problem for the next campaign) Ethan's not a particularly stoic guy, so he also cried after a particularly emotional dream, when he got cursed to age up 20 years all at once (he got better), when he was on a weird time travel adventure where his mom asked for his help giving him up for adoption, and after getting plastered while the most cringefail man in the world left some hints that he might be Ethan's biological father (he's not, btw, but it was very taxing in the moment). The boy's had a rough go of it, but unfortunately for him I love to put him through the wringer.

Unlike Ethan, Mina is very stoic and hasn't cried in years. She came close after an overwhelming wave of homesickness hit her during a session, but I think the last time she actually had a good cry was when she finally got an apartment and had a steady place to live after being transient for over a year. She's a ticking time bomb of tears, though. We just haven't had a chance in-game to really let that happen.

9. What is their favorite holiday? 

Ethan loves any excuse to throw a party for his friends, so he's a big fan of a lot of them, but I think his favorite is Halloween. Mostly because he gets to wear stupid costumes for the bit. I wouldn't say he's the kind of guy to start counting down the days until Halloween in June, but come October 1st he's probably thinking about decorations for the house.

His least favorite is probably Father's Day because he has three (four, depending on who you ask) Dads and they're all dramatic and petty as hell, so the whole day is a goddamn ordeal. He'd much rather just do something nice for their birthdays individually and leave it at that.

Mina is not one for holidays. I think the closest she comes is celebrating her birthday, though it's a much more subdued event than it used to be when she was younger. When she was with her family, every birthday party would be a massive feast; now she just gets herself a small pastry or something.

Her least favorite holiday is New Year's. There's nothing wrong with the holiday itself, but her first week of being homeless coincided with the city's New Year's Eve celebrations, so she's a bit bitter about it. Plus, she's a street sweeper by trade, so any celebration that ends with confetti all over the ground pisses her off.

[theladysherlock]

BYE Story Time

One of my favorite Ethan moments is when he tried to filibuster the end of the world.

You have to understand, I did not expect this campaign to last so long. I made Ethan as an improv bro, frat boy adjacent bard, thinking that the campaign would fizzle out four sessions in. He was a joke character. I made him cringe on purpose. He was a super-senior who was captain of a failing improv comedy group, and he knew he was painfully un-cool. He was a deeply un-cool person in a party of awesome, powerful people and that was part of his charm.

The other important thing to understand is that throughout the entire campaign I rolled like shit. I've never had consistently dogshit rolls with any other character, just Ethan. On top of that, he had an extremely mid build-- even as a level eleven bard, his charisma score was only 16. He failed often. So often that it ended up being a running joke. As the campaign went on, I played a bit with his Insecurity about being the weakest link on the team. He had failed his senior year of college (though he was always quick to say he failed on purpose), he had no future plans or job prospects, and everything he tried to do combat-wise tended to fizzle out. Surely the others saw him as an annoying, stupid, stubborn fuck-up, and they only put up with him because he was good for a cure wounds in a pinch.

Anyway. The world was going to end.

The party had had a week to convince some demigods to vote to save the world, and we failed. 4-3, they voted to create the world anew, going far enough back in time until they had a blank enough slate to remake the world in their image. Everyone in the party was trapped, unable to use their magic or their weapons to stop whatever was about to happen.

And then, as a last-ditch effort, Ethan raised his hand and started asking questions about policy. "How far back in time would the world go? Fifty years? Would fifty years enough time to undo the damage? If not, won't you all just end up here again, voting on whether or not to start over? Shouldn't there be a solid plan in place before wiping away history all willy-nilly? Is this plan in phases? How long is the rebuilding process going to take? What happens to the other planes when you wipe this one out?"

He couldn't get out of his restraints; he's not strong enough (of course he's not, he's the weakest party member, remember?) But maybe, if he distracted the main villain long enough, one of his friends could break free. The kid whose favorite thing to do is "yes, and-" people was going to buy his friends time by coming up with as many stupid questions as possible. And maybe, if he poked enough holes, the other demigods would start to think that the plan was more trouble than it was worth.

Obviously, this didn't work. The DM had a huge, climactic fight we had to get to, and it would spoil the fun if the session devolved into me poking holes in proposed infrastructure for three hours. But the futility of his attempt makes me love it more. The only thing that Ethan can do in this moment is one of the things he's self conscious about: being a fucking nuisance. There's no "oh it turns out I'm not actually annoying" moment where he realizes at the last second that his friends loved him all along. He's weaponizing the flaws that he's insecure about! Yes, he's annoying! Yes, he's stubborn! And he's going to make that the main villain's problem for as long as possible! Fuck you!

[theladysherlock]

Ooooh 5 and 10 for Ethan in the character ask?

So I already answered 5 here BUT as I said before Ethan cries A LOT-- I think he cried on screen more than any other character in the game. The time he aged up 18 years in an instant was really fun to play though. I had initially made him pretty scrawny for a half orc, and also an undercurrent for the whole campaign was he had no idea what he was going to do with the rest of his life so he kept trying to hold on to things as tightly as possible. As the party did some interplanar travel, there's some standard time fuckery, and he instantly turned into a hot 40 year old man who was a bit more proportional and muscular (I think I landed on him having the same build as Henry Cavill). While Ethan was freaking out about losing almost two decades and being unable to fit in his current life without humiliating himself, all his friends kept talking about how he was hot now and why would he ever want to go back to being in his 20s when he looked so good? It was rough. I was so into the moment that I started crying at the table. 10/10 moment.

10. What objects do they always carry around with them?

The game was an urban fantasy setting, so Ethan always had his cell phone on him and would text people all the time (On top of that Ethan had Message and Sending, so my DM was REAL cranky that I could reach pretty much anyone at any time for any reason). Beyond the various magical items that he collected over the course of his adventure, the two most important things that he always had with him were a leather bracelet from his biological father and the Boon of Pride that basically marked him as a champion of the deadly sin, Pride (who, incidentally, was also his biological father).