#halfling supremacy | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

dmintraining · 4 years ago

Text

im about to just gush about my halfling family with no coherency so youve been warned

ok so my whole dnd experience began with one lightfoot halfling level one bard called eoifira maplefoot. i knew i wanted her to be Not A Good Person, but also didn't feel comfortable playing a bitch when i didn't know anything about the other players in the party, so i did what any normal person would do: i encorperated pretending to be nice to get what she wants into her back story.

eoifira's backstory time! (where we get introduced to the character i will play this summer, llwella, and a character i am desperate to play at some stage, erling) middle child of turpin and grace maplefoot (grace's maiden name was proudfoot), eoifira was taught to entertain by her grandmother on her mother's side. her mother's family ran the only inn and bar on a small island, but when her father married her mother, his parents moved in too. so, under one house, we have the proudfoot grandparents : otto and mary, and the maplefoot grandparents : hildegard and basso. turpin and grace had three children together, their eldest daughter, llwella, is two years older than eoifira, and their youngest is their son, erling.

like i said, mary taught eoifira how to entertain, through story telling, playing the lute, and playing the spoons. the two performed regularly in the bar. llwella was never a people person, but people liked her well enough and she was a wizard behind the bar from a young age. erling played a bigger role in the running of the inn than the bar, as he was far more gentle than his eldest sister and much less self-centered than eoifira.

running the only inn and bar meant that these three kids met a wide variety of folks, and for eoifira, that turned out to be a huge problem. a 16 year old eoifira met a 29 year old halfling wanderer with a chip on her shoulder, and became fast friends with her. by the time she was 18, eoifira had been indoctrinated into this other halfling's way of life : she would regularly travel to the mainland to aid in the slaughter the nobles who were partially responsible for the poverty of her island. the duo did not limit their targets based on age, if they were of noble descent, they were fair game. initially, eoifira was merely the distraction, flirting with guards and playing the damsel in distress while her girlfriend actually did the killing, but over time eoifira's hands became just as bloody.

no one could prove it was them, but popular opinion was that the girlfriend was the perpetrator, and when a 19 year old eoifira announced to her mother that she wanted to propose, grace maplefoot panicked and locked her daughter in her room. eventually, eoifira's would-be-fiancé stopped showing up at the island, and grace felt safe enough letting eoifira go about her chores on the island. one day, eoifira asks her mother for help out in the fields, where she'd offered to harvest the crops for an elderly neighbour. naturally, her mother agreed, thinking she'd be able to reconnect with her daughter, and explain why she did what she did, and to apologise.

she never got the chance. eoifira slit her throat in the field, disguised herself as a cabin boy using the uniform of a boy she'd murdered that morning, and escaped on a ship to the mainland before anyone even really noticed grace wasn't working the desk of the inn as usual.

on the mainland, eoifira searched for her lover. she found a grave. her lover had been trialed, convicted, and executed for the murders. she had never mentioned an accomplice.

unable to return to her homeland, and with the person she'd carefully curated her personality for dead, eoifira was at a loss.

unTIL she runs into a travelling group in the woods of rouges and college of whispers bards who live as they please, taking what they want. eoifira made a slight adaptation to her personality, so that instead of killing for a Cause, she would kill with Purpose: to get food/gold/possessions the group needed or wanted. unfortunately, eoifira fell in love with one of the bards, and thought it would be safe to come clean to him about her past in its entirety.

he was repulsed. she made a dramatic change to her personality, now advocating for sparing peoples lives; she was now a pacifist. eventually, the man she was in love with came around to her, and they got engaged, and lobbied for the party to become more merciful. the party got sick of their bullshit, and sprung an attack on the couple, killing her fiancé stone dead right in front of her. standing at a whopping three feet with an armor class of 13 and very little training as a bard, eoifira knew she didn't stand a chance, so she fell to her knees and started begging, claiming her lover her threatened to kill her if she hadn't done what she did. they believed her, the idiots.

that night, she went around to their individual tents and slit their throats as they slept.

once again alone in the world, and now in her 40's, eoifira began her life on the run, never really staying in one town for too long, preforming in taverns in return for lodgings and food. there's more on her, but im going to take us back to the island, the day of the murder.

llwella actually discovers the body. she and her sister were close (or so she thought), so initially llwella thought that whatever had slaughtered her mother had gotten to eoifira too, and went into mourning with the rest of the family. then, the murder of the cabin boy came to light. with very little digging, llwella followed the blood trail eoifira had left behind before and during her time with the party, and by the end of her investigation, became certain her sister had murdered her mother. she never felt as peaceful as the rest of her family- she had a horrible temper and a tendency to drag out grudges for longer than was healthy, but this discovery ignighted a rage in her that did not subside when she lashed out like she normally would. she knew she needed to be more proactive about this anger, and eventually joined a monkhood : the way of mercy. they were helping her work on her anger by channeling her energy into her job, which initially was to kill the patients who were beyond saving (think nurse ratched type), but as she progressed, she became responsible for reinforcing quarantines by any means necessary. eventually, she hit a block. she'd managed to work through most of the sources of her anger and use the energy productively, but try as they might, her fury towards her sister was too strong- it came to a point where it was affecting her work with the monks. they told her she needed to find and forgive eoifira if she ever wanted to progress.

llwella left to find her sister alright, but with no intention of forgiving her. she was going to end her sister if it was the last thing she did.

she spent years trying to find her, staying in inns she knew eoifira had preformed in and following her faint yet distinct trail left from her performances and charisma.

unbeknownst to llwella, she actually caught up to eoifira.

one evening, eoifira was sitting in a dark corner of an inn she'd just finished preforming in, having a nightcap before turning in for the night, when her sister appears. she sees llwella check in for the night at the desk, before immediately heading up to bed. eoifira moves to the desk, and starts flirting non-stop with the receptionist, flustering them so much that she manages to see the bookings list without getting noticed. she knows what room her sister is in.

in the wee hours of the morning, eoifira sneaks into her sister's room and slits her throat, running away before making sure she'd bled out.

luckily for llwella, there was a cleric in the vicinity, who'd been up late with night terrors, and heard her helpless gargling as he made his way back to bed. he was young, and only half-trained, and while llwella survived, her wound tends to seep blood and pus when she exherts herself to expend a ki point, and her voice is low, gravely, and prone to breaking. she has not yet come that close to her sister again.

back to their hometown : after their mother passed and the family went into grieving, erling, while mourning just as much as the others, subtly kept both of the family businesses running. there was a brief period of time where his father and his grandparents began to take up the reins again, but the workload fell on him once again once it was discovered eoifira was not in fact, dead, but on the run after having killed many people, mary included. when llwella joined the way of mercy, erling became enamoured with the idea of healing people. he loved his sisters, despite now having severe mixed feelings about eoifira, but he wanted to heal, he wanted to help people plain and simple. he didn't want to kill for fun like eoifira, but he didn't want to kill for mercy like llwella, he wanted to heal. but he was stuck behind a till and a bar for several years, until the proudfoots, now well into the ends of their lives, decided to sell the bar. his father took full responsibility for the inn, and with all four grandparents helping out here and there, erling felt comfortable enough to go out and chase his dream. unable to afford medical school, he reluctantly reached out to the monks his eldest sister had joined. he was upfront about his hang-ups about their practices, but opened up about his quiet and private worship of one of the deities they worship, mishakal. they directed him to a local collection of life clerics who worshipped the same goddess, and he became very happy there with them, at ease.

im yet to decide what whips him out of his peaceful life with these clerics and into a life of adventuring, but im pretty sure it will have something to do with either llwella or eoifira dragging him out either directly or indirectly (i have a feeling llwella might go missing, and it might be up to her brother to find her (because while eoifira doesn't hate her sister, she has pretty much washed her hands of her family))

#chats #dnd #dnd character #dnd original character #maplefoots #eoifira #llwella #erling #halfling supremacy

1 note · View note

dailyadventureprompts · 2 years ago

Note

Hey there I’m not sure if you’ve already answered this in another post and if so please direct me there, but I’m curious about your opinion on wizards of the coast’s decision to remove half-elves and half-orcs as a player race option and their statement that they don’t feel comfortable with it or that it’s appropriate to use. For it? Against it? Indifferent? Or whatever opinion it is you feel on it. Thanks for your time and all the great content you make!

So this is going to sound weird but back in the day d&d was ALL ABOUT BREEDING, with a particular focus on how fantasy miscegenation was either an irrefutable stain on your bloodline or a way to gain superpowers. The whole sorcerer class was based on being blood related to a dragon, orcs were an existential threat because any child they had was an orc by default (can't have d&d without some refurbished white supremacy in there) and there were loads of feats about tapping into your magical or monstrous lineage.

3rd party material took this one step further with THIS handy chart pulled from the infamous book of erotic fantasy

And the ever industrious ronin press putting out their own compendium full of ...lets say, unique combinations (elf/giant eagle, halfling/blinkdog)

While these may seem exceptionally weird, these books were quite wide spread, and just riffing off of what was already in the game. You have to remember that yesterday's horny nerds were of a completely different variety than today's horny nerds, with the former being largely asocial guys insecure over their ability to be traditionally masculine, and so the game's subtextual sexual hierarchy has virginal elfmaids at the top as a prize, with a decending scale of attractiveness *coughwhitenesscough* down to the like to monstrous humanoids like orcs and goblins.

This in turn goes back to Tolkien, who has an implicit racial hierarchy in the background of his stories (which he himself refutes many times) that has elves being better than humans who are themselves better than orcs. In this context, we can see how being half elf makes you better than regular humans, just like being half-orc makes you better than the average orc. We can see this by the fact that in older versions of the game half orcs had HALF the intelligence stat penalty of "full blooded" orcs.

While I myself have recommended treating halforc stats as just "orc" (and ignoring all the rapey overtones that originally came with the combination) Wotc's removal of "half" player races comes a little too late to win any points from me. Like any company with a problematic history they're dealing with surface level problems while completely ignoring the structural faults within their own history.

#dapper digresses

84 notes · View notes

sstabhmontown · 2 years ago

Text

I’d been thinking about writing this post this week even before I saw that wizards had made the decision to drop “race”. But here it is anyway.

Against heritability in adventure games

I’m trying to think of some language to out in my hack that is explicitly anti-racist I’m the way it deals with character roles.

Of course it’s true that the 3 “little brown books” of Dungeons & Dragons (1974) don’t use the word “race” anywhere in it. When people talk about the OD&D/basic conflation of dwarves, elves, and halfling into “class” by using the term “race as class” I always cringe a bit, it’s putting the order in wrong. It’s just Class.

Of course it’s not so easy, “race” is commonly used in other source materials, and the form of Fantasy is obsessed with it. The writers of the fantasy canon constantly fight over whether the romantic form demands us to use “race” in a premodern form, a form before Racism, as part of an imaginary medieval, or on the other hand we should read Racism back into the medieval, either critically or in service of white supremacy. Lots of authors like Tolkien honestly don’t know which side of this they are on, realizing too late that they’ve been hitting for the wrong team.

And of course gygax brings things right into focus: “gygaxian naturalism”, the ecology section in later monster descriptions, orc children. No, let’s stop all that.

In the medieval milieu biology does not exist

Are the children of elves necessarily elves? Not in the source material: legendary characters in folklore have all sorts of odd family trees. Mostly we just take it for granted that fantastic creatures tend to, but don’t always, require mothers and fathers and they are often like their parents—but equally, and especially when the parents are marked as special in some way or are mismatched among themselves, the child might be something else entirely. And whose to say whether forest spirits are born of parents or spring up naturally as does a tree, able to be replanted or even grafted.

And this is to say nothing of those whose natures change or are only truly revealed later in life.

In any case, the people who meet these fantastic folk have no language of Biology or Science to describe them. They make do with approximations based on perceived similarity to the ways they roughly understand men and women to usually operate. And of course lots of men and women themselves work in idiosyncratic ways, as anyone knows.

Stop writing biology into your rules and even more stop using it’s logic in your narratives. Did you know that magic is real? It's the use of ritualized action to shape the physical reality of the world: by law, by culture, by whatever means seem right for the place and the moment.

What inheritances exist without biology

The three classes line up with the three estates: the Fighter is the nobility by birth or by fortune, the Cleric is the Cleric, and the Magic-user is the bourgeoisie struggling to be born (this is why Magic-users don't get an easy retirement—in the mediaeval, they have no place to settle easily). And we are used enough to imagining characters who wear these roles by choice, by circumstances, or by birth. Let demi-humans and monsters make those same choices—or be defined by choices made for them.

Roll a d6:

By birth: this Cleric traces their lineage, by marriage, adoption, or by blood, back to the prophet himself!

By place: all the folk from the isle of Amazons are Fighting-women, after all.

By circumstance: lost in the woods as a child, become an Elf by necessity.

By study or profession: a third child of nobility, sent to the Abbey to learn the ways of the Cleric.

By choice: a child who decides to stay with Peter Pan and become a Halfling.

By geas: banished from your home, and taken in by the hills themselves, a Dwarf.

Pracitcally, this means some new language in the Character Guide, alongside the other fussy stuff you don't need to consider the first time you play like Alignment, Languages, etc. How did you become the person you are?

Oh, and I might ditch “class” in favour of “role” just to stay one step ahead.

#rules #osr #theory #demihumans #the dwarf #the elf #the halfling

9 notes · View notes

sception · 1 year ago

Text

I mean, Gandalf also unconditionally supported Rohan in its campaign of ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Dunlendings in Calenardhon, a land that had been stolen from them by the colonizing imperial power of Numenor, and should have returned to Dunnish control after Gondor, Numenor's supposedly more principled successor state, withdrew following the Great Plague.

But the Dunlendings were Gondor's enemies, while Rohan was Gondor's ally, and clearly Gandalf cared more about Gondor's political and military supremacy, and the racial supremacy of its part-elven bloodline, than he did about the principles of freedom and justice that the white tower and tree pretend to stand for.

Sure, he's still better than Saruman, who actively wants to destroy the environment and would feed all the men in the west to wargs to curry favor with the dark lord Sauron in the East. Saruman, who openly fantasizes about becoming just as terrible a dark lord himself if he ever gets his hands on the power to do so.

But lets not pretend that Gandalf's flaws are limited to senility and an over-fondness for the halflings' pipe weed.

Honestly it's kind of fucked that we're stuck with this fantasy system where we have to rely on the fickle benevolence of "good" maiar like the elven supremacist Gandalf or the utterly ineffectual Radagon, and cowtow to their wildly out-of-date First-Age world views, in the hopes that they'll shield us from evil maiar like Saruman and Sauron. Why is a future free from maiar altogether so hard to envision?

#tolkein

10K notes · View notes

nochiquinn · 3 years ago

Text

campaign 3 episode 28: the chaos gremlin strikes again

oh no

liam just stays like that the rest of the game

cashapp being a sponsor is so weird to me

>>there's still a pandemic >>goes to comicon

NO I'm not done being mad about it

"otohan cruel" freudian slip

taliesin no

link….be careful, link….

BUCK FUCKET

I preemptively want this animated

"I can do it, it's FINE"

the map lighting is making everybody look good

well, better than usual

critrolecloset find me sam's shirt

"best friend" did they get divorced :(

if someone doesn't throw banana peels I'm leaving

YEAH YEAH HELL YEAH

liam gets me

there's no law on the books that says a wolf can't play death race

travis is actively hiding

start chewing on wires

name it regigigas bc it's slow to get going

festivalities

turian clan paint

YOU get a bane, and YOU get a bane

"hold on letTERSSSS"

I DESPERATELY want this animated

"deez nuts draw first blood"

laudna my beloved

beam-beam

the flag comes down and there's just an explosion of magic from the middle of the pack

[extreme southern accent] 'cause I'm a pot-hole~

someday I will find that ad to explain why that line is burned into my subconscious

god bless u sam

TEAM DRYBONES

magnet rage

MEAN MAX

okay I'm zoning out I gotta make popcorn

the car is Bugged

NOT THE BEES

ten and two imogen

ah yes, exploding head syndrome

yessssss

pace car fearne

someone draw Tex Avery Ashton please

some days you just can't get rid of a bomb

does this count as critical role parties vs old people

oranges broke her fall it's fine

tesla self-driving car

hey! rude

"they're IN MY ASSHOLE, so I figure they're grappleable"

THERE'S NO LAW ON THE BOOKS

"to help with the net!"

"SATAN TAKE THE WHEEL"

"we're on a precarious cliffside" turn into a fish

"whore dynamite" gdi I just changed my twitter name

"I'm just gonna throw up in her face" like a baby buzzard

"I don't have a mini for [a banana peel]" "how DARE"

fart gust

action surge ankle hack

I love one (1) halfling

I ME-LEE'D HIM FOR YOU GAN

hsfhdjklsa

this is gonna be a hell of a ride at criticalroleland

SLAMMAGE

"I have no sense of shame left in me"

"I'm also now sitting in your lap"

no fuck a gravity well, imogen sitting in ashton's lap supremacy

what in the deadlights

"let's tame it and ride it"

countdown to travis saying kakarot

"why specifically travis" this man first contacted his future wife to try to weasel his way into a DBZ role bc she was voicing kid trunks at the time

it has a WHAT

did he just call travis fjord

"I think it's laudna bc the left blinker has been on for a while"

is the left blinker just fcg's eye

ah geeze there's almost 2 hours left

as the map blinds liam and laura

I am overly enamored by the maplight reflecting in taliesin's glasses

"meets it beats it" is still the stupidest rule

AKIRA BIKE SLIDE

welp I know exactly which part of tumblr just exploded

we don't talk about the cloud motorcycle fight

"fang-like teeth" matthew they're just fangs

pffft them still being awkward

rude???

it's one bladed barrier, what can it weigh, a couple hundred pounds?

did they rename skronky's ring

imogen presenting laudna to fcg: fix her

oh that's so fucking cute

I feel like there hasn't been as much orym and fearne outside of liam making very sure we know he sleeps curled up in the back of her knee and the Pointed Looks whenever fearne is being fearne

dusk is 0/2

"why hasn't anyone asked you to dinner?" this is the neighborhood watch committee reminding everyone that necrophilia is still illegal

(if you get that reference I hope your back pain clears up soon)

travis and ashley are communicating entirely via eyebrows rn

I have processed none of this. half because it's 2 am and half bc trying to decipher travis and ashley's faces

OH?

imogen no but also OH?

just wii shop music

OH???

dusk what the fuck is up with that

chetney has his arm wrapped around dusk's fingertips

"so much bouncer"

travis senses sus

travis what r u doin

TRAVIS

after watching the old man "I see you" gives me psychic damage

"so you're not trying to kill fearne's parents?" "…nnnooOOOOOoOoO?"

CAST WHISPERS

fearne propositions them both

DUSK

I mean chetney fully did this to himself but D U S K

"kill your whole family" IS a well known idiom

liam's face

liam

LIAM

"I go on a murder spree" "congratulations"

"not in a creepy way"

and imogen doesn't even have chetney's whatever, she's just Jealous

imogen you're gonna get psychic backlash'd

curved walls, CURVED WALLS

jdfksjl dusk rebounded onto fearne

BACKWARDS KNEES

"I don't know what I was expecting but it was that"

I'm just remembering marisha going IS THAT MY MOM when they realized it was vilya

matt's southern accent is the best

oh nooooo

UH OH

OH NO

that's extremely cool but also NO

she has this written down

CHANGELING?

erika you wrote this down

ART

ERIKA

MATTHOLOMEW MERCER

that laugh

DON'T YOU HIGH FIVE OVER THAT

erika u fuckin chaos gremlin

I WAS CORRECT

"I DIDN'T LOOK LIKE THAT"

#critical role #spoilers #crititag #liveblog #reaction post #straight up did not realize I repeated myself abt 'they wrote this down'#I was Engrossed

13 notes · View notes

homunculus-argument · 4 years ago

Text

What if humans are the only fantasy race that's sexually dimorphic? Like, there's a stereotype that elves are freakishly tall, but really, the male elves aren't really that much taller than an average human man, it's just that the female ones are the exact same height as their husbands. The male ones do not grow beards, so both genders of elves are easily mistaken for "unusually tall and flat-chested woman" by humans. Dwarf fashion is actually very rigidly gendered, but humans who weren't raised around dwarves are more or less blind to it - of course the style of jewellery that a woman wears in her beard is very different from a style that a man would wear. Even other dwarves cannot tell what another dwarf was assigned at birth, gender is pretty much exclusively expressed by things like the shape of the belt buckles that one wears. Orcs do not have a concept of gender outside of the mating season. Female orcs are - on average - larger and stronger than male ones, in order to protect their young from them. Orcs are technically speaking matriarchal - not because of any kind of ideas of female supremacy, but because orc clans are ruled by the biggest, strongest and meanest orc, and because of the gender distinction, that one is usually female. Halflings are only sexually dimorphic during mating season - during which the female ones grow human-like traits like breasts and more fat on the hips and thighs, and the male ones grow more muscular and mildly more aggressive. The matter is, "mating season" isn't tied to a specific time of the year, the only things required to trigger it is sufficient nutrition, peace and health, and the presence of another halfling of the opposite sex. In times where mating is not possible or ideal, halflings are hard to distinguish from human children, but during times of prosperity, they straight-up never stop fucking.

200 notes · View notes

jesawyer · 4 years ago

Note

I was wondering what your thoughts were on dungeons and dragons' recent decision to move away from fixed stat increases for races, and instead letting players choose the stats they feel best fit their character. Pillars 1 and 2 both had fixed stat bonuses for races, and unless I'm mistaken, the pillars ttrpg will as well. From a design perspective, how do you balance player freedom to create any character without making every race feel pretty much the same?

I’m doing something weirder with the Pillars TTRPG now, where Attributes are like little perk packages, but there are still groupings associated with different Species (which is what I’m using instead of Race). We’re still experimenting with it, so IDK how it’s going to wind up.

I understand why games are moving away from this paradigm, because traditionally fantasy games use the word “race” to define human/elf/dwarf and we use “race” in everyday speech to talk about something more like ethnicity. Players try to map Earth ethnicities onto fantasy “races” and things drift into The Danger Zone -- or they are intentionally designed around racial supremacy theories.

To be honest, I’m not really concerned about how the lack of attribute bonuses/penalties will affect the distinctiveness of species. I think it’s one of the weaker ways to distinguish characters since everyone has the ability scores and the bonus/penalty value is typically just adding or removing 1 from the die roll.

Balance-wise, I’m also not concerned about it. If everyone has the same potential bonuses, the Worst Case Scenario for a min-maxed build doesn’t really change that much.

I do think you will wind up splitting some odd hairs when you have to pass a fairly arbitrary dividing line between playable species and non-playable ones. It’s easy to fudge a halfling, human, and orc all having the same potential max Strength. And you might say, “Well, a frost giant is different because it’s SO much bigger, they’re just inherently stronger.” But where does that leave an ogre, or a troll, or an irda in Dragonlance? Or, in the other direction, pixies, quicklings, etc.

Is it all right for kobolds to have lower intelligence, mind flayers to have higher intelligence than “baseline”? Is there a point at which sapient species are different enough from humans that there are no implicit issues with making them smarter, stronger, weaker, slower, etc. than what the players are playing?

83 notes · View notes

ashen-vulture · 4 years ago

Text

RPG story time/Pictures

So I am a gamemaster for a pathfinder group that’s been my reliable RPG gang for years. I wanted to make this as like a small gallery of pictures I’ve drawn for my most recent game, titled Red Gold.

As per usual it’s a long one, so I’ll put the bulk of things under the cut:

It was a simple RPG starting point, everyone was bounty hunters in a prestigious organization called the Hall of Red Gold. They deal with prison escapes, grave robbers, train robbers, necromancers, dangerous animals/creatures, and all other sort of variety of unlawful or evilness.

The founders of the Hall of Red Gold, they had a large painting made of a much smaller photograph taken just before their last battle.

Their center organization is in one of the largest cities in the country (population over 1.5 million) called Mkali (top picture) specifically that’s an area called the Canal Promenade. The canal serves to water their fields, prevent disastrous flooding, and allow for steamboat traffic and it’s a huge and central fixture. It’s almost always filled with merchant cards and street performers, and the city itself is brightly painted.

Their first quest was to cull a pride of man-eating lions and collect the tails for bounty proof. Through their Lion encounters they ended up with multiple critical decapitations. So they cut off the heads, cut off the tails, and quickly solidified their name:

Heads and Tails

They’ve come so far since then. They’ve made NPC allies in their organization, several of whom traveled with the party until they started taking on quests that were just too dangerous for them.

Their first companions were a goblin bard who mostly went by his stage name: Corpsebeater, and a Alchemist Halfling half-fiend who was *mistakenly* rescued from a demon cult under the assumption that she was a 5 year old tiefling. Both of them wonderful companions now retired. Corpsebeater changed his bard name to Venomblood after surviving a dozen scopion stings. He retired from the group shortly after that, but continues to build percussive music to shout exploits to. And for Zippi, after her time experimenting on the party (and herself) she got accepted as an apprentice in a shop called The Basilisk’s Eye.

The way I did it is Red Gold has a number of NPCs who can be invited along, and I’ve made it fairly easy for characters to flow in and out of the party without changing the game up too much. When VB retired Zippi stuck around just long enough to nearly die (she was like 2-3 levels behind the party at that point) and the party had some downtime, enough downtime to get up to a Fun Side Non-Bounty Related Thing.

Performing in the COLOSSEUM OF COURAGE! A temple to a minotaur/cervine god of battle and martial prowess. It trains warriors and also hold grand events in the tradition of old colosseums as a way of generating money. And this temple is run by the Grand Paladin RHEMBOL IRONHIDE!

The number of PCs I expected to hit on Rhembol was 2 higher than the 0 I thought it would be I could not stop snickering to myself I make this big old banged up greyed minotaur but he’s just got so much personality that everyone loved him. And of course he was glad to have Red Gold Participate in THE GRAND MASTER’S MAZE RUN! (Sorry, he is inflicted with SPONTANEOUSLY PROJECTING STAGE VOICE! meaning when I think in his headspace sometimes YOU JUST GOTTA ALLCAPS IT!)

But there was one little condition. You see, Rhembol has four wonderful lovely daughters that he would give the world for, three of whom are mostly like him: charismatic, gregarious, boisterous, always up for a fight but not looking for conflict.

And then, there’s...

Chesvah Ironhide, his awkward, unsociable, perpetually on auto-pilot daughter. She doesn’t like the performative aspect of her father’s temple, never has, but has never known anything other than Be A Paladin/Performer. So Rhembol spoke with Red Gold and allowed their teams into the games if Red Gold agreed to hire his daughter.

She joined a group that had formed just to compete in the games with plans to dissolve afterwards- and boy did they.

The 6-person team she was a part of contained a lot of other NPCs the party could bring into Heads and Tails, but only one of them is relevant- that being Tulio. Tulio is a catfolk who is a crack shot with a rifle, but also a LOT of other problems. He was almost always some variant of high, and showed many concerning behaviors. Red Gold kept him around because of his skill...

But, when in a drugged stupor he opened friendly fire in the colosseum with a crowd of tens of thousands in the audience, Red Gold had had the last of it with him and he was kicked out.

The party picked Chesvah up shortly afterwards.

And they probably didn’t expect Tulio to ever come back.

And certainly for a while he didn’t. Things ramped up, the party had been tasked with wiping out a Lamashtan cult, their leader Jiyaki who was a very prolific murderer, and stopping them from whatever their mysterious and bloody Goal was.

Pictured above is not the cult leader, but a demon bound to her service by another caster, and perpetual game wildcard. A powerful concubus who goes by the name of Kel. Yes, the same two members of the party did hit on them, successfully (depending on your definition of success here). Kel repeatedly showed no interest in obeying their master’s wishes, especially if they got in the way of fun, but its soul-bound sword “Shiver” had a number of contingencies in place to ensure Kel’s behavior.

Around this time they also were contacted by a blue dragon. You see, the last time they were investigating this, they had been told it was bandits, not a cult they were after. It was an inside-attempt to throw potential bounty hunters off their trail.

When they investigated the city one of the things that stood out was that there had been a break-in at a greenhouse called the Greenbriar Reserve. Upon investigating, Heads and Tails comes to the discovery that the Greenbriar Reserve had a dragonsbane plant. Dragons have been known to raize entire cities or countrysides over even a HINT of dragonsbane, because it is one of the few things that challenge their supremacy, and this greenhouse in a massive, populous city just happened to have one. The owner of the reserve kept it secret- for obvious reasons- and didn’t even state the name of the plant or 100% confirm he had one to the party. Hints and innuendo and nothing more. But he did ask them to please keep looking for the snip of plant which was taken- and his missing daughter as well (Kel kidnapped her and many others to use their faces for infiltration)

And then a blue dragon arrived at Red Gold HQ. Hushand the Gardener.

It had been over a month and he wanted to know how they were doing at finding HIS dragonsbane plant.

Because you see, he was working on a cure.

More and more things pile up on this city, culminating in a huge battle.

Someone pulled many strings to create what could have been (and honestly still was) a disastrous chain of events which involved red dragons attacking the city, Hushand the Gardener coming to the city’s defense. And there being two active shooters in the crowd with dragonbane poisoned weapons.

And one of those shooters was

Tulio swift, former Red Gold member, suspected veteran of the 27 year long surriedan civil war, habitual drinker and drug user and over all fringe NPC to the game.

In the heat of battle one of the PCs killed Tulio- but with the intent of getting him raised afterwards, to interesting effects.

Meanwhile under the cover of the military battles above, the party begins fighting the demon cult in the secret vaults below the city. Down below in the vaults where they had learned a lamashtan Artifact lies which turns sacrificed souls into conduits for summoning powerful demons.

And I’ll continue this when I get back from a walk. I’ve got more to add, but this has gotten long enough as it is.

#pathfinder #D&D #rpg story time

8 notes · View notes

lulii999 · 5 years ago

Note

I absolutely LOVE Beün design. I'd love to heard more about him, he just seems so interesting!

THANK YOU!! That’s so lovely of you to say!!

Ok so Beün. Bear with me I’m going to ramble and explain the whole context because I dont get too many asks and I’m just,,,really excited to answer this question.

Beün is a goliath monk NPC in the latest arc of Iona, the campaign I run with a party of 4 PCs.

Ayden (an Aasimar cleric). Willow (a shifter ranger/druid). Yarou (a human monk). And Tybalt (a half orc bard/fighter).

The party had been travelling through the mountains investigating some people trying to fuck things up. They had heard of kidnappings and increased bandit activity there and the trail led to a hideout. They did combat there with the bandits and found among the remaining kidnap victims, was Beün’s younger brother, Oyos, who was really exhausted and wounded.

They found out that Oyos was from one of the more peaceful of the 3 tribes in the mountainrange, the Helsjic Tribe. He was a monk in training from Hjor, the main Helsjic settlement, and did not have the tribe’s signature green tattoos, meaning he had not undergone their coming of age trials yet.

They also found out that he was captured with a patrol of Helsjic monks, among whom was his brother, The Sentinel. A legendary warrior of Hjor, well known for his 8 spectral Astral arms.

Oyos, distraught and in grief explained that the bandits targeted him, being the weakest looking, and Beün and the other monks surrendered, not wanting further harm to come to their youngest. They were taken to the very hideout they found him in and were thrown in pits alongside other kidnap victims from the surrounding mountain villages. One by one they were feeding them to Marrow Stalkers, creatures that fed on people’s bones while keeping them alive as much as possible. They were going to take Oyos but all the monks offered themselves up before him, including Beün. The last thing he heard was his brothers screams.

The party set off for Hjor to return Oyos and news of the Sentinel’s fate, Oyos suffering from extreme survivor’s guilt. They spoke to the chief of the Helsjic who in turn relayed the news to the people, all of whom were distraught at the tribe’s heavy losses. Especially Beün, who was always all smiles and got along with everyone he met.

The party convinced Oyos to join them as they tried to get to the bottom of these kidnappings, as clues they found led them to the West side of the mountain range.

After journeying and investigating, they found the big bad, a resurrected evil chief of one of the tribes who vyed for supremacy over all. His plan to get everyone to bow down was to use the magic found at a sacred site in Hjor and lots of blood (in this campaign blood is embued with The Essence of Life itself, which is very powerful and magical), to resurrect an ancient evil, the incarnate of fear.

The big bad escaped, and they had found the missing bodies of the Hjor monks, very much dead and skulls crushed, but Beün’s body not among them. They raced back to Hjor in pursuit, and after investigating the situation they found one of the evil accomplices, an older monk of Hjor and their teacher turned spy, standing over non other than Beün, his long hair chopped, laying there weak and bloody, missing all four of his limbs.

They saved him, and Beün, weeping, said that he had betrayed the secrets of the sacred site of Hjor to those with intent to destroy the village, secrets that were entrusted only to him. It was a choice between that and seeing them torture his brother, and he, ridden with guilt apologised profusely to Oyos, and begged him to kill him. The party intervened, and convinced both of them to hold off and hang in there till at least after the fight. They brought Beün to a safe place and pursued the bad guys. The old evil was unfortunately resurrected, destroying the sacred site, and battle ensued. With difficulty they defeated it and the evil chief, and over the next few days helped the tribe rebuild.

They eventually helped convince Beün to look past his shame and stand up and move forward. To train the new generation of warrior monks. With the help of the Helsjic chief, a druid named Inavu, they regenerated his limbs and helped him get back on his feet, both figuratively and literally. They got to know Beün a little bit more, and saw his charismatic personality shine through, which included a series of morbid limb puns, an extremely petty competitive streak, loud, laughing, and absolutely vibrating with energy. It wasnt hard to see why he was extremely likeable.

This arc had just finished, but in the more recent sessions they had invited Beün, Oyos and a couple of human NPCs to a dumpling festival, and to a party at their friends house...

...a noble, halfling house.

But yeah thats pretty much it for Beün so far, sorry for the long read but hope you guys enjoyed it!

29 notes · View notes

himynameisjackie · 5 years ago

Text

a perhaps unpopular thought that has been in my brain since brennan tweeted that sklonda might leave Elmville PD and then has really been festering since Aguefort had a tremendous amount of student debt in the college visit one-shot:

I am a staunch police abolitionist, because I believe the institution of policing in the US is built on white supremacy and exists to protect the property of (some) white Americans over the safety and bodily autonomy of black and indigenous folks and that is unequivocally bad! But I do think a fair and restorative justice system is important – I want to abolish our system but I’m not an anarchist, I do want to have a justice system and I believe it is possible to build a fair and just one. Perhaps that’s misguided! perhaps it’s untrue. But there is something sort of sad to me about defunding the Elmville PD, because it means that even in a fantasy world, societies have failed to realize equal and equitable justice! I like the Elmville PD – as we have seen them, they are mostly harmless and incompetent, a source of comic relief. Sklonda trying to turn them into an actual capable force of security to protect residents of Elmville from evil – especially when the threats of evil in the community are so heightened and potentially world-ending – is very funny to me. It is cathartic to imagine a police force that is not a source of violence and suffering in its community.

I am not sure, maybe it’s a negative and selfish instinct to want Solace to be a country that doesn’t know violent colonization and a racial social caste system like the US. Because I can see how it would be important to reflect that essential part of reality in the experiences of fantasy characters. But I also really like when fantasy racism and discrimination is unique to its world – Riz and Fig trying to be heroes despite descending from evil-aligned races is really interesting to me, and the way it impacts their willingness to trust their family members is really interesting. I don’t know that I’m as interested in discovering what the Solace equivalent of white supremacy is. (Human supremacy?) It’s interesting, I guess, because Fallinel is an elven state, and the relationship between the wood elves and the gnomes in Arborly is interesting. So idk I guess I trust Brennan to build a compelling landscape of inequality in his fantasy worlds.

anyhoo idk what the point of this post is, I think it just makes me kind of sad to see things like the US’s deeply flawed management of higher ed and our deeply racist system of policing reflected in fantasy worlds that don’t share our history and circumstances... i think it feels sort of hopeless to me, like it posits a belief that the worst parts of our society are also inevitable and so even in a world where teenagers can slay a dragon in their freshman year of high school ordinary people are still saddled with suffocating student debt and the police are a weapon of the state used to protect institutional racism. it makes me less excited to spend my time and energy in that world!

okay well goodbye that’s my thought! excited for junior year even if the Elmville PD kills an unarmed halfling. (although the halflings in elmville are often armed with molotov cocktails and also the police fire their weapons willy nilly in the precinct and clock out early with no issue so i guess that won’t be too unexpected.)

#fantasy high #elmville #spyre #dimension 20

9 notes · View notes

kaiju-z · 5 years ago

Photo

In the past couple of episodes, 8 teams have been fighting for supremacy. Each trying to be more fficient, each trying to do what they do better, faster, harder and stronger than their opponent to reach and win the finale of the Spring Welcoming Tournament.

We’ve seen explosions, we’ve seen dinosaurs and we’ve seen the steady rise of two teams.

Today, these two teams go up against one another. The winner takes 20,000 gold and a mansion. And for someone among them, there is something personal as well...

Seon Adventures Episode 28: “The Cultbusters vs The Traveling Gentlefolk”

The Day of the Tournament’s finale has arrived and each member of the Cultbusters deals with things in their own way. Humor, a precautionary spell set in place, stretching and words to go by. Sweets. Psyching one’s self under a silent gaze, never leaving the direction of the Echosmith Hall, the Colliseum, wherein the battle shall be held.

The party head out and make an easy entrance, with Malak casting Aid on Belli, Amelia and Mournimar. Entering, we are greeted by two figures. One, River, recovered from the 1st round and back in work attire, waiting her turn as our gnome business partner, Peppery Pete comes forth.

Pep talk aside, the aged gnome reveals another motive for his presence in the waiting room for our party, which is to give us an open offer for a job of some sort. A job to map out some part of the continent, under the request of one of Pete’s investors. A high paying job, to be sure from one Lucius Bennett.

As Belli hands Orion and the remainder of her Blueberry Muffins for Pete to take care of (the muffins clearly there to appease the fey creature’s eternal hunger), River comes up next and informs the party of a job offer of her own.

A mostly hush-hush work, River’s offer is the retrieval of a valuable artifact lost for quite a while. She appears to trust us with the details for later talks, should we come to her as well, after having successfully brought the crystal ball from our Cultbusting escapade.

Despite Belli’s best efforst, we do not receive any spoilers on the mission, beyond the surface level stuff. River congratulates the party on how far the Cultbusters have come in the tournament, appreciating the initiative of it all and suggests they go for the Wizard first..

“Go for the wizard’s knees!” which turns everyone’s heads in Amelia’s direction, given that, after all, Sabrina is her sister. She does agree, to some extent. Taking out Sabrina first would be the most logical move to make. However she opposes any scarring and long lasting injuries.

“I’m here. And I’m watching your every. Fucking. Move!”

As Malak casts Anti-Life on himself, which causes black lines to temporarily cover his body, the horn blows, signaling the beginning of the finale.

The Trial of the Betrayed.

Both teams step out. The Cultbusters from the South Side, The Traveling Gentlefolk from the North, right from under the VIP seats.

As the man, sitting in the middle raises and then quickly lowers his hands, the battle begins.

Initiative is rolled and Malak takes point.

And casts Guardian Of Faith in the middle of the five. It takes the form of a Seviper (you know, from Pokémon)! One move out of it’s range and the victim will take the appropriate damage.

With this, Belli takes action and focuses on the promised goal. Taking out the wizard first. Thus, she looks to Sabrina and focuses a spell she had been holding onto for a while to use: Enemies Abound.

Sabrina tries to fight through it. But fails, perceiving everyone around her as a hostile target. As a bonus to all this, she inspires Amelia, given the situation they find themselves in.

With all that happens, Landis calls for his Crusdaer’s Mantle and charges towards Malak, right after getting bitten for his troubles by Sammy, the Seviper Guardian Of Faith.

Standing before the Cleric, he glares, aching from the damage he took from his clever first cast of the match, while the old man that appears with some similar features to him, Jeffry Ramsey tries to knock Belli out of her concentration.

But she easily avoids both his arrows.

Seeing all this, a determined Luctan takes his action, pulling the Greatsword off his back, chanting a word and suddenly... teleporting out of sight from the rest!

Only to reappear right in front of Dink Jawbone, Griffin Tallywork and Sabrina, herself. Three strikes delivered. A Slash on Griffin, a Slash on Dink and a Bonk with the flat side of his major weapon on the wizard in an attempt to stop her in her tracks.

Yes. Luck has truly become... Anime.

With Sabrina down, Dink messed up badly and Griffin not looking so hot, the Halfling pulls out a mace and axe in each hand, attacking Luctan as he teleports again, this time within his reach. He hits twice with the mace, barely doing any notable damage to the magic fighter, right before missing with the axe.

Luctan, seeing this display, and seeing Landis ready to attack Malak, leaves, offended at the insult of Griffin’s weak attacks. And gets hurt some from Landis’Mantle as he draws within range.

But the halfling has no time to process all this as Amelia charges in, right when Mournimar first misses, then critically hits Dink, knocking him out for a microsecond.

Amelia cocks her fists and swings in fast motion against the dual wielding Halfling. Brutalizing him with that good ol’ Dope Ass Monk Shit.

As Luck approaches, Malak attacks the Paladin, unloading blow after powerful blow. First, his Executioner’s Axe Spiritual Weapon strikes from the back, then he comes for the man with his actual axe, followed up with a couple of channeled divine attacks. Each strike is fueled with Necrotic Damage as what Landis essentially goes through in six seconds is essentially the touch of Death Itself.

Her avatar, Malak, the Death Cleric.

By the time he’s done, Landis does not look happy at all over this situation. Truly did not expect such initiative from a man of faith. But One does not simply underestimate a Death Cleric.

This opening gives Belli the chance to initiate the second part of her plan. The plucky Bard focuses her magic and music onto the brutalized Dink and Griffin aaaand...

Puts them to bed with her signature Sleep spell. Doctor Sleep in the house.

And for all of Malak’s efforts, she quickly gives him inspiration. Given Landis’ actions that come, following this, the cleric may as well need that.

Slash, followed by a second. Divine Smite implemented and Malak gets rocked in retaliation for all that happened mere moments prior.

With the focus shifting away from the Folk’s archer, Ramsey dashes over to Sabrina, resucitating her with a healing touch. And takes a bite for his troubles from the Guardian Of Faith.

As Luck approaches Landis, he attempts to hit him from behind with a Guiding Bolt, but that misses. The frustration of that misaction drives him to fight on, however as Luck Surges into Action.

One slash. It hits. Second slash, also hits!

Mournimar tries to help with taking on the Paladin. But the armored avenger dodges out of the way and the arrows fly through Amelia’s hair as she makes a dramatic bullet time dodge.

Regaining her posture, she turns to the slept men before her, right as Sabrina starts getting up again. And she starts stomping on them, flurry of blows upon flurry of blows Dink and Griffin.

The horrific display that follows knocks out the two men, which brings Sabrina to an internal monologue, in which she decides it best to prepare a spell for her lover, Landis.

As this happens, Jeffrey takes a Spiritual Axe to the chest from Malak, who ducks and dodges a swing from Landis’ sword, making a run for the Ranger across the field. While Belli sticks true to character and sends Sabrina into a dreamland of her own with another Sleep Spell.

Upon reaching Griffin and Dink, he touches each with the Spare The Dying spell, stabilizing them in the process from slipping beyond unconsciousness.

With the Paladin distracted, Belli uses the acting skills to good use to copy Sabrina’s voice and goes “LOOK OUT BEHIND YOU!” at Landis. Which gets him to, of course, look behind his back to see a Sleeping Sabrina, causing him to scream out in surprise.

Landis gets played like a fiddle. Again.

Enraged and entering desperation mode with two of his allies unconscious, a third fallen asleep and forth barely holding it together and casting, Landis strikes Luctan with his longsword, drawing blood and knocking the helmet off his head with the spin of his footing.

Luctan, as though by his titular alias or a twist of fate, avoids what clearly would have then become a Smiting attack, saving himself from the kinda damage that even his parents would have felt.

Lucky indeed, as Jeffrey Ramsey casts Conjure Animal, from his grounded position, summoning a pair of Giant Spiders. One next to Luctan and another next to Belli.

Fun. Or not so much for Mournimar, who releases a girly scream, as the tiefling has to watch as one bites onto Belli, who luckily fights through the poison and keeps the sleep spell a-going.

Surprisingly, the other spider goes for Malak. A mistake as it’s web misses the cleric. And for that mistake, Ramsey pays with a blue blur that charges him from the side, while Luck dodges a sword slash from the Paladin as he dashes to Belli.

In reaching distance of her, Luctan casts Flight on the Bard, in order to give her some distance from the large arachnid.

Angry that she can’t get to Landis, Amelia opts to finish things off with knocking out Jeffrey Ramsey. And that she does in spectacular fashion as each of her blows strikes true and hard on the long range combatant’s body.

True to form, Amelia knocks his ass out, using all her strength, speed and inspiration for this task, right as Mournimar critically wounds and then finishes off one of Ramsey’s spiders. As Ramsey loses consciousness, the other Spider vanishes.

And thus, the two stop the menace that is the Spiders man.

Gagging over the spider doing it’s spidery-death thing aside, Mournimar hears the horn blow. The crowd erupting in cheers and chants as the battle comes to an end. And with it, the Spring Welcoming Tournament!

Celebrations begin as Amelia takes to her sister, before she gets escorted out of the arena with the rest of The Traveling Gentlemen. Luctan has no time to follow them with a gaze as Malak calls for Sammy to wrap himself around the lot of them and bring them into a Celebratory Group Hug, wherein compliments start flying from the refocused Tiefling in disguise.

An announcer joins The Cultbusters in the arena and, using a Thaumaturgical purple rock, declares them the winners, before handing them a golden key, which Mournimar accepts. This. This is the key to their new home.

Someone in the audience goes “Why didn’t you make her a T-Rex again?!” Amelia questions this too, but Belli assures her she just has to ask.

Fireworks blast overhead and Belli uses what time she has left under Luck’s spell to fly about, just overhead Mournimar to be the “taller one”.

As the high from the battle starts to go down, the party are given the address for the ball that will take place later on, which is funny, ‘cause it’s in the arena, ya know? The ball will be this evening and the victors are expected to wear their best wear. Which means, of course... Shopping time!

And shop they do. Right after they visit their new home, of course!

It is an enormous place, fitting for 5 people and guests in mind.

A stoney structure with a wooden fill in set between the rocks.

5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 3 study rooms, kitchen and a dining area. There is a large greenery in the back that is their yard, perfect for gardening!

Each gets an outfit fitting their style, with the nuance of every party member spending their cut of ther 20,000 gold (4,000 each) in different ways.

Malak hands coin to the people around the area of their new home, near the Crematorium. His kindness brings many a smiles on people’s faces that day.

Belli, with the aid of Ficus, buys and delivers a ton of toys and money to the Orphanage, where she shakes Doreen, the Firbolg, to her knees with the display of kindness. With all this money... all kids will be able to go through school! And if anyone needs anything, Belli would gladly give more. Which brings Doreen to tears.

Santa Belli teaches kids the true meaning of D&D.

Amelia visits a couple of places. Harper’s Treats and later, her favorite flower shop in the city (which for some reason I didn’t write down in this session. Because I am dummy.) And from Lissandra, the Eladrin, she buys one of every baked good in the store. Lissandra’s shooketh.

Mournimar, meanwhile, visits Dyunificus’ Temple and gives a large number of money, much to the awe of a halfling fellow, who winks at the praying tiefling. “Bless yoouuuuuu!”

All the while everyone spends their cash, Luck remains at their new home, in the room he picked for himself. There, he sits, half undressed and staring at the bag of coinage splayed on a fancy chair before him. He sits. And he ponders. Because that’s a lot of money and he has a lot of thoughts going through his fatigued mind.

As the night comes and people gather and enter the Echosmith once more, the party make their arrival. Fancy. As. Fuck.

Archers set up on top, to guard the area in case someone comes to wreck the festivities, the Cultbusters take notice of Idarys from Crystalgate’s Finest, who was placed as the lone guard on door duty.

Looking inside, there’s a grand buffet table and food and drink abound. Anything we can want? It’s there! For the pickings!!!

Aside from Idarys and most members of the Forest Hearted Bretheren, the second of whom opted out due to this fancy-schmancy stuff not being their thing, pretty much everyone is here from the different teams, even Gutrot from Miniature Mayhem! Though, his charges aren’t in sight. Oddly enough.

Ye Olde Ska music catches Belli’s attention and she points out the Kobold band “Less Than Drake” to everyone. Mostly playing horn instruments, there is a drummer among them.

Pete waves at the five from among the crowd, dressed in his finest tux, which makes him look even smaller. His work clothes having some bulk to them, apparently.

Without even saying a word, like their minds are in sync, Amelia and Luck grab large plates of fried chicken and bottles of Alcohol and bring them out to Idarys.

Who. Um. Yeah. “Confiscates” the contraband.

While Belli approaches the Band and Luck searches for Ficus, Malak takes heed of the people that have arrived at the celebration, while having himself a good nom.

Pretty soon Luck finds the Roguish Narah steals him away from Lord Arwen, with whom he had been having a conversation at the time. And then. They dance. With Belli, who convinced the Kobolds, to join them for a performance, using her clout as a Narah, herself.

And the boys dance. Going full Carameldancen on the dancefloor.

While this goes on, Mournimar and Samson meet up and catch up on old times. Samson admits that he hadn’t seen that much action before and after meeting the party and was genuinely glad to see them again. He missed adventuring with the lot of them.

Mournimar, suddenly, asks for a favor. He hands Samson 30 gold to split between himself, Savon and the guild. Which, Samson takes seriously as he writes the instructions on his hand. With blood. Go big or go home, huh?

The tiefling ranger then would help Samson with a request of his own, helping him to find a secluded area where he could just. Chill out from all the noise.Samson winds up on a balcony, where he relaxes and takes a puff from his pipe.

He congratulates Mourni on the win and then... well. Awkward nature lads fuck off to do their own things. Which leads Mournimar to Sabrina.

And Landis.

And they talk about the fight earlier in the day. “Good fight.” Mournimar feels apologetic for bruising Griffin’s ego, but Sabrina waves that off, saying that he needed to be taken down a peg. “You know how men can be!” she jokes. But it flies over the poor tief’s head.

Looking to the dance floor, he tries to add mood lighting for the oblivious Luck and Ficus, but the anti-magic field around them prevents such usage.

Then, in an act of kindness that was not forseen, or maybe it was??? Mournimar hands 1,000 gold to Sabrina and Landis. Which just floors the wizard and Paladin, who admit that they were going to re-enter the tournament the following year.

Asked if he wanted anything in return for this exess of money, Mournimar declines. As it is a gift! To FRIENDS OF THE PARTY!!! Alas, Mourni is not good with handling money, it seemed...

This whole thing prods Amelia to wander over soon enough, extra nervous over the situation at hand. She worries if tieflings are just like that. Handing out money whenever, given Luck’s own track record with giving money out of kindness in the past.

Sabrina is just. Amazed. They could buy a house with this much money. Pay off the schooling. Taking the money, she opts to head home and put it somewhere safe, while Landis follows soon enough after her. Confused and doesn’t know what to do with himself. It’s been a weird few days.

What follows is an... awkward talk. Mournimar tries to apologize for past behavior, not being good with words and general manners... But! But Mournimar wants to do better. By her, by everyone and aplogizes for any trouble caused in the past.

On her end... Amelia speaks as well.

She doesn’t hold it against Mournimar. But she cares a lot, really and is hurt, but “it’s ok” as she puts it.

Mournimar offers to talk with her, if she ever wants to to talk or chat, but Amelia doesn’t seem to easily be reciprocating the comraderie with Mournimar. If anything changes, just let me know.” – Mournimar states. And in turn, Amelia suggests she’s too sober and she’s not in the mood for feelings. Normally any other day she’d be so happy, but it’s been a few days.

Looking about, they do see a variety of alcohols. Top shelf stuff. And Mournimar jokes about the Centaur Moonshine. Amelia, countering of course, that she was on a ship for 9 years. Worrying about her wouldn’t be necessary.

Um. Good talk there.

In the meanwhile, Belli would get herself into shenanigans with the Guards, revolving around Orion, his size and his very presence at the festivities, as animals weren’t allowed.

Half a table. Half of it! Cleared out by the chunky cat familiar. Shock and awe!

Eventually she and Mournimar join up again and play “Hot or Not”, judging the fancy people’s looks. It’s wild.

All the while, Malak keeps an eye out for anyone evil vibey.

He seems some people, who are high off their tits, no one malicious. With the high investigation check, he sees a gentleman, who wasn’t in any of the tournaments. He’s high elven, red haired, clearly getting on a lot in years, though. He gives off very low-key evil vibes. Like in the rich man billionaire evil kinda way. His vibes are fucking rancid, bro. That special kind of evil. You know? I can’t be evil, I give to charity” kinda evil.

Self rightcheous-morally corrupt vibes. His face seems familiar, but he’s unsure from where. He can’t quite recall him, sadly. Dude’s pale and has a tattoo on his ring finger of a snake eating it’s own tail. So maybe he’s a follower of Keemis, as well? Odd that such a person would, however.

He’s talking with Salvador, the Aasimar from the Crystalgate’s Finest.

Luck and Amelia each try to learn first hand from the man.

What Luctan learns is that this man is:

- Ingram Bretannen, one of the vigilants of the guard. Oldest and longest of them. Trained with the captain.

- The guy is bragadocious as fuck.

- People tried taking his money, but that was rumor and heresay. He offers us a job at Lucious Beckett’s. (Pete gave us his card).

- He’s been bullshitting a few of the stories, he’s been in the city for a while, something about the 30 years ago seems dishonest.

And while Luck would go off to find Malak and inform him of what knowledge he had gathered...

Amelia approaches, after talking with Malak as well about the guy, while Mournimar and Belli accidentally commit microaggressions against elven workers.

What she learns is...

- Ingram is high up in the guard. Old, snooty and also has a normal wedding ring, as well as the tattoo of the Keemis ring. In honor of one of his late wives.

- She creeps him out.

- His 3rd wife’s name is Arabella and he has 3 kids. Gilme and twins Luanda and Ellis.

- His sister sails on the “Yellow Tail”.

- This Fuckmothering Shit looks a bit like NEL!

- He totally has had kids out of wedlock, based on his behavior!

(20 minutes of fantasy Billy Mays jokes follow as Belli makes acquaintances with one, Bardy Scott. Lauren kills us with laughter. It’s. It’s so good, ok?! You had to be there.)

Still on the search for Malak, who had already left for the Keemis Temple, Luctan winds up being passed by The Traveling Gentlefolk.Which he only really notices after getting patted on the shoulder by a passing Landis, arm in arm with Sabrina and the money.

He gets the feeling, from this gesture, that Landis was being friendly.

And as he watches them go... Luctan feels himself in turmoil...

As the night and festivities carry on, the four remaining decide to crash the night at Nel’s place. But before that, they agree to go over to the temple and bring Malak with them. He is, after all, a Cultbuster.

Small talk is had along the way over getting the cats kitty toys and bonding is had over the whole thing.

All the while Malak would talk with Mother Destine, discussing the man he was unnerved by at the familiar looking elven man (WHO IS DEFINITELY NOT NEL’S DAD! NO SIREE, BOB!)

After a short discussion (I really wish I could record the sessions for better summaries ; u ;;;; ), Malak walks out of the temple and is greeted by the party, happily taking them up on their offer to head to Nel’s.

Seriously. We need so much Guidance as a party. it’s ridicilous.

Nel welcomes the party, in pajamas. The good kind. Silk and pink. She’s got class, damn it! She congratulates the five on the achievement and she even made sweets for the occasion!

Zone Of Truth shenanigans happen after Nel jokes about being with Belli’s dad.

“Did you fuck my dad, Nel?!”

She didn’t, of course.

And then... wlel, the bombshell not so much drops, as it reaches the final stage of the explosion as Amelia admits to the rest of the party that she is retiring from her adventuring life.

After everything they had been through, Amelia was in a different place as a person. She had Archie. She had Nelatha? And now? Now she had even her sister back!

The party takes this in their own way. With Belli being the most vocal one as she enters a panic mode over how to break the news to the animals. With Morgan vibing at the new mannor the party have, what are they to do with this info?!

Amelia is certain in her decision. And though Luctan keeps quiet and focuses as much of a brave face as he can, on the inside it’s a whole different story.

All this and there is so much work to do too.

Jobs from River and Pete. A revisit to Lake Stren? Going back to Menum to see if anything can be done for Luck’s body?!.

Luck’s body... Oh, now there was a story that needed more elaboration, eh?

As though on a whim, maybe more to it, of course, Luck removed the ring from his right middle finger and his form would change into his true body. And the glamour he had put his festive suit under faded, showing the deep gold color, instead of the fresh mint vibe that was there for hours on end.

He does so. and elaborates as much as he can brave to Malak and Nel. Why the ring. Why the vendetta. Why the everything that he can tell them, except what he had confided in Amelia.

And as the revelation of Luck’s appearance hits the last two members of the party, the new Malak and the honorary Nelatha, this episode comes to an end...

Previous Episode / Next Episode

7 notes · View notes

deadmomjokes · 5 years ago

Text

So we’re finally getting our Pathfinder group together, and we are shaping up to be the most ridiculous band of misfits.

We’ve got me, a half-elf scoundrel rogue who accidentally got yeeted through time as a child, spent years in and out of asylums for being “crazy,” and then adopted by a family of halflings. I’m somehow the strongest in the group at +2.

We’ve got an idiot half-orc sorcerer who’s multiclassing as a fighter but is optimized for neither, has a -2 to intelligence and a 0 for wisdom, and doesn’t even remember his own mom’s name for some reason that’s unexplained (because his player forgot to give her a name in his background, oops lol).

A literal pixie (my husband the GM had to homebrew the class) bard who is 8 inches tall, plays the world’s tiniest mandolin, and has a big crush on the human who convinced her to come to the planet in the first place (who is not part of our party, still don’t know what happened to him...). She’s a travelling missionary for a local peace movement that’s opposing a local human supremacy movement.

And Tim, a dragonborn (another homebrew). He’s a leaf druid. He just wants to look at plants all day. We’ve decided that’s just how draconic sounds, like the whitest white bread Minnesota-accent nonsense you can think of. He has a leshy familiar named Earl, and his rations consist of ham and mayonnaise sandwiches on Wonderbread. We still don’t know how he’s going to end up joining the party, given that he just wants to work in his nursery and play with plants all day. He has a -2 to stealth, but a +8 to will.

If you’re keeping track, that’s 3 spellcasters, no tank, one DPS, 3 first-time players, and gaggle of idiots with barely a collective +4 to charisma between us.

Pray for us, we’re all going to die by the second encounter.

Would anybody be interested in us streaming or recording these shenanigans?

#pathfinder #dnd #homebrew #rpg #tabletop rpg

18 notes · View notes

nochiquinn · 4 years ago

Text

exandria unlimited episode FINAL: there are no endings here

(hey if you’ve ever reblogged these saying you enjoyed them or sent me asks about liking them thank you so much I am just yelling into the void but it’s nice to know the void appreciates it)

I am not prepared

aabria what

MATT WHAT

here's hoping that sets the tone (MATT)

"we respect a crit in this house"

I miss my bluetooth earbuds, I want snacks

this is the first outfit of aimee's that I Do Not Understand, that looks like the least comfortable thing to sit in for four hours

I step away for two seconds and matt rolls a natural twenty (on initiative)

map?

MAP!

who invited ruin ruin

Big Cool Fuckboy

THAT is some spellcasting flavor

SCATLING GUN

[sydnee mcelroy voice] fecal-oral route

"what did you call me?!" "nuthin" I love this motherfucker so much

GROUND TENTACLES

sweet potanope

hwat

"I'm going to kill you all." "noted."

"y'all are cute as hell" correct

yeah MATT how do those legendary actions feel on the other side of the table?!

I'm not bitter

the saddest aimee

"it's an 11, but I'm pissed off about it"

the most badly

I wonder how much of this game has been influenced by aimee not being familiar with the game and nobody being able to sit next to her and help (it would probably be liam)

back OFF creepy lady

opal frustrates me sometimes but I love every time aimee and aabria do the thing

back to back

aabria does have some serious cyberpunk vibes going on

mote of possibility but like...more??

(sometimes I miss watching in the archives where I could pause and go bonkers in my notes without worrying about keeping up)

WOLFEARNE

BIG OL' BITE

human teeth dice

aabria's squeaky gasp at "it's a throat bite"

WHY DOES IT HAVE A FACE

WHY IS IT A HAND

"this is fucking cool. I hate it." matt saying what I said every episode at the tail end of c2

dariax is literally too dumb to be tempted

"I didn't realize what I was doing until just now"

"I AM BECOME VAX"

the advent children reference

"doody poopoo plus four"

leave my boy ALONE

[chasing the spider queen away from dorian with a broom]

"fuck off" YEAH

same vibes as magnus’ “I’d fucking hate it, shut the fuck up”

aabria vs matt's bless

aimee looks like a cat stuck in a vase I'M SORRY

"I'd kiss you but I'm invisible"

I left for TWO SECONDS what did she do to dorian

aabria angry

"I can't hear you, I'm unconscious"

liam is carrying this ENTIRE combat on orym's tiny halfling back

"add a d4" "goddammit"

"I get to be the clippy of this game!"

fearne direwolf supremacy

that's so many dice

the literal SOUND of so many dice

right in the FACE

this is what matt was saving all his good rolls for

somebody save dorian

NOW WHAT

"I like it less!

HWAT

EXCUSE ME

WHOMST

APOTHEOSISTER

my longest "no dorian" ever

hey at least it resets his death saves!

"he's DEAD no BLESS"

"I forgot you when he fell" he only has room for one brain cell and it is focused on dorian

dariax!!

oh I don't like that

"I hate that! I HATE THAT!" mood

I don't like anything that's happening right now

fuck all the way off

"do I do the mean thing?" "NO!" "yes!!"

"I RESCIND MY EXCITEMENT"

"don't worry I'll kill him for you" "thanks"

"gonna fly back up to my boy"

"what's it gonna cost me?" "AN ACTION"

hi I didn't ask to cry tonight

(we all knew I was gonna cry tonight)

aimee :(

matt getting aimee to verify his 20

"blood of the mountain in me, bitch"

I love him

oh no the cleric

I mean also dariax but oh no the cleric

I remember what happened the last time there was no cleric

BARKOUR

mister :(

"do it" matt you fucking chaos gremlin

"I just want to touch dariax somehow" the rituals are intricate

"you have failed me for eight weeks" [rolls it again anyway]

"my dead friend told me to"

dislike

gay

I mean gay but also dislike

"we're starting over, it's a dating sim now"

aabria just clicking the nails

CUDDLE PUDDLE that's a dad swear

FINALLY

the writers are SO good

"HOLD ME"

"put spider bitch back on the phone"

OH liam's wearing the pride shirt

I'm so soft for everyone encouraging aimee's roleplay decisions

OPAL

goth queen opal GO

I need an animated series of this so hard

aimEE

everyone approaching opal so carefully

not as an enemy but just as a friend who is Not Okay

OH LIKE A GOLEM

sigrun changing the meaning of nith's name vibes

(please read edda-earth)

I'm just so incredibly affected by the idea of everybody coming together to literally define everything that their friend is, everything that ties her to her sister and connects her sister to the world

"he doesn't realize it's a head" dariax

praying to the universe at large

"for another time" this is the last episode give me the angst lore

(I know there's a wrap-up coming I just have THEORIES that I want VALIDATED)

misterrrr

"you were doing murderbites"

"I don't feel evil"

"we end" "no"

ashley "four more hours" johnson

[bangs fists on table] season two, seasON TWO

I love him

I love this

I love this whole idea

opal just immediately throwing in that she's staying with them, no hesitation

(dariax immediately committing to taking care of opal and everyone agreeing just as quickly)

"let's just keep going" lays in the floor

"as long as I'm with you" lays in the floor harder

“FIRST SEASON” IMPLIES MORE SEASONS

“I didn’t kill ANY of you and I wanted to SO BADLY”

makeup!!

season two mob story

#critical role #exandria unlimited #spoilers #liveblog #reaction post #crititag #exutag

18 notes · View notes