#ive caught up. i have very mixed feelings about this beautiful bastard

[fayzart136]

Best (?) quality: his giggles.

[xadoheandterra]

Title: Won’t Say You’re Sorry Chapter: I (II / III) Fandom: Red vs Blue Character: Lavernius Tucker, Vice Admiral Christina Odan | Tucker’s Mom, Captain Arlene Volt Summary: This had to be the present day version of dropping your kid off on the steps of high school, calling them 'buga-boo-boo,' and giving kissey faces in front of their peers much to their eternal embarrassment--expect the stricter, navy version, a giant space ship, a planet, and none of your kids' actual peers.

God if Tucker didn't miss his mom, though, embarrassment aside.

Don’t Write Me A Postscript (I / II / III / IV / V / VI / VII / VIII / IX / X / XI / XII / XII)

Do You Even Feel Compassion? (I / II)

It started not with a whimper, but a bang. Tucker stared up at the sky, pale and ashen and sick to his stomach, and watched the pelican explode with his son on it. He’d only just gotten used to the fact that shit he was a father—and sure his kid was born out of a strange mix of alien impregnation and rape—but he was a father. No matter who much he’d joked with his sisters and his dad back home about the number of bastards he’d probably sired, he never actually had a kid before. He’d never been responsible for one before.

Now—now Church’s fucking girlfriend took his kid—took his kid and then—then Sarge placed Andy—fucking Andy—on that same ship and just—Tucker felt sick to his stomach. He felt weak in the knees. He didn’t know what to do or what he needed to do. A part of him wanted to just burst the sword into being and stab it straight through Sarge’s fucking face.

(his lower back throbbed)

(he refused to think on that)

With a snarl Tucker pushed past Caboose, pushed away from the moved grip—almost shoved Sister—and stormed back into the base without a word. He could hear Church whisper, “Tex?” and all Tucker wanted to do was scream.

It wasn’t just your damn girlfriend, Church!

What about my kid?!

What about my kid?!

Tucker’s footsteps grew faster until he practically ran through the base, ripped his helmet off, and bent over double in front of the toilet. He heaved; he collapsed to his knees and, alone, let the tears fall as he heaved. After years in this godforsaken army not once had Tucker felt like this. He felt carved out and desperate and his chest hurt. Tucker heaved and threw up and cried messily in the bathroom for what felt like hours.

When he cleaned himself up, and for the days after, everyone moved as if they were on auto-pilot. Tucker didn’t speak to Church, and Church didn’t speak to Tucker. That, in the end, was just the way Tucker wanted things to go. It was all Church’s fault, anyway. Church’s fucking weird mess with Freelancer and his girlfriend and all the crazy, insane bullshit they were forced to go through. All for goddamn Church.

Tucker hated that fucking asshole. The bastard didn’t even have the gall to say sorry.

When the pelican ship arrived to pick him up and take him off to his new assignment, Tucker left in silence. Normally he would’ve had his usual banter with Church, a while means of communication they’d come to create between themselves and their time at Blood Gulch, but now? With how infuriated Tucker was, with how dismissive Church was—with Sister and the bullshit and their goddamn relationship like Tex hadn’t even been a thing to Church; like the mess hadn’t even happened—Tucker kept quiet. Even though Church stood and watched him off, Tucker kept quiet.

The asshole didn’t deserve his words. Not anymore.

The doors to the pelican finally slid shut, and Tucker could feel the engines rumble beneath him as they took to the air; finally he relaxed. One hand slipped down to the hilt of his Sangheili blade—

(mine)

—and then he breathed out explosively when yet again he realized that it was gone.

Tucker’s lower back twinged and he closed his eyes and slapped his head back against the wall of the pelican. One of the soldiers manning the pelican glanced over to him and Tucker noted that she wasn’t in power armor. He thought for a minute to crack a joke, throw a pickup line, but ever since Junior had been kidnapped and killed he just didn’t have the heart in it.

“Sir?” Tucker tilted his head toward the soldier to let her know he was listening, even as he mouthed ‘sir’ in surprise. “I have been instructed to inform you that the Captain orders for helmets at the very least to be off outside of live fire situations.”

From behind his helmet Tucker frowned. “That sounds like I’ll be ship bound,” he said slowly.

The soldier nodded her head. “Yes sir.” She had pretty eyes, Tucker noted. His back twinged again and he sighed explosively.

“Fine.”

The helmet released with a hiss and the subtle lick against his neck from the neural implants faded back into obscurity. Tucker shook his head to rid his ears of the ringing and then pulled off the armor over his hands to properly dig his fingers into the back of his neck just above where the implants ended.

“Does your Captain want me to completely undress too?” Tucker drawled. His lips quirked up as he spoke, especially when he caught the way her cheeks reddened slightly. Damn he had to be looking good for that, not that Tucker doubted for a moment.

“No sir,” the soldier said, evenly.

Guess I’ll just have to try harder to ruffle her feathers then, Tucker mused. He tugged off his other glove and massaged around his neck, careful to brush at the edge of circuitry and skin. While it hadn’t been too long since he’d been out of armor—just a mere hour or so, in fact—Tucker wasn’t above playing up how pleasurable the action felt. He let out soft, faint groans because why the fuck not? He might not have the heart for flirting, maybe even hooking up, but damn that blush didn’t signal some primal part of his mind.

Bow chicka bow wow, Tucker thought. His lower back burned and he had to pull his hands away with a faint grimace. He shook his head, tried to get rid of the thoughts that bounced around in it, and instead tugged his gloves back on. The helmet Tucker settled into the seat next to himself and glanced over at the beautiful, pale-eyed creature who, dare Tucker say it—nay, think it?—looked disappointed. He shuffled, let his legs slip open as he settled his arms across the seat and watched her with ‘bedroom’ eyes. He watched how her eyes dipped down toward his codpiece and smirked.

Ah, there we go.

“Sir,” she said, slowly. “I feel I must warn you.”

“What about?” Tucker drawled casually.

“Well…” the soldier started slowly, and she drew out the word enough that Tucker felt his grin grow from ear to ear and a thrill of something for a moment forgotten raced through his veins.

“Well…” Tucker drawled back out, and then opened his mouth to shoot of something more when the sudden rock of turbulence caught him completely off balance. He let out a yelp as he practically flew from his seat onto the metal of the deck with a shrieked, “Fuck!” to the laughter of the lone soldier.

“Well we’re about to hit atmo,” she twittered, and Tucker groaned.

“So. Not. Cool,” he said, face still pressed down into the metal of the ship. He pushed himself up and pinched at his nose. “Is it broken?” he whined, and she shook her head.

“Buckle up, buttercup,” the soldier laughed. “It won’t be long before we’re docked aboard the Viper’s Nest.”

Tucker flopped back into his seat and frowned; he winced when his nose throbbed and glanced at his gloved fingers distastefully in search of any bleeding, before he looked back over at the soldier. “The UNSC Viper’s Nest?” Tucker asked. He let his hands fall into his lap. “Flagship for the tenth fleet?” The resulting grin from the soldier placed lead in his stomach. “Sonnovabitch.”

(he knew this had been too good to be true)

Ship Captain Arlene Volt looked over the readouts aboard the bridge stiff backed and lips pressed together. She waited for the word to come through that their package had safely made it aboard, gaze focused steadily on the rotating planet they settled into orbit around. She tried rather hard not to think about the person at her back, the intimidating presence and sole reason why the Viper’s Nest even was at this backwater outpost of a planet.

“Captain, dropship is finishing up docking procedures,” one of the technicians chimed up, and Arlene relaxed minutely. She glanced over at the Vice Admiral.

“And our package?” Arlene questioned.

“Safely onboard,” the technician said.

The Vice Admiral let out a huff, the only sign she’d even heard the technician, as she turned sharply on heel.

“Ma’am?” Arlene quickly fell into step with the older woman.

“Send word to route Lavernius to my office,” the Vice Admiral said stiffly. “Then, once docking procedures are finished, continue with our headway.”

“Ma’am,” Arlene nodded and branched away. She shared a quick glance with the ships AI who watched the Vice Admiral leave the bridge, before Arlene made a quick gesture for him to relay the Vice Admiral’s commands.

“Frightening woman,” Deckard said carefully as he manipulated the ships systems.

“At least you rarely talk to her,” Arlene said tiredly. “I don’t even want to fathom what a Project Freelancer Private did to get on her list.”

“I’d imagine being born would suffice plenty,” Deckard mused, and then vanished just in time for Arlene’s hand to swipe through his hologram. “Really, Captain Volt? I am nothing more than a hologram projection, you know.”

Arlene grumbled. “Makes me fucking feel better.” Arlene settled in front of the large map that took up a good portion of the bridge. “This is our last unexpected stop, right?”

“Correct,” Deckard reappeared in front of the map. “After this we should have a fairly straightforward trip back into Earth’s space.”

“We won’t need to anticipate some sort of reaction from Project Freelancer for poaching one of their military fodder?” Arlene questioned. Deckard shrugged his shoulders.

“It seemed rather like Project Freelancer was all too happy to hand over Private Tucker,” Deckard said. “No projected issues on that front.”

“That…is not a ringing endorsement,” Arlene sighed. “Suddenly I’m far more worried about this Private then I was five minutes ago.”

Deckard flickered out of view and reappeared in view a second later. “I ran through the records. Private Tucker is a flirt, but relatively harmless. Surprisingly bright. With these tests scores he could’ve easily received an officer rank within the UNSC Navy, maybe even fast-tracked to FLEETCOM. Hm, wonder why he got relegated to Freelancer military?”

“Who knows?” Arlene shrugged. “Maybe he has a cognitive defect.”

“That would be in his medical file,” Deckard pointed out.

“Whatever the reason,” Arlene turned around and stared back out into space with a frown, “this Private is nothing but trouble. That’s the only thing that makes sense.”

Deckard flickered away. “So you say, Captain.” A soft alarm rang throughout the entire ship for all of a hot second, followed by the announcement that the ship would be entering slip space within five minutes.

Arlene pressed her lips together. “Definitely trouble,” she grumbled. Arlene did not look forward to Private Lavernius Tucker being aboard the Viper’s Nest—not one bit.

[player-slayer]

Coffee Runs: Death House {all notes}

First and foremost, before any talk of the spare alterations + additions I made to Curse of Strahd’s intro adventure, it needs to be said that the wisdom gleaned from slyflourish, DragnaCarta1, MandyMod, and starwalkerstudios was invaluable! If you’re thinking of running the adventure, give their guides + recommendations a look! Especially if, like me, you decide to take this TPK Factory for a spin on your first time!

Part I — Entering the Svalich Woods I started my players out as 2nd-level passengers on a merchant caravan, describing some weeks of banal travel and dreary weather before giving them a bit of breathing room to introduce their characters and do a bit of rp. They went to sleep, safe in their bedrolls beside a warm fire, and awoke surrounded by dense fog, their belongings strewn haphazardly about the clearing. A few investigation checks, some constitution saving throws (which they all made, the bastards), and a bird collapsing from the sky in exhaustion later, and they figured pretty quickly that: A. They had been moved in the night somehow and B. This fog sucks. and so were quickly on their way. None of my players pitched that they wanted to keep watch, though if they had my intention was just to let them watch the fog roll in over them and describe a sense of nausea and dizziness wash over them that they couldn’t place (as they were plane-shifted). I may have also given them the chance to spot a wolf staring them down as the fog creeped in out of the treeline. I had a lot of new/inexperienced players, so I didn’t want to take their weapons + belongings at this point, though one of my players did decide at character creation that his halfling paladin had a pony mount name Courage. Courage I had no problem taking from him. This is a horror game motherfucker, you think I’m just going to let you keep your adorable pony named Courage?

Part II — The Death House Most of the house I ran as written.

My alterations to how I ran Rose + Thorn can be found here.

I removed the broom of animated attack (though my group skipped that room regardless) and combined a few rooms for the sake of streamlining the possible avenues of exploration + limiting dead-ends.

As with others, I made the nursemaid a roleplaying encounter rather than combat, describing her as beautiful if plainly-dressed, with a tired, solemn expression. When the players first entered the room, I described her as standing with her back to them, seeming to be a normal, solid figure at first, though as their light source fell over her described a translucent quality and eerie blue-white haze to her form. I named her Ludmila and gave her mixed human and elven features, and played her as being very affectionate toward Rose + Thorn. 

I also added two possible entrances to the attic: I moved the secret stairs behind the mirror into the master bedroom and changed the path up in the nursemaid’s suite to a simple attic hatch, since that made more sense to me in terms of how Gustav + Elisabeth would have organized their home. Why would the hired help get the cool fancy secret passageway?

The biggest changes I made to house was the secret room in the library, detailed here.

Part III — Death House Dungeon As with the upper floors, I removed/combined a few rooms and alcoves for purposes of simplifying, plausibility, and/or aesthetic preference, but not many.

I scaled back the encounters a bunch, some to more success than others:

Ghouls :: I only threw two ghouls at my party, and even with one of the players beginning the encounter at 1hp they handily beat them. A combination of lucky dice rolls on their saving throws, judicious use of disengage and med kits by the rogue, and the paladin’s protection fighting-style in the small hallway went far for them. In hindsight, I think I was pulling my punches a little too much (not imposing penalties for all trying to fight crammed into the same little area—we had a map and minis up for reference at the request of one of the players but at this time I was not utilizing it for grid-based combat, which I think was a mistake), but we were short on time that night anyway and the fight was still fun and dramatic, so I’m not kicking myself too much about it.

Ghast :: I only included one ghast, the remaining form of Elisabeth Durst. My players missed her, but had they entered the room, I intended to describe her appropriately horrifying in look and scent, largely avoiding feminine adjectives or immediate give-aways as to who this used to be, but to draw attention to the fact that the creature was standing over an end-table, staring down blankly at the surface before being alerted to their presence. After the fight, if they inspected the table, they would have seen the key to rose and thorn’s room, the implication being that even in her undead, purifying state, some base instinct or remnant of Elisabeth still remembered her children and still wanted them to be okay, even if she was unable to act on or form coherent thought around that base feeling.

Shadows :: Again not wanting to overwhelm new/rusty players, I went with three shadows for the encounter in the Darklord Shrine, since they had just finished a long rest and were feeling nice and flush with hit points and spell slots again. If they had wandered in after the ghoul fight, I likely would have scaled the encounter back to only two shadows. This was another encounter they avoided though!

Part IV — One Must Die I love this beat in the adventure! Its so tense!

I tried to describe everything as eerie and upsetting as possible in the hopes that the party would nervously stick together for safety and all end up on altar at the same time. Unfortunately our cleric was YOLO af and ran up onto it ahead of the party, and as soon as the chanting began she noped tf off of there and triggered the fight, so the party never had the chance to consider what they should do. So it goes!

That said, the fight itself was really cool. I ran a reskin of MandyMod’s flesh mound, which I called the Shambling Cradle, and took a good minute to describe the bits of sinewy tissue and lurching amalgam of animal and humanoid remains writhing up out of the irony water for maximum atmosphere.

It was an overall very dramatic and cool fight. A combination of unlucky dice rolls and forgetfulness of the Lay On Hands feature led our paladin to be killed, but it actually resulted in one of the most surprisingly poignant beats of the story. He was a fledgling paladin of the goddess of sacrifice and bravery, and after struggling against his own fearfulness of the things he’d seen in this house, overcame that fear and did the most damage of anyone in the party to the creature before being killed in the same fashion as his matron.

I had named our game Death With Dignity on sort of a whim to avoid cluing the players in right off the bat that the house was evil, but after the game our cleric’s player pointed out that he had earned our game that title.

Part V — Escape After the shambling cradle was destroyed, I narrated a brief moment of reprieve as the party caught their breath, taking a moment to highlight the paladin’s bravery and sacrifice, and reminding the party of the iconography of his matron, and how his form seemed to mirror it.

Then I told them the house and dungeon were caving in on them.

When this moment came, I kept everyone in initiative, having them all make dex saves at the top of each round to avoid bits of rock and wood hitting them as the structures crumbled all around them. I had a set number of rounds before everything collapsed, but the party managed to make it out in good time by exiting from the upstairs window via grappling hook. 

It was pretty dramatic and I think the players felt the exact amount of anxiety I was hoping for as they scrambled through the house, hauling the paladin’s lifeless body (and then the rogue’s unconscious one) with them, but I think if I ever run the adventure again I’ll opt to treat it as a 4e skill challenge instead.

As soon as they were out on the grass I described them turning to watch as the house caved in on itself, creaking and snapping before collapsing into its own pit. Then the sounds of birdsong, and the clearing of fog from the grasses and forests, but still very much in this strange new world.

And that was my run of Death House!

Overall I really loved this adventure as a one-shot, even if it might be a little meatgrinder-y as an intro adventure to a full campaign for my tastes. There was enough opportunity for roleplay for my rp-inclined players, a decent mystery for them to chew on, and lots of fun undead to squick everyone out with and make stupid gross noises for.

I think that this is a great adventure for new DMs looking to cut their teeth on something kind of intense and messed up, especially because I feel it taught me a lot about pacing and the action economy of 5e!

I look forward to hopefully running this adventure many more halloweens into the future!