#like!!! i know it’s dnd and they can’t CONTROL when a pc dies like that

[enderspawn]

one day I WILL be harmed by my innate belief that stories and shows won’t just let their main characters Die unexpectedly btw. like they’ll let someone die when they are killed and I will be in ruins about it and feel so betrayed I just know it

[today-only-happens-once]

Have you talked about your DnD PCs before? Can you talk about your game on tumblr? What's all been going on last few sessions :o

ANON you are one of my favorite people today this ask made me so freaking happy. (So is @psychedelicships  who said I had an invitation to ramble about my d&d campaign) Sorry for my excited gushing and rambling slkdfjdsklfjskldfj

My D&D Player Character

So my current D&D PC is named Kyssarda. She’s a half-elf neutral-good monk. I’ve rambled about her backstory before but the condensed version is that there’s a pattern of people leaving her/abandoning her in her life. Her parents died in a fire that her older brother rescued her from when she was four. She passed out on the way out, and when she woke up, she’d been told that she’d been left on the doorstep of the temple. Her brother was no where to be found. When she eventually made her way back home, her home was ash. Monks trained her, but they weren’t really equipped to raise a small child, so Kyssarda had a very lonely upbringing. The monks follow Sehanine (d&d deity), so she was raised on the tenants of her teachings and the teachings about following your own path led to her eventually striking out on her own. As a result of her upbringing and past, the people in her life (i.e. the party) are super important to her, because they are the first friends she ever chose and in some ways, they’ve chosen her too. She has abandonment issues up the wazoo, and hoo has she been reminded of that in recent sessions.

She’s very... empathetic and soft. She pays close attention to the mental/emotional state of her party members. Part of that is just who she is, but a lot of that is informed by her own loneliness. She doesn’t want others to feel like they’re alone, because she knows very intimately how much that can suck. Her loyalty and protectiveness of her friends leads her to sometimes not make the most tactically advantageous decision in combat, and also means that she has basically no self-preservation instincts (which is the main reason I’m pretty sure she’s gonna die before the campaign is over).

Campaign Stuff/Ramblings (under a cut because I’m literally just never going to shut up lets goooo):

So the original party consisted of a Teifling Paladin, a Wood Elf Rogue (who is multiclassing in monk), a Leonin Blood Hunter, and Kyssarda. We met during a fighting tournament and was contracted by the king to retrieve something for him. We teamed up for that, and convinced the king to come along too. So we traveled to some ruins, fought some stuff, and found the relic the king needed. We ran into a Jotenheim giant and fought that. In the process, the Leonin ended up attacking Kyssarda (cuz he’s basically a werewolf lion, and when he goes to his hybrid form and drops below half-health, he has to save on a wisdom saving throw or he just attacks the closest figure which happened to be meeee). 

Later on in a different fight in the same place, Kyssarda freaking died thanks to 2 chain lightnings (I took damage while unconcious and then rolled a Nat1 on the death save). But the king we brought along was a cleric who had what was needed for revivify. So Kyssarda came back, with a withered left hand. The Leonin felt responsible for her death because he’d attacked her earlier, and vowed to help her fix her hand. 

I forget exactly when, but during this journey, Kyssarda and the Leonin learned that there was a war brewing between two different kingdoms and that the Elf Rogue seemed to have a personal (but vague?) stake in the outcome of that war.

but ON OUR WAY BACK to the city, we got side-tracked with a quest to help a little girl rescue her family. So we also fought a troll and a hag. And when we were getting her family out, we also found (Surprise!!) the estranged (kinda) sister of the Elf Rogue. 

This lead to some downtime back at the main city. Kyssarda got her hand fixed at a temple. We got the sister of the Elf Rogue healed up at the same temple. The Leonin had a hilarious and embarrassing fight with a creature I can’t remember the name of. And lots of research was done by all about various things. Kyssarda did the most research, as she grew up working in the library section of the monk monastery so she’s always curious. So she starts looking into things about the war going on, and learns that Mr. Elf Rogue is in fact ROYALTY. He’s a prince of one of the countries at war. And we had learned already that he had fled the city with his siblings but not that he was royalty?? So that was a trip to learn. 

Meanwhile, Kyssarda is also helping the Teifling Paladin with some research because he’s been having weird dreams. And while they’re chillin’ in the library, the Paladin finds this book and gets sucked into it. Like. One minute he’s there, one minute he’s not and the book is floating before it closes and slams on the table. So Kyssarda (Ms. Abandonment Issues and also Freshly Traumatized By Havivng Died) panics and takes the book and runs. Our Paladin is still in the book. We sent him a Sending Scroll asking if he was okay and he basically said “Yeah im fine I’ll be back eventually”. Kyssarda also had a nice heart-to-heart with the Elf Rogue about the reemergence of his sister and told him a little about how her own brother abandoned her and encouraged him to just be patient with her (because the sister is not happy with him). 

But the show must go on, and our Elf Rogue really wants to get back to his home and help in the war effort somehow, plus find his brother who also is MIA. So Kyssarda, the Leonin, the Royal Elf Rogue, his sister, AND another human PC (a guy who helped sneak the Elf Rogue and his siblings out the city all those years ago and was being played by the guy who used to be the Paladin) all travel out headed towards the Elf Rogue’s homeland. 

But we get to the border at a bridge, and the party finds themselves facing down some harpies, some marrows, and a water elemental. In the fight, Kyssarda casts silence to help against the siren song the harpies were singing. Which was mostly a good thing. The water elemental was something else though. It engulfed both Kyssarda and the Elf Rogue, and Kyssarda was down to 1 HP when the Leonin yanked her out. However, because of a REALLY unfortunate roll by the human pc to save from a drop into the river (rolled a 2 and had a minus 2 on the modifier), he was unconcious and drowning. And none of our characters knew because. y’know. Silence. He kept drowning as the fight went on. And he eventually got washed up on some rocks and could make one death save after two failed ones. And he failed. And we had no cleric, and besides... it was more than a minute before we found his body down river. 

And all of our characters felt terrible. Kyssarda has a tendency to take blame for things that maybe aren’t strictly her fault, so she definitely feels a weight of responsibility for complicated reasons. The Leonin expressed that he felt some level of responsibility as well, and also hesitation about going forward with the journey though some conversation between Kyssarda and him lead to him continuing on regardless. The Elf Rogue was pretty torn up about it. 

We got some Elf Rogue backstory that addresses the fact that he was royalty (which was something Kyssarda had thought about asking) and more explanation of what’s been going on with him and his connection to the land we’re heading towards. We run into a fey creature that was an old ally of the Elf Rogue and Teifling Paladin, and we agreed to help him.

Cue the session last night.

We go to get some stuff of his back from an Incubus/Succubus pair. And sh!t hit the fan. Our Elf Rogue rolled really high stealth and decided that was a fine reason to dive through the broken window. Meanwhile, we were going on this side-quest with a half-orc barbarian (played by the guy that’s usually the paladin and who had the first PC death of the game the session prior). And the Incubus and Succubus can each essentially mind-control people, or try to. And both our barbarian and our Leonin Blood Hunter failed their wisdom save and so our two biggest heavy hitters were mind-controlled by the enemy. THAT went about as well as you’d expect. 

Over the course of the fight, the Leonin went unconcious twice. Kyssarda once. The Elf Rogue twice. And the barbarian would have gone unconcious but thanks to relentless endurance, he was brought back to one HP. In fact, we reached a point towards the end where the Leonin, Kyssarda, and the Elf Rogue were all unconcious and our barbarian was the only one standing...at one HP. That’s when the incubus (we’d killed his mate by then) took the Elf Rogue’s sister and made a break for it. The barbarian brought me back first (because I was dying in acid and therefore automatically failing death saves). Then I brought back the Leonin and we got the Elf Rogue up too. We managed to chase down the Incubus and save the sister as well. but HOLE. EE. SH!T. Most terrifying, stressful D&D combat of my LIFE. Kyssarda came very, very close for two rounds to offering herself up as a willing victim/slave/whatever if they’d let her friends go. She didn’t because the tide was starting to turn by then in the fight but it was a ROLLERCOASTER.

Before we closed the session, we went back to that fey guy and got paid though Kyssarda stormed off kind of? She didn’t vibe with the guy because she almost lost her friends over his stupid book and she was shaken and upset. But she had a conversation with the Leonin at the end of the session just kinda... dealing with the trauma of the past few days in-game. It was actually a really nice moment. I think my favorite RP moment for Kyssarda so far. 

So yeah! If you read all of this, I’m surprised and touched. Heh. I literally love D&D so freaking much, and I’m especially attached to this party and this character... though her lack of self-preservation does have me starting to plan for another back-up character just in case. ^u^

[schnazzyninja]

Gather round everyone, I have a story to tell you.

The story of a DnD player, who I shall name L I C K, or 'Lick' for short.

Now I and my group have just began DnD, I used to be a PC in the campaign we were on, but our DM had to nope out so I got handed the DM powers.

Before I was the DM, we had four PCs, a wood elf fighter, a human bard, a half-elf rogue (me), and a dragonborn paladin (Lick).

Once our past DM leaves, I'm put in charge of the world. At this time, one of my PCs (the fighter) says he might not be able to make it to DnD in the future and tells me to give his character a good end.

I choose to let his character serve the plot by introducing the real BBEG of our story by becoming possessed/mind controlled and attacking the party, where the party gets good rolls and he doesn't, so he's maimed to death, losing most of his torso to a dynamite blast, left arm to a nat20 javelin, and the right side of his head.

Problem is, Fighter says he wants to join our next session, so we call him up and tell him that his character is chopped into little pieces and officially pronounced dead. So our party goes to request help from a necromancer they've helped a lot in the past. The necromancer pulls out his exposition robes and begins to tell our party about the BBEG of the campaign, a sorceress and her apprentice who know widespread mind-control and manipulation magic and plan to use it in the continent.

To convince the party to go after the BBEG, the necromancer promises them great power from sorceress's main source of magic, but they all want something up front. The fighter wants his life and limbs back (courtesy of the bard since the fighter is very dead at this point), the bard wants a mythical golden lute that would make him the greatest entertainer in the known world, and Lick... literally wants the clothes off the necro's back.

We should state something about Lick, he doesn't know how Paladins are supposed to work, none of us did at the time of session 0 and we got too caught up in the game to really care up until now. He doesn't have a moral compass, nor a god or faith that makes paladins paladins. He saw the word paladin and thought it sounded cool.

You see, Lick thought it'd be funny if the immense amount of power he could get from the necro... was used to get a busted hat and the literal robes that the necro is wearing right fucking now. We thought it was a joke at first, until he fought tooth and nail to take the dude's robes right off his back. For 45 minutes.

Eventually I was able to convince Lick to end the shenanigans there. Lick specifically wants his character to be funny and spontaneous and stupid. He accentuates this by ensuring he makes the worst decisions at the time. Oh, and by having a running joke about his character licking his own eyeballs with a loud slurping sound as commonly as one would sneeze during allergy season.

So, our grand adventure starts with fixing the Fighter's body. His body is almost completely demolished, so the necromancer wants the party to grab what's left of his body and materials to make what's essentially prosthetics in a way like FMA, giving him a metal torso, left arm, and upper right side of his head, since they were utterly demolished during the fight. The team decides to split up to make things interesting. The Bard goes to collect the Fighter's body while Lick goes into town for materials to fuze to the Fighter's body.

The town were in was once known for it's large mines, but is now unable to get much from them now, this is important as it jacks up the metal prices exponentially. So Lick attempts to buy 250lbs of iron from the smithy, which costs around like 4500 gp, which is like 15 times what the party has combined.

Lick decides that rather than get a reasonable amount of iron to make, he's going to put on the Necro's spare robes he convinces me to give him. Upon putting the robes on, they tear apart since Lick is like twice the size of the necro in both height and muscle.

After leaving the smithy he goes to the sawmill to grab wood for the prosthetics instead. Instead of buying the proper amount of wood he uses his torn robes to scare of the woodworker and attempt to steal 60 ft of wood in broad daylight in front of the guards.

So he tries to tell them about the mission he's on to help the necromancer. I tell him to roll for persuasion, he has a nat1. So now he's incoherently babbling to the guards about necromancers and dead bodies still wearing demolished robes and torn hat, sounding like a deranged man. So now he's restrained and taken into a jail under the guardhouse.

There he breaks the rope he's restrained with and attempts to light the stone floor on fire with a tinderbox. Obviously it doesn't work at first, so he instead picks up the tinders and forms a fireball in his hand made of tinders to try and intimidate the guards. Needles to say, it didn't work.

His next plan was to empty out a water bucket in his cell and filled it with alcohol he put in a canteen, before splashing it in his cell and outside to cover guards in it before setting fire to the place using a racial ability that allows him to breathe fire once per short or long rest.

This sets the entire room ablaze, guards in it and all.

So Lick decides to try and break down the iron bars of his cell using strength, which I remembered from one of our early sessions, had a DC around like 25. He rolled a 10.

Now he's worried because he can't get out through the cell door, so he decides to use his strength to break down a wooden wall using the broken leg of a chair. Problem, he's like 12 or so feet underground and the wood wall is in front of a wall of dirt and mud.

His decision? Dig through the back to escape using his bare hands. I though I'd throw him a bone and give him an easier time making his tunnel. By now the guards have started to try and put out the fire

He then wastes a turn to pull a bed roll behind him after he makes a tunnel large enough to fit in. This is when the building begins to collapse from the fires, and caves in the cell behind him.

Now it's pitch black and he can't go back through and save his hide unless he can roll a nat 20

He rolls a 4

After which he pulls the sheets from the bed roll and lights them on fire to see better

After which he quickly asphyxiated like 10 ft underground due to the fire taking away his oxygen very quickly.

Finally, the whole party, including Lick, decided that there's no way in hell he's going to survive this.

Thus ends the story of L I C K, the paladin who wasn't a paladin. Who died by digging his own grave figuratively and literally and fought for 45 minutes to strip and important NPC naked

[gem-quest]

[ B A L E S T R A  . . . ]

“A great battle is a terrible thing,“ the old knight said, "but in the midst of blood and carnage, there is sometimes also beauty, beauty that could break your heart.” – George R R Martin

Real Name: Esther Meier (Nicknamed Essie at school, but she hates it)

Age: 19

FC: Alexia Giordano

Species & Class: Celestial Knight

Guild: Moonstone

Description of In-Game Powers: (Sorry this is super long. This is largely based off of DnD Aasimar and Paladins, but without trying to bring in actual divine powers. Instead I tried to make it more centered around a player’s perception of themselves and their actions. If this doesn’t fit with other species or the world, let me know!)

Celestials are what could arguably be defined as a light-based typically Moonstone-aligned species similar to sylphs or fae but without the connection to the environment around them. Instead, they seem to draw power from their own actions and convictions, making them a lot more internal than elemental species. Their path and their thoughts about their path define their progression. This makes their dialogue options, interactions with other PCs, and their approaches to passing certain levels very important in how they develop and the skills they gain. But it also makes their own assessment of their actions pivotal in their direction, unlike many other species. They don’t gain skills just by completing tasks, but based on how they perceive how they completed these tasks. Usually Celestial players tend to go for high Psyche/Charisma stats to boost their mental fortitude and balance. But Balestra doesn’t really understand balance beyond proper footwork. She makes up for this with a high willpower that shot even higher after her return to level 1. Willpower is a double-edged sword for Celestials since it enhances however a Celestial feels about their own actions regardless of whether this has a positive or negative effect, whereas other stats merely increase the potential for a Celestial to regard their action as good or heroic.

The interaction between player actions, player perspective, and leveling opportunities makes them a relatively unpopular species choice except for those gamers who like to save before every major NPC interaction and religiously google the different effects of game routes and encyclopedic lore entries before making any choices. In other words, most people find them tedious with a slow ramp and unpredictable leveling. Now that players can’t exit the game or return to save points, they’ve become pretty rare as they tend to die off quicker. But if they survive long enough and can find a good balance between mental stats, goals, and their class, they can become power houses. If not, they tend to be ineffective or even self-detrimental. An unstable Celestial can be equally powerful, but usually just as destructive to themselves as those around them…whether intended or not.

While they have the ability to learn flight, like sylphs, they have large feathered wings instead of diaphanous insect wings. Unlike fae, some classes of Celestials can even use these as melee weapons or shields, especially with specialized armor. Celestials also tend to have a strong affinity to light and some classes can practice light magic. The power of this is also connected to their perception of their actions, along with stats like psyche and charisma.

Regardless of other stats, Celestials’ main buff is in their luck, which extends to the rest of their party when in close proximity. In truth, Balestra didn’t even want to be a Celestial (or a Moonstone player, for that matter). But her school friends wanted that luck buff, and as always she played along. There was some fault with her copy of the game though, and when facing an attack against her party where she should have died, she ended up using up all of her luck buff (and even her luck stat) to reset to the beginning level while her friends died. In turn, her luck stat points randomly shifted to other traits. She can’t decide if she’s one of the luckiest or unluckiest Gem Quest players. In effect she died. All her items are gone, which happens to dead players. And all of her level progress disappeared. But something happened when she was reset. Not only does she have a luck of zero while still retaining all the negatives of the Celestial species; she lost the wings, flight abilities, and light affinity that are the only other Celestial perks. And moreover (and much more pressing), she can’t seem to use potions or magic on herself. Who knows if she can even get out of the game now if she can’t use Relinquium on herself.

Place of Birth: Berkshire, UK

Appearance:

She is most well known for defeating the wyrm Miro in nothing but the default character attire of white tunic and leather pants (mostly because she was on her second playthrough by then, trying frantically to regain all her lost ground, and partly not caring whether she died or not). While she does have a suit of engraved silver armor which she tends to wear in more active levels, and isn’t opposed to trading out her more martial attire for something a bit more flowy and delicate (god knows she needs whatever charisma bonus she can get on the levels that don’t rely on stabbing things), the beginning character outfit has become a bit of a calling card for her, along with her wild halo of curls. No matter what, she prefers to stick to more medieval or renaissance inspired clothing.

“Delicate in every way but one (the swordplay) God knows we like archaic kinds of fun (the old way) Chance is the only game I play with, baby We let our battles choose us” – Glory and Gore, Lorde

Places Most Likely to be Found In-Game: When not clearing levels, she tends to wander the Valley of Monsters since it’s Destrier’s home level. She’s found he’s easiest to deal with in a setting where he belongs, and becomes increasingly harder to control in more incongruous places (Few can forget that disastrous foray into the peaceful Moonstone haunt of the Gardens of Finvarra where Balestra and Destrier learned that no, eating fae NPCs does not count as eating fairy food. Balestra is needless to say not very popular among her guild). Beyond being known as a strange pariah figure people tell stories about having glimpsed speeding through levels in little more than the default character attire, she has gained a reputation as a pretty capable monster hunter for those in the market for parts but unable to handle battling beasties themselves. So she tends to spend more time in the monster-infested areas of levels than most players.

Current Inventory:

Not really inventory, but has somewhat tamed (keyword somewhat) a griffin she calls Destrier. To her that’s basically naming something horse, but she’s killed so many other mounts that she tries not to get attached. The two get along like a house fire. He has all the worst attributes of cats and birds; namely wanting to steal and then eat anything remotely shiny, wanting to kill and then eat anything that moves whether alive or not, not wanting to eat anything actually given to him as food because he didn’t get to kill it himself, being at once stubborn and proud while impressively lazy, and being altogether too smart for his own good and too stupid for Ess’s.

Halberd x 1

Quicksilver Longsword x 1 (This magical sword has the ability to change forms, shifting between rapier, longsword, knife, zweihander, and other bladed weapons which provide different stat bonuses. But it does have the distinct drawback of slowly poisoning its wielder with every use, lowering their hp and psyche dramatically for a period of time. The more its transformation powers are activated, the longer this effect lasts, which can eventually lead to an almost permanent madness. It has also been rumored to be addictive, causing the user to want more and more to shift between its forms.)

Rope x 1

Fire Salamander Gizzard x1 (Rare drop from Fire Salamanders used as a fire starter. Not as fast or reliable as a potion, and a lot more work to acquire. But if you can’t use potions you learn to make due)

Astragali Fortuna x6 (hippogriff knucklebones covered in runes which must be coated in the intended target’s warm blood to be used. They are rolled and then either buff/nerf a stat or induce the effect of a random potion in the game’s database depending on the symbols rolled. The probability of which potion effect is induced depends on the rarity of the potion. This effect does not last as long as a real potion’s. It is about as often detrimental as helpful to its target and is regarded by most players as unreliable for both personal and offensive use. A high luck score increases the chance of a positive outcome, as in part does willpower. But the exact formula for the RNG behind the item is unknown, and most players regard it as a possibly disastrous joke item.)

Venison Jerky x10

Full suit of armor x1 (she usually just wears bits and pieces since it does tend to lower her dexterity)

Beastmaster’s Gorget x1 (Ess actually isn’t a rider, but she needed that speed of a mount to regain her level progress, and she desperately wants to fly again. So she still uses a mount despite not having any of the helpful traits of a Rider player like knowing where your mount is, being able to call it, or being able to control its actions in battle. The gorget helps limit some of those problems. She thinks of it as a “Rogue Griffin GPS” with a bit of a defence buff. It ties him to her by a certain distance though it doesn’t really force him to obey her at all)

Strongest character trait: Stubborn, and she hates that about herself despite how many times it has saved her.

Strengths: creative and determined when she has a goal. She’s had to go about the game very differently her second time around, but she hasn’t succumbed to any of her handicaps yet and in many ways is a stronger player now than she ever was with her original group as her original Celestial Knight self.

Weaknesses: Conflicted, overthinking, and overly controlled when in reality she’s a lot more instinctive than she allows herself to be. She still has a hard time trusting herself 

Player Stats: (I’m going based off of an average individual stat score being 5, so the average total should be around 50. But if that doesn’t seemed balanced, please let me know! Also, after Balestra used up all of her luck returning to level 1 instead of dying, her luck stat was redistributed randomly to her other stats –hence her having 2 sets of numbers. She thinks of herself like a paladin pre-glitch and something entirely different afterwards. The closest she can think of is cursed).

STRENGTH: 6  || 7

DEFENCE: 5  || 6

CHARISMA: 2  || 2

PSYCHE: 2  || 2

WILLPOWER: 6  || 9

CAUTIOUSNESS: 2 || 2

AGILITY: 8  || 8

ENDURANCE: 6  || 7

INTELLIGENCE: 7  || 7

LUCK: 6  || 0

Destrier Stats: He was once a fightable monster, right? So that means he has to have stats. I just figure he’d have fewer stat points than a PC, so I arbitrarily gave him 2/3 the total points I gave my PC. Again, let me know if that’s unbalanced. Since Balestra’s not a Rider (despite acting like one a lot of the time), she doesn’t get any stat bonus from him. He just does his own thing, which only sometimes aligns with what she wants him to do. She’s only able to marginally control him based on having a higher willpower and charisma, though only barely.

STRENGTH: 7

DEFENCE: 5

CHARISMA: 0

PSYCHE: 0

WILLPOWER: 7

CAUTIOUSNESS: 1

AGILITY: 6

ENDURANCE: 5

INTELLIGENCE: 3

LUCK: 1

Personality:

tld;dr: She’s goal/cause driven but without a cause, has spent so long being a malleable persona shaped by family and peer expectations and status but has found that without that microcosm she’s just a hollow shell reeling with misplaced anger and stifled independence that’s eating her from the inside out. She is quite intelligent and has taught herself to be disciplined despite actually being much more volatilely reactive than she’d like to admit.

Inscrutable, private, and quiet

Determined (when she has a goal, although she gets frustrated and dangerously unpredictable even to herself when she feels aimless)

So used to carefully crafting her image that she’s lost a lot of her internal sense of self and self-worth. She’s also quite comfortable with blanketing herself in little lies rather than show people the more vulnerable reality underneath. This doesn’t always mean she tries to make herself more appealing, sometimes she tries to push others away with lies instead.

Creative and Resourceful

Does best when faced with a problem. She likes solving things, and tends to pull herself together when faced with an external threat.

Vacillates between a guilt complex and a rigid disregard for the effects of her actions. In reality, she’s somewhere in the middle, but it’s unsettling having to face both what she’s done and how she’s not entirely sorry about it in order to actually come to terms with herself.

Overthinker to the extreme, but more because she’s trained herself to be so. In reality she’s pretty instinctive and reactive. But from family, school, and friends she’s learned to gauge every possible effect of her actions before taking a step. This led her to be paralyzed by indecision and more of a follower in real life, but now that she’s on her own and in charge of an even more instinctive and wild creature she’s had to chip away at that protective calculation and just act. It’s terrifying and freeing all at once.

Has a hard time reconciling her softer side with her sharp and harder tendencies. She tends to come off as biting, rigid, and distant but has a softer and more delicate side she tries to bury. 

Quite independent but doesn’t fully trust herself. She’s so used to being part of something and deferring to others that she feels at times lost being on her own. She has cycles of loneliness and defiance where she just wants to push people away and forge her own path.

Has a very dark sense of humor, but she doesn’t let that out for just anyone. She’s gotten most comfortable with Destrier, just by sheer amount of time spent with him and the fact that she has few other people to talk to. Sure, he doesn’t quite talk back, but he has his own brand of snark and the two have a weird back and forth.

“And each man stands with his face in the light. Of his own drawn sword, ready to do what a hero can.” –Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Biography: 

Why was she here? Esther asked that often, as she stared down the slathering maw of some fabled beast with nothing but a halberd between them, as she grasped tight to a half-tamed griffin’s feathers and fought it all the way into the sky for some semblance of control, or as she sat alone beside a sputtering fire and stared up at the false constellations of another simulated night which seemed to hulk too low and too heavy above her.

Why was she here, in this chaotic mess of monsters fighting for nothing, in this broken body which couldn’t remember how to heal or shine or fly? Of course, she knew the answer. Every time a blow missed, or a lingering wound ached as she tried to find some substitute for a potion, or a new party passing on a trail gave her the wide berth of a plague ship, she knew. Helena. Everything had always been Helena.

It was Helena who found her when she first started Wellington, when she was just some state school scholarship kid whose father was a jumped-up real estate agent with notions. It was Helena who dragged Esther to her family’s events like some new toy to show off, where Esther would sit still as a statue while Helena left her to talk with old friends, afraid to touch anything, afraid they would know she didn’t belong. It was Helena who had crowned her “Essie” and stared down the boys who threw pencils in her curls to see if they would stick. But it was Helena who would braid her hair into messy pigtails and make sure to tug, just a few times, just to see if she would wince. It was Helena who tasted like candy apple vodka and stifled laughter at a pre-exam party, all the grace and perfect ease of a sun with its planets in orbit. But it was Helena who kissed her full on the lips and left her wide-eyed and speechless, and then told her in that whimsical tone that made it seem like you had a choice through the underlying bite of a command, “I think you and Thom would be cute together. I think I would like that.” It was Helena who threw the two of them together. Thom with his clumsy, grasping hands and his jealous streak. Thom who only had two things in common with her; the fencing team (where he waddled about like a safety hazard with an epee), and Helena, who they would do anything for.

It was Helena who was beautiful and bright, shining and sharp, commanding and fickle and cruel. So of course, after graduation when their group was thrown to the wind and Esther found herself at the Sorbonne for Medieval Studies which Helena had always called “pointless, dull old nonsense,” when Helena had called up “on a whim,” Esther dropped everything. In all honestly, there hadn’t been much to drop. Her father had called the day before. Something about a bad deal and money troubles, how they couldn’t afford her program or apartment anymore. Something about money for the next train from Paris. Something about problems at home, something with his secretary, of course because her father didn’t have the creativity for an affair beyond the cliche. So of course Helena appeared like salvation, something to follow, something to hide in, something to drown herself in so she wouldn’t have to think. Instead of packing up her apartment and buying a ticket home, she spent the last of her money on a VR headset for this new game Helena had heard of. 

It was Helena who wanted to be in Moonstone; she heard there was a level just for Moonstone players to throw wild parties, that the simulation was better than any drug on the street. It was Helena who wanted Esther to be a Celestial; it would be more fun for everyone with that luck bonus, and that much easier for them all to get to that party level. And nobody else wanted to play as one, they were “hopelessly dull” after all.

But it was Esther who got them through the levels. It was Esther whose fencing skills saved them from beast after beast, whose studies gave her hints to riddles the rest of the group were too impatient and bored to puzzle through. It was Esther who first heard the announcement, that there was no way out of the game anymore, that relinquium was off the market and chances to bribe Jacqueline were disappearing. And she heard the whispering, how Thom and Helena and the others wondered how much their parents would pay to bribe their way out, how it really wasn’t that much fun here anyways, how they all just wanted to leave. They were all so sure, so confident with their parents’ money behind them that nothing could hurt them, that they could just leave when they were bored. They didn’t even spare a thought for her, they didn’t even stop to wonder what would happen if they left her behind, just like they never stopped to wonder what would happen to them if they didn’t have her there in the first place. 

It was Esther who suggested storming the dragon’s lair. She told herself she just wanted to convince them why it was worth staying, why they needed her, why they couldn’t just leave her behind. But she knew it was a lie. Thom was the first to die, and she didn’t have to do anything. He was always rash, thoughtless, always trying to impress and always falling short. Those clumsy hands that had fumbled with her uniform as she disgustedly lay there and thought, ‘this was what Helena wanted,’ never really got the hang of the in-game sword mechanics. Not even Esther’s luck bonus could help him. For a glorious, fire-choked moment somewhere between heaven and hell as the dragon slashed him to pieces and charred the remains, Esther felt right. She felt free. Some tried to fend off the beast, but they were of little use without her there to lead the charge. The others tried to flee, desperately trying to search through inventories for any potions or scrolls to help. But Esther had always been the fastest, and she had luck on her side. Their blows came to nothing. Their magic fizzled in their hands. They were left shocked and frozen as she swung at them in perfect, practiced confidence. Helena didn’t even have time for fear. She just stared with offended disbelief, as if somehow she was more upset Esther had acted without her approval than that Esther was plunging a sword into her chest. And then there was nothing, Esther had killed not just some random NPC, not just some nameless member of another guild or even some unknown from her own guild; she had killed her friends. She had swung the sword with the vicious satisfaction that they would well and truly die. And worse, she didn’t care. For once, it felt right. She didn’t stop to think. She didn’t worry. She just swung her blade.

The last thing Esther remembered was the dragon reaching down for her; the sharp kiss of its claws; the warmth of flames as her hair and face and glorious wings charred away. And then she was back at the beginning, with nothing.

Relationships:

Char 1 -

Balestra Playlist

Heretic Pride || The Mountain Goats

Falling || HAIM

Glory and Gore || Lorde

Horse & I || Bat for Lashes

Arsonist’s Lullaby || Hozier

Torches || The Oh Hellos

Miracle || CHVRCHES

Shrike || Hozier

I of the Storm || Of Monsters and Men

The Yawning Grave || Lord Huron

Fire Rides || MØ

Extras:

Esther Playlist

Oxford Comma || Vampire Weekend

Friends || RAYE

Don’t Save Me || HAIM

Karma || Years & Years

The Hamptons || Transviolet

Academia || Sia

Mirror || IDER

Only if For a Night || Florence + the Machine

Other:

After she glitched out she can’t use any potions. She doesn’t know exactly why, but she simply can’t affect herself with temporary magic without horrible glitchy side effects (this does not make her immune to spells from other players though, much to her general dismay). It’s made regaining levels a bit of a nightmare, but mostly she just misses being able to fly. It’s also meant that she’s had to get creative on some levels, especially those tailored to other guilds where the main strategy for non-guild members is a specific magical item. Also, because of this she doesn’t know if she even can leave the game, since the only method now is the potion Relinquium.

Hasn’t been the member of a party since her original party was wiped out and she reset back to level 1. She also has little to no guild loyalty. In fact, she seems much better suited to Obsidian and enjoys most of their claimed levels more than those of Moonstone, which tend to have more goals and interactions which wreak havoc with her corrupted Celestial nature.

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/euclidice/balestra/

[snowsong-family-soap-opera]

I’ve had a few good ideas.

But my favorite one is definitely

“What if a warlock patron was this like... weird amnesiac baby god who had no idea what was going on but she’s stuck in this mansion on the astral plane and eventually accidentally pulls this character in cause she’s begging for someone to help her and then they become friends and investigate who she is and why she’s trapped in the house.

And it turns out she’s my pc from a different campaign who was a seemingly normal Tiefling who turned out to be a godly science experiment that mashed together demon, devil, and angel dna and then she died saving her friends and instead of letting her “mom” (one of several, this was Mushroom Mom) send her back, she decided to stay there and train to be an alchemist cause she was convinced that the guy she had a crush on (dragon chosen one who was forced into rternal servitude, it’s a loooong story) ghosted her and abandoned the group so she was depressed and didn’t really want to go back.

So I made a monk to continue that campaign with and then I branched the timeline and created a multiverse that branches off the enmxisying universe where the rest of this group’s campaigns exist in.

The timeline branch goes as thus:

In the prime universe i don’t know what happens cause Kallea is now in our DM’s hands and we haven’t had a meeting since the session where she died cause quarantine and our dm hates online dnd.

(He’s a scrub but that’s irrelevant)

The branch happens where part of the way into her training Kallea accidentally awakens more of her genetic power, and being unable to properly control it accidentally lashes out when she’s made aware of the truth behind the situation with her friends.

She freaks out, throws a fit, and screams “I wish this never happened, I wish I could prevent all of this from happening! I wish I’d never been born!” and accidentally sends herself back in time 200 years, but in a parallel universe.

The thing is she didn’t realize she was doing it and managed to fuck it up by panicking mid spell and ended up trapped in her god form (which is virtually unrecognizable) in the astral plane, with a fucked up memory.

She doesn’t even remember her name, instead going by Aiya, citing that one of her only clear memories is a big explosion and hearing her mother call out something that sounded like “Aiya”, though she admits it doesn’t “feel correct”

Her memories are as thus: she remembers that she had people she was close to, and that her parents seem to have been divorced. She has fond feeling of her mother, who she describes as “impossibly beautiful and very kind” but that her father gives a “bad taste in her mouth.”

She recalls having an older brother, and that she was quite affectionate towards him, but she can’t recall anything about him.

She also says she holds deep affections for someone or something, but not only can she not remember who that is, thinking of them makes her sad.

[piratefjord]

So I’m a person who loves character death. I’ve had heaps of characters die in my games, I’ve died plenty of times myself as a character, but even by my own slightly morbid standards tonight’s ep felt a little... cheap. I’m going to do the adult thing and try to analyse why, so I can avoid it with my players and maybe some of you can too idk. The usual disclaimer: DnD is hard, its improv, and choices made in the moment vs hindsight are always a bitch (for DM and players alike). I think you should be able to criticise things without hating on them, especially if it’s done for learning purposes other than to just blame people.

ANYWAY.

This encounter was way too hard for the party to cope with. 

Which is fine, by itself. That fact is more obvious to anyone who DMs a lot (while all the players have DMed oneshots, I’m going to guess they didn’t dig too deeply into the meat of encounter difficulty calculation).  The more enemies you add, the exponentially harder an encounter gets. One boss monster may many times be easier to defeat than three medium minions, for the simple rules of turn economy. Your big boss monster might miss every attack on your player characters, and even with multiple attacks it usually can’t occupy or split up multiple resources. Multiple enemies means more rolls (kinda like giving advantage), a higher degree of aggro control over the battlefield to split up firepower. This is why multi enemies usually have pretty low HP pools compared to their relative damage output - lots of glass cannons if you will.

So even on paper, fighting a party of 7 with only 5 members is a bad idea. It’s going to be a tough encounter. While there was some suggestion of the level of deadly, based on previous party experience they’d had with multi enemies, there wasn’t a great deal of foreshadowing or warning about the fact that this encounter potentially broke the cardinal rule of multi-encounters, which is where enemies usually have low hp high damage, or high hp and low damage per turn. 

Which brings us to Lorenzo. It took me a while to work out what he was exactly. Ashly said he was a fighter to the party, which based on what he just pulled seems like a misleading description if Matt gave it to her. Cone of Cold is a level 5 spell, which is insanely powerful and could have TPKed the whole team. Let that sink in. It is also only available on sorcerer and wizard spell lists (and as a hexblade pact spell), however at no point is it ever available to an Eldritch Knight (fighter subclass). Even at level 20, they can only cast up to level four. I also thought it might have been a hexblade thing, however glaives are two handed heavy weapons and are therefore unavailable as a hexblade weapon. Add to this fact that Matt mentions that Lorenzo uses his action surge, which is a fighter trait, acquired at level 2. Cone of cold is available to wizards and sorcerers at 9th level. 

So this dude is at least a level 11 fighter/caster build, possibly level 14 (I’d need to rewatch to check for other multi attacks). That’s putting him in the realm of CR8 territory, which by himself is a hard encounter for a party of five level five characters. Adding only one or two CR1 creatures to this moves it into deadly territory, and those are the sorts of enemies they were crushing several levels ago. Adding an additional six, presumably of CR 2-3 territory puts this into actually bonkers territory, without a lot of warning or viable escape routes for your players. 

I think there may have been some degree of over-compensation for things like magical weapons, but no one would accuse the M9 of breezing through their previous encounters, which had party members close to death in them consistently. The difficulty curve increase comes left of field and was poorly telegraphed. ‘Making an example’ of players is something I only normally like to apply to players who are actively out of line, pushing the limits or generally trying to break the game. I’ve put dozens of ‘you will not win this with violence’ encounters in my games, most of which only end in death if players pursue them past the point of all warnings and by refusing to back out. While the same could be said of the M9, I don’t feel the warnings justify the outcome or the severity of the encounter. 

Things you can use to avoid things like this: 

Non-lethal punishments, where the PCs wake up captured or otherwise incapacitated, perhaps without resources, gold or other boons they’d previously acquired. Servitude to gods, curses, contracts etc are also good options. A good example here would be pressganging them into the slaver’s ring as well. 

Gradual escalation of combat, and pointed descriptors early to help PCs know when it’s time to bail. This includes things like their attacks doing very little damage, or scaring them with initial outlay of damage. 

Consistent signposting of encounters that shouldn’t be taken by force (if your players value their lives). Keg was an excellent way to help with this, but I feel Matt may have undersold the severity of the threat they were facing based on what Ashly said. 

Providing exit routes: you should make it clear that running is always an option.

You can only do so much, and sometimes the dice will roll against your players in ways that feel unfair or left of field (especially if you’re like me and regularly roll poorly). The best you can do is prepare your players for it and make it feel more like a consequence of a choice, rather than of chance. If you think you’ve made a mistake (and Matt may have underestimated just how badly this would go) don’t ‘apologise’ in as many words, but use it as a storytelling opportunity and try to course correct. Personally I’d use this as a chance to bring back Lucien, but we’ll see how Matt and Taliesin choose to proceed.  

[diaryofdnd]

   Only Quinzy would be able to have the boldness to smash her crush and allow him total control the entire time...and then get her stage freight back the SECOND he catches onto “wait a minute, you’re acting weird. Why are you acting weird?”

   To give long overdue context, let’s go over some things.

   Quinzy, the tiefling barbarian. Pansexual and Chaotic Neutral. She’s been flirting with everyone she comes into contact with since Day 1 of her introduction. Nobody has been free of this. Ex-champion fighter, too. Used to travel solo with her younger brother, Carnon. (Tiefling Fighter, Chaotic Good.)

   The first group consisted of a dragonborn sorcerer (Arutu), a half-elf bard (Alvara), bugbear druid (Zel), and a half-sea elf ranger (Amara). To give you an idea of Quinzy with the party, she’s flirted with everyone there. Alvara kept largely to herself, Zel turned down/avoided her advances, and Arutu/Amara eagerly encouraged them. Arutu to the point of attempting to work with her Rage (Storm Herald) to magnify attacks.

   All in all, an interesting time. Her goblin boss got killed when she wanted to leave with the group. One of his men shot Carnon in the leg with an arrow. Arutu has Mold Earth. So yes, he died quickly.

   And left the Undercity of Highwater in shambles, cause he kinda controlled everything down there. Whoops! Shoulda been more careful.

   Anyways, some time passes. Shenanigans go down. Quinzy is allowed to be taken by another tiefling named Redfang, largely due to him killing off the captain and her wanting anything that meant Carnon would be safe. (He said he only needed one of them...) The crew go off to get her. She’s in a dungeon. They fight her father (Erinyes named Avnas) in one of his most weakest states..... A somewhat lucky break, as he’s the BBEG for the wHOLE CAMPAIGN.

   Y’know. DnD things.

   Anyways, Zel tackles Avnas through a portal and now the group must go get him! Cue hiring out some help (Zel’s player making a gunslinger named Sitar), a random guy....and a Blood Hunter. Jevan.

   “I have stake in this,” Jevan says. “I’m the one who gave Avnas that mortal wound some twenty fucking years ago, and I can’t believe the asshole’s still alive.” (Or such is the summary.)

   Quinzy? “.....Wait the hell a second-”

   So timeskip again and- whoops!- what’s more chaotic then getting a crush on your dad’s main enemy? The one who cursed him with blood magic? Who’s also got quite the angsty history?

   Oh, and also the fact Quinzy’s proudly announced her type as “big or bigger than [her], strong enough to break [her], and romantic” (she likes ‘em big, brute, and sweet). Occasionally older than her, as her wild track record (an incredible two partners previous, as her fighting reputation didn’t exactly win her a lot of favor, no matter how good she was.....and she’s not low enough to sleep with someone knowing they’re just doing it to brag about it to friends) has shown so far.

   .....Jevan is built like V from Devil May Cry 5. Tall, but still short compared to her (6′1″ to Quinzy’s 6′3″). He’s quite the far miss from what she announced...but somewhat catches up (in his own way) in coming around to care for Carnon just as the others have, his wits, looks, and- as evidenced now- romantic nature.

   Should this have been solely tabletop forever, this would’ve been slow burn with a XXXL heaping of SLOW. Quinzy would’ve likely died before admitting her crush.

   Takes one Discord roleplay and disadvantage on lying to Jevan (which she rightfully deserved) for her to FINALLY get somewhere. But to really hammer the point home-

   Her FIRST round of trying to lie to him:

   (She rightfully failed against his mod 18.)

   Not too long after that, Quinzy tries to lie AGAIN. So I roll with Disadvantage and....

    A mod 11 at best, the little idiot.

   BUT THE FACT THAT SHE TRIED SO HARD IS WHAT THREW ME OFF. Is this how you know that your dice is possessed by your PC?!

.:.

   ...Anyways. Her adventure with Carnon continues with Jevan on Discord until the new group is set up and settled in. Currently, she’s finished a spy mission with the group and is on her way to report in. Had a hot spring break, got SMASHED DRUNK on sake, Jevan and Carnon protected her....she almost killed a bastard cause she’s LEVEL 7 BARBARIAN WITH STORM HERALD so she can BREATHE UNDERWATER........so that’s fine. Jevan stopped her.

   Got back to the inn, ate dinner.......and then had some fun bc Drunk Quinzy was like “why the HELL do you want me to put clothes on.....don’t you like to see me naked?” And then it became a challenge of “give me body worship and THEN I’ll believe you when you say you like my body”

   .......Then they just lowkey decimated the room.

   At the moment, feelings have been admitted to, they’re mutual, Quinzy’s still freaking out about it, THERE WAS ONLY ONE BED, and Carnon destroyed Jevan’s lungs by jumping into the room and landing on the poor drow.

   AND THAT’S WHERE WE’RE AT TODAY.