#next session we interrogate some undead

[look-a-diversion]

so how is aimenou

SO GLAD YOU ASKED 😄💕

She doesn’t know! By which I mean she’s equal parts terrified and exhilarated and is still in denial about how much she loves adrenaline.

See, if you are a respectable young widow elf. Who works as an investigator for the judiciary branch of your local government. And are in all things personally and professionally expected to be The Reasonable One, especially in the context of your partnership with an extremely eccentric and socially-inept colleague—

Then it is Not Done to spider-climb across a dungeon ceiling while your friends are in pitched combat with living statues below, drop thirty-some feet straight down onto one of said statues (narrowly avoiding all the stone spikes around it), take the fall damage, and yoink an amulet off its neck.

It is simply not done. It is Not The Sort of Thing You Do. Especially after your spectacular will save failures earlier that got you pretty freaked out.

And it is definitely not done to think, in the midst of all the “oh god oh god what am I doing I can’t believe I’m doing this I’m gonna die” one would expect, that this kind of heist shit fucks severely and you can imagine yourself getting used to it.

However. She could get used to this.

[lycantripuwu]

Big session omg, we had to fight Izek and barely won! Mirre accepted another gift and can now summon two spicy puppys, hell hounds. He named them Grimm and Garm.

-After fighting the Nabassu, we headed to the church to drop of the body of Felix. After explaining what happened at the orphanage to Father Lucian, he sent us on the task to find St.Andrals bones which are needed to keep the church consecrated. we agreed and started on the hunt with things left at the scene. torn bits of a sweatshirt, a fishing hook, parts of a bag, a strand of hair, shovel marks inside the crypt. We needed to find these before the feast of st.andral on sunday because we assumed something bad was going to happen then.

-We went to long rest and Rhil and Jace got a bit frisky. While we slept, Jace was visited by Morgantha, the night hag and got to experience a night hag haunting. it sucked.

-the next morning after Rhil worked with Urwin in the kitchen to learn how to cook better and made breakfast. Mirre got a letter from someone named Ernast from Lady Fiona Wachter. I guess she was impressed that Mirre was able to talk down Vargas and wanted to have dinner with him and the group after sundown.

-After some shopping in town square and all of us being disgusted with the stocks. We went to the lake to ask Bluto, the fisherman about the hook and found him being attacked by drowned undead. we booked it onto the lake by boat and started the fight. Rhil, who has a bad fear of deep, open water, was the one to get pulled in and drug underwater.

-after we saved Rhil and finished the fight, a ghost navy ship pulled up and helped us. They asked for assistance with a monster thats been terrorizing the lake, saying that they couldnt rest until it was killed and we accepted. We fought a monster called the Gitrog plus its baby in its cave and came out victorious! We saved Bluto and brought him back to his shack on the lake. He thanked us as Rhil healed up his leg and we offered to come fishing with the man on a less busy day. cant wait for the fishing session with Bluto!

Mirre also found a flintlock pistol and a musket on the ship with a gunsmith kit and bullets. He actually did the finishing shot on the Gitrog momma with his pistol.

-After running to town center to sell our loot, we ran into Izek who immediately tried to pick a fight with Mirre and tied to interrogate him on why they went to the lake. Mirre explained the Gitrog fight and what happened, only to get thrown into the dirt and was searched by the guards.

This was terrifying to have happen since Mirre had his pistol on him and we arent supposed to have weapons inside vallaki, Rhil caused a small distraction and got grabbed by her throat and lifted off her feet by Izek, Jace nearly threw hands with him right then and there. Mirre nat 20'd his sleight of hand and hid his pistol. Izek spotting that Ireena was upset and terrified for us, dropped Rhil and quickly left.

Izek claimed to have stopped by Blutos and beat him near death to try and get information out of him before he left.

-We come back after some recovery and get changed into our fancier clothes and head to wachters where we have a very nice dinner and talk about the state of Vallaki. We offered to help dethrone Vargas and kill Izek who has been terrorizing and killing people in town.

We also caught Izek stalking Ireena, discovered his doll thing with Blinsky after some detect thoughts and he was harrassing the alchemist to make him a Philter of love. All bad signs for Ireena.

-We come back to the blue water inn after dinner to find the inn trashed after Izek ransacked the place while looking for Ireena and stole our armor. (Jace and Rhil's platemail and Mirre's breastplate) After helping clean up the inn we started working on our plans to kill Izek with a little bit of help from the Markitovs.

The plan was to lure him out to Bluto's shack to avoid damage and injuries in town. slip some poisoned wine into Izek's lunch and spread rumors that we were hiding away at bluto's and planned on leaving with Ireena that night.

-Mirre unsure if he would survive this fight with Izek, Left a lock box full of his monster hunter notes with Rictavio, Mirre had suspicions that Rictavio was Rudolph Van Richten after he made some subtle comments on his cane that Mirre was in possesion of and Rictavio recognized Dirrak's name. Rictavio was also rightfully pissed because Izek ransacked his room too.

-Hiding Ireena away at the Blue water in and after sneaking around and getting some fire resistant potions and spare armor and weapons from town center. Mirre went to sneak in the poisoned wines, accidentally scaring the shit out of Varga's chef and causing him to quit, Mirre met back up with Rhil and Jace at Blutos shack.

Urwin got the wolf hunters to escort Bluto to safety.

-When we arrived we found all of our confiscated armor and weapons with Blue and a bunch of other ravens sitting on the roof, Ready to help us out in the fight.

We also found a greater restoration scroll with the blood hunter symbol torn from one of the notes in Mirre's lock box that he gave to Rictavio. The restoration fixed Jace's reduced max health from the night hags nightmare hauntings.

-Izek and 6 guards showed up soon after we got our fire resistances and we started a fight with Mirre getting crit surprise longbow shot on him. Rhil, Jace, Blue and the ravens picked off the guards while Izek charged Mirre. Mirre got distance between them after luckily avoiding hits with his Curse of the eyeless and conjured a water elemental between them with a gem we found in the gitrog cave.

-we surprisingly downed Izek pretty quick, only for him to get back up super charged with a gift from Seriach, the hellhound whisperer and summoned two hell hounds to attack us. He flat out evaporated Mirre's water elemental infront of us.

-Blue and the ravens scattered in a panic and fled.

-Izek downed Jace with a crit pretty quick and was struggling to hit Rhil(Thank the platinum song for 23 ac) While Mirre flew up to the cliff to get some shots with his long bow.

A sabertooth tiger lept off the cliff where Mirre was and tore through one of the hell hounds while there were crossbow shots coming from the woods(I was fangirling so hard knowing it was Van Richen)

-Rhil eventually got taken out and it was just Mirre and Izek throwing shots at each other while the tiger was fighting the hell hounds. After two nat20's on death saves and repeatedly getting back up, Mirre tapped further into his gift and went into his form of dread, slowly whittling down Izek's health.

-Rhil tapped into her gift as well being brought back up and using her claws of darkness to finish Izek for good and ripped out his heart.

-after we rested a bit and the tiger took off into the woods. We found a amber shard similar to the once Rhil has and Mirre snatched it. Nat 1ing his wisdom save he got sucked into a commune with Seriach and accepted his gift of the hellhounds, Now having two gifts from two separate vestiges.

-we dropped off Izek's head at Wachterhaus and went back to blue water to check on Ireena and get some well deserved rest.

Mirres blood glows a bright radioactive green from his first unnamed vestige and his entire left arm is a dark blood red like Izek's from Seriach.

It was such an intense crazy fight and i'm surprised none of us died, I am getting a bit worried for Rhil and Mirre with how often they've been tapping into these gifts and getting slight mutations from them.

Now we can focus on getting the bones back to the church and put Fiona Wachter in charge.

[godfreygwilym]

heyoooo heres the session 33 and 34 wombo combo deluxe recap

trouble goes back to the gang to explain that THE BONES are freaking missing (and also to balk at ludmilla and escher again), but not before (gently) interrogating yeska about the gravedigger and talking with ireena who tells them about a weirdo painter guy whos always skulking around the graveyard

they split the party (fuck me), trouble and ez go to the orphanage, mike and billy check out the artist's house, marjorie hangs out with leo again (i looove rping this guy) and then goes to the coffinmaker (!?!?) with ismark because she needs to find coffin lining for leo. initially i freak the fuck out but then i realize this could make for some great circular storytelling. so she basically talks with henrik though the partially open door, she lies about why she needs the coffin lining by saying ismark is having a mental health crisis and she needs to show him that death isnt worth it?!?? ismark is visibly embarrassed and confused as fuck. she offers one of the rings she found (i cant recall where, i think it was in the durst house) to henrik, he snatches it and gives her a whole fucking bolt of crushed velvet in return and slams the door (he's definitely gonna try to pawn it and hightail it out of vallaki)

meanwhile, mike and billy bust down the door to the artist's place (his name is anton karushkin-ziegel, a homebrew npc i made for this plotline) with mikes sick nat20 strength check, finally he looks cool in front of his girlfriend. billy divine senses the place and notices an undead presence upstairs. they sneak around all over the place and check out his paintings and realize they look stylistically similar to ones theyve seen in strahds place..... ouh la la!!! they also find anton's journal/sketchbook upstairs, which details his daily life, his strange nightmares, sketches of a very familiar looking gentleman, and some frantic notes about how his "muse" asked him to deliver a package (read: the bones) to the coffin shop. they hear creaking around in the bedroom and bust down the door again, only to find "anton" blearily sitting up in bed and looking alarmed— actually it was escher lounging in his bed, but when he heard intruders he disguises himself as anton and tried to play it off. he spends the next few minutes trying to seem like a total ditz and passing off half truths to the players, explaining that the karushkins have been the royal painters for generations, bla bla bla. meanwhile billy is freaking the fuck out because anton is registering to her as undead, so the players theorize that escher is turning anto into a vampire against his knowledge, which i find REALLY interesting.

ALSO meanwhile, Trouble and Ezmerelda investigate the orphanage, which is supposed to be a whole sesh but they made remarkably short work of it. intrigue was kinda lost but i dont really mind, plus they had another theory that it was ludmilla that cursed Millivoj and felix, which tbh is way more interesting than "yea he found a locket and now he's cursed"

fiiiiiiiinally, marjorie heads back to the coffin shop with newlyweds pidlwick and vasilka, to uh, tell henrik that ismark isnt gonna kill himself anymore (lol?), notices he seems even more antsy this time, uses detect thoughts on him, gets suspect. so she wanders around for a little trying to break in through the back door??? before finally deciding to climb up to the window (and discovering vasilka is yolked as FUCK). almost stole all henriks money from his room, remarkably didnt investigate all the crates in the attic. anyway, thats where we left off, hooooooooly fuck is shit ever gonna hit the fan next sesh, cheers

[generic-cleric]

Session 47

Session doc

Whole folder

*Obligatory spoiler warning for Curse of Strahd*

Heard it Through The Grapevine

We kick session off with a good ole grift. The rest of the party works on distracting Lief while Bedlam tries his newly acquired key on the chests in the room. Successfully, he pops each one open and finds varying amounts of money and a manual of bodily health. Bedlam grabbed a handful of the coins, but left the manual out of respect for Lief. After more conversation, the accountant was happy to draw a map to a piece of treasure that has been lost to time. It was an extremely crude map, like it only showed the route from the castle to the treasure and provided no labels or landmarks. Okrin had the great idea to lay it over the map that they have and sure enough, it appears to lead to an area just outside of Berez. An area that Bedlam already suspected held something important. They bid their farewells to Lief and proceed to their points of interest.

They first wanted to check out the Parapets and Archery posts, where Sasha was said to have been seen being suspicious. After a thorough investigation of the area, they find a hand mirror. They cast Identify on it and find out it’s a magic mirror used for communication, as well as the activation word. They take the mirror for a spin and the face of Fiona Wachter appears in the reflection. They were careful to face the mirror away from themselves and disguised their voices. After some questions and a little deception, they find out that Fiona is the new Bugomistress of Ziedenburg and she is helping Sasha quarter her army of undead in exchange for sensitive information regarding Strahd and the castle and such. They were pleased with what they found and pretty eager to get out of that conversation so it wasn’t long before they were heading off to the next location.

As they head toward the courtyard, they notice a group of commoners with torches and pitchforks, cowering in the hallway. The party stops and gets their attention, asking them what they might be doing here. The three villagers explain that they stormed the castle in an effort to kill the vampire. This prompted lots of laughing in and out of game. 

Okrin scoffs, “What level are you guys? Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

The party kindly explains that the villagers probably only made it this far because Strahd let them, and that its very dangerous here and they should go back home. The villagers were insistent that they could handle it, so the party tells them: “Look, if you can’t beat us, you won’t be able to beat Strahd.” so they engage in a fisticuffs. 

Needless to say, the party EASILY took out the three commoners. Okrin was able to disarm one by taking his pitchfork and then pushed him down to the ground. Jander grappled one while Vondal brought on the hurt. The third was no match for Bedlam and Veledrel. All the damage was nonlethal, and the commoners were healed up by Ireena, Vel, and Okrin after the scrap. The villagers asked Ireena if she’d like to come with them back to the village. She politely declined, explaining that she felt much safer with the party. They parted ways after the villagers insisted that they knew the way out, though the party was skeptical.

They eventually find their way to the more familiar ground floor of the castle and make their way out into the courtyard. As they very casually stroll around, their notice someone messing with one of the stones in the wall. The party descends on the gentleman with no mercy. Two of them begin interrogating him and the others begin investigating the area around. They find a loose stone, and behind it a crumpled piece of paper containing an incriminating message written by Ludmilla. After asking many a pointed question, the man buckles and explains he’s just a messenger. He tells the party that Kiril and Emil had a disagreement over the way the werewolf pack should be run, which caused a schism. Kiril now does whatever Ludmilla wants because she removed Emil from the situation, which allowed Kiril to become the leader of the werewolf den. In return, Kiril will bring potential new brides for Srtrahd, the most recent one being Gertruda, and Ludmilla was pretty unhappy with. The party was very pleased with the juicy goss that they had just received, they brushed off their new acquaintance, told him to keep his nose clean and to be on his way. 

They made their way over to the carriagehouse to check out the lead they had on Volenta. The coast was clear, so their investigation began. They were displeased with the lack of horses here and were surprised to find that the carriage house really just houses the carriage. It's not a stable you guys. However, their digging around revealed an empty hidey hole. After talking and marveling for a bit, they noticed a cat creeping along the windowsill, and even stranger, this cat appeared to have a folded piece of paper in its mouth. The cat noticed the party staring at it, and then made a mad dash for safety. The cat was fast, but the party was faster. A skill challenge ensued where the cat was nabbed and the note was secured after some Entangling and Animal Handling. They find out that someone has been asking Volenta to give them scrying material. The party takes a moment to admire all the irons in the fire and move on to the garden.

They thought it would be easy to get to the garden from here, but they were wrong. They called for Helga, who took them through the castling ever-winding halls and brought them out to the gardens. They investigate and look around and find a few spots under some dead brush where it looks like a dog dug up the dirt in several spots. Jander explains to the party that he would send wolves to Escher with letters and poems, through which Escher would give him all the information he needed to create his evidence board that he burned before leaving with the party to the winery. Wow, what a throwback.

I explain to the table out of game that this would be another way for them to meet up with Jander, but since they absorbed him into the group when they did, he did not continue his conversations with Escher, so if they want evidence, Jander can give them some of the poems from their conversations, but as of right now, there is nothing to find in this area, because technically they already found it. They all thought that was pretty cool and liked seeing how their actions can affect the story.

With that behind them, they decide to go check the last location. They make their way back up to their room and climb out the window and very carefully make their way to a more flat part of the roof. Everyone was able to make it safely across without slipping and falling to their death, though a few of the shingles were not so lucky. They make it to a landing of sorts and get to snooping. Their search yields them a letter written in gibberish. An arcana check tells them that there is a presence of Illusion magic on this paper, and an Identify tells them its Illusory Script. Bedlam casts dispel magic on the note, catching a glimpse of the original text before the words fade altogether. The bit they happened to catch though was thanking Anastrasya for her contribution of literature and was asking for a pendant. The group pieced together that Anastrasya must have been the one to get the book out of the castle, and they must be asking for the Holy Symbol. 

We decided to end the session there, it was a lot of information and I wanted to give my players some time to mull it all over together.

[svartalfhild]

The Knight Stars - Session 28 - Bodies on the Floor

Our latest DnD shenanigans. (Previous summaries can be found here.)

Heliodoro and Rue dump healing into Mornath, who doesn’t immediately wake.

Rue casts Nondetection on Mornath to protect her from potential scrying.  She suggests to Cinder that they hide the dead body of the cultist Mornath crispified.  Cinder quickly stuffs it in a broom closet.  Rue goes to distract the barkeep.  Barkeep goes to get towels and alcohol.

Rue explains to the barkeep that they don’t know what happened and persuades him not to get the guards involved immediately.

Helio carries Mornath back up to the party’s room and he works at cleaning her up.

Cael returns (looking fucking rough from his sexcapades) as Cinder is working on moving the body to a safer location.  Rue keeps watch while Cinder and Cael move the body to an unoccupied inn room. Cael suggests he pull out his Speak With Dead powers as a White Necromancer to talk to this cultist asshole.

They take the body to our room for the interrogation.  Cael searches the corpse and finds another cult medallion and the dagger with which the guy stabbed Mornath.  He notices the edge of a tattoo and takes of the cultist’s shirt to get a better look at it.  It’s reminiscent of the design of the medallion, at least in style.  Defs some cult shit.  Rue sketches the design in her notebook.

Cael casts his spell after they prop the corpse up.  The corpse comes to life in a creepy marionette sort of way and both its and Cael’s eye go black.

Helio asks who do you work and why did they want Mornath dead?  The corpse answers The Court and He Didn’t.  Helio follows that up with why did you stab her.  The corpse answers that You Pose Complications To The Grand Work.  Party asks what the Grand Work is and the corpse answers Salvation.  We then asked “What is the Court’s plan for Baldur’s Gate?”  The corpse answers Baldur’s Gate Is The Keystone To The Grand Work; The Culmination of Everything.  With that, corpse snaps backwards and collapses.

Rue goes to look for a room to stash the body in.  Cinder aids.  They find a room, get in and hide the body under the bed, making it look like the guy tried to hide there and died.  They scuttle back to the room.

Helio, Cinder, Rue to take shifts to watch while everyone sleeps.  Nothing happens in the night.

Mornath’s hair loses it’s blue tint, fading to pure white.

Rue gets Helio up, who looks quite rough and gets him to put on a costume.  Cinder likewise puts on a disguise.  Rue puts a wig on a still unconscious Mornath so that no one will recognize a description of her in the guard report.

Helio and Cinder go off to find a new inn to stay at and avoid the guards.  Before he leaves, Helio touches Mornath’s hand and kisses her forehead, whispering that he won’t let her down again.

Rue talks to the guards.  They mention they want to talk to Mornath once she wakes up and Rue sort of deflects their interest with talking of how Helio is in search of a healer.

Helio and Cinder go to the Temple of Gond to ask for help.  The high priest suggests that we can stay in the temple instead of an inn.  Helio and Cinder agree to this.  They inform the high priest that Mornath got stabbed and is stable, but isn’t getting better.

Helio and Cinder go to a bakery on their way back to the inn so they can eat their grief.

Mornath wakes up when Helio returns and says please when he talks to her.  She bolts upright and acts like scared animal until she gets her glasses on and says she recognizes Helio, that he’s always been there...why is he always there?  Everyone is very confused, especially after she starts intermittently speaking an ancient dialect of Elvish and her accent migrates all over the place while she goes on about not being dead but not being alive either and she’s lived many lives and Helio was in all of them.

Helio checks to make sure Mornath isn’t undead.  She’s not, but that just kind of raises more questions.

Cinder gets everyone to leave for the temple, saying we can finish this conversation in a safer place.

Rue hangs back to close up our tab at the inn.

Lord knows what’ll happen next, but shit keeps getting weirder.

[weareladyknight]

Lady Knight's Drow Arcane Archer Is Taking Some Paladin Levels!

Thought you guys would be interested and excited to hear this! It got long so everything is under the cut. Also, playing in 5e so following those rules.

So we’re playing in the Forgotten Realms. My character, Aryana, isn’t aimless but she’s not super emotionally invested in the story rn. She has A Quest and she doesn’t want Acererak (very powerful undead wizard) to destroy Faerun for the very Peter Quill reason that she’s one of the assholes that lives there. And so does her entire Drow House and her whole thing is that she will do anything for the benefit of her House to the detriment of herself and people not in her House (she is def Lawful Evil). But you know, she could go off on her own and do those things. 

So Aryana walks into the Yawning Portal Tavern with the party while investigating the disappearance of the uncle of the party’s Druid (the uncle is a former PC btw). This human woman glares at Aryana. And she’s like “what? I’ve never seen you in my life” and the woman’s companion is like “oh, she just hates you because you’re a drow.” And Ayrana finds bigotry hilarious (it’s just been a few assholes weaker than her being mean so she can laugh at it). She starts antagonizing the human woman like “come on, let’s fight, you got beef, let’s take this outside, come on, I wanna fight you, let’s do this.” And this makes the human real mad. She stands up and her form changes... 

It’s Ayrana’s commanding officer, her mentor and she’s pointing an automatic crossbow at Ayrana’s heart and yelling “YOU FUCKING TRAITOR!!! YOU DESTROYED OUR HOUSE!!! YOU ARE GOING TO DIE RIGHT NOW RIGHT HERE!!!” 

And Aryana is just like “What the fucccckkkkkk?!?” She doesn’t have gaps in her memory and she hasn’t been back home for ten years or so. But this is her CO, her captain, so she’s open to the fact that she might have. Fight breaks out. The captain’s companion teleports out. Ayrana runs outside because she def does not want to be on Durnan the Bartender’s bad side and this really can be settled outdoors. One of the spellcasters knocks the captain out (bad saving throw on her part). 

The Druid wants to take her to the party base for further interrogation because the captain is a Drow and there was drow poison found in her uncle’s house. Ayrana wants to take her captain to the guards because while she is evil, she is lawful and she wants this done properly. But practically speaking, she wants her captain under watch so she can do other shit. 

A five minute argument ensues because out-of-character I was having connection issues and didn’t know about the Druid’s Uncle (we were playing over Discord) and in-character Aryana is so worked up she forgot why they were at the Yawning Portal in the first place. She’s not really... Emotionally invested in her party members and their problems. But that may change as things go on. She eventually decides that going along with what the other party member wants is best. 

They go back to their base, which is in a cliffside cave outside of Waterdeep. And fucking Acererak is there and he wants to talk. But he wants to see how this will go down first and even though the party is pretty eager to know why he’s here, they don’t want to fight him atm so they’re all just like “whatever.” 

They tie up Aryana’s captain, cast zone of truth (she fails the saving throw, Aryana chooses to pass). Aryana kneels in front of her captain and says “I don’t know what I did, but please tell me. If I did do what you say, I will fling myself off this cliff, I swear.”

 And so much shit is revealed. 

1. The captain claims that “Aryana” came back home, asked for some help with her quest and she got a squad of 400 soldiers. As they’re making their march “Aryana” leads them into an ambush. Seventy-five of Ayrana’s comrades die including her best friend. The captain loses an eye in the fight. The only reason they’re not all slaughtered is that their Drow Mother is able to intervene. 

2. Aryana’s like “I do not remember any of that. Also, we live in Faerun, that was probably a doppelganger, or I was mind controlled or any other thing.” Her captain is not hearing it though and they keep arguing and the druid is really eager to get back to the matter of her uncle. 

Tired of this, Acererak is like “omg, fine, it was me. I disguised myself as Aryana and tricked the soldiers into the ambush.” (The lowest INT character in the party guessed this btw BUT the player is in med school and a real smart cookie). Aryana stands up, gets in the lich’s face and is like “I will destroy your phylactery, and then I will kill you. I will not rest until you are gone from this universe.” He’s not impressed. 

3. Anyways, the druid is still pretty keyed up about her uncle and Aryana’s captain admits that it was her and her partner (the guy who peaced out at the Yawning Portal) who kidnapped the Druid’s uncle for the Red Wizards ( some more seriously bad dudes working for Acererack) and he’s probably in Thay (the city the Red Wizard’s control) right now. I s2g if our princess is in another motherfucking castle...  

4. Acererack “threatens” to leave and the party is like “whatever, we don’t actually want to talk to you or for you to be here.” But before he teleports out, Aryana puts down her weapons and unties her captain and starts beating the shit out of her screaming, “You thought it was me!!! You fucking thought it was me!!! How could you!! I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!” and Acererack’s like “WORLDSTAR!!!” 

5. When Aryana is done (she stops before her captain is killed or even permanently injured). Acerack finally says what he wants. He wants to trade his phylactery (the thing he keeps his soul in) for The Black Opel Crown, an artifact that’s key in a ritual to destroy the world. And the party for so many reasons says “no way in hell, fuck off!” And before they can fight him and take the probably-fake phylactery just in case (the guy we’re talking to is definitely a clone not the real deal and the party is level 14 so they can probably take him) he teleports out, counterspells the warlock’s counterspell so he’s gone. Bummer. 

I don’t think that’s the order it went down in but i’m trying to make it easy to follow here so. 

So the druid and another PC who also has a missing relative that was in the past campaign’s party are fucking chomping at the bit to go to Thay. But Ayrana’s like “no, we are not going in unprepared this time. We’ve done that too many times and our luck is running out. We need to go... To The Library.” 

More miscommunication ensues. 

Once that clears up, the party hits up our most powerful available contact, Syndra Silvane. She gives us a contract for us to sign basically giving us the authority to do whatever it takes to bring down Acererack. Being trigger happy, vengeance fueled adventurers who really like living in Faerun, we sign it. Don’t worry, there are lines we probably won’t cross. Like torture. Doesn’t work anyways. And if we do commit war crimes, I trust the DM to have it bite us in the ass. 

The warlock tells us everything he knows about Thay (he used to live there but since he was only in the poor/merchant districts and he biffs his History check... we don’t learn much). THEN we go to the library to learn everything we can about Thay and the Red Wizards. We realize that we need to fucking go, so Silvane hooks us up with one of her guys that we know and trust to stay behind and do research and send reports to us. 

Then the DM looks at the clock and is just like “this is going to go on forever, we’re gonna stop here and you guys can think about your next move and start planning properly next week.” I am very sad but very excited. 

So yeah, before she heads out to Thay, Aryana is going to go down into a cave (preferably with running water for the Sheer Purpose of Drama) and swear an oath to Lolth that she will take down Acererack and avenge her House and get the two PCs with kidnapped relatives to witness her promise and bind her to it. Then when the time comes, paladin levels. 

Ngl I was a little hesitant to actually multiclass bc Aryana’s an archer and divine smite is melee-only. But she has sickles (stated as short swords) and the idea of the last thing Acererack sees before he dies is Aryana’s hate filled eyes while she’s smiting the shit out of him with the Divine Wrath of Lolth is too good to pass up. 

So, so much credit to the Dungeon Master @blackbeanswithdice for making a great session. I am thrilled about what’s coming next! 

[recalcitrantlycaffeinated]

DND: an update

We spent the majority of a campaign session giving chase to a merchant ship, which we then successfully captured and vanquished after several in our party losing almost all their HP due to an enormous amount of poor rolls.  We probably only survived this encounter (with MERCHANTS) unscathed because our DM was also rolling terribly.

However, we also managed to get haunted by a dead pirate captain.  We’d heard that he’d been cursed to an undead life after abusing his crew, and that the only way his soul would find rest would be if he collected a thousand skulls.  He’d been sailing for decades, haunting a ship for three days before dragging it to the bottom of the ocean, never to be seen again.

There was also a storm.

Rather than try to avoid the pirate captain’s imminent approach, we just waited for it to happen.  My fellow pirates regained HP and tried to protect our ships from the storm, while I walked around complaining about the pirate captain’s ineptness.  A thousand skulls?  He hadn’t collected a thousand skulls in decades?  What was this guy’s problem?  Did he really want to collect skulls at all?  (Just in case, our bloodthirsty shark shaman started collecting her human skulls as an offering, while our seductive sorceress beheaded a bunch of fish in order to add their skulls to the pile.)

Our encounter with the pirate captain was...a mess.

His ship was completely crewed by zombies.  He was standing by himself, ringing a bell incessantly.  He did not respond to the offer of skulls from my compatriots, he just wordlessly kept ringing the bell.

I somehow ended up first in the initiative order, and was so annoyed about this legend that I went anti-rogue and just straight up boarded the ship and got ready to go right to the captain to give him a piece of my mind.  It took me two rounds to get that far, by which point I was extra annoyed about the bell ringing and the ignoring and the stupid amount of time he’d taken to get these skulls, and also had taken a ballista bolt to the chest, so I slapped both hands onto the bell to silence it before commencing my frustrated interrogation.  

The captain did actually interact with me, and basically explained that the technical terms of the geas he was under only required him to take one skull per boat, and since he wasn’t ready to stop sailing yet, he would just torture the remainder of the crew.  He couldn’t be convinced to leave us alone, because he was a better pirate than we are and really really liked watching people suffer, so we determined we’d have to kill each other.  

I skipped the rest of my turn because I’m pregnant and had been waiting to use the restroom for the entire bottom of the initiative order, and as soon as that was done I realized that our DM had mentioned that the captain looked afraid when I’d grabbed onto the bell, so I knew exactly what I needed to attack once my turn came back around.

The captain didn’t attack me on his turn, because he’d attacked our fighter during the previous round, doing some serious constitution drain damage, and our DM was super eager to use the second-level step of that attack, assuming the fighter would again fail his save because the captain was kind of OP.  He was right...and after announcing that the constitution drain now doubled, he started going into a triumphant explanation that the fighter’s HP immediately went down to zero and he was unconscious...

Except he wasn’t.  He was dead.  Because his constitution had been reduced to zero.

Our group has been playing Pathfinder together as a group for years now.  This particular campaign is about a year and a month old.  I think we’ve had HP go down to zero maybe twice over all those years, and have always been able to revive our characters in some way.  My husband has only been playing with us for a short time (this was his fighter character’s third session ever)...and he straight-up died.

This was great protection for my character, though, as I was then able to handle the bell on my next turn.  Rather than attacking the bell, like a Normal Person, I ran away with it and jumped over the side of the boat.  Apparently the bell and the boat were connected, because as the bell began sinking to the bottom of the ocean, so did the boat we were on.

We considered letting the boat sink and hoping that they couldn’t re-hook up the bell to regain boat control, or if they did that they wouldn’t bother us again, but then someone brought up the idea of putting the bell into our bag of holding, hoping the ship would have to magically follow and that everything would blow up.

When this happened, it opened up a rift to the Astral Plane.  Both the sorceress and the shark shaman got dragged in.  The sorceress failed her will save and did not feel the need to leave, and the shark shaman (who had passed her save) attempted to rescue her, but the person playing the sorceress declared this unnecessary and decided this was a fitting end for his character and said she should just be left there.  

So on the one hand, we defeated a high level enemy permanently, leaving him never to terrorize a ship again, rather than merely escaping or temporarily defeating him...but on the other hand, we lost two of our characters in the process.

This will probably be good, though, because my husband gets to write his own character since he now understands the bare minimum about how Pathfinder works, and the other person can now make a character that isn’t so slutty she breaks the campaign and is impossible to roleplay comfortably in front of the children.      

[rarestereocats]

recap of last session of the crusades campaign!

With Etna now slain from a combination of brute force and secondhand embarrassment,  we collect her goodies as well as Nephraxii's phylactery.  Might be unnecessary considering she's still and always will be a book,  but it's better to be safe than sorry.  Her phylactery is an adamantine sword that according to the book of her memories,  can only be destroyed by throwing it into an active volcano so we get to pay Sicily a visit again.  We teleport outside of the death temple where Lucky muses on how they were here once and upon seeing the riddle that nearly tore this family apart long ago,  Industria corrosive touches it out of existence;  so sorry in advance to future adventurers who will no longer be able to figure out how to get inside.

The volcano is a couple of hours away and on our way,  we encounter a little bit of attitude from Industria as well as pirates who probably shouldn't have quit their day jobs because they literally announced to us that they were ambushing us.  Elathera uses good ol' hold person on them all and we make sure to pose them all embarrassingly before we leave.  Once to the volcano,  the task is simple enough so I fly on up with the phylactery and toss it in that bitch when we suddenly remember we wanted to interrogate Etna.  So it's back to her place we go to raise her corpse to talk with it and surprise!  She still doesn't like us and every answer she gives is as cryptic as apologies from your weed dealer when he's trying to let you know he got roped into an undercover sting operation.

Elathera's fears of Milan being the king of the liches is quelled as that question garners another name from Etna,  but instead of helping her relax,  now Elathera is stuck on the fact that there's an even more powerful lich in control of this entire undead pyramid scheme.  I find a brass dragon statue that belonged to him so we can scry on Milan later without him realizing it's a group of strangers and instead,  think it's Etna.  Once back on Elathera's plane,  we get Greg the Jellyfish settled in his new home because we refuse to leave him in the middle of nowhere away from his new family (shame on you,  Rikius,  for suggesting such a thing).  Industria checks on her garden as the tree is a lil' sprout now and I go and have a chat with my buddy Iolond again.  This chat confirms that it doesn't seem to trust my Sabella-aligned friends entirely,  possibly because Sabella has an issue with it.  But at the very least,  I think I can count on it to have my back.

The next day is scrying time and we decide to park ourselves in a random field in the middle of nowhere so Milan can't scry back and see anywhere we frequent.  Industria manages to convince him that Etna needs to meet with him for important business and now we have a week to plan out just how we're going to take this guy out.  Unfortunately,  planning,  much like doors and riddles;  is another weakness of ours,  so we end up going in circles with ridiculous plans that have a 5% chance of actually working.  I suggest that when Milan leaves to see Etna,  we should find his hideout and sneak in to find his phylactery and hold it hostage for information.  It seemed like a sound plan until we realized we'd have to split our party so some of us could reanimate and impersonate Etna to keep Milan distracted.

So Industria suggests that Lucky go undercover with a few of us and infiltrate the lich cult.  Again,  a bad idea considering Virhea's probably told Milan and the others all about us.  So I flip through my lich journal and find out about a meeting place they all have in the desert,  somewhere by a small town called Luca.  With the best coordinates I can manage,  we teleport to this spot and see the griffin statue that was described in the journal.  The password to get in is the name of your leader and each name changes the rooms available.  Nariah's is a proper meeting room aside from the ritualistic circle he presumably used to make more liches.  Milan's name gets us into his room,  where I snag yet another lich journal that goes over how many people are getting roped into his little game and being manipulated to think that they're more than they are.  It all harkens back to Nariah's original idea of;  "Power belongs to those who take it.".  Everybody in this cult seems to think they have some power,  so maybe this truly is a lich MLM where everybody gets to be their own boss.

Even Virhea is on the list of poor saps who got manipulated in this scheme,  but with no time to pour over the journal some more,  we go through a few more rooms before Elathera finds the a secret staircase leading to an office.  Somebody's familiar is on guard,  but she kills the owl instantly before stepping into the mirror that functions as a doorway.  The rest of us regroup and teleport to her side and are greeted with a library.  While Elathera and Industria search for any books of use,  I manage to find the book to unlock a door I found and with a new path open,  me and Elathera decide it's time for Team Disaster to roll out once more.  Except surprise,  bitches,  Team Disaster is now Team Successful cuz we manage to dodge,  disarm,  and dispel traps down here like nobody's business.  And even when we both separate at the fork in our paths,  we still manage to keep ourselves from flying right into the disaster zone.

Elathera finds waterfall deeper in the tunnel system,  where there's a bunch of sparkly,  broken possessions underneath the water.  Everything from jewelry to bottles and the such.  Meanwhile,  I find myself at a door and have no way of knowing what it is cuz necril.  I try to tell Elathera the shapes of the letters of the mindlink so she can figure it out and eventually we figure out this is the corpse storage room.  And when the others realize we're not alone in this house and that somebody's come or gone out of the magic mirror,  we're all called back to the library and Industria tasks me with heading into the mirror first to assassinate what we presume will be Milan.  As soon as I step through,  he's there and waiting,  leaving us all to awkwardly file into his office afterwards.

[bigbenalpha]

I’ve been DMing, sessions 12 & 13

A few new players have joined up over the past two sessions so they were a bit shorter and therefore lumped into one post. So, two short sessions mean one longer post. The large town/small city of Midvale had tasked the party with venturing into the sewers to unblock the flood gate mechanisms and keep the city from flooding due to a sudden and powerful storm that blew down out of the mountains. The party ran afoul of a vampire lady who charmed three of them and set them to fight their friends. She was defeated and the party made it’s way to the area with the gate controls. The gated were being being blocked by a huge cocoon which burst, releasing two hungry otyughs. As the fight progressed the flood waters rose higher but the beasts were defeated and the flood gates opened just in time. Sadly, the party’s goblin rogue was swept away by the flood waters. He may still be alive deep in an underground cavern but who knows. 

Back on the surface the party made haste to the city watch house with the corpses of two vampires. Guard Captain Gita Biwachandra was highly alarmed that the undead were at large in her city. She quickly sent for help from local clerics and Telamon suggested she could also send for help from the Vistani who were camped outside of town. Glim and Nora discovered that Tina, the vampire, had a bag of holding. They were able to retrieve a journal which seemed to be written in thieve’s cant. There were also a few letters written in common that indicated Tina was tasked to find an enemy for a powerful individual who may have been a former patron of hers. Glim had the bright idea to turn the bag inside out and quickly wished he hadn’t.

In addition to large pile of random things three flamesskulls rolled out and instantly attacked.  The fight was fast but brutal. The party got in many good hits but one of the skulls let loose a fireball that dropped half the party. Fortunately Captain Gita and her guards were able to help destroy the cackling, undead heads. Unfortunately Ogner wasn’t able to be revived.

Captain Gita supplied the party with heals and the certificate for services from a local bath house, Tyman’s Grotto. She assured the party that Ogner would be looked after until the clerics arrived, so, weary, singed and covered in sewer water the party made its way to a much needed bath.

Baths, massages and laundry services were provided and the party seemed to regain some composure. Kainos offered his apologies to Vallik for the way he treated the albino gnoll when he joined the party. Kik made an ass of himself by hitting on a red dragonborn lady named Ruby. Glim and Corvid made an early exit to get back to the watch house and prepare a prank for Ogner upon his revival. Nora opted to visit the theater instead of heading back to the watch house. The theater was still closed so she headed to the Dandy Trout for some drinks.  As the party headed back to the watch house, along with Ruby, we called it quits there. Picking up immediately where we left off, most of the party arrived back at the watch house and discovered two vistani vardos parked out side. Inside, Baba Sarya, Marta, Elena, Florio, and several unknown vistani were consulting with Captain Gita about the vampire corpses. The journal was given to Florio to translate. He confirmed that Tina was tracking down somebody but never wrote the name. The journal went back several years, detailing her exploits as an undead rogue. There was no other evidence of any vampires in town. Clerics of Lathander finally arrived and the consensus was that the bodies had to be burned. Glim requested one of Tina’s hands so he could make a Hand of Glory. Baba Sarya was equal parts alarmed and amused but she didn’t stop him. Her “sisters” (daughter-in-law Marta, cousin Tilde, and Baba Rosa, a more distant cousin) were shocked but deferred to Sarya. The clerics said that they would be able to revive poor Stan (the city worker killed and turned by Tina) and that they would do the same for Ogner, minus the burning.  Examining his body - which was surprisingly naked except for a broken helmet and slathered in oil - the clerics determined that he wasn’t actually dead.  Baba Sarya and her wise sisters confirmed it. Something arcane was keeping Ogner in a coma. The clerics took Ogner and the vampire bodies back to their temple. 

Back at the Dandy Trout, Nora joined a friendly card game and made the acquaintance of Honoree’ Beaudreau, a handsome and charming cardsharp. The game was also joined by a Drow lady named... Imyir? My bad, I forgot to write it down. Bad DM.  Nora also caught the attention of a bard, but more importantly that caught the attention of his his jealous fans. He announced his name as Morrisey.  It’s really tweaking my OCD that I can’t find any art of him on a par with the other pics. Stoopid Morrisey fans. 

*art my moz65 on deviantArt

Meanwhile, in The Burrows, an inn catering to dwarfs, halflings, and gnomes, Brood noticed a few clerics of Lathander get some shocking news. Sneaking closer he heard the word “vampires” and stealthily followed them out.  He managed to keep to the shadows for the most part but the many sets of eyes in the party, especially the very alert vistani, saw him near the temple. He was quickly interrogated and threatened by the city guard if he ever mentioned vampires to any townsfolk. He agreed. Small talk was made while the clerics, vistani and Telamon. The bodies were decapitated, fangs extracted, mouths stuffed with herbs, holy oils applied, then the bonfire was lit. while the clerics prayed.

Glim and Brood made their way back to the Burrows. They introduced each other to their pets - Glim’s owl and mastiff, Brood’s panther. The rest of the party returned to the Dandy trout. Nora and... Ymeir? (bad DM) made it out of the poker game with a few extra coins and started a drinking game. They were good and toasty when the party showed up. Morrisey paid more attention to Nora from the stage, to the annoyance of one of his fans in particular. He winked, Nora blew a kiss, he caught it, rubbed it in his pompadour and threw her flowers from his collar and belt in one, fluid, practiced move without missing a dance step or a song note. The Alpha Fangirl fumed and stormed out. Ruby engaged in some arm wrestling while the rest of the party drank. And that’s where we stopped.

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[ronan-dreaming]

Another session of Beyond the Sea....

So, last session: we stormed the Ravens’ Keep, interrupted a massive sacrifice of elves, Bree was thrown into a pool of blood and died (not that they know they died) and brought back to life (gaining a level as a sorcerer with divine soul as their magic source) by the Raven Queen herself, then they found the necromancer bringing back people who are able to speak n things. Said necromancer was the son of the elven woman we hunted down before, and so he agreed to stop his experiments (apparently he succeeded) and while talking to him, we discovered that he knows Bree’s brother. We also killed the son of a noble family (oops?) and are now trying to escape the Ravens’ Keep without getting caught by anyone. Today’s session is pretty much dealing with the repercussions of all this shit.

We blew up the necromancer’s lab and then floated out of the river that runs around the Keep. I critfailed on my first stealth roll BUT i had inspiration so i ended up being fine :’) yay advantage! Falón also now has pass without a trace, so we used that too. 

Luckily, Bree still has the Cloak of the Manta Ray, so they had no problem with lasting during the river ride. Unfortunately the others had some panicky moments where they had no air :’) But! The river did help clean Bree of most of the blood that was caked on them from being thrown in the pool.

While on the escape, who do they run into but Zefír, the assassin/orphanage runner! Who is... not pleased with them. I mean, they did kill a very important person.

But Zefír is thrown out of his anger when he recognizes Taranir, the undead half-elf that has forgotten all his memories but was used in an experiment by the necromancer they stopped.... and reveals that Taranir has been dead three years, and was Zefír’s lover. Awkwaaaard.

We manage to eventually make it back to the guildhouse (after letting Taranir go stay with one of Zefír’s friends, and who knew Taranir back when he was alive).

The guildhouse is interrogating a lot of people who look... just like Bree and Falón. And during the meeting with the lieutenants, we were told that all of us (including Achilles, who is one of the other lieutenant’s lovers) have to leave the city pretty much immediately to avoid the guild getting in trouble for the assassination of the son of one of the major families. But, in the very least, they said they would help us escape unseen. Rowan smuggles us out, and we make a stop to fetch Falón’s hippogryph too. 

We camp outside the city after we get out, after almost 24 hrs awake and one hell of a wild ride, and finally get some sleep before heading down into Elf Country... after all, Falón did receive a letter saying his clan was under attack. So that’s our next step.

Boy, this was.... an adventure. And this was the “walk in the park” compared to the rest of our campaign. So....

[ladytabletop]

Cataclysm Session Twenty-Two: Meanwhile, in the Present

The write-up, as promised, of @youwakeupinadungeon‘s campaign

Currently located in:

Present Day Terra, multiple locations (Therne, Zhen Wei, Kaseelie, Arkos, Greenhaven, Freylisse)

The session:

Our druid, Shilen, is a druid of the First Tree Cranbathadgh, which means she’s pretty connected to the leyline energy of the planet. When we got back from Regalia, the tree was calling her to do something, so naturally we all went with her. We were to go to each of the tree’s branches and, if I remember correctly, collect a piece of them, because the First Tree was dying and there was nothing we could do to stop it.

Our first stop was the Branch of Time in Therne. When we arrived, we found it swarming with Talis’s researchers, being tapped for its sap (probably so she could try to send people back in time after us). We jumped into a fight with them, Alyndra drank some time sap and had a vision, and Elena ended up killing a scientist after we interrogated him, much to the party’s dismay. Shilen did her communing thing with the tree, and then it died.

Our next stop was the Branch of Memory in Zhen Wei. This trip took us to the monk, Ket’s, mysterious temple! We found out that his master is a golden dragon. Again with the communing and dying, and on we went.

The Branch of Wilderness was near Kaseelie and Dovah, and we watched Tiamat and 2 of Talis’s undead champions on the battlefield.

The Branch of Protection was in Arkos, which closely resembled the aboleth plane of Leth, what with all the weird Leth creatures and the tsunami ruins. We fought our way into a grotto where a merfolk family had been hiding and subsisting on the tree - which, of course, we knew we were going to kill. So we brought the family with us into the demiplane since we were taking away their means of survival.

The Branch of Life was in the jungle of Greenhaven, where we ran into a bunch of Talis’s pyromancers, though we weren’t sure why they were there. Alyndra, having eaten the fruit of the tree of life, was high as shit and also fast as all get out. It was a trip, but we took care of business.

Lastly, we came to the Branch of Souls inside the palace in Freylisse. Ramses, the ruler, was speaking to a heavily chained (both magically and physically) woman whom Alyndra had seen in her earlier vision at the Branch of Time. The party argued a good deal about whether to try and get her out or not, but in the end, we just dealt with the tree as we had come to do, and with that, the First Tree died.

Session end.

Index of Cataclysm Sessions + Info

[cursewoodrecap]

Session 8:  Difficult Neighbors

You’d think the time in between fighting monsters would be chill, but no. We finish up in Holzog, gear up for Mornheim, and deal with the one thing worse than monsters: locals.

We get down to brass tacks with appraisin’ items and stocking up. Gral and Valeria find out what their violin strings and Eyegis do, though the rest of  us will have to find out later. Valeria makes some holy water and Shoshana brews up a couple of healing potions during our downtime.

We briefly debate whether to tell Quentin everything. We decide we’re for it; he’s working with the Cursebreakers, and they’re the organization that can best use the info we’ve found to connect the dots on how the Curse works and how to fight it.

“It’s still a hot take that the Curse had agenda, and now we know it has 4 agendas and 4 bodies, all under some powerful ward? They’ve got to know that.”

We go to the mining guild office where the Cursebreakers are. We are all visually searched. Witness Beatrice searches the ladies, which is a fairly chill affair since she can be pretty easily told to back off. Clem is fine; this is not her first strip-search or invasive interrogation, she tells us. What?

Gral has no such luck, and is being searched by Ser Quentin. “Well, sir Orc? Lose ‘em.” His hands are exceptionally cold. (Gral does want a professional to take a look, but. A little bedside manner, Q?)

While the girls are downstairs in Bea’s library, Valeria remembers: “Oh! We have thing for you!” We give her the Char Mender, and Bea totally forgets about strip searching us. Her eyes light up and she takes it to the cabinet of charred books.

We discover we have enough Char Mender to repair one book.  (We should have evolved it, maybe.)

Bea focuses on 3 rare tomes that she believes were the target of the arson. “And it was arson, unless fires start on one end of the library, and then when I go to put that one out, another fire starts on the other end.

The books we must choose between:

The Study of Fiends, a demonology study commissioned by the Church of Torme. Unfortunately, the results ended up being a little too much of a how-to for summoning demons, so they never completed the full publication run, and it’s an extremely rare book. It regards demons and how they operate, different individual demons and what offers they are likely to make, the types of deals they make with people, etc.

Songs of the Druids, a study of the druids of the Greatwood, regarding their methods and secrets. There’s a lot of legend and poetry rather than purely academic research, but it’s the closest thing anyone’s ever really made to a comprehensive collection of information about them.

The Grimscale Essays, a collection of essays on necromancy and the undead, recovered from a Draco-Aquilian necromancer’s tower. It is banned to use the knowledge in these essays, but it is a valuable collectors’ item and may offer insights on how the undead function.

Though our upcoming trek to Mornheim tempts us toward the necromancy book, we select Team Druid, to know about our potential allies. Bea sighs wistfully. “That book had some beautiful illustrations. I hope those get restored too”

“Also, If Morozov asks - he was less interested in that one, but I’m gonna say you made me do it OKAY BYEEEE”

After we’ve all got our pants on again, Ser Quentin has us tell him everything. We do, withholding nothing except our spaceship adventure. Unfortunately, he’s an Inquisitive Rogue, and nobody lies to him. We fail our deception checks hard, so Shoshana awkwardly tries to explain their adventure on a space ship without having any idea of what a space ship is. It’s pretty disjointed, but she musters the defense that talking about the Confusing Forbidden Knowledge could have been a good way to get More Cursed. Fair enough. He can tell that we’ve got nothing else to hide, anyway.

“If what you say is true, you slew these musicians, who were responsible for the mist in the valley. If so, I guess we’ll have to see what happens. In the meantime it is now vitally important that I take these notes on your travels, make my way to Hoska Castle, and report to the other Cursebreakers. There are records there I will need to consult. The ‘Key’ you mention – my order is one of seekers of knowledge. So you can understand why I’m a little concerned that this is the very instinct targeted by one of our adversaries.”

We look at the tapestry again, to see if we can figure out any clues about the Prisoners. The foreground one has its antler helmet and wolf skin cloak - clearly the entity we know as The Hunt. The other figures are indistinct; the artist didn’t bother to differentiate them in this crude medium. All we can tell is that they are bound in roots.

We show Quentin the Eyegis. “In my professional expertise, this shield...is creepy. You should go ask an expert in magical items.”

Darius is called over to look at the Mysterious Pamphlet from the glove box. “Don’t some members of your order have the ability to read all tongues?” Sure, but he didn’t take Eyes of the Rune Keeper as one of his invocations though. Ooooops. 

Daikon receives scritches! He finds a seed in Shosha’s hair from the woods, and eats it.

Valeria tells Quentin about us choosing the Druid Book for Bea, Luckily, she successfully Persuades. He sighs. “Considering what we have learned, it does make the most sense. You got this repair substance from Sturmhearst? We’ll see if we can get any more.”

Oh yeah, those guys. We warn him that being so close to the mists of the Key, what with them being seekers of knowledge, is probably Less Than Optimal.

Ser Quentin looks down his nose at us. “We have explicit instructions not to antagonize Sturmhearst, as they are a valuable ally and formidable foe. You understand that Ser Brigid has done this with the explicit intention of making us keep a close eye on them, yes?”

Oh, he has one more important question re: Sturmhearst. “You told them you were going to investigate the house? In that case, Darius, please send a request to the Baroness and her Condotierri.”

“In three days, a supply caravan will leave for Mornheim. Be there that morning and I will brief you. In the meantime the Fairgolds have interceded to have some rooms prepared at the Greencloak Inn, and I recommend you take up those rooms. Our offices are less than comfortable. If we need to reach out to you, I expect we’ll send Daikon."

After we leave the office, Clem goes back to Hammerstein and Sons to get that sword silvered. “It’ll be 150g to coat your greatsword in silver, but it’ll be hard to get it done in three days; an extra 50g will get you to the front of my queue,” says Bluma Hammerstein. 

Clara Sons, her partner (business partner? life partner? We Just Dont’ Know), interjects “Bluma does have an apprentice she’s training; perhaps she could-“

“Yeah, I’ve been meaning to teach her the process. If you’re willing to let the kid work on your baby there, I can bypass the 50g.” 

“Is the kid proficient enough? I don’t wanna lose my ‘baby,’ as you call it.”

Bluma shrugs. “Ehhhhhhhhh? She’s very talented…yeah, sure, she’s a helluva hand with a whetstone, pretty good with a hammer, but this is a pretty complex process. Not gonna lie to ya: I think the kid can do it. And I’ll be there to supervise.”

Clem hands them her remaining bottle of High Elven vodka. If I give you this, will you be Extra Careful? They shake on it.

Clem also asks after a suit of splint mail. They have a Ventallan style one in the shop they could resize for her. Clara was refitting it for a Condotierri, but then he skipped out on paying, so they kept it. “It’ll cost 200g total. It’s quite a nice piece! I can get the black rook sigil off the shoulder for you.”

Clem’s about 40g short, and is thoroughly disappointed. Shoshana has come with, though, and has done all the shopping she needs to for her healing potions. And, because of the reward from Sturmhearst and Ser Quentin’s advance payment for the Mornheim expedition, still has more money in her pocket than she ever had as a poor villager.

“Here’s 50g,” she tells Clem. “Use it to not die; you can repay me by making sure I don’t die.”

Clem is ABSOLUTELY FLOORED. Why are you just giving me money??? It’s a pretty big thing for Clem. No one has ever given her money without expecting something in return???? What could Shoshana possibly mean by this huge gesture?????

Shoshana is like, no, we’re going to Mornheim, if we all die none of us can spend this cash.

“Oh, you’re going to MORNHEIM?!” Clara exclaims. “Here, why don’t I just inscribe a holy symbol of Lethe on that, free of charge.” She points to an absolutely destroyed chestpiece she has on her workbench. “That’s what’s coming back from Mornheim.”

Because Clem is an absurdly big lady, she needs a few parts taken from other pieces of armor around the shop to make it all fit. She has a Pretty Woman montage of coming out in different suits of armor for the armorsmiths and Shoshana. She ends up with kind of a hodgepodge of random armor. 

“What are your thoughts on asymmetrical shoulder pads? I’ve got one from an old elven regiment, but I’ve only got the left one.” It has a bit of filigree on it, but nothing as distinctive as a regimental insignia. Clem smiles nostalgically and says she’ll take it. 

Clara is momentarily distracted by Clem’s buff physique: “Nice shoulders.”

“Thanks, I made them myself?”

Anyway, we all agree that a clothing montage but with buff ladies in armor is The Future That Lesbians Want.

The Fairgolds want to party with us. Clem is like “are they paying?” No, so Clem’s out. 

Gral has his responsibility to perform the Death Song for his squadmates. We attend and listen to him sing their death songs to pay our respects. The DM is disappointed he doesn’t get to roll on the carousing table, but the mood is decidedly not carousing.

The next day, we wake and stretch. Clem is a little disturbed by the décor of the inn – it features elven helmets over the mantle, and the owner claims the original curtains were made of the green cloaks of elven officers. Clem was excited at first to hear about the Greencloak Inn, but less so now. The story is that rebels scared some elves out of their camp by imitating howls of wolves and owlbears, and then stole all their stuff. It’s just sort of awkward, even though Keva and Valdia are no longer enemies.

Shortly after the town gates open in the morning, a familiar cart pulls up, pulled by two large lizards. “Bjorn! Get us some rooms! Ingborg! See to the mounts! I require breakfast!”

Professor Lucinius Galvan enters the inn, looking a bit more tired and scarred than last time. “Bjorn, Ingborg, stay in the cart, you’ll scare the locals! Innkeep, I would like two rooms, one with the largest beds you have! Where might I find a library, or a local guide! Oh, perfect – wait, what do you mean there WAS a library?! OH HEY, KYR ARGENT! Bjorn, Ingborg, bring the luggage in!”

We greet Professor Galvan with open arms, mildly surprised he hasn’t been eaten. “Any luck on your expedition?”

“I found truly fascinating results! Also ghosts. I saw some skeletons, but only after Bjorn and Ingborg were done with them, so...fragments of skeletons.” 

“You’re certainly in capable hands with them,” Valeria accedes politely.

“I was able to dispatch the spectre who assaulted me. It was no match for good old Aquilian magic. The old spells still work! The good old ‘Scorpus Arcana,’ or ‘Magic Missile.’ They claim the new way’s more elegant, but is it really?”

Ooh, we ask him to tell us about the ghost.

“It was an Aquilian ghost! I attempted to ask it several questions, but it attempted to rip my face off. And truth be told, you don’t get a Ph.D. in archaeology without knowing when to abandon a line of inquiry!”

“I found the old Aquilian watchtower I was looking for! But the sigil for legion stationed here wasn’t for a standard flying legion. I’ve been trying to decipher exactly what their symbol means. I did find some records – inscriptions and pottery shards, describing how the Aquilians were working with locals. Very surprising! Especially with the Valdians’ reputation as - forgive me - rather backwards and uncooperative.”

The tower he’d found was clearly designed for both Aquilian (Aarakocra) AND terrestrial (human) soldiers and inhabitants! Elsewhere it wasn’t unheard of that they’d recruit locals, but the common narrative says that the locals were highly resistant to occupation. He’s been looking up stories about the original occupation from the perspective of the Valdians.

We tell him to go hit up Witness Beatrice if he’s looking for stories and knowledge. Also, Valeria takes the chance to talk to a proper magic practitioner. She says, “I found something interesting and, I wanted to ask you about it! Ser Quentin isn’t much for arcane artifacts, but you might be able to tell me what it does! And whether it’s going to multiply my eyes.”

“That’s a weird concern, but okay.” He examines the Eyegis. It behaves like a wizard’s familiar. One who is attuned to the shield can see through it so long as it is within a 120 foot range of the wielder. Valeria’s player LOVES it; Valeria accepts it warily.

Gral has already attached the strange violin strings to his lute and attuned (heh. TUNED), so he doesn’t need to Identify them. (He made a Deal with the Curse, the players find out, though he is not consciously aware of it.)

Valeria goes and introduces Lucinius to Bea, to make sure he doesn’t scare Bea. Bea is like “cool, a Professor!” Then she eeps and hides behind Valeria’s legs, because Valeria forgot to warn re: goliaths. Darius gives Valeria the stink eye for scaring Bea again.

Valeria makes sure to make her Holy Water out of water from the lake. Encouragingly, the Mist does not rise again during our time in Holzog.

We hang out with the Fairgolds. Flynn is a bit pompous, but likable once you get to know him. He and Fiona train every morning in the square. At night he’s busy telling stories and she’s busy drinking. There’s a portrait of them at their uncle’s inn of when they were younger. Flynn looks similar, but Fiona looks way different. Her hair is longer, and she’s not as muscled or scarred – she looks much more similar to her brother, and a lot happier. In the picture, she’s clutching a book. Shoshana, always interested in languages, learns a couple of Fiona’s hand signs over the next few days.

On Friday, we arrive at the Cursebreakers’ office early in the morning for a mission briefing. We approach to Morozov’s office. He hands us information packets, and begins his monologue:

“On my last expedition, as you may know, I was accompanied by squad of Elven veterans from an elite unit known as the Red Hand.” Clem nods intently. “They had worked with me on several other expeditions of a similar nature. Lady Aubrey von Mornheim, leader of the survivors of Mornheim, informed us of indications of some flavor of cult activity. We suspected perhaps a necromancer of some sort, but something odd happened as we neared the von Menzer family crypt, the resting place of noted mage Johann von Menzer, of Sturmhearst. Due to the patterns of undead activity, we believed this crypt was our goal.”

“We were attacked by an unusually large number of undead, working in concert. We were separated from one of their number, Sokolov.” Clem’s eyes widen as she seems to recognize the name, but she does not speak up. Quentin continues. “We were badly injured and I insisted we return to town. My companions refused to leave their comrade behind. I split with them and returned back to Mornheim to be in safety before the sun went down. They returned to Mornheim the next morning with Sokolov in tow, and immediately told me they’d no longer be in my service, effective immediately. I had to abandon the expedition.”

“Sokolov did not look especially well – not unusual for somebody trapped in that place. The strange thing is, and I mean no offense to your compatriots, Sgt. Haxan – I did use my contacts to have the Red Hand followed after they left service. I thought there was something off about them. Some left the wood, heading towards the Crownlands and old battlefields of the Ascension War. Some traveled as mercenaries, fighting for hire, never staying one place too long.”

He pulls out a map with pins stuck in it, red and black. “The red pins mark places that members of the Red Hand have stayed more than a single night. Black pins mark fresh instances of undead attacks.”

There is an obvious, recognizable correlation. “It’s not at every stop, but it always occurs about a week after they left. It’s not provable by any means; there’s no shortage of death in the Cursewood.”

Clem stands, her bulk becoming a menacing loom. “I’m sorry, are you implying that these men may have been behind these undead attacks?”

Ser Quentin is unmoved by her imposing presence. “I do not imply. I conclude, and I accuse. I am doing neither at this time. However, this obviously merits further investigation.”

“We learn nothing by sitting on our hands. Your mission is to enter the von Mentzer family crypt and find out what you can. If this is another one of these “prisoners,” I want to know everything you can find. A supply caravan leaves for mornheim tomorrow. I’ve hired the Fairgolds to help escort it – they will get the merchants there and back. You will not leave with the caravan. Stay in Mornheim and investigate as long as you feel able. You can reach out to me through any Cursebreaker outpost. Page 5 of your packet has names and addresses of those who can reach me. I will accompany you for the first leg of the journey, but part ways to go to Holska.”

“One more thing, Kyr Argent.” He hands her a sealed letter. “This is for the Lady Aubrey, please secure it among your belongings as you pack. It is a letter of introduction stating your mission and asking her to assist you.”

“Oh, and one more thing.” We hear armored boots click-clacking down the hallway. The door opens, we turn around, and the Baroness, somewhat disguised by a cloak, enters the room.

Valeria salutes.

“The Baroness would like to speak with you in private,” Quentin tells us. “Well, I’ll be here.”

The Baroness Francesca von Holzog appraises us with a calculating eye. “I take threats to Holzog very seriously.” Two knights enter behind her – one is a standard human Condotierri, while the other a is green skinned tiefling with solid red eyes and curling horns, wearing a black cape and fine armor with the Condotierri’s black rook sigil. “Now, allow me to introduce Captain Stefano Mozzeti, my cousin.”

He bows and says hello. The Baroness tells us, “He is the Captain of the Black Rook Condotierri, abd he would like to hear what you have to say as well. Ser Quentin has communicated a detailed report, and I have dispatched some of Mozzeti’s men to deal with Sturmhearst. They are an enemy I don’t enjoy making. Tell me what happened.”

Gral explains, rolling persuasion with Valeria helping. He reassures her that the musicians who were opening the portals are dead, and the mists should be gone for good.

“If a month passes and mists do not fill the valley, though they usually come once a week, we will see what we can do. The Condotierri are to search this house and burn any sheet music they find. Sturmhearst had already gone to the house, scattering like like pigeons when we kicked them out. I believe it would be unwise for them to have access to this music. If you truly have rid my barony of this threat, come to me in a month’s time and we will see if there is a reward for you.”

Captain Stefano looks Gral in the eye, as well as he can through Gral’s mask. “Orc, if those mists come back and my men die, you better be confident. If they die, and they were guarding that damned house in that damned hole, do not return to Holzog.”

“Yes, I would consider it a failure on my part,” Gral agrees.

“No, we would have….how you say, beef.”

Gral responds in his most diplomatic tone. “The Key works by getting agents. We want to stop it getting more agents in Sturmhearst, and you are doing that work to keep us safe.”

Still giving their best intimidating vibes, the Baroness and her cousin swoosh outtie. The Crown, everybody!

Clem rolls a few dice, as we return to Hammerstein and Sons later that day. 17! We find Bluma and Clara and a teenage girl. Clara has the armor, painted and dyed mainly a dark muted red-orange, with black trim, to make the cobbled-together set of armor a little more cohesive. She has drawn a little clementine tree on the pauldron. 

Bluma says “All right, Reyna, c’mon, give the drow lady her sword back.” 

The teen, hands shaking a little, gives Clem the greatsword, wrapped in cloth. “I silver-plated it for you, ma’am, Miss Bluma was watching me and I think I did a pretty good job.”

Bluma smiles. “The kid did fine. I got a dummy set up out back if you wanna test out the edge.” It’s kept its edge! Good rolls mean the trainee didn’t screw it up. At first glance, it still looks like dark elven steel. (This was NOT standard issue for the Red Hand, Clem stole it off some cultist during the war, probably.) She has to look very closely to see waves of silver worked in. There are no imperfections or nicks, and the edge is sharper since it’s freshly whetted. 

“We’ve got a patented technique here in Holzog, leads to that nice wavy pattern. Recommend us to your friends, here’s a card,” Bluma tells her.

Clem approaches the apprentice, Reyna, and tells her, “It looks perfect. You are a credit to your family and your community. I thank you.” Reyna immediately tears up. “Sorry, we shoulda warned ya,” Bluma whispers. “She’s from out in the woods. Don’t think her family made it. We haven’t been pressing. We’ve kinda taken her in.” We bid a fond goodbye to the nice lesbians, and head on out.

In the morning, we meet in town square. We’re traveling with a merchant named Feivel, his drivers and three carts. One is loaded with food, one with medicine and building supplies, and the third has smaller locked chests and has room for passengers. We get on the road! It should be 4 days of travel to Mornheim.

1st day: no incident. We stop in a small village and camp in the town square, since there’s no inn big enough. Flynn entertains some children, telling a story about fighting a “moss ogre,” and then they play moss ogre and he lets several children take him down with sticks. Fionna watches and laughs. Her laugh is a weird wheeze, like she can’t quite form the sounds.

The second day is less peaceful. Along the road, Valeria nat 20’s a perception check and hears a person running through the woods – panting breath, tearing frantically through the trees, stumbling over brush – some medium-sized humanoid running desperately. Behind her, there are sounds of heavy footsteps and ferocious growls as she bursts onto path. 

It’s a terrified-looking red-haired human teenager. “MONSTERS! HELP!” 

Valeria is ON IT, positioning her formidable self between the woods and the carts.

“They’re right behind me!” the girl says, gasping for breath as she reaches the wagons. “At least three of them! Big, with sharp teeth and long- long claws! I think there’s others with them. Bandits, maybe?”

Shoshana insight checks her, and she genuinely seems terrified. “Feivel, we got incoming!” the sorceress calls. The Fairgolds step up next to Valeria to defend the carts.

The sounds of monsters get closer, but Something Is Wrong. The sounds aren’t getting close as fast as we would have expected? And then we hear something behind us – something on the other side of the carts.

The ‘terrified’ girl has a gun to Feivel’s head, and a line of bandits step out from among the trees.

A sly-looking halfling speaks for the group: “Bonjour, madams et monsieurs, my name is Henri deCannes, and these are the Free Thieves of Valdia. It is my unfortunate duty to inform you that we are robbing you today. I will not be so crass as to deny you your weapons, but you would please hand over all your valuables, if you will not mind. We will place all your weapons in this sack, and we shall put it in that tree. Then you can go get it, once we are gone.”

It’s right around here that we realize Ser Quentin is nowhere to be seen. Also his stuff is gone. Fuckin’ rogues with high Insight, amirite?

Shoshana raises her hand, like a kid in school. “Uh, we have like four knights with us?”

“Yes, that is why we are attempting to resolve this peacefully. Disarm, please.”

Shoshana places her staff primly across her knees, waiting to see what everyone else is going to do.

Flynn and Fiona are watching us, but like hell Fiona’s gonna disarm. It’s clear she’ll bust some heads first. No one else moves to give this guy their swords.

“My, so ferocious! And is that an orc with you! I must hear this story someday.” 

Gral snarks, “You don’t make a good first impression.”

“Oh? If I am befriending you, I am not robbing you. If I befriend and then rob you, I am betraying a friend, and that would be a sin.”

Clem and Val go for the Intimidate. Valeria, the minor corruption of the Hunt glistening on her fangs, hisses, “Go find someone else to rob, this one is Ours.”

Clem says, “Excuse me, Mr. ...?” 

“Henri deCannes, you may have seen my face on a wanted poster?”

“Henri, if I may offer some advice. I once tried to fight something much bigger than me, much as I am much bigger than you. Do you know what happened?” She leans in. “It nearly CRUSHED me under its foot. So I would much rather make friends.” She ends with the sort of smile that implies much, much danger.

He’s intimidated. Henri doesn’t want to fight her. But he’s not giving up, and tries to pull a few heartstrings.

“This Curse especially targets those who reside in the woods. We are especially prone to corruption. My people, the Free Thieves of Valdia - I have been called here to help them. We do not wish to be monsters, or savages taken by the curse.”

“You’d just be a different kind of savage, wouldn’t you?" growls Valeria.

“You wound me. My men, they would go to the towns, but they are not welcome there. They would leave Valdia, but that takes money. And time is running short.”

“Running short until what?”

“Until we lose our minds, madame! I want to get as many of my men out as I can.”

He asks where we’re headed. Shoshana cheekily tells him “Nunya.”

Gral speaks commandingly: “There is always another way. Forge new papers and live an honest life. You are not leading your men to safety, you are leading your men to pain. I would get out of our way now.”

Henri persists. “I will take those medicines, and nothing more. We have sick and injured. We will leave you your food and other supplies. We seek the price for a Galwan ship, or to pay for the false documents you suggest we get.”

Gral does some internal math. We have about 100g worth of medicine, but we’ve seen posters in town with this man’s face on them. His bounty is set at 400g. 

The bard proposes a solution: “I see you care very much for your men. This medicine will be yours if you come with us and turn yourself in. Surely, if you are so concerned for their welfare, you would be nobly self sacrificial enough to trade yourself for their well-being.”

Henri nods. His bandits make protestations, but he shouts “Non! The orc is correct. If I must sacrifice myself for the Free Thieves to prosper, so be it.” 

“Please hand your medicine to Anya here,” he tells the merchants. Valeria insight checks and rolls a 3, seeing that he is clearly honest about taking the bargain. 

“Dmitri, Dmitri! Those shackles of yours, please! Dmitri, a bandit, hands Val some halfling-sized shackles. Clem’s kinda disappointed that the wanted poster specified “alive,” but ah, well. 

Anya, the red-headed girl who tricked us, takes the crate of medicine and sprints back to bandits. 

“Non! Do not wait for me! Be free, free thieves of Valdia!” Henri cries, dramatically. Valeria moves to cuff him, and the shackles go straight through his arms. 

“Oh, and I am quite sorry, but...Ceci n’est pas Henri deCannes.” He vanishes, and the bandits sprint into the woods with the medicine. Trickster clerics, babyyyyy! 

Valeria is FRUSTRATED at having been tricked so easily. Gral commiserates: “I see I am a bit too trusting in my aim for diplomacy.”

WELL. That’s a story that will seem funny to us later. At least we have halfling-sized shackles now, signed on one cuff by one Henri DeCannes. Gral adds, using Minor Illusion, “is a buttface.” On the other side is a holy symbol of Guile.

So having been hustled, we hustle along. Morozov rejoins us. “You lost the medicine?”

“Yeah, we’re idiots.”

Morozov has no regrets about his vanishing act. “I couldn’t run the risk of losing the evidence from my investigations. Couldn’t let it be damaged by a stray pistol ball.”

We arrive at next town and see Wanted posters of Henri, Anya, and several bandits. The camp mood for that night is decidedly subdued.

In the morning, Ser Quentin heads off in a different direction. “Alas, this is where I must turn aside. Best of luck to you.”

“And you as well,” we tell him politely.

“I don’t need luck, but I’m not so foolish as to refuse it. Good luck in Mornheim.”

As we head out, we commiserate about how much of a dick Henri is. Flynn concurs. “No offense, but I think I’ll leave this one out of the next story. If you do go after him, though, invite me. I’ll have a few pointed comments to make,” he gripes, playing with the hilt of his sword.

On the third day of travel, we make good time towards the spot we’ll have to ford a river. Fiona scouts ahead, feeling restless. Flynn is unconcerned. “If she finds anything, just listen for- well, you’ll hear her, trust me.”

She comes back a couple of minutes later, seeming kind of put out. She shakes her head and signs rapidly to Flynn. “She says the bridge is out,” he tells us glumly.

Sure enough, the bridge is quite smashed up. What happened here?

One of the players make a joke - what, was there a troll under the bridge? And we all suddenly feel the chaotic energy in the air of on-the-spot worldbuilding.

“Well, there WAS a troll!” We turn, and there’s a friendly local yokel passin’ by, a cheerful dad-looking farmer. 

“Aw, sorry, didn’t mean to scare ya there, folks. Yee-ep, we had a troll! Fella named Trolskiv. A good one too, kept the bridge safe for us. Reasonable tolls, took payment in potataters. Real nice fella. But something got in his head, a while back. I think the ol’ Curse finally got to him, poor guy. 

“Anyhow, couple weeks ago, the Hedgehog Knight came through with his crew and put an end to all that. Had to be done. Poor Trolskiv didn’t stand a chance. Just a real shame, all round. Even more a shame that he threw the Hedgehog Knight at the bridge and broke it! 

Now, if you folks come by in the mornin’, we got a ferry comes across the river, that’ll get you across no problem. That’s what we’re doin’ these days ‘till we get the bridge fixed up. If yer gonna stay overnight, I’m sure you’re lookin’ for a place to stay. There’s an old farmhouse up the road, the family up and left a while back, tryin’ ta avoid the Curse. I’m sure no one would mind if you holed up there for the night!”

Shoshana rolls Insight: Nat 20. The guy hasn’t lied to us so far; everything he’s said has been 100% true. Yet... there’s something wrong. He’s got an agenda, somehow. Something is unsavory about this man.

We take a look at the bridge.There is in fact a sign on the bridge saying Troll, and a series of potential payment options. 5 potatoes per cart or for 3 people to cross. Nearby, the locals have constructed a modest grave for Trolskiv.

“Yep, it’s a shame,” the farmer continues, rambling like a proper small-town old boy. “One ‘a my sons went down south, there’s a troll couple work the bridge down the river. They got a youngling, ‘bout the age he’d be lookin’ to move out on his own. Once we get the bridge fixed up, we’re aimin’ on inviting him up here! It’s a good solid bridge with a nice den underneath, already all set up. We always said, it’s not a proper bridge without a troll under it. Important part of the local economy.”

Before this conversation, bridge trolls didn’t exist yet, but now the DM informs us that Shoshana knows all about bridge trolls. There’s plenty of stories about them in Valdia. Sometimes they’re bad guys, but mainly they’re responsible for guarding against bandits, maintaining the bridges, and collecting tolls from travelers passing through to help fund the town.

Valeria is so confused, because she’s used to Regular Trolls. They don’t take potatoes, they take your head off! Gral knows that the more mountain-dwelling orc clans have had skirmishes with the huge, vicious mountain trolls. Clem knows there are horrible ice trolls on the northern steppes of Keva.  They’re right there with Valeria.

(We decide that there’s definitely a Beggar Knight who’s a troll. Lost their bridge in a battle, wanders the woods as a knight errant. We name her Ser Unkig. She’s great.)

Valeria decides to get some more info from this nice fella. “We’ve been out on the road quite a bit. Usually there’s generally some sort of danger, being outside of a big town. What’s the local lay of the land?”

“Well, it was Trolskiv until about a week ago. We mostly hid in our houses when he was out and about, but he kept the other nasties away. Ended up bein’ pretty safe, unless he tore down your door. He got real big and mean at the end there.”

He leads us up a dirt path through some farmland, and points us to a small house in fairly good repair.  

“There’s the intact one. The folks livin’ there headed on out. Didn’t feel too comfortable with Trolskiv rampagin’ about, y’ understand, so they kind of up and left! Left their field, loaded up a wagon, took what they could and got out of here.”

Shoshana, her nat-20 insight still rattling around in her brain, is Very Nervous, and is nudging people and whispering that something is WRONG, she doesn’t TRUST this guy. Everyone else cannot figure out why she’s so squirrelly about some ordinary-ass dude who has been nothing but kind and pleasant.  

Valeria,to placate her, Detects Evil and detects nothing. Nothing around the farmhouse, either. There’s a barn, and enough floor room for all our people. Just walls and a roof, and what sparse wooden furniture the previous residents couldn’t carry. 

Weirdly, we’ve seen no villagers but him. We ask him about that.

“Aw, well, it’s really just me an’ my boys! Most folks live on the other side of the river, and my boys went down the river to get that troll.”

There ARE a few other houses; we could canvas around and corroborate his story. Valeria wants to trust him. Shoshana insists we knock on a couple of doors. The couple of neighbors we ask are very confused, agree with everything the farmer said, and give us literally no reason to be suspicious of anything. Everyone agrees Shoshana is probably paranoid. Shoshana is like “True, but we live in the Cursewood?!”

Still, the argument goes, “We can sleep in the farmhouse, or we can sleep outside. Outside is probably...not safer.” We settle in to the farmhouse. Shoshana insists on at least setting up a watch. She and Gral sit out on the porch, probably in cliche’d and picturesque rocking chairs, and wait.

In the moonlit darkness, the wind gently ruffles the long stalks of wheat. Especially in that one area, right over there.

Wait.

Shoshana rolls an excellent perception with her Curse-enhanced Darkvision, and picks up on a figure moving quietly through the wheat field - stalking, even, the DM would admit. The thing - no, now it’s things, plural, three of them - slip out from between the stalks and advance on the house.

Gral hits them with Faerie Fire, and Shoshana immediately blows her Horn of Silent Alarm to alert Clem. The rest of the house is woken by Clem surging out of her bedroll, screaming “AUUGH, FUCK.” Roll initiative!

(The DM lets us know that these creatures are called Blights. We disagree; they are clearly Wheat and Wheat Byproducts.)

As soon as the Faerie Fire hits, the Wheats abandon stealth and  break into dead run, charging up to hit Gral and Shoshana. One of them pushes itself down, seeming to merge into the floor, and vines burst out of the porch to make it difficult terrain. Shoshana’s claw-like fingers and Gral’s sickle make a decent harvest, but the wheat strikes back, twining long strands around them and restraining them. This gluten is intolerant! Shoshana retaliates with Burning Hands, catching them all in the flames but also wounding Gral.

Gral is informed he may Do The Thing, so long as he has his lute on his person. He manages to play some freaking weird melodies, and his body gets woobly, and he phases out of the grapple like a mirage. His strange woobliness allows him to avoid AOOs, so he slashes at them and then gets some distance.

Clem runs out on the porch but can’t quite reach the Wheats due to the viney ground. Clem has slept in armor, but Valeria naively has not. She casts shield of faith on herself as she runs, grabbing a trident, and busts out glowing onto the porch.

One of the scarecrows in the field turns and drops off its post. It looks up, its eyes glowing a terrifying red as it sprints forward on all fours. That same viney wheat has formed arms for it, with rusted metal shears as claws. It attacks Valeria, but misses.

Fiona awakens and busts on out, furious and holding both her hammers, unarmored. She crits the scarecrow, though she isn’t raging, and does 25 fucking damage, because barbarians. Flynn, right behind her, snaps his fingers and a pistol appears in his hands. He fires, and misses.

The Wheat holding Shoshana slams her brutally into the ground and begins to drag her away, back toward the wheat field. Shoshana NOPES hard, rolls good and squeezes out of its grasp.

Gral pops Shoshana’s kidnapper with a crossbow bolt and Psychic Blades for a nice chunk of damage, blowing through the thing’s chest. It crumbles to the ground, a mere pile of grain.

Clem whiffs, the wheat wafting aside in the breeze. Valeria tries to pitchfork a scarecrow with her trident, but also misses. The scarecrow turns to Fiona, and its eyes glow a demonic red. Fiona fails her save – her face freezes in fear, her muscles lock up, and she is paralyzed. Flynn is not happy about it. “FEAR NOT!” he shouts, stabbing the one fighting Clem and wreathing it in the vibrating energy of Booming Blade. “If it moves, it’ll suffer. Bring it down, Clementine!”

“I will!” she shouts. “On my turn!”

The Wheat grabs her, restraining her with amber waves of pain.

Shoshana twins her Chromatic Orb again and misses one, but the one on Gral dies in a blaze.

Gral throws a Dissonant Whispers at the last Blight. It saves, but takes some damage. Clem busts out of its wheaty clutches, its glutinous grasp. Fiona, paralyzed, gets hit twice by the scarecrow but regains her ability to act, slamming her hammers into its soft, wheaty body. Flynn takes down the last Blight with his blade. “Are there any more of them?”

Fiona makes a sound. AH YES RIGHT.

Shoshana barely hits, but it IS vulnerable to fire so it takes damage-and-a-half. Gral pins his Psychic Blades to another crossbow bolt – it’s resisting non-magic damage but psychic is another story. It dies.

“Okay, NOW I think that’s the last of them,” Flynn concedes.

Shoshana feels vindicated, but also pissy. “I feel like the farmer guy could have MENTIONED that shit!”

Valeria, meanwhile, thinks this all sounds very familiar. In Ser Balderich’s story about the Summer Palace, the rose garden sprang to life and attacked. 

Shoshana is ready to get up in the the old farmer’s grill, but his house is across that field. We don’t wanna go in the field at night. 

Flynn takes watch. “If anything moves…” he says ominously, flourishing his pistol, “…you’ll wake up.”

We get what rest we can, though no one sleeps well after that. 

In the morning, Shoshana marches over and bangs on the farmer’s door. “Hey. HEY. OPEN UP, YOU DICK, I HAVE A BONE TO PICK.” Nobody answers. She gets nosy and peeks through the windows. Empty. It looks lived-in, not abandoned, but there’s nobody there. The door is unlocked, so she goes on in to check it out. 

She rolls a good investigate check. Searching the house, she finds a couple things. Yes, it’s lived in, but relatively recently someone packed and left in a hurry. 

Second, and more importantly, she finds the floorboards all dug up in one of the interior closets. Coming out of the dirt there, and spreading out into the walls of the closet, there is a thick, sprawling growth of mushrooms and fungus. 

Shoshana immediately puts her scarf over her face and gets right the hell out of there. NOPE NOPE NOPE. MAYBE WE SHOULD BURN IT. 

Gral, outside the house, agrees. In the early days of the curse, before he went on the expedition, he saw creatures the orcs called “fungal zombies.” Fungus took took over what was near them, animated the bodies or other organic matter, and made them attack. Gral also knows that fire has historically been an excellent way to deal with THAT bullshit.”

Shoshana clears it with everybody that the plan is to burn this man’s house down. Then we burn the man’s house down. Other villagers come by to see what on earth is happening but it’s too late. They’re pretty upset and confused. But they look at how well armed we are, and decide not to question it. 

Shoshana does protest that we didn’t burn it down with the guy INSIDE, he LEFT, stop looking at us like that. And he was an EVIL MUSHROOM MAN.

One of the frightened villagers volunteers some information. “Come to think of it, the fellas who lived there, Lieb and his sons, they showed up just a bit before Trolskiv started goin’ bad. You don’t think he was involved in that?”

We don’t know. So he’s not from around here? 

“No, he’s a recent transplant from Bad Hersfeld. When Trolskiv went bad, everybody stayed in their houses and didn’t talk much. Didn’t know him all that well, but he seemed like a nice enough fella.”

We remember that the farmer, Lieb, sent his sons down the river to recruit a young bridge troll. Gral, knowing the destruction a violent troll can wreak, does not want this troll kid to be mushroomized. The Fairgolds are willing to check that out, if we finish escorting the carts to Mornheim. They’ll meet up with us there in a couple of days. 

“Fire is very effective,” Gral advises them. 

“Usually is,” says Flynn.

As they head off down the river, we can still hear them chatting. “Fiona, have you considered my idea of lighting your hammers on fire?” The hand sign she returns is one we all recognize. “Maybe I could figure out an ice thing with my blade. We could find a cool theme! You could dye your hair red-” Oh, she’s punched him. Another day in the life of the Knights Fairgold.

We take the ferry over the river without incident. It takes most of the rest of the day to reach Mornheim.

As we get close, the lush greenery of the forest along the road becomes thinner and more wiry, the trees less full of life. Animals look starved and diseased. The sound of carrion birds replaces twitter of songbirds. Everything has gone real fuckin’ Tim Burton. 

We see a sign that says Mornheim. “C’mon, the town isn’t far,” says Feivel. “We can still make it by nightfall.” We trudge ahead along the winding path. Eventually we come across rows of trees, still bearing a few apples but sickly and thin. The hills have clusters of graves on them. 

We crest a hill and see the town, a small cluster of buildings surrounded by a tall wall. In distance, we can make out several larger structures: a grand house on a high hill, and what looks like a cathedral. Heading downhill, there’s a sudden commotion inside a mausoleum to the left. 

Once it had been pleasantly situated in copse of trees; now they are cracked and broken, and we can hear shouts of battle. The door to the mausoleum is roughly wrenched open as we approach. A rotting zombie stumbles back outwards, and falls. A woman in a blue coat and tall leather hat, wielding a sharpened shovel, plants her shovel in its neck and stomps, decapitating it. “THE EXIT’S CLEAR, LET’S GO!”

There’s an answering whoosh of flame from somewhere inside the tomb. “THANKS!” the woman calls. Then she notices us: “Oh hey, Feivel. Just in time. Let’s get into town, I got your payment right here!”

A goblin in a brightly embroidered bolero jacket steps out of the mausoleum, wiping dust and soot off her slightly smoking hands. “You’re not the usual guards,” she comments.

“Nope!” Valeria agrees. “Oh, would you be lady Aubrey? Ser Quentin sent us, he said to give you this.” She hands the human woman Ser Quentin’s letter.

The woman slits it open with a thin knife. She is, in every aspect, the Graverobber from Darkest Dungeon. She carries a sturdy pick, a sharpened shovel, and a whole bunch of daggers. She reads Ser Quentin’s letter as we walk through the graveyard, casually, as if she hasn’t just run out of a tomb of exploding zombies.

“So!” she says to us. “Letter says you’re idiots. Well, it says you’re here to investigate and get to the bottom of stuff, so…idiots.”

“Honestly, knowing Ser Quentin, we’re just surprised and gratified he didn’t say it explicitly,” Shoshana quips. 

“Aw, Q’s a big softie once you get to know him,” Aubrey tells us, smiling. We’ve reached the town walls, and she shouts up to a couple of guards. “Open up!” The gate grinds open slowly, and Feivel hurriedly rushes his carts inside.

Now that we’re in safe territory, Lady Aubrey turns to inspect us properly. “Can I get your names?”

The DM confirms that Clem is no longer using her uniform, with its Red Hand insignia, as armor, so Aubrey doesn’t recognize it. “Sergeant Clementine Haxan,” she introduces herself.

“Sergeant, eh? Part of the Czar’s forces?”

“Indeed. I was stationed with the Red Hand.”

Aubrey squints at her. “I don’t know anything about the Red Hand, but last group Q brought… these folks wouldn’t wear red gloves, would they?”

“They sure do?”

Aubrey’s tone grows more hostile as she eyes Clem suspiciously. “You here to bring more trouble to my town, then? We’ve had enough of elven soldiers here.”

“Just the opposite. We’re here to help.”

“Yeah, that’s what the first ones said. The ones still here have been no end of trouble to me and mine.”

Clem is shocked. We’d thought all of the Red Hand had left Mornheim! “What do you mean, the ones still here?!”

Aubrey points outside the wall, where the undead roam. “Livin’ out there. The undead sure seem to listen to them. We’ve had to cut our expeditions short, which means I can’t pay for Mercedes and the other mercs to protect the town, or for Feivel to get supplies.

“You’re gonna go out there, fine. But if you die, do me the favor and have the courtesy to stay that way. Anyway, Aubrey von Mornheim, pleasure to make your acquaintance. Welcome to town! Hope you survive it.”

[eddiemunsonssoulmate]

Third DnD session yesterday! Currently playing a lot, I love it. Let’s see what we did:

We continued to interrogate Teivo and his little demon problem. Suddenly Lilith jumped over to Arc, later on to Vel. Aka she just likes jumping around in our heads. The thing is, after she leaves a mind, they forget everything about her which makes it very hard to figure shit out in character.

Lilith wants to burn things, fight battles but mostly she wants to find her body. We also have to keep the book close which is connected to her soul. Too bad Teivo forgot to take care of it so now it’s inside of him and we have to cut him open at some point.

Lilith is also my favourite NPC so far because she throws out sick burns. After switching from Teivo to Arc she was like “Oh there’s more space in here”. Later our rogue was just shitty and she was like “He’s really unskilled, isn’t he?” I love her. Everyone does.

In the end we prepared ourselves and got to the mine where the Necromancer is supposed to be, hoping we can take him on. We took 5 minions with us and Baerva, one of the more fleshed out NPCs that I wrote.

When we arrived Vel instantly noticed some huge necromancer aura and Teivo used dispel magic to see that it was all an illusion. The green gras turned brown and ugly and just ew.

Ronar found a magic trap called “Grasp of Death” which Teivo disarmed using Dispel Magic again. Now he doesn’t have any spellslots left to use it again.

We got into the mine and saw everything was destroyed and in chaos. Ronar, as stupid as he is, went to look for traps and totally ran into one instead of asking Baerva about such mechanism. He got his feet stabbed by mini arrows, has -10 feet movement and lost half his HP out of stupidity.

Baerva revealed that there are a bunch of traps around here but there’s a lever in one of the rooms to disable them so we did just that. Ronar was not amused and I laughed quite a bit about that.

Ronar spent like 15 minutes checking our some rooms and I almost fell asleep during that. Hurry up, asshole.

We got to an elevator and one of our NPCs ripped the lever out aka we have no way up again which wasn’t all too surprising.

When we got down we could already hear the roars of the undead and as soon as the evelator touched the ground combat started. I finally got some combat!!

I was able to test out my scythe and boi, it’s amazing. I did 40dmg with one hit when I critted, it was beautiful and I want more combat (which we’re gonna get cuz it’s a fucking dungeon)

Our NPCs did really good work, Vel annoyed them with Eldritch Blast, Arc threw a flame and hit some blackpowder which we didn’t notice, Ronar fell and hit his shoulder (Remembr Lilith’s comment about being fucking unskilled? It’s true) and Teivo hit them while not even moving one bit.

We killed them and fought some off but as soon as we saw no enemies anymore Ronar noticed the blackpowder was ignited and would soon reach the barrel full of blackpowder. Sada, our half orc minion, took the barell and started running, making an only longer line of spilled blackpowder but it gave us time to put some water on it.

After this mini crisis was solved we heard more roars of more undead. Way more. We got back together, checked how we’re doing. Ronar has lost the most HP without getting hit once just simply out of stupidity. Vel got hit by my scythe after god has his hand in the game (Roll20 wouldn’t let me roll but I didn’t want to stall any time so I asked our DM to roll for me and he crit failed -__-) but overall we’re doing ok.

Next session is tomorrow aka Sunday and til then we have to figure out what to do and where to go. We can either wait there and see how many are going to attack us, we can go in the direction of the city with the chance of running into a whole lot of them or we fortify outselves in one of the tunnels. Meanwhile somewhere there’s a group of dwarfs that fortified themselves too, waiting for rescue. Let’s see how that goes.

[derenyanai]

Araquu Journal Session #13- Navi and the Lich

Time: Just after Session 20 Characters: Navi, Cecily

Posts indented like this were typed by the GM.

Posts that were not indented were typed by the player.

Following the revelation that Navi’s lich is Steven, Cecily seeks out some answers...

Navi was making her way in the direction she could sense Eiriol had gone, browsing her phone's messages to pass the time, and groaning about the fact that Maska's Chirper update about the dragon fight already had 200 rechirps because he'd mentioned Yue in it.

Navi’s phone dings with a text notification. The text is from Cecily. The preview only says: ‘Can we talk?’

Navi looks at the new message, opening it and scanning to see if there was anything further, then tapping the 'call' button and bringing the phone to her ear as she walks.

“Hi,” Cecily voice picks up from the phone’s speaker. “Any idea where Eiriol flew off to?”

"Based on what I can tell, she's either at or making her way to the police station. Good news bad news on that front, because it means a lot of people'll probably have seen her, but they may be at ease if anyone sees her land there without attacking," Navi explains.

“Good,” Cecily replied. “Me and the others are still en route to the Hidden Hollow.” Then, a sigh goes through the phone. “...But that’s not why I called admittedly.”

"Had a feeling that'd be the case," she admits. Based on the wind and stuff she's walking pretty quickly, but she doesn't sound too winded. Perks of being undead I guess?

“I want to ask you about... Steven,” Cecily said, grimacing when even thinking of the name. “If that’s okay with you.”

"I dunno how much I'll be able to give y'all on that front, but I suppose you may as well ask away," Navi frowns.

“Anything you know is fine by me,” answered the swordswoman. “I want to diminish as many surprises as possible once I find that bastard... but for starters, how do you know him? Besides the obvious of course.”

"I mean, he rezzed me? That's about all I can give, really. I certainly hadn't known him back when I was alive, anyway," she explains.

“He never gave a reason why he revived you?”

"I mean, I can pretty well guess what it was, but it's not like I could ask."

“...that’s fair,” sighed Cecily. “Next question: how does he act as a person? Noticable quirks, unpredictability, etc?”

"Very... overtly polite? Or at least gives off the façade of that. Sweet to the point of saccharine, really. Tends to adjust things on the fly based on new developments."

That very much matched the tone of the letter Cecily read back at home. Probably how he suckers people in to be on his side. Despite that, an ability to adapt to any ten of events is something to worry about. “Know anything about how skilled he is at lich magic?”

"I mean, he rezzed me," Navi points out. "I'd been dead for like... at least forty years before he did. Apparently I'd been on ice, that's what he said, I think? Wasn't very coherent..." 

“I guess I can say he’s highly skilled for now...” A pause elapsed as her voice picks up again. “I’m sorry if this sounds like I’m interrogating you Navi.”

"No, no, I probably deserve it," she admits, with what sounds like a shrug. "Ask away. I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner, honestly."

“But you haven’t done anything,” she argued. “It’s not like you asked to come back, or get involved with that man. Hell, we even got you involved with us and you almost died after getting arrested for something you couldn’t control. Does that sound like you deserve it?”

"Oh, right, you guys... hadn't figured out that... errmm... how do I put this delicately..." How do you put WHAT delicately? "I... kinda kick-started this whole thing. I'm literally carrying three of the relics on my person."

“...you’re what?!” Cecily covered her mouth, trying not to alert the others by her raise in voice. She then audibly clears her voice and proceeds to talk. “You have three of the relics?”

"Y-Yeah... the orb, the rose, and the locket." Well, that explains the fabric from the rose scene, but what's this about a locket?

“Why do you have them?” Cecily immediately asks. “And how come you never thought about telling us?”

"Because I was gathering them for Steve!" she hisses back. "Of COURSE I wasn't gonna tell you lot I was grabbin' them for your enemy! Especially with how badly you all reacted to him havin' been the one to get the mask to your mom, what was I supposed to say, 'By the way I'm part of this whole thing in ways that you don't know about yet and also helped her get into the city without being noticed by customs'?!" 

Cecily was at most silent at Navi’s confession. So she was on his side at the very start. She honestly didn’t know how to really react to this info. Was she angry? Yes. Directly at Navi? That was unknown at the moment. “...I... don’t know what to say.”

There's a bit of silence for a moment. "...if it helps at all, I... don't know that he wanted me to have sentience."

“...do you consider us as friends at all Navi?” Cecily eventually spoke up.

"I'm tellin' you all this, aren't I?" she says. "Against my better judgement..."

“That’s true,” Cecily says in the same somber tone. “I... I obviously have never been good at holding back my anger when it comes to these moments. Hell, one could say that the slightest annoyance could set me off, given a particular someone in our company. And if I’m being honest when I heard you were associated with Steven... I wanted to lash out on you. But... I also don’t want to jump any sort of gun with someone I call a friend. Especially after what just happened earlier. I just want to know that I can trust you to watch my back. And... if you trust us to watch yours.”

"...don't let anything take the locket from me. Please." Navi sounds... oddly desperate about that request.

“...I promise,” Cecily nods. “Wouldn’t be a comrade, or friend if I just let that happen.”

"If it goes, then- I don't know what will happen to me. I- I don't know how or why, but- this locket is what gives me my sentience to begin with. I don't think Steven ever intended for me to have free will."

The locket is the reason Navi is still her? That must be what power the relic has. All the more reason to make sure nothing happens to her or the locket itself. “Then it’s another mistake that bastard made that’s to our benefit. We’re all glad that you’re you Navi. You have my word. And the others... if you’re willing to also tell them about it.”

Navi nods. "I'll... see if I can once I catch up with you guys at that Hidden Hollow place. Once I've met up with Eiriol it'll just be a matter of her flying us over, hopefully..."

“Promise to stay safe while you make your way back to us, okay?” Cecily asks. “Can’t help but recall that one time you split up from the rest of us.” Quinn still feels guilty about it to this day.

"I'll try my damndest," she nods. "Take care."

“You too,” Cecily smiled as she hangs up.

[[END OF JOURNAL SESSION]]

[rarestereocats]

recap of yesterday’s session of the crusades campaign!

With the blanket thrown over our vampire buddy,  he turns into a gas to flee,  but quickly realizes that in itself is an impossible task when several people around him can prevent that.  We shackle him up and begin to haul him off to the guards,  but luckily they're already waiting outside for us and ready to take us all in.  Understandable considering we blew up a house,  but we explain the situation and they're kind enough not to shackle us up.  Elathera thinks they're very upset with the destroyed property and fixes it with magic and then gets herself arrested for tampering with evidence.

Which means our party has two criminals now.  A literal serial killer and now Elathera with her absolutely explosive record.  Even with her questionable life choice,  we all think she's the bomb.  Anyways,  we're interrogated and eventually we're all set free,  including Elathera.  She cures the vampire with polymorph and the dude will likely die the next morning considering he's been a serial killer far longer than he's been a vampire,  so it sucks to be him.  Elathera really does have a record now which she'll have to get expunged at some point,  but for now,  there's more important things to deal with,  like moving onto the next shrine.

It's a giant lighthouse on an island in the ocean with no way to get to it but by boat.  After an uncomfortable chat with an innkeeper who really loves catfolk and has the audacity to give me flowers that included catnip,  we also learn the island is off limits because there's a sea monster terrorizing the ships that try to come near the island and village.  The next day,  we head out to speak with the guards who let us know it's a sea serpent,  so Elathera concocts a plan to deal with it.  She'll conjure a decoy ship and crew to distract the serpent and we'll move in to attack.  Unfortunately,  like all plans,  it doesn't pan out quite like it should and the serpent immediately attacks our ship instead.

It's an undead,  plague ridden serpent by the way.  With Industria's help,  we're all able to walk on water so dealing with this serpent is no issue for some of us.  Ilyana,  who was the first to unleash her holy fury on this thing and ends up getting fucked up.  Trapped within its jaws,  Elathera,  me,  and one of Elathera's summons try to free her.  Industria jumps into the fray to save her daughter,  but misses every swing for the creature's eyes so Elathera solves this simply.  She traps the serpent in a maze in another dimension,  giving Industria time to drag Ilyana out of danger.  The serpent's smart though and escapes,  but is immediately fucked over as I tear into it and with that,  the sea monster is slain.

With all of us brought back to the boat,  we decide to head to the island anyways despite our injuries and need for rest.  Even despite the concerning rumors of the island being haunted.  As we step onto the island,  it's teeming with life.  It's quite beautiful,  but as we trek on,  the flowers and what not are wilting and dying.  We're then surrounded by mist that forms into figures that are dancing endlessly.  Industria,  Rikius,  and Lucky hear a song as they're pulled into the trap and get stuck going ham to these macabre jams.  This leaves me,  Elathera,  and Ilyana to deal with this.  Now if you have kept up with these posts,  you know very well that me and Elathera handling anything usually ends in disaster.  Ilyana is our holy wrecking ball and MVP in this bullshit because after seeing an image of death appear before us,  me and Elathera are a little rattled.

You could say it nearly scared us...to death.  (cue loud booing because yet another pun,  Frankie?  really?)

We try to free our allies,  but Elathera can't seem to get a grip on Industria to pull her from the literal circle of death.  But with some magic and the brute strength of pregnancy,  I manage to get Rikius out of the dance.  Lucky is knocked out of the dance as well,  but Industria still remains dancing for the entire fight because nobody managed to free her.  Oops!  After a few more rounds of Ilyana channeling the fuck out of the posivibes on it and some arrows from Rikius,  the Freaky Island Shuffle ends and we're chastised by Industria for our totally excellent work in slaying the nightmare.  The creature was a "danse macabre",  an undead,  incorporeal creature that embodies an inevitable death.  Ilyana knows that if we don't consecrate the land,  the creature will return in only a few short days to continue it's reign of terror.

With that taken care of quickly because nobody wants that thing to come back ever,  we eventually find ourselves inside of the actual lighthouse and speaking with survivors who were nearly caught in that trap themselves.  Some of their friends unfortunately met their ends to it,  but they alert us to the fact that there's yet another ghost on the island.  An angry,  crying woman who lingers on top of the lighthouse at night.  So we leave Ilyana,  Lucky,  and Virhea to watch over the survivors for the night while the rest of us camp out at the top of the lighthouse because of course we fucking do.  As we rest up,  we hear a loud wailing inside of the lighthouse,  winding up the stairway and coming towards us.

We see the ghost and talk with her because thankfully,  she's not immediately hostile.  After learning a smidgen about her and some stuff about her husband,  we also learn he died at sea and she's stuck mourning him,  unable to rest without him.  And so she wants other wives to suffer as she had,  but Industria talks her down from that and reassures her that we'll find something left of her husband and bury him alongside her so that her soul will finally be at peace.  With that,  we make our way down the stairs to keep our word to the grieving ghost,  who made sure to angrily remind us that if we didn't keep our word,  she'd find us.

[rarestereocats]

recap of thursday’s crusades session!

After a trip up the mountain to visit the shrine of Altamere,  we head off to our next shrine in a coastal city.  Once we reach a hill that slides down the mountain,  Industria and Lucky go sledding down.  Virhea goes down with Ilyana to keep her safe and I desperately wanna sled too,  but Rikius says no and Elathera casually reminds me that I can't because there's a baby inside of me.  But you know what?  Maybe I wanna train my baby to be a thrill seeker in life,  but even with that thought in mind,  I don't do it.  For once,  I resist my impulsive nature and get back in the carriage.

On the way to the next city,  we're charmed by the local forest and see a beautiful willow tree with a pond nearby.  Upon closer inspection,  this tree gives us all major depression and proceeds to grapple Industria to eat her.  Virhea's not having any of this shit though and manages to free her sister and eventually,  we manage to calm this carnivorous tree down and talk to it.  We hook it up with an oasis and some fantasy heroin laced food,  thanks to Virhea,  and once it agrees to stop eating sentient creatures,  we carry on.  Unfortunately,  the word of god let us know that the tree did not end up developing a serious addiction which would've been super convenient for us.  So no,  we won't be seeing this tree help me out in my anti-drugs crusade anytime soon.

As we approach the city of Rumbek,  the guards stop us and tell us it's closed for the night.  That's pretty odd,  but they tell us it's for our safety as people are being murdered and going missing at night.  So we go from "odd" to "highly concerning" instantly,  but not concerning enough as Virhea slips away and goes eagle form to fly over the walls and get inside.  Nobody notices her leave,  but I have similar ideas,  so I slip away as well and hurl myself over the wall.  Virhea sees this from a nearby rooftop,  but nobody else notices me go missing.  Not even Rikius,  who was supposedly keeping a watchful eye on me.  But that's what happens when your stealth is absurdly high,  kids.  You can literally disappear in front of somebody's eyes and it won't register with them at all.

Once inside,  a guard sees me in the park and Rumbek has a curfew to try and keep their residents safe,  so now I have to pretend that I have dementia.  The guard takes pity on me and begins leading me to a cleric,  but I casually slip into the shadows and disappears,  which scares the shit out of this guy.  He runs off fearing for his life while Virhea watches from above and gets the idea to scare me as well.  So as I'm strolling along,  she slips up behind me and grabs my neck.  I am terrified.  We're talking full tail fluff activated and screaming bloody murder while she tries to calm me down.  Three guards rush the alley and think she's the murderer,  so they fire arrows at her to try and save me.  But then they assume I'm a murderer too,  so Virhea throws herself in front of me to take the hits because she's a good friend.

We eventually escape and take shelter in a chapel while the rest the group goes to visit one of the guard's homes after Industria performed some miracle work and used magic to regenerate his daughter's missing legs.  She knows that me and Virhea had run off,  but she's not too worried as long as we're together.  But after getting hit with a couple of arrows,  Virhea sends an SOS out to her sister and Industria reluctantly comes to help our dumbasses,  everyone else following soon after.  We're scolded for running off and getting into trouble and once that's settled,  we head back to the other guard's home to rest up.  Come morning,  we go and visit Oscar Greenwood,  the man in charge of this investigation.

We're given a list of victims and with the power of magic,  we sit around and scry on each one until we find one that's alive.  A gnome's laying inside what looks to be a wooden box and rather than be alarmed by this or even question it,  we teleport there and are dumped into a dark ass room that's empty aside from four coffins.  Me and Industria immediately know it's vampires,  but Virhea cracks a coffin open anyways out of curiosity and the vampire inside utters a confused "what the fuck?",  before we're pulled into combat.  As we fight them,  Industria goes to use "undo artifice" on the ceiling,  thinking it's the top of the building and we can just burn them to death.

But instead,  it comes down with several more vampires and I begin to wonder if this house is like a clown car for these undead bastards.  Lucky commands one magically to tell us who their ringleader is and it's a vampire by the name of Kinsey Redriver.  Now as the floor came down on us,  Kinsey themself did too and when we realize which vamp that is,  Ilyana sacks their ass and manages to get them on the ground.  She covers them with a blanket as Industria asks and Elathera destroys the actual home's ceiling and finally exposes our blood-sucking circus to sunlight and we watch as the rest of the vampires go up in flames and die.

The ones that had been beat down to a gaseous form flee the area,  leaving us alone with Kinsey,  who is gonna get the shit interrogated out of them.  And then killed,  most likely,  because why are we gonna turn an obviously evil vampire loose again on this city??