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#the tabaxi mother and child were my favorites though they were so cute
judyalvqrez · 1 year
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there was something really jim henson-esque and campy about how some of the non-human races were portrayed in the new dnd movie that i really enjoyed. they could’ve easily gone the shitty cgi route or just not shown those races up close at all, but no, they said you want a bird man? we’re gonna get you a bird man
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rainbow-squirrels-7 · 6 years
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Highlights from tonight’s murder mystery episode of my DND campaign, The Kleos Guild!
-We began with the PCs waiting for word when to go out to set the trap for the Song Thief
-My Druid (Bec, half-orc) was cheating at playing pool
-My Paladin (Gixa, white dragonborn) was eating ice in the cafeteria 
-And my Bard (Alexander, half-dark elf) was actually composing a sincere apology for acting so shady behind Peregrine and Gixa;s backs last episode. It was very sweet actually
-He said that his bardic mentor said ‘words have power, especially for bards’ or something, and that gave me SO much backstory fodder. But it’s kind of ironic because none of them know their backstories actually happened in the future
-Anyway, then Daisy (the orc guildmaster of the Sapphire Division) came in and announced that at the location of the last Song Crystal... there’s been a murder
-So the crew warps out there and ends up in the ski-lodge like town of King’s Reach. Gixa is very happy to finally be in a place that is not sweltering 
-They go up to Bremen manor and admire the Tree of Life and none of my players get the Musicians of Bremen reference I made with the statue of the animals on top of the fountains and I had to explain it to those heathens 
-Agatha Bremen, daughter of the murdered man Edgar Bremen is outside waiting for them. Inside, they meet the suspects: Beatrice the tabaxi maid, Crispin the human who’s a one-armed retired Paladin, Darren the human (Agatha’s child), and Jeremy the halfling chef
-Agatha shows them the scene of the crime, seeing some impressionist paintings on the walls of the portrait gallery just before
-They find Edgar Bremen dead from three parallel slash marks on his throat. I was hoping this would make them immediately suspect Beatrice, but alas
-Right as they left that room, they heard a crash from downstairs and a scream
-Alexander and Bec then Feather Fall over the balcony, and Gixa slides down the bannister
-They go into the kitchen to find that Jeremy the chef has just been murdered in the same way as Edgar was. It was Beatrice who screamed
-Beatrice had a high, very scared of everything voice. She was constantly freaking out (as I was trying to hype up her red herring-ness). Crispin had my very best Barry Bluejeans impression voice. If Darren talked, I don’t remember their voice, and I don’t think Jeremy talked at all. Agatha just had a regular voice, but Gixa’s player said she pictured her with a British accent. I did a British accent for another character back in episode 3, and I didn’t like it, so I didn’t do it again. 
-Crispin also talked with Gixa at one point, as they have Paladin in common, and Crispin explained that he was part of Phineas’ legion when they were defending Bard City a few months back from the monster attack, and the monster bit off his arm, so he retired from being a Paladin. 
-The players then began going through all the Clue-style rooms (my original plan was to just plop down a Clue board, but I didn’t have one) looking for clues
-I did manage to red herring them with the silverware set up, which was really just Jeremy not getting to set the rest of the table, but Alexander thought it was suspicious that six of the knives were missing, and there were six slash marks total. 
-They found Edgar’s will in the study, which included the name Leonard, whom was someone who wasn’t present in the manor, and also had one crossed off name at the bottom. In the lounge, they found more paintings, and found that they were signed by Leonard. Agatha then told them Leonard is her husband and a painter who works in Ferryrock. She also says he’s been into music lately, and that they just got a new piano. In one of the paintings, they see the staff of the manor, and one tabaxi man who isn’t present either, but he’s dressed like a butler 
-In the ballroom, they found a grand piano and some sheet music. It’s described to have been written in pencil and a title was there but erased and rewritten multiple times before the writer just wrote ‘title goes here’. The writer turned out to be Charlie Jones, the bard kid who travels with the salesman Gerald, and who is a fan favorite. He and Gerald came through town recently, and Charlie had been working on this composition, and Leonard had asked for a copy to try to learn to play. The song was unfinished though, and is the first 30 seconds of this:
-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arIymDYA2y8
-Anyway, they ask Agatha about the butler, and she says that he’s Virgil, and he worked for Edgar, but he was fired a few years back after he was caught embezzling money
-The PCs then go upstairs to continue the investigation, only after Alexander goes back in the kitchen and finds the flatware that had not been set. He takes the knives
-Upstairs, they find Darren’s room, which is a typical messy teenager room. They also find some papers that we would recognize as characters sheets, and also a set of dice. It’s all from the hot tabletop fantasy game popular across The Land: Suburbs and Sedans
-In Agatha and Leonard’s room, they find a book called Bardic Inspiration: For Dummies. Gixa shows it to Alexander saying “Hey, this’ll be your next birthday present.”
-They also find some messed up wallpaper, but nothing but a wall behind it
-Down the hallway, they find the library, which is the first real library they’ve been to, since the other library in the very first episode in the Town of Heroes was full of fake books
-They find that the wallpaper in this room has been messed up too, and behind it, they find a door that leads to the vault room
-Inside, they find the floating cat ghost form of Virgil, trying to steal the money from the safe. I tried to give Virgil an impression of Jenkins’ voice, but idk if it was accurate. Either way, it was pretty good.
-And it all freaking dissolved into ghost humor
-”Why does a ghost need money? IS THERE GHOST CAPITALISM??”
-But yeah, they fought the ghost Virgil, and I quickly realized that my fights are way too easy. Virgil didn’t even land a hit on them. I made a mental note to make my enemies stronger
-Anyway, after Virgil “went poof into a poof of ghost mist”, there was a bit of banter when Alexander opened the safe and Gixa was afraid he would steal the money. She poked him with her halberd, and Alexander then closed the door on the other two and Mended the wallpaper back. They got out pretty quickly, though.
-Once they got back to the balcony, they heard music coming from outside. Alexander’s player immediately said he was going to the window so he could climb on the roof, but then I realized I forgot to say that it wasn’t piano music (which would point to the Song Thief), but cello and violin music.
-Bec and Alexander Feather Fall off the balcony again and Gixa Misty Steps (or she “BAMFs down to the first floor like Nightcrawler” as I described it) and they all rush outside
-Just in time to see Daisy swing around her cello and konk the Song Thief in the back of the head. Bec immediately falls in love
-Agatha gives the players a 150 gold reward for solving the crime and ghostbusting, and Peregrine reminds everyone of the urgent Song Thief business and they all head back to Ferryrock
-Bec also asked Daisy if when this all is over, if they could get drinks sometime. Daisy was flustered and it was real cute and she said “Yeah, that would be really nice,”
-Though in my head I was thinking ‘oh heck they’re about to be sent to the future I’m wrecking this date’ even though I really want it to happen. I’ll make it happen later, after they save the world. Because I really like it. Reminds me of Aubrey and Danny
-Anyway, they warp back to Ferryrock, and Peregrine calls another town meeting to tell everyone of the Song Thief’s capture. My players manage to find Leonard in the crowd and inform him “your wife’s okay! the butler did it!”
-Oh and the Song Thief is paraded down to the city center, and my players see him without his mask for the first time. So that’s cool
-Peregrine then makes a speech about the hard work of the Kleos Guild and everything good and all that, but that she has to leave and take the Song Thief back to the future
-my players laughed too much at the ‘back to the future’ line
-She then does a magic prayer, making a time portal doorway appear. It looks like a floating rectangle of white light with a circle in the middle. Not exactly a PMD Dimensional Hole
-She was praying to Mother Time, by the way
-And she pushes the Song Thief into the portal and calls up the PCs for heroic recognition. She thanks them and the crowd loves them. And she echoes Alexander saying ‘words have power’ and she says that she wants to play one more song for them
-and she plays the Tree of Life
-which freezes them in place
-and she pushes them into the portal
-they all black out and wake up in complete darkness. not even Darkvision people could see. And they couldn’t hear anything. They tried to make sound, but it didn’t work. Any light spells they cast only lasted for a fraction of the time they’re supposed to. I ‘opened up this can of worms’ when Gixa also tried to pray to her goddess, Selune, but it didn’t work, she didn’t get any response a la Merle in The Suffering Game
-it’s cause all the gods except for Mother Time abandoned the silent future
-They all also decided that Peregrine was the evil one now (no one is evil stop putting my complex morality story into such black and white terms) and Gica tried to stumble around in the dark to release the Song Thief who was still knocked out in the room with them. 
-and I ended with “and thus begins... Arc Three.”
-I want this time in the silent future to be like as bad as the hero and partner felt in their dark future, or maybe even something like The Suffering Game. I want there to be real stakes. I’m planning to make the enemies harder and have there actually be danger. And they’re going to have to decide where they stand and who they trust. Because they thought they knew Peregrine was ‘good’ and the Song Theif was ‘bad’ but Peregrine just pushed them into the portal so...
-I also accidentally established immediate silence, which I didn’t want to do because it’s going to make the next part difficult. I did need some dialogue. But Peregrine and Kes know Drow sign language, and it was already established that Alexander knows a bit of it. So maybe that’ll work. It’ll at least give me the added bonus of the PCs only getting part of the information since they’ll only be able to get fractured conversations. 
-at least I have three months to figure it out. This was my last session before summer vacation. So I left them on a cliffhanger ahah. I really want Kes in the next episode to do K E S in sign language to them, so they at least know his name. 
-but yeah! I’m gonna construct a very bad time for my players in this silent future! fun times!
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