#also does it change for Hardwon after his reincarnation for you?

[phoenixexho]

what color is Moonshine and Hardwon’s hair to y’all?

[abubblingcandle]

NADDPOD Manchester Summary

Just thought I did a highlights bit but while it is fresh in my mind you guys might appreciate a summary. If I have forgotten anything please let me know!

The scene starts between adventures on the deck of the Stormborn over the ocean. There are puffins floating on the sea below and a peaceful quiet. The Band of Boobs sails the ship down low and scoops a puffin on board. The next eight hours are spent by Moonshine attempting to awaken the puffin. She does so successfully and Hardwon names the puffin Peter. Peter is not sure about his new found intelligence and begins an existential crisis about how his life before was worthless. 

A raven flies down and lands on the ship with a note tied to his leg. It is quickly realised this is not Caw Caw and Hardwon laments that Caw Caw is off living his best life somewhere. The note is a note from Ren asking for the help of the Band of Boobs as his family has fallen upon hard times since the crick rebellion ran them out of town. He asks for their help to retrieve an idol made of arcanium from an old temple on his family’s summer island and offers to split the profits with them if they succeed. The band of boobs decide to go help Ren as in the end they could just steal the idol from him for themselves. Ren’s island is in a little archipelago of islands and has a lovely beach with a house built out of the cliff and an infinity hot tub over looking the sea. 

I can’ t remember the exact details of the exchange when they arrive but Rin things the boobs are hired help and tries to order them about. Ren offers them towels, Moonshine strips and changes into the towel. Ren tries to identify with Bev about how mad these poor people are and out of solidarity Bev also changes into the towel but to preserve his modest enlists an air elemental servant to help him out of his armour behind the towel. Rin offers them to stay for a dinner of puffin (much to Peter and Moonshine’s outrage). Instead they leave to the temple to retrieve the idol. Ren changes into an all silk Indiana Jones outfit and gives Beverly a matching one which he changes into.

They arrive at the temple, it is a temple with a stone carving of what looks like a bullywug king and some words underneath and the first roll of the whole session is a history check by Beverly or Moonshine to read some variant of elvish. Caldwell gets a nat 20 and identifies this as the bullywug language and translates “Squash the ant, step on the ladbug but be kind to gullywugs” (that was the gist can’t remember the exact words). 

Everyone tries to convince Ren to go first but Ren refuses insisting the poor people go first. Caldwell rolls a persuasion check and gets another nat20. Ren charges into the temple up the stairs and falls off a ledge with a scream. The Boobs follow him down and find the shit being kicked out of him by a giant stone ant and a giant stone ladybug. There is also a giant stone gullywug lingering back near a throne. They dive into the battle. Moonshine throws an unconscious Ren out of the way of the stone gollums and Bev uses Ren as a spring board to touch hands him and stab at the ladybug. They try to negotiate with the ladybug but it has plans on world domination, eradicating all other life so the world is only populated by ladybugs. Moonshine relates but it is discovered that this is actually only a giant stone beetle with spots painted on but he desperately wants to be a ladybug. Ren turns invisible to avoid the fight like the coward he is. They kill the ladybug but Moonshine promises to pass on its message in the outside world. Hardwon uses his new found Animal Husbandry proficiency (which Murph found absolutely hilarious) to befriend the giant stone ant and rolls a nat20. The ant lets Hardwon ride it and stops attacking, Hardwon calls him Anthony. Beverly dashes up to the stone Gullywug and brushes its teeth. The gullywug proclaims “you have been kind to the gullwugs” confirming that the riddle outside was instructions. Hardwon is devasted at the loss of his new friend but uses the towel to cover his eyes as Moonshine, Balnor and Bev finish the ant. The Gullywug gives them a key before disappearing. 

Caldwell gets a nat20 on an investigation check and finds a key hole in the seat of the throne. It opens into a chute leading into darkness. Moonshine shouts down and rolls a nat 1 on an investigation check. She is convinced that Cooter is down there as a crick elf is shouting and dives down head first taking about 20 damage. Bev uses featherfall on himself and Balnor and Hardwon grasps Ren to use his ring as they dive down too. It is pitch black but Bev uses the radiant light from his sword to illuminate the room through the unnatural blackness. There is a giant pit about 60ft in diameter with a plinth with the idol on in the middle. Hardwon throws Beverly who uses the whip from his costume to grip the plinth and pull himself up (another nat20 and after this one Caldwell kissed the dice and threw it into the crowd). Hardwon is convinced it was a great throw from him. Caldwell uses an investigate check to find that the room is booby trapped with spears in the walls. Bev grabs the idol and misty steps back over the pit. They all run and try to climb the chute. Bev goes first and races up, Balnor follows more slowly, Moonshine casts jump on Hardwon before climbing, Ren casts fly on only himself and Hardwon jumps up. On the way out of the crumbling temple Moonshine grabs a bit of the stone beetle/ladybug. When they leave the temple the idol has a prerecorded warning but Ren grabs it and smashes the idol into five pieces before it can finish. 

Turns out arcanium can be used to power wish spells and is nothing to do with the drug R-Cane which pisses off Hardwon as he only came for the drugs. They return to the house as nothing happened when Ren smashed the idol. When they return to the house Rin has bought some dwarorphans as slaves which infuriates Hardwon but he is talked down with a promise of the hot tub. Hardwon summons the dwarven daddies who have a great time. Moonshine summons some otters and it turns out Ren is incredibly afraid of otters. Earlier (cannot remember at which point) Bev gave Peter the amulet which upset Paw Paw so he gave Paw Paw some frosted cheerios. They free Peter to do whatever he wants forgetting he has the amulet and he flies off with it.

It starts to rain, getting worse and worse causing the hot tub to flood and the house to begin to fall apart. Beverly magics an umbrella to make it wind proof (another nat20) and it turns into a holy relic with the same powers as the amulet. Gullywugs climb out of the ocean and the king Gullywug is stood atop a rock. The gullwugs are angry about the destruction of their temple; they demand a sacrifice. The boobs try and sacrifice Ren who uses time stop to run away. Moonshine tries to convince the gullywug king that they can have the island back as their home and rolls a nat 20 on the persuasion check (Murph is getting more and more annoyed at this point with these rolls). The gullywugs agree only if the boobs help them fix the hot tub. 

Moonshine casts locate object on Ren so they can convince him to use the wish spell using the arcanium as none of them have the spell. They find him in a cabinet in the basement of the house. Time stop used Ren’s last ninth level spell and so they convince Rin to do it instead. I can’t remember the lie they came up with but Caldwell gets another nat 20 and Rin agrees to use the wish spell to get Hardwon a giant real ant. Moonshine also uses reincarnate to turn the bit of stone bettle into a real ladybug. The gullywugs protest the giant ant and try to kill it. Hardwon calls the dwarorphans onto the ants back and they escape into the sunset.

Quotes!

1) Murph: I knew it, I knew when I put the puffins there you were going to do this but I did it anyway

2) Emily: I charge at Rin shouting it’s a crick rebellion then stop as I just reach him and say just kidding 

Murph: Rin shits himself

3) Moonshine: Well actually you can have my towel Rin as I have never been more dry in my life

[celestial-hieroglyphs]

aLRIGHT! as promised, naddpod fic, a plotless exploration of hardwon post reincarnation and his familiarity with a disconnection to his body! ft. hitchhikers thumb, zero forethought, and crick youngin’s. let me know if the cut off isn’t working cuz this ones a bit long.

Hardwon's first body didn't fit from the start- and neither did the name he grew up with. First off, despite dwarves' lack of a strict gender binary, it was irrefutably a girl's name. They'd figured a human should ascribe more to their people's customs. Secondly, he was too bad ass too be named anything but Hardwon Surefoot. (Or, as he would discover decades later, Elias Stormborn. This was also suitably bad ass, and he added it to his list of aliases and names.) But that's besides the point: Even when matters of arcane and science made his body fit far better, he lost attachment to it often. In Irondeep, he'd crash to the floor after a not insignificant amount of sliding and find gashes that should've killed him. Then outside the mountain, on varieties of adventures with what could rightfully be called his family, he'd have similarly deep and agonizing wounds. Gazing down at them, at his own flesh and, on occasion, the things that lie beneath, he was sort of forced to distance himself from it. The scars reminded him too, constant and irremovable keepsakes of the times he stood before death's door just to step back off the porch. The hits he'd taken, the open arms of people he knew dead, the lingering aches and the patches of scarred flesh were an alienating sort of thing. Then, of course, there was the more disturbing incident where he died and came back. He lost half of his notable features, became monstrous. He, for a while, entirely lost agency over himself- watched his body hurt his friends, woke up different, walked with dark urges and slept with sinister hunger, lost sensations and gained new pains. To say the least, there was a certain familiarity to the sensation of an alien body. "You sure you're good, Hardwon?" Moonshine asked, half turned with concern sparking in her green eyes and shit to do. The thoughts turning in his head tumbled to a stop. The instinct to wave her off, build those walls right back up, to not be such a burden- fuck. "Yeah, yeah, don't worry bout me." Hardwon gave her and Beverly a wonky thumbs up; Different thumb, same utter inability to do it right. "Ah- I- alright, well... Crickateers, let's g-" "WOAH!" Suddenly a youngin' gasped and ran over, stumbling over their legs and such before climbing him like a damn tree. Moonshine threw her head back with laughter and Bev abandoned his rallying cry for a snicker. "Woah there!" He exclaimed. This body was a little weaker and he planted his feet. "Looks like you've got yer hands full, Hardwon. See ya!" "S-See you guys, a- get off?" He said, going to remove the youngin' hanging from his arm like a sloth on a tree branch. "No, no, do it again!" "... What?" "Th-The thumb thing!" Hardwon gave a tiny laugh; if Moonshine's thumbs up's were anything to go by, it was an alien gesture to the Crick. He did a proper thumbs up, crooked but no worse than it was in his born-body. "No, no, like- like you had it- Ow!" They exclaimed as they pulled the top part of their thumb way farther back than it probably should. "Hey, hey, quit it!" He put on his gruff voice before dropping it, along with the youngin'. He moved the top of his thumb back easily and the kid was right back on him despite protests and grabbing motions. "Yeah, that! Whassat!?" "A thumb?" He sighed, grabbing his bea- his stubble or whatever. What was this shit? Is this what non-dwarves called beards? "Naw, naw. Y'all! Come look at this guy's finger." Maybe he'd turn over a new leaf and stop swearing in front of kids. "Oh," He sighed as a mob of children stormed him, "fuck." "Can you show me how?!" Immediately. "Oh yeah, I can do that!" Pop. "WHAT!?" A chorus. "I can do that too, look!" A more than likely bad crunch. "OKAY! LET'S STOP NOW, right guys? Hahah!" Hardwon boomed out nervously, holding out both hands in hope of preventing any further incidents. "Hitchhiker's thumb!" A hush fell over the kids, if you could call it that. The Crick was never silent- one of the many things Hardwon loved about it. "W'sat!?" "It's when your thumb goes, like, all the way back. Like his, like mi-" "No!" "No, no! I promise, look, it just does that!" There was a popping sound and this new kid's thumb curled back. "I WANNA DO THAT!" "OKAY! Look, if you have to use your other hand, you can't do it. Ju- Don't hurt yourselves?!" The dwarfens weren't half this self destructive. There were a few pops here and there, one more crunch. "How do you do it!?" One exasperated youngin' with blonde hair sticking up everywhere it ought not to sighed. "I- I don't know, I've been able to do it since forever- uh. Huh." He muttered. He carried some things over into this body. He knew what it took, he wasn't ungrateful for a second, but being born into a whole new body was different than waking up someone different. Was different than waking up everyday to beat another record, different than finding out your life was so much more interesting than you thought, different than waking up with inhuman blood lust. This was a second- or third, wasn't quite sure- chance. This body was wholly different but he'd seen it before he entered, a shell a little farther from his visage. This body- his body- was truly his own. Even if it hadn't always been, he lived in it, he'd changed it and made it his own. He hadn't even realized, hadn't let himself recognize- "What, 'huh?'" The first youngin' said, still hanging upside down from his arm. Hardwon snapped out of it and gave them a toothy smile, bringing his arm up to his face for maximum mock-intimidation. "Nothin', what are you worrying about it for?" He gave the kid a quick shake that only resulted in bouncing laughter and dirty nails digging into his arm that didn't quite hurt enough to make him put the kid down. "Me next! Me next!" "Dammit."