#and like i know i KNOW it's like a core part of kelemvor's character that as a god he is aggressively neutral

[sun-marie]

as a community, how attached is the dnd fanbase to traits of characters that have been around for *checks notes* 35 years

[pigeonfancier]

PAGE ONE - PAGE TWO - PAGE THREE

Session summaries will be up later. My aasimar’s keeping a journal IC, so ofc I felt the need to illustrate it. Pictures were all referenced, and will be in the future, save the rose windows / celestials he likes to draw.

I will rip off my hands if I have to ever write cursive again, ftr, but of course I’m going to be fucking writing cursive again. |D Rose’s handwriting deteriorating over the course of this is intentional. He’s had a very upsetting few days at this point in time.

Transcript under the cut:

status

O bite (?) in neck

O gash across core

O bite in forearm

O infected cut in foot

O hangnail

O no response to prayer

O at least 36 hrs, no food

Flowering bush, 5x5 in diameter.

Berries are red in colour. Most are rotting. Why?

Flowers are pink, and fragrant, but bitter in scent.

[pg1]

It has been an exceptionally long past two days, and I fear it will only prove longer, for disaster has courted us at every turn. At the start of the week, I had joined a mercantile escort to make my way to Waterdeep, to meet my mother’s kin. But it did not arrive. Instead, I had laid my head down that first night, and when I awoke..

Those ill-fated enough to have bedded near me and I found ourselves in a mistladen hell.

We have seen horrors, the past two nights. Part of me quails to commit them to paper: is there not a permanency in the mark of charcoal upon paper, a finality that cannot be retracted? But that thought is foolish. The crimes have been committed. The only way the dead may be laid to rest - that their souls may be at rest - is through remembering them, and ensuring it can never occur again.

The place - for I hesitate to call it a nation - in which we have found ourselves is called Borovia. It is a land that cries out for Lathander’s hand, but the Morninglord is fickle. He has turned his back to this world, and in his absence, I can only assume that my lord has sent us here to correct his cruelties. For the first place we came to was a manor, and..

I cannot bring myself to describe it in detail. There was a couple there, that killed their children in the most torturous of ways and bound their poor souls to the home to guard it afterwards. They killed their own infant, barely breathes into the world, and they killed their own followers, and they turned them into something I cannot describe

[water stain, where he went and got a fucking drink]

We killed them. We killed all of them, everything that moved within that manor, and I wish I could say that their souls were freed, afterwards.

[pg2]

I wish I could say that we were judged worthy, and freed from whatever prison we have found ourselves in. But it is nearly a full day after that hellish escape. We are still in Barovia. And things show little signs of improving.

The only bright spot of this have been those around me. Although their light is, at times, less the warmth of a fire, and more the burn of an eclipse, I am still grateful that I have been given the grace of two companions. The first of them is Ursa, a dwarven woman of small stature. Her beard is magnificent, if in some ways, troubling. Every time I cast my gaze upon her, I find my thoughts catching upon it. How can one sport such a luxurious growth, and not worry about appearing unkempt? She is no fool. Her confidence is simply remarkable, and permeates every aspect of her character.

And she is kind. She reminds me of the kindness of Dawn, and the brilliance of Midnight. I do not know who she worships, or who to conscribe her to, when she dies. Given the circumstances, it seems in poor taste to ask.. but in these circumstances, how can I not? To risk her to the Wall, if we fall before Kelemvor’s task, after all of the virtues she has shown - it would be poor. I will find out her god, and the rituals to send her to them, if the worst is to occur.

The Ministry, Dusk always told me, was the easiest part of the job. I have come to realise that was one of her jests.

The other companion is Faithfulness. He is a tiefling of moderate height. Of his heritage, I am unsure: he has proven unwilling to speak of it, but although he has the hooves and the build of a cambion, he does not hold himself like he is of demonic descent. Perhaps his father was a baatezu, for his skin is pale as ice. Or perhaps he is simply a half-breed, like Midnight.

I do not know who he worships. I do not know much about Faithfulness at all, save for the fact he is a quiet creature, high of bile and quick of temper. He seems ill at ease with himself, with the prejudices born of such things. Perhaps he will calm down as he adjusts? He cowers before Ursa, but he has proven aggressive towards me. At first, simply to the point of violence: a poor response, but understandable, given his heritage. He insulted me the other night, however.

And then he invited me to join his bath. He is a strange one, but I hope he does calm, and that he comes to accept himself. I feel as if he will be much more bearable when he does.

[pg 3]

And after the house..

We are currently sitting in the kitchen of Iveena, the mayor of the city that we found ourselves in after the house had fallen. I cannot remember the name. Soon, we will have to leave, and travel to a city at a farther distance. It has high walls, and no lights, for any ember in the darkness serves as a bonfire to the forces of evil. There, she thinks, someone may have a cure for my affliction.

For I have been cursed. I have not dreamt of my specter since we arrived here. I dared hope that was a sign of Kelemvor’s blessings, and that he had finally taken notice of me. I fear instead it is a sign of the depths of whatever - world? plane? domain? - we have found ourselves in instead, that my specter cannot find me, and neither may my lord’s gaze.

And in his absence, something else has noticed me instead.

Faith was seized by a creature, after the house fell upon him, who restored him to life. He feels nothing like any undead creature, but something healed him under the rubble, he claims, and left him alive for us to find among it. Perhaps it is the same creature that has laid a claim upon me. For Lord Strauhd, borne of the worst line of undead vermin, came to Ireena’s manor last night, and tried to claim me as his bride. Or something like that. The words he used matter not: what matters is the way that Ireena quaked at the declaration, and my own stomach rebelled at such a thought.

That he is an undead abomination, that he would court another in such a manner, that he thinks I am a woman - how is anyone to take such news lightly? For he is not only a blight upon Kelemvor’s gaze, but he is a fucking idiot, biased by his own prejudices, and with a wanton eye towards those of the opposite sex.

Or those he believes as such. To search for virtue in the prejudiced, or those who would slight the natural laws, is foolish. But killing the sentient, no matter how depraved, is a heavy burden to bear. The only thing lightens my heart is the knowledge that his death will undoubtedly relieve all within this wretched land of a great burden upon it.