#and then no matter how you handle her quest she'll die :)

[bragganhyl]

Today's mood is going to be *rolls wheel* crying over the Devil of Caroc

[memento-morri-writes]

Mask, Midnight, and Wound for the character of your choice.

Ooh, thank you, Alex!! These are all good questions!

mask: Does your OC wear a mask, literally or figuratively? What goes on beneath it? Is there anyone in their life who gets to see who they are under the mask?

Weirdly enough, despite my love of masked characters, none of my characters so far wear a literal mask. I'll have to change that. However, I will say that Kristopher does wear a kind of mask. He presents a facade of the man that the entire kingdom of Oryn sees him as: drunk, foolish, and flirtatious. He never shows how badly their taunts hurt him, and he acts like nothing matters to him. But in reality, he's suffering every moment he spends in Oryn, as long as his family and his people hate him. Once in Anvia he dons a different kind of mask. Almost exactly the reverse. He vows not to let anyone see the "real" him. (Or rather, what his parents and brothers have convinced him is the "real" him.) The fuck-up drunkard who is useless to anyone. Eventually Fallon pulls away all of his masks, and gets to see the real Kristopher. The damaged, hurt, suffering Kristopher, who wants nothing more than to be happy and to be loved. Even after the two of them are together, Kristopher still keeps up a certain degree of appearances to everyone except for Fallon. He doesn't want people to ever have an excuse or reason see him the way the people in Oryn did.

midnight: What keeps your OC up at night? Do they have nightmares? Fears? Anxieties? What do they do in the small hours of the morning when they should be sleeping?

Fallon is kept up by a lot of things. Sometimes it's worries or stress regarding her kingdom. Trade deals, foreign politics food stores, threats of crop failure or disease. Anything that could harm her kingdom in any way. Other times it's more personal worries. Memories of her mother, worry that she's failed at being a queen her mother would be proud of. Later on, after Lavinia's attack, it's nightmares. Lots and lots of nightmares. Nightmares where all of her loved ones die, and she can't do a thing to stop it. Some of the most devious ones put her father, Wymond, as a mastermind behind all of the loss and suffering Fallon has ever experienced. What she does when she can't sleep depends on the reason she's still awake. If it's worries about her kingdom, she may be up until the small hours of the morning writing letters to various nobles, merchants, or foreign dignitaries. If it's thoughts about her mother, she'll often just sit and let memories wash over her. If it's nightmares, she might try and distract herself, but often just ends up sitting there frightened.

continued under the cut for length

tw: physical injury, parental death, toxic relationships, human sacrifice

wound: How does your OC handle being wounded? Are their wounds mostly physical? Mental? Emotional? What’s the worst wound your OC has ever experienced?

Let's talk about a DnD OC here, just for shits and giggles. Let's talk about Cyra, my fire genasi barbarian/fighter. Cyra has experienced a lot of wounds in her life, both mental and physical. From the murder of her parents and entire hometown, to all the wounds sustained while fighting for the Brotherhood, to learning the truth of her girlfriend Talia's true nature, and deciding to flee the Brotherhood for good. Cyra is no stranger to being physically wounded, and they handle it quite well. She has a high pain tolerance, and any kind of bruise or scratch isn't even going to slow her down. Not a wound, per se, but the worst physical pain she's ever experienced was when our rogue's ex-wife (who now leads the very cult he's on a revenge quest against) tried to reach into Cyra's body and remove the magical quarter staff they can summon from their chest. The pain was excruciating, and as Cyra was paralyzed at the time, she couldn't even open her mouth to scream. (But she still tried, leaving her with nothing but a scratchy voice for days.) When it comes to emotional wounds, Cyra is far less resilient. She does not have any truly good coping mechanisms, and tends to bottle up her emotions, only releasing them when they fight. The two worst emotional wounds they have suffered have been 1) losing her parents in a Brotherhood raid (and subsequently being taking in by the Brotherhood to be raised as a soldier), and 2) learning that her girlfriend, Talia (the daughter of the cult leader) is not the person Cyra thought she was. Cyra had long held onto the hope of convincing Talia to leave the brotherhood, and that the two of them would run away together. But after witnessing Talia sacrificing a town full of innocents to the Brotherhood's mysterious god, she realized that Talia had simply been stringing her along.

[itsbenedict]

Two-Faced Jewel: Session 4

A half-elf conwoman (and the moth tasked with keeping her out of trouble) travel the Jewel in search of, uh, whatever a fashionable accessory is pointing them at. [Campaign log]

Saelhen and Looseleaf, following their recent dance conquest, get back on the road to Thunderbrush- and get themselves wrapped up in a blood feud between rival farming villages. Before that, though... something goes bump in the night.

It's the night after the wedding reception, and the party has free rooms, courtesy of Carrid Bronzebloom. Looseleaf and Oyobi remain roomies, Vayen shares a room with Orluthe, and Saelhen insists on a room of her own, as a proper noblewoman.

Also as a proper noblewoman, she searches the room for any and all places of entry or exit, and places some ball bearings in front of them. It's just the window and the one door, so... two spots.

In the night...

A pair of crit fails, on the part of whoever's sneaking into her room at night, and on Saelhen's part to notice them! Saelhen, it seems, meant to sleep with one eye open, but the eyes disagreed on which one it should be, and she dozed off something fierce.

Which means that Oyobi, trancing in the adjacent room (elves don't sleep!) is the only one to hear Vayen bang his shin on something and go "ow!" in the middle of the night. Oyobi, however, has a -1 to int, and fails to recall exactly which rooms her other party members were in.

The next morning, Saelhen notices... that the ball bearings by the door have been disturbed. Even though the door was locked, and remained locked the whole time, someone was able to get into her room and pass the DC 10 dex check to not get knocked over by the ball bearings. Apart from that, though, nothing in her room is out of place or missing. Hm...

On the road, while Looseleaf is distracted buying a quarterstaff from a traveling merchant, Saelhen and Oyobi touch base on the situation in Thieves' Cant.

They're not taking action on this just yet, so they proceed onwards. The tall grass starts to thin out and get shorter- turning to prairie, and then almost scrubland as the climate gets more arid. It's here, as day turns to evening, that they approach a two-story building at a crossroads.

Benedict I. (GM): There's small buildings in the distance on either end of this road- and further up the highway, past the two-story building is a tall black stone tower that seems to be standing in a field, completely alone. As you approach the crossroads, you can see the sign- Wheatley General. And as you approach closer, you can see the vandalism. Some sort of yellowish-white paint has been used to write "EAT SHIT, TRAITOR" across the left half of the building's exterior, and the glass windows have holes in them. Across the right side is similar vandalism, in a more brownish-yellow paint, reading "SWINDLER INSIDE". To the left of the store is a sign pointing off to the left, northwest, reading "<- Barley". And to the right of the store is a sign pointing off to the right, southeast, reading "Wheat ->".

Inside, the place is cleaner than the outside, and fairly well-stocked for a general store in the boonies. At the counter is a very tall and very tired-looking person- either an especially tall human or a very lanky goliath.

(Most of the session is interrogating this dude.)

He tells them that they have rooms for rent, and that they're open 24 hours. Also, he warns them not to visit Wheat or Barley- apparently, they've got some kind of blood feud going on, and there's a lot of hate directed his way for trying to be neutral in the conflict.

Looseleaf: "What... are they paranoid about?" Benedict I. (GM): "Each other, mostly." Looseleaf: "And wwwwwwhy are they paranoid about each other," Benedict I. (GM): "If you go down there, they're gonna interrogate you to make sure you're not sent by the other guys to kill people." "Oh, uh, the killing people." "The murders and stuff." Looseleaf: "OKAY you could have LED with that," Looseleaf says, flipping her antennae forward and backwards. Benedict I. (GM): "They keep, I don't know, killing each other, over pointless stuff." "And getting angrier and angrier about it." "S'why I left and set up here. Tired of it." "Didn't... really help, though." "As you can probably see." Saelhen du Fishercrown: "Ah. One of the sad affairs where each death is the next death's cause." Saelhen lowers her eyes. "In my country, we call such things ばかげたナンセンス."

Looseleaf's not sure this adds up. She wants to know why he set up shop in a place he hates, rather than just pack up and leave. His excuse is that his little sister is still in Barley, and he needs to stay here so that she has someplace to go if things get worse for her.

Looseleaf: "Wh- why are you letting your little sister stay in a place where people are apparently regularly dying- you're painting this place up to be a warzone, that's how you're making it sound?" "Seriously, why not just, I don't know, book it for Blacksky. It's not that far a travel from here." Saelhen du Fishercrown: "You assume he can compel her to leave, Madam Looseleaf." Looseleaf: "Or, even the port town upwards the road from here. That's where we're going too; if it's inability to leave keeping you here, we could take you with us?" Benedict I. (GM):"It's... ugh. It's not that bad. Just like... I don't know, they all act like it's not happening, until it does." "Nobody will admit to killing anyone, even if they'll talk all day about how the other side deserves to die." "Too polite for it."

Saelhen declares that she'll confer with her companions on what to do about all this- but the shopkeep insists that he didn't ask them to do anything. It's not their problem, and it's better to not get involved.

Saelhen du Fishercrown: "Ah, of course. I forget myself in this exotic lands. No one has asked anyone to do anything. Yes, Oyobi? Vayen?" Benedict I. (GM): Vayen has no response. "It... sounds like something should be done, though," Oyobi says. "If it's a monster, I can kill it dead!" The tall guy sighs. "You're Deathseekers, aren't you?" "You're looking for a quest." "But I can't pay, so... just forget it."

Looseleaf is entirely on board with this guy's pitch- why should they get involved?

While they're deliberating, there's a mysterious thump from the back of the store. Thalath asks them to please wait while he deals with the situation- so of course they peek at what he's doing.

Thalath piles up a few armfuls of groceries, and brings them to the backdoor, where, waiting for him, sits... a wheelbarrow. Which wiggles expectantly.

Thalath, unsurprised by this ("...Still the usual."), exchanges the groceries for a sack of coin left in the wheelbarrow, which trundles away, satisfied.

Anyway, this is unremarkable, so the party continues deliberating on what to do. Looseleaf theorizes that the murders are being committed by some unknown monster preying on both towns, which would be far too dangerou-

Oyobi is super down for night-monster hunting, and votes that they interfere. Orluthe volunteers because he just wants to help people (and not because he wants to fight monsters, surely), and Saelhen wants to get involved because getting tangled up in a clan war might provide an opportunity to get rid of Vayen somehow.

Vayen votes to get involved, too.

That... doesn't bode well. But, uh, the votes are the votes! Looseleaf is determined to do this right, if they're doing it.

Looseleaf: Get a sheet of parchment out, start taking notes. "We're investigating apparently now!" is what Looseleaf says. "Now, tell me everything you know about these mysterious deaths." "The great detective Looseleaf is on the case." Saelhen du Fishercrown: "Cultural studies," adds Saelhen. "This will make fascinating material for a thesis on standing intergenerational grudges." Benedict I. (GM): "Wh- oh, god. That's- studies? Don't tell me you're from the University..." Saelhen du Fishercrown: Better than deathseekers! Benedict I. (GM): "I should've known when you said "run to Blacksky" and not "run to Oyashio"..." "I mean... I guess they'll know you're out-of-towners for sure." "So you probably won't get run out on a rail." "But... you really don't want to get involved. It's just heartbreak no matter where you look."

They put the screws I mean persuasion rolls to Thalath, and manage to get some information out of him:

His sister's name is Kensa, but if they go around asking about her, they'll know it was him who put them up to it, so please don't

There've been honor killings on and off for a while, but there's been a sudden and severe uptick in killings in Barley over the past year.

Barley's victims are all found in their fields, with four evenly-spaced holes in their chests, in a diamond pattern- and sometimes the bodies go missing.

He doesn't know much about Wheat's murders ("you'd have to ask Sass", but he heard dogs were involved.

There's a new killing around once a week now- usually on the outskirts, not in the town center.

The local authority in Barley is one Malath Kanthalga, cleric of Diamode, who's huge and has four fingers on her right hand.

Looseleaf: "What are the local authority forces like? Who would usually be responsible for handling deaths like this? Is there an Ecumene in charge of this town?" Benedict I. (GM): He nods, and grimaces. "Malath Kanthalga. Cleric of Family, in Barley. You'll be able to recognize her because she's gigantic and only has four fingers on her right hand." "If it's not three, by now." "She's the one in charge of witchhunts and telling people how to live their lives."

Looseleaf puts two and two and a DC 15 Religion check together to come to a conclusion. To the Ecumene of Diamode, which puts family first, losing a child is like losing a finger from your hand. Consequently, under Diamode law: to disown a child, you legally have to cut off one of your fingers. Given that, and what Thalath said about emphatically not being a Kanthalga, it's likely he was disowned.

On their way out, they notice the wheelbarrow trundling towards that weird black tower down the road- and Looseleaf pops back in to ask Thalath about it.

Looseleaf: "What's with the ominous black tower looming over everything in the distance like an evil villain's lair in a storybook," Looseleaf belts out rapidly. Benedict I. (GM):"Wh- oh, that?" "That's just- don't go over there, either." "That's just- there's some crazy torture wizard, stay the hell away if you can help it." Looseleaf: "There's a crazy torture wizard, and he buys groceries from you?" "And... nobody's thought to pin all the mysterious deaths on the ominous crazy torture wizard with an evil tower?"

Thalath seems convinced there's no way it could be the crazy torture wizard in the spooky tower. Reasons being:

you can't torture people if they're dead

he doesn't bother anyone anymore, since people got mad at him kidnapping people and then got mad at him trying to trick people into volunteering

he hasn't been seen in at least a year

he's totally senile and couldn't possibly get away with dozens of murders without being caught

Looseleaf suggests that maybe this guy is dead, killed by one of his own creations, and that monster is responsible for the murders. Thalath doesn't think that's possible either- he's clearly still alive, right? Someone's doing magical lightshows up in that tower every night, and someone's putting sacks of coin in the wheelbarrow in exchange for groceries.

Looseleaf... makes an arcana check to remember something about arcane magic, which I mentioned in our Discord chat:

Benedict: things about the world you would know as common background knowledge: arcane magic- that is, magic built into the world by the gods as part of the system, available to anyone with sufficient training or talent- strains the body somewhat it feels tiring, like physical exertion Farn: is it exercise? Benedict not quite, is the thing unlike physical exercise, which builds up the body's muscles so that you can do things easier over time magical exercise just gives you more of a feel for magic, so that you can do more difficult things with it. the easy stuff never gets any easier- you just have more endurance magic practice is known to shorten lifespans a bit and make the body frailer- a mage needs to work out more and eat better than a non-mage to maintain the same physical fitness it's why wizards are typically squishier- it's not a game balance thing, it's a literal effect of putting in the amount of practice to be a good wizard Farn: and arcanists tend to be nerds so that's often not gonna be a thing i imagine not enough time in the day! Benedict: yep furthermore, the image of a wizard as an old man with a long white beard isn't really a thing in the popular imagination- because physical aging makes you less able to cast magic that strain magic puts on the body can cause actual damage when your body's deteriorated enough and can't handle that strain this is why Dean Variable Velocity is in a wheelchair. she was one of the most accomplished wizards in the world, with raw power that whole cities feared- but she's no longer capable of more than the simplest cantrips due to her advanced age casting big magic would literally tear her apart and has done so in the past, costing her the use of her legs that's why she's an academic administrator, now- she means to pass on her knowledge to the younger generation, who can actually make use of it

What Looseleaf realizes is: if the old man is as senile as Thalath says he is, it's pretty weird that he'd be doing big magic lightshows every night. Maybe impossible! Maybe whatever's happening up there isn't an alive old wizard doing magic!

They report back to their team about their findings.

Saelhen du Fishercrown: "There appears to be a torture wizard in the tower," she remarks. Orluthe Chokorov: "A... torture wizard?!" Looseleaf: "Okay, here's my deductions, courtesy of the great detective Looseleaf's ultimate thinking brain," Looseleaf says. "According to Thalath, there's an evil torture wizard in the tower, yes. Like, an actual, comedically evil torture wizard, which- that makes no sense?" Saelhen du Fishercrown: "A torture wizard whom Sir Thalath regards as not at all a viable culprit for these incidents, no less." Looseleaf: "How has nobody come around and dealt with the torture wizard? There's a cleric of Diamode here for crying out loud, and I know that Diamode isn't exactly super big on conquering evil and saving the helpless, but surely having a torture wizard around interferes with family values in some way at least." "I bet Thalath's the real wizard or something. Thalath's a great name for an evil wizard." "And at the end, he's gonna be like, muahahaha, I fooled you all, it was me behind the whole situation, my machinations laid undetected for YEARS." "Guy really doesn't want us going to the evil wizard tower or any of the towns." Saelhen du Fishercrown: "The point Madam Looseleaf is driving at, whilst also recklessly speculating, is that we would like you to keep an eye out for anything..." "Torturous, or wizardly, while we investigate." Looseleaf: "Look, you're the one who wanted us to get into this situation involving people getting killed, and now apparently on top we also have to worry about becoming tortured by torture wizards."

So, to investigate further, they head into Barley to gather information. On the way, they noticed, by the roadside... some old rotted wood and blackened soil that indicates a building burned down there some time ago. Looseleaf reads the spirits of those burned-out foundations and finds that- while it was too long ago to get details- they burned down from a fire that burned hotter than normal fire should've, and... those burnt timbers witnesses, and sometimes caused, death. It seems like there used to be a town at this crossroads, before it split.

They arrive in Barley, and they're directed by a local farmer to the Temple of Diamode, in response to which Orluthe takes off his cap and stole- he doesn't seem to want to be recognized as a cleric of Diamode by actual Diamode clergy. There, they meet...

Malath Kanthalga, clearly a goliath, is handing out pieces of newly-forged plate armor to a queue of farmers. (That's expensive! They wouldn't be buying that stuff if they didn't need it, out here!)

She rounds on the party and gets a very good roll to intimidate them, demanding to know who they are and what they're doing there.

Looseleaf comes up with a clever angle- she wants to offer her services as an animist, to inspect the bodies of the victims and determine how they died- ostensibly proving once and for all that their hated enemy was responsible, is the angle.

Malath isn't opposed to her doing some magical forensics- she seems convinced that it was in fact the town of Wheat that's been killing the people of Barley, and expects the investigation to confirm what she already knows. She refuses to let up on the guard thing, though- safety first.

So, next time... it's time for some fantasy CSI! I've never written a murder mystery in a setting where magic is real before, so this'll be a fun challenge.