#erindurant

[more-records]

#erindurant #music #singersongwriter #folk #country #blues #neworleans #🇺🇸 #nyc #音楽 #シンガーソングライター #cd #cdジャケット #artwork #アートワーク #morerecords #モアレコ入荷情報 #大宮 (more records) https://www.instagram.com/p/BzK3k9eJlGr/?igshid=1i4fsnzzxtd7t

[takearide]

#erindurant (at Record Shop) https://www.instagram.com/p/B8fWEhMFxAZ11sB4mRlsCRGq3k5o78fv1rKQeA0/?igshid=m93lu613ir4o

[dndwithsuperbestfriends]

SESSION 9

Larkspur finishes her side quest after her, Elladan and Elrohir raid a dungeon and kill a cave troll. 

In the beginning of her side quest session, Elladan recites to her a poem titles “Oh Larkspur” which was actually a late birthday gift from the DM to her player IRL. 

I don’t remember most of Larkspurs encounter because I was in the othe room while it was being done, I do remember however that she is a day ahead of us, and they get the shard back, so Larkspur can now Naruto run back to us.

So the remaining Super Best Friends have made a bargain with the Barrelers but they have a few hours to kill. They decide to go to Rocks family inn to embarrass them meet their parents. 

Now, Rocks has told their family of their adventures so far, conveniently leaving out the parts where they almost died. They had also told their group of their family situation, but dwarves apparently aren’t good at listening.

Erindur comes in and see’s two human women, and looks at Rocks confused. Rocks explains again they are adopted. They also explain that their 10-year-old siblings, Wayford and Fearn, are big fans of the group except Leswen and Rocks, who they have decided are lame for being support roles.

Leswen and Frank both try to flirt with Rocks moms, Daralis and Harva, but Leswen is too shy and Frank just makes a bunch of dick jokes and offends them.

When the kids come in, Erindur is a bit overwhelmed by the ‘confusing’ family dynamic and walks out for a puff of pipeweed or something. Frank decides he is going to juggle these children, but accidentally grabs Belladonna as well.

Right before we leave, Leswen decides to buy some liquor for molotov cocktails. However, she is still really bad at bartering. She keeps asking how much she can buy for x amount instead of just asking how much a bottle is. She does eventually buy some leaving a generous tip as goodwill, but also flirting somewhat.

They head to the Harbor, but they get mugged along the way. However, Frank straight up pummels a guy so bad the rest of the ruffians run away. He doesn’t kill the guy, but threatens him and says he should stop being a criminal before dropping him in the water.

We continue out way.

Once we get to

the shipyard district there's a riot. We sneak around the riot and go into the warehouse. Belladonna scouts ahead by climbing into a window she jumped into and sees we are around a bunch of easily climb able floor-to-ceiling shelves. She calls us in. Frank and Erindur can get in, but Rocks needs assistance, they climb onto Franks shoulders and tells him "No one tells the elf wanderer about this" because Larkspur is always trying to pick them up but they hate being picked up/carried. 

 The DM turns to Larkspurs player and is like "While you are running to Mirkwood, your ears start to twitch. You feel as though someone is talking about you." We IRL talk about other superstitions, such as where you sneeze suddenly when someone is talking about you, or shiver when someone in the future is walking on your grave.

 Once we're inside we try to sneak past the brawl going on inside but the dwarf doesn't pass his stealth check and sneezes really loudly. The brawl of Munroes goons and barrellers look at us. Frank tries to push a whole industrial shelf on them, and Erindur helps. Once the shelf crunches the brawling group we continue our way to Monroes office. The bleeding hearts Leswen and Rocks aren’t happy about this since the barrellers are our allies, but the DM insists that even though the brawlers were hurt badly none of them died. 

In Monroes office, we all roll for perception and investigation; we find that most things are hobbit sized, but Belladonna notices that the bookshelf is not hobbit sized, it is human sized. (Rocks doesn’t notice bc I rolled poorly, we justify it that Rocks was raised by humans and is only used to things being human sized)

We find that there is a space worth five books, and five books on Monroe’s desk are a mix of red, green, and yellow books. So we figure they probably need to be put in a certain order to trigger the secret door that is definitely in the book shelf.

Rocks is standing at the height needed to see a riddle written in the shelf - I forget the exact room but it was something along the lines of “Two cardinals in an evergreen tree fly towards the sunset and viridian leaves.” So the order is red-red-green-yellow-green. Frank puts them in the a secret door opens into an even more secret subterranean dungeon.

Heres the highlights of the dungeon;

Belladonna finds a multitool that ‘makes her feel something similar to when Leswen found the blue robe/tome. This is hinting towards Belladonna being close to unlocking her secret class

Leswen, Belladonna, and Erindur go into a room with some barrels and a steel chest.  Erindur and Leswen try to see if the food in the barrels is poisoned (dwarves are immune to poison and Leswen is wearing a bracelet that makes her immune to poison), but the other barrel explodes. Belladonna escapes damage using uncanny dodge, but Leswen would have died if not for Erindur burning an inspiration to make an extra move to block most of the explosion from her, since he’s bulky enough to tank the damage, she would have died if he didn’t. Erindur unfortunately has some of his prized beard burnt off.

We find a room with thugs and the evil human guy who ran away from the outpost during session 4, the guy who threw Frank into jail and Monroe’s No.2. His name is Doorune by the way.

While 2 of the goons are killed outright, one runs away; Rocks and Leswen who are at the entrance of the door let him through, because he’s running away and they are pacifists. But Erindur, still cheesed at his beard being burned, kills the guy.

The group all piles on killing Doorune, but as he is dwindling to critically low health Frank does something unexpected and calls the battle to stop as Doorune falls to the ground.

Doorune, close to death, is trying to rip his helmet off, but it is padlocked on. He cannot talk because he doesn’t have a tongue.

Frank, Leswen and Belladonna all help Doorune - Frank tosses his weapon out of reach, Leswen pulls an arrow out of his helmets eye hole and heals him a bit, and Belladonna undoes the lock to get his helmet off. When it’s off we can see his head is deformed; dented in. 

Doorune smiles and dies. The DM tells us we fulfilled his wish of dying with his helmet removed.

Erindur picks up Doorunes weapon

Rocks: New toy for you, Dwarf Slayer?

Erindur: No... *positions Doorune to be sitting up with the weapon in his hands*

Rocks prays / does whatever the Middle Earth version of ‘final rights’ is over Doorunes body since they can’t bury him. The session closes.

[americansongwriter]

#erindurant #islands #albumreview #americansongwriter

[flyingmoonlight]

[dndwithsuperbestfriends]

SESSION 10

This will mostly have illustrations by me because Larkspurs player wasn’t involved because her side quest was a day ahead of us.

Now that Doorune is dead, we continue through the evil underground lair and explore a bit - we find a hatch that leads into the lake, some supply rooms with rotting foods, and a ladder that leads to a sewer grate of a street in Laketowns shipyard district. We keep this in mind for when we’ll have to leave later.

So after going through most of Monroe’s evil unground lair, we come to the secret room in the back that seems to be his evil underground office. He isn’t there, there's just a bunch of treasure and a mahogany desk. 

After the incident with the exploding the desk, Leswen, Erindur and Rocks stay in the hallway while Frank and Belladonna investigate the room.

While Belladonna looks around the treasure for Monroe’s shard, while Frank tries to figure out the desk. Turns our the desk is some kind of puzzle with mechanisms to unlock the drawers. He takes time to figure out; in the drawers there is nothing, except the top one has an unopened letter. 

He opens the letter, and inside there is only a calligraphed phrase;

W A S T E D 

“Knowledge is power.”

Suddenly, we hear clicks from the hallway walls and a bunch of explosions - it turns out the desk was a trigger to set off the self-destruct of the underground dungeon. Water begins rushing in through the collapsing walls.

It was a trap. Monroe knew the party was coming.

The party @#$%-ing books it. When we get to the hallway with the escape ladder, the water is at waist level. Frank grabs Belladonna and Erindur grabs Rocks because they are hobbits and too short for this water (also, Rock’s can’t swim. This will become a running gag) Frank swims no problem, but Leswen is swept under the water so he swims back for her and takes her to the ladder after dropping off Belladonna. He attempts to do the same with Erindur.

Attempts.

“NO ONE PICKS UP A DWARF.” Erindur shouts - his mouths foams a bit as he activates his slayer rage ability so he can angrily just march through the water instead of swim, he’s tall enough that the water is juuust at his sternum. Rocks, who is clinging to his back, just hopes that he doesn’t just carelessly throw them onto the ladder. (Spoiler: He totally does.)

When the party gets through the sewer gate, they realize the explosions weren’t limited to the underground lair. It was going throughout the entire shipyard district.

Also, there’s the sound of warhorn. Frank recognizes it because he has proficiency in shadow lore - it’s an Orc warhorn.

The mood of the party entirely is panicky - there’s explosions, people screaming, fire, and orcs. However, something about this situations resonates deeply within Rocks in particular, to them, something about this is hauntingly familiar.

They feel themself getting pulled within themself, but they shake it off for now, refusing to give into this haunting deja vu for now. They ground themself to reality by making an angry statement to the party instead.

Rocks: Monroe didn’t have to be like other hobbits, he didn’t have to be like humans; he didn’t ever have to be anyone but himself! But he shouldn’t be like Smaug! 

(Rocks and Leswen were both around during Smaugs temper tantrum destruction of Laketown, so both of them remember it quite clearly)

There’s a huge explosion and the party whips their heads and realize with horror when they see a large rising column of smoke that it had come from the college! All of Leswen’s colleagues, including Grypho, and the shards we’ve been collecting, were all there.

Rocks panics for a minute, freaking out that their family and their inn might have been targeted by Monroe also since who knows who they are, but Erindur assures them that he doesn’t see any smoke coming from that district. 

The party run in the direction of the college, but some docks collapse and form a rift in front of them so to continue they have to find a way past this large gap. No one has the skill to just jump it because it’s that wide, so we have to climb to the bottom and swim across, and climb back up.

Problem: Rocks, despite being from Laketown, can’t @#$%ing swim. Once again, they have be carried; Frank does it this time. 

So the party climbs down the dock, swims across, and climbs up the other docks. Erindur has trouble doing this because of the heavy armour he’s wearing, but manages to make it. Once they are all up there, Leswen watches as other inhabiotants of Laketown who’ve been caught in the crossfire struggle to repeat that the party had just done and she is conflicted.

As a healer, it is her nature to help people in need, it is instinctual for her to stay and help these people; but she manages to rationalize that she will ultimately save more people by continuing with the party, because most people from Laketown don’t have a problem swimming. 

(IRL the entire table looks at me with a look that just screamed “Except for you. Your character is the only Laketownian who can’t swim.”)

So they continue sprinting, and although they make it mostly out of the Shipyard district into the residential District, the party is split by a bunch of rubble falling, separating Leswen and Belladonna. 

Belladonna attemptsd to climb the mountain of rubble, but get’s stuck at the top. She fails a strength check and mentally curses herself for never doing pull ups so she’s stuck in the ‘hanging in there’ position holding a disjointed pole. The frustraton gives her a temporary shadow point.

Leswen has good rolls and manages to climb up the mountain of rubble and plucks the angry hobbit from her hanging spot and safely brings them both down to the other side where Frank, Rocks and Erindur are waiting for them.

They party makes it out of the district, but right before they get to the college they come across a group of civilians being waylaid by orcs and hobgoblins. The party rolls initiative.

The same haunting familiarity rolls over Rocks again - and this time, they give in. They collapse, and hallucinate themselves falling.

As they are falling down a void, they hear a song around them, and above them they can see a giant eye. It constantly shifts colour, but is focused on them. The song is ancient and cacophonous, but the one thing Rocks can focus on about the song is a single phrase;

“The First Theme.”

Rocks has been shown the first of three parts of the First Song that created Middle Earth. Because of how much a pacifist coward merciful hero Rocks has been, the Valar have deemed them worthy of their secret class - Herald of the Valar. This makes Rocks the first of the party to unlock their secret class, and the only one so far to do so without any prior hints.

However, once the song ends, Rocks is thrown into a flashback

And it becomes clear why the Orc attack on Laketown was so familiar

They see a village burning down - their original home in the shire, it was being raided by Orcs. Bravely, a Ranger had been felled trying to protect the village. 

A young Rocks was being told by their family to run away to safety - and they do so. They a bunch of other hobbit children escape into the Old Forest - but they are all picked off until only Rocks remains.

They flash foreword to when they had stumbled into the Barrow-Downs - a haunted area outside of The Shire. There, they come face-to-face with  a Barrow-Wight. 

(I do not own this image)

It had been this encounter specifically that terrified them so badly, that when combined with the trauma they just went through, they lost colour of their hair and eyes, and also their memories prior. (Marie Antoinette Syndrome)

Their memories are hazy from here, and the next thing they remember is somehow ending up in Bree, where they are found and adopted by Daralis and Harva, who who traveled to Bree for trading.

Although Rocks in unable to remember their birth name, or the names and faces of their family and friends, one thing does stick; they are a Stoor-Hobbit.

They go into another vision; but this time they are naked and looking at their reflection. Except their reflection is their true self; brown-haired and blue-eyed.

Rocks and their reflection reach out to each other, and then touch hands.

THE VISION ENDS

In real time only like six seconds passes and a wave of radiant energy pulses from Rocks into the immediate area. Although unconscious, Rocks’ white hair suddenly turns brown and slightly curlier, with only a few white streaks left. 

Leswen rushes over and pulls Rocks into her lap, putting a wet cloth on their forehead. She does a medicine check and finds that Rocks seems to have been suffering from a fever for a while, and they were pulsing energy she identifies as coming from the Valar. 

The fever and the Valar energy disapates and Rocks wakes up - now, their right eye is blue instead of grey.

“I j u s t s a w g o d.” Is what Rocks basically manages to stagger out, being very enthralled and disoriented.

“Sure you did buddy.” Leswen comforts, believing them to be delusional “Your hair changed.”

“I just learned a new song...“ Rocks says, standing up and picking up their shortsword that they dropped - and they begin singing The First Theme.

The First Theme works similar to the Mass Heal spell - it charges for two rounds, and them begins healing allies. It also exudes radiant energy.

The rest of the party don’t really pay attention to their Warden because they are still fighting Orcs and Hob Goblins, however, now that there’s another healer this means Leswen can now fight as well. She takes out a few hob goblins that try to attack her and Rocks, because they really don’t like this song.

The rest of combat is uneventful, but the party is successful.

The sessions ends here, but not before the party stares wide-eyed at Rocks, who doesn’t know that their appearance just drastically changed.

[dndwithsuperbestfriends]

(For the Laketown arc)

Rocks explaining their adopted human family to Erindur (formerly 'Arendir' I was spelling it wrong)

This is also basically me describing their family to the DM, who did not proofread the family history I gave him over a month ago

[dndwithsuperbestfriends]

Session 8 “We make a lot of Naruto references”

So after a Fellowship phase where we all biggered our brains and also muscles, we all return to the University of Laketown where we discuss helping Erindur taking back an untakable mountain, but in the months we’ve been gone The Evil Hobbit of Laketown Munroe has gone into hiding because the evidence has now put him wanted in the eyes of the law after years of weaseling his way out of legal trouble. The people of Laketown are in an uproar asking for his arrest for now it’s up to the party to find him, especially since he still has one of the shards.

(Also, during the Fellowship phase we forgot to pay King Thranduil after using the path on Mirkwood. Larkspur doesn’t get in trouble but her king does the whole “I’m not mad I’m just disappointed” and she glares at Belladonna who is now one of the richest people in Middle Earth)

The scholars tell us that the local gang, the Barrelers might be willing to help us if we can convince them.

Frank talks about how he is going to kill Munroe and all of the twisted murderhobo methods, but Rocks steps up and says they should spare him and allow the legal system to deal with him. The gear-turning noises bit is Franks players face IRL being like “Is this hobbit being #$%#ing serious right now”. 

Rocks goes into a monologue about how years ago a former adventurer of Laketown had once gone to the nearby forest after reports of a baby goblin messing with small game traps, and when they cornered it she pulled her bow back, but she stopped and assessed the situation to see it wasn’t a baby goblin at all, it was just a feral child. Then Rocks mumbles something, but claims that sometimes the answer isn’t violence, it’s mercy. 

Belladonna is constantly saying “So was it you?” but they don’t answer. Although this hilarious exchange does follow;

Male Elf Scholar: That is very profound story, for a child.

Rocks: ...Sir, I’m 30.

Male Elf Scholar: But you’re-

Rocks: I’m a Halfling

Male Elf Scholar: But you’re wearing shoes

I IRL look over at the DM and he says until my character stops wearing shoes they will continue to be mistaken as a human child. (Challenge accepted)

Leswen is reminded to use the ‘Drug Rock’ (code name for the Seeing Stone) to maybe find him, but her player rolls bad again so she basically OD’s and attracts the attention of everyone. The Scholars berate us for keeping the stone a secret, because the item lets the Dark Lord Sauron see us. However, Frank takes it and does a rhyme to find Munroe, and his player IRL gets like a NAT 20 so he see’s exactly where Munroe is; he has an subterranean secret base under the harbor district.

The Seeing Stone is put into a case and covered, Belladonna asks for it back but the elves say that it belongs to the elves and also it’s evil. She threatens to steal it and the party tells her to calm down.

Also we all forgot Grypho was there the whole time.

Two legendary elves, Elladan and Elrohir burst into the University and state that the shard they had was stolen and they need help. They take Larkspur since she knows her way around Mirkwood. And now she has her own side quest going on. All three of them Naruto run to Mirkwood.

Rocks tries to ask any of the scholars if they are going to help them get Munroe since they are now minus an elf, but because I IRL used the term ‘college nerd’ which was counted as saying in-game so the Male Elf Scholar feels insulted.

Male Elf Scholar: Oh? You’re calling me a nerd?! Didn’t I see you holding a sign outside of an inn a few weeks ago? *leaves the room in a huff* (Rocks had to learn Trader Savvy during the Fellowship phase so they worked in their families inn as customer service basically.)

So the main party starts towards the Barrelers territory. They pass Rocks families inn, but one of their moms, Daralis, see’s them and Rocks tries to rush them past but Daralis greets them anyways. They say their in a hurry, and continue after Rocks, being a terrible liar, is shushed by Erindur after they almost let is slip they are looking for shards.

So they talk to the Barrellers but they will only take two people to see their leaders. Rocks, the only one with proficiency in traditions and can roll for advantage with charisma, decided to take Frank because he is human.

They are taken to a warehouse with basically a maze, Frank tries to mark their way with this chalk he brought. But one of the barreler grunts sees him doing this.

Grunt: *takes the chalk from Frank* You can have this back when you leave!

(We make a bunch of school teacher jokes at this)

We see the Big Boss of the Barrellers and he’s this huge dude, like 6′5 and throwing full barrels with his bare hands and also no shirt. He and Frank are seemingly very similar.

Rocks is like ‘Hey I’m a Halfling Herald and this is a Human Warrior, we’re after Munroe, you in?’ and the Big Boss is in. The problem is he wants to talk about how he feels like his gang is doing all the work so he wants a 70-30 split instead of 50-50 with the Barellers taking the lions share. 

Rocks gets a nat 20 from advantage, and since they can double the proficiency bonus of persuasion they end up with a 30, so they get the Big Boss to agree to 50-50, so his gang will cause a riot/distraction while we sneak in and get Munroe

Frank gives the guy a map leading to Munroes base, and also makes a monologue about how indiscriminate and destructive fire is. However, this triggers the big boss because Smaugs attack was a mere seven years ago. 

Rocks and Frank leave, but Frank hangs back a little because he’s planning something, no one knows what though.

Session ends for us but LARKSPUR IS HAVING AN ADVENTURE ALSO

In her sidequest they make it to Mirkwood and Naruto run through the trees but they find a group being attacked by orcs. They save the group, but Elladan falls through the leaves onto his ass and Larkspur calls up “Are you okay?” Normally a three-story fall would grievously disfigure a man if it didn’t outright kill him but because of  elven bullshit magic he’s totally fine, just stunned.

A bunch of bats show up and attack the trio so they have to kill all of them (the bats are Saurons remote control drones eyes and ears) One of the bats turns into an attractive woman / vampire.

They defeat the bats, Larkspur gets a shit ton of experiance and their session ends. Of of the BAMF elves decides to write her a poem.