#the cauldron & kettle questing co.

[dungeonsandblorbos]

if i had a nickel for every time my PC's almost girlfriend got put into a magical coma and kidnapped by the BBEG for the purposes of some kind of nefarious magic ritual

i'd only have two nickels but it's weird that it's happened twice

[dungeonsandblorbos]

Campaign/Character Intro: The Cauldron & Kettle Questing Co. vs Chaos, feat. Jun Vyardes

Status: Completed System: DnD5e

About: This was my second campaign with my university TTRPG group (the same folks as The Orphic Uprising/Amazonomachy), and ran a full 69 sessions (nice) mostly during the COVID shutdowns. It was set in the world of Acquisitions, Incorporated, an actual play podcast by Penny Arcade based around the idea of classic adventuring parties but make it ~capitalism~, and primarily played out of the official Acquisitions, Inc. playbook, plus some additional homebrew expansions and a nice little extra homebrew arc on the end that introduced us to the incredible chaos of the D10,000 wild magic table. The story ended up going real hard on the queer found family vibes, and there were several story beats that made us all real emotional together, which was really cool to be able to do while we were all forced to play remotely because, ya know, pandemic.

Genres: Medieval fantasy, Corporate fantasy Rating: Teen General content warnings: strong language, mature humor, immature humor, drug and alcohol consumption, fantasy violence. Posts may not be tagged due to the generally mild nature of most of this campaign's content. Tags: #cauldron & kettle questing co., #jun vyardes, #tim and jun

story and character details under the cut

The Story Our story here began when our newly assembled party was mistaken for an established, experienced adventuring party and sent by Acq, Inc. to investigate a collapsed tunnel in Waterdeep, where we found a piece of a strange but powerful artifact with no clue as to its origins or where the rest of it was. There were a few hiccups, but we were ultimately successful, so as soon as we were done with that dungeon, we were sent down to Phandalin to take over an abandoned Acq, Inc. franchise location and investigate the disappearance of its old party.

There, we established The Cauldron & Kettle Questing Company (and The Cauldron & Kettle Cafe) and grew into quite the accomplished little Acq, Inc. subsidiary! We also began unravelling a dangerous conspiracy involving an eldritch-worshipping cult determined to open a rift in the universe to bring their gods to the material plane and destroy reality as we know it. No pressure for a bunch of newbie adventurers, right?

The Blorbos

I played Jun Vyardes (depicted above), a 30-year-old half-elf light cleric/bard. Having grown up the daughter of a traveling bard, she was great with change, but never learned how to put down roots. When she left Daddy Bard's side and devoted herself to Vestia, a human goddess of domestic fires and revelry, she thought she'd found her home. For some time, she really was content there—but the road still called to her, so with her goddess's blessing, she set out on a new adventure, and joined Acq, Inc. It only took her a few months of questing with her new party that for her, home would never be a place—it always had been and always would be the people she loved. Jun was fiercely devoted to her friends, hyping them up as often as she sassed them. She had some killer recipes for fantasy edibles, played a mean fiddle, and was a talented firedancer. And despite being a cleric, she had the worst Religion bonus of the entire party because she never actually went to any kind of school thanks to the whole "travelling bard childhood" thing. She was technically supposed to be support in combat, but she wore medium armor and could throw fireballs and figured it would be easier to help her friends while fighting right next to them, so she very often rushed in first. And that only got her nearly killed like, three times, so it's fine. It's totally fine. Jun is fine.

The other key members of the Cauldron & Kettle Questing Co. were Tim Cobbletoss, a mild-mannered half-orc barbarian raised by halflings and Jun's half-brother, played by my lovely husband @somethingclevermahogony; Taku, a whooping crane aaracokra and path of the four elements monk who hit like a tank but couldn't take hits himself, played by the fantastic @ostrich-runner; and Briny, a perky not-goblin-anymore bloodhunter who loved learning new things, their friends, the sea, and gambling, although they didn't actually really know how to gamble.

We also had our own B-team of NPCs, consisting of Gorkow the goblin with a massive sword he called his "butter knife"; Noriel the wet cat mandolin-player; Min the messenger; Susan, the oddly intelligent ogre; and Susan's two very fluffy dire wolves. Other recurring favorite NPCs included Jun's totally not girlfriend, Eleni; Jun and Tim's father, Girasol Vyardes; Taku's baby siblings Tela and Teleku; Tim's favorite erotica romance author, Dorkas Nimblewood; and our beloved Tea Trolley, a steam-powered vehicle shaped like a teapot that we used as a battering ram in multiple combat encounters.

[dungeonsandblorbos]

Characterization through Quotes Tag

thank you for the tag @illarian-rambling! 💬

My prompt is: A quote about punishment Your prompt is: A quote about forgiveness

Cerris: Well, you know what they say: No good deed goes unpunished. S'pose it's lucky I'm a bit of a masochist then, huh?

Ariel: Sitting here now, in this dingy little tavern, homeless, country-less, friendless, I am possessed by a strange desire to reflect on my life. And though I am loath to admit it, it is perhaps easy to see how I have come to this low point: The accusations against me are a punishment for my hubris. Just as they have punished humanity for our ancestors' misuse of magic, so too have the Holies punished me for daring to think that I, the youngest son of a mere hidalgo, had any place in a royal court. I upset the natural order. I inserted myself where I did not belong and ruined the dignity of many, and I have damned myself in the process. I do indeed deserve the Grandest's wrath and punishments, and I will spend what days I have left in repentance for my many sins. Ja, ¡imagínate! It is a good line to use if I am found, at least. Perhaps if I deliver it pathetically enough, I can garner enough pity to avoid the the axe.

Jun: My dad and I have a . . . strange relationship. Usually it's a parent's responsibility to punish their child for misbehaving and try to help them grow up into a good person, but frankly I feel like Tim and I are the ones punishing Dad for all his reckless negligence and trying to help him grow up. And honestly? It feels great telling him off after all these years. The best part is that I think we're getting through to him—fifty whatever years old and he's finally starting to act like an adult.

Nina: When we went to the Underworld, it was weird. All these dead people just milling about doing nothing at all until all of a sudden you'd run into someone facing some horrible eternal punishment. Most of the time they were big enough dicks that they kinda deserved it, but other times? Like all those daughters of whatever his name was, who were supposed to try to fill a big bowl full of holes with water? That was bullshit. I'm glad we were able to help them.

i'll leave this one an open tag too for anyone who wants to play!

[dungeonsandblorbos]

Storytime: Improvised Siege Teapot

so, for our Acquisitions, Inc., our franchise location has an attached tea shop called the Cauldron & Kettle Café, right? when we reached the franchise level that gave us a free vehicle, we obviously had to have our modron gnome mechanics make us a steam-powered car shaped like a giant teapot, which we dubbed the Tea Trolley and have used like a food truck before

anyways because the final boss fight is kinda far away, we take the Tea Trolley there because it's fast. when we arrive, we are confronted with a mass of enemies (mostly gnolls) guarding the area where we assume the BBEG is hanging out. like, we're talking approximately 20 hyena-folk split into packs of four or five each, plus about 8 or so bugbears.

we are a party of four, including one very squishy aarakocra elementalist monk (Taku) and one somewhat squishy half-elf light cleric/bard (me) who routinely puts herself in grave danger to keep said monk from dying—which means that actually fighting all of these fuckers would be a Very Bad Idea, even if we somehow managed to only be fighting one pack of gnolls at a time

so instead of fighting them, we spent literally an hour debating the best way to take care of them with minimal injury and spell slot usage. eventually, we settled on this multi-step plan:

1. cut down a tree and strip it of its greens 2. put the tree through the windows of the Tea Trolley, like so:

3. affix torches to the ends of the tree and light them on fire 4. have my cleric/bard Jun play intimidating music on her fiddle as loudly as possible to attract the enemies' attention and get them all grouped together like bowling pins 5. throw a bong bomb [smoke bomb stuffed with fantasy weed] at the closest gnolls to give them super disadvantage 6. drive fullspeed at the gnolls and bugbears to drive over/clothesline/light on fire as many of them as possible 7. profit?

our DM's response was simply "this is actually a good idea disguised as a bad idea."

and so it was. because despite us very loudly announcing our presence, our first hit with the improvised siege teapot counted as a surprise round because none of the enemies knew how to react to the awesome sight in front of them

we hit a good half-dozen gnolls in one go. it does 4d10 bludgeoning + 2d6 fire damage and one-hit KOs all of them except the one that managed to save. Taku gets to take his turn while this is happening, so that one poor fucker just barely dodges the on fire log, then takes 20 damage from Taku’s backswing and dies. our DM says, "this is the stupidest combat i’ve ever done and i’m so here for it." we keep chugging on, and murder a good 3/4ths of them before our trolley takes too much damage to keep going (accomplished by some gnolls stealing our tires) and we have to get out and fight the rest of them the old fashioned way

while this has been happening, by the way, our DM has been playing an incredible siege teapot soundtrack, which includes such hits as a trap remix of the thomas the tank engine theme song, a song called "hit and run," "wrecking ball," "crazy train," and the song from the to be continued meme

truly, a beautiful fight scene.

[dungeonsandblorbos]

Campaign Intros: Acquisitions, Incorporated

Acq, Inc. is a 5e campaign that my husband and i play with more or less the same group as the Amazonomachy (unfortunately one of our players had to drop out after the pandemic struck). we're currently 68 sessions in, and should be wrapping it up in another one or two sessions!

i finally learned how to take good, exceptionally thorough and useful notes, and because we're still playing it, i actually have decent memory of it too! so look forward to detailed story times and lots of memes

~anyway~

the setting

the first part of this story is played out of the Acquisitions, Inc. adventure book, which is based on an actual play podcast of the same name made by Penny Arcade. none of us players have listened to it, so if you're confused, you're not alone! and you really won't miss much by not being familiar with the origin story, as our DM did a good job adapting it for an unfamiliar player group

the two main things you need to know are: 1. a while back there was this big wild magic explosion that caused some chaos and transformed some goblins into a new race, called the Verdan, who are a lot like goblins but taller and smarter and slightly magical 2. there's an adventuring organization called Acquisitions, Inc., which is based in Waterdeep but has smaller franchises scattered around the continent and staffed by smaller, less important adventuring parties. our PCs make up one such party, based in Phandalin. we pay monthly dues and licensing fees in exchange for the HQ paying our employees for us, granting us access to cool gadgets and a treasure trove of information, and lending us the brand name recognition. in addition to our class, we also have a job title that gives us special additional proficiencies, equipment, and abilities. also, we opened up a tea shop (called the Cauldron & Kettle Cafe) at our base to earn a little extra money and help keep up our reputation with the locals. Tim hosts a book club there, and is responsible for the tea blends and recipes it uses. he also designed the menu

the party Cauldron & Kettle Questing Company

Jun Vyardes: my PC! you know her, you met her here. a half-elf light cleric/bard and the party's secretarian, a position which specializes in PR and marketing. serves Vestia, a human goddess of domestic fires and revelry. committed to justice, her goddess, and her friends. so really it's kind of funny that she ended up working for such an absurdly capitalist company. dies her red hair darker so it doesn't look quite so much like her father's

Tim Cobbletoss (born Thokk): my husband's PC! a half-orc barbarian and the party's cartographer, a position that specializes in mapmaking and navigation. he was mostly raised by halflings, which means he has the personality of an old english grandma, just with some minor anger issues and major daddy issues. Jun's half-brother; they share a human father who is an absolutely terrible parent. like Jun, a redhead. family-oriented and very much a romantic. also, very tired. he's a very talented carpenter and woodworker, and wields a hammer named Bonk

Taku: a whooping crane aaracokra and path of the four elements monk. (yes that is a stupidly powerful combination but tbh his super squishiness balances it out. he's been knocked unconscious so many times and even literally died once—it's amazing he isn't constantly concussed!) started as our party's loremonger, but switched partway through to our documancer, a position specializing in contracts and legal mumbo jumbo. a responsible and independent bird who left his family because they wouldn't accept him for who he was (a boy). he's smart and earnest and precious and if anything irrevocable happened to him, Jun would go on a wild revenge spree and then immediately self-destruct

Briny: a Verdan Bloodhunter, and the party's hoardsperson, a position specializing in keeping track of and carrying all of the party's loot. a very sweet and naive little gremlin who's a bit of a personality sponge. loves learning new things, their friends, the sea, and gambling, although they don't actually really know how to gamble. has a stash of seashells that they like giving out as presents. also very precious and must be protected at all costs

Gallus: a half-elf rogue and the party's occultant, a position specializing in being edgy and keeping tally of the party's karmic rating. moody and reserved and wary, and naturally another precious boy we must protect. unfortunately, was reassigned to a different branch partway through the campaign (as his player was no longer able to participate)

important NPCs

Girasol Vyardes: aka Daddy Bard—Jun and Tim's father. a redhead. born to a noble family in Amn, his full name is Girasol Agusto Raúl Maximo Narciso Vyardes Corazón de la Verga, but he hasn't gone by that for quite some time. a wandering, philandering, incredibly vain and hedonistic man, he's unfortunately a talented musician, poet, and fencer, blessed (or perhaps cursed) with a silver tongue. despite his flaws and shitty parenting, he genuinely does love Jun in his own way, and wishes he could have been a better father to Tim—when he even remembers that Tim exists, that is

Lidda Cobbletoss: Tim's adoptive mother. a sweet, blind halfling woman who raised Tim with all the love and devotion and good humor he deserved from a parent. has an elderly tuxedo cat named Hank

Tela and Teleku: Taku's baby twin siblings! they heard about how cool and rebellious their older brother was and also didn't really get along with their conservative parents, so they ran away to try to find Taku—and succeeded! Tela is a girl and hatched first. she's more assertive and energetic, and has been learning how to fight to protect Teleku. she also learned fire stance from Taku's monk friends! Teleku is a boy and hatched second. he's shy and chill and smart, and learned water stance. Jun immediately adopts them as her own baby siblings and, like a good big sister, shows off her own fire magic to them, helps Briny teach them about gambling, and regales them with wildly exaggerated (and sanitized) tales from the party's adventures, which Tela believes whole-heartedly

Gildna Dunn: a timid half-orc woman who serves as the Cauldron & Kettle's major domo (administrative assistant). she also served as its previous inhabitants' major domo

Gorkow: a little goblin friend we picked up along the way of our earliest adventure and hired on as help for the tea shop. he has a giant sword covered in bones that he refers to as his "butter knife"

Minghee "Min" Graywind: an adventurous young human woman we hired to run messages, errands, and trades for us. her mom runs the general store in Phandalin, and does not like that we hired her

Noriel: a sad sap of a mandolin-playing minstrel (aka bard). we took pity on him and ended up hiring him on to help Jun advertise the Cauldron & Kettle's services. eventually, together with Gorkow, Min, and Susan and her dogs, forms our party's B Team

Susan: an unusually intelligent ogre woman who has two big fluffy dire wolves. we hired her on for security gigs, especially helping Min stay safe on the road, and let her and her dogs live in our basement

Ol' Fivesides and company: a crew of modrons gnomes we hired on as engineers and maintenance crew. they made us some automaton training dummies/security bots and a steam-powered tea trolley shaped like a teapot. they're mostly metallic orbs with spindly arms and wings, lead by a cube named Ol' Fivesides who wears a large tricorn hat and an eyepatch; despite their appearance, they insist that they're all just very mechanically minded gnomes. they're a little creepy but they've got the right spirit

Ken: a half-orc, half-ogre, and very sweet spirit, bless his heart. huge—over seven feet tall and about four feet wide at the shoulders. Briny is enamored with how tall he is, and Ken is enamored with how small Briny is, and so they immediately became friends. a talented cook, though his presentation could use some work. the winner of a cooking competition we hosted to find a new chef for the Cauldron & Kettle Cafe

Dorkas Nimblewood: Tim's favorite author. we never actually meet her, but she's nonetheless a very important part of this campaign's lore. she's the genius behind such classic erotic love stories as My Kingdom of Thirst, Beards and Beer: Dripping Ale and Dwarven Daddies, and her newest project, Dancing with Dragons: Domination in the Lair

the plot . . . hook

mistaken for an experienced adventuring group, the five of us were called into investigate a collapsed tunnel in Waterdeep while working as interns for Acq, Inc. in doing so, we found a mysterious but powerful magical object, which seemed to be merely a piece of a larger, even more powerful object. afterwards, we were sent to Phandalin to take over an abandoned Acq, Inc. franchise location and investigate the disappearance of its old party

in time, we began unravelling a dangerous conspiracy—an evil organization called the Six was trying to find all the pieces of a magical orrery and use it to open a rift in the universe to welcome their gods (read: horrible eldritch monsters of the outer realms) to the material plane, and probably bring about the end of everything in the process. and it just so happens that the mysterious but powerful object we found in the collapsed tunnel in Waterdeep was a piece of said orrery

thus began a race against the Six to steal all the pieces of the orrery first and save the universe. no pressure for a few newbie adventurers, right?

[dungeonsandblorbos]

Hello and Welcome to D&B!

hi folks! amidst all the housekeeping i've been doing, it felt like a good time to introduce myself again and make a new pinned post.

about me

my main blog is @persnickety-peahen, so that's where all my follows will come from. i'm in my mid-twenties, happily married, queer, and neurodivergent. you can call me C or any variation of either of my blog names, and i use they/she pronouns.

some of my favorite non-writing activities include listening to podcasts, baking, taking wiki walks, and playing Stardew Valley. lately i've also started teaching myself how to do pixel art because i have reached the level of blorbo hyperfixation that i physically needed to have a new artistic outlet, and pixel art is both really cool and a lot easier for me to actually do as an aphantasiac* than other digital art mediums.

*i have aphantasia, a neurological condition characterized by the inability to produce voluntary mental images; in simpler words, i have no mind's eye. this has significant impacts on diverse areas of my life, especially my autobiographical memory and spatial reasoning, as well as how i perceive and interact with art and literature.

about D&B

i've been enamored with writing from childhood, but since university, a lot of that energy has gotten channeled into TTRPGs instead. hence this sideblog merging the two!

right now, dungeonsandblorbos is mostly where i reblog things from the wider writblr, whumpblr, and TTRPG communities (including pretty dice!), but i'd like to start being more active on here this year. original content includes stories from my big four campaigns (more on those below the cut), out of context session notes, and other kinds of mentally ill blorbo-posting. someday i might even get around to posting some of my pixel art or an actual narrative recap of one of my campaigns!

i'm tag-game friendly, and my ask box is always open, so please feel free to send me asks about any of my characters or campaigns, D&D/TTRPGs in general, or even about aphantasia and how that affects my writing and TTRPG experience!

current ask games

not-so-nice ask game (has some whump vibes) red ask game (real mixed bag; some cute questions, some mildly violent ones, you know how it is)

to keep this post from getting too long, i've put my story/campaign info and additional notes under the cut. thanks for coming by!

my stories/campaigns

Ruins of Runet Status: Temporary hiatus System: D&D5e, homebrew setting Tags: #ruins of runet, #ariel sentera alvedes Short premise: Six hundred years after its sudden disappearance caused a worldwide societal collapse, Magic has returned to the world of Runet. The gods, however, are still gone. Several powerful factions have promised great rewards to any party that can successfully uncover the truth behind Runet's new magic, and help them claim its power for themselves—but perhaps there's a good reason that magic disappeared in the first place. Genres: Medieval fantasy, Existential horror, Eldritch horror Rating: Mature General content warnings: strong language, mature humor, immature humor, alcohol consumption, some sexual themes, some religious themes, fantasy violence, blood and gore, body horror, major character death. Posts will be individually tagged with any relevant warnings. Full campaign and character intro: link

Curse of Strahd (homebrewed) Status: Indefinite hiatus System: D&D5e, Curse of Strahd playbook + a metric shit ton of homebrew Tags: #curse of strahd homebrew, #cerris dalca, #meow meow milo, #dos holy boys, #cos memes, narrative tag TK Short premise: The once-prosperous valley nation of Barovia has been trapped in the Shadowfell for roughly the past 400 years, and its immortal king Strahd von Zarovich cursed with it. For now, at least. He believes he's found a loophole—and the perfect party of would-be heroes to unwittingly help him. Genres: Medieval fantasy, Gothic horror Rating: Explicit General content warnings: strong language, mature humor, drug and alcohol consumption, some sexual themes, some religious themes, fantasy violence, blood and gore, body horror, child endangerment, unintentional cannibalism, and oh my god so much more. Posts will be individually tagged with any relevant warnings. Full campaign and character intro: link

Cauldron & Kettle Questing Company Status: Completed System: D&D5e, Acquisitions, Inc. playbook + a bit of homebrew Tags: #cauldron & kettle questing co., #jun vyardes, #jun and tim Short premise: Acquisitions, Inc., is a wildly profitable adventuring company with a long track record of success, both at its main branch and across its many subsidiary locations. Sure, sometimes they mistake a group of newbie interns for an experienced party and set them on a quest to stop a chaos-worshipping cult hell-bent on tearing a rift in reality and destroying the universe as we know it, but hey, as long as they get the job done, who cares, right? Maybe they'll even get a raise out of it. Genres: Medieval fantasy, Corporate fantasy Rating: Teen General content warnings: strong language, mature humor, immature humor, drug and alcohol consumption, fantasy violence. Posts may not be tagged due to the generally mild nature of most of this campaign's content. Full campaign and character intro: link

The Orphic Uprising and The Amazonomachy Status: Completed System: Cypher, setting based on Percy Jackson series Tags: #confusion crew, #nina grayson Short premise: After a simple game of Capture the Flag at Camp Half-Blood goes horribly wrong, a ragtag group of demigods are called upon to save Olympus—and more importantly, their loved ones. Genres: Urban fantasy, YA Rating: Teen General content warnings: strong language, mature humor, immature humor, fantasy violence, teenage protagonists, second-hand embarrassment. Posts may not be tagged due to the generally mild nature of most of this campaign's content. Full campaign and character intro: link

housekeeping/additional notes

if you'd like to be added to my list of people i @ for tag games, please interact with this post: i'm back bitches (friendly)! link

if you'd like to be tagged in posts related to one or more of the above campaigns or characters, please let me know in a comment on this post or the relevant intro post, or by sending me a message!

if you are a player or DM from one or more of my big four campaigns, hello and happy to see you!! please bother me as much as you like and send me a message letting me know so i can follow you and stay connected!

i may periodically update this post; e.g., updating links for active ask games, updating the rating and content warnings for active campaigns, or adding links for new campaign info posts; so feel free to check it every few months :)

[dungeonsandblorbos]

Meet the Blorbos: Juniper "Jun" Vyardes

this time, it's my first actual DnD character, half-elf cleric/bard Jun Vyardes!

made my senior year of college for an Aquisitions Incorporated campaign with the same group as the Cypher PJO campaign, Jun was designed in collaboration with my then boyfriend (now husband). while we were originally thinking of making our characters exes, we eventually came to the conclusion that no, it would be way funnier if my half-elf cleric and his half-orc barbarian were long-separated half-siblings with lots of baggage on account of their shared human father (a bard, of course) being a terrible father

i am happy to report that they got over it within three months of working together for a dubiously helpful adventuring corporation, and are now best friends who ganged up on Daddy Bard when he suddenly appeared in their lives again expecting everything to be fine

fiercely devoted to her friends and committed to justice, Jun will also remind you that her patron is, in fact, a party goddess, so it's not like she doesn't know how to have fun. indeed, she plays a mean fiddle and has a few killer edible recipes, and her sass knows no bounds. real big sister energy tbh

growing up the daughter of a traveling bard, she's great with change, but never learned how to put down roots. when she left Daddy Bard's side and devoted herself to Vestia, a human goddess of domestic fires and revelry, she thought she'd found her home. for some time, she really was content there—but the road still called to her, and she prayed for wisdom. Vestia answered by granting her powers and sending her out into the world to do good deeds. eventually, this quest led her to Acquisitions Incorporated, where her take charge and go first attitude quickly got her into danger

you'd think getting a year's experience of adventuring would teach her to stand back a bit and let the martials hit the enemies up close while she does support magic and fire spells from afar, but being so far away makes it hard to protect her teammates. and it only took her a couple of months to realize that these teammates—along with her one true love Eleni, a fellow devotee of Vestia—were exactly the home she had always been searching for. she's not about to let anyone die on her, whatever it takes