#then a little later they end up trapped in the underdark

[mercymaker]

reblogging this again because technically this is the aftermath of that little scene i put together for these bloody pics

me having a normal one today

[greyias]

A Fond Farewell to Act 1

After dithering about a fashion faux pas most unfortunate, and with nothing else to do on all of the maps, it is finally time for me to bid a fond farewell to Act 1 of Baldur’s Gate 3, and via the Mountain Pass head into the uncertain transition stage to Act 2 (and presumably the consequences of my actions).

But before I go. A moment. To reflect on my favorite memories in this journey so far:

Alfira’s song and The Harpy Rock Concert

Aravyn chickening out of lying to an evil mirror, Astarion shoving her aside to show her how its done, only to fail so spectacularly on every single conversation check the mirror spits out a giant orb of molten death that starts chasing us around the room spewing deadly AOEs as I loudly scream “OH NO OH NO OH NO OH NO WHY CANT WE TARGET IT OH NO” and the entire party flees for their life, nearly locking Astarion in the cellar with the death orb he summoned

The Glitterbomb/Musical Mini-Heist

Best Quasit Girl

Ari seeing giant claw marks a dragon very obviously gouged into stone, failing her intelligence check, and then proudly declaring it the artistic statement of some mysterious person

Gale nearly dying from a concussion because I decided to put off taking a long rest and instead do a little lute concert tour around the Druid Grove, and one NPC loved it so much he enthusiastically hurled his tip of a single gold piece in the direction of my singing paladin — and straight into Gale’s skull and taking off 6 of his precious few remaining HP 

Discovering the mighty cow summon spells 

Operation War Drum

My dumbass Paladin talking to Minthara, and winning every single persuasion check, so that she entered into a conversation to very earnestly insist that this random forest is where the secret Druid Grove is, and have Minthara scream in frustration that they already checked there and to go FIND IT, only for us to return five seconds later and say that we totes got the real location this time and point to the same spot on the map. About five time in a row.

Halsin getting the whole party stuck in eternal combat for no other reason than he was a bear, and apparently the game took that personally

That time Astarion gleefully informed Aravyn she was unfuckable, only for a full 24 hours later to decide that he was actually jealous that she considered Gale prettier than him (but also approved of this??), and basically yelled out “CHALLENGE ACCEPTED” before flouncing off

The entirety of the Auntie Ethel adventure freaking me (the player) out so much I, the notorious loot goblin, refused to touch ANY food or beverage in the entire cursed swamp even after finishing all of the quests and clearing the area

Nearly blowing up a dwarf trapped in a field of flammable mushrooms, and somehow both he and the valuable quest item miraculously survived. Only for my dumbass Paladin to eat the quest item mid-battle for no reason at all, and me not realizing until twenty hours of gameplay in that I’ve doomed the dwarf and his unpleasant wife to a life of destitution and also preventing one of my companions from regaining precious lost memories.

Getting a TPK several times in a row from the giant landshark in the Underdark, before finally beating it with actual tactical smarts. Only to revive it with a temporary NPC ally as a spawn so it could help us in fights because we are smart and tactical now. And then forgetting to dismiss it after the temporary NPC ally turned against us, only to return to the same area several hours later where we once again nearly died to the now undead manifestation of our hubris

Smiling and waving at whoever is on the end of those scrying eyes like we’re in some sort of beauty pageant 

100 Foot Sharran Walkway of Doom

Rolling a nat 1 on a wisdom save after picking up a cursed locket

Robo-Hugs

I will never forget you Act 1. We laughed. We cried. Made many poor life decisions that I’m sure are going to come back and bite me in the ass very soon. But for now, we must march onwards into the unknown, where I’m sure Ari and the Tadfools will probably almost blow up the multiverse or something, at the rate they’re going.

[loquaciousquark]

15, 24, 30 for the Tav asks?

15. What motivates your Tav to either embrace or resist the tadpole?

She...well, she never quite embraces it, but she does lean into its power at first! While the idea of having a leech in her brain is horrifying, and she's deathly afraid of the pain of ceremorphosis, she's also extremely used to a narrow view of her own survival. She hasn't looked more than a day or two down the road in over a decade, so it's very much a "if this helps me survive this moment right now, I'll do it happily and deal with the fallout later" thing. She's also half-convinced the prism will fail and the worm will take her any moment regardless, so why not snatch up what she can get? She's going to die any moment anyway; might as well go out knowing she did everything she could to stay alive beforehand.

However, after Myrkul & the early stuff in Act 3, she suddenly starts wondering if they might be able to get rid of these things after all. If she might actually have some kind of future possible after the Absolute and Cazador and everything else. If that's really on the table, she wants to be present for it and not a dribbling husk, so she stops feeding the parasite. She does use what she's got, though, and post-game she does faintly miss exploding people with her mind.

24. What first impression does your Tav give off to strangers?

When she's just been orphaned, she's one of those big dewy-eyed tearful kids they use in those horrible fundraising Sarah McLachlan ads. That doesn't last long, however, as she learns how to avoid being noticed in the first place. If she's actually seen, she's usually just looking hunted and desperate as she tries to extricate herself.

Post-game, once she's become better at interacting with speech and honesty and open exchange of ideas rather than petty theft, I think she's much more comfortable being seen in day-to-day life and going to social events where part of the goal is to be perceived. As she and Astarion travel around the continent, I think they play games like "let's pretend to be minor royalty in this new city and see how many balls we can get invited to before they throw us out."

She was brought up well before her parents died, so she's not going to make major crass faux-pas; instead, she's friendly and conversational, but she always has a touch of distance in her eyes. An invisible wall, a little - disdain isn't quite the right word, but a little - impersonal arrogance, maybe. She's with you, but she's not one of you - she's seen things you can't dream of, and she doesn't really mind if you feel it. I think it's more pronounced the more expensive the society is, for whatever that's worth. She certainly feels more at home in the gutter, even if she'd die before going back there again.

30. What are your Tav’s intentions/goals after the end of the game?

Get Astarion his ring, first and foremost. Once that's settled, they travel everywhere they can get passage. They've both been trapped in Baldur's Gate for so long, even if their raw years are disparately dispensed, and she wants to see everything the world's been hiding from her! The Underdark, the City of Splendors, Calimshan deserts, the Moonshae Isles, Evermeet, Marsember (the City of Spices! it sounds so beautiful until they get there and it's all misty swamp and haunted bogs), Cormyr - beaches! (which they both hate because it's TOO SUNNY and TOO SANDY) - basically anywhere they can get a portal or a road to. They're not hoofing through the woods anymore if they can help it.

I do think Tav splits the money among the companions left behind (so no shares to Wyll, Karlach, or Lae'zel directly, though she takes out some accounts at the Counting House for them and starts accruing interest in their names), and she uses her connections with the Counting House & the Thieves' Guild to start building some portfolios of her own. She never wants to be in a place where she has to think about money ever again. (I think she carries letters back and forth from Wyll to his dad, & Wyll gets his dad to get her in touch with one of the city's trustworthy financiers to help her get all this started.)

Between all that they visit Lae'zel in the Astral Sea for like a week, and when they come back both of them are like, "WELL that was fun let's never do THAT again," but they do visit Karlach and Wyll in Avernus quite often! I think they bully Helsik into opening the portal for them the first several times, but they don't like being dependent on her or the location, so they steal a very hefty supply of the rare materials (esp. the infernal marble) and a copy of the exact rites, along with contact info for more supplies in future, and they repurpose one of the portals in the House of Hope to open to Gale's tower in Waterdeep. (I don't think they tell him ahead of time.)

At some point they figure out how to extend Tav's life, but that's way down the road. Also I think she starts a Thieves' Guild with the tiefling kids that's secretly an orphanage/pipeline into gainful employment.

[ankoku-teion]

Dioraden: Nations - Lakhessa

The kingdom of Lakhessa is the successor to the realm of Vitessa. Near the end of the 5th age the Underdark and its residents chose to reconnect with the material plane. One of the first to do so was a Drow Necromancer called Lakhessi, in the year 962.

Prior to Lakhessi’s arrival, Vitessa was ruled by a dark magician who enslaved many creatures to be his labour force, most notably the Orcs and Goblins (See the entry on Vitessa for more information).

In the year 964 the dread necromancer Lakhessi arrived in the southern border region with her small horde of undead. The border between Vitessa and Ebrela had always been a vague one, the line on the map more of a suggestion than a fact. Many clans lived in that border region, evading enslavement from the north and death from the south, and serving as a useful buffer from invasion in either direction. rather than continue to the north Lakhessa began to meet with various warlords and clan chiefs, most notably Rorq Bone-crusher, the young war-chief of the Iron Tooth orc clan, at the time the strongest of the 7 orc clans in the region. Rorq became her chief general and trusted advisor, as well as the great-chief of the Yedish Mafiko, the confederation of the 7 orcish tribes.

Her other generals were similarly the leaders of tribes or confederations with whom she forged various pacts. Zurkidal, the Hobgoblin Warlord, Barnak, the bugbear Boss of the White Stone clan, and head of the Pact of 3 (an alliance between the 3 mixed-race clans near the coast), and the goblins Wrogz and Droq, of the Hill Clans and HornFoot tribe, respectively. (the first being a confederation of inter-related goblin tribes living in the foothills to the east, the second being a large and powerful tribe of goblins living in the mountains proper, ostracised by the other groups for their cannibalism and brutality.)

The forging of this great alliance took another 2 years and a great deal of negotiating to settle a thousand squabbles between the many clans. When, in the year 966, they were at last ready to go to war, the word was sent out to every slave in the kingdom, “war is coming, freedom is coming, your brothers are coming.” On the same day that the allied clans made their first attack, eleven separate slave revolts broke out across Vitessa. The Battle of Southwall, the first engagement of the war, ended with only 10 deaths. most of the slaves abandoned their work and joined Lakhessi’s army. the small force of warriors protecting the town were quickly subdued and all but one of them defected. Their leader was beheaded along with nine overseers, the bodies raised from the dead to march at the front of the army.

Every battle from there onwards bar the last followed a similar path. Before the battler the Lakhessan forces would offer clemency and freedom to all who did not fight. Most of the Vitessan forces would desert, and the rest would rebel. There was very little real fighting to be had.

the Battle of the Black Tower was a different matter. The tower was heavily fortified, the only true fortress in the entire kingdom. Its guards were not simple slaves, but Kull, brainwashed orcs that had been surgically and magically augmented. The battle was long and bloody, but after more than a week of battle the Kull were overrun by superior numbers and killed. The dark mage who had ruled was unceremoniously thrown from the ramparts and killed.

The entire war took only 3 months.

The Ebrelans took advantage of that time. Marching as far as they dared into the now largely abandoned border region. There they built a 200-mile-long border wall. Initially a simple palisade wall, but they quickly began to re-enforce it with spiked ditches, covered traps, and later, squat stone towers.

Buoyed up by their previous successes, the Lakhessan army marched south against the Ebrelans wall in order to reclaim their lost homes. This proved to be a far harder task than expected. the combined forces were not trained in the military tactics of a large-scale battle, relying instead on the simpler methods of inter-clan conflicts that they had used for generations, so-called hatchet wars. These  hatchet wars would usually involve 2 forces clashing and withdrawing repeatedly until one side it routed and flees, these conflicts would be short and relatively bloodless battles focused more on the honour of those fighting than on territorial gains or capturing prisoners.

This attitude carried over into the rebellion as the battles were mostly a show of strength with very little real conflict as the opposing forces would repeatedly break before the armies clashed. These battles did little in the way of providing real combat experience. The final conflict, the battle of Black Tower provided some limited experience of siege warfare but was incredibly one-sided with only 20 Krull against more than a thousand orcs and goblinoids.

The Ebrelan army on the other hand was a professional force with years of experience in both open battle and siege warfare. Their positions, increasingly heavily fortified and well-guarded by traps.

The first attempt on the wall came in 967. The Lakhessan army had collected around a small village by the name of Jandaq in the foothills of the blue mountains a days walk form the wall. This point was chosen for 2 reasons: 1) the thick forest cover meant a large force could approach the wall closer before being seen. 2) the difficult terrain had slowed construction, meaning the wall here was a simple wooden palisade with a ditch, rather than the larger stone walls further west.

the first charge consisted of 250 men, a mixed force of 80 White Fang Orcs and 30 Bugbears and 20 hobgoblins from the White Stone Clan and 120 goblins from assorted clans. much of this force was taken out by spiked pit traps before even reaching the wall and most of the bugbears were taken out by archers. Those forces that did reach the wall were brutally slaughtered by spearmen as they attempted to cross the trench, very few made it over the wall and those that did found themselves surrounded and outmatched. Of the 250 that set off, only 20 came back alive on the first day.

Over the coming month, every second day would see a fresh assault against the wall with new tactics, but always with a heavy death toll. The newly crowned Queen Lakhessa would raise the fallen as undead and add them to the next assault. Towards the end of the month a breach was at last made by bundling a skeletal goblin

she promised freedom to the enslaved races in exchange for loyalty, and with their help overthrew the old mage and installed herself as queen.

Under her Rule, the kingdom that now bares her name became a sanctuary for all those monstrous races that are oppressed by the Vathic faith. Many goblinoid and orcish clans live safely there under the condition that their dead belong to the Queen. Fields, mines and forges are all worked by the shuffling undead of those races, kept carefully under control.

[artemis-entreri]

Have we ever been given a good time frame for how long Entreri spent in the Underdark, and then the gap between that and when Jarlaxle moved to Calimsham? I always thought he spent a year or less trapped in Menzo, but sometimes it's mentioned as 'years.' And then, of course, we get little explanation on how/why/when Jarlaxle and the Crystal came to Calimsham.

[[ Hello there! Great question, it's been a while since I've read those books so please forgive me if I'm forgetting finer details like potential skip arounds in the timeline, but iirc those earlier books were pretty consistently all set within the same time for each book.

You're correct, Artemis did spend at most a year trapped in Menzo. When Regis left him to die at the end of The Legacy, that was in the year 1357 DR. Artemis reappears in the next book, Starless Night, which concludes with him leaving Menzo after forming a temporary truce with Drizzt and Catti-brie, and then going off on his own. Starless Night also takes place in 1357 DR.

Looking at the years of the books preceding and following these two cements that Artemis was in Menzo for at most a year. The events of the book after Starless Night, Siege of Darkness, are set in 1358 DR, and those of the book before The Legacy, The Halfling's Gem, are set in 1356-1357 DR. I suppose one could fudge the years a bit and make an argument for Artemis being trapped in Menzo since 1356 DR, but the timeline of the earlier books were pretty well-established, unlike the more recent books which don't even specify years most of the time, so I think the later books describing Artemis' time in Menzo as "years" is due to the good ol' Salvatore tendency to be inconsistent.

As for how/why/when Jarlaxle and Crenshinibon make their way to Calimport, the events of The Silent Blade covers it, but I can certainly understand if that coverage wasn’t satisfactory. To recap, and I apologize if I go over things you already know, Jarlaxle tricks Drizzt into giving him Crenshinibon by sending a doppleganger underling disguised as Cadderly Bonaduce to intercept Drizzt’s party as they were headed to the Spirit Soaring to seek out Cadderly in an effort to destroy the Crystal Shard. Iirc, there wasn’t a specific reason given for why Jarlaxle coveted the shard beyond the usual one of his fixation on collecting rare and powerful magical artifacts, plus he’d much rather see the artifact in someone’s possession (preferably his) than having it destroyed. 

Meanwhile, after wandering aimlessly for 7 years (another luxury of a specified time frame) following the loss of his sense of purpose and identity, Artemis arrives in Calimport without understanding why he brought himself there. Eventually, his path leads him to the murder of Pasha Basadoni. Jarlaxle has been looking for a way to carve out his own place on the (surface) world and saw Artemis as an opportunity that he could use, but Artemis was useless to him in his despondent state, so Jarlaxle stages that fight in  Crenshinibon between Artemis and Drizzt in which he orchestrates events to make Artemis believe that he successfully killed Drizzt in order to restore Artemis’ focus. And from there, the Sellswords Trilogy happens. 

So, we know that Jarlaxle comes to Calimport in 1364 DR, and unlike the more recent books, there’s actually a reasonable chain of logic explaining why that is the case. Jarlaxle does lose track of Artemis in those 7 years after Starless Night, and while Jarlaxle is portrayed to be able to find anything that he wants to, Artemis is one of the few people who can be his match, so if the assassin had his mind set on laying low and avoiding all things drow following his traumatic experiences in Menzo, it makes sense that he was able to totally elude Jarlaxle. Jarlaxle does pick up on Artemis’ return to Calimport very quickly despite Artemis not making substantial waves until the assassination of Basadoni, but this can be explained by Jarlaxle having been biding his time in those 7 years while stationing informants in locations that Artemis would most likely turn up in again. Besides, 7 years is not that much time at all for an elf. 

Given that Calimport was Artemis’ primary stomping grounds, Jarlaxle certainly would’ve had a lot of eyes and ears there peeled for any mentions of Artemis, so when Calimport’s criminal underworld went abuzz with rumors that the infamous assassin had returned, Jarlaxle most certainly would’ve investigated. 

Man, all of this is making me nostalgic for a time when things in these books made sense. Sure, they were never the pinnacle of literature, but I miss the days when we didn’t have to contort into pretzels to try to reconcile them with logic. :’)

I hope this helps! Please feel free to hit me up at any time. All in all, this was a really enjoyable exercise, and one that could be answered (thank the gods XD). ]]

[thehousepatron]

BG3 OCs and Lore (for later reference)

Vesz (Monk/Barbarian) (He/It)

Hoo boy he’s a heavy hitter and prefers to lash out with his bare hands. He’s resisting the dark urge but satisfies it through using his body in battle; clawing, biting, punching. During his turns, if he doesn’t get to rip something apart, his bloodlust can cause him to attack the nearest person (to begin with, he’s pretty dumb and doesn’t have a very good grasp on controlling himself).

As a Lolthsworn drow, he was raised in Arach Tinilith by the priestesses, who would NOT let him outside because mother superior kinda knew what he was. Male drow should definitely not be that big, and he’s got ambiguous genitalia, which gave him a leg up in the drow’s eyes. He got his top surgery in Melee Magthere because his tits were getting in the way, and (again because he’s a bhaalspawn) he had it done with little to no numbing, and got a taste for the pain. He’s heavily pierced and scarred, mainly decoratively - he has prayers to Lolth and her symbols scarified into his skin. In Arach Tinilith, he was trained as a monk, though due to his being mentally and partially physically male, he was not permitted to become a cleric of Lolth. It was through the loophole of him having partially female genitals that he was allowed to become a monk. He was kept at Arach Tinilith because mother superior saw him as an incredibly powerful asset, and he was only permitted to venture out of the upper tier and through Menzoberranzan on Bhaal’s business (ie, to see Ketheric and Gortash), but was never EVER given free reign. Think of him as Quasimodo, and mother superior as Frollo.

He has severe mummy issues, and doesn’t know what Orin’s problem is. He’s got the hots for Nere, but also develops quite a strong bond with Shadowheart (for their acolyte backgrounds, association with drow, memory loss and ties to the Underdark). Their M/M/F ship name is HolyMeatFailure.

He’s dirty af, messy af, and can’t tell his arse from his elbow (-2 INT).

Romancing Shadowheart.

Tam’lin Baenre (Gloomstalker Ranger) (He/Him)

Another drow of the Baenre family, and Minthara’s cousin, Tam’lin is an FTM Szarkai who was trained in Melee Magthere in Menzoberranzan. Despite being AFAB and a Szarkai, he was an illegitimate child, and was therefore treated quite harshly by the other Baenres. During his training at Melee Magthere, he formed a strong friendship with a young Kar’niss, whom he grew romantically attached to.

When Kar’niss mysteriously disappeared, it was around the same time that Tam’lin was ‘deployed’ on the surface to ‘infiltrate and eradicate’, however, having long abandoned Lolth, he legged it at the first opportunity, and became instead a folk hero known as the ‘Nightwatchman’, using the coin he made slaying monsters and fulfilling contracts to travel from place to place, searching for the lost Kar’niss, until he was taken from Baldur’s Gate by the Nautiloid. He isn’t romancing anyone, too consumed by his love for Kar’niss and grief for the fate that had befallen him.

He’s secretive and moody, though tender at heart. However during the end of act 1 / beginning of act 2, the second he reaches the underdark he reverts to his old self: the Ghost of Menzoberranzan - a cruel assassin of Melee Magthere, a true Szarkai. The environment forces him into a dissociative state of mind.

Angh’wyn (Warlock of the Twilight Court and Void Reaver) (He/Him)

An elf of the Shadar-Kai, Angh’wyn resided in the Shadowfell in the service of the Raven Queen. As a warlock, his patron is the Raven Queen herself, and he seeks to fulfil her needs, venturing into other planes to harvest the memories and emotions of those who suffer. As a void reaver, he also does the same; like an interdimensional pirate, he travels between worlds, ambushing and raiding for the Raven Queen.

Jealous of his success, when he opens a portal to Faerûn, a rival warlock seals his portal behind him, trapping him in the city of Baldur’s Gate. Initially, his goal is to return to the shadowfell and wreak bloody revenge on the one who sabotaged him, however the more time he spends among humans, elves and drow, the more invested in their lives and experiences he becomes, becoming passionate about helping the Seldarine drow escape the Lolthsworn and aiding their goddess Eilistraee. He starts to use his gifts for good, though still adheres to the Raven Queen’s tenets, harvesting emotions and memories, only he harvests them from his enemies instead of innocents, now.

He deals mainly psychic and psionic damage (something he learnt as a void reaver on the Astral Plane). He despises the Lolthsworn and abusers, and so builds up a strong rapport with Astarion, Gale, Karlach and Shadowheart. Whilst highly analytical and ‘robotic’ (he loses points with Karlach due to being unpredictable and kind of morally grey at times), Angh’wyn is also deeply curious and thirsts for knowledge and understanding (this is where he loses points with Shart for his endless questioning, but gains points with Gale).

Romancing Gale.

Yazdaer Mizzrym (Hexblade Warlock / Rogue Nightingale) (He/She/They)

Descendant of Pharaun Mizzrym, he trained at Sorcere and was, for all intents and purposes, a straight A student, until he grew smart enough to see straight through Lolth. He kept up appearances, though turned to Shar and began secretly working with the Zhentarim, entering the surface world through Waukeen’s Rest.

As both nightingale and hexblade, it’s clear who his patron is - Shar. Assassin, Thief and Arcane Trickster rolled into one, he changes his face as easily as he changes his clothes, walks in shadow, and thus his crimes are pretty much untraceable. He sees Shadowheart as a sister and Astarion as a brother, and is probably going to romance Wyll, though they’re not going to see eye to eye on a lot of things.

He’s a bit of a bastard, a burnt out gifted kid, HIGHLY secretive, and is too smart for his own good. He doesn’t trust easily.

He’s romancing Wyll.

Malhounnet Do’Urden (Circle of Spores Druid) (She/Her)

One of the last surviving descendants of House Do’Urden, Malhounnet is AMAB, and struggled in drow society, and not just because of the body she was born in; the fall of the Do’Urdens played a role in how she was seen, too - disgraced among Lolthsworn. She fled Menzoberranzan to avoid being captured and killed, and sought refuge in a Myconid Colony.

Her dream guardian, and view this how you wish, is Drizzt Do’Urden. Having heard stories of him, and also having idolised both Drizzt and Zaknafein, though wanting the body of Malice, her lineage is important to her, and she is proud to be a Do’Urden. It was because of Drizzt that she developed a love of nature, and longed to visit the surface. She wields two magic daggers, which she has even named Drizzt and Zaknafein.

Having lived with Myconids, though, she has also cultivated a deep knowledge of mycology, and is a dab hand at Alchemy and the art of mycomancy. She’s seen as a bit of an oddball, even among myconids, due to her ‘project’ - cruel as it may seem, because she was brought up in Menzoberranzan - she sought to attempt to fuse myconid spores with the bodies of still living duergar prisoners in an attempt to see if they would be able to communicate with one another like Myconids: since brains and mycelium are similar things, she attempted to genetically enhance the duergar - if it was a success, she would try it on herself.

However she was nabbed by the nautiloid and tadpoled, so now her interests have shifted towards examining psionic transference. She is less afraid of the tadpole, and more fascinated by everything it does.

Due to this, she’s romancing the Emperor.

Nathurra Agelenidae (Blood Sorcerer / Barbarian) (She/It)

Another Bhaalspawn, with even less control over their instincts. Like Vesz, she also has ambiguous genitalia, is much larger than the average drow, and has unnatural peepers. Without a family name, she was an urchin in Menzoberranzan, simply spawned there and abandoned. She evaded Arach Tinilith, and developed a taste for blood at a very young age. A feral child, who grew into a more or less feral adult.

She can’t speak very well, and tends to get angry when others can’t understand her, leading to a bloody aftermath. She has massive memory loss, but knows that she HATES her sister, Orin, more than anything else in the world. On the other hand, even though she doesn’t remember him after the nautiloid, she built up a relationship with Gortash, because he was patient with her. It was Gortash who taught her how to speak properly.

She’s a complete loose cannon and can’t be predicted. She refuses to be contained and has a HUGE problem with authority figures. That being said, she appreciates being reined in from time to time. Due to her approval with being given rain checks and her hatred of Orin, she gravitates towards Minthara like a moth to a flame.

Like Vesz, she’s also filthy and messy, but way worse. Her hair is always tangled, her skin caked with dirt and blood, and girlie is SWEATY. Her dishes get rancid, her bedroll smells like death and her clothes are torn and stained. Astarion and Gale have to drag her kicking and screaming to get bathed. Astarion gives up, but Gale perseveres - trying to give Nathurra a bath is very much like trying to wash a cat. Gale keeps his face out of her reach and makes sure he’s wearing gloves and layers of clothing. Every time this happens he prays to Mystra that Nathurra doesn’t try to drown him. He usually gets back in her good graces by cooking large and yummy dinners.

She’s based on the hobo spider (as my somewhat murder hobo). As a blood sorcerer, she does revere the give and take, spilling her own blood to spill even more of her enemy’s. She likes to make as much mess as possible and sees total destruction as her signature. Part of her wants for do good, but it’s often overwhelmed by her poor impulse control and explosive anger when she feels misunderstood.

Romancing Minthara.

Fenelzi’ir (Forceblade / Venomancer) (He/They)

Fenelzi’ir is a githgagran (Underdark Gith) who has a symbiotic relationship with the Matriarch of a noble drowic house in Menzoberranzan. She offers him safety in the city, food and shelter, and in return, he keeps Illithids away, hunting them. He is skilled in both psionic attacks and utilising /brewing poisons. He’s based on a poison dart frog.

He ended up on the nautiloid purely by accident, having opened a portal to the Astral Plane, but it rerouted as he was travelling, spawning him directly onto the ship. He carved his way through a handful of mindflayers before he was overwhelmed and captured, forced into a pod and tadpoled.

Considering all this, he’s exceptionally calm and even nonchalant at times. He understands that his mind is his greatest weapon and that his blades are mere extensions, accessories, and as such, he deems it imperative to remain calm at all times. Also due to needing patience to brew the most deadly poisons, he does NOT appreciate being rushed with anything, so even though his tadpole distresses him, the companions constantly urging him to act quickly and the onslaught of people offering him solutions pisses him off. He can and will figure it out by himself, if given enough time, and - after assessing his symptoms - he deems that he does, in fact, have time to sit and think, much to the annoyance of everybody else.

Romancing Halsin for the peace and quiet.

Iorveth (Crypt Stalker Ranger) (He/Him)

An outlander of the wild woods, Iorveth started his profession as a crypt stalker after undead from the cities began encroaching on the territory of his wood elven clan. Not particularly fond of humans or half elves, he is a shrewd huntsman, and tends to charge more coin for his services in human dominated areas.

He worships Kelemvor, lord of the dead, and has strange feelings about Withers and Jergal.

He generally leans towards being good aligned, however he does side with Kagha, sympathising with her wanting to protect her own, just as he did when his forests were under attack. He can be cruel at times, though usually does so for a good reason - he engages the man in the goblin camp in torture… but only to get rid of the goblins and keep up appearances.

He’s quite moody and aloof, though is a romantic at heart. His relationship with Astarion is complex - though he has sworn to hunt undead, viewing them as abominations, he’s never actually taken the time to get to know an undead and learn their story. When Astarion reveals his vampiric nature, every bone in Iorveth’s body tells him to stake Astarion, or hand him over to the gur, but he cannot bring himself to, having grown fond of him. He decides to give Astarion the benefit of the doubt, instead, and asks Kelemvor to forgive him for what he is about to do when Astarion feeds on him.

He’s definitely romancing Astarion.

[purralyth]

How have things been going with Chariot and crew? Maybe I missed some things, but it feels like it's been awhile since I last heard of their shenanigans! Has the gf been helping out? Any crisises? (In the world around them or emotional?) What is the DEALIO I am ready to hear it!

haHAHAHA i’ll be honest i don’t talk much about their emotional/world crises because they are happening All the time. our dm wants to see us suffer. but let’s have a small summary shall we, i’m actually going to put this one under a read more bc we’ve done That Much

so first things first, the gang got shunted into the feywild, i talked about that much. that’s where we picked up our lovely little tiefling monk Fuarthas (Silence, back then) from his awful hag grandmother rosie, found chariot’s masked mom, and then got taunted by a fey demigod in his Hell Maze and he proposed to fuarthas and now they’re engaged because he’s a warlock now it’s fun shit. anyway. we get back to toril with the crew (and chariot’s masked mom’s ship, lovingly dubbed Eri’s Chariot after her daughter and her dead boytoy, that we thought we might have to leave behind) and we find out that in the MAYBE month-long period we’ve been in the feywilds, 2.5 years have gone by on toril. meteors have fallen from the sky, which is now a permanent blood red, people are chanting at these meteors embedded in the city like possessed cultists who attack anyone that threatens to take them out, and the worms coming out of the meteors are like kind of sort of turning people undead?? it’s messed up. Cool Stuff. but chariot’s aunt mom Serenity and uncle dad Patience opened up an orphanage so that’s cool

So we got some magic tattoos in some downtime (Chariot got 2, one on the back of her neck that lets her understand Undercommon, and another on her chest that gives her a free use of Mage Armour per day) and met up with some new NPCs, one of  which is traveling with us now as our cleric-fighter and is dating(??) our big tiddy big heart half-orc barbarian Lockjaw, and left our aasimar monk’s kickass wife behind to run her tavern bc she’s expecting. we go to look at some funky stuff going down in the town cemetary. first thing we do is go see erran, our moon elf friend we took into the feywild and hates us now for it, and he takes us into this portal and shows us this weird temple thing his supervisor or something had just discovered. there’s these murals on the walls of meteors striking the earth, and a flood, and some figures sailing on a ship through the sky, and then 7(?) figures, that like kind of seem like Us but not quite on par, so fun stuff, and these two HUGE statues in the main chamber. somebody presses a button and this fantasy Alexa bitch floats down from the ceiling and is like oh shit presences detected. and starts listing these titles, like Sufferer, and Guardian, and Exceptional, and then locks onto jia and is like ABERRATION DETECTED FUCK THOSE SHITS and tries to kill her so she has to run. basically without making this too long we find out that we (chariot, frazier, lockjaw, fuarthas, and frazier’s daughter) are descendants of some ancient heroes that saved the world once, and we grave rob just a little and get some cool magic items, and there’s this prophecy that we’ll stop the apocalypse or something?????? shit’s wack. we go back out to see jia and chariot’s trying real hard to cover for her but she’s like well i cant rly hide it anymore. hey guys i have an illithid tadpole In my brain and it didn’t develop so now i’m also part of a separate prophecy that i’ll wipe out all the illithid. but look at this i can float but chariot and i did some research and the only way to not have it be a problem anymore is to destroy my skull and then resurrect me. so that’s a lot of fun!!!!!

still in that cemetary, we find a trail of meteor worms. follow them into a secret passage that leads to the lair of Sunshine, masked mom’s dead assistant that chariot one-shot, but it turns out she’s a necromancer! she kicks our asses to unconsciousness even after chariot polymorphed into a t-rex and sells us to Neogi in the underdark, which if you don’t know what they are, google them, they’re fucked up spider giraffe eels that are evil incarnate and basically were slave trading us & psychically torturing Jia the whole way!! which made chariot throw cantrip after cantrip at them to try to hurt them so they just mind-control enslaved her over and over so that’s fucked her up good :)

we get sold to some drow after a week. beefy boys were sent to work manual labour til they die, and the rest of us were set to be sacrificed to Lolth, so we go haha we have to get out of here asap. chariot disguise selfs into a drow guard (a man bc i was very stupid) and gets caught 2 seconds out the door by a cleric of lolth, who sets up some mix between a dick appointment and an ass kicking for later bc chariot didn’t like. idk acknowledge her. fuck drow. she and fuarthas (who she was pretending to transport) skedaddle into a side chamber and a drow guard captain comes in. she goes to beat up fuarthas so chariot attacks her and a wild magic pops off and they fall mutually head over heels in love and lust with each other, which is MESSY. chariot convinces her to help round the gang up, but everywhere they look everyone’s gone missing (frazier and lockjaw got into a fight down at the manual labour camp and jia turned into a fish and shrieked so she’s gone) so chariot ends up wined and dined and tries desperately not to let this drow captain Do Her and does not take a long rest bc she has to stay awake and make sure this woman doesn’t wake up and see she’s not actually Erran the Drow Guard. but when everyone wakes up a shadow dragon is attacking this drow camp. cool. yes. awesome. fantastic. hell breaks loose, chariot and zarra (the drow captain) find frazier and jia in a stairwell, zarra kisses chariot goodbye and runs off to do stuff after a hefty persuasion check, jia gets Understandably Angry, we run like hell to find our magic items they bought with us and get the hell out of dodge With Lockjaw’s new orc army he’s recruited and the drow dude we found that’s a part of Frazier’s old order. shadow dragon finds us, holy shit she’s frazier’s adopted mom, she offers us a ride back while chariot very desperately tries to tell jia she doesn’t know what’s going on and why zarra kissed her and why she feels like this (she didn’t know it was a charm !!) and generally feeling Very Shitty. we get to frazier’s old monastery and the charm wears off, chariot and jia have a very long talk and chariot breaks a couple times, chariot steals a bottle of wine to try and feel better, she gets in shit for it and frazier takes the fall, he gets whipped as a punishment which just breaks chariot even more, she puts herself on house arrest for a full week, jia finally starts talking to her again 3 days into that, they do some drugs, chariot makes a deal with shadow dragon mama to split the cost of a teleportation circle and the gang blows up at her but she’s like nah it’s cool. at this point she is using her +9 deception to pretend she didn’t just break for a whole week and nothing happened and she’s totally good now guys dont even worry about it.

side tangent from All That, we go to deal with a giant problem for the monastery and there’s corpses strung up with the symbols on chariot’s palm all over. lots of combat yadda yadda, trap one giant in a room and ask her questions through the door, get some cool insight on chariot’s magics that she still has no idea how it works. turns out there’s a third queen of the feywilds, the queen of night and magic if i remember correctly, and she was shunned for her beauty and her and all of her subjects were made to be ugly and misshapen or some messed up stuff. chariots like oh fuck we were just there and no one said shit about a queen that apparently everyone hates that she has the symbols for on her Hands and honestly on her cape as well half the time. but ok cool that’s some new info sweet.

jia’s still guilting chariot for kissing zarra (even though it was a CHEEK KISS and she didn’t do it) because chariot’s been feeling awful that jia got into a romantic relationship (WITH FRAZIER’S DAUGHTER WHO JOINED JIA’S CULT, FUNNY ENOUGH) on her like 10 month leave bc she assumed she’d never get to see chariot again, but that’s a whole can of worms. lots of emotional fuckage though, chariot feels even worse that that happened bc jia hadn’t even been charmed, etc etc etc. but she’s never gonna say any of it bc she’s terrified jia will leave a second time and bringing any of that up might be what triggers it So!

we get told the neogi are selling slaves to jia’s old god, Ool’zakgothool the Aboleth who has been the Big Bad since like session 3-5, so we need to go stop that shit so we can go take down this aboleth and get frazier’s daughter back. but first we have literally no money bc we got sold and had all our shit stolen so we have to sell the like 700lbs of elven armour and weaponry we stole from a navy outpost place thing in the feywild. so we get to solve a little murder mystery in a gnome town so that’s fun. go back to the monastery, pick up some stuff, get some cool magic items made by our new artificer friend Jokk who’s part of the same prophecy we are, and head out again to fuck up these neogi. but on the way jia suddenly sprints ahead and gets like hug tackled by 5 kids who she apparently raised in her cult, and we get lead back to the marketplace where we plan on staking out the neogi and following back to their camp, but uh oh there’s 100 cultists here who swarm us and there’s some midsommar shit and we just fight the neogi right then and there and that’s basically where we’re picking up now. they enslaved lockjaw who oneshot chariot bc she’s a weak little bitch so jia kicked him in the ribs it was fun. and now we’re holding the elf that threatened to cut chariot’s tail off from our Neogi Cage Days hostage to tell us where the shiny gold head hauncho went bc he dimension doored out while chariot was paralyzed and couldn’t counterspell and we want him Dead. to be continued

[kyanve]

That Time I Became A Familiar In D&D/Signed On To Help My Familiar Become A God

So one of the campaigns I was in that ended up with a large number of stories was the one where I was playing Avelwyn, the LG Sorcerer (3.5 ed, Ice Elemental Savant prestige class).  When I pitched the character idea to the DM, the DM was absolutely gleeful about it and lit up.

I know, I know, that’s a warning sign, but given the kind of plots that ends up with, it’s a fish-hook I swallow every time.  

See, it was a Forgotten Realms campaign, and while I grew up on D&D, my familiarity with the Realms was scattershot; I was way more familiar with Dragonlance and Greyhawk, and to add to it, my knowledge of the Realms was also back around early AD&D 2.0.  Needless to say, I did not remember jack or shit about a lot of the less well known gods in the Realms.  

The DM had planned the campaign around capitalizing on how meddlesome gods can get in Faerun.  

I was an ICE ELEMENTAL SAVANT.  

The character was from the Aglarondan border, right by the death swamp, and had grown up in a small keep that was basically watching for any Thayan forces that decided it was a good idea to brave the edges of the swamp; this did limit his knowledge base starting out.  And I, out of character, was completely oblivious to the fact that the Goddess Of Ice in Faerun 

Is

Chaotic Evil.  

And Avelwyn had started working with Numestra, our specialty cleric of the Red Knight (LN), on tactics that involved liberal use of summoning spells.  

Aka, a great way to potentially get attention of the CHAOTIC EVIL goddess of the realm your LAWFUL GOOD ass is summoning shit from.  

This was in college, so while I was doing some reading up on stuff relevant, I was also a College Student and focusing on things I thought were most relevant and not reading things like the book on Gods Of The Forgotten Realms.  

I was still oblivious when I pondered the idea of taking Improved Familiar as a feat to get an Ice Mephit, something with the DM happily encouraged the Hell out of.

I am That Player who sees the neon signs of a trap and walks right in.

Shortly AFTER that, Avelwyn gained access to a library and was doing research, and rolled VERY WELL studying elemental planes, and the DM handed me the book with a wide grin pointing to the entry on Auril, and as I remember I had a few very interesting swear words and my forehead hit the table.

But, I already had my ice mephit who was a perfectly helpful familiar even if it seemed a little too clever sometimes (and the DM ran the familiar completely).  

The first sign something was Not Quite Right was when we were in camp, and our CN drunken halfling barbarian, Aunderall, was poking the mephit with a stick....

And got levitated and left there, floating in mid air, by the mephit.  

This is not an ability Ice Mephits have.

The second sign something was Not Quite Right was when a priest of Bane was trying to kidnap one of the party to get information out of and got Avelwyn cornered....

And the Mephit cast Dimension Door.  

On the other side, back with the party, Avelwyn stared at his familiar with a lot of “...the fuck?”, as Dimension Door was a spell he himself was too low level to cast.

“What the Hell is with Avelwyn’s Familiar” became a running question through the campaign and all the other plots; the “mephit” was generally pretty quiet and didn’t do anything that noticeable unless Avelwyn was in severe danger, besides occasional reactions to Aunderall, but trolling Aunderall was pretty much a party hobby.  

Eventually, we were getting up there in levels, and we ended up in the Underdark, as often happens in higher level FR campaigns.  We ended up in a cavern facing off against a Drow Blackguard with a displacer beast companion; someone had done something to put the displacer beast out of the fight (not permanently) that I do not remember.  We managed to trap the Blackguard in an Otiluke’s Resilient Sphere, and Avelwyn, very grouchy after the amount of havoc the Blackguard had wrought on his friends, was waiting outside the sphere with a wand of petrification.

The DM had been counting turns until the Displacer Beast was back in play.

So, a thing to understand here is that I’d sorta intentionally built Avelwyn to be the “frail sharp minded mage that got utterly dismissed as a kid for being stuck in a Soldier Household”, and 3.5 sorcs had sucky HP to begin with.

So, when the Displacer Beast with multiple attacks ambushed him with Smite Good AND the extra bonuses for Protecting Its Master, Avelwyn pretty much got OMGWTFPWN’ed to “DEAD” in that one turn.  

There was a moment of panic from the party, who had to fight off the displacer beast; once it was down, before Numestra could even start trying to tally options, the mephit landed on Avelwyn’s corpse and Plane Shifted with it.  

At this point, the DM took me out of the room.

Avelwyn woke up in the Elemental Plane of Ice, with a creature waiting that was Most Definitely Not A Mephit despite being able to sense the familiar bond.  Turns out the familiar was a LG Ice Elemental Noble who was looking for a way to do something about Auril’s reign, but had been short on options that she wouldn’t notice; Avelwyn had gotten lucky the few times he’d summoned ice elementals before he found out that was A Bad Idea, and had drawn this noble’s attention before Auril noticed.  When he did the Improved Familiar ritual, the noble had the idea that nurturing and cultivating a like-minded mortal would be a good way to find allies who would be able to help in overthrowing Auril without her realizing what they were doing and quashing it before anything could be a threat to her.  

The noble apologized for the deception over the time they’d been serving as a familiar, and asked if Avelwyn would be willing, when the time came, to help with that overthrow; if he said no, he’d be returned to his plane and the noble would keep looking and stay quiet until another opportunity presented itself.

Avelwyn, of course, said yes.

There was a little more discussion about the risk of Auril realizing and that the safest way to go about it was for Avelwyn to allow a wipe of his memory of the conversation until a later date, which Avelwyn agreed to.

At this point, we returned to the room with everyone else, as the mephit and Avelwyn Plane Shifted back to the party, Avelwyn whole and fine.

Numestra was not high enough level to cast True Resurrection, but was more than savvy enough to realize that’s what had been used; she also wasn’t able to cast Plane Shift yet.

The mephit set about casting Guards And Wards on the cavern so the party could rest after the grueling fight, and Avelwyn was dazed and confessed that he had no idea what had just happened either, prompting Numestra to sit and watch the Mephit work and ask, “What the Hell are you, really?”

The mephit turned around and wordlessly conjured a smiley face made of ice in mid air, and went back to setting defenses.  

The campaign ended up being cut short before we got into the Epic Levels, and when we wound down for the summer, the DM acquiesced to answering what the plan would’ve been for the epic level campaign - by going “Tell them what happened in the cave”.  

And That is the saga of how I ended up signing on to help my familiar become a god.  (Or honestly, becoming the familiar of an Ice Elemental noble.)  

[willel]

S3 Adjustments: If the Mind Flayer were smart as they say

Ok, so the Mind Flayer is supposed to be this very intelligent creature that has disposed of many many worlds just like ours.

In spite of their lack of physical abilities, mind flayers were feared by all beings in the Underdark because of their great mental prowess.

If we go beyond Stranger Things and think of the Mind Flayer as an Elder Brain, it’s even more apparent that it’s supposed to be some mastermind

Forming the physical and spiritual center of a mind flayer community, the elder brain served as a living library of the community's history, technology, and knowledge. Playing this important role in a mind flayer society, it often doubled as an advisor in all sorts of political and military decisions, operating as the community's effective leader.

So why then was the Mind Flayer’s plan in season 4 so... short sighted? It wanted to kill El. Of course it did. She was a mega threat, she shut the door in its face. Of course it’d be upset. 

But when the Mind Flayer woke up again in the real world and realized it was alive... why didn’t it think, “Oh. Another gate has opened. I should investigate this.” or “I see. These people have opened another gate. I should infiltrate them on the down low and make sure the gate opens properly.” or “Last time my enemy was able to shut me out because I only had 1 door. This time, I should make sure I have multiple ways back in on top of killing my enemy.”

See what I mean? If the Mind Flayer is this cunning creature, killing El should’ve have been its only goal. Building a weapon for El shouldn’t have been it’s only mission. It had so many people under its control, it could’ve carried out a multitude of plans for its future dominance of this world. 

Look back at season 2. Not only was it spreading underground, it was also building an army of demodogs AND decided to possess a human child to be its eyes (for reasons we don’t really know yet). That’s at least 3 different things going on. Did hatred make the Mind Flayer so blind as to not plan for anything else?

With that question in mind, here is an alternative story route. It’s not fully fleshed out. In fact, it’s very half baked. But it came to me last night so I’m gonna write it down. 

Season 3 Episode 4: The Sauna Test

This is a perfect time for the Mind Flayer to slightly change his plans after not only facing El face to face, but having a close look at the whole party (minus Dustin)

At this moment, I think the Mind Flayer should have noticed El. Billy should have noticed Max. And then, the Mind Flayer would again notice Will. Ah Will, his loose end. A dangerous loose end, he’s probably the reason why his new main host is trapped in a hot room. Or how they know how to figure out who is flayed. Or even his movements. 

His plan to build a giant weapon under El’s nose is immediately ruined, but not completely unsalvageable. As long as he removed Will from the equation, but first, he must escape or kill El right here and now. 

The fight goes down as expected. El is able to defeat Billy only barely and Billy escapes. As our Party comes together to figure out what to do next, so does the Mind Flayer.

“She knows about me,” Billy says. “And so does he.” 

The Party comes away with knowing Billy is a host and that there are many more based on what Nancy discovered about Mrs. Drisslady.

The Mind Flayer comes away knowing El’s strength, capabilities, the identities of everyone around her, and that Will is a problem. So, he makes a slight change of plans.

Goal #1: Kill El. She’s the only one who can close the gate, so he thinks. Or fight him in general. He has to take her out no matter what

Goal #2: Find where the gate is opening and protect it. If she can’t get to the gate to close it, then he can come in full force just like before.

Goal #3: Remove Will from the good team and possibly pull him back into the fold. Will could potentially know all of his secrets and obviously has some ability to find him or sense him. PLUS... the piece of him that’s still in the real world came from the Upside Down through Will, meaning, Will is potentially his back up way back into the real world after killing El. 

Season 3 Episode 5: I don’t remember the title

As we will later find out, the hospital is one big trap. But think about it. Why were they only trying to get Nancy? She was on the case of the rats, but at that point, the rats didn’t matter. The Mind Flayer already had an army at that point. So... it makes sense that this would just be a distraction!!!!

Nancy, Jonathan, Tom, and Bruce? All a distraction! A distraction to catch them off guard and make things chaotic. And what kind of chaotic sneaky tricks can you pull off in a half lit large hospital? 

Well... maybe you won’t notice someone on your team just got picked off/went missing while everyone was scrambling around. 

My suggestion is... maybe in the scramble of things, climbing up stairs, running around, going through dark areas... one of the Flayed manages to grab Will, knock him and, and whoosh they go. Of all those flayed people, only two were in the hospital? None of them lying in wait for El and the gang knowing how powerful she is? 

El would save Nancy, rush outside to watch the creature slither away, and all would seem well... until Jonathan asks, “Where is Will?” 

Will is in the hands of the Mind Flayer. Ah but it isn’t that simple. Will is not part of the kill El/flayed army plan. He’s part of the “You’re my backup gate” plan. 

What would this backup plan entail? Well, I’m thinking he can’t just possess Will again. Will didn’t have anymore True Sight visions when he inevitably got caught by the Mind Flayer. This could be for 2 reasons. It was just the Mind Flayer doing that to him, or two, Will was the one doing it by accident, but once the Mind Flayer caught him, he was unable to use the same ability. 

Let’s pretend the latter is the answer (and I think the later is the answer because if it were purely the Mind Flayer controlling what Will was feeling or seeing, then SURELY HE WOULD HAVE NOTICED WILL AT SOME POINT)

The Mind Flayer cannot possess Will, he must get Will to do the switching himself. Thing is, Will doesn’t know how to do it at Will. He hasn’t seen visions of the Upside Down in a year. The conditions have to be just right for it to happen, so, that’s what the Mind Flayer goes about doing. Trying to make the conditions right for Will to see into the Upside Down so the Mind Flayer can enter Will from there and come out on the other side. (horrific, really)

What conditions? Not sure. Probably location, temperature, his state of mind/how much sleep he has. Could be anything. 

The Rest

This is where things get hazy. I’ve got many ideas, none of them laid out all that well. So I’ll just ramble. 

Will isn’t just going to sit captured, I think that’d be a bad route for his character development. 

He may scared of his mind, but hey. He evaded the Demogorgon for a week. He’s resourceful and sneaky. Even though he’s tied up and probably gagged and guarded by the Flayed, I think Will can get out of this. Might take him a while.

You know what, what if they make it easy for Will to escape. They’d rather keep him, but letting him escape works too. Why? Because they’ll just do what Will wanted to do to Mrs. Drisslady. Let him go... and follow him. Follow him right back to the rest of the group.

But, Will is smart... maybe he’d catch onto that and not reunite with the Party right away. But, he also realizes El would come looking for him. If they meet in the void, I think Will would tell them not to come for him, but every is like, “Hell no, we’re coming for you and we’ll figure out what to do next.” 

Or, maybe this is when they set the trap. Will makes a correct assumption the Mind Flayer will try to follow him to the rest of the gang. So, the Party sets up some kind of firey trap and lie in wait. Will leads some Flayed right into a firey trap, taking some of them out and sending the rest fleeing back. (cue the Mind Flayer deciding to join together now since little people aren’t working)

Kinda feels like a tug of war. Kids get the upper hand (sauna). Then the Mind Flayer(hospital/kidnapping). Then the Kids (fire trap). Then the Mind Flayer (Billy speech/cabin fight). So on and so forth. 

See? Hazy malformed ideas. BUT, I do know one thing for sure.

If this whole Will is temporarily taken situation happens and the Mind Flayer states his intentions since he can speak now, then Will would learn even if they close the gates. Even if they destroy this piece of the Mind Flayer. Even if they plug every hole, seal every crack, and nail every hammer... he himself is a danger to the world. A living breathing gate. Doesn’t matter if they move. It might help, but there’s still always a looming risk in the back of his mind. 

And I like that idea.

[internetremix]

I was wondering... Do you any of you have tips for a rookie GM? I'm setting up a game night here soon and I'm stressing the heck out over it.

Alex: No matter what game system you play it's usually quite intimidating because there are like 600 pages of information to digest. At any given time you need to have memorized only, like, thirty. At the end of the day most tabletop games are just two things - math and improv. Admittedly things that, outside of tabletop games, people go out of their way to avoid, but still.

Stress can lead people to get things done fast but also get things done sloppy. You don't need to plan out every single detail of what the characters might encounter eventually in a session. You can flesh out a couple of interesting people, places, or things you want them to see and just keep a scratch card of notes and traits for if/when they go off the beaten path. Remember, no matter what you plan, there is no accounting for the actions of players, and rolling with them provides a far better experience than slamming your fist down and saying "NO" to every deviation.

And above all else, remember that tabletop games are a collaborative effort. People come together to play games, tell stories, and shoot the shit. If shooting the shit overtakes the game you can rein that in a little but at the end of the day everyone's there voluntarily to have fun, and no one is there to see anyone fail.So to recap -

1. You are the arbiter of rules no matter what the book says. You can double-check later and take notes for future games if it becomes an issue but generally you only need to have in mind rules that are actively going to be used in game. If you don't know the exact way to handle something just make up what the closest action would be and if the player rolls what you think is well enough to do it, they did it.

2. If you don't have time to take notes on every single thing the players might encounter, congratulations, you're an average person. You only need a few based on the following factors - what do you want the players to do, how do you think they're going to do it, and do you have something prepared for when they go off the beaten path.

3. Have fun! Seriously, it's called a tabletop GAME, not a tabletop dictatorship.

Kristen: All of my games are Tabletop Dictatorships, all of them. Unfortunately I'm a terrible, weak-willed dictator so this helps nothing.

Alex: Discord Murder Party is different. Mafia/Werewolf operates way differently than D&D and needs a GM SPECIFICALLY so that players don't go off the rails.

Kristen: You are 100% correct.

God my first tabletop I ever DMed for I made my own thing and wrote like... twenty pages for my first session. And then as soon as I started, my players were like HEY I WANNA EXPLORE THE SHOPS

"O-oh.... y-yeah, here's uh... heeeere's a list of shops..."

So then I had to improv like... five shops and make multiple NPCs on the fly and then I found out "it turns out writing an entire paragraph for every NPC is an awful idea because you can't fucking read those notes mid-session"

So my point is don't do that.

Juno: Oh yeah. Last night I had to make up a guy named Lucas on the spot because JoJo's character wanted to convince a guy not to kill them

Kristen: YEP I ran the generic 5e DnD starter for a group of friends and somehow it went from a generic "you all hunt down and kill a bunch of goblins and a bugbear in a cave, way to go" to "You spared a Goblin who has a ridiculous Brooklyn accent who hates his job and now you're starting a ridiculous worker's revolution and this has ended with you all enlisting every other goblin you were supposed to fight into swarming the bugbear boss. Okay."

Juno: I mean. That's a pretty bomb plot twist if you ask me.

Kristen: Oh yes, I enjoyed it immensely. Also really in the context of a DnD game I'm pretty sure that shouldn't be doable cause I don't think any of them were supposed to be able to speak common. If your players are setting themselves up for a more interesting story and you have to bend the rules a bit to make it happen, go for it. One of the most important things for GMing is making your players feel like they have agency- as Alex said, it's collaborative, it's not just you telling your players a story.

Another thing to keep in mind is what sort of players you have. I usually prefer to play with people who are more into the RP/story aspect, but some people are gonna be more into them fighty fights and mechanics and such. Which is fine and can work, it's just a matter of striking a balance in your game.  I usually try to tailor things in such a way that everyone's getting a chance to get what they want out of a game and their shot at the spotlight, in whatever manner that takes. For me it's helped to ask my players directly "hey, what do you want out of this game? Do you have any ideas or anything you're really into?"

Mostly what I'm saying is just try to keep in mind what your players are in this for, since that contributes a lot to how much fun you all have.

Atwas: Something that's helped me a lot is to not stress out or stop the game entirely to double check rules. It sort of kills momentum. In my experience, ruling a situation and then looking something up later is a lot less stressful than the pressure of putting something completely on pause while you flip through a book/google something.

If you're doing stuff in real life, I would recommend making a little cheat sheet of your PC's information. My DM screen has sticky notes with each party characters HP, AC, Passive Perception, and Spell Save DC to keep things streamlined.

Kristen: Oooo smurt

Alex: Hell yeah dude. Also there are custom DM screens you can get tailor-made to give you quick rules references. Fairly cheap on Amazon.

Atwas: Also your players don't know if you're winging stuff unless you tell them. ;^)

Also also don't be scared of bumping monster hp up or down depending on a fight or having monsters run away or call in reinforcements. If you go off script in an encounter--surprise! Nobody knows but you. I did that quite a bit when I was starting out because balancing encounters is a bit of an art and CR is a loose guideline at best.

Also also also the point of the game isn't to win. Don't fall into the trap of "beating your players" or stuff like that. Imo that kind of messes with the table dynamics unless 100% of everyone is on board with that type of game.

Kristen: Yeah, don't fall into that and also be careful not to go into the mindset of "punishing" your players if they do something dumb. Like if it's a silly "you did this thing and consequences have gone WILDLY outside of what you expect wheee", awesome, but I've had DMs who basically would act like if you didn't somehow read their minds and find their exact solution, welp you made a dumb choice and now everyone is penalized for it. Made for a pretty toxic atmosphere, do not recommend. Kind goes hand in hand with "don't be a tabletop dictator".

Atwas: oh gods i could go on and on about how punishing someone in game never works for out of game behaviour but i digress. also please don't feel afraid to talk to your players, even if having adult conversations is difficult.

Juno: Cause and effect is the biggest thing to think about I think, especially in a DMing situation.

Alex: For instance, siccing a Revenant on the party? Thavagath made a bad decision in character, that's the natural consequence, he gets a chance to save his ass. Someone makes a dick joke about your carefully crafted NPC? Don't be a dick right back.

Atwas: sweats, trying to think back to the last time a dick joke was made in Fallen Empires

Alex: Like I think the last major one was Phill pulling a muscle stretching so hard to make a joke for five minutes about the "Male Room" rather than the "Mail Room"

But then we - wait for it - ACTUALLY DISCUSSED THE ISSUE OUT OF GAME and stuff like that doesn't pop up any more.

Atwas: WHAT? SPEAKING LIKE REASONABLE ADULTS?!?! IN MY TABLETOP?!?!?! it's really useful. please have those conversations, even if they're uncomfortable. and if something is becoming an issue, bring it up sooner rather than later--turns out that people can't change stuff if they don't know about it! Most people want to stay friends after a campaign after all.

Jojo: Have your story planned, npcs, and what you want an end goal to be. Make sure it's all planned out BEFORE asking people to join it. And if you need a second DM to help you with Dice or story, then that's ok too! I'm still a beginner DM myself, so that's the best advice I can give

These guys are pros, so listen to them

Phill: Heheh... male room

Alex: Phill no you'll pull your hamstring again

Phill:

Atwas: what do you think is Phill's average Henderson rating?

Alex: Phill has at least One Henderson in him, he destroyed Underdark to the point of we can't go back to it ever now.

Phill: I mean. Yeah. Honestly, I could've very easily seen phresh reach a 1.75 hendersons eventually.

Atwas: I'd say 1.75 works. 2 is still out of reach, but one day...

Xander: Underdark is cursed content and deserved better

Atwas: How many of he players had that as their first campaign? 3/5?

Xander: I believe so

Alex: Uprising and I had played before, I don't think Jojo, Dawn, or Phill had.

Xander: I'm probably gonna reboot Underdark one day. Wipe the slate clean. Probably not gonna be done on IR

Alex: We did it! We reached two Hendersons!

Xander: Two full Hendersons.

Phill: time unveil my new original character. Blesh

Alex: Blerish

Xander: More like Blemish

[sunnysojourn]

Bridging The Gap Between Two Realms

Full thread below the cut.

sunnysojourn: 

Nadal had come along as a bit of an accessory for Poppy today, though he’d add on one little detail to his plan’s recap before they approached the forest where she had these rendezvouses with her as-of-yet unknown dark elf friend.

“Let me speak to him for a moment first,” he offered, holding his hand out as if the offer was of a physical item. “I believe there are things I can say to him that you could not. Then, you can begin to try to-- softly-- put your perspective forth. I may have to translate this into terms he will understand.”

@themaryiestsuetoeversue​:

It was just her and Nadal, like she promised - well, Noir was sort of in the rough area, with the rest of the party, she assumed - boy, not having a link to these three was annoying - but not in the designated meeting clearing. She couldn't stop herself from looking for his birds, before looking at Nadal's offered hand, too nervous to take it.

"That's a good plan. The best plan. Explain everything - because I think all I can do at this point is apologize, still. He'd believe you over me..."

She didn't even have the bag of stuff nor her crossbow, in an attempt to both be nonthreatening and avoid the eyes of bandits.

What was she saying, though - they'd discussed this! Damn her nerves for erasing everything...

"I'm gonna try to do what we talked about. Gonna...gonna plant a seed..."

@vassarazorclaw:

The sparrows knew first, chattering about new faces amongst themselves.  Gossip was a past time of the forest's residents, so it wasn't long before the the ravens knew, and by that rote, Ran also became aware.  He consulted his spellbook and took his skinning knife with him...just in case.

He made sure his steps were light and silent as he followed Salmon's flight from tree to tree.  Better to leave no trail back home.  The raven perched himself in the high branches and Ran felt Soup's talons prick reassuringly through his tunic.  The ranger breached the tree line silently, tense as he took in the pair.  Where was Noir?  Was this an escape on Poppy's part or was this a trap?

"Hello again.  Hello."  The second greeting was for Poppy's companion.  One of the brothers no doubt.  The elderboy maybe?  Then where were the other two?  Ran's fingers twitched.  <Are you well?  Are you safe?>

sunnysojourn:

Nadal snapped to attention, and starkly took a defensive stance. Though he carried no weapon and only wore his bright red clerical robes, he could still defend himself in a pinch-- but he eased upon the sight of the ranger. "<She hardly knows our tongue,>" he spoke, in the language of their people. "Nice to meet you. <I am Nadal Hun'ar, Seventhboy and First Daughter.>" He gave a respectful curtsey to the ranger, then continued, "<I will explain the latter half of that title in due time; all you need remember is that you and I are equals and this small meeting was at my request.>"

Now, he pointed a confused raise of the eyebrows in Ran's direction. "<Now, why should I be unsafe? You have seen the two of them, haven't you?>"

@vassarazorclaw:

Ran shifted back, ready to bolt back into the woods.  But the other elf relaxed so Ran relaxed.  Slightly.  What a strange introduction.  Why would the seventh boy be here as a speaker and not the elderboy?  Something was up.

Poppy was the one that offered to "bring him along" so why was he claiming he asked for the meeting?  Where was Noir?  Soup pushed off his shoulder, off to scout for the moon elf.

<I've seen them.>  Was he meant to be saving Poppy from Nadal then?  Ran flexed his fingers.  He could...maybe get the spell off in time?  Or not?  This wasn't going how Ran had imagined.  <It's really just the one I'm worried about, really.  But if you're safe, that's good.  I thought you might be...uh, very, very out of favor...with Matron Hun'ar.>

The slave market could have gotten dark elves UP just as easily as they dragged surfacers DOWN right?

sunnysojourn:

Nadal frowned, appraising the strange ranger's words. Out of favor he may have been, but his mother wouldn't waste resources like that unless-- Unless she found out about him, he imagined.

"<I was. Horribly out of favor, in fact. You see, I was one of Vhaeraun's people. I still revere him even now, to some extent. But you see, Poppy and Noir rescued me from the slavers' chains. Mostly Noir. Poppy had also been captured.>" Truth was like water. Just enough of it would keep him alive. "<I have allowed them the use of my surface home since then.>"

He straightened up tall. "<Morennil, our eldest, followed me out. Vyth, I dragged out myself. Speaking of, I have been informed that-- because these people don't understand our ways-- you might be under the impression that you would be punished if you are not unreasonably nice to Vyth whether or not you like him? Disregard that notion. If you become his friend, that is your choice.>"

@vassarazorclaw:

There was that Vyth again.  Ran scowled.  <How was Vyth dragged with you exactly?>  Ran had a guess but it didn't speak well of Nadal's character.  The story explained spoke better of Morennil, really.  Vyth just seemed to be along for the ride either way.  Must be tough.

<If Vyth and I become friends that's...also dependent on him.>  One sided friendships apparently weren't real, after all.  <...but yes, I had been informed that I had "better be nice" to him, or else it would upset Poppy.  And given that I may be on thin ice with Noir I...feel it's in my best interest to not upset Poppy.>

sunnysojourn:

If only Nadal's back could get any straighter, he'd do that now. "<I returned to the underdark and took him with me,>" he answered. "<If being Vhaeraunite was enough to get me sold, and Vyth is himself an enemy of Lolth, would you not agree that it was in his best interest to come with me before someone found him out?>" Even if he didn't trust himself for the longest time--

His composure broke completely once he heard the exact words Poppy had used come out of Ran's mouth. "<I'm sorry, she said what?> Poppy, you didn't tell me-- <When she came crying to me about how she thought you didn't want to be her friend anymore, she had not told me she used explicitly forceful language to address you. I apologize on her behalf. I have no idea what she was thinking when she said that. You are not going to be punished if the two of you do not end up in an amicable relationship.>"

@vassarazorclaw:

Going back was certainly brave.  Ran had to commend Nadal for going back to get his brother.  He nodded.  That sorted out the first part of the Vyth conundrum.   <That makes sense.>

He relaxed even further as Soup confirmed for him Noir's location.  Out by the river, preoccupied with chores.  Still, Salmon continuing his lookout couldn't hurt.  He blinked, focusing back on the view in front of him.  <Oh.  She was crying?>

That couldn't be good.  He fidgeted, fiddling with his own fingers.  <It's fine.  Not that she was crying!  I mean, I want to be friends with her!  It's simply that I may have made overtures at her without knowing her exact relationship with Noir who--don't tell her I said this but she is awful at watching Poppy.  When we met Noir was not so graceful in reacting to my greeting?  Neither was Poppy, actually, thinking on it.  But uh, I feel that sort of, well, I feel like Noir may have it out for me but has not acted because I have Poppy's favor?  At least a little.  I mean, it was nice before the uh, the whole thing where I thought maybe she was collecting dark elves.  But she isn't!  Which is great.>

sunnysojourn: 

Nadal straightened up again, hands at his sides where Ran could see them. The look on his face returned to its usual half-lidded neutrality, and it seemed the tension had simmered down a bit, despite Ran's lengthy ramble.

"<Your footsteps are whisper quiet. You even startled me for a moment.>" That was as much as he needed to say about that. Nobody needed to dwell on the fact that he got scared by a noodle with messy hair. "<Noir is harmless once she meets someone. The two of them... really, they're the furthest from graceful I've ever seen, but they mean well and they'd like to improve.>"  One hand hovered over his belt's purple buckle, a color that didn't quite go with the bright red target he wore. "<I, too, have made overtures in Poppy's direction. As it turns out, she's only interested in female bodies.>"

He flipped the switch from purple to pink, and let everything shift-- regained his balance-- then bowed his head all the same. "<This...>" His voice, though starkly feminine, still resided in the low range for his sex. Just as it did before. "<This is a longer story and I'll explain it later. When I'm not trying to bridge the gap between you two.>"

@vassarazorclaw:

When was being part of the background bad?  It was better not to attract attention!  Safer!  Just quietly go about your work.  Ran likewise didn't agree that Noir was harmless.  She definitely had the potential to do harm.  Well, the potential for intent to harm.  Well...she was quick to consider violence as a solution.

Ran's train of thought stalled.  What.  OKAY.  First daughter now made sense, but--WHAT.  His eyes slid to Poppy.  Poppy was safe to look at.  "Salmon."

The raven landing on his shoulder was a comforting weight.  Ran reached up to dig his fingers into thick feathers.  Right, he could do this.  He took a breath and looked back at Nadal.  <Right, okay.  That's fine.  So, to be clear, no one is being held hostage and no one was actually enforcing a hierarchy?>

sunnysojourn: 

Noir would be harmless soon and that was what mattered. Shame Nadal couldn't say they'd speak to her about this, or risk losing favor with Ran-- so he just added a qualifier to the word 'harmless'. He offered a second curtsey to Ran as the ranger finally gained the nerve to look upon him again.

Maybe he wasn't quite as far gone as Nadal's practice runs would have suggested. Only one way to find out:

"<To be clear?>" He repeated, as a question. "<The surface is not the underdark. These people have no idea why you'd make either of those assumptions.>"

@vassarazorclaw:

Ran took in a breath.  <Okay.  Fair.>  His eyes flitted upward.  Ah, there she was.  He held out an arm for his second raven to land on.  Feathery comfort.

<It may have also been...a language barrier.>  Ran understood more than he could string together, but what he could string together wasn't always received how he intended.  <And I guess I wasn't very outspoken in my worries?  I'll have to expand my vocal-bulary.>

He turned his face, briefly hiding it in Salmon's feathers.  Dictionary and diction needed improvement for sure.

sunnysojourn:

Commoner, then. Any noble would have been taught how to taunt his surface enemies and appear intelligent while doing so... His advice, were Ran a noble, would have been to ask more questions about their intent, but that wouldn't be possible as long as Ran's common wasn't up to snuff.

He nodded, stifling a smile at Ran's little pun. "<You have a choice, then. You can wait for us to tutor Poppy and Noir in our tongue, or one of us could stick around and tutor you in theirs. Poppy, she's intelligent, but we have many pressing matters that tend to get in the way. I'd like to do this, personally, but logically, I would ask Vyth-- he understands native speech better than I do-- if he would teach you.>"

@vassarazorclaw:

Tutoring?  It would be helpful.  Really, he just needed time to practice.  Market trips were good, but hanging out bothering merchants seemed a bit like asking for too much.  He hummed, fighting to keep from grinning.

<I wouldn't want to hold you up from your travels?  Given the gaps between visits, I assume travel is important to Poppy.>  Having someone over for longer than a visit might be nice, but... <Also my house is rather small?  I guess I never really foresaw having guests my size over, really.>

sunnysojourn:

"<Travel is very important to Poppy,>" Nadal confirmed with a nod to punctuate the statement. "<However.>" He folded his arms behind his back, to stand firm at attention. "<The others would continue to travel.  We would leave one person here, temporarily. Then retrieve them. I'm certain Vyth wouldn't mind the stability.>"

Neither would he, if he was being honest about things. "Poppy, he tells me that he has been particularly fearful with regard to Noir, who he sees as not only dangerous, but as potentially vengeful, considering he acted outside of his assumed station. That she had not acted due only to your favor."

@themaryiestsuetoeversue:

Poppy sighed. Yeah, that made a lot of sense. "She did kind of point her sword at him when we first met..." She shook her head. "Noir's okay with him now, though! Since, like, he hasn't tried to hurt me or anything and honestly..." She didn't trust Nadal to NOT directly translate this, but he'd definitely read between the lines anyway. "She knows I know how to refuse, even if I feel bad about it..."

Ran was so nice, was the thing. It wasn't like turning down a raunchy squire from back home or a leering bard from on the road.

"Noir only acts if somebody's gonna hurt me, and we're both pretty certain Ran will never do that. She kinda thinks his attempts at courtship were, um..." Oh, this would sound so insulting... "Funny? Because she knows how loyal I am and what my answer would be." Sorry Ran, you never had a chance to begin with. Maybe if she were single and you were a woman, but only then. The situation with Nadal was, uh...

Different. Poppy could only handle so many lovers, and knowing that Nadal could basically function if she ran into a streak of not much free time to spend with him went a long way in making this work.

"He doesn't have to be afraid of Noir, she won't hurt him."

sunnysojourn:

Nadal nodded and kept his expression flat, even when Poppy told him about how Noir was... basically making fun of the poor commoner over his crush. "<Noir only harms those who are a definitive threat, she says. Noir has determined that it is not in your desire to commit assault against Poppy. That is all that matters.>"

@vassarazorclaw:

Wow.  Ran stroked his fingers over Soup's back thoughtfully.

"Si siofme coi ui diwhafup batobot ihk creolna nouhaia mrith wer tokeqwim di jacioniv thurirl, jaciv ui gethrisja vi sumf."  Soup mused.  Salmon laughed, bobbing on Ran's shoulder.

"Lemon, wux jalla visp jacioniv batobot!"  Ran...was clearly missing something.  He gave both ravens a pat.

[I'm not telling her that.]  The response was in yet another language, and maybe four tongues on the table was a little too much.  Undercommon could at least be understood by everyone but Poppy?  Ran shook his head.

<I wasn't exactly a fighter down below, and I'm not too keen on picking fights up here, so no worries on that front.  I think I'm pretty over it.  Being friends is fine.  Uh, if Vyth really wouldn't mind, I wouldn't mind having a tutor.  It's really just getting to practice and having time to do it.>

sunnysojourn:

Nadal leaned a bit more toward Poppy as he translated Ran's words to Common. "He claims he has gotten over his crush, if that helps you in any way. He is also worried that there was too much of a language barrier between the two of you, and I have offered to ask Vyth if he might stay and tutor Ran or help him practice."

To Ran, he added, "<If everything is well between you, might I ask a personal question? Just from me to you.>"

@themaryiestsuetoeversue:

"It makes me feel better that I didn't hurt his feelings, yes." Claims, though...poor guy. You'll find someone eventually, Ran!

"That's okay but make sure Vyth actually wants to stay, of his own free will." And then maybe they could come back in a month, see how the tutoring went... Heck, she should've been practicing Draconic somehow. "Learning Common will help him beyond being able to communicate with me, so if Vyth's up for it, I don't mind. This place isn't too dangerous for people like Vyth."

@vassarazorclaw:

Ran honestly wasn't looking.  It just would have been nice.  Poppy wouldn't have been an ideal partner, really, if he was pragmatic about it.  What with her lust for travel and all.  Enough of one to drag at least four others along with her it seemed.  Though...maybe some of that was Noir.

<I don't mind personal questions, ask away!>  This was nice, talking in his mother tongue.  Though maybe he just thought that because Poppy and Nadal were talking at a hard to follow pace.  Too many new words  among familiar ones or ones he knew well.

sunnysojourn:

"If Vyth decides not to, then I'll do it," Nadal replied in Common. While that succinct response hung in the air, he turned his attention wholly on Ran, keeping his arms folded behind his straightened back.

"<There is this surface custom surrounding courtship... A...> date, <I believe it's called. Where two people come together and determine their compatibility, as in, how well they would do together if they knew each other intimately.>" His face heated up and he found himself thankful for two things. First, Poppy couldn't see him blushing. Second, Poppy couldn't understand how awkward the lead up to this question was. "<Would you like to try that?>"

@vassarazorclaw:

A "date"?  Ran blinked, tilting his head as Salmon tugged an errant leaf from his hair.  Nadal wanted to spend time with him?  Ran suppressed a giddy laugh.

<Okay!>  Wait, no, cool it.  <Okay!>  Nailed it.  Soup gave him a look, whispering in his head that maybe he shouldn't seem too over eager.  Little late for that.

sunnysojourn:

Gods, if Ran wasn't like an excitable little puppy... So cute.

Nadal nodded and bowed his head slightly at the end of it. "<Wonderful. Do you have a preferred day...?>" His face felt warmer than before, and he found himself blinking down at the ground a lot. He did it. He initiated an encounter and got an affirmative response. An enthusiastic affirmative response.

"<Would tonight be too soon? I need to refresh myself on how that works.>"

@vassarazorclaw:

A day?  Ran didn't have anything pressing matters on any day, really.  He set Soup on his other shoulder, smoothing down her fathers.  She huffed anyway.  Salmon gave him a pat with his beak.  <Any day is fine!>

Ran shook his head, grinning.  <Tonight is good!  I mean, if that's fine with you!  It's fine with me!>

sunnysojourn:

Tonight. Tonight was good. Okay. Nadal could prepare for that within the day, he was sure. "<Could we meet here again? It should only be a few hours.>"

"Poppy. I think I have a date tonight." He still continued slow blinking. "I am going to need to look that custom up again."

@vassarazorclaw:

<Oh yes!  I can be back here in a few hours easily.>  That was enough time to wash up and look presentable.  Check on his chickens and plants and maybe a few of the traps closer to home?  How did you prepare for a date?

<I'll see you in a few hours then!>  Ran waved, trotting off with the same quiet steps he'd entered with.

[kreetthekobold]

34 - Sigmundurr

Sigmundurr knocked on her door a little later. Kreet opened the door to let the big man in. His blue eyes looked unexpectedly sober.

"Gator," he began. "I've been thinking..."

"Always a plus," she smiled and beckoned him to sit on the bed. "I've been hoping to catch one of you anyway. I need some things for tomorrow."

"Oh? Like what?"

"Well, I need 6 amber bottles for one, the darker the better. Some sandpaper too. They'll have some at a blacksmith's shop if not here. Some tools too. Mostly a good small, sharp knife and a file or rasp. Glue too. And a good length of dark cloth. Cloth you can't see through."

Sigmundurr repeated the items back to her.

"I'll give you some more gold for this," Kreet assured him, but he shook his head.

"I don't need more gold, Gator. That's what I came up here for."

"What, are you rich or something?"

"No. I just don't need gold. Ever. Handy to have a bit around, but it ties you down. You may have noticed I'm not exactly... civilized."

Kreet laughed. "Sig, you are nearly the definition of chaos embodied."

"Gator, I'd like to go with you tomorrow."

She sat back in her chair at that. In many ways, he was the last person she would want to travel with them. She'd seen him go berserk at the least provocation. Murderously berserk. She didn't want to imagine how many people he'd killed.

"Sig... you know I couldn't stop you if you wanted to. But... Sig, I don't like you. I've already tried to fight you before. You are the opposite of everything I believe in."

"I know. But you need me anyway."

"I need somebody Sig. I don't think I need you. You're too much for me to handle. I was going to ask Dinkle. Besides, you're an adventurer. I don't plan on this being an adventure. I just want to find my home!"

"Dinkle? He couldn't fight off an orc!"

"I don't know. You saw him. He's resourceful. Plus he's a monk. Not exactly the same as a cleric like me, but he follows a moral compass, while you..."

"Chaos," the big man said.

"Yes. I can't control you. I don't want to have to try. I'm no leader, Sig. I'm not even backup. Until recently I was working at a tavern and the most excitement I'd have was a slap on the butt. I like it that way, Sig. I don't want... this," she said, indicating her surroundings.

Sigmundurr looked to be considering something.

"You can't stop me from coming with you, you said."

"Well, that's for sure! Unless you're bound and shackled, you pretty much go where you want."

"I'm coming with you," he smiled.

"Sig! No! Did you not hear anything I just said?! I don't want you to!"

Sigmundurr stood up and shrugged, smiling. "I don't care. I'm going with you. You need me, at least until we get out of the Underdark. After that... well, we'll see."

"But why? For Pelor's sake, why would you want to?"

Sigmundurr stepped to the door, holding it open before he left. "I like you, little kobold. That's enough reason for Sigmundurr. I don't like people often. I will be your leader. Till we're out anyway. I'll get your stuff. Oh, you can come back down now. The crowd has left."

He closed the door. This was definitely not going the way she'd envisioned at all. 

She looked up at the ceiling and envisioned it in her mind. Beyond it was the roof, she supposed. A roof that had never seen rain. And above that, high above it, was the roof of the gigantic cavern that held the entire city she was in. Above that was probably miles of rock, dirt and who knows what else. Then above that was the great Outside as the residents here called it. Outside the Underdark, where light and darkness alternated. Where rain fell and wind blew and flowering plants grew. And above that was the sky. She was trained to think of that as the dwelling place of Pelor, though the presence of her own powers even here in the Underdark argued against his abode being in any specific place. Beyond that was the stars and moons. How far away they were, she couldn't fathom. Maybe this was Pelor's will after all. She might be a acolyte, but she knew as little as anyone how his mind worked. 

Or maybe this was the work of Nerull, the God of darkness. Presumably the god of Kallid. This was undoubtedly his domain. She'd read enough about her own kind, even if she hadn't grown up with them, to know that they worshipped and feared their god of darkness. She didn't fear Pelor. She loved him. "It!", she laughed to herself. She couldn't picture the God of Light with some gigantic penis, even if that's what all the monks she'd known had implied he must have. What would he even use it for? No, for her at least, Pelor wasn't a man or a woman. He wasn't a he. But "It" sounded too impersonal, and she did feel a personal connection with him. So she'd just keep calling Pelor "He" for sake of convenience. He could be a kobold for all she knew, or cared. He gave her strength, comfort and the meager powers she did possess.

As an acolyte, she felt like she was failing. As far as she knew, she'd not converted a single soul to Pelor. But her method was the method her Master had taught her - to lead them to Pelor by example, not by proselytizing. In the end, her Master had let her down when she learned of his true history, in the harshest of ways. But she still followed his methods. She knew no other way. She went on her knees. She knew instinctively that kneeling was in no way related to praying, but it did focus her mind. 

Then, something happened. Something like a white light washed over her. It had happened once before, and she knew what it was. She had been Raised. Somehow, with all her mistakes and foolish actions, Pelor had seen fit to raise her to the next level. She thanked him, but was too eager to find out what new powers she had gained. The knock on the door was annoying. But she rose anyway and opened the door. Sigmundurr was there with her supplies.

"Thanks Sig! Well, I've accepted you are coming whether I like it or not. I don't want too many people though, so it's just you, me and Kallid. Just leave those on the bed."

"That's a smart lizard," Sigmundurr laughed.

"Well, when a boulder comes crashing down the path at you, you don't try and stop it. You just try to stay out if its way," Kreet replied, not without humor.

"That's right!" Sigmundurr agreed and patted her head. It was an annoying thing he did, and botheringly patronizing. She'd gotten used to it. Being a kobold, it was pretty much a requirement. It didn't help that until recently she had played the part of 'stupid little naive kobold', and once someone's opinion of you has been set it's not an easy thing to change. She accepted it with good grace.

"Sig, if you're coming with us, would you mind terribly getting supplies together? Take some coin. I'm going to be busy here for quite a while."

"Sure Gator. 5 gold should do it."

"Thanks Sig. And Sig..." Kreet said as he turned around at the door.

"Yeah?"

"Look... I'm sorry about what I said before. It's not that I don't like you. It's just... you're YOU, you know?"

"Always have been. No problem Gator. I know I'm a bit much. But sometimes you need someone like me."

"And sometimes you don't! Try and control yourself, will you? For me?"

"No promises, Gator. I am who I am. But I'll try... a little," he said and closed the door behind him.

She sighed and turned to the supplies on her bed. It was getting late it was going to take a long time to make two good, functional sunglasses for her and Kallid. She picked up the empty bottles and the tools and began breaking glass carefully. She'd done this so many times over the years, she didn't so much as scratch herself. Working with unfamiliar tools was the only challenge, but it was a slow and intricate process anyway. Yet she had gotten good at it. She wondered idly while she worked if this craft making mindset was why kobolds were legendary for their trap making ability. Probably.

Finally she had finished and the night was getting late. She put away the debris, made her necessary oblations to Nature and Pelor, and crawled into bed. She didn't have to blow out any candle - she had been working in all but pitch darkness the entire time. A bell rang from the tavern room and she heard footsteps in the hallway open and close as voices passed by her door. She recognized some of them. 

Then a light knock came and she opened the door. Kallid stepped in and she took his hand, not saying anything. She closed the door quietly and locked it. Then she led him to her bed. True to his word, he didn't try to do anything too intimate or dangerous. But she did enjoy his attentions and returned them with attentions of her own. An hour later she fell to sleep in his embrace, his head under hers. She could come to like this, she realized. Yes, she could definitely get used to this.

[sammygiddings]

Lets talk about this au I have:

instead of Cassandra, Percy is the one to get shot during their escape, and Cassandra being a scared child (like Percy) leaves him to die.

She takes up working on the boat, same as Percy did, only she is a teenage girl, and has to be more careful and has had one too many bad interactions with the crew men to even open herself up to the idea of having any friendship in her life.

She keeps working there until she has enough money to buy supplies, and then she is off to kill Ripley, because she doesn’t need no demon to offer her up vengeance. Cassandra De Rolo can go get it for herself.

She gets captured, and meets VM.

Cassandra is very very distant from them. She doesn’t speak unless she needs too, and doesn’t want to ever let people in again out of the fear of losing more people in her life. 

She doesn’t get along with Grog and Scanlan, as they are way to hyper, and happy, and idiots for her to get along with.

Pike is nice, but she’s always with Grog and Scanlan, so Cassandra mostly avoids her as well.

Keyleth is fine, if not a little annoying and Cassandra resents that Keyleth is a few years older than her, and yet is so much more innocent than her. She envies it as much as she pities her for it.

The twins are the only two she really could see a bond forming with. Vex is clever, and good with money, and takes no ones shit (Cassandra likes that). Vax is a rouge like her, and they try to out stealth each other a lot. Vax always wins, and it’s obvious he is the better rouge, so Cassandra starts learning to be a fighter as well so she isn’t just a lesser Vax.

Not long after the Underdark, Cassandra actually starts to warm up to VM and starts seeing them as friends. Keyleth is so happy and drunk when she learns that Cassandra actually likes her (cause she thought she hated her and that really upset her) that she just pulls everyone into a group hug (Cassandra tolerates it, but secretly enjoys it).

The gang doesn’t know how young Cassandra is, due to her white streak, frown lines, and how mature she acts. When they meet Kynan and call him a kid, Cass tells them she’s only a year or two older than him, and VM is shook that she is so young and they have been exposing a young girl to all this horror (but then she does something badass and they forget about it). 

Vax pretty soon makes the mistake of calling Cassandra “Cass” and she flips out at him. No one but her family ever called her Cass, and so it brings up to many bad memories to hear it. She, however, does not explain this to Vax and so he is left confused and feeling guilty.

Once the Briarwoods come to town, that’s when she tells them all about her past. It is also when she turns distant once more and pushes her friends out. She didn’t want to get close to anyone, and having the Briarwoods so close to town made her realize how dumb she’s been at getting close with VM.

It plays out as canon for a while. The team goes to Whitestone, Cass also learns Percy is alive and being held captive by the Briarwoods. After they save him, he convinces Cassandra to take him along, and that’s when they see his weapon of choice, The List.

Percy does the whole “I’m a Briarwood now” thing, but the second Cass and the gang come to fight the Briarwoods, Percy turns on the Briarwoods (with zero hesitation) and begins to have smoke pouring out of him. It turns out he was simply waiting, gaining their trust, only to find the perfect moment to kill everyone on his list.

Rather then simply shooting of Delilah’s arm, Percy kills her, as he has no reason to keep her alive, and has every reason to end her life then and there as their former captive.

Vex almost dies, and when they get her to safety, Percy is still smoking and it’s revealed, Cassandra is the last name on his list as she abandoned him. He tries to fight it, as he can’t kill his sister, but without the Power of Love he had in canon, Percy can’t control the demon in him and attacks, and shoots Cassandra. 

VM fights Percy, and then Orthax when they get him to pop out. Percy is free, but Cassandra is having trouble trusting him, and all of VM flat out doesn’t like him.

Over the next few weeks, it’s clear that Cassandra can’t leave Whitestone, as it needs a De Rolo and Percy is in no shape to look after the place. He is however eager to stop Anna Ripley as he knows she has gun designs and that can only be trouble. Cassandra agrees it’s something he needs to do, and sends him along with VM.

They don’t like it, but for Cass they will look after him. Grog and Scanlan don’t trust him and tried to fight him a couple of times. Pike is very kind, but wary. Keyleth is wary at first, but the two become fast friends. Vex and Vax don’t trust him and are keeping an eye on him. (Vax only grows to flat out hate him after Vex is accidentally killed when Percy sets off the trap in the Raven Queen’s tower. Ironically, seeing how horrible he feels about it is when Vex starts to actually like Percy).

Percy starts making Vex arrows due to his guilt, and Cassandra instantly is like “no. no. no. you are not allowed to sleep with my friend.” Percy of course is appalled by this, but does eventually end up sleeping with Vex so Cass was clearly on to something.

Cass joins the gang after Vex’s death, as Vax refuses to keep traveling with Percy, and the only way he can is if Cass is also there to keep an eye on him. She leaves Whitestone in good hands and goes to help her family kill some dragons.

When Percy dies, Cass is inconsolable, and refuses to let go of Percy’s body. When is is resurrected, however, she pretends like is wasn’t that worried. (cause de rolo)

Cass dies in the first fight with Raishan, and Percy (pretty much like canon) just zones out and goes numb until she is brought back a few hours later. He also, acts as if he wasn’t really that worried about Cass. (cause de rolo)

During the teams year of peace, Cass starts dating Kynan. She keeps it a secret from everyone, cause she knows that her family wouldn’t let her live down the fact she is dating her and VM’s former fanboy. 

Percy of course knows, but keeps it a secret cause he finds it funny that she thinks he doesn’t know about her secret boyfriend.

Cassandra is openly kind and let’s people into her life again thanks to her new family. She misses her first family, but this little one made up of broken people helped put her back together again and find something she thought was gone from her life, happiness.

[diceprophet]

D&D 5e Game #7 Notes

Session 7: Chamber of the Eclipse

Last time, we left our chaotic band of six as they found themselves face-to-face with a murderous zin-carla and its sired zombie minions. Link to Previous Session Notes The undead drow declared itself as Dewein’agal, a loyal sword to Matron Mother Kovarra, and planned to add the party’s corpses to his growing army. The moment we resumed, the battle was on!

Part 1: Return to Sender

The aarakocra Cheedit and Kweh took to the heights and unleashed deadly accurate arrows and scorching fireballs upon the undead, respectively. The piercing strikes barely affected the undead (house-ruling from Pathfinder), but their desiccated flesh and tattered armor caught flame easily. Thus they uncovered the properties of zombies and how to counteract their resistances and exploit their weaknesses. Lyra also learned about the ease of igniting the undead, and Lao was forced to put aside his fists and resorted to fighting with a chef’s knife. Gradually, they whittled away at the thrashing corpses until they were no more. The half-orc barbarian Vakgar (surprisingly) held his own in a mostly one-on-one duel with Dewein’agal, and both were reduced to a bloodied state over the course of an intense clash. As Vakgar is within arm’s reach of a glorious victory, a dark shadow emerged and stole away his joy. And by that, I mean that the drow rogue Tebryn entered the fray at the last moment and dealt the slaying blow to the zin-carla, in a hilariously well-timed kill-steal.

As the zin-carla expired, the remaining zombies under his control also perished. During the fight, Tebryn almost lost his cowl, which would’ve revealed to the party his true identity as an Underdark fugitive. Thankfully, none of the players were perceptive enough to notice. But before the wraith perished, a disembodied female voice called out with an accusatory “YOU!” as it viewed through the eyes of its undead servant. Tebryn realized not be a safe as he thought in the coming days. Along with securing the kill, he also haphazardly picked up the defeated wraith’s two-handed greatsword after Vakgar scorned the elvish weapon. “A crossguard? Really? Are drow that afraid of hurting their delicate little fingers?” Upon grasping the handle (OF THE CURSED SWORD, GODDAMMIT), Tebryn felt a surge of cold and necrotic energy enter his body, followed by thoughts of wanton murder and destruction. This will go well.

Part 2: The Secret Tunnel

With all threats neutralized, they could easily explore the dark tower. At the top floor, there was a lighthouse-like chamber containing a heliocentric model of realmspace (i.e. planetary models). The orb representing Sol (i.e the sun) was glowing with radiant energy. Beside the the model, at the center of the room, the party beheld a plaque containing an elvish poem.

What had two faces, but now only shows one? What shines brightest, and is second to none? What’s caught between two, a torn-in half soul? Aligned but apart. Separate, but whole. To touch would be an impossible feat. Under a hole in the sky is where we will meet.

Being savvy players, they easily solved the riddle, and arranged the planets to simulate a solar eclipse (”a hole in the sky”). This action opened up a secret path underground. The party deduced that this is what Dewein’agal was guarding, but was unable to re-enter due to the nature of the sun orb’s radiant energy greatly damaging his zombie-like form. The six took an extended rest before descending into the depths.

The next challenge was a large stone corridor that could seemingly roll over and cast the entire party into a void. The door at the far end of the hallway had an elven-looking statue engraved upon it. At the beginning, both hands were crossed over its chest. But once the mechanism activated, one of the hands uncrossed and presented an open palm, as if expecting something to be placed there. On opposing sides of the entrance, there were two heart-like jewels presented by a pair of elf statues. Vakgar and Lao both took a wild guess as an unseen gear turned with a rhythmic clicking. One at a time, they transferred the two heart jewels to the other side, ultimately giving both hearts to the door sentry. With this successful solution, the party safely entered the deepest level.

Inside the final chamber, they beheld a scenic artificial river on the far end of the room. Above, there was a glass ceiling that showed a wondrous view of the night sky. Along with the beautiful architecture, there were also remnants of a vicious battle, as evident by the charred and shredded corpses strewn across the floor. A path lead even deeper underground, and the tunnel was outlined with countless claw-like marks, indicating the passage of some horrible creature. The party was interested in an Underdark excursion, so they kept searching for more clues of what exactly happened.

Part 3: Forbidden Love

There was an ornate door that displayed the scorched outline of a humanoid. Below the haunting silhouette there was a pile of burned remains amidst fine grey ashes. This person was obliterated by a massive fireball, but not before placing an arcane lock upon a door. Tebryn attempted to outsmart the constantly shifting pins, at great danger to his own personal health. Cheedit searched the dust pile and procured a partially expended Necklace of Fireballs. They realized that this poor soul had detonated their own magic item in a last-ditch, suicidal attempt to protect whatever or whoever was behind the door. After getting fed up with Tebryn’s fumbling and futile attempts to make progress, Cheedit offered using a fireball to destroy the door outright.

Beyond the door, they found a large bed laid with fine cloths. A slain moon elf laid facedown, one hand still holding a curved silver sword, and the other...clutching the hand of a dead drider. Tebryn then realized that this well-decorated (save for the dead bodies) and elaborate chamber wasn't a dungeon; it was a site for a lover's tryst. But it would've taken two people to pass the trapped bridge. A few INT checks later, the party finally understood.

An unnamed drow priestess, through some series of unknown events, had come to love a sun and moon elf. The three met in secret for some time, but their happiness did not last forever. Calamity bubbled up from below as the drow was discovered, captured, and cruelly punished. She was transformed into drider, which broke her physically and spiritually, and unleashed upon her former lovers along with a squad of killers led by the aforementioned zin-carla. In the end, only the latter "survived", but was trapped on the surface. So there he stayed to keep the truth from ever spreading. With Dewein’agal’s death, the party had closed the chapter upon a tragic dance of the sun, moon, and the darkness between them.

Part 4: The Hungry Darkness

After looting the final area, the group prepared to leave the depressing site. But suddenly, a trio of hungry carrion crawlers, drawn up by the commotion, emerged from the Underdark! And this is where we adjourned our session.

WILL THE PARTY SURVIVE TO SEE THE NEXT SUNRISE?! Only the dice know.

Part 5: Dungeon Master’s Closing Thoughts

When I first sat down to design this dungeon for my Storm King's Thunder party, I wanted to keep it simple and direct. Four hours later, the dungeon became the site of a forbidden polycule of a drow, sun elf, and moon elf. I realized that I had completely gone off the rails from sleep deprivation and holidays-induced stress. But I also decided, “Fuck it. I'm just gonna run this shit. 50 Shades of Fey up in this bitch. I'll throw myself upon my own vorpal sword in disgrace after the session completes.”

I’d admit that the end result was some straight-up Korean drama level schlock; melodramatic, cheesy as fuck, and cornier than anything I've ever written.

But apparently, the players enjoyed it. WHEW! So I will count that as a win in our book! As long as we all have fun, it can’t all be bad, right? I can’t wait for the next session, and to continue the adventure with these most excellent players! Farewell for now!

Please check us on out Twitch, and follow for more tabletop skullduggery!

[badlandsloop]

Okay! Welcome to the post where I yammer on about this setting I invented for a D&D campaign that’s dead but I’m using to do a one-shot session. This is a broad view of the world at large but for map space, I had to scooch the landmass closer than they are. There is a GOOD amount of sea between the land continents and islands.

1. During the Dragon occupation of humanity, many humans fled to the northern islands in search of safety. What they found was a bleak barely habitable ice nightmare. But it’s better than dragons. So they founded the country Bjorngard and developed a society similar to that of the Norse/viking. The success and stability and society of Bjorngard are thanks to a mighty celestial who turned the first people into Aasimar, she dubbed her creations the Valkyries. Bjorngard is not he only origin point for aasimar on this plane but it is the most common. The Celestial infused the blood of all Bjorngardians with radiance, tho a new valkyrie may not awaken their blood until later in life.

2. The Anythe Archipelago is the ‘home’ of the tortles. and the seafloor adjacent is the domain of the tritons. Home is in quotes because a tortle’s home is his shell and they are naturally prone to wander the seas. Tritons built alien cities beneath the waves and credit themselves for holding back the tide of the Elemental Plane of Water. As Anythe, the capital of triton society is built as a bulwark against the weakening fabric of the material plane there.

3. Yamanarta is a similar case to Bjorngard. Humans fled from the dragons and founded a society. These Refugees found a land of elves and gnomes enslaved by their cousins from the Underdark. The humans helped drive the drow and deep gnomes beneath the surface. Yamanarta is the home of many monk monasteries and samurai orders. Ruled by a commune of 4 shoguns, this country values the honor of war and the virtue of peace. Though it sounds contradictory to the outside it is treated as a balance among Yamanarta‘s many scholars. The Underdark continue to kidnap and enslave the people of Yamanarta which is why they are always ‘at war.’

4. Deep in the forests and Bluepeak Mountains to the north dwell the Firbolg. A mysterious jury in the trial of the material plane. Their long lives and commitment to noninterference make their society a strange one. Mostly tho they are treated like a myth, like bigfoot or some shit.

5. Long long ago a war between the elemental planes of air and earth held a violent war on the material plane. Only recently 200years did this conflict end and Chirinia was born. A floating island of stone and dirt hovers over the sea, created in the climax of the final battle as earth and air magic mixed. Aaracocra from the plane of air stayed behind as scouts and formed the society on the floating rock. As time passed, kenku from all of the the world flocked to Chirinia to try and recapture their flight. Tabaxi followed suit as their natural wanderer tendencies lead them to the most stunning sight in all of the world.

6. Faylen’Dael, where nature and arcane are nearly one and the same, is the realm of the elves is a strange continent, and Island with a giant landlocked sea. Forests stretch around the ring and elves build cities that are impossible to differentiate from the massive trees in which they live. Gnomes populate the lower levels. Despite occupying the same territory, elves and gnomes have never gotten into major conflict. They share the land with the beasts and a vertical biome, beasts on the forest floor, gnomes in the tree’s trunks and elves in the canopy. Faylen’Dael is the thinnest veiled place in the material realm, meaning the feywild and shadowfell are nearly accessible by foot. Elven society is patient to a point of contemplation over action. Some Elves spend months with their minds utterly occupied by a single thought. Gnomes similarly are lost in thought but instead of one, they brainstorm seemingly infinite ideas swirling together.

7. The northern half of the continent is the country Xath, the land of dragons. Heavily populated by Dragonborn tribes, these mountains are in constant conflict. Southern Xath is home to metallic dragonborn, keepers of ideas of good. Western Xath is home to marble dragonborn, who uphold laws and tradition above all else. Northern Xath is the territory of the Chromatic Dragonborn, selfish and evil being who work together only to better themselves. Among the mountains live another sect of dragonborn, the gemstone dragons. These dragons are chaotic to the core and their scales come in countless variations of gems.

8. Northern Xath is the site where the Elemental Plane of Earth pressed up against the material plane. After the war with the plane of air, the earthfolk rarely cross. The Chromatic dragons use this unfettered earth magic to build their caves and spawn mountains to bar their enemies.

9. Metalic dragons have become dormant as of late. After the chromatic dragons conquered humanity they withdrew to their mountains. The world at large does not differentiate the different types of dragonborn or dragons. All are seen as the villains who took over the world and almost made humankind extinct. They keep to themselves and aide the world by battling the chromatic dragons, making sure their power never reaches what it once was.

10.The port city of Xithslyvania is the closest the chaotic gemstone dragons have to a settlement. Technically a dwarven trade city the gem dragonborn love the varying cultures and endless distractions of Xithslyvania. The Dwarven rulers of the city recognized this boon as so great they renamed the city to Draconic language. If a Gem Dragonborn holds on to a possession is almost always so they can hock it in Xithslyvania.

11. Orcs are not farmers and their god fuels them with violence and destruction so the Western coast of the continent is called the Badlands. A blasted nightmare-scape, the orcs raid and pillage in the worship of Gruumsh. As humanity returned to its feet after the dragons were driven out the orcs saw their chance. They nearly brought finished the dragons’ goal of extinction.

12. When the madness of Gruumsh compelled the orcs to destroy humanity they succeeded on one of the human countries. From this devastation though a half-orc rose up as a hero. He rallied his half-orcs who denied Gruumsh and pushed the orc horde back. For their heroism the half-orc country, Riverwall was founded. Riverwall now holds the orcs at bay and shelters the Halfling society in Bonshire. Bonshire is a relatively new community compared to many others on this list. Halflings sick of the conflict on the eastern continent migrated over. The open plains and rolling hills of the location appealed to them and they bonded with the half-orcs over drinks and stories.

13. Humankind defeated the dragons who ruled them but the war took its toll on the land. Each human country was scarred by powerful magic so that it is locked in one season. NorthSpring is in perpetual advent. Things begin but do not mature, instead locked in a state of youth. NorthSpring is the home of the Bard’s Guild and ruled by a monarchy. There is little danger natural or personal in Northspring as the people are locked in revelry.

14. Summerhold is locked in heat and light. It is home to the Fighter’s Guild and is ruled by democratically elected officials. It is the seat of sport and exploration in human society. Many caravans routes crisscross the plains, providing trade and travel to the rest of the continent.

15. Wintergrace is trapped in snow and ice and death. It is the seat of the Mage’s Guild and ruled by the mightiest wizards. Laws are strict here to regulate magic and keep the safety of the people. Due to its adjacency to the lost ruins in the south many clerics live there to study what human society/religion was before the dragons. This has created a schism with the arcane wizardry of the rulers but infighting leads to dying to the cold so it’s mostly debate.

16. Marshfall Basin is a complex of varying terrains and is a mix of harvest time and dying plants. The leaves on trees grow orange and fall within days only to repeat the process. The Thieves’ Guild hides among the cities. Merchants rule the country and decree countless laws, that no one follows.

17. The Lost Vale sits beneath the human countries. It is the unreclaimable ruins of the old draconic rule and prior human society. Around the lake lives ghostwise halflings who keep to themselves. And in the ice lives the kobolds. After the dragons left, the kobolds had no masters or idols so their society kinda imploded. Vastly directionless the kobolds horde magic items from the ruins or die in the process.

18. Gorisher is Lizardfolk territory. The lizards were slaves to dragons before humanity and aided them in their liberation. For that reason, they are not considered monsterous like they are on many other DND worlds. Humans and Lizardfolk work together frequently as their ideas and goals are so different they can share the spoils of cooperation. Lizardfolk revere nature but are pragmatic enough to realize how civilization can aide them. Their behaviors are utterly alien to humans and vice versa but a common enemy made these two opposites allies. Lizardfolk come in shades of brown and green, depending on how close they live to Marshfall Basin and it’s autumn leaves. A variant of lizadfolk exists in few numbers, the Ashen Lizardfolk tribes were wiped out but several of these black scaled beings still wander the world.

19. Gorundr, home of the goliaths. The titan mountains were once home to the giants until their mysterious disappearance. Goliaths see themselves as stewards of the giants’ home and prepare for their return. As such they train for combat and breed like rabbits. Physical enjoyment is very important to goliaths as their lands are rough and awful. They view themselves as superior to the other races but enjoy their company greatly. Especially Humans and halflings. Interestingly enough the Goliath views on humans are identical to those that humans have to halflings. They see them as directionless, small, harmless, shortlived, and most of all fun.

20. The Dwarves control the mines so they have tradeport cities all over the world. Steelport is one such colony, named in common for its vast human population. Trade and immigration are very very important in human countries as their season locked curse fucks them up.

21.Baezenad is a new country in the desert. Founded by Tieflings sick of the racial prejudice in other countries, this place is on the verge of the plane of elemental fire. The being of that plane have no desire to interact with the material plane but it is adjacent to the 9 Hells. Fiends used to travel through the fire plane to reach the world but Baezenad built a city there to harvest the fiendish power without letting them enter the plane. Baezenad is a country ruled by desire and ambition but is very accepting of all peoples.

22. Four-Lake Hills is the home of all Halflings. Without ambition but filled with desire, halflings are up for anything. Surrounded by the mighty Dwarven lands they are safe and sound from threats. Because of that their culture has flourished.

23. Adamant is the home of the Dwarves. Dwarves are strong of body and will. They run most of the mines in the world and rule the trade with little corruption or greed. Dwarves have a complex caste system. The upper castes rarely migrate and rule the trade colonies from afar but lower castes frequently migrate away, leaving an issue with the working class among dwarf society.

[gymleadercheren]

As for going in depth with Orland’s family........ his family is totally enormous so it’ll be long lol

Orland is an orphan, first off, although he doesn’t know it. He highly suspects it, but doesn’t know for sure and honestly never found himself caring very much about figuring out the identities of his parents (which is odd, considering his self-obsession).

He likes to think that he was misplaced royalty of some sort despite the fact that there is no halfling royalty or nobility of any kind. He assumes his parents were very high-up, rich, and as endlessly charming and beloved and talented as he is. What he doesn’t know, or rather what he’s repressed, is that he is the illegitimate son of a particularly despicable dirty halfling theif and a penniless prostitute who died in childbirth with him. Far from the grand pedigree he’s imagined for himself. His mother, Rosalina, had beautiful golden hair he inherited from her, very rare among halflings, which made her popular. When she died shortly after having him, he somehow wound up with his father, Ryell O’Dell, who lived most of his life underground, performing shady deals in the Underdark with incredibly dangerous associates.

Orland lived the first nine years of his life never seeing sunlight, his father only dragging him along to the surface under cover of night. Orland was not popular at all in the underground, a very unwelcome drop of sunshine amidst the dark and gloom. He wasn’t cheerful, but he was endlessly talkative and curious, and he asked all sorts of questions that unfortunately either went unanswered or punished somehow. Ryell wasn’t a gentle father, or a kind one, or particularly caring at all. But he was all Orland had, so he followed him everywhere and was often used as an accessory to his crimes (often as a distraction because adorable little halfling kids are very good distractions).

When Orland was 9, Ryell double-crossed his dark elf associates for the last time and he got what was coming to him, killed by their giant pet spiders right in front of his son. Terrified, Orland ran off, somehow managing to hide from his pursuers due to his tiny size. He eventually climbed his way to the surface, where he saw the sun for the first time, and flowers and trees and blooming roses and a super cute little girl named Cornflower who demanded to know why he was so dirty and weird and crying in a fetal position in the middle of a field. Upon finding these sources of real happiness for the first time in his life, he ends up repressing and completely forgetting his past in the underground, and he begins anew (although he later feels compelled to name his lute ‘Rosalina’ for some reason. It just feels right.)

YEARS LATER when he finally marries cornflower and they settle down and have their own enormous family that he is beyond enthusiastic over because he’s never had a family before and now he made one all on his own, he has an... interesting relationship with everyone.

He and Cornflower are super duper in love of course, but where Orland is incredibly blatant about it, Cornflower is much much much subtler. Even so, everyone KNOWS she’s just as crazy about him as he is about her by the simple virtue of her having not strangled him yet. And the twelve kids, pfffffffft.

Their first son, Orland Percival O’Dell the Second (who vastly prefers going by Percy), is much more like his mother in nature. Very stoic, very solid, and keenly intelligent. He’s about 17 years old and desperately wants to be a famous mage. He is annoyed that magic seems to come so naturally to his father, while he has had to study it all his life to summon any. He works incredibly hard and always has his nose in a tome or history book of some sort. He is the most responsible child, but all his younger siblings see him as incredibly stuffy. Percy adores his mother and does all he can to help her (which she appreciates) but he is somewhat estranged from his father. He thinks Orland is irresponsible and silly and is often at odds with him (which frustrates him because Orland often doesn’t even realize when he’s arguin with him). Through our campaign, he got separated from his family and ended up being offered some very dark magic, his ambition leading him to seek it. It was very powerful, but it took its toll on him and eventually when Orland found him, the deadly magic had already crawled its way up his arm and was threatening to take over his entire body. Orland stopped his party members from chopping his son’s arm off with an axe to save him, and instead made a deal with a fairy queen to stop the magic from spreading, giving up a lot of his own magic to do so. Because of this sacrifice, Percy is on much better terms with Orland but things are still awkward between them. His arm is entirely black and he’s got a few black marks spreading up his shoulder and neck. It’s very goth. He loves rabbits, and he has 6 of them that he adores and takes care of all the time. They’re named after a bunch of famous mages.

Their oldest daughter is named Pepper, and where Percy favors his mother looks-wise, she looks very much like Orland, only female and with very long hair. She is about 16 years old and wants nothing more than to be an adventurer like her Dad, but both her parents insist on her being too young to travel, which she hates. She feels like she’s trapped in their house, where she’s unable to get any privacy or do anything for herself. She trains in secret, trying to become a rogue like her mother (who doesn’t know that Pepper knows about her abilities, haha). She sneaks off a lot at night, but she hasn’t been caught yet. She loves her parents and siblings, but she feels smothered. Nonetheless, she will beat up anybody who says a single word against any of them. Even stuffy Percy, who she makes fun of the most. She is sarcastic like her mother, has her father’s endless passion, but has not inherited her mother’s good sense or her father’s blithe nature.

Penny is their next daughter and she is sweetness and light and sunshine personified. She is about 14 years old. She is full of boundless energy and is always bouncing around in perpetual excitement. Nothing ever gets her down, and she is always cheerful. She has a huge amount of bushy brown hair that is filled with tons of flowers she inexpertly weaves in herself. She often leaves a trail of flowers in her wake as they fall out of her hair as she zooms around. She can be innocently insensitive, but she never realizes it. She sings often, but while she is louder than her father, her voice is not nearly as good. Which is a bad combination.

Potter is their next son and he wears a poncho pulled up over his mouth at all times. He is about 13 years old. He is the child that looks the most like Orland, but you can hardly tell since he hides his face. He can speak, but he almost never ever does, and when he does, it’s typically only a few words, very to-the-point, and very soft. He is an inventor, and he’s always fiddling around with things in his room, creating odd contraptions. His siblings joke that he is part-gnome somehow, which both Orland and cornflower resent, haha. It is very hard to tell what he is thinking a lot of the time because he rarely changes expression.

Pippa is their next daughter, and she is an enormous daddy’s girl. She is about 12 years old. She truly adores her father, but she is also admittedly manipulative of him. She knows that the more love she piles on him and the more she compliments him and praises him, he more gifts Orland will bring her from his travels. She is a little prissy, and always wears nice dresses and likes her hair curled and tied up a very specific way and hates getting dirty. But she is very cute and knows how to work it, haha. She is also a little bossy, and can be a little bit of a brat, but she loves her family fiercely and would do anything for them.

Peter is the next son, 10 years old. He is the only one that needs glasses (and they are enormous on him, as halflings typically don’t need glasses and they were the smallest they could find, haha). He is a big crybaby and a huge coward, and often trails along free his older siblings, often needing one of them to hold his hand. Orland has to reassure him that monsters aren’t real almost every night, but he often gets carried away with descriptions and ends up scaring Peter anyway, whoops. He is very gentle and has an appreciation for beautiful things, much like his father, but he gets teased because of his sensitivity.

Preston is the next son, 8 years old. He doesn’t look like Orland, since his long, bushy dark hair covers his eyes at all times, but of all the kids, he has almost the exact same personality as his father (Cornflower supposed with this many kids it was inevitable at some point). Preston is very charming and has a way with words. Unfortunately, he uses this gift to steal food from people or talk his way into getting other things he wants. He can’t trick Cornflower anymore, but he works his magic on the other halflings in town, certainly. He’s goofy and loud and enthusiastic, but he can be smooth when he needs to be, haha.

Pansy is the next daughter, 6 years old. She is sweet and kind, but very very spacey. She often says odd things hat nobody quite understands, and she is often found daydreaming and drifting off in the middle of a conversation. She loves nature, and often wanders off on her own, getting lost more often than not and panicking her family. She likes bugs, and tries to collect them, but Cornflower always makes her put them back outside.

Perry is the next son, 5 years old. He is the wild child, energetic and ready to fight. He’s like a little whirlwind and runs around everywhere outside, getting dirty and hitting things with sticks. He often climbs Orland and pulls at his hair, much to his father’s dismay. He always manages to find a way out into the yard, even when Cornflower tries to put him on lockdown. He wants to be a big strong fighter someday, but Cornflower has been trying to persuade him to channel his energy in a different way. It hasn’t worked yet.

Poppy is the next daughter, 3 years old. Like Potter, she rarely talks and is very quiet. She likes to observe. She has large eyes that rarely blink, and she takes everything in, staring and observing and thinking. She’s very smart, but she almost never shares her thoughts. People find her creepy sometimes, including her siblings, but they all love her and take her with them anyway because even though she’s odd, she’s very interesting. She can’t sleep unless Orland sings her a lullaby he wrote especially for her. This makes it hard for Cornflower when he’s off of one of his adventures.

Patrick and Piper are a pair of newborn twins. They are very cute, but as they are babies, they haven’t shown distinct personalities yet. If you touch them, Cornflower will bite your fingers off.