#this thought and entire post was brought to you by me playing with npc tool and seeing gortash'

[perilegs]

I think Gortash's design is very interesting. Yeah sure even his coat's description mentions "a maddening attention to even the most minute details of the filigree," but what I really enjoy about is the sharpness of it all. Humans are all soft, rounded teeth, round ears, even sharp features are in reality, very soft. Gortash's coat's details are all sharp. You couldn't hug him without several pointy miniature horns poking at you. His right hand, has a metal claw on every finger. If you're not careful, even a handshake with Gortash could draw blood. On his left hand, only the ringfinger and pinky are clawed. A gentle touch from that hand could be followed with a sharp blade cutting skin.

His back however? Completely bare from any decoration. He doesn't think anyone will approach, or even see him from behind. His clothes are meant to be seen standing, in front of a crowd, maybe on a throne. Ruling over everyone. However, it's a strange choice to leave your back so bare from what protects you on all other sides. Maybe he thinks his god has his back. Maybe he knows there's no one there. Maybe his trust in himself and those under his rule is firm enough.

[chimerabal]

Enter Player 5

Got a new character during the second half of the campaign today *confetti*, and hoo man what a Wild Fucking Ride. Wow.

Last session we defeated the Big Bad demon leader of the cult we were investigating, and got sent back to Thraben for two weeks of downtime between missions. The party is staying in a church compound, the characters all have these apartment rooms they’re chillin’ in, and were given an initial week of time to do whatever. 

Sibyl spent the better part of her time decoding The Book she carries; a bible loaded with coded scribbles added in by a party unknown to me. She made some good progress, which the content of is also.... unknown to me. Proud of her though! She also built a flying contraption that makes both Uriel and myself turn green with envy- quit being cool. Mikela took time to write to her family and had a heart to heart with a priest over her moral dilemmas. She also took the time to visit our werewolf Katya, played by the dm, and her younger sister to escort them on the town for a relaxing pub visit (as the church keeps them locked away unless escorted- being werewolves and all). Fun bonding happened over Mikela’s unwillingness to drink, and Katya’s jovial insistence on having a beer. 

The merriment was cut short very abruptly when Katya recognized a group of rangers in the crowd from her Past- and they recognized her. They got in her face about being a werewolf bold enough to come into the city- Mikela got into the ranger’s faces about being pricks- a ranger got into the younger sister’s face wiTH A KNIFE. Things escalated very- Very quickly. Mikela and the younger sister were brought out of the pub, leaving Katya wildly outnumbered in the pub. Mikela was able to overtake the one dude outside. Inside, Katya transformed FULL WOLF (just out of view, awww) and started kicking serious ass. Some thugs left the pub to attack the sister; Mikela decided that Katya had it handled and they fled. While fleeing they ran into a high ranking church knight and a crew of guards, who recognized Mikela’s regalia and they helped end the conflict (barely, Wolf!Katya had it handled and all they really did was get her to a hospital post fight). The knight turned out to be canon character Thalia, the Guardian of Thraben. Mikela and Thalia had a good heart to heart, knight to knight, chat- however the whole ordeal still left Mikela exhausted (probably doubly so with how many ‘I told you so’s were thrown her way over taking the werewolf for a walk :T overall NPCs were understanding tho).

((Per the norm, if Uriel wasn’t involved I was probably zoning in and out, there may be missed events, lmao, I try.))

Uriel started their week by trying to get as many resources from the armory as possible, and making a guard Actually Ill by describing scaberen stuff. Very successful. Couldn’t secure a room with a bathtub though. The better part of their time was building scaabs, and the better part of my time trying to describe them, haha;;; They packaged up a shiny new set of leatherworking tools for the old man she robbed in the cult-ridden town, added a small note, and got dressed in their best clothes as part of a convoluted plan to get Mikela to like them. They explained that they wanted to send a shiny new set of tools (omitting that they STOLE the old dudes regular set) to the man who so kindly housed us during our mission as both a thank you for his kindness, and an apology for our bad behavior (and the unmentioned guilt of ruining the dudes lively hood and sanity)- but they don’t know where the courier is or accurately remember the old man’s address :/ Another huge honkin’ success, the hidden truth stayed hidden and Mikela now thinks Uriel is a far better person than they actually are, PLUS Uriel’s nagging guilt of possibly really ruining this dude is lifted. Uriel was also able to gain access to a private bath through Mikela *confetti emoji* which... although not essential to the plot... is a creature comfort that makes it Way less likely that my character will try and escape for home.

Mikela used her and Uriel’s time together to try and figure out something about what the Lunarch had told the group out of her earshot last session. Uriel wasn’t able to lie as efficiently as normal after all the kindness Mikela had shown, and when caught lying Mikela offered even MORE kindness that... honestly caused a short circuit in my character’s self preservation and deceitfulness centers ((or in dice terms, I rolled a nat 1 on deception)). Uriel said that, although Mikela is the person she would want to tell the most, that they’re not in a safe enough place to talk about it. I’m pretty sure this set off every red flag and alarm in Mikela’s head- oops- but the characters are now closer for it :’) The awkwardness and seriousness of the situation entirely left Uriel’s mind the moment she saw how Nice the rooms for the traveling diplomats and higher ups were, and although Mikela still had concerns the two parted because personal hygiene and space are top priority for my dumb child.

At the end of week one, the Grand Lunarch Mikeaus called the “Investigative Squad” (as we seem to have started calling ourselves) to a meeting over the werewolf fiasco, and to introduce a new member to the group. The new member wasn’t the Lunarch’s idea, but the idea of many other Very Concerned church figures who just aren’t totally sure about all this- having someone Mikeaus didn’t pick himself added some security? We didn’t get much time to ask because the new member back flipped (literally) into the room, followed by magical glitter and fireworks. She tried, awkwardly, to get some laughs or applause from our Totally Stunned party, but eventually resigned to just introducing herself. Aurelia, former humble street performer, claims to have joined the church to “better the world” and sees the Investigative Squad as the perfect opportunity... you know... to better things. The scientists were amused, but Mikela was... not. At all. She took it as a personal slight and got Sassy. Introductions went... strangely. Uriel did a damn good job at creeping Aurelia the hell out, especially so when the word ‘scaberen’ was used (it was dodged many times prior to Mikeaus getting sick of us chatting). Aurelia also got anxious learning that Sibyl works in nerco-alchemy. I’d say every other sentence from this girl caused an insight check to happen, but we didn’t get much out of it immediately. Everyone except Aurelia was dismissed, Mikeaus had one final thing to share with her in private.

All together, Mikela began filling in Aurelia on the previous victories of the squad- less out of kindness and more as like,,, a petty accomplishment thing xD Aurelia took interest in the slain demons and Uriel eagerly offered to show off the work she did with the parts. Uriel had a full... maybe ten max minutes... of glory in which she thought the Whole Party was interested in seeing the upgrades she did to Ugly, and the new sculptures she was able to put together, before shit started hitting the fan. Aurelia managed to slip past both Uriel and Ugly and into Uriel’s totally trashed room to steal some unguarded demon parts. While Uriel struggled to get Aurelia back Out Of Their Space, the door fell off the hinges (thanks Ugly) and EVERYONE entered their disdainfully messy apartment. :( Sibyl and Mikela did some checks on Ugly to determine if the parts were safe. They aren’t. :(. One of the checks involved a spell that was able to detect demonic energies and Mikela detected the stolen part. 

Its... hard to describe how many /just barely successful/ deception checks Aurelia had made up to this point and HOW on edge everyone else was... but it was intense- and right here is where it started really going wrong really fast. Mikela grabs Aurelia’s bag and demands to know what the hell is going on, why there’s demonic energy in her bag, and what shes ACTUALLY here for. Aurelia tries a few more lies that fail horribly. “Demon parts that’s SILLY why would anyone want THAT” was said to the faces of both a scaberen and a necro-alchemist. She slips that shes from Nephalia as well and Uriel recognizes her. They call her out as a parts dealer they bought angel blood from once, which sets Mikela OFF. Aurelia tries to flee and combat starts. Shes slippery enough to avoid getting caught by Uriel’s whip AND grabbed by Ugly, but with great effort Mikela is able to grapple her- in the process knocking a ton of highly volatile scaberen chemicals onto the ground and lighting the damn apartment on fire. Sibyl uses her attack to try and put out the flames, fails. Aurelia casts a spell that frees her from Mikela’s grapple, and the shockwave from which blows out the fire. She makes a run for it and leaps out the window. Uriel lays on the ground and checks out from this chase b/c ughhhhhfuck this I almost lost all my work and supplies I’m out.

Sibyl peruses with a flight spell, and Mikela grabs the attention of some church guards from the window to join in the chase. Aurelia casts hideous laughter on Sibyl, who falls out of the sky onto Aurelia, leaving them both prone with a chance for the guards to catch up- they don’t though. Sibyl casts charm person on Aurelia, which keeps her from attacking, but not from escaping as she casts an illusion and vanishes (?). Mikela leaves Aurelia’s stuff with Uriel in the room and rushes to the combat. 

The session ended and the DM advised on thinking up a background character just in case the party manages to catch Aurelia and kill her- or if Aureila escapes for good. I hope neither of those is the case because holy Crap that was a hilarious session. I gotta do some doodles from it because- just- MAN.