(Unofficial) Guide to the Five Lands

Five idiots try to save the world while their evil DM tries to end it (homebrew 5e campaign)

[bonesnappers-official]

Directory

Campaign Memes - #we aren't funny Session Quotes - #quotes Recaps - #recap Art Tag - #pinning this on an Iescu tree like it's a fridge

DM's tag // Mod BaronetCoins' tag // Mod Bee's tag

Collectible Character Trading Cards

[bonesnappers-official]

Sessions 58-65 Recap

In which your scribe has been busy, okay???

Previously On // Next Session

The story picks up two years later, with the signal to reconvene heading out to the scattered corners of the continent the party has wound up—from the brothels of Loveborough to the outskirts of Webshrine and rural High Brook to the capital of Hornsbrook. They met in a small town on the border of Wyvern Springs, where the warring nations had called a tentative truce to put together an expedition into the acursed lands. After some time to catch up—Ignatius had managed to pick up a vegetarian diet, and Zullie was able to perform the first successful cure of the deep curse on Tadgh—the mission ran into its first snag when a young half-orc woman murdered the Chancellor of High Brook in an act of revenge. 

After a brief talk to calm things down, the Bonesnappers took Sirena in. The bodies were secreted away in Lucretia’s bag of holding, and she joined as an unofficial camp follower of the RAPTOR mission. The parties are as follows: 

Wyvern Springs: Toccan, a dragonborn man who had his life saved by Tadgh’s wife Cara; Tadgh; and Radius

Redben: Ranchor and Khalunnia, the two succubus former employees of Ariel Tamaya; and a silent masked stranger known only by the nickname Ruins

Webshrine: Agemo and Leyrid, sisters from Webshrine; and Zullie

Horsnbrook: Lucretia; Almar Vixidoor, a member of the elf supremacist Brookend Restoration Association; and Connor, the young man Ignatius freed back in Loveborough 

Highbrook: Adelaide, Ignatius, and Vertebra

Khalunnia managed to provoke Almar and Lucretia into a scuffle, which ended only to be followed by an appearance from the Bleached Man. It was frightened off by a surprising streak of good luck from Ignatius, but not before managing to fell both Adelaide and Sirena. President Vallery resurrected Adelaide, but Ruins was the only one who could make it to Sirena. After a fancy bit of magic involving an ice coffin, he offered Ignatius a moment of recognition. 

The next day, the party made a start for the walls surrounding Wyvern Springs in the mobile huts. They encountered an enormous warped Iescu tree with a carving of the guts, almost crashed, noticed something buried beneath the earth, and spent their night in a sandstorm surrounded by distant accursed. 

The following day, the party encountered another Iescu tree but also a young elf girl in the late stages of the deep curse. Her behavior was unusual for an accursed, as she remaiend nonviolent, but Ignatius believed the responsible thing to do was put her out of her misery. When Zullie heard the ensuing commotion, she booked it and chewed Ignatius out for failing to come and get her, as she could maybe cure the girl like she did Tadgh. 

Despite this fight, she let Ignatius, Toccan, and Ruins observe the ritual. Ignatius’ turn got interrupted, however, by Khalunnia and Ranchor who informed him that the circle of the accursed was much closer than it had been previously. He gave the order to keep moving. 

Meanwhile. Sirena snuck up to join the caravan and joined Lucretia in going through the pockets of the late chancellor. This was a successful enterprise, but brought to a sudden halt as the caravan got stuck in the sand thanks to some magical influence. Ignatius and Lucretia were able to identify the problem as an attack from the accursed. 

The party fought them off, managing to identify the leaders and eliminate them—though not without the animating magic slipping away first, or without Tadgh and Vertebra getting infected with the deep curse. As it vanished, it called out a warning: “Do not trust Dr. Ignatius Vesper.” This was ignored in favor of assessing the situation. Ignatius discovered, thanks to Agemo, that Zullie’s spell had been interrupted and the girl was back to normal. He yelled at her for continuing to risk their lives by keeping the girl around. That fight was interrupted by further knowledge—all the supplies in the Webshrine car had been destroyed during the fight. Sirena returned to her separate vehicle and discovered a picture left in the fallen sand of a man standing in a valley between two peaks. 

Meanwhile, Lucretia went to the front when the caravan screeched to a halt again, discovering in front of the cart the group of Zotzilaha’s vampires. She allowed them to enter briefly, trading them directions to Sacred Horns for a barrel of blood to supplement their food. Zotzilaha recognized Ruins but declined to offer any information about his identity, instead taking his followers and flying off. 

Later that evening, Ignatius was trying to get some rest in the carriage with Tadgh and Vertebra, when he awoke to a sound of clattering metal and a panicked Lucretia standing over Tadgh in the darkness. He pressed her to explain herself, but she refused to offer any answers. That interrogation was interrupted by Radius, who informed Ignatius there had been a fight in the Webshrine carriage over the fate of the girl. He arrived and managed to mediate it to a pause, giving Zullie a day to figure herself out. 

Adelaide met up with Diala, mentee fellow tiefling turned shadow, who informed her she’d made a deal with Almar for his assistance in the fight. Ignatius, back to problem solving, went to find Ruins in the morning to see if he would be able to cast a spell—back in Webshrine, the party had picked up a scroll of modified Hero’s Feast. Ruins indicated he could, and gathered everyone together. When the spell was cast, everyone realized they’d been transported to a beach, and were now dressed for the occasion—setting up what was sure to be a strange hour.

[bonesnappers-official]

if anyone's wondering what the player experience of this campaign is like, we had two weeks hiatus and now for first day back I have to take my anxiety meds before I can eat breakfast.

[bonesnappers-official]

Sessions 56-57

Ignatius falls, Adelaide makes up, Tadgh shoots his shot, Lucretia offers a piece of her mind, and Zelda takes a bow.

Previously On // Next Season

Ignatius awoke alone in the darkness after a cloud of noxious gas knocked him, and the rest of the party, out. He started to explore the empty cavern, praying out for any help. He was answered by the disembodied Auril, who told him she was far away but believed he would make it out. 

Alderiche, by contrast, continued to needle Ignatius to lean into the hunger as he walked through the cavern and begging for the son of the Frostmaiden. Ignatius pointedly resisted, stumbling into Tadgh and enraging Alderiche in the process. In response, Alderiche went to bite the two of them and caught Tadgh, somehow progressing the deep curse to stage 4 in the process. He took this bravely before observing with his near 6th sense that there were a handful of undead creatures scattered throughout the cavern. The party, now back on its feet, split up to attempt to deal with them.

This took some amount of running around, with Ignatius nearly getting knocked out again. He prayed to Auril one more time, who promised she had someone in the area coming. The avatars of Alderiche began to fall one by one, including to said cavalry—a stranger in an owl mask and a great feathered cloak. After a brief standoff with Lucretia, they took off together to help take out the other avatars of Alderiche. 

Meanwhile, Ignatius faced down against one last one but wound up getting knocked out. He woke up to an open ribcage with a great mass of slime and meat biting into him using his own ribs as teeth. Alderiche boasted out that he was at last granted a body, and sucked Ignatius down into the floor. 

Alderiche errupted again in the main room, slumping to life as a giant slug-monster with Ignatius’ torso growing out of the top. What was left of the party squared up to fight, losing hope as Alderiche knocked them aside until Zelda’s body stood up from the floor. In one final blaze of glory she turned to Ignatius, reminding him of something he’d said long ago—”You once said to me, let your friends be your purpose. i return that to you. let your friends be your redemption”—before successfully blasting awya the shambling corpse of Alderiche. She brought Adelaide back to her feet, and the party stood for a half second as the last sluggy bits of Alderiche gave way to the sacred guts. 

The cave then started rumbling and collapsing as Alderiche, who’d become part of the land itself, gave away. Zelda threw up a wall to stop the party from getting any closer to her and sent her on her way—though not before telling Adelaide that she was sorry, and that she shouldn’t blame herself. In that moment her body gave up to the pressure of too much magic being poured into a mortal form, and she dissolved into energy and golden smoke which drifted off towards the exit. 

 The party then scrambled to safety. Ignatius was still unconscious, so Meta helped Lucretia shove his pieces into the bag of holding. She then tripped as she made her way out and saw a glimpse of the Bleached Man. It greeted the party, speaking ominously about their continued utility to it before offering them all a half-blessing—bad luck to those who would oppose them. Despite this blessing Vertebra stumbled, and Adelaide and Lucretia went back to go help her. They panicked for a second as the flood of water from behind them started to rise up, but Code came through on a horse to pick up the rest of them. 

The man in the owl mask suggested he could hold off the flood of water threatening to drown them all for long enough for people to swim, while Tibia said he could teleport one person out of there. Adelaide made him grab Lucretia, which he did, while the rest of the party went floating upwards through the surface of the lake. They emerged on the shores of the lake around Loveborough, where Adelaide awoke to Code doing CPR on her. They had a moment to see a whirlpool form in the surface of the lake before a pool of cursed sludge emerged and bodies started to rise to the top. 

Meanwhile Tibia and Lucretia appeared into the chambers of the president in Tenth Bridge. After a tense bit of sniping back and forth during delivering the status report, Tibia dragged Lucretia back into the room to hear the news—Hornsbrook had declared war on High Brook, because they found Queen Farlander dead next to High Brook Operatives, Webshrine declared war on High Brook for similar reasons, and Redben was also on the path to war. They quickly arranged themselves to go off and find the rest of the party in Loveborough to figure out what would come next.

Meanwhile, the party in Loveborough watched as Queen Farlander got dragged up to the surface. She fell upon President Valery, begging for help, but Adelaide spotted that she was already consumed by the deep curse. Valery tried to insist they could get Ignatius to help, but Tadgh took the matter in his own hands and laid her to rest. With her last breath, she thanked him. The party then turned back towards Tenth Bridge. 

They reconvened when they met up in the middle of the road. As the information came out, Valery insisted they go to ground. The owl-masked man turned to leave, stopping when he realized Adelaide and Tadgh were staring at him. When he asked them why, they explained his resemblance to an old colleague. He reacted poorly, shattering his own mask in a fit of excitement and revealing a confused man beneath it—who proceeded to die of drowning in an empty forest. Valery ignored that, and turned back to the plan: the party would be split to stay in different safehouses until the mission to recover the sacred corpse parts could be resumed. Adelaide would go with Radius to the Purple Mice in Loveborough, where she could be close to Code and Tiara. Ignatius would go with Meta to his old home in Twentieth Bridge. Tadgh would go with Zullie to Enigma’s old compound. Tibia and Lucretia would go to Crownshore City, to keep an ear out amongst the elves. They set out that night.

As the roads diverged, members of the bonesnappers peeled away—to wait out the years of war, and see what would become of this strange new world.

The Bonesnappers will return in The Five Lands: Season 3

[kyotoprotocols]

[bonesnappers-official]

pov what any of the BBEGs see in this campaign

[gods-jester]

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

mark it in the books. today, March 15th (the ides of march) officially marks our halfway point through the Five Lands Campaign. we started this over a year ago in January of 2025, and in honor of that, here are some of our beloved quotes without context

"Your threats mean nothing to me white man." (first ever recorded QWC, Zelda's player to DM)

"“THATS it i’m starting the spreadsheet because thats a war crime." (Baronet)

"The sign changes from closed to very closed." (God himself)

"I don't care how good his tits are, vote him off the island." (Tadgh's player)

"I wouldn't say it's an orgy, but it's close to it." (God, again)

"What's science in the face of yaoi?" (Zelda's player)

"Tadgh is not a written knowledge guy, he's more of an oral history kind of guy" "That is just a way to say he's illiterate" (Tadgh's player, Ignatius's player in response)

"Call him Ignatius Vitamix." (Ignatius's player)

"Where in the five lands do a banana grow?" (Baronet)

"What Should I do?" "Kill it, Kill it with fire, Kill it for good" (Zelda's player to Baronet)

"Do you think of a single fucking thing that comes out of your fucking mouth???" (VERY SPECIFICALLY, Adelaide to Ignatius)

"That's it you lost your skin privileges." (Ignatius's player about Meta)

"If I snore loudly enough can I give her advantage on insight?" (Tadgh's player)

[bonesnappers-official]

I'm on 20 hp, no spell slots, no flash of genius, and no steel defender. we're about to have our second boss battle. send help.

[chanthusiast]

why lolth kinda....

[bonesnappers-official]

Session 55

Kill god, then we'll talk.

Previously On / Next Session

(Content Warning: major character death)

Tadgh, trapped in the corridors of sloth, managed to pull himself back out by remembering Cara and how little time he had left. He whittled her a pendant, and stood up to go face the world. 

Meanwhile, the rest of the party squared up with Lolth and Gargantula. It went to shit almost immediately, with Adelaide getting so desperate she invited Malakar in Lucretia’s ploy to make sure they destroyed the real link backfiring—finding nothing in the broken pod but a little marble with stars in it. Tadgh dove through the ceiling after a well-placed arrow that went straight through Lolth’s arm, but got knocked off her back after attempting to stay there and wail on her. Ignatius noticed a change in Gargantula’s face and realized Gargunnel was in fact the one piloting the body which Lolth taunted him about, reminding him that she was both her and Eilistraee’s link, and if Gargantula/Gargunnel died, the entire ecosystem Eilistraee supported would dissapear. Paralyzed with indecision in the face of Lolth using her body as a human shield, he sent out a desperate prayer to anyone who could help him.

That prayer was answered by Meta, who pulled himself from the ground to cast freedom of movement on Gargantula/Gargunnel. She slipped away and behind Ignatius, but Lolth grabbed Meta and started pummeling him into the ground. Lucretia tried to take out Gargunnel from across the room, but Ignatius stepped in front of the firebolt and went down. Zelda, after needling away at Lolth for most of the fight from the back lines, got in one punch too far when she cast out a mind whip. An already irritated Lolth turned around cast power word: kill—an attempted counterspell by Zelda failed, and a counterspell from Adelaide was counterspelled in turn, leaving Zelda dead on the ground. 

Lucretia ignored this and managed to send out one last desperate firebolt, which caught Gargunnel when she turned into the path of the bolt. She fell, and the link popped like a chain snapping. Lolth screamed out and managed to knock Lucretia down with her dying flail before calling out to Alderiche as she vanished into the air. 

The ceiling of the cavern began to collapse in, and various people who had been present at the sabbath started falling from the sky. A particularly bad cave-in covered Zelda entirely. President Valery hit the floor in front of Meta and started desperately calling out for a diamond. Adelaide went off and begged Malakar for assistance, but he scoffed at her and pointed out that her soul was special. 

Meanwhile, Zelda saw into the void beyond. She lay in the dark expanse of nothing that constituted an afterlife and experienced the time dilation which accompanied it, lying there for so long that the time stopped to mean something and she had forgotten where she was by the time Iescu spoke to her. 

I: Well, do you like it here?

Z: I don’t know, I don’t know where here is. It seems pretty boring.

I: Yes. It’s not how I wanted it to be.

Z: There’s nothing I can do about it.

I: And there’s nothing I can truly do about it either, as of now.

Z: Who are you?

I: I think at one point, so much longer ago than you can remember, you were told that my name was Iescu.

Z: Iescu. It sounds familiar, but I don’t know if I can remember anymore.

I: I think a name that would be better to remember is Arin Tamaya.

Z: I like that name.

I: I’m told she always liked your name too.

Z: She’s the one who gave it to me. Where is Arin?

I: You could say that she’s also here. Unfortunately, my current situation does not allow me to put the two of you in communication. I can only remember what she told me about you, many many moments ago.

Z: She talked about me?

I: Yes. She’s been waiting for a very long time. 

Z: I thought she never wanted to see me again.

I: She was held back by someone as scared and as frightened as she was. I like to believe that you may have reunited one day, even here. But it’s clear that no matter how tight the bond, as of now a force tighter than what I can face prevents me from building this place as I wanted it to be. There is another person that almost visited this place, and who also remembers your name. Adelaide. Does that name sound familiar?

Z: Adelaide? I think–I think I cared about that person a lot. Maybe more than anyone since Arin.

I: I’m sure you did. Not the same kind of care, but as important nonetheless. I’m afraid at one point, we had some differences. And as much as I hate to say it, I don’t know if this place, if it was to be built as I intended it to be, would be open for you.

Z: Oh.

I: However it seems there are still people who care about you, and people doing everything in their power to bring you back.

Z: I don’t—I don’t know if I want to go back. Is it going to hurt?

I: Well. I would say it’s a good thing you don’t want to truly go back. because you cannot. As of now, they will have to make a choice between a lot of people, and you are currently unreachable to all of them. However, I do not know how much you care about coming back. And yes, to answer your question: it will hurt.

Z: What was I doing before I was in this place?

I: This place is… something that I created—tried to create—for those who had done their time in the previous life. But as you can see, there is—the threads are not as whitened as I’d like them to be.

Z: Is there anything I could do from here that would help Arin and Adelaide?

I: From here? No-one truly interacts from here. This place is for the people who are of this place, the previous one for those who it is of.

Z: And which place am I of?

I: This one. you—some very powerful people from the previous one can at times bring back, but ultimately this is where everything leads. You simply got here earlier than others

Z: Then I guess I have to stay here, right?

I: Maybe.

Back on the material, Valery continued shouting for a diamond. More and more people hit the ground, some with a thud and some who got up again. Tibia joined the crowd, and Adelaide harangued him for assistance. He managed to find a diamond for Valery in his bag and Valery managed to bring Meta back up. Meta panicked over the body of Ignatius while Radius and Zullie flew down together on Zullie’s broom. 

Adelaide begged Tibia to help her save Zelda, choosing her life over Ignatius’ when Tibia pointed out he could only save one. Zullie helped lift the rubble off of Zelda with a reverse gravity spell. Adelaide grabbed her and pulled her down, getting the sacred corpse’s ribs for her trouble. Tibia sat down to cast wish, and everyone held their breath.

In the meantime, Ignatius got up to Meta shaking him. He demanded information on Gargunnel’s fate, but Meta couldn’t offer any. Ignatius was furious, but Meta managed to calm him. 

Tibia, meanwhile, turned around with an unusually grim expression, reporting that the worst had come to pass—Zelda wasn’t getting up, and he had run out of wishes. Adelaide tried to punch him and instead just hit the ground sobbing. Valery tried desperately to Revivify her, to no effect—even though it should have been well within the time. Zelda’s corpse erupted with a spasm, and the spine slithered out, where it wound up in Ignatius. Zelda stayed dead. 

[bonesnappers-official]

Sessions 52-54

The Bonesnappers descend into the depths of sin.

Previously On // Next Session

(Content warnings: body horror, gore (more than our usual amount))

As the party settled in to await the start of the sabbath, Gargantula pulled Lucretia aside to ask what she was looking for. As Gargantula explained it, her job in the ceremony was to make sure everyone was satisfied—since Lucretia was a late addition, she was the only one still a mystery to Lolth. After some back and forth prodding, Lucretia confessed her ambition to understand and ultimately create life. Lucretia tried to prod back by asking Gargantula about the missing person in the family portrait, which she waved off. They then went off to sleep, leaving second watch to take their place. 

Second watch was Adelaide, who witnessed a terrified Gargunnel trying to sneak away from the circle. She woke up the rest of the party in her attempt to stop Gargunnel from killing herself in a last-ditch effort to avoid the sabbath. Ignatius wandered off and prayed to Lolth for guidance, getting a little before being interrupted by the shadow of Kamezotz on the cavern wall. The sheer confusion of adding yet another god to the mix managed to resolve the situation, and the party managed to slip back into an uneasy rest—though not enough for Lucretia to not gain a level of exhaustion. 

In the morning, Gargantula woke everyone up and ushered them through the great doors at the bottom of the buried blackpit. For a minute, there’s darkness before the party emerged in the midst of a room that could be best described as 75% disco, 25% orgy. Gargantula informed everyone if no invitations awaited them in the room, they would see her in the next chamber before vanishing. The bonesnappers then made their way past a few familiar faces, including the long ago succubi who had accompanied Ariel Tamaya, before finally managing to find the exit thanks to the timely, if distant, intervention of a familiar wizardess. 

The next chamber proved to be a fancy restaurant, where Adelaide spotted President Vallery and Code Weakleg sitting side by side, enjoying a cake while Zelda noted the creepy doll from earlier attempting to eat them out of house and home. After a brief, if awkward, encounter with the politicians, the party managed to make it to the next chamber. 

The third chamber was a labyrinth of a casino. While the party sped through it as efficiently as they could, they did still manage to catch sight of Basiliko losing at one card game, while Tibia and Toru cleared house at blackjack. 

The fourth chamber was a series of individual padded rooms, each with a TV and room for one guest. Tadgh was the first party member to find his spot when an attendant stopped the party before they could make it to the next chamber, and decided to take the invitation. A few doors further, including one room belonging to Queen Farlander, a different attendant tried to get Zelda to stay behind in her room. Zelda declined rather forcefully, leading the attendant to panic—but before she could withdraw her protests, the room grew a floor made of hands and sucked the attendant down into the depths. The party quickly moved to the next chamber. 

The fifth chamber was a basement fighting ring. Vertebra spotted the party first, trying unsuccessfully to drag Ignatius towards the fighting ring before being distracted by Zelda. Adelaide noticed Zotzilaha in the room before getting noticed by a drow woman, who pulled the party aside when she heard Ignatius drop the name Auril. At about this time, Adelaide walked off to find the next room.

After a brief bit of beating around the bush, she introduced herself as Gargrapdoor, the servant of Kametzoz. When asked, she did admit to having two sisters—of which she said one was dead and one was insane. After Ignatius asked some suspicious questions about the albino tiefling’s curse, she tried to tell him he didn’t actually need to feast, and that he shouldn’t be succumbing to his curse without having killed thousands at a time—that that’s how Alderiche captured Lolth’s attention, by mass ritual slaughter. She also confirmed Auril’s husband was Emperor Nottik, and that she used to be a servant of Vhaeraun, Elistraee’s brother. According to her, she fought Auril at one point, and since that moment nobody in the world remembered her. 

She described Zotzilaha as having killed many in an attempt both to escape from and pursue Kametzotz, and then asked us for information on a man she believed to be responsible for the death of Vhaeraun. She’d found a note in his hut reading “I know your hunger, son of the Queen. To you I offer eternal fullness. Meet me in Tenth Bridge” from one Dr. Wondrew, and then felt the link be severed. She offered a bargain where she’d answer any one question about the history of this land in exchange for information on him. Lucretia got her contact information (the end of the Hornstream Track), and suggested they’d be in touch if they found anything. 

Lucretia slipped Zotzilaha a note with the information that his brother’s link was around in order to finish their bargain, and then vanished into a sudden pop of darkness before he could ask her more questions. The party then moved on to the next room—which turned out to be a sudden drop down into a sewer. After floundering a bit in the depths of some muck, they were able to reconvene with Adelaide on the side platform. 

The sewers, the sixth chamber, were a large circular ring with tunnels branching off to the side. Down one, Lucretia caught a bit of Zullie’s familiar and tore off down to look for her, with the rest of the party just behind. She found Zullie at the end of one side tunnel, staring into a grate which seemed to open into the fight ring they’d just left. 

Zullie was the one to break the silence, sniping at Lucretia for her self-importance and disregard for those she thought of as lesser. She made a few snipping comments about getting to interrupt those who didn’t deserve the happiness they were getting, and then left to bother someone else. 

After looking down several more tunnels and running into both Agemo and Radius, the party found one quieter tunnel and got interrupted by Gargantula. She tried to tempt Adelaide into staying and tormenting Code, but she resisted the urge. Gargantula shrugged it off and disappeared down into the water of the sewer, leaving the party behind. 

Some quick thinking landed on a plan where Ignatius tied a rope to himself and went down to investigate for an exit. Thanks to Adelaide’s perception and Lucretia’s quick thinking, they managed to trace the thread of spider’s silk Gargantula had left behind, and Ignatius found a manhole cover. The remainder of the party followed the rope down to the end, and emerged in a small chamber with a ladder leading up. Gargantula’s voice called down, inviting us upwards, and the party began to climb. 

At the top of the tall ladder was a fancy bedroom surrounded by glass walls which looked out into the distance, showing all the levels of the buried blackpit and the sabbath. Besides the decoration of Lolth and a tiefling man who apparently represented Alderiche, the room was occupied only by Gargantula and Meta. After a touching reunion, Gargantula pulled Lucretia aside to try and show her to her place in the sabbath—a chalk circle on the ground, indicating a spot from which one could get a good view. Despite the temptation of being able to lord over everyone, a glimpse of Zullie stirred an inkling of something which might generously have been called a conscience, and Lucretia was able to resist the influence—scuffing a break in the chalk circle, and preparing to step back. 

At Gargantula’s protests that “he” did not take kindly to last minute cancellations, Lucretia offered a bargain—tell her who “he” was, and she’d remain in her spot. At that point, the trapdoor was subsumed by a mass made up of hands and flesh and bone and blood and the stink of rotting meat. Pustules continued to pop, releasing pus and the smoke of the deep curse as the thing ripped through the floor. Gargantula introduced him as the consort, and indicated Lucretia would deal with him later—to which she accepted, and stepped back. 

Gargantula then returned to the center of the room, and summoned Lolth through a portal. Ignatius managed to hold his ground, but everyone else became frightened—including Meta, who went to grab his hand, and Lucretia, who briefly hallucinated herself. Lolth questioned Ignatius about the nature of his seeking her—whether the only thing he came for was a cure to his condition. Ignatius explained he’d learned that his past actions hadn’t belonged to him, and he’d realized this was the first choice that was his own—that he’d become disillusioned with those who had manipulated him. Lolth offered him freedom, and he affirmed his desire. 

Immediately before he was to take his vow recognizing her as his goddess, Meta stepped forward and asked to be included. She veiled them both with veils of spider silk, and kissed first Meta on the lips before informing them of an ancient tradition which held that the first convert leave a taste for those who would follow to let them know what they should expect—at which point, Meta kissed Ignatius before turning him over to be kissed by Lolth. 

While Ignatius received his conversion, Meta approached Zelda and Lucretia. After a brief moment of condescension, he knocked the two of them over the head with smite, knocking them backwards into a pit while he dissolved into a flash of black spiders and brambles—just like the other puppets. When Ignatius turned around to see nobody there, Lolth simply informed him they’d gone ahead to her consort’s place, and that he should go find Alderiche by jumping into the pit of bodies and parts. 

Meanwhile Lucretia and Zelda were left to wander around the pit on their own for a moment—an enormous cavern composed entirely of flesh and bits of person. Lucretia managed to find a set of four pods—one of which was completely broken, mirroring what she remembered Gargantula telling them. Four puppets, one lost or destroyed. Lucretia poked it with her spear and heard a familiar groan—at which point she realized it was Meta inside. She carved it open, digging through layers of wall that parted like a facehugger from alien was emerging, and revealed Meta covered in blood and various other organic fluids. He was stark naked, covered in little tentacles which were attached tightly to his skin, and coughed a bit of the same fluid onto her. She ignored this last insult and managed to remove him, cutting away the tentacles and blowing most of her magical reserves on cure wounds. 

At this point Adelaide and Ignatius landed. Ignatius ran over as soon as he saw Meta, and began to perform elementary surgery—peeling off some of his own regenerating skin to perform temporary skin grafts. Meta remained confused during this, asking after Vertebra—he explained the two of them had been captured when they went to investigate the tunnel under Loveborough. 

Lucretia and Ignatius then worked together to extract the remaining prisoners from their pods. They found Vertebra first, in the same naked position, before managing to pull her out. Lucretia offered her a spare shirt and bundled her off to go sit with the more emotionally competent party members. Before they could open up the third pod proper, Lucretia tripped over a lock of blond hair sticking out of the floor, which Ignatius excavated to reveal President Valery. 

Ignatius insisted they open up the third pod to look for Gargantula. When they cracked it open, the found not Gargantula but Adelaide. The not!Adelaide from behind them tried to hit them both with a fireball, which Ignatius handily dodged and Lucretia managed to tank despite nearly falling on her face. At that, she vanished into another flurry of dark brambles and spiders, leaving behind the real Adelaide. When she was pulled from the wall and handed Lucretia’s cloak to wrap around her, she explained the last thing she remembered was being dragged below the surface of the water in the sewer system. The last president Valery remembered was being hurried to his rooms after the summit. 

All cards on the table, the party and allies came to the collective realization there did not seem to be a way out of the pit. Ignatius debated for a moment who he should try calling out to before ignoring Adelaide’s please and calling out to Alderiche. He offered himself in exchange for the safety of the party—an assurance the great rumbling voice of Alderiche, speaking with the entirety of the blackpit as his vocal cords, was willing to grant. A great mouth opened up in the wall of the cave, and Ignatius stood up and looked back at the party—at which point the following scene played out.

Ignatius: This is where I go. This is my stop. I wanted to get to the bottom of the buried blackpit to get answers, I got answers along the way. If I don’t return from this, I would only see myself being a hinderance to you further. If I do come back, praise be some other divinity. But I think this is it.

Meta: You have to be out of your fucking mind. You cannot, for one second, think that there is not betrayal behind his words. You are way too smart.

I: What other option do we have here?

M: I don’t know, but trust me. Any of them. Any of them is better than to trust the words of a god.

I: Meta. Meta, listen to me. I wouldn’t do this, if I genuinely didn’t think that for now, to buy you some time—everything I’ve done, I just learned, wasn’t me doing it. It was predetermined for me. This is one of the only things I can confidently say I am doing for myself.

M: (laughs bitterly) If only you knew just how much I know exactly how it feels.

I: So tell me. So tell me.

M: I was tasked by my god to fulfill the very worst of missions. My only act of defiance was running away, and that is how I ended up here. I understand how it feels like to be used, and to think that, and to know that those who have used you knew all the time about the position you were in. And how you feel like you will never, ever know why you were chosen but trust me. Rebelling in a moment of defiance, in a way that will cause the end of your life, that will lead to no good.

I: Meta, I ask you one thing. if you know this feeling, why would you contribute to us thinking that?  We were all sent on this suicide mission.

M: Because I thought it would fix that mistake.

I: I don’t know what you expect. You send us on a suicide mission and here I am, attempting to fulfill the one part of that mission to buy you some time.

M: Why do you keep pretending that I don’t care?

I: No one’s been exactly forthcoming. We’ve not been shown. We’ve just been directed—do this, go here, fight in this battle, don’t ask questions, if you do you’re met with more questions. I don’t know what we’re supposed to do—I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I don’t know anything.

M: Well I guess that makes it all of us, then. Nobody here truly knows anything.

I: So say I don’t go down this cavern. What then? Say we get out of here, on some miracle. how long is it util I attack the party again? When it’s not me? And how long until that is the constant state of my being? Because quite evidently it’s not much longer. I don’t know what to do, but I do know there is at least one thing i can do to solve that.

M: You’ve spent your entire life trying to find solutions that did not include ending it all? Why change it now?

I: I thought I spent my life chasing solutions. But you might want to ask Radius about that one, because apparently that was her decision for me. You think I asked to be brought back even in the first place? The fact I learned this isn’t even who I am—

M: What’s he talking about?

I: I was reincarnated, Meta. The condition I have was the condition albino tieflings experience. I was the one pinned to be the one who suffered. There’s nothing I can do to fix this. I’m doomed, and this is all there is for me. I thought I dedicated my life to finding an answer but it was all in vain. I was predetermined to do this. I was killed as a child and then brought back and I wasn’t even allowed the peace of death. My life is a lie.

M: My— my— I killed Iescu.

I: I was sort of getting to that conclusion that—well. I don’t think you’d be here if you didn’t do something.

M: No. I don’t think you understand. I killed Iescu. And then—

I: Are you the link for calamity?

M: I don’t know.

I: Did you kill iescu with your own hands, or did you do something else?

M: All that matters is that—

I: Don’t do this now. we’re kind of in a situation where I think giving straight answers is the best for all of us.

M: Yes. I killed him. It was me, I did it. But if you think that’s part of the equations, you’re mistaken. Because guess what? The deity that is supposed to be saving us wanted me to kill him. That was the fate I was assigned. Please. Please don’t go.

I: fine. but now we’re back to square one, so. But from here on, Meta. I need you to know that we can’t be left in the dark for these things. Ultimately it’s my hubris that led us here, and I can’t say I wouldn’t have acted the same had we known these things but it’s certainly a non-0 chance we wouldn’t have been here.

M: Nobody knew about my secret. Not even the Black Skeleton. Not the president. Not Skull.

Ignatius approaches meta. Grabs his hands. Locks eyes.

I: Thank you. This is the most honesty any of us have experienced in this entire time. So thank you.

He wipes the tear away, and goes in for a kiss. Meta stands there, looks into Ignatius’ eyes, and pushes him away.

M: no. not. I’m sorry. but not to you. not again.

The cave closes with a scream of disapointment, and a flash of light (almost like a spotlight) appears from above. Descending on a thread, Gargantula enters.

Gargantula: Well, well, well, that’s wrong now. You had your chance for a valiant, heroic ending to your so disappointing life.

I: So, one might say. This is the first time I’ve acted for myself.

G: Probably. It’ll be the last one too.

She lands with a fall, causing a shockwave of bodies flopping around at her landing. Lolth enters the cavern, emerging, planting her spear down.

Lolth: Naughty, naughty. I will not have it this way.

[Curtains]

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Session recap so good tumblr is trying to stop me from posting it

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Bonesnappers update: I’m going to eat ice cream and cry after this session

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Whe the D&D session is so evil you have to hit this move after

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Bonesnappers update: I’m going to eat ice cream and cry after this session

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session 54 no context spoilers

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WE HAVE SOMEHOW NEVER BEEN MORE FUCKED

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session 54 no context spoilers

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session 54 no context spoilers

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Sessions 50-51

The party fought the wall and the wall won.

Previously On // Next Session

Zelda, Tadgh, and Lucretia all went to go investigate the remains of the tarrasque. After bypassing the section of corridor the wall circled around, they arrived in the room. To their great dismay they realized they would have to get closer to the wound in its side to get any real information from its body. Zelda took one for the team by reaching inside its great rotting corpse with a mage hand to try and fish out whatever was the source of the pulsing movement inside it. When she got a hand of it, she realized it was a small porcelain doll with an illegible little handkerchief. When the doll was removed, the noise stopped. 

The party then turned away to investigate the other stomach contents—which proved to be a mistake, because it picked up a knife and tried to attack Lucretia while calling for its dad. It managed to knock her out, briefly, before it was wrestled into Zelda’s hands when she promised to find its father. Using her powers of deduction, she went out to hallway and looked for the wall. With his daughter present, they managed to negotiate a settlement which would keep him out of the fray. 

Ignatius and Adelaide were left to themselves to wait for the settlement, where they were surprised by the arrival of the steel defender bearing a letter from Lucretia. She offered to trade a message to Eilistraee for the freedom of Ignatius and Adelaide. Ignatius argued it was an attempt to isolate them, and that they shouldn’t go. Adelaide disagreed, but they agreed to loop in Gargantula. They sent the message to her, and heard back from a drider agent that something on that letter had affected her and she’d fallen sick. 

They went go go check on her and found her leaning against the wall, clutching her temples and near insensate. Ignatius used his black stone to draw something out of her head, which helped. She explained she was reading the message and had a panic attack. Ignatius believed it was targeted, but demurred. They decided they would not accept the meeting in a neutral location, but sent a messenger back to Zotzilaha’s camp with an offer to meet on the lower level. 

Meanwhile, Zelda went to strike up a conversation with one of Zotzilaha’s followers—Vlad. He expressed some familiarity with the geography of the surface, explaining that he used to rule over quite a large section of land. He was agnostic about his powers and the consequences that came with them, calling them a ball and chain, and suggested Zelda face up to those she loved. After some brief confrontation with the drider messenger, the remainder of the party agreed to go down to the next level to negotiate—carrying the doll, so as to ensure their protection from the wall. 

Ignatius accused Lucretia of poisoning the letter, which she denied spitefully. He then laid out his argument for being allowed to stay—the fact he seemed to have only a small amount of time left, and he hoped the spider queen would be able to help. To this, the rest of the party shrugged and gave their assent. That crisis averted, Gargantula created one—pointing out they still hadn’t explained the problem of her collapsing after reading the letter. Lucretia managed to have a moment of insight, realizing there was an arcane trace about her that matched the energy of the spells caught within the nosyd sphere she’d seen in Eilistraee’s tree, representing a pair of spells capable of jumping someone forward and backwards in time—clearly there was something with Gargantula, Gargunnel, and their relationship to each other. She tried to sidestep the matter by writing it off as Gargantula being unable to process some information and her mind giving out, but Gargantula reacted poorly to what she perceived as a slight against her competence. She seized the letter back and attempted to read it again, getting as far as the word Eilistraee several times before freezing and resuming, at which point she seemed confused. 

Lucretia realized that the person they were speaking to was Gargunnel and laid out her theory that Gargunel and Gargantula were in fact aspects of the same body. Gargunnel protested, bringing out an image of herself and Gargantula that was hidden in the sleeve of Gargantula’s dress. Adelaide pulled out a hand mirror and asked her what she saw. Gargunnel dropped it and started  clawing at her skin, leading to a panic—and to Zelda dropping the doll in an attempt to stop her, which triggered an attack by the wall. 

The wall proved once again to be a more than even match for the party. Ignatius had to carry a mostly stunned Gargantula out of harm’s way, returning to address the fact the remainder were left behind. Zelda managed to retrieve the doll, but put it in harm’s way for one of the wall’s attacks—ending the battle, but leaving the wall distraught. Gargantula returned as her regular self, dispersing healing before trying to take control of the situation. Ignatius snapped at her, which she did not appreciate, at which point the rest of the party had to intervene to find calm. Gargantula explained she believed herself to have taken a nap, to which Lucretia repeated her conclusion about Gargantula’s mind trying to protect itself from something and managed, for once, to persuade someone of her sincerity enough to resolve a conflict. The party then went back to the domain of Lolth’s followers to wait for the sabbath. 

After a brief group discussion, Gargantula dismissed the others to allow her a private conversation with Ignatius. He confirmed what Lucretia had said about Gargantula’s issue, arguing that he wanted only for her to be stable enough to allow the sabbath to continue. She explained the process a little to him—the aspect of communion, and the fact he was supposed to come with his hunger unsatisfied, before leaving them alone. 

Meanwhile Lucretia, within shouting distance in case something went awry, had a moment to analyze the picture Gargunnel had shown them in more detail—where she realized that there were two things wrong with it. First, the younger woman was not the Gargunnel they had seen in Eilistraee’s tree, and second that Gargantula’s arm was extended as if there should have been a third person in the picture.