Something about Apothecary Diaries and the complexity of what it means to have a mother. Something about Maomao and her only memories of her mother being silence or a pain that has nothing to do with her but is reflected onto her anyway, and yet still engineering things so that Lakan, years later, would come to find and marry her. Something about all of the courtesans in the Verdigris House being like mother figures to Maomao, yet never paying attention to her when she cried. Something about Loulan doing everything in her power to not be a mother - taking drugs to avoid it, knowing that to have a child would be a selfish, cruel thing, even down to 'killing' the children who adore her. Something about Jinshi, and both of his mothers - the one who birthed him and the one who raised him. Anshi, and raising him to be mature and older than he should have had to be to be the opposite of his grandfather, the man who victimized her, and Ah-Duo, unable to be in his life because she chose to give him up. Something about mothers not being unconditional and uncomplicated; something about motherhood being absent, ugly, confined by circumstance or by past pain. Something about not wanting to be your mother; something about being too much like your mother. Something about how your mother haunts you regardless.
Unfortunately, it has never stopped being dumb to me that Maomao is a massive narc. Fuck you mean Maomao McAlcoholic is anti-weed. How exactly do you justify her not having an obsession with the various culinary and medicinal properties of simple garden poppies??? Get the hell outta here
This is particularly annoying because Mithridatism (the practice of making yourself immune to lethal dosages of poison) actually does not work with most poisons... EXCEPT morphine. Which is poppy-based.
Like come on, man. Why the hypocrisy here. Why for weed and opiates specifically. Is it a publisher censorship problem?
In which Lucretia gets hungry and Tadgh meets someone with a familiar face.
Previously On // Next Session
the squad hanging out in Mean Slimes in Wyvern Springs
when lucretia goes fucking ballistic
agemo opens the door of the webshrine caravan to see whatâs happening
A: whatâs happening?
AD: FUCKING HELP
shadowy figure is fucking erland haaland ing
Agemo, grappling lucretia: oh my god this one too?
Lucretia goes down
AG: what the fuck was that? why was she attacking?
Adelaide gets Sirena back up
AG: Is this a regular occurence for her?
AD: No?
S: because i know that half elf just gave that long speech about not keeping secrets, so if this is something thatâs new Iâd like to know
AD: first time you, first time me
AG: youâre telling me ignatiusâ thing is infective?
AD: not that Iâm fucking aware of, and he hasnât done this for a year.
sirena looks at all this: there had been instances of sometimes people just fucking go insane, nothing to do about it.
S: if i bring her back to consciousness, is she going to lash out like that again?
AD: I donât know.
S: fuck.
they pick lucretia up (having a hard time) and drag her into the webshrine caravan.
AG: what happened to toccan?
S: he fled to his secret base of his own volition. either we hear from him again or we donât, and assume heâs dead.
AG: not that i disagree with this, but he was our navigator. what do we do now?
S: figure it out. we certainly canât stay.
L: what HAPPENED to you?
zullie, whoâs sitting on the table and holding onto the girl tries to get up but as soon as she does she gets the âgot up too suddenlyâ woozy and falls back.
the girls get the caravan up and SCHMOOVING
and then run into a closed gate. Adelaide hits it with a shattter spell and thereâs a moment where you can see the wave that runs all over the wall and then takes on a more and more purple color and then the wave of sound gets diffused and spread out revealing a dome surrounding the city.
looking at it adelaide gets the same sensations he got from trying to understand what was up with the tower of tollshire - like a massive arcane focus that overextends the reach of a spell
itâs an antimagic field. just for the border of the city
Back at Tadghâs Cabin
Tadgh brings his shit downstairs to sleep down there. because of the Horrors outside
Ignatius and Radius on watch together: she breaks the silence with A Word. Joruum
I: Is she the one that gave you your sword?
R: yes. yes she did. she was the one. and for the record, no. I still have not been able to kill her with it. quite frankly, I donât even know if it will be necessary, but. I mean, she was beyond the border with five trees when it happened. she probably was in five trees when it happened, so chances of her not being completely lost to the curse right now are next to none. and for her entire life, she had to deal with many prejudices, trying to create a peace between the giants and the rest of the inhabitants of wyvern springs. thatâs how she earned the name deadsbaneâby helping wyvern springs fight off the undead. so when we parted ways last time, she gave me this. and she tasked me with slaying her should ever a day come where she became a threat to the people she had been trying to defend.
I: very admirable of her.
R: oh it is. she was, by a longshot, the most noble of the three of us. No offense to Cara. Itâs just⊠you first, earlier today you talked about questioning what to live for considering your memories are not- you arenât sure, sadly, of who you are even. I donât know what I am. most of the world doesnât know who I am. so i decided to let my promises and what i do for those i love speak for me. And there is one thing that I want in my life, and for that I would be able to ignore the mission, even, if necessary. and that is bring peace to the love of my life.
I: i sort of figured when we were having this conversation we were here for our own secondary reasons. so i presume your reason is to close your end of the deal that you made with her.
R: have you everâI know itâs absurd to ask you, considering what we share, but have you ever been in love, Ignatius?
I: I donât know. I think I might have been, but I donât know whether it was me feeling it or if I felt as though I should.
R: again. sort of absurd me of all people telling you of all people, but to truly feel like you have found your other half, the one part who was missing, and that somewhere they might be suffering like a rabbid dogâitâs stuff like this that keeps you awake at night, you know?
listen, you know. if you still want me searching to figure out what to fight for that worked for me but. from the few things that I observed, I feel like there are many people that are worth giving promises to and fighting for those promises for. and in your case, I thought there was probably one in particular. but thatâs for you. whether or not he decides to - whatever the hell his promise is, thatâs for you to figure out, I suppose.
I: at the end of the day, I cannot make someone change their mind on whatever, so. While I may not have - while iâm uncertain about whether I have - I want to. I think. And itâs the crazy thing about learning that your whole life is a lie, I guess, or is just falsehoods planted into your memory? I was angry, at first. and I think a part of me still is, but not because of the nature of it being a lie. purely because of the autonomy that I was not afforded. but at the same time, it does mean that I really have no bonds or attachments. I can - in a way, i have been truly, i think, freed from whatever our past may be. and i want to do good things with the time that I do have here. I can only hope that, as you said, you want to be - your reason for living is the impact on those around you. and while i may have been slow to that start, i am realizing that I - itâs not the first time, i guess, that you and i have been forced to reconcile that we are alike in many ways, and I do agree with you there. And I guess I should take this opportunity to, whether or not you accept, whether or not you think it was valid or fair for me to do so - I will apologize for any ill thoughts of you that I may have had. and if i have ever treated you in a way that has hurt you. Iâm sorry. because I donât want to leave this place with more people hurt than I already have. and if i can atone for anything in any way, even if itâs just apologizing, it doesnât hurt to try I guess.
R: No. No, I do not accept this apology because I do not deserve it. and listen, heed the words of somebody who has experienced it personally - we are not made to be a blank slate. and if you think there will be any good from the freedom you get by always starting over and trying to just bring good by leaving your past behind entirely, it will - by personal experience, trust me. it will not end well. I tried once to leave everything behind once my days at the orphanage were over. well, look at where I am now.
and then he can hear whispering from the floor above.
Ignatius leans in: it sounds like Tadghâs voice - normal style.
he stealths over to wake tadgh up by tapping on his shoulder - thereâs something upstairs, whoever is doing it is using your voice, follow behind me carefully and quietly.
up the stairs, still canât see anything but itâs getting a little more clear now - it is for sure coming from the glass window that is essentially right to the left if you enter the room.
tadghâs voice: "Yes Iâm perfect but nothing matches the duty I believe to have towards my beloved one and the promise one day we will reunite"
tadgh, meanwhile, sees the door get thrown open as if by the wind. and quigly gets up, does the pointing thing, and runs out the door.
T: guys, the door just opened and quigly ran out.
I: we should not go outside is the problem
T: I cannot leave your cat
I: I get your predicament tadgh
T: heâs the only family i have left, ignatius.
I: I know, and iâm not saying you - I think this is either a situation where we all go outside or nobody does. we need to stick together, strength in numbers.
T: well, Iâm going
I: I will go with. Radius, will you come? I donât think thereâs anything for us here. it would be nice to defend it, but
T: it doesnât seem like we can defend it from whatever is within.
I: exactly. your call, radius. you can stay, or you can join us too.
they head out the door. the scenery has completely changed. what was once a deserted land of skeletal trees without leaves, mud coming from the branches - it has turned into perfectly lush vegetation - thereâs the smell of honey in the distance
thereâs fog, still - but not purpleish/blueish, just a normal white
Tadgh tracks quigly - as they walk through the fog, the traces get clearer as they walk.
Ignatius and Radius eventually lose Tadgh as he beats them faster into the woods.
Ignatius ties him and Radius together, and eventually donât find Tadghâs tracks but do find a quigly tail.
which approaches them
tadgh, meanwhile, finds quigly grooming himself by a still pool of water
this is Not a real scene. this is what the region seemed to look like when he lived here before he left, and it does not sit right with him and it feels uncanny
he cannot psychically communicate with this cat
Ignatius and Radius : that quiggly hangs out with them, doing figure eights around the leg.
T!Q: quiggly grows and there is a voice. which sounds like itâs coming from - itâs so shattered and rhaspy and stuttering that it almost comes off a broken record. V: hey, apologies for this trickery. Iâve been meaning to talk to you one on one, my dear successor.
it fades into a cloaked figure
05: welcome, number (coughs), still with back to him. Welcome number 6. apologies for this illusion. I do hope this is - but i do hope this mirage of memories is your - please. surely. it is for me.
T: what are you?
05: me?
T: iâm not sure I trust someone who remains hidden
05: trust me. shall I turn around, you shall trust me even less
T: then why should i trust you with your back turned, with that knowledge.
05: your mistrust is badly placed. almost as your trust - your mistrust in me is almost as badly placed as your trust in that. me - i want. I want. Me, I want to see you. I wanted to see the prod- I wanted to see the product of - I wanted to see the product of my sufferings.
T: so is this forest all you?
05: itâs all me. but donât worry. you will get to this level, eventually. after all. we are on the same path, you and I. Iâm just ahead of the curve
t: if this is the path Iâm on, Iâm not sure I like it
05: trust me, youâll like it even less when you get there
T: and my cat? have you hurt him?
05: no, worry not. I trapped him outside so we could talk one on one. if my memories serve me well enough, Ignatius should have already found him by now
T: all right, then letâs say I do trust you. and iâm not saying I do, but for the sake of humoring this - who are them that I shouldnât be trusting if I should trust you. How many cards are you willing to put on the table? because youâre talking nonsense, for the most part.
05: tell me, number 6. how did you survive the deep curse?
T: is that a rhetorical question or just a prompting question?
05: ANSWER
T: a spell
05: a spell. by whom?
T: By a powerful sorcerer.
05: powerful sorcerer. you sure she doesnât like to call herself the wizardess?
T: you seem to be acquainted
05: and who else? who else told you you had been cured?
T: no-one? well. my primary care physician?
05: Ignatius?
T: are you implying the two people weâre speaking of are secretly in cahoots to lie to me about whether I have the deep curse? because last time I saw the two of them together, they wereâŠ. bickering, letâs just say
05: for all I know, theyâre all in on it. each and every single one of them. but, if you want to find the trail, start with those that ââsavedââ you
T: and what are you suggesting I do?
05: iâll give you five letters. judge their reaction. make your conclusion. when you find out who all of the conspirators are, find me again.
T: how will I find you? If I want to find you again
05: oh, youâll find me. want to know how? come closer.
he starts to walk into the pond
Tadgh takes One step forward
he can see, even from a distance, there is nothing there but the pond - the water went shaky for a second and then went back to being calm.
T: fucking cryptic motherfucker.
tadgh fucking jumpscares himself on the water. - but the moment his reflection moves, there is movement in the water.
he stirs it with his sword.
the moon distorts, but then thereâs this afterimage of his own face in the reflection. and the sword clinks off something, and then the ââreflectionââ pops out and grabs him by the chin and pulls him close enough to see beneath the cloak. and for tadgh, itâs like looking into a mirror.
The same people who get viscerally angry at the fact that the Pedophile Emperor is still treated as human by TAD's narrative will probably be the same people completely unable to accept that Pairin subjected Maomao to intense childhood sexual abuse.
It's a little ironic, but more importantly, imo, it's extremely sad.
TAD does not mince words about the Pedo Emperor. It sets up this MASSIVE plot point about how structural systems enable and even encourage abuse; physical, emotional, and sexual. It has our secondary protagonist, Jinshi, realize that his actions and position has made him so similar to his "father" that the resemblance almost made a victim kill herself. It does this IN A GRAVEYARD DEDICATED TO THE VICTIMS WHO HAVE ALREADY DIED.
In his desperation to escape it, he has never been closer to resembling a sexual predator. It's not subtle.
But to tell that story, you HAVE to understand that the Pedo Emperor was still human. This is NOT "excusing" or "justifying" his actions, it's explaining how a person can get there-- SO it can be avoided.
Pairin is a character in conversation with this. It's the narrative portraying another aspect of CSA: How survivors often still love the people who hurt them.
Maomao was raised in a brothel and the woman she considers closest to a mother is a nymphomaniac. Calling it "training" doesn't change the fact that this is a child being made to do sex acts until the authority figure was satisfied with her performance. It severely impacted her ability to navigate intimacy.
That's trauma. Plain and simple. Maomao's personality is influenced by her experience with childhood sexual abuse.
And you, the audience, have to be right there with her!! She LOVES Pairin, still! Goes to her for comfort and advice! She's family. The staff at Verdigris is family.
And they hurt her.
Both of these things will be true, forever. Unlike Jinshi, Maomao doesn't have a layer of distance that allows her to fully understand or internalize that what happened to her was wrong.
It's the sort of complex, painful dynamic I've yearned to see portrayed for a very long time. I wish it could be discussed more candidly, both not downplaying the harm or defending the abuse, WITHOUT insisting the opposite, that every predator must be a malicious, amoral hellbeast.
Ignatius falls, Adelaide makes up, Tadgh shoots his shot, Lucretia offers a piece of her mind, and Zelda takes a bow.
Previously On // Next Session
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.Â
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 cavalryâa 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.Â
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.Â
Alderiche errupted again in the main room, slumping to life as a giant slug-monster with Ignatiusâ torso growing out of the top. What was left of the party squared up to fight, losing hope as Alderiche knocked them aside until Zeldaâs body stood up from the floor. In one final blaze of glory she turned to Ignatius, reminding him of something heâd said long agoââYou once said to me, let your friends be your purpose. i return that to you. let your friends be your redemptionââbefore 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.Â
The cave then started rumbling and collapsing as Alderiche, whoâd 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 wayâthough not before telling Adelaide that she was sorry, and that she shouldnât 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.Â
 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-blessingâbad 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.Â
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.Â
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 newsâHornsbrook 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.Â
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 itâwho 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 Enigmaâs 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 awayâto 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
started my first dark urge run for baldurâs gate 3. was almost going to make them look like zelda so she could terrorize another world in her second life. but faerun deserves better (that malicious lizard is cheeked up)
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)
"âTHATS it iâm 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)
