The Cupcake Coterie

A Dungeons and Dragons campaign - setting, lore, art, and session videos

[cupcakecoterie]

@true0neutral - Hazel, half-elf cleric

@fauxfire76 - Darvin, human bard/sorcerer

@hyperewok1 - Remi, human paladin/warlock

@miaaoi - Farideh, dragonborn sorcerer

@lindira - Clarity, tiefling rogue/warlock

Brian - Barnabus, minotaur fighter

@lovefrometernity - Rylan, wood elf sorcerer

Last one to catch up on! We were missing an Ava, but we got through okay.

While Hazel and Darvin were in warped mirror!Goldendale, and Clarity and Hazel were in warped mirror!Vanedar manor, Remi and Barnabus found themselves in warped mirror!Ravnica - specifically, Precinct 5, Tenth District, and Barnabus’ last beat before the accident that landed him in Ellon. As with Hazel before her, Remi found herself with no connection to her god or her patron. (Darvin might have had the same problem, but he didn’t actually try to tap into that, so...) After some figuring out what was going on - namely, that they were being stuffed in pocket dimensions so that whatever thought process behind the local sludge could gain a more detailed view of the world.

Alisaie came back to the town square with Rylan and Farideh, and found nobody there, and no one responding to shouting. This was of concern, so she and Rylan tracked Remi and Barnabus (Barnabus being easy to track because hooves). Alisaie hoped that she’d end up in the same place as Remi. Alisaie should not have thought that, because while the divine spark in Darvin’s soul was fairly tiny, Alisaie’s ... was not. No one’s sure exactly what the long-term consequences of this are, but Alisaie did trip into mirror!Ravnica screaming in agony because of whatever force was keeping the divine or celestial out.

Clarity found Henry - specifically, Henry’s soul, which Clarity took with her (in the lollipop she’d bought for him at the Egref sweet shop) so that Hazel could perform the rites to let his spirit move forward. When she’s grieving a little less, she might note that somehow, even if it obviously did some damage, the Archfey of Mischief and Whimsy either somehow freed Henry’s soul before it could be corrupted beyond repair or somehow cleansed it. Then again, given Clarity’s memory trip and losing Ava midway through her adventure, she wasn’t in the best state to think on it.

Remi, Barnabus, Farideh, and Rylan all ended up in the Ismeri Library with a barely-conscious Alisaie and a very worried winged dire moose ... and found Petunia, whose soul was apparently stuck in-between because of that worthy’s efforts to keep the death fog contained. Petunia recommended that if they wanted to skip the twisted version of memory lane, they could just offer up a memory of a place and hope that the entity was placated. It seemed to work, and as Henry was granted escape via a large lollipop, Petunia was granted escape via Rylan’s scarf.

Hazel and Darvin saw some pretty horrifying sites in that version of Goldendale, but after tripping over the Tailor-Green manor (Darvin’s old home), Hazel started swearing about “It’ll be the knife-eared bitch next!” ... which references her mother. And since hers was the loudest thought-pattern at that point, they went into the Tailor-Green manor ... except they didn’t, because they found themselves in a prison. Not in one of the cells, thankfully. In one of the cells, though, was a woman who looks very much like the Lady Emavaela but had clearly been locked there for close onto two decades. Hazel made a very good insight check and ... yeah, twins exist. That woman had been locked up shortly before Hazel’s birth and usurped. Hazel is ... armageddon-level angry.

When almost all of them were back together,Ava all but fell out of one door, unconscious but seemingly unhurt, and they got out as fast as they could, because Remi seemed to hope that Alisaie would recover better out in the sun, all things considered. Jury’s still out on that one.

Hazel said some prayers to send the departed on, and they ended with pouring a drink and seeing if they can’t rouse Ava, so they can all talk about what happened to them, and how it might be best to proceed from that point.

I make no promises about staying up to date. But at least I am up to date now.

[cupcakecoterie]

@true0neutral - Hazel, half-elf cleric

@fauxfire76 - Darvin, human bard/sorcerer

@hyperewok1 - Remi, human paladin/warlock

@lindira - Clarity, tiefling rogue/warlock

Marion - Ava, human ranger

Brian - Barnabus, minotaur fighter

We started this session late, and were missing two players, but we managed to stagger through.

Farideh and Rylan (the characters of the two absent players) stayed with Legolas at the mouth of the secret passage while the others went to further investigate. As good an excuse to have them kind of quiet as any.

The rest found that the tunnel became less rough-hewn and more deliberately carved as they continued, and discovered that the tunnel was originally used by the drow before Lolth’s corruption. There was a prayer to Lolth as goddess of order carved on the wall in very ancient elven, along with a series of words that they eventually identified as a list of names. The last names - roughly carved comparatively recently by someone very young and very afraid - suggested a memorial to the dead; Shinyra had apparently carved the last names herself, presumably her lost clan.

The corridor ended at a set of precarious stone steps leading down into an ancient drow city that further indicated its age - Lolth iconography was seen, but as shaper and order-keeper, not her current corrupted self. There was black sludge there, too, and bodies that hadn’t rotted as much as they should. At least one of those bodies was a drider. The indication was that after Lolth’s corruption, the city was abandoned, and then reclaimed by Shinyra’s then-uncorrupted drow tribe, at least until the corrupted drow came and took them.

Alisaie went back up to get the others, while the remaining six split up along fairly sensible lines, ensuring at least one with darkvision in each group. None of them ended up where they were supposed to. Darvin and Hazel entered what looked like an inn and, after some being messed around, came out the inn’s back door into a nightmare version of the kitchen garden of the Golden Bough, and Goldendale proper. Clarity and Ava went into a well-appointed house and found themselves in a version of the entry hall at Vanedar Manor, during the burning, with the corpses of Ava’s household guard all around.

We didn’t get around to Remi and Barnabus this session, and no one had figured out what was going on, but for something I was planning on a little later in the exploratory phase, this didn’t go too badly.

[cupcakecoterie]

@true0neutral - Hazel, half-elf cleric

@fauxfire76 - Darvin, human bard/sorcerer

@hyperewok1 - Remi, human paladin/warlock

@miaaoi - Farideh, dragonborn sorcerer

@lindira - Clarity, tiefling rogue/warlock

Marion - Ava, human ranger

Brian - Barnabus, minotaur fighter

@lovefrometernity - Rylan, wood elf sorcerer

Only a few more sessions to go. Still keeping it relatively short, summary-wise.

After receiving their message from the gods about the containment device that had apparently been used to bring the black sludge to Grey’s Inn and might be able to contain it again if they figure out how it worked, the gang decided to search the Grey’s Inn government building / inn / manor thing.

Issues about leaving their dire moose companion where he might end up accidentally corrupted were solved when Alisaie made a surprisingly successful attempt to use her “permanent wings” circlet on Legolas. He only gets them for a day, but currently they have a winged dire moose.

Having the winged riding creature proved helpful when almost no one managed the climb up to the first sturdy floor they could find, and Legolas had to ferry people up. Spared Alisaie some weight, anyway.

They split up into groups and between them, they learned why Grey’s Inn is the province of information gatherers as well as livestock-rearing. Barnabus nearly wept with joy at the careful, tidy, thorough chains of evidence the people of Grey’s Inn were putting together about the bullshit going on in Baronsvere. Honestly, they’d nearly figured everything out, from the high concentration of former mercenaries in Goldendale to Jain Nerrand III’s true identity as an ancient black dragon to, apparently, the identity of Baronsvere’s true king. They’d also been tracking Ava, partly to solidify their chain of evidence about the “Lady Ava’laen Vanedar” swanning around Cedargrove not being the rightful Lady Vanedar at all.

Unfortunately, the place was so ransacked that they couldn’t tell how much had been taken, how much had been read, or how much their adversaries knew was known. Because of the timings and dates on some of the reports, they did reason that Varydel hit Grey’s Inn when he did at least in part to prevent the Grey’s Inn spy squad from handing all their tidily documented information over to the Cupcake Coterie as a way to win allies within Baronsvere to help with their attempt to take down Blackcrown.

They didn’t find any kind of device, but they did find a sort of secret passage, and ended the session making preparations to explore what lay beyond it.

We ended up missing two players the following session, but we made it work, just about.

[cupcakecoterie]

@true0neutral - Hazel, half-elf cleric

@fauxfire76 - Darvin, human bard/sorcerer

@hyperewok1 - Remi, human paladin/warlock

@miaaoi - Farideh, dragonborn sorcerer

@lindira - Clarity, tiefling rogue/warlock

Marion - Ava, human ranger

Brian - Barnabus, minotaur fighter

@lovefrometernity - Rylan, wood elf sorcerer

Honestly, it’s really hard to adequately cover a combat in any detailed way, but I’ll give some basic bullet points anyway:

Typical ancient white dragon fight for the most part, beyond Alisaie spending most of her time actually winding the Steelsinger-crafted chain around Varydel’s wings so he couldn’t fly. The plan eventually ended up being securing it on both ends with the Immovable Rod Froseth scoured at least two major cities in Equitas to find back in the day. Sphere of debuffing freezing fog, ice spikes, CHOMP, that kind of thing.

That ... was Phase 1.

I was rolling for integrity of the ground on lair actions, with the premise being that once a damage threshold was reached, the ground would give way. So the ground gave way, dumping Remi, Barnabus, Clarity, and Rylan into a pit with a few piles of debris and corpses making the only safe places to stand, because every other bit of ‘floor’ was covered with the black corrupting sludge, to an indeterminate depth. Varydel still couldn’t fly off at that point (less so at that stage, since the drop had dislocated both wings as well as binding them), and the chains were holding, but it dropped Varydel closer to those at the bottom of the pit than the ones on the ground.

So that was Phase 2. This got even more complicated. On top of the normal Ancient White Dragon Fight Stuff, the lair action became tentacles from the black shit; it wasn’t given enough time to corrupt, but it did restrain people and cost people their actions.

While Alisaie did get the kill shot (because my dice Be Like That; seriously, I rolled three nat 20s in a row the other day), MVP of this particular combat was Farideh, because without the Haste, the battle would have lasted a lot longer and been a lot less decisive.

They had some questions to ask about why there was all this black shit down a hole, since none of it looked like the wellsprings Remi and Barnabus learned about in the Silver Vault. Turned out from what information they could beg the gods for that someone had actually brought it there, contained in some kind of artefact. If they find the artefact, they might be able to figure out how to put the ooze back in, and get it out of Grey’s Inn.

It was a good fight, if a little complicated and fairly frustrating for all concerned. So that’s another ancient dragon down. Go, Cupcake Coterie!

[cupcakecoterie]

@true0neutral - Hazel, half-elf cleric

@fauxfire76 - Darvin, human bard/sorcerer

@hyperewok1 - Remi, human paladin/warlock

@miaaoi - Farideh, dragonborn sorcerer

@lindira - Clarity, tiefling rogue/warlock

Marion - Ava, human ranger

Brian - Barnabus, minotaur fighter

@lovefrometernity - Rylan, wood elf sorcerer

We had the whole party! ...So of course we split the party.

After some discussion, the gang figured that they should probably inform the frost giants that the white dragon that had driven them out of their homes was about to become dead, and also keep them away from the various tainted spots in Grey’s Inn, so Alisaie, Remi, Barnabus, and Farideh went to find the giants’ encampment. Alisaie, Remi, and Barnabus went because the frost giants are the originators of the sign language the People use so all three of them can communicate; Farideh just went to see if she could pick up bits of the sign language. The others stayed to start dinner, mostly because invading a frost giant encampment en masse is a bad idea.

Discussion happened, frost giants were made to understand the situation. Frost giants also made it understood that the cliff range was home not to one ancient white dragon, but two - which everyone who had been paying attention would have realised on seeing young white dragons and dragon eggs, and Varydel is male so there had to be a mate. Anyway, group was offered some chunks of very overdone meat, which they ate to be polite, and Barnabus was given a Potion of Frost Giant Strength, because they liked him.

Meanwhile, Hazel made rabbit stew. It was nice. When the others returned, it was dinner and conversation and last-minute planning, mostly involving the disposition of the chain they intended to use to chain Varydel down.

It was still blizzarding pretty hard in the morning, but Hazel made Heroes’ Feast anyway, and it was greatly enjoyed, and they headed off for the capital of Grey’s Inn. They reached an impediment straight away - Varydel or his mate had been building ice walls, to form a sort of ice maze around the city. That was easily navigated, thankfully, and as they entered the ruins of the capital, they decided to call out their quarry. Alisaie had seen Varydel, and it was all she needed for a Sending: “Hey, asshole! We’re in your base! WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO ABOUT IT? ...Oh, and did I mention we killed your kids?” That ... worked, and everyone found themselves appropriate cover as Varydel answered the challenge.

Next one up is basically the combat. Easy enough to summarise, though the combat ... wasn’t by any means easy.

[cupcakecoterie]

@true0neutral - Hazel, half-elf cleric

@hyperewok1 - Remi, human paladin/warlock

@miaaoi - Farideh, dragonborn sorcerer

@lindira - Clarity, tiefling rogue/warlock

Marion - Ava, human ranger

Brian - Barnabus, minotaur fighter

@lovefrometernity - Rylan, wood elf sorcerer

This time we were missing a @fauxfire76 because health issues, poor sod.

Farideh, through a connection to the library at the centre of the Ice Maze as well as her own searching of the place the previous evening, figured out that the entire land was at least partly cursed. Speculation was that they were trying to taint or corrupt the land on the assumption that if enough of the land was corrupted, the heart of the barony would be corrupted along with it. There wasn’t much they could do about it at that moment, so they left before it could drive them crazy with nightmares.

Clarity was not having a very good time of it and decided to cut off her braid, because “I have no control over any of this but I can control my hair”. It was flagged up that if she got tired of long hair, Alisaie still has some of that serum with which she (and later Darvin) grew their hair back after fire damage.

They travelled for awhile, chatting, until a particularly bad blizzard blew in. Hazel mentioned a sort of shelter she’d seen on one of their trips, mostly in case of heavy rain or tornado, so they headed for that.

Alisaie, reminded of home by the weather, decided to go try to hunt up something fresh for dinner. Messaged Farideh (as least likely to flail) awhile later explaining that three frost giants were after her, and backup would be really really nice.

Most impressive bit of that combat was Remi making first use of her Wall of Fire spell. Which Alisaie used to best advantage by slamming one of the frost giants back into it with Thunderwave. (Though I was personally really bummed when the frost giant that Rylan hit with Blight made the save; given it’s the first time they tried to use it on something that wasn’t undead.) Additionally, frost giant did get its head stamped into paste by dire moose.

Given that frost giants don’t leave their homes unless something bigger and badder drives them out, and the dead frost giants had scars that the party didn’t leave, they figured that a dragon must be taking over more territory than just the capital of Grey’s Inn. And given that the other side is Kobrea-Val, the guess was that Varydel was trying to get around whatever protections Equitas has against usurping chromatic dragon nonsense.

Alisaie did get rabbits, though.

More on the way. So much more on the way. Still trying to keep this as brief as possible while capturing important / interesting moments.

[cupcakecoterie]

@true0neutral - Hazel, half-elf cleric

@fauxfire76 - Darvin, human bard/sorcerer

@hyperewok1 - Remi, human paladin/warlock

@lindira - Clarity, tiefling rogue/warlock

Marion - Ava, human ranger

Brian - Barnabus, minotaur fighter

@lovefrometernity - Rylan, wood elf sorcerer

I know, I know, I know. Honestly, we’ve spent so much time stalling lately because of attendance issues, and my health’s been such a mess, that it didn’t seem as important to keep up with these. So there’s a lot of catching up. We were missing @miaaoi because Canada Day, if that tells you anything about how much catch-up I have to play. And I’m going to keep these short where possible.

The first half of the session was more or less planning and discussion about upcoming dragon fight, what they’d have to do afterwards, and the usual shenanigans. Kind of loses something in translation. Farideh spent the session exploring and reading to try to decode the ritual that’s been performed in the Sullivan plantation, just to see if she could figure out what it was meant to do and whether or not it was completed.

The second half was nightmares. Just about everybody had nightmares - all to do with the black corrupting sludge. Remi was the only one who actually made the WIS save to stop them. They don’t know why they all had nightmares, but because Barnabus and Hazel had a shared one, they know it wasn’t just their subconscious minds fucking with them. Farideh didn’t have to make a WIS save, because her dreams were otherwise spoken for, apparently; she regretfully insisted on hearing what their nightmares were before she started on her theories about it.

I’ll keep this short because ... well, volume of posts. More will be coming.

[cupcakecoterie]

@true0neutral - Hazel, half-elf cleric

@fauxfire76 - Darvin, human bard/sorcerer

@hyperewok1 - Remi, human paladin/warlock

@miaaoi - Farideh, dragonborn sorcerer

@lindira - Clarity, tiefling rogue/warlock

Marion - Ava, human ranger

@lovefrometernity - Rylan, wood elf sorcerer

Another stall session, this time because Brian had an unexpected family emergency. (The following week was missing @miaaoi because Canada Day long weekend.) So, the basic overview:

Clarity, somewhat comforted, returned to the group for lunch. Hazel hung back just long enough to ask for a Divine Intervention to give Lady Whimsy some help in getting Clarity’s brother back alive and whole and untainted. The roll didn’t go hugely well (I changed the mechanics for that one a bit; I’d already set a precedent for going entirely homebrew on the Divine Intervention rules with Alisaie - still didn’t go well) but attempts will be made.

Darvin showed off his having got the Mirror Image spell at last level-up, and they discussed some tactics with that.

Alisaie had to try to explain the principles of weather - specifically precipitation - to Hazel. That did not go well.

They got into the Sullivan vault. It was very full, and very well-organised. Trying to get all of it out was looking like an issue, and Alisaie was considering offering her Bag of Holding for the task until she decided she should try contacting Twilly, again, about potential solutions. The end result was a bottle that would cast Mist Form on everything in the room and then suck said mist form into the bottle. Farideh got to open it to get everything pulled in. That was fun.

Further treasures from the family involved a basket of infinite baked goods to go with the basket of infinite bread.

Ava asked Alisaie how she dealt with her anger, since Ava’s having some struggles with anger management regarding her half-sister. Alisaie gave sensible advice, and then prompted laughter, because that be how she do. Also then took Ava, and then Clarity, on a ride on moose-back courtesy Legolas.

She did that with Rylan too, but Rylan was a little bit frozen and attempting to reboot. He did a lot better when Alisaie stood up behind them, hooked her arms under their armpits, and took to the skies with Rylan from a moose-speed-running start. That induced a brief freak-out until Rylan saw sunset glittering around frozen landscape and went from panic to awestruck in about 2.5 seconds.

There was a craving for mocha. Hazel had not purchased any mocha. Alisaie grabbed some coffee and chocolate and decided to make some. Meanwhile, Hazel gave Flitty a jelly bean that turned out to be tuna-flavoured. That was generally hysterical, although Flitty was genuinely traumatised.

Now it’s only Sunday’s session I’m behind on! That will probably be later, though. Possibly tomorrow, or later this week.

[cupcakecoterie]

@true0neutral - Hazel, half-elf cleric

@fauxfire76 - Darvin, human bard/sorcerer

@hyperewok1 - Remi, human paladin/warlock

@miaaoi - Farideh, dragonborn sorcerer

@lindira - Clarity, tiefling rogue/warlock

Marion - Ava, human ranger

Brian - Barnabus, minotaur fighter

@lovefrometernity - Rylan, wood elf sorcerer

We did have a full group this one time but the pretext I’d used for stalling required more time and also we were going to be missing @miaaoi the following session because Canada Day so ... not stalling exactly, but not moving towards the white dragon fight yet. Instead? The following:

Farideh rescuing what she could from the scorched and soggy remains of he library, mostly finding letters from Sigwald to his parents, apparently largely excusing himself from holiday gatherings but talking about some little trinkets he’d sent for Serra

Cooking with Alisaie (and possibly traumatising the recently resurrected with mentions of how spicy the People’s food usually is)

Clarity bringing out the Book of Mis-Spells

Eeeeeeeeeeverybody had nightmares. Even Rylan, who only trances and isn’t supposed to have them. In this case, seeing largely blackness of a type that was a lot nastier than the shadows they know, and the bodies of a whole lot of Fey creatures ... and Lady Whimsy’s page (the one who looks like a nine-year-old human boy but clearly isn’t) saying that the Lady’s protegee might have to rethink the terms of the agreement

After the last resurrection, Clarity called on her patron after hearing that ... and Lady Whimsy appeared in full battle array, saying that her people had found Clarity’s foster brother Henry ... but that unlike with Eryn, the bubble of nothing Henry was trapped in was well-guarded. Thus Clarity had to face the idea that there might be no Henry left to save. She just insisted that Lady Whimsy not go into the battle herself (no one wanted to think about what a tainted Archfey of that level of power would be like), and asked that if they could get to Henry and found him corrupted, her people should put him out of his pain.

Rylan has also earned a place on the shit-list of Tiamat and the tainted because apparently their affinity with shadows as a Shadow Sorcerer is getting the party information they’re not supposed to have (the same way Froseth’s elemental affinity used to)

The possibility was floated that if Barnabus had been able to go home, given the extraplanar taint being in the Spaces Between, he might have gone through it without the protections he has on this Prime Material Plane, got tainted on a spiritual level, and end up taking the taint to Ravnica

Lady Whimsy believes in comfort by way of kittens - in this case she gave Sapphire wings and made Sapphire a living breathing cat for an hour. (The wings will stay permanently; they’ll just be plush ones.)

Alisaie did ... indirect comfort by having a word with Twilly and Miranda before they sent the newest resurrected person to Hearthhome (they’d been asking for more supplies anyway) and so Twilly and Miranda sent some supplies, emergency mead, cookies, doughnuts, and a little note to Clarity from Candor

Hazel provided more substantial comfort in the way of cuddles and a shoulder for Clarity to cry on.

On one level, I feel really really bad listening to Lindira’s voice breaking during all that ... but is it wrong that I’m kind of proud of me for being able to evoke that much emotion through storytelling?

[cupcakecoterie]

@true0neutral - Hazel, half-elf cleric

@fauxfire76 - Darvin, human bard/sorcerer

@hyperewok1 - Remi, human paladin/warlock

@lindira - Clarity, tiefling rogue/warlock

Marion - Ava, human ranger

Brian - Barnabus, minotaur fighter

@lovefrometernity - Rylan, wood elf sorcerer

We were missing a @miaaoi again so more stalling was necessary. Still fun. Apart from trying to get traumatised refugees comfortable with the gigantic dire moose who wanted treats and offerings from the newcomers in exchange for his protection, mostly it was going over Rylan’s list of things they needed clarification on, including:

“What did a wedding have to do with how this one has wings?”

“The governors of Equitas are ancient metallic dragons.” “Wait, WHAT?!?”

How and why the Five Claws of Bahamut have Tarrasque bits as thrones, trophies, or bottled lightning generators

“I’m just going to write [Barnabus’] name with like eight question marks.” (Mostly to do with why sentient minotaur in place where such a thing was generally not A Thing, which led to discussions of Ravnica, the Cult of Rakdos, and the Gruul and how the Gruul are definitely NOT like The People of Eun-Bac)

“You. Bard-man. What the fuck is up with your soul?” (Darvin’s couple of levels in Divine Soul sorcerer, courtesy Bahamut)

“Hang on; I have to go back in time in my own brain to figure out why I wrote Magic Mace Machine... BLENDERS.” (and other things to do with Egref, including the Adventurer’s Abomination and the Miraculous Transmutation Engine)

Purple worms, natural philosophers, and steampunk kobolds

The Tipsy Pixie (”We had sex for money.” “Why?” “Because I need food to live?”)

The last wood elf they travelled with and how that links up to Clarity’s patron, issues with His Majesty of Misrule, and how Barnabus lost his ‘way home’

Hazel’s magical Hearthhome door key

The fight with the green dragon, Coryvel (also magical tattoos, godmarks, and marks from Bahamut)

Clarity’s eyes - well, tiefling eyes in general

Pie-eating contests and “why are there so many non-cupcake baked goods with you people?” (as Skylar said - “Mom and Momma have a lot of things to say about nutrition”)

"There’s a play about you people?!?” and other songs and stories, including the Ballad of the Bunny-Bard

Then they attacked Hazel’s Bertie Botts From Hell jelly beans, and Hazel took Alisaie’s dare to just eat a random handful.

So basically we had a really good time but we really were just not going anywhere because we were missing at least one person for most of the last couple of months. But we got less into anecdata and more into character background in the following session...

[cupcakecoterie]

@true0neutral - Hazel, half-elf cleric

@fauxfire76 - Darvin, human bard/sorcerer

@hyperewok1 - Remi, human paladin/warlock

Marion - Ava, human ranger

Brian - Barnabus, minotaur fighter

@lovefrometernity - Rylan, wood elf sorcerer

Once again, I am playing catch-up. This is partly because we’ve spent the past couple of months stalling because of attendance issues. This session, for instance, we were missing @miaaoi and @lindira because ... I think Mother’s Day. And because we were missing two people, we didn’t really do anything serious. So it doesn’t really require a huge write-up, which is good because a write-up wouldn’t have done it any justice at all. I’ll just give a few of the highlights:

Blizzard stranding them in the house for awhile

Clarity and Farideh trying to get something viable out of the destroyed library

Trying to figure out how to prevent a prepared vessel from being usable to embody a god

“Hey, why don’t we just ask if we could embody more benevolent gods?”

The Random Pop-Tart Incident, including Sparkly Pink Unicorn

More resurrections, and pedantry about what constitutes a dye job on a minotaur

Names for days of the week, and “What’s a Tuesday?”

Out of character conversations regarding where I got a NPC name: “How the fuck many lesbian necromancer murder mysteries do you think exist?” “I mean, the world could probably do with more...”

Finding out exactly how far the antagonists were willing to go to horrify and offend the party

“I do not underestimate Mom-Women.”

No, seriously, it was mostly chatting and resurrecting people. We have a couple of sessions like that in the backlog queue. They’re still hilarious, though.

[cupcakecoterie]

Text-Only Session Write-Up

@true0neutral - Hazel, half-elf cleric

@hyperewok1 - Remi, human paladin/warlock

@miaaoi - Farideh, dragonborn sorcerer

@lindira - Clarity, tiefling rogue/warlock

Marion - Ava, human ranger

Brian - Barnabus, minotaur fighter

@lovefrometernity - Rylan, wood elf sorcerer

Since I have a cognitive function-impairing headache, I managed to forget to record tonight’s session. And since I didn’t have reminder or backup courtesy @fauxfire76 tonight, I’m just going to have to write things up the best I can. It’s a shame, though, because there was some really good RP tonight. Ah well. Accidents happen.

As they were preparing to give the effigies a proper send-off, Alisaie had a thought: she and Hazel can both raise the dead, if they hadn’t been dead too long. After some discussion, and sorrow that they couldn’t do anything with the Barnabus and Farideh effigies owing to lack of heads, and Clarity rolling particularly well to remove the horns from where they’d been nailed to her effigy’s skull (that effigy was Lisa, Sigwald’s friend that they met in the Blind Harpy the first time around), they decided to go for it.

Unfortunately, when Alisaie asked for a tarp to protect the kitchen table owing to it being about to have corpses on it, Ava and Rylan went to check for a linen cupboard downstairs, where they hadn’t swept for traps yet. Ava caused some superficial damage to the parlour by setting off a fire spell trap but managed to dodge the worst of it. Rylan set fire to the library, and their scarf. They managed to save the desk and whatever was in it (probably; they haven’t checked yet) but all the books were a lost cause between fire, Farideh’s frost breath and buckets of water from the well that was fit for little more than extinguishing a fire.

(That was because the well was full of corpse bits, including the mutilated head of Yusuf, the gentleman they’d travelled through Grey’s Inn with on their very first journey and whose body had been used for Barnabus’ effigy because it was the only body in the region large enough. This spares us the dig through the notes for his name, @lindira!)

After they extinquished the library and decided they could just scrub the kitchen table, they brought back the Remi effigy - a fourteen-year-old named Griselda, who freaked out at the sight of Ava, Barnabus, and to a slightly lesser extent Farideh. Thanks to two natural 20s from Hazel on Persuation, they learned that a woman who had at least briefly looked like Ava was having an argument with a red dragonborn with a gnarly hand and a ‘bull-man’, with Arkhan saying that this was all unnecessary and Ava’s half-sister saying that she wanted “to make them hurt”. From Gris, and later from Megan (the late-teens girl who was the Ava effigy), they learned that Ava’s half-sister had taken their effigy-fodder from all over the barony, using Arkhan’s Hand of Vecna as a sort of glorified chariot service to do it. Also that all the families of those taken were slaughtered.

Alisaie used Legolas as a very large distraction for Gris and Megan, neither of whom were up for looking at people who reminded them so much of their tormentors. Neither of them had ever seen that much moose.

Then they got to Lisa, who had a fair bit more information. She’d ended up in the dungeons of what they assumed was Castle Blackcrown, and they’d kept her alive and conscious when making the physical alterations required to make her look at least somewhat like a tiefling. It also meant she heard a fair bit about Arkhan being dubious about Ava’s half-sister’s plan as regards Tiamat, though everyone was quite impressed with her remembering and processing as much as she did given she was having horns nailed to her skull for some of it. With some very good Intelligence checks, they figured out that Tiamat was gearing up to use Ava’s half-sister as her avatar on the Prime Material Plane, and eventually to embody fully on the Prime Material through her.

They also figured out, through a different set of checks, that they wouldn’t have left the victim they knew was friendly with the Cupcake Coterie alive and conscious while they discussed these things unless they wanted the Cupcake Coterie to hear this. They know that at least one of them can raise the dead, after all. Rylan was the one who figured out that at the very least Ava’s half-dragon half-sister wanted them incredibly angry and hyperfocused on their current task. This made them think it would probably be a good move to stop off in Goldendale between Grey’s Inn and Blackcrown, just to check on things and think things out. Also to give Hearthhome the heads-up that they might be in for problems. Which should be all they need, given that while the Crownsguard might be able to give reports on the mercenary contingent in Goldendale, people like Twilly and Miranda, Lira, Jenna, Estan to a point, etc have been quite circumspect over the years so no one would see their brand of shenanigans coming.

They had a brief worry that they could be overheard having that conversation but Darvin didn’t detect any magic of the scrying variety.

They sent Gris, Megan, Lisa, Aloysius King-Of-All-He-Surveys, and Bella the elderly Briard back to Hearthhome via Hazel’s door key. Miranda used the six seconds of Door to produce a good-sized canvas sack full of doughnuts, plus a smaller sack of Hazel’s favourite maple and hazelnut cookies. Barnabus smelled doughnuts and actually used an echo to appear next to them immediately.

They all found places to bed down for the night. Alisaie and Remi were going to sleep down in the cellar with Legolas, just to keep him company. Hazel told them to “have fun” and Alisaie’s remark was, “If Tiamat etc are checking in, they don’t deserve that level of show!” There was a lot of blushing from Remi after that.

A write-up just isn’t the same as the session in all its glory, but shit happens, I suppose. Sometimes my head just conspires against me. At least I could function enough to run the damn thing.

[cupcakecoterie]

@true0neutral - Hazel, half-elf cleric

@fauxfire76 - Darvin, human bard/sorcerer

@hyperewok1 - Remi, human paladin/warlock

@miaaoi - Farideh, dragonborn sorcerer

@lindira - Clarity, tiefling rogue/warlock

Marion - Ava, human ranger

Brian - Barnabus, minotaur fighter

@lovefrometernity - Rylan, wood elf sorcerer

We’re stalling again since we’re not sure we have a @fauxfire76 next session, but stuff still happened. This one’s going to be short, though.

Nobody considered that the apples Legolas was eating down cellar might have fermented. They may have to deal with drunk dire moose later.

Most of the party went to check out the Sullivan plantation living quarters. It didn’t really occur to anyone that some of the traps might be magical in origin until it was nearly too late, but thankfully the combination of Darvin’s Detect Magic and Alisaie’s Dispel Magic dealt with most of that.

There were still some physical traps, though. Disarming them didn’t always happen but injuries were only taken by three people; once when Clarity did really poorly on a roll, which got her and Alisaie sprayed with acid, and once when Darvin, shaken by what was in one of the rooms, didn’t think before opening a door without it being so much as checked.

What was in the rooms ... was ... bad. I’ll spare the descriptions. If you want them, go watch, but please consider this a gore warning.

Sigwald’s room and the office were both trashed - or rather, tossed. Those responsible were clearly looking for information and while they didn’t find everything they wanted (information on the Cupcake Coterie, they reasoned, and that would have been hugely outdated anyway), they did find something; though no one’s sure exactly what.

They also realised that since Grey’s Inn was basically the news and intel hub for most of Baronsvere, it being effectively shut down blinds the entire country and leaves them massively open to ambushes. That was not a fun realisation.

The last room they checked before the end of the session was the Sullivan parents’ bedroom. Let’s just say I took a leaf out of the Whitestone book there. The indication was that even if they didn’t find any information from Sigwald’s papers, whoever did this knows the exact party makeup and effectively told them to come and have a go if they thought they were hard enough.

Plans for next session: finish searching the house (including the vault, which didn’t seem to have been tampered with), last rites for the poor souls they found dead throughout the rooms they did search, the few things they managed to salvage (including the elderly Briard and the kitten that Clarity has named Aloysius King-Of-All-He-Surveys) Then they will move on, because clearly they think they’re hard enough. That’s assuming Lesser Restoration works on a hungover dire moose.

[cupcakecoterie]

@true0neutral - Hazel, half-elf cleric

@fauxfire76 - Darvin, human bard/sorcerer

@hyperewok1 - Remi, human paladin/warlock

@miaaoi - Farideh, dragonborn sorcerer

@lindira - Clarity, tiefling rogue/warlock

Marion - Ava, human ranger

@lovefrometernity - Rylan, wood elf sorcerer

We were missing a Barnabus because of mass birthday celebrations, but we managed. This gets gross, guys. Be warned. Body horror, that kind of thing

We had a moment when we tried to figure out where the hell everyone had gone last session. We got it mostly right but we did misremember about who the hell was in the command tent, so Rylan and Barnabus were with Clarity and Ava in the command tent instead of the mess tent where they were headed originally. Because fuck it, I hadn’t done anything but say vagueries of what people saw.

Most of the action happened in the medical tent, where Farideh, Hazel, and Alisaie had to take on three body horror-twisted individuals suffused with the black shit. They did that fairly handily between Lightning Bolt, Spirit Guardians, and the Steel Wind Strike tattoo, though Alisaie’s protective urges plus Farideh’s being heavy on the AoE meant that Alisaie took a shot of Lightning Bolt to the back. Thankfully Farideh has the Careful Spell metamagic and at least managed to spare her some of the ow.

After some discussion about what they saw, they did a last perimeter sweep and saw what was at one point a tunnel but was now sealed up by an ... obstacle. That obstacle was made of largely drow bodies, twisted and fused together, with a few non-drow in the mix largely visible by skin tone. That was when Hazel, after a successful religion check, recalled her training at the Temple, specifically lessons on the Outsider Gods. In this case, the depiction of Chemosh in my world - the Fleshweaver. Given that the Fleshweaver’s origin came from the shadow of Pelor’s light touching some darkness outside the planes, they made some nasty associations about Chemosh’s ties to the extraplanar madness ooze they’re fighting. No one was happy with any of this.

Best they could honestly do was burn the medical tent, collapse the tunnel mouth connecting the drow encampment to the Grey’s Inn cellar, further burn the Blind Harpy, and get on their way. They saw more evidence of white dragon settling in as they went on - things like animals straight-up frozen in place (literally, as in frozen to death while standing up) and cruising ice elementals.

A couple of days later, they reached the Sullivan plantation. They stopped there to rest for the night and also to investigate, given where they found baby Serra. The first thing they saw was the remains of the Sullivans’ herd dogs scattered across the yard ... except for the elderly herd dog that Remi made friends with their first trip there. Remi’s “awww, puppy!” was adorable.

They searched the wing of the house where the ranch hands stayed when herding season rolled around. They found the bathtubs in that room for baths they used the first time they were there filled with blood. In the bedroom area, they saw what looked like some kind of attack; Darvin figured out it was probably by drow. Farideh found some letters, and it turned out that there’d been more people in that wing than usual because the Sullivans needed to hire some people to break the ice in the fields so their livestock could graze. They didn’t seem to know that there was a white dragon causing the particularly severe winter. Most of all, Clarity found a tiny corner of a letter bearing a sigil that seemed very old and of some kind of elven origin; the letter itself was burned. Rylan knew the sigil matched up with something Rylan knew about - clerics of some sort, not just clerics of Llolth but those that venerate all the reasons Llolth is an Outsider God rather than still being in the Divine Conclave set over Order, wear that sigil. The scouts Rylan asked about it said, “If you see someone wearing this? RUN”. So someone infiltrated the place, apparently.

Clarity also found one surviving kitten. The plan is to send the elderly dog and the tiny kitten back to Hearthhome via the Home Key.

Some of them went to check the barn, just so they could have a place to put Legolas where said worthy moose wouldn’t have to fend of an aerial attack. They pulled the barn doors open and out fell what they called the “horse-valanche”. Basically a tidal wave of horse corpses, only about half frozen since it’s hard to freeze that volume of meat, about half-eaten. Ava threw up at that point.

They put Legolas in the cellar instead; thankfully the cellar was full of feed and some bags of half-frozen carrots and things; no problem for a dire moose of the Eun-Bac wastes, so it was basically Moose Hotel. They decided to leave the horses out there, since the clean-up job would have been too difficult and because it would warn any passers-by (merchants who might not know what’s going on, mercenaries looking for survivors, that kind of thing) that things are bad here.

After that, they decided to sit down to what dinner they could manage before searching the rest of the house. At least part of that is probably going to be gathering some of baby Serra’s belongings to augment what Twilly and Miranda can provide.

So ... yeah. Like I said. Gross. Sorry about that. We’re going into some really grotesque shit. Since at least some of this was inspired by The Secret World, @true0neutral just went, “WE’RE IN TRANSYLVANIA NOW!” Because basically, yes.

[cupcakecoterie]

@true0neutral - Hazel, half-elf cleric

@fauxfire76 - Darvin, human bard/sorcerer

@hyperewok1 - Remi, human paladin/warlock

@miaaoi - Farideh, dragonborn sorcerer

@lindira - Clarity, tiefling rogue/warlock

Marion - Ava, human ranger

Brian - Barnabus, minotaur fighter

@lovefrometernity - Rylan, wood elf sorcerer

It’s been a shitty week so the last two vids that I’m behind on are going up nowish. Be warned: there’s some horrific shit going on in these. Suicide TW.

There was some extended discussion about how exactly they were going about the search of the cellar. Also Alisaie was hoping to wake up Hazel’s axe (which was previously Alisaie’s; Hazel picked it up during the mess in the Elvenwild) so that it might do a different type of damage than ice damage, which wasn’t going to be helpful in their current situation. She thinks it worked but doesn’t know, exactly.

Clarity tried to make amends to Legolas for the accidental Fire Bolt incident. That went well. (”Vox Machina had Trinket; you guys have a moose.”) Also a fair bit of time was spent reassuring Clarity, given as how she had kind of a bad day, combat-wise, the previous day.

Darvin’s bringing Serra into the combat area came up. Alisaie had to ‘punish’ Darvin with a sandwich made with very strong horseradish mustard before Legolas would let him eat anything. Legolas is a very protective moose.

Plots and plans and a couple of anecdotes later, and they went down to the cellar. First thing that happened was they smelled that alchemical-honey smell that goes with the black crap. They had to do a bit more explaining about exactly what that shit is. They a lot of breakage and rat nests, and some splatted rats, but they also found some barrels that once contained the black crap. Those barrels bore a mark that, according to Farideh (the only one who’d know), was a shipping stamp from Cragvere, the underground dwarven lands to the far north of Baronsvere. Also the trademaster’s seal from Froseth and Farideh’s old home.

They also found a tunnel that was clearly made by humanoids. Through that tunnel was a nest of dragon eggs, all of them tainted (and immediately shattered by Hazel’s axe) ... and a whole encampment of drow. Well, a drow encampment, anyway - no sentries, no activity, nothing. So they went to investigate. There were a lot of empty tents, but some of them had bodies in them ... bodies that had taken their own lives in some unpleasant ways.

After checking out the outlying tents, they split up - Remi, Darvin, Barnabus, and Rylan in the mess tent, Clarity and Ava in the command tent, and Hazel, Farideh, and Alisaie checking out the medical tent. The mess tent was full of rotted food and an awful lot of very weird mushrooms growing out of the stewpot and abandoned bowls. The command tent had a drow nailed to the table, bled out by some very deep cuts and looking like he just lay there and let it happen without so much as squirming. And in the medical tent ... it looked empty at first but from the shadows came a gurgling noise.

And that’s where we stopped for the evening. It was creepy for the poor folks. The next session was kind of worse.

[cupcakecoterie]

@true0neutral - Hazel, half-elf cleric

@fauxfire76 - Darvin, human bard/sorcerer

@hyperewok1 - Remi, human paladin/warlock

@miaaoi - Farideh, dragonborn sorcerer

@lindira - Clarity, tiefling rogue/warlock

Marion - Ava, human ranger

Brian - Barnabus, minotaur fighter

@lovefrometernity - Rylan, wood elf sorcerer

When I said significantly behind, I fucking meant it. At least with this one, it was mostly combat and a play-by-play of combat tends to be boring so this’ll be the highlights and thus relatively short. Okay, here we go.

We actually started with Hazel, Clarity, and Rylan, and Hazel investigating the corpse pile to find out how they died. Didn’t quite notice that they were fused together into an undead monstrosity until various arms tried to grab for her. Combat ensued.

Rylan attempted Blight, did not in fact register that Blight did not work on undead, and then started screaming. This, at least, alerted the ones back at the sled. Ava, Barnabus, and Farideh went to help out the shrieking Rylan while Darvin kept hold of baby Serra.

Clarity got engulfed by the corpse mound. Unfortunately she spent a lot of combat that way.

There were some issues with positioning solely because they were trying to fight a Large creature in a small inn room and the narrow corridor didn’t make things easy.

Rylan got pinned to the ground by a bone lance ... but managed to nat 20 the Athletics check needed to pull the lance out, and from that point just nuked it with Magic Missile.

(Side note: @lovefrometernity sounds a little like a Muppet when they scream, endearingly so.)

Then they heard a not-quite-toddler giggling, because Darvin had been curious and concerned (and a tiny bit metagamey because while he knew where the combat was situated OOC, Darvin didn’t know IC, but never mind, it still made sense IC), had come into the inn ... and, because we don’t leave not-quite-toddlers outside alone in the cold, he took baby Serra with him. Hazel was not impressed. They put Serra through Hazel’s Home Key door immediately ... and then went to look for Remi and Alisaie.

After a break, we moved to Alisaie and Remi, in the cellar. Remi told Alisaie, “Break down the door; I’ll cover you”, at which point Alisaie had to demonstrate that breaking a door down is not necessary when both parties involved have access to Dimension Door. Though that took a few seconds of poorly-timed “married argument”. They ended up a bit away from the sled (reasoning that Darvin could Dimension Door away with Serra if combat happened to follow them, not knowing that Darvin and Serra were in the other makeshift arena) and continued the conversation until the splintering of the outside cellar door indicated the approach of three young white dragons.

Alisaie fought one of them in the air, because she be like that. Remi took on the second on the ground, and when the third went for her, Legolas the dire moose stomped holy hell out if it.

Clarity was having a really bad combat-related day, since a nat 1 on a Fire Bolt ended up with her singeing Legolas.

Farideh was having a lot of fun with Chain Lightning and got her first in-game kill. So both new characters got kills in their first combats, which was nice. Hazel killed the second with Sacred Flame, and as for Alisaie ... well ... two nat 20s when raging, plus Darvin’s d10 inspiration die added to damage... Basically she took Darvin’s inspirational call of “I want to see its head fly at least fifty yards” literally.

They decided to not spend any time in the Blind Harpy building but did stay on the grounds overnight so they could investigate the cellar in the morning. Mostly because when she went to skin, scale and butcher the dragons, they found some distressing black splotches on the hide.

Be warned; what comes in the following two sessions is eldritch horror of the worst kinds. I’ll try to keep it detail-light but they saw some unpleasant shit.

[cupcakecoterie]

@true0neutral - Hazel, half-elf cleric

@fauxfire76 - Darvin, human bard/sorcerer

@hyperewok1 - Remi, human paladin/warlock

@miaaoi - Farideh, dragonborn sorcerer

@lindira - Clarity, tiefling rogue/warlock

Marion - Ava, human ranger

Brian - Barnabus, minotaur fighter

@lovemmawesome - Rylan, wood elf sorcerer

Continuing the catch-up! We’re getting into plot shit now so I should probably warn for things like death trigger warnings...

Before the journey started, they got a visit from Jenna, who apparently was going to deliver their sled (since they need a sled for Legolas the dire moose to pull) and also apparently somehow knew that the Blade of Four had changed shape recently so decided to come check out why it had done so, and in what sense. She was fairly impressed with her work, given its ability to shape to its user to that degree without losing its ability set. She also had a cup of coffee with the gang, which is always fun when that bunch is having a conversation with new people listening in.

Farideh seemed to be really enjoying her new space at the “adult table”, particularly since everyone was really good about treating her as an adult instead of like a physically large child. The one real concession they made to her youth was Alisaie tempering her super-strong coffee with a lot of cream to make it easier for someone who hadn’t had quite that much caffeine to cope with. (I’d say she’d have done that to anyone in that position, but demonstrably no.)

Eventually they went over to Hearthhome for breakfast and some last goodbyes. Farideh promised to tell Skylar everything about their adventures, which got some facepalming from the Hearthhearts but apparently they did understand the perspective. After all, Farideh had been frustrated by not being considered old enough to hear about her brother’s adventures and subjecting others to that probably didn’t feel right.

SIde note: Geloe the pixie is making good use of the teeny tiny stove that Darvin got for the dollhouse. Twilly commissioned Jenna to make a tiny waffle iron and they now have an icebox. My players like the cute details. Also, facial journey of the day: discussion of the concept of moose centaurs. With ‘fantastic racks’.

Good-byes were said to Froseth. They get it, but Froseth’s been with them since the beginning; it’s strange for them to leave him behind.

Good-byes were also said to Shinyra the basement-drow. She flagged up that there’s the possibility that, given that Coryvel was the child of the ancient green, and they dealt with a lot of the offspring of the ancient blue ... it’s possible that the white might have offspring to deal with too.

Travel to Grey’s Inn would have been a lot harder, what with the roads obscured by snow. Except they have sled pulled by dire moose and they don’t need roads, so they actually managed to make better time than they did when they were travelling with Lanark’s friend. The winter was much harsher than it should have been, though - as they hit Grey’s Inn, they were travelling across snow frozen to ice that the sled skidded over instead of ploughing through snowdrifts.

Around the third full day, as they were approaching the Blind Harpy (which they decided to check in on; awful as it was, it’s a roof and a chance at news), they tripped over what appeared to be a deserted mercenary camp. Alisaie took Farideh to investigate, with the others keeping an eye to make sure there wasn’t an ambush of any kind. What they found were the few remnants of a group of mercs from a company called the Dawnbreakers, who were apparently setting up a medevac. No one was still alive in the camp or surrounding area, and everything of any value had been taken. They followed a blood trail to a frozen-and-shattered human and, tucked under the roots of a tree, the body of a small child. Alisaie levelled up with the rest of them recently, and she picked up Resurrection, so the small child (Serra Sullivan, as at least some of the party knows) lives. They brought Serra back to the sled so that, once they got to the Blind Harpy, Hazel could use her magic key to get the little one safely to Hearthhome.

Once they got little Serra to the sled, Hazel took her so that she’d have the benefit of Eun-Bac furs while the others did a second pass checking out the camp. They couldn’t really tell what had done it, but they could tell that it was something intelligent, seeing as it was intelligent enough to aim for weak spots in armour, largely to peel the armour off bodies that were no longer there. All they could really do was give them a proper send-off in the eyes of the gods (the ground was too hard to dig even if there had been bodies to any degree) and move on.

They went to the Blind Harpy, which appeared abandoned. The ones who can see in the dark (Alisaie, Rylan, Clarity, Hazel, and Remi, who picked up a nice little added bonus in level-up) went to examine the place before they tried to light it up, use the door to get Serra safe, and settle in. Hazel gave Darvin Serra to look after just in case.

Hazel, Rylan, and Clarity searched the rooms, finding them empty apart from one at the very far end, which contained a large pile of corpses, most of which died to things like slit throats. Remi and Alisaie went to search the cellar and as soon as they were on the stairs, the door shut and they heard a growling voice say, “Papa said you’d come”.

Aaaaaaaaaand that’s where I cliffhangered them.