It's 2025 and I be thinking about what I'd add in a TCNI rewrite
Poth would be not necessarily *distraught* about the events in "Lake Depths", but kinda worried about a lot. Zephyr comes over and tries to ease Poth, and its cute, but then Nur also joins in and gently nudges Poth- at least as gentle as a giant lizard can.
I think these three are a neat group that honestly didn't get explored in canon, so it's been my duty to give them my headcanons on their dynamic. Also, with Nur being unable to speak the common tongue except for literally one time, I feel he would probably have to go to the resident ranger for charades explaining the dumb shit Cynthia gets into.
I've been listening to the Cynthia playlists on my way to and from work, so that's probably why I felt the desire to draw IU art
Anyway, here's your bonus doodle for clicking the "Keep Reading". While it's hard to see, I'm playing with redesigning Cynthia's helmet so I actually enjoy drawing her with it. Thinking about doubling down on canary aspects and making the bottom part like a beak. But easier to see is Roth, who is just as Not Fine as Cynthia is (just better at masking it in the moment, probably).
I really want to make the chamomile into a brush; they turned out really well.
Based on one of the fake covers I drew for Chapter 5 of Calamity Named Insomnia. I’ve been meaning to re-draw it, as Wall’s reference has been updated, and I wanted to change the composition a bit. (I’ve also been thinking about doing a re-write of CNI for its 2nd-year anniversary)
Work-in-progress design of Wall! This one actually got approved by ArkVeil himself, so I’ll be updating the blog icon with this design once I get the chance. :D
[Written by GalaxyKoi]
Here’s a few things I want to note outside of the session summary, and I also want to discuss possible things to expect in Session 32.
- Post-Session, the party leveled again to Level 9. No one multi-classed, so everyone is still fully in one class.
- Originally, I was considering having Cynthia dip into barbarian. Unfortunately, the class would be unusable for her due to the fact that she wears heavy armor. I was then thinking about Fighter, and how cool that would be to say that she learns from Wall, but I valued Revivify over a multi-class.
- Paddy rolled average for health, bringing up to 64 HP.
- Wall now has 23 instead of 22 AC before Shield of Faith. Additionally, Cynthia now has access to Haste, so Wall can obtain a potential... 32 AC. If Cynthia is kind enough, that is.
- Session 31 confirmed the fact that there’s certainly a trust issue among the entire crew with Cynthia’s role of captain. Paddy says this straight to her, and Session 30 had Roth and Wall display a lack of trust in her. Going forward, it appears that Cynthia will have to address this soon if she wants to stay alive.
- (also paddy and cynthia had an argument and their relationship is in trouble)
- There was discussion in our Discord about the possibility of the Blue Bandits having some sort of speakeasy to hide any alcohol. Session 32 might have something to do with this idea, considering the fact that Paddy and Cynthia are searching for alcohol. To this, everyone chanted “Bandit speakeasy” in the channel.
- I do think that Cynthia is going to try to repair that trust soon, but at least for a day or two, she’s going to take a bit of a break from everything. I’m really hoping Poth gets to see Cynthia again.
- oh RIGHT i need to show you all the new wall design. aight i’m going to end this here then to post it
With the fleeing of Ivyrm The Tempest, and no following miasma, the party’s only choice is to keep going forward. As the party investigates a few concerning paintings, Cynthia splits off from the others for a while without warning. The party eventually rejoins and rests one more time before one last fight in the realm of the miasma. Waking up, the party gets caught up to speed by Airoman and Jeeves.
> Roth questions why the miasma never appeared after Ivyrm left. He assumes that it was because the dragon left of her own choice. He then investigates the room for more clues and hints, and then he finds a note that yet again lets them know things they already know.
> The party assesses their ability to go into another fight. Wall and Cynthia go back and forth with a “I’m fine, go heal the other” argument concerning Paddy’s healing. Paddy heals Wall and Roth with 13 points each, and then heals Cynthia for 24.
> In the next room, they find a painting depicting the whole party unconscious in the same room where Roland appeared. Roth draws a mustache on Wall. However, before more antics could happen, Wall notices that Cynthia is not present with them. Wall asks for Paddy to go find her, as Paddy has “a closer relationship to the captain”.
> Wall and Roth go further to investigate more paintings, notably a painting of a burning city. Wall tells Roth to try to figure out if the paintings are magical, and then they notice a stone door with ornate, mahogany trim that has Abyssal runes. The runes are hard to read, but a few say “Death”, ”Path”, ”Breath”, and “Exit”. Roth continues to try to gain insight on the runes while Wall investigates the next room with his familiar. One shadow creature appears into a large stone golem, similar to the ones the party saw in the room they last saw Arumon. However, the golem appears to be corrupted and in pain.
> Wall reminds the party that the golems were a hard fight even in prime condition. At this point, Paddy returns and tells the party that Cynthia is being “sus” and had ordered him away. The party decides to try to talk to her, but they get distracted by the paintings again.
> With the conflict unresolved, everyone decides to take a short rest, and then they head back to the final boss.
> The shadow forms into what is named the Plagued Golem, and Paddy starts with a bonfire. At this point, the gang notices that the golem has magical resistance, as it passes with advantage. Brik, Wall’s owl, helps whoever attacks next.
> The Plagued Golem acts afterward, sending poison in the gas. Brik (and maybe Uther?) gets hit by the poison. Nur dodges, and then Wall sets up Shield of Faith and starts attacking. He hits, but similar to the last few fights, he does little damage. Roth lands one of his beams of Eldritch Blast. Cynthia declares a vow and unleashes her radiant wings.
> Paddy shoots the Plagued Golem, but the golem appears to be more interested in Cynthia. It attacks her with its Infect attack and lands, managing to also make her lose another point of Intelligence. Uther gets slammed once as well.
> Yet again, Nur dodges. Uther and Wall try to attack the Plagued Golem, and Roth sends a Witch Bolt. Unfortunately, the witch bolt does not hit.
> Cynthia starts to attack finally, landing twice. The Plagued Golem cracks and sends out a burst of poison. Everyone fails, including Wall and Nur, who usually are not included in the miasma saves. Roth loses 1 Dexterity, Paddy loses 1 Strength, Nur loses 1 Constitution, Cynthia loses 1 Intelligence, and Wall loses 1 Intelligence.
> The Plagued Golem then lands another Infect and two slams, this time going after Cynthia with the slam and Uther with the Infect. One of the slam attacks crit and the other hits, but Cynthia manages to stay standing after the two hits. Nur tries to rush to Cynthia’s aid and drag her away, but she is too far away for Nur to be able to drag her away.
> Wall and Uther strike the Plagued Golem, but Roth misses with Eldritch Blast. Cynthia attacks twice, yet again dealing a lot of damage. However, Cynthia’s luck runs out, and the Plagued Golem slams her to the ground (notably on the raw audio timestamp of 2:00:22).
> GalaxyKoi, despite being the main healer, asks for heals and gets 22 HP from Paddy. However, the Plague Golem crits Cynthia again after hitting Uther with an Infect (and making him lose 1 Strength). Nur drags her unconscious body towards Paddy. Wall and Uther attack the Plagued Golem again, and the Plagued Golem infects Uther. Cynthia fails a death save, but is soon after brought back up by Paddy.
> Not much to note until Cynthia and Paddy’s turn, where Cynthia hits once, and Paddy finishes the Plague Golem with a gunshot. (I want to note that, if he had missed, Cynthia would have gone down again, possibly even dying if more than one hit occured. Paddy makes the deciding shot in every potentially-bad situation, I swear.)
> No miasma follows as the Plagued Golem breaks down, but everyone begins to feel suddenly tired, even Wall. Everyone falls asleep.
> As everyone wakes up, Wall first notices a few of Uther’s bandits, and they fall down in reaction to Cynthia’s eyes opening. The area had been transformed into a hospital, and various bandits had been tending to their wounds. Cynthia tries to go back to sleep for a moment, but Roth encourages her to stay awake.
> One of the bandits fetch Airoman, with Jeeves and Zephyr coming in some time after. Airoman greets the crew (and Uther) awake, asks how they’re doing, and asks how much the party knows. Airoman explains that it had now been four years, and their time is growing thinner by the day. Orakiul, the blacksmith the party met, is in the process of ascending to godhood. The other gods have also been asking many favors of Orakiul, such as creating a “semi-stronghold” in Airoman’s dungeon, which is where the party now is. The other part was “assembling everything necessary for the ritual involving Cynthia, and that sword.”
> Most cities in Iotath are destroyed except for Vunedar and another city: Glurizbig, the old gnomish captial. Zorin is protecting Vunedar, and Ivrym the Tempest is protecting Glurizbig with an army of Duergar. The elves have attempted to send aid, but nothing has come of it.
> We also get the hint that Roland is some sort of minion or right hand of Gond, who went mad very early into the campaign.
> Poth is alive! He’s a scout for the rebellion. Airoman assures Cynthia and Roth that he is out hunting with Hoth.
> (Another brief note: Roth says “I hope I grow to be a cool lich too” to Airoman.)
> Roth gains 10 healing potions from the room, and then Paddy says that he’s going to craft himself some beer. Cynthia says that she wants some time to walk around and talk to Airoman about the future.
> “We don’t keep much alcohol in residence since the… Incident.” The “Incident” involved Uther’s Blue Bandits getting too rowdy. Paddy leaves off with Jeeves in search of potatoes.
> Airoman finally is the one to tell Cynthia about what Nur truly is. “Nur’s there, Nur’s always been there.” Nur is an ancient celestial that has existed before the gods.
> The miasma is similar to the newer effects of the Living Plague.
> Vadithas is in Vunedar, and his cure worked for a while, but it eventually became ineffective.
After another fight and a long rest, the party grows stronger, but there’s still no end in sight. However, Cynthia summons Nur, and Nur reveals some horrifying truths to the party, but the celestial also reveals the way that they will be able to leave. Cynthia breaks under the pressure. Paddy tries to seduce a dragon. Wall gets taken down. Roth gets a taste of the effects of the miasma. Uther remembers a promise.
> Relative to the room with the Plague victims and Plague abominations, a door opens to the west. The party goes in, not too damaged from the previous fight.
> There was combat with a Hezrou. Not much of note here, although that’s because yours truly is an idiot and had the bot that recorded the session have Zyarch muted. This is a huge shame, as will be apparent later.
> The miasma manages to take a hold on Paddy and Roth, both losing 1 INT. No door appears to open adjacent to the room that they were in.
> The party initially heads back to the lavish bedroom to take a long rest. However, Cynthia notices a room that certainly was not there before as they pass the room where they fought the bugbears. She goes to investigate the room, and she gets annoyed over everyone except Uther joining her.
> They find a dining room, a lounging room, and another room with two shadows. Stopping before the shadow room, Cynthia tries to get the crew to rejoin Uther in the bedroom. However, they do not listen, and Wall almost pulls a mutiny again. However, they compromise with letting Cynthia be alone in the room, and the other two rest in the dining room next to it.
> It was time to finally recuperate, with all possible recovery methods completely out. The party takes a long rest and levels up to Level 8. With Level 8 being an ASI, I’ll quickly brief over what everyone takes:
Cynthia: +1 CON/+1 STR
Paddy: +1 CON/+1 INT
Wall: Warcaster feat
Roth: +1 DEX/+1 CHA
> Upon waking up, Cynthia resummons Nur after missing being able to vent to him. Nur, upon being resummoned, tells Cynthia that “we” thought that Cynthia and the others were dead. Nur had been trying to contact them, but nothing was working.
> Nur then explains that it had been three years since Cynthia and the others got lost in the labyrinth. To the party, it had only felt like three days. In that time, most cities have been destroyed, and Vunedar has been protected by Zorin, Airoman (who I have been previously calling Arumon), a few old heroes. Two dragons (a gold dragon and a blue dragon) have risen in the fight against the Living Plague as well.
> Airoman has been trying to break the enchantment that keeps the party in the miasma, but it’s easier for the enchantment to be broken from the party’s side rather than Airoman’s side. The more normal rooms the party finds, the easier the enchantment is to break. Meanwhile, though, the party’s bodies are all knocked unconscious, and their souls have been trapped in the labyrinth.
> Upon Nur giving her this information in Celestial, Cynthia gets overwhelmed, and she blames herself for going in here in the first place. Nur tries to convince her that it is not her fault, but nothing gets through, and she even mentions how she wished Mordecai were in her place. At other moments, she gets very close to the door.
> Unable to repeat the information herself, she re-summons Nur to speak Common, who then relays the information in an unexpected, deep voice.
> After everyone gets the information, they enter the next room. This room becomes two chimeras, which do end up being a lot more of a problem. The fire breath attacks yet again counter Cynthia, but she manages to stay alive. In the first round, Cynthia takes 52 fire damage after being targeted by both chimeras.
> Roth has a moment to shine in the chimera fight. He does a critical hit Witch Bolt, which does 74 damage to one of the chimeras. That chimera does not last much longer, and it never gets a chance to recharge its fire breath.
> Uther grapples the other chimera so well that he actually restrains the chimera. This helps the rest of the party take it down.
> The miasma returns again. Paddy and Roth both fail, with Paddy losing 1 INT and Roth losing 1 DEX.
> A door opens to the south, which leads into a nice looking hallway. Next to that room is a very large room. Cynthia refuses to heal herself and heals Uther instead.
> The shadow in this room forms into an adult blue dragon. Uther is initially terrified of her, and the party doesn’t know why initially. Paddy tries to seduce the adult blue dragon, but he fails.
> Wall shows off a new spell he has to make his AC even more ridiculous: Blur.
> After two rounds of combat, Uther exclaims that she couldn’t be there, and the dragon responds by saying that maybe she isn’t, and she “remember[s] our deal”. She then says the following: “I tire of this charade. We all know that none of this is real. So, I will leave you with this.”
> The dragon hurls a Lightning Breath attack before vanishing, which targets Roth, Wall, and Cynthia. All three fail the DEX save, and all three of them take 72 lightning damage. Needless to say, everyone goes down. Cynthia nearly gets instantly killed from this since she was already at low health from the chimera fight.
> Paddy brings Cynthia back from the brink of death, Uther stabilizes Wall so well that Wall gets back up, and then Paddy heals Roth.
> Nur and Uther talk after the party is conscious again, and they discuss the dragon that they just encountered. That dragon was an illusion- perhaps- of Irvym, the Tempest, which is the dragon that Uther is known for slaying and sealing away. However, the dragon eventually became no longer sealed, and she is now one of the two dragons fighting against the Living Plague.
The puzzle of the labyrinth continues, and the party is starting to run out of possible answers for the way out. Cynthia attempts to talk to Roth, but gets shut down. Paddy gets his shield back and looks at some tasteful skeleton art. Wall nearly goes down to 0 HP, much to the concern of the party. Uther suggests that Nur might be more powerful than the party initially imagined. The party grows stronger, but some are barely hanging on to their sanity.
> The session starts with a well-done summary done by ArkVeil instead of GalaxyKoi, which does a better job summarizing than Gala’s own S28 recap.
> Uther, Wall, and Paddy search the next room to the east to find four small rooms. In the middle is one room with a chair, and the southern room has some interesting portraits of skeletons.
> While this occurs, Cynthia asks Roth if he feels different after receiving the mark. He tells her that nothing has changed, and then he gets distracted by the chair in the next room. GalaxyKoi’s rp attempt gets shut down, and they check the other rooms with the others.
> Cynthia returns the shield to Paddy so he can have it in emergencies, bringing Cynthia’s AC back to its usual 20 AC and bringing Paddy’s up to 17 AC.
> The room in the north has eight shadows that turn into bugbears, and then the other room has four fire-spitting demons (the same that the guard transformed into in s15). Uther elects for the eight bugbears since he used to take many of them down years ago.
> Cynthia also asks the group about the fiends and whose memories they belong to. Uther suggests that it might be Nur’s. Cynthia doubts that it could be Nur, as she still doesn’t know who Nur is.
> They also find another note that reads “THERE ARE SAFE PLACES”. We already knew this the whole time.
> They move into the room into the north, and the initiative looks normal again. The bugbears at one point nearly take down Wall, and in response, Cynthia tries to break from being surrounded to help. She takes an opportunity attack that lands a critical hit, but she manages to make it over to help take it down. Other than that, the encounter was relatively okay.
> The miasma save comes around… And goes. Everyone passes the save. A new room opens to the north.
> With the crew low on resources, they decide to take a short rest before heading to the new room.
> The new room has eight shadows, which transforms into two Plague Abominations and six Plague Victims. Similar to the last fight, not much occurs, although Cynthia fails a CON save and loses 3 max HP temporarily.
> The miasma save comes around… Cynthia and Paddy fail the save. Cynthia loses 1 CON, Paddy loses 1 DEX.
> After the session, we get a message from Zyarch to prepare for a level up on the next long rest. The party levels to Level 8!
(I know I’m now two sessions behind, but I’ll get to it soon! There’s a lot that I have to recap for these last two, but just know. Just know that this happened.)
The ashes of the two fiends form into a larger fiend, which changes into an illusion of Scribe. Scribe proves a challenge for the party. They push forward, only to run into a scar from Roth’s memory: Kermit. Roth communicates with the ghoul instead of fighting. Paddy still has a great amount of luck, somehow. Cynthia, on the other hand, is out of luck and possibly time.
> The larger fiend from the last session changes into a familiar face: the fiend form of Scribe. As a legendary action on the first turn, Scribe frightens everyone in the party except Roth. He also has his whirlwind attack, the same attack that almost killed Roth in Session 15.
> The frightened condition proves a struggle for the party except Wall, who just simply lost his advantage on his spear attacks on his first turn. Wall gets rid of his status condition quickly thanks to Cynthia’s Aura of Protection.
> Cynthia’s Aura of Protection ends up benefiting everyone except Cynthia herself, but only because GalaxyKoi rolled low for the entire session in everything. Her AC kept her safe from Scribe’s bite attacks, at least. Cynthia used Radiant Soul to increase her damage when she did hit, at least.
> Uther proves to be our sole reason for being alive this far, as he tanked a lot of damage in this session. He also Nat1’d a lot of attacks thanks to the frightened condition, which ended up being good because it used up Scribe’s reactions.
> Once Roth got frightened, his Eldritch Blast attacks suffered, obviously.
> After a few rounds, Cynthia managed to land a hit and dealt 48 damage, which was enough to take down Scribe. Scribe exploded into miasma, forcing the miasma Constitution Save. Fortunately, everyone passed the save.
> A new room opened, and then Paddy investigated the next room. It turns into a ghoul, which again devours the drone almost immediately. To most of the party as they enter the room, it is unfamiliar to them, but to Roth, it’s a whole other story. It takes the form of his patron, Kermit. Roth doesn’t inform the party of this, and then he proceeds to communicate with the ghoul in Abyssal. The others try to fight it.
> Kermit proves an even harder challenge to hit, and the damage output from the party was fairly low. This ended up being one of the reasons why it was a stressful fight for the party.
> Roth did not believe that this was an illusion. He continued to commune with it instead of fighting it. The ghoul told Roth that he was there to “claim a new champion” and that he found some “worthy choices”. Kermit then paralyzed Roth and placed a mark on him. To what the mark does is unknown.
> For the rest of the party, they simply saw Roth speaking to ghoul and paralyzing him. In an attempt to save Roth from a lot of damage, Uther kept a hold on Kermit to keep him away from Roth. Wall and Paddy struck down the ghoul with constant damage. Similar to the previous fight, Cynthia didn’t get many hits in herself until she managed to land a final hit to take down Kermit.
> As with the other enemies, Kermit then formed into the miasma, and everyone yet again- minus Wall as always- had to make a Constitution save, but everyone had the benefit of Cynthia’s Aura of Protection. Cynthia was the only one to fail, rolling a 14 in total. She lost 1 Intelligence, bringing her INT score down to 7.
> Notably, the mark still remained after the fight.
