A DnD livestream show run by five friends just trying to have fun and tell stories.
We’re usually live around 8:00 PM EST every other Friday, though we have to take breaks occasionally so stay tuned and we’ll alert you all to any schedule changes.
We're something of a DnD live show run by friends and operating primarily out of YouTube.
Typically speaking, we should be streaming every other Friday at around 8:00 PM EST, though we're all busy people so that schedule may fall through sometimes, especially considering that we will be required to take some extended breaks at times, but if that is ever the case we'll be sure to announce it as soon as possible.
We run one campaign at a time and tend to commit to more story-focused campaigns. That being said, we predominantly use DnD 5e, however we may shake things up a bit every once in a while. It all depends on whatever we are interested in running at the time. As a final note on how we play, keep in mind that we do use a fair bit of homebrew.
A guide to the main homebrew system we make use of can be found here.
Guide to the Members of RFC:
Robin (they/it)
Eira (they/he)
Tartar (any/all)
Sushi (any/all)
Amelia (she/they)
Most social media management is handled by Robin, but it might be passed along to someone else if our current campaign is being run by a different GM for example. Posts will usually be signed by whoever wrote them just in case.
Lastly, if you'd like to support us, we have a Ko-fi. We do this for fun but every little bit helps, so thank you!
Suppose you were a construct in the sewers siphoning souls from cockroaches. Now suppose some kid threw a rock at your friend and they exploded. Why did I let that happen? Who knows, but it was funny.
This week we'd like to bring some attention to the NPCs that have been with the party since the beginning: Gria and Marthan.
This will be a long post with a lot of text so, more under the cut!
Development
A lot of the duo's development occurred simultaneously, so things like how they met and where were figured out before their individual stories were. Their relation to the Scarlet Tempest and roles as part of her 'legendary crew' were fleshed out pretty early on, even before the Tempest's character had been properly established. Little details like Gria's red sash were incorporated in their designs to reflect this. Marthan has a smaller one too, though they don't really wear it nowadays. If they did wear it, it would be around their right arm.
When it came to their participation in the main plot of the campaign, Gria was the one properly invited to be apart of the crew of the Bracer. She had refused to be apart of it if Marthan were not hired along with her, though.
They were always a duo, through and through.
To move onto some aspects of their individual characters though, let's talk about Gria.
Gria Thund
In campaign, we discussed Gria's history with her old crew and the disaster she faced at the Axise, but what we didn't discuss was her childhood. She was raised by her grandmother in Vintecel, and this is a major reason why she knew sign before joining the Tempest's crew. Her grandmother was deaf, so she learned it at an early age. This was pretty crucial to her getting to know Marthan as well as she did, too.
Before that though, as we established, Gria was a boxer before she did anything related to sky sailing. It was the kind of thing she was encouraged to get into by old friends due to her general physical prowess, and since she was good at it and could make money from it, she poured herself into it. A lot of the bandages she wears in the present are covering injuries from those days that never quite healed properly. Whether that's due to repeated exertion, or just bad luck varies.
After her initial incident at the Axise, she went back to boxing to return to something she was already good at. Eventually, the call to the sky grew too strong and she returned though, and the rest is history.
On a mechanical note, Gria is an Ancestral Guardian Barbarian with the unarmed fighting style. Amelia says I'm allergic to monks but I digress.
Marthan Valle
Marthan was the first NPC properly thought up for this campaign, and thus they were also the subject of the first art drawn for it.
Which would be this.
The concept of 'Thanatos' were cooked up before Marthan was properly established as a character, and a lot of their personality was built off of this. This lead to their name becoming what it is now, as I knew I wanted 'than' to be apart of it based on the rumors that would be given to the players. I changed the pronunciation of the vowel in Marthan's name compared to in Thanatos to be clever (debatable) and established 'Mar' as their primary nickname to call attention away from it.
It had also been decided even before their backstory was properly established that, despite being fully capable of talking for short periods of time or using message for communication, they would prefer nonverbal means of communication. They find it more comfortable, and less exhausting. This helped in allowing them to grow more comfortable with Gria in particular, but in general they tend to be pretty picky with who they're willing to speak with for long. This is part of why they were pretty dismissive to Colt early on in the campaign.
Their childhood as 'Alice' was actually fleshed out much later on in development, though them owning a teddy bear still as a remnant of it was an earlier fact. The bear's name is Bearnard, by the way. It was eventually decided that, based on how things happened to them, they would end up being mechanically classified as undead.
On a final mechanical note, Marthan is an Assassin Rogue/Clockwork Soul Sorcerer. I wonder how long it will take for anyone to realize they're collectively 15th level.
Concluding Thoughts
There are a lot of NPCs in this campaign with a lot going on, but as the first NPCs, these two definitely deserved the first spotlight post. It's not easy to talk about them apart from each other. They both influenced each other's actions behind the scenes pretty significantly, so it just made sense to talk about them in relation to each other.
Marthan very clearly plays a major part in the main plot of the campaign, and Gria relates to a lot of its major themes of self forgiveness and struggling under corrupt systems. The two make a solid pair, and their development only reinforces that.
Happy Friday, we don’t have anything new to post so here’s just a couple of weekly reminders —
We’re looking to be back to streaming in September. As we get closer, we’ll likely be able to narrow down a specific date and an update post will go out for it both here and in our YouTube community posts.
As far as the hiatus posting schedule goes, we might have a few of these general update posts mixed in with new stuff as well, so stay tuned. Additionally we plan on doing some spotlight week posts to share some behind the scenes facts about both the characters and the world of Through Clouds Below. You can also expect some more clips to be posted going forward as well.
Of course if you’re new here or haven’t caught up yet, you can find every session of our current campaign, Through Clouds Below, here:
Since we’re currently on a hiatus from streaming, now’s a great time to catch up!
As always, thank you for your patience, and we’ll see you next week.
Happy Friday, and an especially happy pride month from everyone at RFC! We wanted to do a more pride-centric art post but Robin’s been busy so they haven’t gotten around to it yet… What we do have on hand is a surplus of cheesesteak and clubspade art so… happy pride to them specifically.
(Art is by Tar, Eira, and Robin respectively!)
Again, a very happy pride month from all of us here! 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
To discuss some matters pertaining to the show itself quickly, we’re hoping to be back from hiatus around mid to late September. Nothing’s set in stone yet, but we have at least a general idea of when we’ll be back and able to run sessions again, and when things become more certain we’ll drop the date for our next session.
That being said now’s a great time to catch up if you haven’t already, and you can find every session here:
We appreciate your patience, and stay tuned for future updates to come.
Another happy Friday to you all! To get right into it, this week we’re here to show off some more of the maps we used for different combats throughout Through Clouds Below so far.
v. Vos Carnalla
Taking place in session/episode 6, this combat had the party facing off against the ever pragmatic prime minister, who several players thought was a vampire for some reason. It was a tense fight kicked off by Colton challenging her to a duel in order to name who was justified.
v. Uvanen’s Weapon
Following the initial fight with the prime minister, session/episode 7 had the party confronting a version of her that had been twisted and morphed into a dragon as a byproduct of the experiments she performed on herself, all in the name of defending Uvanen.
There’s on last map that has been used (for perhaps all of five minutes much to my chagrin), but we will share that one at another time. For now, these are all of the maps before we pick the campaign back up in a few months.
If you want to rewatch the episodes with these maps now, or haven’t watched them yet at all, you can find them all here:
We thank you all for your continued patience during this period of hiatus, and hope you have been enjoying Through Clouds Below thus far.
Sometimes when playing DnD your friends decide to remind you they have improvised weapon proficiency in the most bizarre ways possible, and if you’re anything like me you just have to sit back and ask yourself “Alright, how much damage does a corpse do?”
Happy Friday everyone. We had discussed previously that it would be helpful to our audience if we posted our combat maps so people could better see what we were working with while we were playing. So, as such, here are some (not all) of the earlier maps from the campaign!
v. Spicelings
Going back to session/episode 1, this was the very first fight of the campaign. The one Robin fought so desperately for everyone to do, while they all decided they didn't want to be on the map actually. Besides Wren, thanks Wren.
v. Salvane/Sewer Constructs
These two are somewhat of a package deal from session/episode 3, as the party split to deal with the remnants of Vaida's past only to be surprised by an attack from these mysterious constructs. And thus the saga of the mysterious green obsession began. Remember: always place your faith in the aardvark.
v. Winchester
The last map we'll show off today comes from the tense session/episode that was session/episode 5. This fight had the crew of the Bracer facing off their benefactor and Colt's father, as well as the Orsbur family confronting the truth of what happened to their dearly departed Randolf.
If you want to rewatch these episodes with the maps in tow, or if you haven't yet seen our show at all, you can find all of the episodes here:
As we said after last week's stream, we will be on a temporary hiatus for the time being, so there will be no stream next week.
With that in mind, we'd highly recommend catching up on the streams if you haven't already! You can find them all here:
It likely won't be until September roughly that we can stream again, but we'll try to post art and stuff here in the interim. Of course we also have asks open if anyone has any questions!
We will also be working on our next campaign for when Through Clouds Below reaches its conclusion, and depending on how much progress we make there may be a post or two about that in the future, so stay tuned!
In case you guys missed it, we will be taking a break from streaming for the time being due to some personal matters. We'll still be posting things here in the time being, however.
We're hoping to be back around mid to late September, though we make no guarantees so stay tuned.
For now, in case you're not already caught up with Through Clouds Below, now would be a great time to!
You can find every session of the campaign here:
Again, stay tuned for future updates, art, and more. We'll be trying to get the show up and running again as soon as possible hopefully.
Some scavengers of the Abyss. They survive by tracking down whatever scrap and junk they can find out in the places not occupied by people. The party came to blows with this particular group, but it seems they were able to smooth things over.
Mayor of the town of Rust in the Abyss. They're accustomed to filling those who crash land from the Skies near Rust in on the true history of the Abyss. Part of them wishes they lived in a time when the land was still alive.
We are officially live with the ninth session of Through Clouds Below! This will be our last stream before we take a break for personal reasons, and there's going to be a lot of lore so I wouldn't miss it!
Upon their recent crash, the crew of the Bracer must learn the truth of the Abyss... as well as reconcile with some personal truths that hav
The crew of the Bracer will possibly be learning about the truth of the Abyss... is it really as terrifying as the legends say?
Hello everyone, Robin forgot to post something yesterday and realized that wayyy too late. So happy Saturday? Sure.
In case you missed it, you’re going to want to catch up on session eight of clouds before Friday, April 24th. It was a doozy, and we have a lot of lore coming up next session.
You can find it and every other session of Through Clouds Below here:
Next session will be called “Beyond the Smokescreen,” and the players will finally begin to learn the truth about the abyss… and maybe sort out their personal issues along the way due to some recent developments.
Hired on as the boatswain of the Bracer, usually responsible for the ship's upkeep and maintenance. Refused to accept the job if her old friend Mar wasn't hired on with her.
Name: Marthan Valle
Pronouns: They/Them (Nonbinary)
Age: 38
Birthday: November 4th
Height: 5'4''
At the request of their old friend Gria, they were hired onto the Bracer to act as its first mate. They tend to keep to themself.
