#copper's angels

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Some pics from my weekly game. We have been using Google Hangouts, a phone for the dm, an iPad on a bendy arm for the maps, and a laptop for my sister and me. We use the same setup for our cross-country family game for about a year. Warning: it requires pretty good wifi and everything to begin at full charge and plugged in. The world is my brother-in-law's homebrewed setting from the late 90's. He is so smart. He came up with artificers and cat-folk so long ago. We are truly blessed to have him as a DM. (blatant brag bc I am so fucking proud of him: He's an actor (Broadway/vo 🤟🏻final fantasy vii🤟🏻/film/TV) director, writer, dad, and all-around amazing human.)

Our group goes by two names: The Heroes of Braystead or Copper's Angels. We once save the city of Braystead from an incompetent necromancer. Our warlock has a mastiff/hellhound named Copper who is the goodest boy.

The Scene: We are headed northeast to an abandoned dwarven city that is rumored to have an entrance to the underdark. We must find the drowning city of Igaroth in order to find the source of several assassination attempts on our half-drow ranger, Rhylloran, and his sister, the shadow Monk Willowyn. The long-abandoned dwarven city was, until about 150 years ago, the home of an ancient black dragon until it was killed by legendary warrior, Hammond Valore (from whom my character believes she is desecended). No one has ever seen the dragon's body. We have a guide, a gnome scavenger named Halfris. Halfris is familiar with the area because he scavenges for acidalias, a powerful spell component native to areas where the barrier between the Shadowfell and prime material plane are weakened. (We need info about the Shadowfell for one of the other items on our to-do list.)

Halfris brought us to a field of acidalias for him to pick. It was an ancient elven memorial with two mausoleums and four statue monuments to heroes of old. My fighter/barbarian noticed he was just moving the flowers from one pouch to another. He noticed that I noticed, and called his friend Bill, a giant seder with a black shadow axe and several goatmen. Halfris then transformed into a giant. Halfris tried to awaken the four statues surrounding us. With a fighter/barbarian, a paladin, shadow monk, tempest cleric, warlock, and ranger we dispatched Bill, Halfris, and the goatmen in four or five rounds. Now fully awakened, one of the statues tried to engage us. Our warlock, Ashland Hallows, and ranger, Rhyll, over a series of six persuasion checks, befriended the statue, and relieved him of the ancient elven artifact he was tasked to forever protect. While the charmers were doing that, my barbarian picked up Bill's giant shadow axe and explored a mausoleum. On a natural 20 wisdom saving throw, I shook off the painful rush of dark shadow energy that tried to shoot up my arms and transform me to do it's bidding. My ancestral guardians DID NOT like that. Taking the newly acquired platinum and sapphire circlet and the shadow axe "for safe keeping," our group of heroes lived to fight another day.

I may share more of our tales if y'all like this one. LMK if you want more stories. I formatted this on mobile. Apologies for the LONG post w/o a cut.

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Tonight on Copper's Angels:

The setting:

We are headed to up a mountain to enter the dwarven city of Kergerum. Kergerum was abandoned at least a thousand years ago for reasons we don't know. More recently, Kergerum was the home of an ancient black dragon, Uraxyl. Uraxyl was was said to be killed by legendary fighter, Hammond Valore. (There is no proof. No one has ever seen the body. One person was with Hammond on his way out, but he was technically dead while the dragon-slaying allegedly happened.) We are on our way to the Drow captial city in the underdark. One known entrance lies under Kergerum.

For two days, we have seen a medium sized feline mammal (a caracal) has been following us.

It has been closely persued by a nine foot lumbering creature. We learn it is a grey render.

We stopped to rest on our way up the mountain to Kergerum. Before we even got settled in, the caracal races into our camp, the render following. Our beloved mastiff/hellhound, Copper shifted into his hellish form in an effort to intimidate the render. He failed. (Is this fight, the part of the grey render will be played by an Earth elemental.)

We are in combat. Our ranger shoots two arrows. My fighter/barbarian rages, jumps over the fire, and uses the remainder of her her 50 ft. speed to make it all the way to the render. I hit with the first attack. My greatsword deals maximum damage (18 slashing, 8 radiant). My second attack is a natural 20. My sword deals 30 slashing and 6 radiant. Our paladin divine smites the render, but she isn't close enough to get into melee. The render hits me for 18 (halved to 9) slashing. Having just hit him for 52 points, my barbarian laughs in his face. The render takes a second attack at the paladin. He hits for 13 slashing. I take a sentinel attack, but miss. He then tries to go after the caracal. The paladin takes an opportunity attack. I had already burned my reaction. (I made several errors this first round. I forgot my ancestral protectors, which would have given the render disadvantage, and I burned my reaction on a sentinel attack when I have several defensive actions.) Our warlock sends his hellhound over to do some fire breath damage, and also casts fireball for 30 fire damage. Our ranger's sister, a shadow Monk, uses shadow step to escape the render. Our tempest cleric sent his spiritual weapon to do some force damage.

Top of round 2. Our ranger casts Zephyr Strike to dash in, make his attacks and leave. My barbarian closes with the render and misses on both attacks. The paladin hits on one of her attacks. The render takes his attacks at disadvantage. The first would hit the barbarian, but she uses parry to deflect. The render strikes at the paladin with disadvantage from my ancestral protectors and misses. The hellhound takes another bite of render. The warlock throws some Eldritch Blasts. The monk casts Faerie Fire, but the render makes his save. The cleric does a Sacred Flame which misses and another spiritual weapon attack.

Round 3. The ranger hits again with Zephyr Strike. The barbarian hits again for 26 points. The paladin makes her attacks, but only hits with her longsword. The render goes to move, but the paladin's prowess with her flail is too much. He falls.

The caracal hangs out near the camp for a few minutes. The paladin tries to speak to the caracal, but only hears a reply in celestial. She summons her celestial Pegasus steed, Palomira. Palomira and the caracal have a conversation. The caracal leaves. The barbarian chases after the cat, begging her to stay. The caracal again says something telepathically in celestial. Though the barbarian doesn't understand, she is appeased and allows the caracal to leave. The rest of the night is quiet.

The next day, we make it to the dwarven city. We walk for hours deeper and deeper. At the end of our first day in the city, we find the skeleton of a long/dead dragonborn. The body has small horns. Our cleric, a bronze dragonborn, knows this is typical among black dragonborn. 150 years ago, a black dragonborn archaeologist (a la Indiana Jones) headed north to find the home of the ancient black dragon, Uraxyl. This is the archaeologist. His possessions were taken long ago, but he holds a map. The front of the map has two landmarks noted. On the back, written in blood and in draconic, it says "traps."

Our group decides to rest for the night. The next day we determine to follow the obvious dwarven paths as far as we can. We cross through two been rock chambers to a circular room lined with stairs. High above, we hear the flapping of large wings. A giant bat swoops down to land on the other side of the chamber next to an emaciated hill giant gnawing on another large bat. The giant has puss oozing from it's eyes. The bat seems to give it direction. The giant takes a bite of bat and stared at us.

My brother-in-law is our dm. This is his homebrewed world. He and my sister, his wife, have been painting minis since February. She finds it very therapeutic. They are about to start with the of minis! We are profoundly blessed to have all of this amazing stiff to bring our games to life.

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Crew

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it has been a second since I posted an D&D pics. My sister and brother-in-law/DM have used the shelter-at-home order here in SoCal to paint minis as art therapy and work on terrain. Here they are, Copper's Angels/The Retzian Society for Historical & Archaeological Preservation/Hallows & Longstryder (depending on who you talk to).

Here we are fighting some enten.

Terrain is hand-carved and painted foam.