#dnd recap

[badassindistress]

Last week at the Witchlight Carnival we played hide and seek in the pixie kingdom, won a web weaving contest, read about singing mushrooms and had tea and cake in a teakettle.

[rowscara]

I keep happening upon you reblogging the piece w Nylef as a ghost and, as someone that gets updates only through the arts shared on Tumblr, it keeps making me think that some horrid tragedy befell him and Halthwyn 😭

Fear not!! The two of them are doing great actually, around the time of our campaigns 'act 1' finale so to speak things were just very up in the air and I was indulging in some angst. The worst bits of angsty 'what ifs' never even got posted anywhere you guys have no idea how sad things go.

However you are right in that I don't think I have a public facing summary for these two's story. I do extensive post-session recaps every week but nothing public, and to ease your fears we're going to be doing one now, starting from the top.

I'll likely break it into two parts for my own sanity so look out for that later this week!

Halthwyn is a mercenary at the end of her rope by the beginning of the campaign (a heavily modified Stormkings Thunder). Having run away from her family VERY young to try and protect them from the political issues which inevitably crop up in Watersdeep when you have a Tiefling kid in high social circles, she dropped her real name (Olliane Fairgrove) and joined a mercenary company called the Knights of the Grave. The group was renowned for getting shit done, and they accepted a kid as a way of training a new merc from the ground up, so to speak. She was sent south for several years to learn to fight and toughen up, having some of the worst years of her life, before returning to the sword coast basically unrecognizable as the giant melee machine we love.

By the time the years have passed and the campaign is beginning she is tired of working, tired of fighting, and tired of life, really. She's hunting for a job that's going to get her killed and decides this groups the one to do it.

It's a shame, then, that one of the party members is a cleric and Halthwyn will not get her wish.

(My server makes memes that are way better than anything I draw)

After our little group intro in Nightstone, we are whisked North into Icewind Dale by help of friendly giant just in time to assist Brynshander fight off a giant attack. It's at this point we meet Sir Baric Nylef, knight in The Order of the Gauntlet (The sword coasts most good and typical knight order), whose chasing the remnants of a failed job. Him and a group of knights took out a nasty criminal gang but the leader escaped, and he's trying to track him down in order to really call his job good and done. He hasn't had any luck gathering intel, and rumor was this criminal, known as The Weevil, was in Brynshander. It just so happens that one of Halthwyns group mates, Via, is WAY more connected to the criminal underworld and found out right away the rumors were a misdirection and the Weevil was still in Mirabar. So, since he helped with the fighting, we trade info and also decide to help him on his mission. Our group didn't have a lot of direction, and with the other thread we received pointing us to Watersdeep (with two PCs avoiding the city for backstory reasons), Nylef became our main plot. He pretty quickly reveals to us that the Weevil has a large bounty, and while he DOES want to hunt him for the first job, the more pressing thing on his mind is that the Order of the Gauntlet is sort of consuming itself and becoming this other, reactive, and racist cult hellbent on rooting out evil. The Gilded Eye is an offshoot, though rapidly growing, which has set up in the fortress cathedral to Helm, and he wants to use the money to put a stop to it. Halthwyn agrees to help immediately, since 'rooting out evil' is in fact just persecuting Tieflings and anyone else they disagree with. The rest of the party agrees as well, and so with the actual goal agreed on we head to Mirabar.

The travel to Mirabar is a lot of small convos as the whole group gets used to one and other. The two martials hit it off over both having horses and liking horses. Halthwyn whittles and gives Nylef a nicely carved replica of his old warhorse Henry. It now hangs attached to Henrys saddlebags. It's hard to pin down exacts but they're both probably crushing on each other by the time we reach the dwarven city.

In Mirabar we learn that the Weevil is alleged to be fighting in the grand tourney under a mask, claiming that if anyone can beat him the mask will come off. Winning the tourney grants the title of Champion of Winter, along with a bunch of like, relic giant hunting gear and prestige with the dwarves. It's the talk of the town that this might be the Weevil and how if he wins it'll be a farce. So only one thing to do, all the PCs and Nylef enter the tourney to try and bring the Weevil down. Nylef, our beautiful knight, our beautiful man, throws away his shot at advancing past round one to instead beat the ever loving shit out of a member of the Gilded Eye, who apparently was shit talking Halthwyn.

Via our Rogue and Thorne our warlock also get knocked out of their qualifier, but Halthwyn advances through hers after rather unceremoniously knocking Blackheart our cleric into the arena water feature. The only PC to do advance. So now all our hopes rest on her. Nylef after beating the Gilded Eye fighter bloody gets incredibly bloodied himself, and ends up in the infirmary for Halthwyns qualifier. So she gets to to break the good news to a man who is incredibly injured and fairly sure his quest is over.

Nylef is an NPC so I have no insight into how long he's been pining but I know for a fact this is Halths moment. Throwing away a shot at completing a 2 year long hunt to defend honor Halthwyn thinks she doesn't have any more? It was OVER, your gal was hooked. Halthwyn will go on to win the tourney, claiming the title, the giant slaying axe and the cassowary armor (Which you can don or doff as an action - termed the sex armor for instant removal), AND learn the identity of the Masked Dwarf is in fact, not the Weevil. It's a local older brewery owner, one who's very well respected. She doesn't unmask him publicly, and he's appreciative of that fact. Turns out the Weevil is his son is law, and the death of his daughter sent him back down to some dark roots. He's been sheltering the man, hiding him in some frontier town, but he knows he needs to be brought to justice and gives us the info we need to track him down.

Nylef for the first time since we met him actual cuts loose and we all have a drink to celebrate our success. But the job isn't done yet, and so we all have a few days peace in Mirabar and then begin south to find and capture the Weevil, which after a brief run in with a giant and some Zhentarim, goes smoothly. In order to hand him over we need to get to a Lords Alliance outpost, which takes us toward Triboar. The whole time we're traveling with the Weevil Nylef gets to think on the next steps. He's been trapped for years in the 'find the weevil' part of his journey, now finally moving past that is a bit daunting. There's a lot of writing down names, taking note of who he thinks will still be allies, who might be enemies, the success is bittersweet. Meanwhile Halthwyn is struggling with the fact that if she does pursue anything with Nylef it's just going to make his life harder. His genuine quest to right things and stop the cult will inevitably be twisted with her involvement, if they're involved... she's going through it a different way and Via, girlboss party rogue, tries to talk some sense into her. The handoff at Triboar goes about as smooth as it could for our group (Read: Blackheart gave the Weevil a lockpick but the guy swallowed it - good luck king I guess), and we all opt to stay a night in the fancy inn run by a Watersdeep Noble whose trying to be the big man in little Triboar. We all get to dress up, be fancy, have a good time and not worry about the road or quest or life for a few hours.

These two end up dancing, having some drinks, just enjoying a night together. Though neither makes moves to take it out of the public spaces, and they retire separately. Halthwyn spends the next week they're in Triboar for other quests trying to figure out if Nylef danced with her out of genuine want or just pity. Finally after wallowing for a few days she asks and he's like "what no of course I wanted to"

However nothing comes of it. Halthwyn technically is supposed to be unattached, the Merc company wants their members working for as long as possible and getting entangled with others is not how you do that. Big lone wolf energy. So Halthwyn is torn up by duty and doubt and worries that since Nylef is so bound up in his work he might think less of her if she breaks her oath... It's a big mess. Via, blessed girlboss, isn't having any of it.

She's seeing whats happening, and as the group is making our way east again toward the Evermoor manages to catch Halthwyn alone and essentially shake her down trying to convince her that it's a mistake to let this go. The phrase "If I was ruining my life by missing out on something like this, I hope you'd do the same for me" (In reference to trying to Via's attempts to push Halth and Nylef together). Halth still thinks she'll ruin his life, just like she did to her family all those years ago, so they settle in for a sad ride, though the pining continues. They have so much in common - both deeply religious, both duty bound, both committed to trying to do good. But she's just too paralyzed that she'll mess his life up like she did to her family. I'll get to a part two here soon! I'll reblog this post with it!

[dizzyizzy-art]

Campaign Update

CotPI Episode 45

Super late to this recap but it’s a long one, plus a meme.

The party finally met Celadon Battlestar, a neutral dragon antagonist that I’ve been planning for, for a long time. We are currently in what I like to call “Sapphire’s Arc” this is a special character arc for my player character Sapphire played by my partner and the longest running character in my campaign.

I’ve cooked this arc up for a long time and now we’re finally getting there yippee

So the party met the dragon and made a deal with her. Sapphire is currently in an arranged marriage due to politics and this dragon is the leader of her clan. But more like a goddess. In exchange for her request the dragon helped Sapphire find away to get around the arranged marriage.

The request from Celadon however is that the party battles her fair and square when the time is ready. She’s been itching for a good fight for years and now she’s going to get it.

The party escaped the dragons lair and made it to sapphires home town. But now they have the future of fighting a sapphire dragon lingering on their to do list.

Sapphire encountered her mom and new baby brother named branch which then caused the creation of this meme.

The party is probably going to have a shopping episode next session now that they are camped out in the village.

[rumisorrengail]

Aislyn’s mommy issues are healed for the most part…. But….

Aislyn died during combat. She had the chance to meet her mom (Clara) after the rest of the party put her mom’s body to rest.

Clara hugged Aislyn and apologized for everything that she did to Aislyn while she was angry at being dead.

Aislyn forgave her mom, but, then Aislyn had a choice to make: stay with mom forever in the beyond… or rejoin her friends.

After hugging Clara, Aislyn told her that there was something she still needed to do.

Aislyn chose to rejoin her friends….. but, at what cost?

[just-existing-as-you-do-blog]

Just a little dnd recap for the vibes. I haven't DMed in a while and I'm excited.

So our charecters are

Half elf sorcerer

Dwaven rogue

Knome warlock

I started them out all in different universes with their own NPCs and plot hooks. And them I had them all be visited by a man in a tophat and tailcoats called the magician. Then they traveled to a place I call The Living Manor in my notes it's a way to big manor with other buildings inside and there is alot to explore there but they were very excited for their magical keys and did alot of universe hopping and testing the rules.

So our warlock is insane but has a magical feild where someone would have to beat a DC 18 wisdom check to notice. He does not know what deal he made, but he ran into his nephew in the manor who started telling him that his sister is very sick and probably won't make it. Which our warlock barely processes.

Our rogue steals two definitely cursed gems from the manor and our sorcerer takes lots of books (they are rebuilding a library she burnt down). They all follow our warlocks nephew through a door and end up back in his universe.

They meet an important family (the dragontamers, I adore them.) The rogue pawns off a cursed gem. Warlock runs into his husband, momentarily has his sanity back tries to tell his husband that something is very wrong with him. But his husband failed the roll. The warlock remembers his sister and goes to see her and she succeeds her roll the second time and they talk it out in a rushed panic for a while.

Meanwhile our sorcerer steals from a library and our rogue learns all the gossip in town while trying to contact her friend and putting together that they are in another dimension.

They barter for a comprehend languages spell and sleep in the home of the matriarch of the dragontamer family. Then they journey to the rogues dimension to discover that her friend has been tortured in a strange way, he tries to tell them all he can but his memory has been modified, something with the nobility and a cult and a ruby.

They heal him up, he reveals that he has been to the manor. They talk to the magician again who heals the sorcerer after she hurts herself trying to read his thoughts. He mentions that he doesn't controll the nobility nor does he own the manor.

They go back to the rogues dimension, she enters the home of the nobility she knows stole the ruby, finds his wife laying in bed, stabs her, gets blasted to hell. Steals a painting but not the ruby, and escapes. The others go to a library and steal more books. Then the rogue requests the magician heal her in exchange for a favor, he does so and requests she steal back a cursed book from the bartender of the Litches Brew. She seduces the bartender and steals the book, the bartender knows she is stealing it but let's her off just this once.

They return to the rogues world and talk to her friend to discover that the nobility have been buying up organs and corpses of powerful wizards. He says he has heard about some cult stuff. They investigate the churches of Pelor and the Matron of Ravens who both feel uneasy about the people not from their dimension and make it clear. They summon the magician to see if he can walk inside the Temples and he cannot.

Then they go to the library, talk to the librarian, learn about a broken into crypt. The crypt is supposed to be magically sealed. The door is ajar, they venture down to find all of the traps have been sprung and the corpse of the wizard is gone.

Session ends!

[mxvanrichten]

Van Richten's Reflection on Silas.

(Written by my partner/our DM) (I have cried like 10 times)

I do not recall anything of merit or praise about Silas upon first meeting.  I was busy with my plans whilst disguised as the “performer” Rictavio. I think I was eating dinner for the evening at The Blue Water Inn before retiring to my room upstairs that I had held for a few weeks at that point.  I was not up for conversation but feigned interest as the flamboyant corpse I was pretending to be. They spilled their activities as do-goods, carting the red-haired woman from Barovia Village to the Church.  I didn’t care to remember anything about them, as they were as good as dead, obviously brought here by the Mists of the land for the master of the realm to toy with. I had a weapon to assemble covertly. I knew there were agents of Strahd about the town of Vallaki.

After a couple of weeks of them causing ripples around town, they settled into the Inn as regular guests, like myself, so they were far too annoying and present to continue to ignore. Silas, who I suspected of being a sentient corpse due to his complexion, made clumsy passes at Rictavio.  I apparently had not played up the irritating aspects of the thief whose soul I wore enough. 

Rumors of somebody that could draw Strahd out in Krezk made it so I was held to being transport via my wagon for these now bolder do-goods.  An annoying detour to a winery they had ingratiated themselves with later and we would our collective group in Krezk.  The bold martial woman, Brandy, had been bitten by a lycanthrope on the journey.  I had possible cures at my tower hideout, but I did not want that location divulged at that time.  The decidedly-skin-crawling Abbot was to help her out.  Luckily, that was the man I was there to see, as he had been flesh-sculpting a “woman” that he would have had be a substitute for his reincarnated entitlement.  Laughable, the gaul of the glass-eyed creature.  I hid and attempted to test my new weapon prototype on the devil himself along with his chamberlain as this current crop of adventurers battled it out with raised corpses of what their future held.  Shockingly, they did not die.  Upon leaving Krezk, I was happy this group shared my disinterest in helping the simpleton populace of the village.  Surely they could scare off or kill some werewolves?  I suppose the “right” thing to do would have been to help the citizens, but I was relieved I didn’t have to abandon my walking, killing insurance for the long trip back to Vallaki. 

As the Festival of the Blazing Sun drew closer, I had info from Ez that Strahd would move on the Church to cease Ireena, his current prized pig, I had discovered.  I had taxed myself to finish the oversized crossbow for blessed water & sodium arrows; the mask I wore slipped as Silas got on my last nerve the night before the event.  His kindness had been pleasant on occasion before, but not at that moment. I failed to wound Ireena to draw the vampire to a trap at the Church, distracted by Silas’ Sendings.  The group’s fighting in the burning building, which matched much of Vallaki at that point, delayed Strahd, but not enough.  I gave up the disguise & revealed myself to the gang of injured adventurers, and left town with them for the tower.  

The days in the tower were removed from the bustle of Vallaki, and I think back on that time more fondly than it was to me at the time.  Small acts of kindness on Silas' part lended to me seeing him more like-minded to myself than I originally conceived.  A blanket over my shoulders in the morning I thought to be from my pupil Ez was Silas, I later found out.

Silas returned from the swamp ruins changed; tainted.  My arcane detentions registered half-alarms about him.  It made me sad, truly, to have to shrink away for protection.  I would later find out it was a Dark Vestige that had raised Silas from death for a pact to be drawn. Still, Silas was not slowing down in his and his ilk’s objectives, which I found to be a good quality.

It was some weeks later, after much tracking of a mystery beast in the woods north of Lake Zarovich, when I saw Silas again.  He was amid efforts to “rebuild the wall and make Vallaki great again” as the workers they were protecting kept saying.  The “beast” was a crazed mage Strahd broke before, but once again this troupe succeeded in taming the animal, who gave us a pocket dimension of sorts to rest in.  That morning, I read a confessional from Silas, on feelings he harbored for me.

For.  Me.

The emotion that won out in the whirlwind was my old stand-by: anger.  I chided Silas for useless feelings amid dangerous times.  Ez, cool headed, coerced an apology to him out of me.  I was glad to give it, but I would have rather died than express the gratitude I had for affection for me.  It was alien and terrifying.  I sat with it for some time.  To put the lame specter of emotion out of its misery, limping along as it was?

Where words failed, gifts of helping items, divulged information and magical protections were how I nursed my ability to care for someone in a positive way.

Our trip to, and stay in, the Amber Temple was cursed, truly, with Silas’ spiritual leech, named Sykane, reared his head and wishes.  I attempted horribly to offer comfort to him, though it came out as partial insults to the idiot mage Kasimir, who was traveling with us for some ignorant reason.  I kept my research on how to possibly sever Silas from his leech to myself, as futile as it was and as telling as my motivations would have been.

A last hurrah of sorts in the Mad Mage’s home broke the dam for me.  I returned affection and was given more.  Unprecedented for this rotted soul.  Though I stated Silas’ use and my praise of that, I failed in mentioning the portion of use he was to my mangled heart.  It felt relieving for it to be in the open.  A weight lifted, in the last moments before Ravenloft and death.  My arcane explosive was growing less and less a final and glorious “out” for me.  I had come to Barovia to die.  To keep busy and go in a blaze loud enough to distract me from the echo inside me, hollow as I was. A mutual magical shield against death between us was…welcome.

Welcome and unwelcome.  What use do the damned have for affection? 

As it turns out, I would not know, for I was…am not damned.  The castle was ruined, Strahd struck down, and the dark power behind him uprooted and crushed.  Unbelievable. To this day, unbelievable.  I have happiness most days now, whether it’s in a repurposed haunt in Vallaki (now in the realm of Fearun) or stocked personal library in Waterdeep, a coastal bastion of proper civilization.  I owe that happiness to Silas. His apt mind and boundless ability to give selflessly.  His respectable command of magic and his willingness to imagine me underneath the shit and dirt around my soul.  To laugh in a public place and be okay with that vulnerability is something I never thought I would do again.

I now know indeed that I love the cleric of Kelemvor, liberator of Barovia, and archaeologist of my long-buried self, Silas Xavier.  Our official joining is on the horizon.  So much LIFE is present for me now.  I am haunted still, but every day spent in this existence of content puts distance between me and those dark decades.

[zoecroman]

D&D session Doodle Recap:

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[freaks-and-facades-ravenloft]

A recap of Aboleth-eye's Freaks & Facades campaign, set in the dark plane of Ravenloft!

Hello Freaks & Facades fans!

I know it's been a hot minute since we updated you on the misadventures of our group. The campaign is still ongoing and a lot's happened personally recently. Also, with Tumblr's new layout changes and making it impossible to format my blog posts the way I've been doing, I have been a bit uninspired lately.

However, I have decided for the good of this recap (and for you few followers) to put everything on a new blogspot page from now on! It's been so much easier to format things already, and it's much more user-friendly for reading than my previous blog.

Thank you for understanding. I will be working hard to update this blog with everything written so far (maybe some light-light editing).

With love,

Aboleth Eye