If you still want someone to talk dnd with, I am more that happy to listen to anything dnd
Hello!!!
I could talk about dnd all day if you let me XD
Because I didn't elaborate, I'll tell you the story of:
The Graveyard Shift
Arc 1: Murder Mansion
It starts with 9 people being invited to a dinner party by the noble, Valdis Doyle. Of the 12 people there, 3 are the most important (as they are the PCs)
Yikes
played by @dufflebagwitch
a changeling who works at the circus
lil reckless attention seeker
currently disguised as a small-time noble
Azule Vinara
played by @ingredients-for-brain-soup
a fortuneteller/medium that works in liltis, the town where the mansion is located
has been occasionally flirting with Valdis
secretly a fraud, a changeling, and a necromancer
Todd Thompson
played by @ingredients-for-brain-soup 's partner
slightly sleazy and dick-ish business-man
currently selling well-made brooms as a scam, saying they're flying brooms
actually started as an NPC before a player joined and used him as his character!
As the party gets under way, dinner served and a toast is had... leading to Valdis being poisoned and dying. The clocks all set to 11, the doors and windows can't be opened or broken, and a note is found on his body saying that the rest will die if they can't figure out who the killer is an escape.
This leads to Shenanigans, people are dying, suspicions are thrown, weird explainable shit occurs. Cullen, a man who was cheating on his wife to try to feel some freedom in a controlling marriage, cries over his wife's body saying that he'll never get to apologize to her. Fral, a gibbering mouther that had somehow gained some consciousness and form, is found dead having tired to not turn back into the monster they once were. Natharia, a depowered marilith working as a guard in the town with her dwarven husband, is replaced by some kind of mirror copy who attempts to have Azule replaced as well, but not before Yikes putting a stop to it and knocking the copy out for the real Natharia to claw out of the mirror, blooded and bruised as all damage also transferred to her. Each body would disappear if left alone, with no trace that a murder had even occurred.
Reflections are becoming dangerous, and as the group begins to realize that none of them could be the culprit, the house itself begins to shift. Doors no longer lead to where they once did, rooms seem to shift around, and hedge mazes threaten to swallow those who enter. They realize that whoever is doing this is using the house itself to kill people, seemingly having total control of the environment and toying with them. Even though it was their second day in the house, the outside remained night.
Finally, after solving a puzzle left on the notes on each of the bodies, they managed to get to the front door and see daylight for the first time, the door wouldn't open. There was still one more place they had to go: the basement. Walking down, they found a large, empty dirt room with the side walls covered with 2 large curtains, and a writing desk at the end with 2 blankets covering lumps on the floor. The body of Valdis sat writing, before stopping and turning to speak to the group.
He rose up into the air and revealed the reanimated bodies of those who've died, and the fight began. Putting the bodies to rest and continuing to attack Valdis, his skin slowly began to fall away, revealing a gaunt, sickly greenish-white woman with 6 white eyes and razor-like teeth. She congratulated the party, and told them they had 10 seconds to leave as she dropped the 2 large curtains, revealing 2 large mirrors with infinitely many recursive reflections. As she counted, hundreds of mirror copies of the party streamed out of the mirrors. While the group ran outside, the woman's bottom half changed into a 15 foot long centipede body, and she chased them cackling.
Thankfully, the 8 survivors made it outside, the 3 PCs alive and maybe not well. The mansion burned behind them while the guard who were waiting outside rushed to help the victims.
Arc 2: Terror Town
With the group having escaped, they are taken in by the Liltis guard for questioning to figure out what the fuck happened. Apparently, when Natharia's husband (who was supposed to be at the party but was going to be late because of work) approached the mansion, the door couldn't be opened, all the lights were off, and when he tried, the windows wouldn't break.
Yikes and Azule had become closer through the incident, and, in the mansion, had revealed himself to be a changeling. Azule implied that she was a changeling, but nothing solid. However, outside the mansion, Yikes dropped his form because in his day to day life, he was actually an open changeling.
They gave their story to the guard, who were surprised but with everyone giving almost the exact same story, they knew this wasn't just an odd house fire. However, they put everyone involved under town arrest through magical anklets that would keep them in the borders just in case they need to interview them again for vital information. Everyone, especially Yikes, HATED this, but there wasn't anything they could do... except Natharia who had been thoroughly traumatized and, using her station with the guard, was able to leave town immediately.
Yikes, Azule, and Todd decided to stick together after the fact to keep themselves safe and try to figure out what the thing they faced in the mansion was. Yikes also introduced the rest of the party to the Eclipse, the circus he works at. There are MANY NPCs at the Eclipse so I won't get into all of them here XD
Not much happened as it was mainly the PCs decompressing. However, they did have to deal with Azule's house being broken into and saving her two employees. They also went back to the mansion and discovered Valdis' journal and letters in the writing desk. It implied that he may have been possessed by the entity before the party even happened, as well as giving a clue in the form of a letter sent by Relvath Rosepike, the architect who apparently designed Valdis' mansion in the first place.
Also, they met an adventuring party whose members were all foils to the PCs (as all the PCs are basically NPC roles and I thought it would be funny to make an actual adventuring party to match them). This is a small thing, but they will be recurring.
The arc ended with the party joining the Eclipse (along with two of the NPCs from the mansion), and heading to the next town.
Arc 3: Wedding Woes
The party headed to the town of Tegizen for a brief pitstop as the circus had to restock. While there, Jago, a footman for the ruling noble, approached and asked if they could rent out Yikes' services as a changeling stripper for a bachelor party. There was a political wedding happening the next day between Eleri Furossi, the daughter of Tegizen's ruling noble, and Osmo “Ossy” Lasako, the son of another province's ruling noble.
However, during the bachelor party, Osmo wondered out drunk and ended up going missing. Jago came back and requested that Yikes disguise himself as Osmo until he is found, and that the rest of the party needs to look for him because the guards are too busy guarding the wedding to look.
Yikes was stressed the entire time, but after admitting what was going on immediately to Eleri, she helped him out and delayed the wedding temporarily. Azule and Todd discovered that he had been last seen at a tavern, and then rode out of town. Following the tracks, they discovered he had been kidnapped by a clan of goblins. They, SHOCKINGLY, negotiated that they would help with the hostage trade to make sure the goblins got the 10,000 gold they wanted. And it WORKED. The goblins got their 10,000 gold, the party got Osmo back, Yikes didn't get blamed for the entire situation as trying to replace Osmo, and everything seemed to be ok...
Until Osmo revealed that he had left because he had seen Aleksis, the person he was secretly dating for years, at the tavern he left from. (This whole marriage was literally just a political move btw. Eleri and Osmo were friendly to each other, but Osmo was taken, and Eleri was a lesbian). They had agreed to run away from the town about a week ago, but she never showed up, and Osmo got a letter from her explaining that she had left back for her town and that she didn't want to get him in trouble. The party agreed to get Aleksis back.
The issue was Aleksis couldn't remember anything. She had been at the tavern for a week with major memory loss, not remembering who or where she was, and this would reset every time she went back to her room upstairs.
Todd and Yikes tried to have Aleksis leave the tavern with them, but after exiting, she disappeared and reappeared at the top of the stairs. They went into her room and saw days of untouched food and glasses of water sitting there, as well as there being no bags suggesting she was still staying there. (Btw, custom lore: Ghosts, very rarely, can still remain corporeal as long as they didn't realize they were dead). Putting two and two together, they told her to not worry, and they will be back soon.
The next morning, the party uncovers where she was murdered, and got into a fight with local drug dealers that had hidden her body underneath the drugs they were growing in some abandoned ruins. Yikes went down but thankfully didn't die. They uncovered Aleksis' body, cast Gentle Repose to make sure a cleric could cast Raise Dead on her, and went to the tavern to put Aleksis' soul to rest so she could be revived. They again met the foil adventuring party, and the paladin of Kelemvor advised them how to help put a ghost to rest gently. It was emotional, but Aleksis was successfully put to the rest, and Eleri volunteered to take her body to Liltis where there was a cleric to revive her.
The party left to catch up with the circus who had left earlier that morning.
Arc 4: Architect Anarchy (Current)
After a 3 week timeskip, the party and circus arrived in the town of Pidehold, the home of Rosepike, the architect that built Valdis' house.
However, upon visiting Rosepike's home, they discover a member of the guard named Sorovar investigating it. Apparently, he's been missing for 3-4 weeks, his house is under lockdown, and there's the faint smell of rot leaking into the main hall. And because Rosepike really liked puzzles and was a bit a little freak, his house was locked down by arcane and physical puzzles that are almost impossible to solve without knowing what objects to touch/use. Also, the guard needs to get back half of the blueprint of the house, suspected to have been stolen by a member of The Shade (the largest thieves' guild in the kingdom), and the important document listing all of the puzzles in the mansion and their corresponding objects (but not the solutions as only Rosepike knew them apparently).
So, to prove themselves to the guard, the party killed some gnolls. Todd also needed a de-stresser after seeing that his father's wizarding shop had become a franchise, had expanded to Pidehold, and was being run by a horrible (affectionate) woman named Olympia.
The party also introduced themselves to the Shade and agreed to let them have all of the valuables in the house as they only needed whatever knowledge he had on what happened in Valdis' mansion.
They also discovered from a friend of Rosepike that before he disappeared, he had mentioned that he knew something that was bigger than him, and that it could get her in trouble if he told her. Which is concerning...
However, all of this was thrown off track when a member of the guard named Chase introduced themselves, saying they were helping with the Rosepike investigation. Chase isn't what they say they are, however, as they are the newest PC Husk in disguise!
Husk
played by @sleepyforestbeast
tricksy fey changeling (even moreso than yikes, and yes this is the third changeling)
likes to expose noble and mercantile corruption through humiliation and assassination
i literally don't know how we got this to work, we're all on EST, they're in Australia, it's a 10 hour time difference but it just PERFECTLY lined up, and im so glad it did!
Chase IMMEDIATELY threw a wrench into things by admitting to Yikes they were a changeling, running away, and then Yikes got arrested after casting Suggestion on a member of the guard. One interrogation, multiple lies, and a 250 fine for Yikes and 2 weeks with no pay for Chase, Yikes got out.
Chase eventually revealed to the rest of the party they were a changeling to get their trust, and then revealed that they were the one to have stolen the puzzle document. Together, they investigated Jonetvot, someone associated with Rosepike and rumored to be helping with various financial crimes and worker abuses. After stealing damning documentation and tricking him into admitting that he had ties to Valdis where he was the one that helped him get a guide to travel to the other continent for a trip he needed to take, the party went to go celebrate their successes at a bar.
This is where it goes off the rails again as Yikes recognizes someone talking to the foil party who kidnapped him and stole a bit of his skin before he escaped. Long story short, it was just her identical triplet, but she would be joining the foil party.
And that brings us to now! Husk had an emotional scene with Yikes, and Yikes pretended to be Chase to turn in the evidence against Jonetvot with some tomfoolery ensuing, but that's the condensed tale of the Graveyard Shift so far!!!!
