Jan 13, 2019
Kauthrien
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Kauthrien
7 for the dnd asks!
DND ASKS | Accepting
7. Do you have an unlucky die?
honestly? i really didnt, as most of my dice have been prone to being cursed on any given day, so i just tend to select dice on the day itself based on how they roll for me. this one however? this fucking d20? let me shame this die for a moment.
so picture this: i DM for a group of friends. the party had just found old friends of our monk, one of which, a high elven bard named erevan, had been killed in a wild animal attack. they took erevan to a temple to perform a resurrection ritual (mind that i use matthew mercer’s resurrection rules, as used in critical role, because i think it adds an interesting aspect to death and revival).
the base DC is 10. the monk fails their check, raising the DC to 11. erevan’s two other friends both succeed on their checks, lowering the DC to 5.
i conclude the ritual. i pick a d20 to roll the final resurrection check.
it rolls a 4.
i have to describe as quiet falls in the wake of this ritual, and how it remains quiet, and how erevan’s body remains still, cold and unmoving. i have to quietly tell them that i rolled a 4 on a DC of 5, and i have to experience every single player staring at me in disbelief.
that d20 spent the rest of the night in dice jail, and i can never trust it again.
i made the cutest fucking antagonist for my dnd campaign
meet falk, the nb half-elf half-gnome storm sorcerer who is a literal serial killer and kind of insane
but cute nonetheless!!
let this promise in me start
like an anthem in my heart
(and we will come back home)
-
i have a lot of feelings about the relationship between one of my players’ characters and an NPC
hadall and zalasti belong to @spectreagent
Elemental Affairs - Session 6
As we stand in front of the gates of the Corvinius Manor, where we ended last time, and Hadall has just revealed that he might be Kaya’s father, a guard comes up. Hadall recognizes this elf as Lionel, a personal guard of the Corvinius family, and upon realizing who Hadall is, Lionel rushes indoors to get the lady of the house – Hadall’s wife. After a short wait the two front doors to the manor swing open and out walks a tiefling woman with another child in her arms, and she greets us – and in particular Hadall – with three words.
“Kuvan. Fucking. Forestone.”
She goes on an angry tangent against Hadall until her eyes fall on little Kaya, she then goes dead silent, runs forward and finally holds her daughter in her arms again. After an embrace, she straightens back up with both Kaya and the other toddler in her arms, and she turns and starts walking back to the manor in silence. Awkward and with no idea what to do, we follow her inside. Lionel takes Blatrenn and brings him to the barracks to be locked up, although we don’t tell anyone that he was Kaya’s jailer.
Session 3 NPC: electric boogaloo
Cuzar - Half-orc, bit of an asshole, loves fun and killing dragons.
Kal - Drow, not very talkative.
Hunt - Tiefling, nonbinary.
Drown - Water genasi, very excitable, very small.
Nafa Bhannom - Human, very protective of her friends.
Elemental Affairs - Session 5 Summary
Night has fallen in the Defiant Ship, silence crawls through the halls until the air suddenly carries a horrible scream and the sounds of a struggle. Lara and Rei, being elves, don’t need to sleep and hear the racket going on upstairs. They immediately run over to see what’s going on.
In the guest room where Blatrenn is, Auk is confronting him with their rapier drawn, in another attempt to end Blatrenn’s life. Rei and Lara manage to hold them off barely, though Auk still wants to kill him and is seconds away from just going through with it.
At this point, Lynnae wakes up and sees that Auk is no longer in the room with her. When she hears screams upstairs, she assumes the worst and runs over immediately, only to find things exactly the opposite of what she expected. Luckily, she manages to cool Auk off enough, telling them that she has a plan and that she needs Blatrenn alive for that. She takes them back to their room and waits until morning.
Once downstairs, Lyn distances herself from the group and keeps glaring at Hadall and Trick: the situation from yesterday hasn’t quite blown over and she distrusts them greatly.
Hadall takes Trick and the toddler aside and he starts talking to the child. She’s a fire-genasi tiefling with tiny little tusks and she’s absolutely adorable. When Hadall asks about where the child lives, she just answers with a happy “home!”. She also describes her home as “green” and with many “birbs”. Hadall asks for her name: she can say it, but it comes out a little fucky. She says “Kaya Covinus”, and Hadall’s face tightens immediately. In order to help her calm down and have fun, Rei casts minor illusion and makes a bird for Kaya to play with.
Now Hadall starts talking to Trick: he’s interested in the reason Trick gives out so many fake names to others. Not just that, too, the massive scar on Trick’s side has also piqued his interest. Trick explains how she had a reputation of playing harmless pranks in her hometown, until one day her family home burned down and she got the blame for it (despite the fact she witnessed goblins burning her home down). Her parents and siblings all perished in the fire and Trick was arrested. She broke out of prison and has been on the run ever since. She doesn’t know if there’s anyone still after her. Hadall asks her if Trick is her real name, to which Trick answers “it is now.” Trick spent some time in the circus, traveling around and performing. She misses that life.
Trick, in return, has some questions for Hadall: she’s wondering about the name that Rosa first addressed him with (Kuvan). It’s one of his names. Hadall reveals he’s from Fass, from a little village called Glynshyr, which Trick has visited with the circus once, at least a few years ago.
Lynnae butts into the conversation at this moment, telling Hadall and Trick that they still have something to discuss with her. Lyn wants to make it very clear that she will not appreciate being “fucked over” like yesterday, at which Hadall starts yelling that he wasn’t really the one fucking her over, but that she fucked over the team instead. Lyn’s convinced Hadall could have stopped her in a different way. They shout about matters of trust, how Lyn doesn’t dare trust Hadall anymore and, in return, how Hadall’s afraid that he can’t trust Lynnae in stressful situations because she’s practically a ticking timebomb. At this point Lynnae turns to Trick, asking her what the fuck she was thinking threatening her with her biggest fear. Trick had absolutely no clue that the threat of being charmed was that bad for Lynnae, and neither did Hadall. Hadall cools off a little and tells her that if he had known this would upset her so much, he never would have taken her hostage. Trick tells Lyn she still would have used the threat out of a wish of survival, to “do what must be done”. It was the uncertainty and loss of control that got Lynnae in such a state of stress in the first place.
Just as Lyn starts losing her shit again, Trick casts Calm Emotions and dispels the anger immediately. Both Hadall and Lynnae feel better at once. Hadall tells Lynnae to, next time, at least try to restrain herself a bit better, to which Lyn says that she has always had the tendency of exploding at these moments. They talk about how Lyn should think of the good of the group more. Hadall assures Lyn that he only means well, and that he never would have taken her in if that weren’t the case. With promises of improvement, the two finally make up and Lynnae gives him one of her business cards, but instead of “I’m sorry for the way my party treated you”, it now says “I’m sorry for the way I treated you”. Lyn admits that she wouldn’t be alive now if not for Hadall, and she gets up from the table, announcing that she needs Hadall, Trick, and actually the entire group including Rosa and Blatrenn.
The group reconvenes, and Lynnae says she wants to interrogate Blatrenn. To prove her trustworthiness she gloves her hands, and promises not to hurt Blatrenn unless he gives her a valid reason, even asking Hadall to hold her back if she blows up again.
Lynnae pulls out a list of questions and starts the interrogation.
Who of the five missing children from Pasekar are dead? Blatrenn didn’t ask their names. And where were the other three taken? The remaining three children of Pasekar are with Vurryl in Trestyr What are the chances they are still alive? Blatrenn has no clue. There is a chance but that’s it. Were you the one who killed them? He was. What is the name of your cult? There’s no official name, but they call themselves the Followers of the Many Eyed. Any subdivisions or anything? No more subdivisions apart from Vurryl’s and Falk’s. What is your deal with the Gold Dragon of Wyntir? That was Hykaril’s business. Is this related to why you use Draconic for your writing and communication? It’s the language of magic and it’s unrelated to Hykaril’s fascination for the Gold Dragon. Is Hykaril’s hunting party still out there and are their crystals connected to the same set as ours, considering they belonged to Hykaril’s group? Hykaril’s group was very small and he depended on Vurryl and Blatrenn a lot for the hunting. Blatrenn doesn’t know who else can listen in on us. What was the spell Kauthrien enchanted you with? Blatrenn doesn’t know what it’s called. He describes it as being commanded. Kauthrien repeatedly told him to “not disobey her”. You mentioned in your diary that you and Kauthrien had a meeting here in town a while ago. When was this exactly? A few weeks ago What was it about? In order to “reassure her orders”. Blatrenn was enchanted one year ago, and during the meeting the spell was cast on him again and renewed in that sense. Anything about her behavior that struck you as odd? Not weirder than usual. Is there a possibility she’s still closeby? He has no idea.
Now this is where Lynnae gets down to business:
How do we contact Kauthrien? There’s a possibility you can only do it with Kauthrien’s face in mind, but Blatrenn’s not sure. You do, however, have to focus on her. Can Kauthrien spy on us through the crystal or does she have other means to do so? What are the chances we’re being watched? He has no fucking idea man. He mentions she probably knows magic for it but he doesn’t know anything for sure. Is there some kind of code language you use for communication through crystals? There is, actually! The enchantment placed on him prevents him from talking about it, but through another game of hangman we figure out that the greeting is: “May his eyes be on you”, and the answer to this should be: “May his tyranny reign true.” When does Kauthrien usually expect a “call”? Kauthrien is the one who knocks. She usually calls her underlings instead of the other way around.
With this, Lynnae finishes her interrogation and turns to the rest of the party, at which she starts proposing a plan for ambushing Kauthrien by contacting her. The rest of the party quickly shoots the plan down: it’s too risky. Lynnae then yells that if she has to die again, she’d rather do it for her friends – she then immediately gasps and covers her mouth. Hadall starts questioning her about her slip-up but she refuses to say anything else.
We start discussing out next move. Although we want to head to Fass and Suald as soon as possible, Rei still has business in Tyreh. Therefore we first decide to go to the Kaydan-ter island to visit the monastery they want to go to.
That, however, means having to go on the seas again, setting Lynnae back into an anxious rambling spree. When Hadall and Trick tell her that hey, at least she didn’t die last time, she goes awfully quiet. Considering what she accidentally revealed before, Hadall puts two and two together and asks her if she drowned, to which she nods.
We leave for the docks then realize, yo, we’ve still got Kaya with us. Bad idea to take the toddler out to sea, of course, so we decide to leave her in Rosa’s care and pick her back up on the way to her home in Fass. Blatrenn offers to sail us to and fro on his own fjullgan, an offer which we gladly accept. There’s a problem, though: the islands of Tyreh float around on the water along with the tides and currents, and it’s almost impossible to map the region because of that. We have no idea where to go. Since there might be places where they sell maps of the Tyreh currents or otherwise have information on how to pinpoint where Kaydan-ter might be right now, we decide to split the party and take a look around town.
Trick, Hadall, Lynnae and Auk go to the library. The friendly dragonborn librarian guides them to the geographical books section of the library and the group starts looking around. They find what seems to be a sailor’s book with information on the currents and tides of Tyreh, and with his knowledge of sailing Hadall starts trying to figure out where Kaydan-ter is right now. Lynnae copies the relevant information in her notebook.
Meanwhile, Laraëssil, Rei and Cassandra are in Melora’s Gifts, the general store of Tyressil. Lara gets her hands on a beautiful tidal chart made for sailors, while Rei buys a component pouch while they’re there anyway.
We converge on the docks once more, and using Lyn’s info and Lara’s map he manages to figure out Kaydan-ter’s general location. We set sail and start heading to the monastery’s island. In order to distract herself Lynnae starts working on a health potion. The first day of this journey goes without a problem but the second day we lose our way for a moment as a thick fog sets in and a ghostly ship comes into view. On the side of the ship, it says “The Rotten Dahlia”. It must be the phantom ship that the tavern in Tyressil was named after. Blatrenn mentions it happens more often, and as the fog lifts we correct our course and boat on.
On the third and last day of this journey, Trick takes Hadall to the side and out of earshot for a moment. She expresses her concern for Lynnae’s loyalty and how she might use the crystal anyway to contact Kauthrien. Despite the fact they don’t trust Lynnae at all with her crystal, they feel they have no choice but to leave her be.
We reach the tiny, tiny island of Kaydan-ter in the evening and we see a beautiful white building on there. It’s the monastery we have been looking for and immediately, an enormous goliath man approaches and greets us. Rei gives him a tiny package which holds a golden statue of Pelor, the deity Rei reveres. The goliath is happy with it, and invites us in to stay the night and eat. He introduces himself as Master Kindarian and he brings us to the main part of the building, beautifully decorated, and in the evening rays of the sun the floor lights up in an intricate pattern. We dine (it’s… not great food) and head over to the dorms to sleep.
However, in the middle of the night the two Trouble Tieflings decide they haven’t had booze in a while yet and they want to get drunk, so they get out of bed and start nosing around in the kitchen. Though someone takes notice of them, they’re quick enough to duck out of the way and remain unseen. There’s no booze in the kitchen, so they head over to what seems to be a storage room for ceremonial supplies. There. Is. No. Booze.
So they exit and are immediately caught in the act by a monk, a human man. He takes them back to their dorms, and though the two tieflings again try to escape and look for booze, the hallway is now being guarded and – persuaded by a very cranky and sleepdrunk Lynnae – go back to sleep.
We wake up and eat breakfast the next morning (again… not that tasty) and head out towards the docks to return to Tyressil immediately – no time to waste. The Master of the monastery bids us goodbye and tells Rei they’re always welcome amongst them (and of course, because we’re assholes, we all say “amonkst” us). On the way to the docks we get to see some of the monks’ daily activities: it seems like they’re a much more fun-loving monastery than Rei’s. There’s some kind of training area where monks are sparring with each other, and there’s actually some monks RUNNING ACROSS THE WAVES, RACING EACH OTHER LIKE D&D JESUSES. There’s a very light and cheerful atmosphere, standing in stark contrast to the monastery in Solitude where Rei is from – there was a much more serious and gloomy atmosphere there, almost cold, like everything in Kyllm.
We get back on the waves to go back to Tyressil. Lynnae finishes her healing potion on the way, but that’s about the most exciting thing that happens in the three-day-journey. We hit land again on the evening of the third day, planning to pick up Kaya and leave with the ferry right away. However, as we ask the dockmaster when the next ferry leaves, he tells us it left yesterday and the next one won’t leave for another week. Blatrenn offers to bring us to the port town of Terstys, where we started our adventure in Tyreh in Session 3.
Trick and Cas head to the Defiant Ship to pick up Kaya, and Cassandra gets herself three bottles of booze for the road. In the meantime, Lyn takes Auk to the side and asks them how they’re holding up: it’s not going great. Lyn also admits she doesn’t know if she can stay friendly with Blatrenn for much longer, at which Auk assures her that they have her back if she decides to attack him.
We decide that since Terstys is just a few hours away by boat, we can make the trip now and just arrive at dawn so we can head back into Fass first thing in the morning. We get back on the boat to make our way back to the port town. On the boat, Lynnae realizes that the crystal she sent to Kara must have arrived in Parshyr right about now, and she doesn’t like that her elder sister still hasn’t contacted her.
We reach the shores of Terstys in the early morning. When discussing where to bring Kaya, Trick says we don’t really have a name to go on but Hadall begs to differ: he recognized what Kaya was trying to tell him before. When saying her name, Kaya didn’t say “Kaya Covinus”, she said “Kaya Corvinius”. The Corvinius family is a big merchant family Hadall knows very well, and they have a huge manor near the town of Fjynlen, about 5 days walking from Terstys.
Trick asks how Hadall knows the family, to which he answers that he used to work as a mercenary for them, but he didn’t quite leave them on good terms. One day he just up and left, because it didn’t work out according to him. The rest assures him that it might be good if he brings back the kid, because it’ll help his reputation a fair bit.
The town of Runar is on the way to the Corvinius manor, and Lynnae wants to stop by to see how the watchtower is doing because Blatrenn crystal-bullshitted to his hunting party that after being ambushed, he fled to Hykaril’s old base. When asked where the hunting party is right now, Blatrenn mutters into his crystal to ask and find out and learns that his hunting party is in the very north of Suald, in the town of Parwyn. This startles Lyn to the bone but she refuses to tell why. As Lara makes a telepathic connection and asks if there’s anything life-threatening going on, Lyn replies that there very well might be.
Though tired, we make quite a bit of progress on our first day. We make camp, Lynnae starts on an ointment against sunburn and Rei goes squirrel hunting. Since Rei has double the walking speed of a squirrel and hella good Dexterity, they eventually manage to catch a live, wild squirrel, they stash it in their bag, and name it Bøbiël (this is a massive inside joke but okay we now have Bøbiël the squirrel).
On the second day of traveling something Lyn has feared for a while comes to pass: the crystal around her neck makes a crackling noise and a female voice speaks the words “May his eyes be on you”. Lyn distances herself from the group, then with Alter Self turns herself into the wood elf Aerith Araynore to change her voice. She answers Kauthrien’s call with “May his tyranny reign true”, and thus the contact is established.
Kauthrien is obviously not amused with “Aerith” having taken Warden Hykaril’s crystal. Aerith tells her that she was poking around the Runar watchtower a while back to look for rare herbs and stones – as she is a potionmaker – and she stumbled upon the dead bodies of Hykaril and his underlings in the ritual room. Intrigued by the stones, Aerith took them and next found some documents in the office that detailed how to use them. For a moment, things seem to be going in the Conglomerate’s way but the second Aerith says that this went down three weeks ago, Kauthrien’s demeanor seems to shift. She calls this fact interesting, thanks Aerith for the information and tells her: “The Many Eyed will be watching you”, and proceeds to break contact.
In an anxious rant Lynnae relays to the party what happened, but as we discuss what just took place and the possible consequences of this, Blatrenn steps back a little as he too receives a call. Since he answers in Draconic and no one speaks Draconic here, Lynnae casts Comprehend Languages to hear what he’s saying.
Kauthrien is definitely onto us. She interrogates Blatrenn, using the enchantment to force the truth out of him. Blatrenn is forced to reveal that he’s with us, and that we were the ones who killed Hykaril and his entire division. Kauthrien apparently orders him to kill us next: Blatrenn drops contact, asks us to knock him out, and draws his swords.
The battle is ended within 3 seconds: Cassandra gets the first strike, Blatrenn then attacks her back but Trick – with a fantastically executed Inflict Wounds – knocks him unconscious at once. We tie him up and take his crystal, at which Lyn realizes the gravity of what’s going on and stresses out. Cas and Hadall tell her to take off the crystal or hand it over, at which she gets defensive and says that she needs her crystal. Hadall reminds her that she should work with the team more, Lynnae snaps back that she is working with the team by keeping her crystal and protecting the others from Kauthrien’s contact. The rest seems to be worried that, since Kauthrien was able to control Blatrenn through the crystal, she might also be able to control Lynnae after establishing contact. Lyn’s adamant that she’s safe because it technically wasn’t her who answered the call. If Kauthrien would have been able to see her, she would have seen a wood elf.
Trick wakes Blatrenn up, he seems to no longer be under the direct command that he must kill the party. We offer to destroy his crystal but he tells us it’s even more suspicious if he suddenly falls off the radar altogether. Hadall proposes Blatrenn returns to Tyreh alone with the crystal, but that would also put him in extreme danger. As we go back and forth, proposing ideas to keep both Blatrenn and the party in relative safety from Kauthrien, Lynnae commits another attempt on Blatrenn’s life, using a subtle spelled Burning Hands to make it look like she had a wild magic surge (ironically, she actually does get an actual wild magic surge while casting the spell and her age reverts to 18). Despite the fact it looked like a surge, Hadall sees through the deception quite easily (Lyn just uttered the most sarcastic “whoops” of all time) and he berates Lyn for breaking the promise she made before. He then picks up Kaya and legs it away from Lynnae – he does intend to keep his promise of not hurting the sorceress.
It’s an awkward evening around the campfire. While Kaya has no idea what’s going on and is happily playing with Hadall, Lyn and Trick keep sharing distrustful glances. Rei even tries to steal Lyn’s crystal but she notices them and slaps their hand away.
Although there’s once again a tension lingering within the party, the rest of the journey goes well and after three more days, we reach the iron gates of the Corvinius manor, decorated with great black crows. Hadall now turns towards the party with a nervous look on his face: there’s something about the Corvinius family he needs to tell us. He reveals that he was at first working for them as a mercenary, but he then married the heiress of the family and left her rather suddenly a few years ago…
…meaning Kaya Corvinius might in fact be his daughter.
Elemental Affairs - Session 3
Our new session opens once again in the Amaranth, the tavern where we ended last time. Shayla, the little half-orc half-elven girl, is still with us, and we’re about to take her back home. It will be about 2,5 days of walking so we want to prepare well.
Smurp and Rei stay with Shayla in the Amaranth while the rest of the Conglomerate – Hadall, Trick, Lynnae, Laraëssil and Cassandra – leave for the blacksmith. Hadall wants some new armor before he leaves and Lynnae is looking for new gloves to prevent her hands from leaking fire all the time. Hadall buys a beautiful piece of scale mail while Lynnae gets two pairs of sturdy, leather working gloves.
After making their final preparations, the Catastrophe Conglomerate heads out of Runar to walk to the Kaffar Forest. The first day of the journey goes by without anything particularly weird happening, although on the second day the party encounters a group of three: a copper dragonborn, a gnome and an earth genasi. They rush over and immediately reveal why they’re here: it’s a group of druids from Shayla’s clan and they’ve been looking to bring her home. After explaining to them that we were really, really not the ones who kidnapped the child, they decide to take us to the Elderberry Clan. The dragonborn is named Shira, the gnome is named Kith and finally, the earth genasi’s name is Fiora.
At the end of the second day of the journey, the three druids decide to make a campsite out of vines, manipulating nature to create a beautiful little vine nook that we can safely sleep in. Cassandra doesn’t quite like it and sleeps outside of the nook, but the others sit around the campfire to talk while Shayla is already asleep.
Lynnae keeps leafing through the notes in her journal, going over the names of the other cultist leaders again and again but she hasn’t heard about any of them and it’s frustrating her to all-hell. As the druids might know more, she decides to ask them about Vurryl, Blatrenn and Falk. The last name rings a bell for Kith: they reveal that Falk is a horrifying criminal from Kyllm, the type of man that the locals tell horror stories about. With this new information, the group deduces that if that’s true, Vurryl and Blatrenn are likely just as bad.
Finally, after the campfire dies out, the group goes to sleep.
As she wakes up with a start Lynnae realizes her mistake from earlier: how she sent the crystal away and might have brought great danger upon not only her sister Kara (who she hasn’t seen in six years), but also her friends. She panics completely but refuses to tell the others what she’s so bothered about, instead simply blaming it on “bad thoughts”. After a Calm Emotions spell from Trick and a cup of herbal tea from Fiora, she calms down enough to carry on with the journey to the Elderberry Clan although her mistake weighs heavily on her mind – there is no way she can catch up to the courier to intercept the letter.
The group heads into the thick of the forest now. On their last stretch to the clan, the now slightly bigger group encounters a high elven man who definitely looks agitated. He’s wearing rather neat clothes and is carrying a snapped longbow. When asked about what he’s so pissed about he starts ranting that a silver fox broke his longbow in half – his gaze then falls on Trouble, Trick’s fox. He immediately points his finger at the fox with the silver pelt and blames Trouble. Trick Mends his bow but he’s still not done, even nocking an arrow to his bow to shoot Trouble down.
At that moment, a big silver fox jumps out of the undergrowth. When the hunter realizes that was actually the fox he was talking about he shifts his aim to the newcomer. Shira transforms into a huge black bear and chases the man off. The big silver fox then transforms into an air genasi girl, she’s also part of the clan and her name is Breeze. She seems to be a mischievous one. One short walk later, we find the clan in the heart of the forest, a huge open clearing with tents, nature, and a great number of people.
They crowd around the party, thanking us excessively for bringing Shayla home and keeping her safe. Then suddenly, the crowd parts to allow but a beautiful woman of elven descent to approach us. Her name is Llenwyr, she is the leader of the Elderberry Clan and very thankful. She also reveals that her son Ceindenn (who had also been captured by the cult) returned to them a few days ago on his own accord. He’s about 12 years old and a halfdrow. Shayla’s parents also come forward with thanks.
We go into Llenwyr’s tent to discuss the situation. She reveals that the cult that kidnapped Shayla has slowly but steadily been gaining influence in Hruhkis. They target the elementally attuned, like divine casters and genasi. There are apparently a lot more of them out there: the group we exterminated was not even near all of them.
After the conversation (and Llenwyr’s promise that we can stay the night) we head back out, the rest of the day is ours. Cas wanders around, looking for silence and some private training. Lynnae starts putting the finishing touches on the healing potion she has been working on and Laraëssil searches for rocks and gems to turn into beautiful little charms.
Here’s where it gets hilarious: Hadall and Trick decide to spar. Hadall (the half-orc Hadall who stands at 6’5”) and Trick (the tiniest tiny of them all) decide. To. Spar.
Trick gets the first turn and immediately hits Hadall with a Guiding Bolt, at which Hadall goes into a frenzy. However, he keeps missing his swings with the axe. Trick decides to up the confusion a bit more and invokes duplicity. Both her duplicate and herself start dancing suggestively and Hadall literally takes psychic damage from that. Again, he misses his swing – Trick casts Inflict Wounds and keeps using Vicious Mockery with her suggestively dancing duplicate.
In the meantime, a crowd of druids has formed around the two and Cassandra is collecting bet money from them.
Hadall gets REKT, but rises back to his feet with his orc powers, yells at Trick that she’s grounded and goes to the nearby brook to wash up and wallow in self-pity.
Lynnae finally finishes her healing potion shortly after Hadall’s ego is smashed into pieces.
Finally, after this long day, the group goes to sleep in their tents.
When the morning comes, the party awakens in the camp. The druids are happily going about their mornings or cooking breakfast, and before long we join in on the good food and say our goodbyes. However, once we want to leave Llenwyr comes over to us and says that we won’t have to travel back so far. She opens a portal inside a tree, we run through and end up in a place that’s about thirty minutes away from Runar on foot.
We now head to Huna, Runar’s town elder, to pick up Ortay and bring him back to his home in Tyreh. Lynnae splits off from the group so she can pay a visit to the post office while the rest goes to Huna. Ortay is in good spirits, and when he sees Hadall still limping from his smackdown at Trick’s hands he simply giggles and says Hadall’s silly.
Lynnae in the meantime sends another letter, but this time to her old mentor Theodred Araynore. She often sends him some gold because he’s old and can’t work for money anymore. With a lighter coin purse she returns to the party.
As they pass by the Amaranth on the way to the edge of town, they find Ella, the tavern owner, basking in the sunlight outside. She quickly gives Hadall a slip of paper. Hadall briefly elaborates that it’s about something he asked about earlier, and subsequently leaves it be.
The group exits Runar and heads to the border of Fass and Tyreh to cross over to Tyreh, the region of Water. As they approach the border Lynnae takes out her crystal and asks the group if they can try out to see whether or not the walkie crystalkies connect cross-regionally. They apparently do, which Lynnae is quite happy about but the rest not so much, still unaware that Lyn has sent her first crystal away and is seeking to connect to her sister in another region.
The walk to the port town takes the entire morning. Hadall knows the place very well, he was once stranded in this town after he shipwrecked and washed ashore. Lyn freaks out upon hearing this and wants to get on the ferry to the next island less than ever. Hadall calms her a little and then reveals to the group that there is actually a brothel in this town, named the Siren’s Nest. There’s also a loud and busy tavern that sailors visit to get hammered.
Before the party starts doing their own things, Hadall buys us the tickets to the ferry from the captain of the boat, a water genasi man named Dartal. The ferry is gigantic and apparently powered with glowing cores of arcane power to propel it forward.
After receiving her ticket to the ferry and hearing that it will take another two hours before it will depart, Cassandra happily goes to the brothel with a spring in her step while the rest gets lunch at the busy tavern. Trick is drinking while Hadall and Lyn argue about water. Two hours later, though, when the ferry is about to depart, Cas is still getting laid in the brothel and the group tries screaming into their crystals to try to convince her to come back before the ferry leaves. Cassandra throws her crystal in the corner and goes on, until eventually, Hadall and Trick burst into the room where she’s “having fun” to drag her away. Hadall and Trick reunite with the rest, accompanied by a very frazzled Cassandra.
Most of the party gets on the boat without a problem but Lyn, with her morbid hydrophobia, tries every excuse she can possible think of to not have to get on. The knowledge that she’ll end up alone if she doesn’t go eventually wins her over, as well as another Calm Emotions spell from Trick.
The boat has three decks, the top deck being reserved for the staff. On the common deck, the Catastrophe Conglomerate once again encounters the party led by the half-orc Cuzar. We remember him well from our first time arriving in Wyntir, he was the one who killed the golden dragon in the mountains.
Lynnae expresses a deep wish to punch him, Trick encourages her while Hadall holds her back. One of Cuzar’s party members seems to have picked up on this and takes Cuzar over to us.
Lynnae goes off, I guess. Losing her self-control, she starts yelling at Cuzar that the dragon didn’t have to die, that it hadn’t killed anyone and that it was merely guarding the mountain, at which Cuzar retorts that since it was a fucking dragon, it was bound to have killed someone. He is just doing what he thinks is right. He even goes on by saying that there is apparently a dragonturtle wreaking havoc in Tyreh, and that he intends to off that one as well. The rest of Cuzar’s party joins his side and Lynnae and the human in his party share an angry staring contest. Just as Lynnae lights her hands on fire with the intention of attacking, Hadall disperses the situation.
After the mood has been lifted a little, Cuzar introduces his party: the human is named Nafa Bhannon, there is a water genasi named Drown, a drow who goes by Kal and a tiefling who’s name is Hunt.
Hadall mentions there’s nothing like a bit of alcohol to bring people together, so the two parties gather around a table and get a round of drinks. When Lyn buys Nafa an ale in order to make up for her bitching from before, Drown actually starts glaring daggers at the human sorcerer, even going so far as to bare her teeth at Lyn. Hadall notices what’s going on: Drown seems to have a thing for Nafa. He then tells Lyn to buy Hunt an ale and talk to them instead of Nafa. When Lyn does this, it seems to calm the water genasi down and she turns her attention to Trick instead. Lara and Kal try to converse but it turns awkward really quickly, as well as the conversation between Lyn and Hunt.
Sooooo Trick and Cas call for a game of strip poker to grind that awkwardness to a halt because that has never gone wrong ever. Drown, Cuzar and Hunt happily join in (while Smurp quickly gets Ortay out of there because he is entirely too young for this). Since Cas and Trick are both masterful at sleight of hand, they manage to stay clothed the longest, with Trick being the grand winner. Lara and Cuzar have a bit of flirting going on. Lara blushes, Cuzar winks, and he’s got great tattoos which Lara happily compliments him on (CUZARA 4EVER). Unfortunately, Cas is getting seasick, but Trick manages to heal it.
A few hours later we are finally approaching Tergen, which is Tyreh’s largest island. The port town we’re headed for is named Tyressil, which happens to be one of the cultists’ hiding places (I know I wrote Kyressil in the last summary but I suck at typing okay? It’s called Tyressil). The ship docks at the bustling port town, which is one of the few lively places in Tyreh: most of the settlements are rather isolated.
There are two taverns in Tyressil: one is called the Defiant Ship and the other the Rotten Dahlia. Since we just said goodbye to Cuzar and his party and they’re headed for the Defiant Ship, we choose to go to the Rotten Dahlia instead because we don’t want to make it awkward. The Rotten Dahlia is a shifty tavern for shifty people, and while no one inside is wearing a crystal around their neck, there are a ton of hooded and cloaked figures. Cas loves the atmosphere – these are her kind of people.
The barkeep is a water genasi woman, we get some drinks and tea. As we toast, Lara notices that one of the figures is keeping a very close eye on the walkie crystalkie in Lynnae’s hand. Lara uses her telepathic powers to try to connect to him, prying into his mind to see if he’s a part of the cult or not. The dude is not, but now that he’s “hearing voices” he freaks out and runs out of the tavern. Cassandra and Trick follow, soon followed by the rest of the party except for Rei and Smurp, who stay with Ortay. The man pulls a dagger, frightened to shit, he only wanted to make some extra coin and had no other bad intentions. Before we can do anything he BOLTS and vanishes into an alleyway. Good job, Catastrophe Conglomerate, way to traumatize a man on your first day in a new city.
We go back into the tavern and talk with Ortay about the place where he lives. He happily muses about his hometown on the island of Pasekar. There is a water genasi village there, and that’s where he lives. We decide to stay in the Dahlia despite the fact it’s shifty as hell, with Lynnae and Lara keeping watch.
Lynnae’s watch goes by without trouble but as the two magicians switch places, Lynnae says there’s something she wants to talk about. Since Lara knows a lot about the arcane, Lyn figured Lara would be the best person to ask. The fire sorceress has been struggling with worries ever since they found out about the cult and the ritual, the uncertainty of what would have happened to her and her powers if the cultists had succeeded is eating away at her. Lara assures Lyn that she likely has nothing to be afraid of: the cultists are targeting genasi and druids and Lynnae is neither. While the sorcerer has had Wild Magic her entire life, she is not elementally attuned in the same way that divine casters and genasi are. This puts Lynnae’s mind to rest and she goes to sleep. During Lara’s watch, she is actually robbed of two gold pieces when she’s not paying attention.
The next morning, Trick gives Laraëssil the slip of paper that the password to the cultist dungeon was written on, and Lara manages to decipher it: Karr Zhuh means “Many Eyed”. Lynnae immediately goes through her notes and finds the cultist journal entries that spoke so highly of someone named the Many Eyed. It appears to be more of a title than a name, however.
We head to the other tavern now, the Defiant Ship. Hadall has definitely been here quite often, the bartender greets him happily (albeit with a different name than Hadall) and gives him a drink on the house. Her name is Rosa Blackwater, she is apparently married to a dragonborn woman named Karresh. We ask her about the cultists and the island in Tyreh that apparently sunk beneath the waves, but she hasn’t heard of either. Hadall then passes her a note, and the people he has been looking for passed through very recently.
She does, however, know more about the dragonturtle Cuzar told the Conglomerate about. Dragonturtles are actually known to be violent and rowdy creatures, capable of great destruction. Hadall mentions to Rosa that we want to go to Pasekar to bring Ortay home, but Rosa says that the waters are extremely rough for the season and that tiny boats are unsafe at the moment. We still decide on going to Pasekar, and we head to the docks to rent a foamdrifter, also called a fjullgan, which is a tiny, arcane-powered boat often used in Tyreh.
The person who rents out fjullgans to people keeps pressuring us that the waters are unsafe to travel on right now, and that he wants his boats back undamaged. Hadall knows how to sail a fjullgan, however. After a bit of back-and-forth and some haggling, we finally get ourselves a foamdrifter. Lyn has no intention of getting wet and turns herself aquatic with the Alter Self spell. This is just enough for her to be able to get on.
The islands of Tyreh drift around, along with the current of the ocean: Pasekar – a very circular island – is supposed to be to the south west right now and it should take the Catastrophe Conglomerate about four days to reach Pasekar. Hadall takes the steer, Lara is on lookout and Trick navigates. Even though on the third day of the journey Trick loses sight of where they are at the moment (despite the fact she pretends everything is fine regardless), on the fourth day we see the shores of Pasekar and finally arrive. Lynnae gets off the boat as fast as she can possibly muster, walks to the other side of the docks and promptly throws up.
Ortay recognizes the village where we have landed, he’s bouncing up and down from the excitement of being so close to home. It’s late, however, and we want to get some rest before finally bringing him home. We go to the local tavern – the Water Lily – and order seafood.
The next morning Ortay is doing everything he possibly can to wake the party up, he really can’t wait to get home. After a quick breakfast we leave the Water Lily and start making the trek to Ortay’s home. The boy leads us along the path, he’s not exactly sure how long the walk will take. He also says he has lost track of how long he has been away, recounts how scary people came into the village and took him and others.
It doesn’t take too long for us to reach the village, which is a village where the general population is comprised of mostly water genasi like Ortay. However, we get some very strange looks from the public upon our arrival. Finally, a water genasi named Auk steps up and asks us about what the fuck we’re doing with Ortay. They think we are the kidnappers, and to make matters worse the other genasi seem to share this idea. Two genasi girls guard us while the town elder is fetched. When Ortay asks the girls about his parents, a silence falls. Before anyone can explain, though, the town elder – a water genasi by the name of Rautan – approaches. When we are once again met by distrust, Cas loses her cool, shouting that we evidently brought “that little asshole” home and that she won’t take being treated like this.
At last, the genasi decide to trust us and we’re brought to a small building: it’s a shelter for those who were attacked when the cultists came. Many young children without parents are there, as well as wounded and displaced genasi. In the attack, many were killed and taken. At the moment there are five more genasi missing from the village: Crest, Ylra, Noahkim, Sylt and Tide. Lynnae quickly jots the names down in her journal so the party can search for them later.
Ortay again asks for his parents, at which one of the girls from before takes him away from the group to play with him and distract him a little. His parents were unfortunately among those who were killed.
Someone notes that the crystals we wear around our necks are awfully similar to those that the cultists had when they attacked, but after we explain how they work and give a little demonstration that part of the distrust is also removed. We also promise to use them solely for messaging purposes and nothing nefarious.
Lara takes one of the charms she made while with the Elderberry Clan and gives it to Ortay, it’s a beautiful charm made from a blue gemstone, carefully shaped to look like a wave on the sea. Ortay happily accepts it, and we leave the village to head back to the port town.
On our way back we are suddenly stopped by Auk, the genasi from before. They say they’ve changed their mind about us, and that they want to do the right thing and join us. They’re not particularly strong but they want to give it a go regardless, to bring the ones that harmed his people to justice. We agree, and with that Auk joins us. We return to the Water Lily, where we started our travel that morning, and sleep through the night.
The next morning we get back on our fjullgan to sail back to Tyressil. The first day goes by without much ado although we do hit some rocks and damage the boat a little. On the middle of the second day, however, after again ramming some rocks in the water, we see that a ship is headed in our direction – and it’s not a merchant ship. Soon enough it becomes clear that these guys are pirates and even a warning from Trick (“We’re not some kind of floating brothel!”) doesn’t slow them down. Lynnae hurls a Firebolt in their direction to intimidate them, though it goes wide. As a retaliation the pirates fire their crossbows, hitting Auk square in the chest. Again Lyn casts a Firebolt, she hits the ship full-on but the spell is too weak to damage the boat or set it alight.
We roll initiative.
Hadall goes absolutely crazy, skewering pirate after pirate with his javelins and even jumping onto the ship later on to axe off those who weren’t hit by the spears. Trick’s duplicate does a ton of necrotic damage on the captain and she even gets the “how do you want to do this?” of the battle. Auk makes their first kill and is visibly traumatized by that. In an effort to shoot down the last pirates with another Firebolt, Lynnae accidentally smashes it against Hadall’s back.
After finishing off the last of the pirates, the Catastrophe Conglomerate climbs aboard of their newly captured vessel. There’s a lot of loot on board, including 10 gemstones (which Lara happily confiscates), a ton of coin and 2 spell scrolls. Lyn takes the Chromatic Orb spell scroll while Trick takes Bless. Now with their new boat (and the fjullgan drifting behind on a rope), the party makes for Tyressil once more. With that, the session comes to an end.