#falcolmreynolds

[bonusdragons]

December 3, 2023:

White Tertiary, Imperial, Jaguar.

Challenger of Falcolmreynolds' Wide Sky Clan!

[dragonsateyourtoast]

Now that's what I like to hear from my players!

[skeletalecho]

Inktobers 30 and 31. Found and Mask Found would've been posted yesterday but my wifi was out. It's my d&d character Tiska when she was found by her adoptive shepherd mums with a runaway lamb. It's. Meh. But Dat Backstory Tho. Mask is the DM of that campaign, @falcolmreynolds (aka @dragonsateyourtoast) as The World in the Dungeons and Discord Riftwatchers campaign tarot deck I'm building. This will get painted in acrylics eventually. Holy shit though I actually finished Inktober. First time ever! Whoot! Now on to NaNo and giving myself carpal tunnel from typing instead of drawing! ~Yes that's an awful thing to joke about I'm sorry~ Both of these are on my Twitter @ skeletalecho, along with the rest of this month's Inktober works. Thanks for hanging with me!

[falcolmreynolds]

Dungeons and Discord, Session Three: A Squishy Situation

Session Three (25 April 2017) 

The party, confident in their abilities after their success in the Plane of Air, are eager to head back into the Rift. First, however, they swing by the High Rollers Emporium, a shop owned by a charismatic lizardfolk merchant named Alexander Zahedi.

He and Minato do some quiet bargaining and the party manages to procure a few healing potions and a trinket or two from Alexander, though most of his inventory is hidden in his labyrinthine extra-dimensional basement, and needs to be found, and his potionmaker is currently missing.

After this brief visit, the team heads back to the Rift. They wait until it opens to another plane and head through.

They discover beyond the Rift a vast swamp, and as they step through, they step onto a man-made platform leading up to the Rift. Odd.

They trek through the muck, following the Nav-Box, and discover a small stone hut in the center of the swamp. Inside the hut is a complex structure and many magical circles marked out on the floor, walls, and ceiling, as well as many beautifully cut gemstones. Minato, always the opportunist, takes the moment to steal several of the gems, prying them out of their settings using Mage Hand. Unfortunately, this results in one of them breaking on the floor.

In the center of the hut, they find set in a man-made stalagmite the Source for this plane: A glass orb filled with mud and water, with a couple of clods of earth, and tangled roots. They take the Source from its setting after ensuring that none of the sigils on the floor are disturbed, and with their task complete they head back to the Rift.

Surprise - The Rift is no longer there when they return. Startled, they search the area and find no hints of anyone coming or going. Tiska does a flyaround and smacks into a wall - the outside wall of a massive bubble, containing the entire swamp. Beyond the bubble is only dark, swirling mud, the true nature of what they now realize is the Elemental Plane of Ooze.

A quick call back to Lorelai reveals that the Rift is still open on her end, and hasn’t changed at all - it’s only in the Elemental Plane that something’s gone awry. The team hurries back to the hut and tries to replace some of the gemstones, but there are a few that don’t have spares, thanks to both Minato’s bungled burglary and a jostling collision with another Ooze-bubble that knocked a few of them out of their loose settings to break on the floor.

Bewildered and now highly concerned, the team heads to the buildings marked on the map they found in the hut. There are two buildings, a shed and a house; they enter the house and find the remains of a journal (link) that tells the tale of two wayward wizards who accidentally found their way to the Plane of Ooze and became trapped. The writer eventually discovered the Rift and the Source, and used the Source to lock the Rift in place and escape the Plane of Ooze with their compatriot.

While searching the area, Zackrow also finds a terrarium mentioned in the journal, which he keeps to himself for the moment.

Once they’re done searching the buildings, the party heads for the odd location only marked, cryptically, “cave.” They find there a geode clearly brought in from the Plane of Earth filled with gemstones of all colors and types. Brom, Temp, Mir, and Minato all take turns harvesting chunks of crystal from the geode while Tiska and Zackrow stand guard.

Unfortunately, the two are caught looking the wrong direction unawares - the group is attacked by a couple of ochre jellies that take Temp down to pretty low health, though Mir is able to heal him up. The fight is short and brutal, and the team demolishes the jellies and hurries back to the binding hut.

Back at the magic circles, Brom shows off his lesser-known skills by perfectly cutting the raw crystals into gemstones that fit the empty settings in the summoning pillars. While doing this, he figures out how to summon the Rift in a closer location than it was previously.

The party makes a plan. They’ll all head through, Tiska helping each one, except for Minato. The rogue stays behind with a rope tied to her and a shovel ready to slide on. When she gets the signal, she grabs the Source and rides the shovel as the party pulls on her rope, then runs back to the Rift and dives through before it vanishes.

As she runs, something attacks her from the reeds - something that comes through with her as she makes her escape. The rest of the party is confronted by Minato flying through the Rift accompanied by a massive, quivering black pudding, which proceeds to attack everyone nearby.

The party, aided by a baffled and slightly terrified Lorelai, take the black pudding down, but not before it does some significant to Brom’s hammer and to Temp. Fortunately, Mir is around to heal, as is Justin, and the party destroys the Source and shuts the second realm from being connected to the Rift.

Zackrow also hands over the terrarium, the legendary Frog Box, to Temp.

Best line: delivered completely deadpan by Minato, as they party is discussing how to help her get from the hut to the Rift in time before it drifts away. “We don’t have a sled or anything.” “I have a shovel.” “How are you gonna use that?” “It’ll be fine. I’ll surf.”

[dragonsateyourtoast]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

New night guard

You thought we were done with night guard? Oh, no, not at all. The boys. Are back.

[falcolmreynolds]

Session Three, going live

Tabletop Tuesday with Falcon and Friends - D&D 5E - A Squishy Situation - Audio Broadcast plus Interactive Chat

Going live in a few minutes with session three of Dungeons and Discord! Tune in to learn what plane of existence our intrepid party goes to next, and how they’ll handle the stickiest of situations. God, I love this pun.

[falcolmreynolds]

Characters: PCs, NPCs, and the odd comment from God

Dungeons and Discord has six main player characters and a couple of interesting NPCs. Here’s a quick rundown of the people so far:

First off, we have Temp Placeholder of the New Jersey Placeholders. He’s a wood elf monk who grew up in Saintshaven, and knows the town and its secrets (and its people) fairly well. He’s following the Way of the Open Hand, and his talents include smithing and armormaking.

Next up: Tiska Shepherd, the tiefling druid from a farming town. Abandoned at birth by her mother, Tiska was raised by a pair of lesbian farmers and really knows how to work with plants and animals, which naturally led to her being a druid of the circle of the land, of the forest. A good-natured being, she’ll always try and talk down natural enemies. She was driven out of her hometown by a series of unfortunate circumstances and some generic racism, and is currently on a search for her birth parents.

Third is Zackrow, the tabaxi Divination wizard. Zackrow spent his life learning things and going places, and is currently on a crusade to learn more about the planes of existence and write a book. He previously spent his time aboard a skyship courtesy of a couple of eccentric noble friends, learning about air magic. Zackrow’s true love is linguistics, however, and he wants to learn every language he possibly can, no matter where he has to go. He casts magic using a broken wristwatch as an arcane focus.

Brom Stouthammer is a fighter, and one of the last remaining members of his clan: a proud clan that was decimated while staging a surprise attack on a duregar fortress. They fell into a drow trap and were completely annihilated; Brom is following the lead of his lost brother, the only one not confirmed dead, and recieved information that this brother was seen in Saintshaven. Brom is a skilled gemcutter and smith, and seeks to find any vestiges of his clan that he possibly can.

Minato Virva is a human rogue from a backwater town to the southeast of Saintshaven. She’s a rogue looking to squeeze her way into business; she’s opportunistic and is searching for a way to make some money and perhaps a name for herself. She certainly didn’t sign up for a plane-hopping trip, but she’s happy to go along if there’s money to be made. She loves to study other cultures and practices magic.

Finally, Mir Elling. Mir, the granddaughter of the great kenku pirate Hana, has decided that her life needs more adventure, and is trying to seek it out. Her religion, the doctrine of the Celestial Family, dictates that she help as many people as possible; she’s a healer, a brilliant light, and a brave warrior to those around her. Closing down a dangerous rift is an all-in-one adventure for Mir, and she’s forging onwards with her beak held high.

A couple of important NPCs were revealed in the first session, including:

- Lorelai Riversong, an incredibly intelligent and talented (along with very enthusiastic) blue dragonborn wizard who leads the Rift research team - Justin Riversong, Lorelai’s asherati brother, a healer and evocation wizard who accompanies Lorelai on her journeys.

More to come!

[falcolmreynolds]

Dungeons and Discord, session five: The Crystal Desert

The party takes a day to recover from the Plane of Water in the Material Plane; they make some jewelry, Lorelai works on the postal situation, and Zackrow hunts for some pastries.

Their next venture into the Rift is an unusual one - Minato was dredging through Alexander’s basement, and consequently Lorelai accompanied the other Riftwatchers through.

When they head through, they find themselves in a network of massive, magma-filled caverns. They have entered the Elemental Plane of Magma, and now will play a high-stakes game of The Floor Is Lava while following the Nav-Box northeast.

After overcoming several trials and tribulations and several large rivers of magma, they discover a stone obelisk holding a glowing yellow crystal shooting beads of energy off into the caverns somewhere. Wary, the party avoids the stone (after looking the stone over and discovering that it’s drawing magic from the ambient plane) and continues deeper into the caves.

After a time they enter a cavern larger than any they have seen before - they cannot see the walls or the end, and inside there is a vast expanse of sand, but the sand glimmers the same yellow as the one in the obelisk before. The party doesn’t see any danger, but there’s no life here at all. They head inwards and all seems well... until they start feeling the effects of the desert on them. They are exhausted and endangered; they find the skeleton of a great white dragon sprawled amongst the vast glowing dunes; it contains a mysterious scroll, which they pick up and take with them. Minato rejoins the party as well, having bravely headed into the Rift when she realized her party had gone without her.

With their knowledge combined, the party realizes the crystals are what’s causing them to feel so awful - and they hurry onwards through the Crystal Desert, still taking exhaustion from the essence of the plane itself. Lorelai manages to protect one party member from the energy of the Desert, and they finally find where the Nav-Box tells them the Source is located and dig it out of the crystalline sand. It’s locked in a small box, which they take and book it out of the desert.

On the way back, the party decides to investigate the strange energy flowing from the obelisk. They follow it to a small tower, which they quietly investigate. They discover it to be a a mad sorcerer’s tower, and he is dead inside of it. They also discover four captives locked in cages being dosed with various levels of radiation. Two are beyond saving, and the party mercy-kills them, but two are able to be saved. The party loots the tower, saves the two living slaves, and leave - before breaking the cavern roof and burying the tower under a lavafall.

As they approach the Rift again, something bursts from the wall and attacks them, and at Lorelai’s urging, the party flees. They make it back through the caverns to the Rift when the beast (dubbed the Large Dangerous Thing) attacks again, and they run through the Rift and break the Source as quickly as possible.

The party made it through, with the slaves... with one exception, which they only realize once they’ve shut the Rift down.

Tiska didn’t make it through.

Tiska’s trapped.