It's been a while since I've drawn Brandy! I figured I should illustrate one of her more iconic and arguably idiotic moments from the campaign. The full story is under the cut! It's a bit of a long one. Featuring mushroom demons and knowingly making bad choices.
The campaign took place in the Snarl setting, part of the home-brew Tales from the Prison Planes meta-setting. You can find the setting information on GitHub and on the subreddit!
Alternate title: The Chalicking Incident
In one of our dungeon runs we were sent to retrieve a powerful bone artefact. The dungeon was infested by mushroom encountered demons, and as we pushed in further we discovered a chalice with remnants of blood in it; clearly a leftover from a ritual. As adventurers do, we pocketed it, and forgot about it for a couple sessions.
Fast forward a bit, and we find ourselves outside the walls of one of the larger cities. The night before entering, two of the party decided to take a look at the chalice. Our bard had identified it a while ago, and there was no magic on the chalice. The rogue and Brandy then decided to consume the blood, like any sane person. To be clear, we were fully aware that this was probably a bad idea. What could go wrong?
A hefty penalty to all our mental stats ensued, as well as a small boost to our constitution, and the imminent threat of falling under the reign of Zuggtmoy, the demon queen of mushrooms. The chalice wasn't magical, but the blood most certainly was. As we'd just tanked a couple intelligence and wisdom points, we decided the smartest course was to sneak away from the party. We contacted an NPC we'd previously met for help, who promptly tricked us into getting captured by the local university in order to halt the infection we were about to spread. The universities angel had some difficulty subduing us, as our recently boosted constitution put Brandy over 60 HP, but on the second try the sleep spell succeeded, and they moved us into the hospital ward. We were held there a while, but still managed to infect several of the doctors, as we were halfway to being mushroom minions. It didn't help that Brandy is a Blood Hunter, and thus pretty much splattered the walls in infectious blood in an attempt to get free. Apparently we cost the university more in damages than the one time a golem got loose and tore through the buildings.
After some discussion, we were sent to atone for our sins by cleansing a Mindflayer lair. They gave us enchanted rings to guard against Zuggtmoy's influence, and also stave off mushroom zombification, and off we went. We managed to drum up a bit of a crusade, mostly thanks to our cleric, and eradicated the Mindflayers. The pool where the Elder Brain had previously been was blessed, and we were dunked to cleanse us of Zuggtmoy's influence. Unpleasant holy-fied brain fluids aside, we and the infected doctors were cured.
And thus, the word chalicking was born: Doing something counter to every intuition, and in the full knowledge that it is a bad idea, but proceeding anyway.
