#token tuesday

[ttrpgtreacle]

The secret boss of Skies of Walltestia, who the players elected not to unlock: SHADOW THE UNFORGOTTEN.

Spending every day in the shadow of someone, at their beck and call, at their side but never being seen, well... It would have an impact on you, after millenia.

This boss was going to involve a real life timer, and moving through old, messed up versions of maps that had already been played in the campaign. At certain hp thresholds, rules would flip, like you would have to hit under his AC to hit.

[ttrpgtreacle]

Ysvestia was a street urchin in Gorodzuba. When the corruption of the city pushed many into the so-called undercity (at that point mostly a series of cisterns recently emptied to feed the growing hunger of its rented industry), she found her place within it as a guard for hire, with an old antique musket.

Eventually she left with the party, as she wanted to see more adventure, and didn't see a future for Gorozuba. Ysvestia actually started out as a random token that I drew for practice (see below) before becoming her own full-fledged character.

[ttrpgtreacle]

This pig was bought during character creation and just kind of hung around the ship. When someone would talk to it with "Speak with Animals" it would go on long loquacious speeches about the futility of life and the fear and despair that comes with being raised to be eaten.

[ttrpgtreacle]

Stasya is a changeling, who has walked the world since before the sea of the skies. An itinerant to the core, she's drifted between every kind of job under the sun and is now slumming it as a lounge singer in Gorodzuba. Eventually discovered by the Zhuttskulak, she was brought before Prince Yaropalk, and 'coerced' into revealing certain secrets about how the mirror works.

Also, Stasya is the rare example of me doing a first pass and thinking it looked so bad that I had to redo it.

To be fair to me, I drew this first iteration in a train station. So, yeah, I was literally out of my element, which is water. Yup, I draw all of my art like those precogs from the Tom Cruise Eyeball Experience movie, half submerged in my wonderful milk.

[ttrpgtreacle]

A dropped plotline in Zhuttsgraad was the underclass of Ogre that were coaxed from the hills for manual labor. The ogres were banding themselves around a brotherhood based around Everart Claire like ringleader.

The players were originally going to have to deal with them to help get in Gorodzuba. Cut because it wouldn't have been a great use of time.

[ttrpgtreacle]

Many years later, as he bled out alone within the forgotten recesses of the Gorodzuba municipal system, Two Degrees Tom was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.

Haha, just kidding folks. In reality, Two Degrees Tom was not an especially troubled member of a large family cursed to a cavalcade of magical and sometimes salacious events, broadly reflecting the troubled development of South America. He's actually a crocodile employed/owned by the the Clean Knives gang, feeding off the prisoners they deign to throw his way as a method 'cleaning up the trash.'

The players did kill Two Bit Tom. A truly unique creature in the world, perhaps the like of which will never be seen again. Well, they're Sky Pirates, not Sky Conservationists.

[ttrpgtreacle]

The Schlaftsgeier is a magical beast that can cast the sleep spell by expelling an dust from its wattle. It waits until victims are rendered weak, and uses their dust to make them helpless so they can go in for a Coup de grâce.

Two of them stole a mouse with an ear on its back from Dorothy Dirkje, the scroll woman of Manjana island. The players (at the time just Archibald and Syrene) fought them off and retrieved the body. However, more careful inspection of the area would revealed that there was also a human hand within the nest, which was related to a murder mystery side quest.

[ttrpgtreacle]

The Skies of Walltestia Polyamorous Ship Captain is clearly stolen goods from Rude Tales of Magic's Polyamorous Ship Captain. But I dare you to pretend to run this character and not have a hyperbolically great time.

When they unlocked the door to the bridge, they found it covered in spirals, and the captain rigidly grasping the wheel. It's pretty clear that the influence of the mirror caused this sudden artistic streak. It's unclear whether the remote influence of the mirror caused him to be polyamorous, or at least cause him to claim to be polyamorous, considering polyamory is illegal in Venercia.