Found Xargrim finally 😃
he's dead 😞
For context: For those of you that don't know, Xargrim is part of a trio + hired help expedition to find and use the Adamantine Forge (a side quest you can pursue). He's mentioned by Dhourn when you first run into him, and I believe you hear of him if you cast Speak With Dead of Filro The Forgotten after killing him. I was lowkey looking forward to running into him, it's a shame he died before I could roast him to his living breathing face. 😔🔥
If you help the myconids they let you enter this little cave area behind vines near a few merchants and their bull in the myconid colony. The myconids call the reward "riches of mind and magic" but it's just a dead Xargrim in the middle of a ritual mushroom circle and his goods (aka, the missing pieces you need to forge adamantine weapons - lowkey a baller deal but the way you go about to find those pieces is amusing).
You can cast Speak With Dead on Xargrim and he tells you this.
Then you're like, "Okay, bet." You can search his body and find a book that prompts you to roll to see through the illusion. The illusion itself is really funny to me from a narrative standpoint.
"Flumph Mating Rituals"??? Keep in mind, Flumphs are a real creatures in the D&D universe, and they look like this.
Is this pentai horn? 🐙🌽
You also don't have to even have to roll very high to perceive through the illusion. I don't know what that's supposed to narratively imply other than he might have been casting this spell with only one hand. He's wearing wizard garb though, and did die when separated off from his friend group. This could just be another case of Third-Son Drow Wizard Man™️ with pathetic magic, wizarding, and survival skills.
I'd also like to note that he canonically knows enough about Flumph mating rituals to fill at least two pages. I have no idea whether this is supposed to be perceived as a ridiculous and nichely-uninteresting scientific study journal or hold the implication that this is some sort of underdark version of tentacle p*rn that would theoretically be too taboo for some unsuspecting stranger to leaf through.
I'm ngl, I find the implication of the latter headcanon funnier - just Xargrim rubbing his hands together like an evil praying mantis being like, "Yes... This is genius... No one has ever tried to look at p*rn in secret... The workings of the Forge will stay as my own amongst my crew of young male compatriots. Surely no one will think I'm a weirdo of estrangeable measure as I harbor this text on my foot-led trek."
Super useful information to discover game-wise. But also, kinda funny to speculate on. I may be jumping the gun on how to interpret this narratively, but my brain has too much fun jumping to the most chaotic option. 💀
