Myth and Noir

In order to compete with the citizens of Aquilas for the Golden Mask, and entry to Duke Julius Brink's exclusive party in a few weeks, Thunderclan got dressed to the nines in masks reflecting their characters. Eq got a horse mask (not like THOSE ones), Sasha got a peacock mask, and Salty got a medusa mask. Freesia and Zahida were off doing their own thing.

Siri, the blind woman Thunderclan escorted to Aquilas recently, demanded to be taken to the festivities with them. After avoiding a trained monkey pickpocket, the group found their way to the competition for the golden mask. A flamboyant young noble named Octo Spyre led the first round, where contestants must climb the blue and white Cathedral of Subsided Waters.

Salty was chosen as Thunderclan's champion, being the most physically able of the group, and climbed to the top with careful examination of the route, brute strength, and the use of an immovable rod looted from Carmesi, the Crimson Bat. Only three people make it to the top: Salty, the dragonborn cleric (and friend to Thunderclan) Candaci, and a stern and scowling dwarf in black mail, Zsa Zsa von Yald.

The gathered contestants are shooed away from the Cathedral by angry heralds of the Way of White, and relocate to a pub.

The second test is a game of Devilswheel -- contestants spin a wheel with mundane objects written all over it, take three shots, and must exit the pub and return having stolen the item. Salty spins and has to run to a nearby gambling hall to tear the boot from a drunk man's foot. Zsa-Zsa returns with his item. Candaci has to find a subito slug -- a sea slug with hallucinogenic and magnetic properties, useful for warriors and junkies. Cam had a good idea about using conjure animals to plant false slugs so Candaci will grab an illusory one and not a real one. Luckily it works out and the slug disappears in her hand just as she's about to present it to Octo Spyre. As a result, she is eliminated.

The final challenge, between Zsa-Zsa and Salty, is purely down to the crowd, and they call for a duel. The fighters take some time off to prepare. The party considers tailing Zsa-Zsa and trying to figure out what he's up to but they abandon the plan, instead loading Salty with strange charms. I thought they would give her a bunch of their magic items but they were happy with the spells.

The duel was to surrender or death, weapons only. Before it began, Sasha subtly cast Dispel Magic in Zsa-Zsa's direction just in case he had the same idea as Thunderclan. I ruled that Sasha wouldn't know if Dispel Magic actually had an effect on any spells on him, but that the spell would work as intended IF he had any charms.

The duel goes well for Salty, who suffers only about one strike during the whole battle. Zsa-Zsa surrenders rather than dying in the battle. We tried to use a combat maneuvers mechanic I read about online for this duel but it seemed a little sparse, possibly due to the lack of obstacles in the arena. I may come up with something better soon.

Salty acquires the Golden Mask and quickly tucks it away, hidden. Sasha, noticing how the Way of White heralds are out in droves for the festival, walks up to one and talks with him at length about the faith, Julius Brink, etc. She learns that Brink is perhaps more religious in recent months than he ever has been before, and that he's been seeking suitors. Later on, in an alleyway conversation with a beggar named Tetra, she corroborates these rumors and adds that Brink is basically an anxious mess these days.

Tetra leaves the group with a final suggestion -- there's a noblewoman named Cordelia von Els, who is noted for being an ally of Brink's. She's apparently a witch -- open secret -- and has an opium habit. Perhaps Cordelia could help the group prepare for their confrontation with Brink.

As the conversation nears a close, however, figures appear on the adjacent rooftops and appear from doorways. Redhood thieves had trailed Thunderclan to this point. The thieves have the drop on Thunderclan and poison gas leaves Salty dumbfounded for most of the encounter. The thieves poison Equuarion with a potion of growth -- making him large enough to fall right out of the sky and crushing his griffon mount Honeyduke. As the thieves surround Salty and prepare to finish her off and steal the mask, Sasha casts a spell that forces them to walk away, dumbstruck and confused by her bardic magic. With enough time offered by this spell, Thunderclan manages to scare the Redhoods off. Nobody on either side killed.

Next time the party will probably go looking for Cordelia. She would be a very useful ally.

Carnival, Session 1.

Last time the party solved the puzzle of Fort Vaux and released their friends from its magical confines. Now, there’s not much to do but ease up and prepare for the next adventure.

This week we welcomed Sasha Sabotage’s player Jacque back to the table to take the reins of her character once more! Sasha is a human bard, profoundly kind and insightful, with a sharp tongue and rapier wit. She also wears booty shorts, thigh-high boots, and an electric guitar that shoots rainbows. I love D&D.

What Happened:

For a month and a half, Thunderclan took inventory of all the treasure they’d gathered over the past few months. They spent their gold on creating new gear, with the help of friends and the consultation of an enchantment codex Freesia read in the Necropolis archives.

Zahida, Freesia, Equuarion, and Sasha went shopping for basic upgrades to their current gear. They encountered a lewd gnome alchemist within a shop lit by hundreds of oil lamps, and perused an assortment of oils, elixirs, and potions. Zahida left the Cursed Greatwood’s acidic fruit and the lavender from the Gustfields to be examined. She’ll return to pick them up next week. Afterwards, Zahida adopted a rescue dog, a wise old mastiff she named Vera. Equuarion spoke with the dog for a little insight on Vera’s state of mind, and also just because he really wanted to.

But the most notable purchases were property -- a trading post on the rocky beaches of Verdune, outfitted with a garden (for the spellcasters), tavern (for the bard and fighter), and small dock (for the pirate). This cost most of Thunderclan’s money, alongside hiring an accountant, barkeep, and gardener. But! The trading post (affectionately called Margaritaville) will prove useful for Thunderclan, giving them a voice in local trade, the recognition of the masses, and perhaps a retirement plan. As soon as Margaritaville had finished construction, Salty Martine invited the group’s allies, the undead refugees, the druids, and the revolutionaries that compose their closest friends and mentors, for a party in celebration of the survival of Thunderclan. During this party, the group each got their fortunes told. (Equuarion was warned that he would “forget to check the ceiling”, a fortune that came true just minutes later when Freesia levitated to the rafters to pour tea on him from above.)

Later, the group gathered on the beaches to (drunkenly, in Salty’s case) discuss some of the revelations from the conversation with Carmesi. Most notably, that Freesia has made a deal with an otherworldly being (a fairy), and has lied about being killed and resurrected. Freesia discussed the nature of her resurrection, and how her extraplanar benefactor has given her a “grocery list” of impossible tasks to complete within a year, or her soul is forfeit. This list strangely includes “the house of Duke Julius Brink”, which enthralled Salty. The party turned to the topic of the Aquilan Carnivale, an upcoming celebration in Aquilas Port that seems like the best opportunity to approach Julius Brink. Brink seemed to be a great worry for Ludum, but with Carmesi revealing that Brink is being manipulated by Ezra into starting a war, Thunderclan has begun to consider the possibility that Brink’s position could be swayed to one of democracy and peace, rather than a continuation of Ezra’s monarchistic legacy.

In the morning, after Salty’s carousing earned her some gambling winnings, the party was visited by three new faces: A grizzled man, about 50, in piecemeal leather armor, a curious looking halfling woman in fine dress, and a black haired blind woman standing behind them. The grizzled man introduced themselves as The Old Boy, Phoebe, and Siri. They are the Tranquil, an adventuring party who have recently drawn the ire of a cleric of the royal family’s angelic faith. His name is Prior Orp, and he has been hunting down the Tranquil for many weeks, sending bloodthirsty angels after them. The party are confused, never having known angels to be violent. They quickly contradict The Old Boy’s statements, trying to evaluate whether the things chasing the Tranquil are truly angels. Just as The Old Boy offers payment for a simple four-day escort mission helping the Tranquil get to Aquilas Port, the windows smash in and a single white clay dove lands on the ground. The clay dove splits into four monstrous looking white clay “angels”, each uniquely identified with multiple eyes, whip tails, swords sticking out of the body, or a skeletal figure. Each false angel has a different ability, ranging from radiant breath and a paralyzing gaze to compelling a target to answer questions for the false angels.

Thunderclan’s suspicion is validated: these are nothing like the angels they’ve seen. The battle with these false angels is won, and Freesia bolts outside to find the source of the attack, only to see nothing but the streets of Verdune looking up to an empty sky, heralding future dangers from above.

Runaway Finale.

Last time, the party fought their way through the overrun Verdune and did battle, both mental and physical, with the archdevil Carmesi. At the last moment, the missing King Ezra reappeared, now a deep violet dragon and not the human he was remembered as.

Standing amidst the destroyed manor, the party decided to reorient themselves. Carmesi's last words reveal Ezra's game plan -- manipulate the leaders of Ludum into a civil war, with the long-term plan of consolidating further power to make Ludum an empire safe from all possible threats. The wounded party resolves to rescue the revolutionaries Chess and Set from Fort Vaux, a magical prison. They were locked in there by Carmesi.

WHAT HAPPENED:

Fort Vaux is a small keep on a rocky tidal island just off of Verdune, separated by a drawbridge. The Crimson Cult has overtaken it and Set and Chess are trapped within.

The party resolved to approach from the water, instead of trying to bluff their way through the front door. The shallow water contained bottom-feeded undead centipedes with a natural camoflauge to resemble drowning women. The party noted these strange floating bodies but strangely walked into the water anyway.

After dealing with these monstrous creatures, the party scaled the cliffs and found themselves in an execution yard, where a remarkably well-preserved man hung from the gallows began speaking to Salty Martine. The rest of the party were unable to speak with this zombie-like figure, possibly owing to Salty's strange post-resurrection syndrome. (PRS?)

While the interaction with this hanged man (Pieter) was generally peaceful (and resulted in a gift for Salty Martine), Equuarion approached Pieter and touched him without warning or the dead's approval, and some shadows rose to siphon the vitality away from him. The dead don't like to be bothered when they're not yet at rest.

The party spent time developing a bluff and a disguise for infiltrating the fort proper, little did they know that they had already snuck past the guards, who were (wisely) afraid of the haunted execution yard. Entering the prison, the party encountered a giant puzzle room they had to creatively solve in order to free their friends.

The giant room has 22 chains within it, extending from the floor to the ceiling. Each of these chains are attached to a cell, which is suspended in a timeless void "beneath" the fortress.

In the center of the room there is a deck of tarot cards -- the Major Arcana, and instructions.

The setup is simple: Draw a card from the deck and place it within a slot on the far end of the room to open its corresponding cell. The players have to think about which card corresponds with their friends. Each card, however, runs the risk of freeing something horribly dangerous. Choose wisely!

The players debate, some using their knowledge of tarot, some examining the art, some considering what sort of things Carmesi would consider when imprisoning these revolutionaries. Their sins, their insecurities, their strongest attributes.

The players drew the following:

The Lovers - A single black rose that Freesia begs to take, promising that all will be explained later. When she holds it, she feels overcome with the emotion of a long-dead true love.

The Hermit - An unexpected return from the Alhoon that killed Freesia and Salty about two months prior. Both parties are shocked to see each other, but the players throw the Alhoon back into his cell and return him to the depths. How did the Alhoon get there? Let's just say that time and space aren't normal outside of the Waking World.

The Magician - A well-dressed tiger-humanoid that flirts with Zahida a bit before snapping his (backwards) fingers and disappearing. Thunderclan is mainly just happy to move on.

Death - The slimy and mad beholder named Lord Otikar. The party foolishly chose to battle Otikar head on, resulting in near-petrification, near-death a lot of screaming, and the Crimson Cultists within the fort to run away from the overheard chaos. The party manages to eventually coalesce, and their numbers advantage and damage potential beats out Otikar's frenetic tactical errors.

The Hanged Man - The party finally brings the terrified and apologetic Set from the void. Set reveals his husband's location, and comments on the cruel irony of being placed in 'The Hanged Man', while touching the scars on his neck, memories from his first death.

The Tower - Chess is reunited with the party, revealing that he and Set refused to fold under Carmesi's temptation, and that she revealed Ezra's form and schemes in an effort to tempt them into betraying their souls.

The party is satisfied, but can't just depart the prison without examining some cells they believe will be valuable to open. Some that they draw are empty, some are full.

The Star - A gigantic block of gold that the paranoid adventurers don’t trust.

The World - The Twinking Dragon Head Stone, counterpart to the Twinkling Dragon Torso Stone found in Ezra's statue in the Deep many months ago.

The Sun - A red amber sarcophagus with a head resembling a demon's. The party returns it to the void.

Thunderclan departs Fort Vaux with the cards, unlinking them from the magical prison, suspicious of their magical properties.

Having dealt with the nearly apocalyptic threat of Carmesi, the Crimson Cult, and the rapid displacement of an entire city, this chapter of Thunderclan's adventure has reached a conclusion. The party has died, come back, repaired relationships, lost people to the darkness, and are invigorated with new information and purpose. Ezra is a dragon, and is manipulating Brink into starting a war. Rosaria has been utilizing a gigantic soul relay within Concord to siphon away the dead souls of Ludum for a mysterious purpose.

For now, though, Thunderclan has a moment to breathe, with no enemies hunting them down, and clouds in Ludum characteristically gathering... but not yet bursting.

MY SIDE OF THE SCREEN:

This was a really fun session. The players were challenged, made mistakes, lots of dramatic ups and downs.

The roleplaying, puzzling, and exploration was top-notch, but the combat was a bit chaotic and unfocused. Part of that was the players failing to build a plan and digging themselves into deeper and deeper holes, but part of it was on me struggling with a complicated monster. I think just slowing down and chilling out on my part would have made the session flow smoother. In the future, I think I’ll call breaks before any fight that seems like it will take a long time, just to give myself time to consider and run the monsters best for the party!

Runaway, Session 8.

After burning the curse-ridden greatwood and meeting the Crimson Bat herself, Thunderclan made use of Freesia's plant teleportation ability and found themselves at the centaur's Judgement Hall, where they delivered the sad news about one of the centaurs lost in the battle. The centaur Fenn allowed Thunderclan some rest and said that, despite everything, there were no hard feelings between the parties.

There was debate about what could be done about Orlane or Verdune, and which place seemed to be in greater danger. The consensus among the party seemed to be that Verdune was in confirmed danger of the Crimson Bat, while Orlane remained safe for all they knew.

The party hit the waters of Lake Verdune with their folding boat heading for the mercenary city. As they began the days-long trip to Verdune, wind and shadow flew over the boat. The Crimson Bat, in her monstrous form, flew over the party and toward the city. The party was not fast enough to get to Verdune first.

Salty Martine used her new spells to communicate with the fleeing ships on their route toward the city. As Thunderclan docked, they sized up what they knew. They knew the place had a large mercenary presence, being effectively ruled by the immortal warlord Vander Coil. Of note was the danger, however. Legions of devils and Crimson Cultists laying waste to the village. The bat, it seemed, had her eyes set on Vander and the rest of the Republicans of Ludum. The party settled on heading directly toward the manor Vander Coil called home.

The streets were largely bare and abandoned, but in the midst of their journey, the adventurers spotted a group of cultists and a horrid giant white insect-like creature monitoring some mercenaries in shackles. Failing to sneak or act deliberately, the party was caught and responded violently. Using the layout of the streets and buildings, the party was able to avoid dealing with the greater forces of the cultists, and killed some of the cultists. The cultists did not have the morale to fight against overwhelming odds, and so attempted to escape, but at the final moments, the druids of the Black Thicket tribe made good on their allegiance to Thunderclan and arrived to assist in freeing the captures (shapeshifted into bears, naturally).

(Some behind the scenes information: Though members of Thunderclan were allies of the Black Thicket Tribe, and assisted them before, Thunderclan did not come to the tribe's aid when they needed it most, which has impacted Elder Ragweed's mood and perspective.)

Friends, however, are still friends, and the Tribe are happy to inform the party of the situation. Four trolls of a strange nature are guarding Vander Coil's manor. None are certain of what lays within.

A carefully planned assault on the four trolls goes off well, with summoned creatures and the element of surprise playing to Thunderclan's favor.

Altogether the players and characters plan much better than they previously did, and thus the fight is more easily won despite the greater threat these enemies posed.

After much deliberation, the party carefully opens the doors to the manor. From the doorway they can simply see the Crimson Bat -- Carmesi -- in her humanoid form, calmly speaking with Vander Coil.

In lieu of recounting all the debates, temptations, attempted lies, doubts, and anxieties of the following conversation, I'll simply explain what a devil truly is.

There is no cosmic Evil or Good. The forces on earth do not battle in an epic struggle between Light and Darkness. Ludum, Yalda, and this game are full of love and beauty and morality, but it's not a moral LESSON that we're engaging in. People are acting on their motives, and when evil occurs, it occurs for plain and simple human(oid) reasons.

Devils are related to angels. And Carmesi is an erinyes, a messenger devil, one sent to communicate and understand, to tempt and seduce. Devils are simple and will give you what you need. Information is trivial. Gold is trivial. Beauty and power are trivial.

But devils will not harm the innocent or do your dirty work. They may guide you on the path, point you in the right direction, or pass you the blade, but all the while they may not truly want it. Devils don't kill people, at least they're not supposed to (yet another sign that Carmesi is not standard). They tempt you. They are here to discover the darker things that lurk within you and prod you for weaknesses, to see if you will resist.

Because people give in to temptation so easily, and turn to evil constantly, devils are cynical, and since the Waking World was abandoned by its creator (the Orphaner), devils are often without purpose and behave aimlessly, or going rogue.

Devils are inquisitive and curious. "Temptation" is a strange day job, because it's open-ended and there's nobody to monitor how you do it. Rogue devils take advantage of this, becoming rebellious and seeking new goals of their own -- world domination, a relationship with another creature, lazy days. A rogue devil can defend any behavior with another web of deceit or calling their behavior an elaborate temptation scheme for the world at large.

Carmesi is cynical, and tells truths and lies. There's no need to recount what she told that was true and what was a lie. Here is the critical information, though.

Vander Coil 'sold out' her revolutionary allies for the secret that could enable her to die.

Equuarion never turned her offers down.

When it came to it, Freesia refused to let anyone in Thunderclan, even Equuarion, sell their soul.

The encounter turned to violence in enough time, and the party are relieved to find that Vander Coil is not entirely won over by Carmesi.

Carmesi is tricky. She had a variety of tools and trinkets that she put to use within seconds. A curse placed on Equuarion that turned one of his lungs to stone. A potion swallowed in a rush. The panic begins to set in for Thunderclan as they realize they're in for something horrible.

The fight rages on. Carmesi's fingers turn to sleek black claws and she hurriedly tears her own ribcage apart, her body horridly morphing into a gigantic bat-like monstrosity. The claws come out, the wings beat heavily. The party are swinging, chasing her around the hall. Throughout the whole battle, a single black bead floats through Carmesi's chest, and hovers around her head.

Carmesi vomits a cloud of smoke that chokes and kills some of the Black Thicket Tribe. The battle is turning bloody, and Carmesi is preparing to deliver her final trick -- the black bead, the Sphere of Annihilation.

Salty Martine, now trained as a wizard, recognizes that Carmesi is controlling the sphere mentally, and attempts to contest her. The two wage a psychic tug-of-war that Carmesi wins, activating the Sphere.

(Like this but black.)

Black harpoons of antimatter shoot through the hall, piercing many and embedding themselves in the manor's structure. The sphere spins, tearing the manor to shreds.

Carmesi floats above the wreckage, shifting back to her humanoid form. Bloodied, lacerated, and exhausted, she looks to the sky. A newcomer rides the wind toward the battle. A deep violet dragon, strangely bipedal, with pristine scales and white fangs, settles atop a half-destroyed wall.

"Ah, you ignorant slaves. Finally taken notice, have you? Of the beauty of my beloved nation... but I will not give it up so easily."

King Ezra, the violet dragon, reaches out with his mighty jaws and delivers the killing blow on Carmesi, who falls to the ground, shocked.

"I have no use for you now," drawls the returned king of Ludum.

Something catches Ezra's attention. He looks to the sky. "Ludwig? Where have you gone? Are you hiding from me? You were born a child of dragons, what could you possibly have to fear?"

The king takes off, leaving Thunderclan in a burning city, horribly wounded, unsure of their allies loyalty or the path ahead.

All of these tips and warnings are related to how the GM engages with player characters. This is just my personal opinion on how I run the game, and based on what I’ve seen my players like and dislike. Most of these are lessons I had to learn!

As always, the main thing you have to do as a GM at the table is to listen closely and empathize with your players, and respond to that. Again, though, that’s just my opinion.

Do:

Think about the differences between characters and emphasize them when possible. The differences between characters are in the attributes and class abilities, and will be clear when the players are playing. But also take note of how they interact with NPCs and the world, and show that you and the world are noticing that.

Don’t:

Kill their backstory characters/romantic interests/friends/allies just to kickstart drama. If the circumstances are right (or wrong) and the characters die, then so be it, but wiping the player’s slate of friends and emotional connections will only frustrate them. And after the dust settles, who will the character have to talk to/love/befriend? Don’t get rid of your player’s emotional hooks into the world!

Do:

Remain positive about the things that happen to the character, even when they’re scary or threatening. Everything that the character gets tangled up in is a new possibility for them to figure a way out or around it. A natural 20 is awesome, but so is falling into a trap or being poisoned! If they engage, it’s good. I find that being an cold GM can be effective, but most of the time, their adventures and actions, successful or unsuccessful, should be fun. Make sure they know that their character doesn’t have to succeed for them to have fun.

Don’t:

Call out your moral opinions of the character’s actions. This is a lesson I had to learn! Players don’t like it when they feel like the GM hates their characters, or is even displeased by their reactions. If the character stabs the innkeep, your only obligation as a GM is to simulate what the townspeople will do. You’re not obligated to tell the player that that was a horrible idea or an evil thing -- they’re likely duly aware and prepared for the consequences. Don’t break the illusion for your commentary! It’s all about the players.

Do: 

Let them bring new stuff to the table. Your player wants to play this new class they found online. Your player wants to switch some stuff about their class. If they’re not setting all their attributes to 18, you should let them. If a player hates their subclass, let them pick a new one. If they want to play a weird surgeon class they found online, let them. If they want to play a mind flayer, let them. (But, like, just a level 1 mind flayer. With, like, a d6 for their mind blast.)

Don’t:

Runaway, Session 7.

The adventurers move south toward the centaur's Hall of Judgement, the fugitive druid called Lennoc in tow. Lennoc has remained compliant throughout the trip, happier to be brought in by a fellow druid than anybody else. Also, he doesn't stand a chance of escape.

On the journey, the party runs into a bridge covered with ancient gold coins. Underneath the bridge are four shrikes the size of cats. They don't fuck with it, but Zahida pockets three of the coins.

The hall is located in a shallow valley, and the roof is covered with moss and leafy growth. You'd only find it if you were looking for it. A female centaur greets Equuarion, who informs her that they have captured Lennoc and are ready to turn him over.

Two centaurs appear to take the lead of Lennoc's trial in the hall, filled with their comrades. Fenn, the handsome one leading the band that had been hunting for him, and this woman, Kahina. But, as always, there is a disagreement as to what would be justice. Fenn wishes to exile Lennoc to sea, seperating him from the people he has hurt and his own clan. Kahina, however, wishes to experiment on Lennoc to understand the nature of his nonspecific 'curse', (the players nervously wonder whether the curse has spread to them) and then imprison him for the remainder of his life.

Lennoc defends himself. The centaurs are short-sighted and don't understand what action is necessary to protect their way of life. That action, of course, being to embrace the wilderness further, and to defend it, even if it requires a preemptive strike against its opposing forces. Equuarion tells the gathered centaurs that Lennoc acted improperly, but with the interests of his clan in mind.

Fenn takes control of the meeting as it seems Kahina and Thunderclan may soon enter into an argument. There will be a compromise -- Lennoc will be interrogated by a fellow druid, Equuarion (at Lennoc's own request), returned to Kahina for further interrogation (or worse), and then exiled.

Thunderclan takes Lennoc out of earshot of his clan, to a secluded spot in the valley, where they ask him about this mysterious Greatwood. They learn a few things.

1) The Greatwood is in the abandoned Temple to Freyalise, and it houses a variety of cursed, insane, and aggressive souls. 2) Releasing these souls from the tree would release their curses on the Gustfields. 3) Leaving the tree alone would allow it to continue producing aggressive living blights that will expand around the Gustfields, causing more harm.

The group is uncertain of what the nature of the curse is, whether the curse Lennoc obtained is 'contagious', or what exactly the Greatwood is, but they have to return Lennoc to his clan. They want to bring Lennoc with them to the Temple for assistance, but don't manage to convince Kahina to let Lennoc come with them. The group argues, and Kahina shuts them down, explaining that they're not in a position to argue with the person they're doing work for. But a few centaurs are swayed by Thunderclan into travelling with them to the Temple.

The party run into a band of five coughing orcs on horseback. They've come down from the Valor Range in search of new employment opportunities to the south, but along the way they passed through a weird part of the Gustfields. The five of them are now cursed and seeking a cure. Thunderclan can't help, but carry on with the knowledge to watch their backs for giant plants and tigers with fungal growths on their backs.

During the approach to the Temple, the group run into a field of lavender, and heavy pollen. Freesia and Equuarion circumvent this by flying on the griffon Honeyduke, while the centaurs, Zahida, and Salty hold their breath and ride through as fast as they can. Midway through, Zahida takes a shaky breath and experiences a psychedelic terror. In her confusion, she swings at Salty Martine with her scimitar, drawing blood.

When everyone reaches the temple (and Zahida's outburst is explained), the group notes the surroundings. A giant temple with no ceiling, and a gigantic tree within. Branches shooting from the open windows, the canopy of gnarled boughs and multiple strains of leaves. The door itself is thick wood that reaches out with twisted branches to grapple Equuarion. Freesia and Zahida both figure out that fire is a good idea, but without oil, they have to expend one of Equuarion's spells to burn it down.

The temple itself is in a state of disrepair, and inhabited only by blights and the Greatwood itself, a terrible combination of multiple different trees twisting and interlocking with one another. Two hundred feet tall and twenty feet thick, the Greatwood has pulsing fruit and branches aplenty.

Thunderclan tells the centaurs that they can run if things go south -- Thunderclan is afraid that Kahina will hold them responsible if any of the centaurs are hurt in the battle. But soon enough, the blights come out in force, and the centaurs fight alongside Thunderclan.

The blights are no problem. But the tree begins moaning. And shifting closer.

The Greatwood has a variety of different behaviors -- as any good boss fight does -- and the players have a good time with this one. The tree is hard to miss, given its size, but there's just so much of it that it looks grim for quite some time. The Greatwood leaks acidic sap in a pool around it, drops exploding fruit around the temple, and picks up a centaur to crush it to death in its branches. Zahida falls unconscious, and the group briefly considers running, until Freesia comes in with an MVP play, blighting the tree for maximum damage and opening the possibility for victory.

The tree begins to wither and die, and is taking down the Temple with it. The floor is collapsing, the walls are falling in. Equuarion, shapeshifted into a thunder dinosaur, uses everything he has to force the tree over, which succeeds thanks to Freesia's spell.

The floor had collapsed, allowing the group to see the heart of the tree, deep below the temple. While the centaurs mourn their fallen friend, and Zahida gathers up the Greatwood's fruits, Equuarion speaks with the tree. The root of its soul.

There is ambiguity about what a curse is, what a soul is, how the hundreds of curses were trapped within this tree, and etc. (Because while people often understand what is happening in fantasy worlds, they frequently don't know why it's happening or how it came to be.) The tree's root soul, however, is clear: It wants to die. Death would send the spirits to... oblivion, perhaps? They are uncertain. But it's what the tree seems to want.

As the tree is preparing to go, they remember a curse from recent years. The curse that belonged to the young prince Ludwig, that terrified and traumatized his family. The curse that was "embraced" by his elder brother Laurence.

The tree is set alight. As it goes, it senses another curse, nearby.

Salty sees the Crimson Bat, She-Who-Walks-Away-Alone, appear on the horizon, in a horrific, devilish form. As the bat approaches, it shapeshifts into the appearance of a beautiful nude bat-winged woman, with a single wand tied to her thigh by red ribbon.

Runaway, Session 6.

Thunderclan split from the undead refugees with the intention of stopping by Orlane to check up on the local politics.

Midway through their journey, as they approached the sleepy village, the party were approached by a band of wandering centaurs, led by Fenn. The group were searching for a fugitive centaur druid named Lennoc, stating that he was to face justice in their hall for unspecified crimes. Thunderclan promised to keep an eye out, and the centaurs were on their way.

On the journey, the players find a box of nails that has been emptied and filled with worms. They are delighted.

In the village of Orlane itself, the news is not good. A quickly growing population coupled with an influx of precious metals from the south means that the price of living has gone up immensely and the people are suffering. And naturally, the suffering people have looked to the master of the town, Daenerys, for assistance. Assistance she cannot provide.

Complicating matters further, a confidant of hers named Dickon is gradually losing faith in her leadership abilities, and is considering supporting the Duke in the south, Julius Brink, if it means that the people will be able to eat.

And complicating matters even further, the druid, Equuarion, is the surrogate son of both of these people (in different ways).

A few tense and emotional conversations end with Equuarion uncertain about the future of his town, frustrated with Dickon, and feeling out of his element when considering the economic and social conflicts of the duchy.

The long and dramatic conversations with Daenerys do reveal something that is worth investigating -- Trees are uprooting themselves in the east and have killed two townspeople within the last week. Daenerys suspects that something unnatural must reside within the abandoned town of Midcopse, or the temple to Freyalise beyond.

During Thunderclan's visit to the Golden Grain Inn, they recruit some help in the form of an orc mercenary and ex-cultist named Zahida. (A new player joined on a whim and has stayed with us for the past two sessions, to our shared delight.)

By sunset, the adventurers have arrived at Midcopse, a tiny village now preposterously overrun with plants. As Equuarion pokes at a bit of leafy overgrowth, the plants stir and begin to shoot thorns and lash out with vines. The skirmish moves from the outside of the village's timber walls to within. Fire makes short work of the plants.

They inspect the well, and find nothing but hundreds of assorted tools and building equipment. Equuarion speaks with a dandelion (He speaks with a dandelion. I fucking love D&D.) and learns of a 'Rotten One', a cursed druid that brought the overgrowth.

Sure enough, a tangle-haired, dirty, and harsh-voiced centaur resides within one of the village's rain-drenched homes. The players ask questions, he responds with philosophy. They ask his name, he gives it without issue. Lennoc, the Rotten One. He fidgets with a wand at his side and pleads with Equuarion to understand. Druid to druid, Lennoc explains his motivations for lashing out at the town. Orlane is industry, and Ludum is gradually turning further and further away from the natural, harmonious way of life. Only a hard reset will fix it. And if that hard reset is not reached, the druidic way of life -- Eq's way of life -- will gradually be rejected and destroyed.

(As I become a more competent GM who is more aware of what I like in games, I have begun to realize that D&D is most fun for me to run when the session is a series of creative, strange, and thought-provoking conversations/fights/solutions-to-problems that arise from the choices of the players.)

Equuarion understands. But it is his home, after all, and he's not going to accept people hurting his home. So the fight begins. The wand turns the fighter, Salty, into a sound. Zahida is trapped within four walls of rock. That sort of lopsided 'we have a numbers advantage' versus 'I thought of everything before you did' fight that I love to run.

Eventually, though, a blight spell hinders Lennoc and he begins to run for it. Equuarion turns into a cheetah and catches him without issue. As darkness falls, the adventurers plan to bring Lennoc to the centaur's Hall of Judgement, and investigate something further.

Runaway, Session 5.

Alt Title: Anti-TPK Magic

The party ended last session dead, wounded, and scattered across Ludum, hoping that perhaps resurrection was possible.

Equuarion Tarkus, afraid and alone, used his survival instincts and remaining spells to find his way to the now-independent town of Thalma, where he reconnected with Sasha Strifeminer. Here, he received a sweet but uninformed letter from the absent Rae of Vindred, and was brought to tears.

Seperated from his family, shell-shocked, and in a trance-like state of action, he had no objective but to warn the undead of Necropolis of what lay below. Summoning giant eagles to carry them, he, Sasha, and Dodge began their journey south.

Chess, the wizard, received an unsettling and horrific delivery early in the morning -- the bloody corpse of his protege, Salty Martine. Cursing the gods, Chess made good on his promise to save the lives of the first member of Thunderclan to fall during their adventures.

Salty, however, discovered something terrifying following her death. During a harrowing conversation with the soul of her ex-captain Weston Haverford, Salty learned that the souls of the departed have not been sent to the Wheel like they are ‘supposed to’. Instead, they have been drawn into Concord and are being harnessed by a gigantic soul relay. Thousands of souls, sucked into this gigantic machine, by none other than Queen Rosaria Deneuve.

Salty was reinvigorated with purpose, spurned her pirate crew, and with her indignant sister in tow, made use of Chess’ teleportation spell to go and warn Necropolis of the threat.

(Teleportation is a bit of a trippy experience.)

Meanwhile, Freesia Flores awoke in the woods, watched over by a baker named Galia. Panicked, giving fake names, Freesia ran to a nearby tree and managed (against the odds) to teleport via plants to a tree near Necropolis.

Here, she crossed paths with an individual that piqued her curiosity. Perhaps the name conjured a memory, or something of the sorts. Vander Coil, a warlord rumored to be unkillable following a wish granted to her. Vander’s immortality has made her jaded and distant over the years, but she still finds time to work as a mercenary and revolutionary.

All roads converge in Necropolis. A tearful reunion ensued.

Thunderclan, now accompanied by their revolutionary allies Les Enfants Terribles, began to plan a mass exodus to get the undead of Necropolis to a safe, and hopefully accepting place. Some time was spent in hospitals, in archives, speaking with Les Enfants about philosophy, souls, and personal demons.

The session ran far too long for me to recap everything, so let’s make a d6 chart.

ROLL 1d6 TO SEE WHAT THUNDERCLAN IS PREPARING TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT

The Crimson Bat is apparently in possession of a ‘Sphere of Annihilation’, which, by their assumptions, is essentially a weapon of mass destruction.

The Duke in the South, Julius Brink [The Ambitious Twink], is expected to respond to Thalma’s recent declaration of independence in some way, perhaps by marching his army north to claim the throne in Hamlet.

Equuarion’s surrogate mother, Daenerys Tarkus, has failed to respond to letters from the baron of Thalma and his allies, encouraging her to join them in declaring independence from the crown and forming a Council of Ludum.

The people of Necropolis are going to have to travel for what could be weeks to the nearest place that even has a chance of accepting them -- and it’s an island populated by mercenaries and cutthroats.

Where is Ezra? Where is Ezra? What’s his fucking game? Why demons? Why dragons?

(This post was inspired by/adapted from a post by bdsmrpg.)

The thief fell down a sewer drain in the party's escape from the cultist’s lair. Coupled with three crossbow bolts in the arm, they need to hide out and recover before their next move. But the cult is not yet defeated, and they are likely on the next step of their master plan. The party gathers in their campground and worries while the thief cleans their wounds and rests their strained muscles.

A night's rest is not going to heal them. And you're not liable to find a cleric in every town. You'll find priests, you'll find faithful, but somebody who can heal with their literal fucking touch? You have to get lucky or do some digging to find that kind of magic.

Here are some rules for non-magical healing. This is for 5e, but I’m sure it could be easily adapted for other d20 systems.

HP RECOVERY

If you rest all day, you recover HP equal to your level. If you don't rest, but avoid strenuous activity, you have to succeed on a DC 10 CON check to recover HP equal to half your level.

MEDICINE

If a character has proficiency in medicine, they can provide medical attention by making a DC 10 medicine check. On a success, they restore HP. If they don't have proficiency in it, the DC will never go below 15 and can go up depending on what they're trying to do (GMs discretion).

A character can benefit from medical attention once per day.

Without the proper tools necessary for whatever procedure the doctor is attempting, they make all Medicine checks at disadvantage.

First Aid: Takes 1 combat action, restores 1d4 HP.

Medical Attention: Takes 10 minutes, restores 2d4 HP.

Hospitalization: Takes a day. Must be done in a sterile and safe location. Restores 4d4+Medicine Bonus+Patient's CON mod.

If you fail your roll, you inflict 1 damage to your patient.

WHY THIS?

I try to bring immersive qualities to the game with voices, music, and simple but evocative descriptions.

RPG characters can experience life-threatening wounds like fire or a slashing wounds. I try to describe them as being painful and real and dangerous in the moment, but they should also be painful and real and dangerous afterwards, when the fight is over and the characters have to recover.

Lost HP means lost time, lost money, and lost opportunities. It means that every time a character is struck in a fight, that's another day they'll need to tend to their wounds, or the possibility that they’ll need to retreat and adventure another day.

So the adventurers faced death last time and used up everything they had in order to even have a chance of surviving.

Good time to take inventory.

Thunderclan: Salty Martine and Freesia Flores killed. Equuarion wounded.

The Angel Egg: Cracked and broken. Whatever else it could have been used for beyond planar teleportation will remain a mystery.

Freesia's Treasure: All of Freesia's pocket cash and non-magical items were disintegrated. Everything magical that she owns was left with her vaporized body in the World Below.

Dodge: Wounded.

"Goldilocks" the Cleric: Lost in the chaos of Thunderclan's escape, in a dungeon populated by a rogue alhoon and two warring religious sects with enough magical mojo to scour Necropolis, and very likely more.

Tulla: Last seen bleeding out and comatose on the floor of the dungeon, being leered at by the alhoon.

Syanna: Magically spent and exhausted by her task bringing Salty's corpse to Hamlet.

The Crimson Bat: Her objective remains unclear, as does the nature of her connection with Ezra. 

Runaway, Session 4. 

(Written in bed at 2:30AM. Forgive me if I miss things or fail at dramatically recapping. I typically leave stuff that isn’t critical to the retelling out of these things. I may re-edit.)

In which Thunderclan loses.

The party descends to the Lair of the Bat.

The Lair of the Bat is dark, grim, and labyrinthine. Word has it that there is a city nearby, called Tallow by the drow. Thunderclan, accompanied by the fighters Dodge and Tulla, and the cleric “Goldilocks”, begin slowly working their way through the dark halls.

The environment tells a story. Vandalized statues of devils, multiple corpses, and bloody halls begin to put together a picture. This place is being fought over, by two religious forces.

A trap is triggered, some inconsequential monsters fall to the adventurers. They finds a sword embedded in one of eleven paintings of a beautiful nude woman. The sword smokes... and talks, breathing heavily and pontificating about fate and destiny. Nobody is amused. They’re mostly freaked out. It’s a talking sword, wouldn’t you be?

In the dark of a corridor, there is a series of rhythmic cracks, smacks, and grunts. A priest in blue beats a crimson cultist to a bloody pulp, then disappears down a hallway when the heroes open the door. 

He turns up later in a library as a bloody corpse, his skull split open and his brains missing.

The adventurers run. They want nothing to do with whatever that was. Equuarion seems to believe it was a recently encountered giant spider, but nobody else is sure. The darkness looms and churns, unending.

The adventurers try to gain some information from some cultists, but let the wrong things slip. The Bat is here, there is a “Philosopher” down here that she wants killed, and the Bat has a sister that has been imprisoned. Salty is too honest, and the cultists grow suspicious and run. 

Down the hallway, Thunderclan finds a naked woman cackling, ankle-deep in blood.

Everyone is scared. 

The friendliest person they meet is a man called Fortanero from Aquilas. His business is confidential, and his temper is prickly... until he’s killed by some wandering monsters and is melted into soul dregs.

Another prickly interaction with a cultist that leaves Thunderclan uncertain. They consider balking and turning around, but they press on. Equuarion turns into a raptor and listens down a long hallway.

And then the ringing, the keening, and the destruction begins.

An alien, unidentifiable voice speaks in Equuarion’s head: “Get. Out. Of. My. Body.”

Everyone but Dodge and “Goldilocks” begins bleeding out of their ears, their brains feeling like they’re bouncing around in their head. They are stunned and unable to move. Frozen, eyes wide, unable to do a thing, they watch as a figure fires a lightning bolt down the hallway, dropping Tulla, Freesia, and Salty to the ground. 

Equuarion breaks free of the spell and tries to tackle the creature to the ground. Dodge, panicking, force-feeds a potion of Freesia’s creation to Salty, who revives Freesia and begins panicking. “We’re getting out of here.”

The creature, inches from Equuarion, screams telepathically. “GET OUT OF MY BODY!”

They run. It’s a blur. The creature follows and psychically stuns them again. This time, everyone is frozen. Salty, Dodge, and Tulla fall.

The creature reaches out a single finger, and the party watches as Freesia turns to dust before their very eyes.

Nothing can be done. Equuarion picks up Salty and Dodge and drags them in retreat. “Goldilocks” runs and is lost in the chaos. As Equuarion flees, the creature moves through the dust that once was Freesia and looms over Tulla’s bloodied figure.

Equuarion reaches the place they began this delve and realizes quickly that Salty is fading. As she goes, she warns Equuarion of Ludum, tells him to find his way to her favorite bar, and tells him she loves him. She passes in his arms.

Equuarion screams, cradling her in his arms. The cleric is nowhere to be found. Dodge is lying unconscious on the floor. The lantern lay smashed somewhere in the path behind them. Everything had gone wrong. Everyone was lost.

Still holding onto her, he looks across the room and mutters an incantation under his breath. He wipes the blood from his eyes and an arcane glow accompanies the arrival of the twisted-root form of Syanna the dryad.

“Take her to Chess.”

Syanna looks deep in Equuarion’s eyes, a hand on his shoulder. She only regrets that she cannot be with him in this moment. She fades, bringing Salty’s body with her.

Equuarion stumbles to Dodge and pulls the Angel Egg from his pack. Grabs Dodge’s skeletal hand and places it on the egg.

Prays to something. Anything.

Something answers.

The party is scattered across the island, and recovery seems impossible. This is the lowest moment the party has ever suffered, but hope still exists as long as people are willing.

(Also, sort of last nights campaign diary. In a way.)

D&D has one aspect of it that I will always love. No matter what flaws I see in an edition or in how I run a game, I will always appreciate one fact above all else, one fact that everyone in the game implicitly understands, because it is a practical and emotional truth of life.

We are better off working together.

If you enter the cave with the cancer bear alone, it jumps you and begins thrashing you to pieces. If you dive into the mysterious dark water, you are snagged by the devil crocodile and are almost helpless. If you stand against the cult’s charismatic leader in single combat, you will be dead in seconds. D&D PCs, for as powerful as they are, need friends.

The lone hero is a nice story. It’s a nice idea. But a lone hero can only fight a few goblins, and even then, god forbid your luck goes bad or you get tackled by, like, six of them.

Your characters must build communities, and work alongside people. They may fall in love. They may be heartbroken. But either way, these connections and communities are necessary to not only survive, but thrive.

The party the group assembled on Sunday for their trip into the Underdark was composed of three additional members. This party is going to go searching for information on the Crimson Bat, a mysterious devil that appears to be working alongside the even-more-mysterious (and currently missing) King Ezra. They are hidden deep in the tunnels below Necropolis, in the infinite dark and hostile World Below.

The newcomers are:

An undead chain-smoking lesbian sentry with a nicknaming habit, an ancient skeleton mercenary fighting on behalf of his community and unjustly brainwashed into accepting the terms of a slave contract given to him decades ago, and a skittish cleric that refuses to be touched or take off his wolfs-head mask.

These people know each other now, and they have to trust one another. They have to be lead, and deal with conflicts. Who knows if the cleric will remain steadfast in his pursuits into the cave? Who knows if the sentry’s fear of death will overtake her adventuring spirit? What if those things come, and what will the players do?

I don’t know what they will do, but the important thing is that they cannot solve it with spells or blades. These are personal problems, conflicts.

We all have things to live for, we all have personal desires. The adventurers may become powerful, gain mighty spells or the ability to take down ten street thugs in a brawl without a scratch.

But, and this is critical not only to the game but to my themes of Ludum, if you do not love one another, if you do not care for one another, and watch out, and work together? You are dead in seconds. We cannot overcome the very truth of our lives, which is that we are better together.

A DM may see romance between PCs and NPCs as a way to just break hearts. They may see friendships formed as a way to spurn heroes into violent action by having their friends kidnapped. But consider how often our hearts are truly broken by our friends around the table, and remember that your friends in real life aren’t weaknesses that only hurt us.

They connect us to a family. They expand our knowledge and understanding. They look out for us. They care about our well-being and our life.

Last session began a new chapter, and took Thunderclan from the cities to the catacombs.

Rae and Emilia stow away on a ship. The adventurers watch as it bobs and tilts away over the foggy horizon, bound for, as Freesia unhelpfully put it, ‘a better place’. The three stood on the docks for a bit following their partings, but then it’s back to business.

Young legends die all the time, after all.

Equaarion, Freesia, and Salty move throughout the distilleries and waterfront, pissing off locals and pushing through smokey bars. A quick meeting with Salty’s sister and crewmate Melanie establish the plan and the prior events -- it seems the strange lightning that took them from Harpy’s Roost in Drownesia shot them to soul relays around the island. From here, they’re going to follow Salty’s contingency plan of going to the nearest port city where they’re not wanted criminals and keeping their eyes open. Salty wants to get to the bottom of this. Melanie takes a long drag on her pipe, “Weird shit happens all the time, baby sister.”

The heroes pay Professor Chess, the dragonborn vitamancer, a visit. He’s dissecting an aumaua and has crystal strewn about his office, a matter he’s willing to throw under a tarp and ignore in favor of examining the magic items the group needs identified. It’s only a matter of time before Chess is making offers for anything they have that’s evron, but the group is fine, they’ll hold on to things for now. Chess is doing fine, but he sighs a bit dejectedly about the state of his marriage (to a revolutionary zombie bartender living a week’s travel away) and his growing anxiety that his pursuits into controversial sciences will put him on the wrong end of a torch-and-pitchforks mob one day soon.

Night is falling soon, and the heroes have to crawl through the darkened streets of the Gate District, a place now torn apart by domestic conflict, gang warfare, and riots in the streets. The splendor of the district when the level 2 heroes first visited it has been replaced with something resembling a gothic maze, populated by pickpockets and burned-out shells of buildings that got on the wrong side of a local guild.

They return to the Fighting Fox, a shambling boxing ring and inn that’s seen better days. But Tuorg, the gnoll behind the counter, is still happy to see them and offers them a room for a fair price. In the morning, Salty revisits Chess, and they swap brief, numb statements of dissatisfaction and loneliness. Chess asks Salty to bring Set, his husband, a gift.

After the purchase of a coach -- only luxury for the halfling -- the crew begin a journey to the undead city of Necropolis, populated by the once-army of a nasty necromancer, who miraculously had their souls restored to their now-decrepit bodies. The city resides in the crypt that once served as their resting place.

The adventurers are going to follow up what they heard about the Crimson Bat, a demon princess possibly associated with the missing King Ezra. The Crimson Bat, they’ve heard, could pose a serious threat to Necropolis, a place populated generally by good people, despite their undead nature.

Along the trip, the crew find a pool of rainwater surrounded by sleeping animals. As Equaarion and Freesia approach it, they each seem to hear something within their minds. Neither of them mention it. Salty isn’t bothered.

Freesia is bothered by the undead within Necropolis, but not so much that Set’s sarcastic barkeep with weird hidden depths act can’t appeal to her a little bit. The adventurers have news and questions: A while ago we heard that there may or may not be a demon bat worthy of worshipping directly beneath you and your friends’ home. Maybe we could take a look in the archives and see what we can find?

After a couple hours of book-learning and tying red yarn between documents, the adventurers put some things together and have an idea of something. A Duke of Hell named Eligos once rode on a giant devil-bat. But something happened that caused them to separate. If news of the bat demon is correct, and they are beneath the city, they find a map that could lead them to such a location, an underground fort beneath the city. Could this be the Crimson Bat? Worth checking out.

Set tells them to bring along Dodge, one of the town’s guards. Dodge is a skeleton that was abused and brainwashed in his living years to serve as a mercenary for whomever carries his contract. Set doesn’t like the idea that he’s in possession of the contract, but he’d rather have Dodge work with people who want to break him free of his conditioning rather than someone who will purely abuse it.

Freesia and the gang are sympathetic and slightly disturbed, but overall treat the situation with a seriousness that Set appreciates.

The group shops for some potions (the alchemist Siobhan is thrilled by Salty’s ‘pet’ familiar) and some climbing supplies and magic items (the inconsistently accented shopkeeper is thrilled to accept a preposterous trade balanced in his favor).

The next trick is to simply dive into the catacombs, and beneath, consulting the map the group dug up in the archives. Freesia uses some dancing lights to help guide the party deeper. Eventually they reach something secret and unknown, a tiny crevice purportedly leading to an unexplored region. As Dodge -- skeletal as he is, squeezes into the crevice, the group hears sounds behind them. The shuffling and skittering of footsteps on the ancient stones of the catacombs. Freesia sends lights down the hall and sees two humanoid figures duck into a corridor.

Salty goes through next -- she takes the longest, as the largest party member to pass through -- Salty sweats as she struggles to press through the tiny space, not helped by a claustrophobia problem. (“I do not like being underground.”) The scuffling continues. Freesia and Equaarion watch two humanoid figures with giant, canine-like heads dash between hallways. They 

Freesia squeezes into the crevice next. Equaarion gives a final look to the darkness, then melds through the stone to the other end. (“New trick?” “Yeah.”)

The group inspects the cavern they’re in now -- large and spacious, enough to accompany a keep late in the stages of destruction. The walls are almost unrecognizable, and the keep could barely function as a home, but they do spot a nearby tent.

Equaarion shifts into a bobcat and moves to explore silently. He digs through the campsite, finding food and simple supplies, then finds a nearby dwarven corpse -- a few days dead. Overturned backpack. He delves deeper into the keep and begins to hear voices.

A deep voice complains about the taste of zombie meat, and a shrill voice apologizes for the state of their diet. Two corpulent (“Corpulent?” “Yeah, it means like… fat.”) ogres sit and poke at a slow-burning campfire, eventually breaking the silence to tell the other they love them. They mention, offhand, the ‘people below’.

Equaarion returns to the group and suggests that the gay ogres are probably hungry, and that he’s interested in who could be living in this place. He’s also a little concerned about the ogres. (Their one previous ogre experience had them being hit by a tree branch.)

Salty points out that they should see if Dodge can get them to cooperate, as he doesn’t really have any meat on his bones. Hilariously, this is convincing to Dodge and he heads to speak with the ogres. 

As the group waits for him, Freesia spots something in the darkness -- a large feline appears atop the keep ruins. The figure watches, then ducks behind cover. The three keep their eyes open and see nothing but another flicker of movement. Then nothing. Something, or possibly multiple things, are watching.

Dodge returns from the keep. The ogres will speak with them. Perhaps there’s some helpful conversation to have.

The trio of adventurers have been torn apart and stand confused in Tir Dyffryn. Meanwhile, a storm rages in Drownesia, and a pirate crew boards Harpy’s Roost.

The captain of Harpy’s Roost, Salty Martine Bellamy, aka The Jewel-Eyed Jezebel, struggles to steady her ship against the storm and fend off the attackers. The captain of the opposing ship takes pot shots at Salty as she tears through the crowd, her false jewel of an eye glinting in the lightning.

As the pirate’s ship is destroyed by the waves, and the Harpy’s Roost’s crew nearly falls into the ocean, the lightning crackles with green light, and the souls of everyone aboard are torn from their bodies and drawn to the sky -- the effect of a soul relay only ever built by the Wengwith people.

She falls in Tir Dyffryn, in between the insistently-sane Freesia and the devoted Equaarion. Salty and Equaarion have been reunited after Salty’s departure to piracy (study abroad IRL). Their tearful and excited reunion is cut short and colored by the reality of the situation. Rae is gone, (Salty: ”Gone? Is she dead? I can deal with dead, just say it.”) and Equaarion wants to go after her.

Some delightful roleplaying, screaming, arguing, and a good-cop routine eventually convince Freesia to accompany them into the portal.

In the realm of Concord, where the angels reside, Rae is finally reunited with her long-lost girlfriend, the Hallow Knight Emilia. Emilia tells them the pressing matters: The Knights travelled to this plane willingly on the advice of Queen Rosaria. Rosaria believed that Concord would lead them to the Orphaner, the creator of Yalda. Meanwhile, the King Ezra had been consorting with demons and dragons to make Ludum a warlike empire.

Rosaria used the Angel Egg and Tir Dyffryn’s soul relay to deliver the knights to Concord, but didn’t make the trip herself. Emilia believes that the Queen trapped the Hallow Knights there. Why, she doesn’t know.

But the worst part is this. One of the Hallow Knight’s own has turned on them and returned to slaughter them one by one -- Sir Kaathe, known for working alongside the ambitious duke in the south Julius Brink.

The adventurers follow Emilia to Amity Cathedral. Compared to the Deep, Concord is bright, windy, and serene. Angels float through the sky. But the threats here are secretive and deceptive. They hide, they attempt to trick the players, they travel with doves and float in church pews. A mimic attempts to eat the druid. They find a lone Hallow Knight named Halflight hiding in the chapel.

Concord is not as directly hostile as the Deep, but it always hides its threats.

The party rushes into the undercroft and find the crypts. They are only fooled by the teleport traps once. 

They are intrigued by the three doors in the room that lead to larger tombs. A pristine one, untouched, clean, white. For Prince Ludwig Deneuve, first of his name. No body within.

The other tomb is dark, destroyed. The tiles are cracked, covered in cobwebs and spiders. The coffin is surrounded by dead vines and roots growing up the sides. As they approach, a veiled ghost appears, flung over the coffin, in tears. She vanishes.

They slide the lid off, and spiders run up their arms and into their armor, over their faces. The coffin reads: For King Ezra Deneuve, last of his line.

The final tomb is larger than all of them. Dancing lights illuminate the place. They can’t manage to get the lid off of the final coffin -- Rosaria’s. (No coffin for Prince Laurence, they note.)

After some searching, pulling on a torch sconce opens a secret door. As the door begins to open and the party divides, a demon attempts to split the party by closing the secret door on them, but Salty holds it open. The demon hisses at the party and as the party moves to engage it, a sword strikes the ground. Kaathe. (”You picked the wrong side in this war, Emilia.”)

The fight rages in the tomb. Blood colors the stone floor, swords glint in the remnants of light. Kaathe is surrounded, summons demons, swears his fealty to King Ezra, calls Rosaria a traitor, and is eventually killed by Salty. 

Kaathe falls back, stumbles, and a single red dragon wing shoots from his right shoulder. His left arm twists, grows, and malforms into a giant reptilian arm the size of his body. His teeth break out from his cheek and a single coiled horn shoots from his head. Red scales.

“This is the power Rosaria tried to hold back. But it’s a new world now, a new Ludum.”

Kaathe the Crossbreed sputters fire through the room. His transformation is painful. He wails and moans as he continues to fight. 

The demon dominates Rae, and forces her to kill Emilia, her lover.

The fight goes worse and worse. Halflight is cut down by Kaathe’s claws. Salty falls. Rae falls. Emilia falls. The lovers are in tears defending each other despite all the pain. Kaathe is fading, falling, and falls to Salty Martine’s sword.

By the time they reach Rae, the life has left her body. She lies in a pool of blood, cut to pieces by claws and swords. Emilia’s face is horribly disfigured.

The players cry. The characters pull out the scroll of reincarnate that the druid found months ago in real time and game time. The ritual is beautiful, teary, and overwhelmingly awesome.

Rae sees the Wheel, the many dead that have crossed her or traveled with her. She has the choice of whether to be reborn naturally or via the spell.

The spell summons the remnants of life in the tomb to her, all the insects and spiders and fungi. The roots and dead leaves gather and give her life again, in a new half-elven body. 

Bleeding, crying, and cursed, Thunderclan rose up in Vindred’s Edge, by the stoney gulch containing the hidden Wengwith ruin of Tir Dyffryn. But they were in no position to dive in. Everyone was bloodied, out of spells, and bleeding in a forest is a surefire way to draw out predators. 

Uncertain of their survival chances if they were to walk to the nearest village, Equaarion invoked his favor with the dryad Syanna. A single tree twisted and revealed a figure that resided within it.

Syanna, satisfied with Equaarion’s further defense of the forest, and bemused by the presence of the fairy-aligned Freesia, allowed them to pass with her to the nearest village, where they determined how they would recover (slowly) and plan their investigation into Tir Dyffryn.

Equaarion shifted into a bird and travelled to the nearest apothecary outside Hamlet, where he purchased 10 healing potions. Meanwhile, Rae and Freesia were being taken in by a visitor familiar with Equaarion, healing themselves gradually.

Meanwhile, Freesia had a strange dream that she tells nobody about.

By the time they’d finished this arduous process, they returned to Tir Dyffryn, found the crystal hatch that led to this mysterious location, and delved within, avoiding one of the ancient Wengwith’s defensive constructs.

But the three of them piling into the dungeon all at once revealed a hazard, the stairs were extremely old and steep. Equaarion and Freesia went slipping into the darkness, battered by the narrow fall down and using magic items and dancing lights to avoid the darkness.

Finally, they reached the bottom of the descent and found a door made of blue-green crystal. The crystal is evron, the Wengwith word for star. A precious substance, but too volatile to truly use. Vitamancers believe that souls can reside within these crystal veins.

The door has a single note on it. The workshop is long abandoned. Scavengers not wanted here.

Opening the door revealed a large cave with a subterannean river running through it. Crossing the cave is a bridge that leads to another crystal door, and a glowing building across the way. Tir Dyffryn.

The building, four stories high, has a voice atop it. It’s Hallow Knight Sol, and he knows the hunter Rae, telling her to depart and leave some secrets alone.

But she doesn’t and instead draws her bow, shoots out her wings, and flies up to him, where she encounters an armored knight behind barred windows, riding a behir steed (a behir is a big lizard boy).

The behir breathes a shocking breath and damages Rae. Sol ducks back into the building. Rae forces the front door to the building open, intending to fly after and hunt him down and she finds...

A library. Full of terrified gnomes.

The gnomes have been here for generations, serving as curators of the Wengwith knowledge, astronomy, and mathematics work. They’re pretty kind, don’t speak Common, and know next to nothing about the world above. They don’t even know that this place is called Ludum.

The heroes, antsy but not wanting to charge into something they don’t understand, flip through some books, ask some gnomes questions, and move on. More knights than Sol have been through, the gnomes say, but they weren’t disruptive and had nothing but pure aims.

Oh, also the place is probably haunted.

The druid befriends a crystal-eating skuldr, a cave mammal with poor eyesight but excellent hearing, and they move on further, acquiring a bunch of ancient currency and a sickle built of copper and evron.

They go up the stairs, closer to Sol, and find machine rooms, full of largely intact Wengwith machinery, but for two cords that are split apart and frayed at the edges. The machines hum erratically.

In some of the rooms on this floor are completely still evron statues. They stand on small raised platforms, completely still.

The heroes are moving through the rooms when a phantom sorcerer appears. She is dressed in clothes from another time and tells them to depart. When they are about to depart upstairs, further into the ruin, she magically locks the door up. The heroes ask about the cords, and what they do. She screams at them to not touch the wires. (They touch the wires.)

The evron animats rise off the walls and begin to beat the fuck out of Thunderclan. Spells begin to fly, but the evron reacts to the magic. Violently. The first evron surge sends everybody prone. The second sends Rae to the Ethereal Plane. The third causes Equaarion to accidentally shoot off a Goodberry spell. (”I sneezed.”) The fourth sets the evron on fire.

The wires shock Equaarion when he touches them. Freesia uses her mage hand to connect some of them, and Equaarion summons some apes to connect the others. The room surges with magical energy, but the phantom has escaped through the walls by now.

Eventually Equaarion polymorphs into a red dragon wyrmling, which is just half the battle right there. Fourth level spells, man. The rest of the fight involved the heroes making use of the evron animats being too big to walk through doorways to get them through.

The phantom, however, is nowhere to be seen.

They press on and encounter Sol on the top floor, in a large room with a gigantic machine at the center. A huge evron sculpture raised above the ground by huge thick chains.

One of the Wengwith’s ancient and mysterious machines, used for some purpose. Harnessing the soul? Observing the heavens? It’s too alien to tell at a glance.

It doesn’t have to be like this. They all know that. It’s Rae’s fight, the others can leave if they want. 

The knights left willingly, says Sol. He was just here to guard the egg. They’re closer than ever to reaching the Orphaner, the creator of this world. 

Sol tells them that Ezra betrayed his family by turning to demons and dragons. Meanwhile, Rosaria stayed true and continued to seek the divine. The knights followed, and they’ve all escaped to Concord to seek the Orphaner.

The heroes are confused but furious. Rae especially. To think that a family squabble between royalty started this, and that all the chaos could have been preventable? That Emilia left of her own accord?

(By now the heroes know that there’s probably not a single noble in Ludum that would turn to the weak and downtrod before their own interests.)

But talk is cheap. Rae wants the egg, she wants to see Emilia, she doesn’t care what it takes.

Which is, and I’m sure Rae realizes this, super morally debatable. But hey, isn’t all love morally corrupt? (Don’t think too hard about this.)

The heroes chug potions for half of the battle, as the Behir and Sol are too nasty of a combo. Smites, lightning, and worse accompany the entire fight. And so does the phantom, who returns to dominate, banish, and polymorph Equaarion.

Sol takes down Rae, then stablizes her with his innate healing. He’s duty-bound to defend the egg, but he’s not going to kill her for no reason.

Then Freesia casts blight. Sol’s veins turn black, his skin pales and cracks, and he falls dead.

Rae, blinded (long story) and bleeding, grabs the egg and holds on to it for dear life. The phantom fails to kill the heroes and escapes.

Rae’s eyesight returns, Freesia stabilizes Sol, and Equaarion crushes the behir underfoot.

They debate, and Rae touches the egg to the machine. A white portal opens, wind pulling the adventurers toward it. They are struck by it, from deep within their souls. Freesia’s life flashes before her eyes, her family, her pact, her life before, her childhood, her birth, her eventual death.

The portal begins to pull them in. They’re uncertain, confused. But they don’t really have time to make decisions. Rae needs to see Emilia again.

She enters the portal, and goes to the realm of Concord, where the angels reside.

Freesia, not about to be sucked into another alternate dimension, rushes downstairs to break one of the machines. The portal remains, stabilized.

Some house rules I want to implement in the game soon. As soon as this arc ends I’m going to introduce all of the following. I understand that not all the players will like them, but this is what I feel I want to run.

Easy Removals:

No cantrips except for Warlocks.

No sorcerers (play a wizard)

No feats

No short rest healing

Changes:

Group initiative (Each side rolls a d6, higher goes first. Reroll ties.)

Starting at 5th level, fighters add their natural d20 to-hit roll to their attack's damage.

Non-magical Paladins and Rangers (not going to implement this as long as we have a ranger in the party, as I'm not going to demand that she rebuild a whole character.)

Concentration requires literal concentration on a spell. Things that break your focus risk losing concentration.

8-hour rests restore HP equal to the character's level.

Opportunity Attacks come whenever you’re not focusing on combat (casting a spell, rifling through a bag, etc.)

Unlimited Opportunity Attacks.

Death and Dismemberment:

No death saves. Hit 0 HP and you're knocked out. Any more damage kills you. If you're not brought up by the time the combat ends, roll a d6;

1 - Simply unconscious.

2 - Dizzy - Disadvantage on all rolls d4 hours.

3 - Fracture - STR, DEX, or CON are reduced by 2 for d4 weeks.

4 - Crippled - STR or DEX are reduced by 2 for d4 months.

5 - Disfigured/Dismembered - Roll CON check. 1-9 lose a limb of the GMs choosing, 10-19 suffer a disfigurement that reduces your CHA by 4. 20+ suffer an awesome disfigurement that raises your CHA by 4 to a max of 20.