#devil's dragons

Doodle by @lukasbestgirl

As a bard surely Ura is a good kisser, right?

Right?

Look, she's trying real hard, man. She's barely only just started making friends, and now she gotta deal with deeper feelings? It took a lot of nerve just to give Peppa a quick little peck before she hastily left the room!

Hopefully she'll survive the trip to Avernus so they can see each other again. ;w;

Fullbody commission by @erupan

I can't help but sometimes imagine Valor calming down Ura like Lilo calms down Stitch. Throw a lei around that bitch and watch them melt into a puddle.

Erupan did such a wonderful job on this piece! Please, please check out her art! And absolutely consider commissioning her. I know I'll be ordering art from her again in the future! She did such a lovely job at drawing our girls. <3

What happens when a kobold that is very guarded but deeply craves affection has a familiar that knows all of her deepest desires, can’t be seen, and has a mind of its own? Well, during the holidays that kobold might just find herself under the mistletoe!

Comic by Sylphy264

Valor, our party's druid, made flower crowns for most of the party while they were out at a tavern one night. Since a lot was going on, including a performance from Ura, Val forgot one crown in particular. The following day, it dawned on her that she'd forgotten, so she made one to pass off to Ura as they exchanged watch shifts that night.

It took a bit, including a brief tasting, but while she was on watch duty, Ura managed to figure out the purpose of the weird ring of plants. She'll never let anyone catch her choosing to wear it, but it is now a cherished item as one of the few gifts she's ever received!

Pen, Valor’s player, described the flower crown as being made of rosemary, dandelions, two orange gladiolus, and a branch of bay leaves tucked in. Valor didn't say it, but she absolutely picked the rosemary and bay as a protective ward.

Comic by Sylph264

Fairly early on in our Descent into Avernus campaign, Ura scammed a scammer with a prosthetic arm that would vanish in two hours. Creation Bard fun things. As they left, our cleric, Ishmael, asked how she managed to make the arm appear. This was the first time she had used the Performance of Creation feature around the party, so to them this looked like a legit deal.

During the session, Ura offhandly responded with; "Uh, well. Sometimes... you really wish for something. Then it appears... and... disappears two hours later!" while speeding up to make sure she wasn't heard by the scammed NPC.

I've always liked to think of the first time Ura has used any particular magic as something innate since she isn't classically trained in magic. In particular, I like to think of it as her magic reacting to her desire at the time, and from there she learns how to actively choose to use her magic over time.

As such, her extremely simple explanation of a class feature brought about an idea for a comic that could dip into the first time she ever used Performance of Creation! Technically first I was going to write a short story about it, but I'm lazy and love comic commissions.

So yeah. Little comic where small copperless streetrat bean Ura sees some meat pies in a window and after some time pining over them finds that suddenly there is one beside her! It's delicious, and for the first time in who knows how long she's actually full! Except her magic can't create permanent objects, so before she has time to fully digest it leaves her with an empty aching stomach.

All this brought to you by boredom at work;

A good while back, our Devil’s Dragons attended a party in order to snoop around for information. I couldn't help but get one particular moment from that session drawn up; Ura pretending to be her aunt's daughter. This was actually intended as a much sillier commission with Sulyassa just being drawn from the hip down and Ura peeking out from behind her tail, but Earth couldn't help herself and went ham. I love it so much. <3

Be sure to check out Earthsong9405's if you want to see some more bomb art! And if you're interested at all in seeing a little drabble I wrote to go alongside this piece that gives more insight into Ura's thoughts at the time that'll be down below!

Small claws clicked softly against the stone walkways, stopping only for a second or two at a time whenever Ura took a glance to ensure she took everyone down the right paths. It felt wrong, openly walking the streets of the upper city dressed to the nines. She could feel the gazes of every person they passed linger on all of them uncomfortably long and with every passing moment the kobold was feeling further and further from her element. It wasn't like they needed to hide, nor would they have been likely to do a great job at that with so many large dragonborn among them. She wanted to hide though. Wanted to not be seen.

Maybe it was the outfit. She shouldn't have left the design up to Peppa. Should've specified that she needed deep pockets, secure pockets that couldn't so easily be dipped into by an upset pirate. And she needed sleeves. Sleeves for hiding small movements of the hand, large enough for her companion to scurry about in.

Ura didn't want to blame Peppa for how… off she felt though. She could have specified, so it was her own fault. And the clothes were wonderfully fitted too. She couldn't recall ever having anything specifically tailored to fit her. Couldn't even imagine she'd be able to afford tailoring, and yet there she was walking in very nice clothes. And there was at least enough room in the cravat for Snax to burrow into. The clothes she could… probably get used to, so maybe it was something else.

Maybe it was the mere thought of the party, even if they were just going there to investigate. She wasn't shabby at putting up a front, but she also really hadn't interacted extensively with folk from the upper city, so could she keep up the charade of being there to have a good time while actively gathering information? And if one of the others began to flub it all would she be able to cover for them without fail? And what if they ran into trouble that broke out into a fight? None of them had brought weapons, aside from Ishmael’s staff that could be passed off as a walking stick.

The thoughts continued to dangerously spiral until Ura slowed to a stop in front of a three story manor surrounded by greenery that would put even other houses in the areas to shame. Pulling herself from her thoughts, Ura tucked the map away and took a few steps off to the side before turning back to the others.

"We uh, we're here." Her words came out with a small amount of uncertainty, having never been there before. She was decent at reading a map and getting around though, and it definitely had a perfumed air about it as the men at the Helm and Cloak had implied.

Apprehension seemed to loom in the air as everyone stood there and took in the building. After what felt like several minutes but was likely mere seconds, Sulyassa finally took the initiative to reach for the door. Her hand would not touch the wood though as it gently swung open before her, one of the servants briefly greeting them with a waving bow that offered for them to step within. All eyes quickly drew to the front door as Sulyassa took the first uncertain stride through the entryway.

There were only a handful of people in the foyer, but that was all it took to make Ura's skin crawl and her heart hitch as she quickly followed the towering Dragonborn in. Without realizing at first, she found herself drawing much closer to Sulyassa than before. Only when her claws came to rest against the scales of a thick tail did she realize what she was doing. The realization came with a brief moment of hesitation. What was she doing? Using the larger woman's imposing stature to hide her own presence wasn't really unexpected. The close contact though? Nah, if she was going to conceal her presence she'd normally prefer to be fully off the radar.

It must have been all the talk about family. Ura thought she'd managed to work through all her feelings. Thought she'd keep herself steeled in case somehow it was all a lie in the end. And yet now she found herself seeking the calm that came from huddling close to her aunt.

After taking a small breath the kobold - no, the young dragonborn - pressed herself closer to her aunt, though making sure to slowly peek around just enough to be seen for a fleeting moment. Right. Nothing had changed. Just an old tactic; pretend to be a kid and let everyone underestimate her. Kids should be seen, not heard, and she could work with that. Easy way to snoop and gather information. Only everything had changed. It wasn't exactly pretend anymore to an extent, and now she was actually relying on someone else to go along with her charade. Could she rely on Sulyassa to run with it?

I don't tend to draw. I'm far too lazy to put in the effort required to make anything decent and improve my art. But sometimes there's an image in my head that I just can't get out, and when I have the funds for it, the answer is to commission a wonderful artist and have them bring it to life.

I do not have those funds right now.

But I can't stop thinking about my dumb little lizard that is more used to talking to a pet mouse and an invisible friend than she is talking to literally anyone now having horses she can chat with. The party is on a trek to Candlekeep that will take them 5 days. They were given a cart and two horses, and after being attacked on the road they now have TWO carts and four horses.

So you can bet during the long travels she's spending a fair amount of time just. Chilling on the back of one of the horses and talking with them. Doesn't even have to worry about wasting spell slots that would be valuable if they get attacked again because she can ritual cast Speak with Animals.

Things have gotten really rough for our D&D party. Feels like we could always lose someone within a single breath. Even still, my little gremlin is starting to accept that she actually has friends now (that aren't a mouse and a figment of her imagination given life). She struggled with the fact that every kept referring to each other as friends. They've known each other for a handful of days and were only a group thanks to common employment.

But then she almost lost each and every single one of them. They got split up and things were bad. Ura made it into the room just in time to see Peppa’s life nearly extinguished before her eyes. The other kobold just barely made it out via polymorphing into a bird and getting out the window. Then she had to try to find the other three that had escaped out the back door.

Once again she was just in time to see everything going wrong. Ishmael, their cleric, had gotten further split from the party and was only alive thanks to a friend coming to his aid. And still she watched as he fell to the cultist twice and his friend also almost succumbed before they could take out the assailant.

By the time they had Ishmael on his feet and could continue the search for the rest of the party things looked grim. They found Valor, their druid, but she was unconscious, bloodied and barely stable. Daeva, their paladin was nowhere to be found. They did eventually manage to find her, and eventually they met back up with Peppa as well.

The realization that she let herself get close enough to people again that it hurt as much as it did almost losing them came like an arrow to the heart. Ura had to admit that she did in fact have friends.

And if she was going to hurt herself by having friends she might as well at least enjoy it while it lasted. She sheepishly asked everyone if they wanted to have a single night out at a tavern and everyone agreed.

So here we have Ura and our beloved NPC Peppa! Peppa did not hold her alcohol well at all and proceeded to cling to the nearest person. Ura 110% is not yet at the point that she would admit it, but she is very touch starved and very much enjoyed Peppa being clingy while they were drunk even if she kept trying to push her away to maintain appearances. But Peppa gives such wonderful warm hugs and if they both stay alive long enough she might just be able to get Ura to admit just how much she likes them.