#duegar

A bust render... for myself!

Sergeant Watson of the Night's Watch!

She’s a spores Druid who was raised by myconids or something so I feel like she deserves whimsy and hair dye at least

💚 Tav x Tav Commission for @n0v4hertz 💚

omg its been so long... anyways, dnd art i made of my lovely children (oldest to most recent)

I should probably post some fandom shit to remind people I’m not dead 👹

This is my Duegar monk Avanchenzel-Din. They are who I want to be when I grow up. They would be aro-ace if not for the fact that I accidentally fell in love with Gale 🥸

The Company is summoned to the Aelmerith estate to assist in an urgent matter for the tinker Derelinki. Responding to the call are Bastard, Drex, Skolvir, and a new member, the human witch going by the name of Bert. The lady welcomes them, and offers refreshments, including a sip of her wine. Bastard and Drex decline; Skolvir is wary, but wants to show good manners, so he only pretends to sip, with the Lady amused at his antics; Bert would not turn down free wine, and a once in a lifetime opportunity, so takes a sip… which earns her a devilish tail.

Derelinki arrives all flustered, and after a bit of encouragement, calms down enough to be able to explain the situation: some unknown intruder broke into his lab. He tells the story of his past, researching and experimenting with clockworks devices and automatons, when he was contracted by a benefactor to research and produce automaton soldiers based on technology of the old empire, with a supply of technical documents and a stash of imperial relics.

He had gleefully agreed to the offer, and dove into his work. That is until he realized that making an army of obedient soldiers, who would neither question the orders given, nor be swayed from their one and only master was a recipe for disaster, so he shut down his lab, and went into hiding. Over thirty years had gone by with nothing to cause worry, until an alarm was triggered, alerting him to the intrusion. There are terrible devices in there that should not escape, or fall into the wrong hands. What is particularly worrying to him is that it should not have been possible to enter the premise, which are not accessible to the outside, and require a special transportation device to reach.

The team agrees, and gets ready to their mission: assess the lab to determine what was accessed and if anything dangerous was taken; eject the intruder while preventing them from taking dangerous devices with them; and if it can be done safely, recover two containers, and an automaton he had to leave behind when he fled. To assist them in their tasks, he provides them with three items: a pair of goggles which, when activated, can see the color coding of a device to determine it’s threat level; a control rod that can be used to activate or deactivate the devices, with the caveat that while the green label are his creations and should react to it’s effect, the yellow one are less stable, and the red are dangerous, essentially imperial automatons over which control is slim; and a sphere covered with glyphs, which can be used to activate the transportation device.

They are led to the basement of the villa, to The Cage, a massive hemispherical frame, the inside of it being covered with glyphs. Activating the device, a brief flash of light results in complete darkness. Lighting a torch, the find themselves on the landing platform at the end of a long and wide hall as big as the warehouse they were in recently. A quick peek with the goggles tells them that nothing dangerous is afoot, so they begin their investigation.

Following the disturbed dust, the first door has been forced open, and the room rummaged through, tho nothing seems to have been taken; it looks like the intruder had no interest in mechanical prosthetic. Across the hall, another room forced open saw the visit of the intruder, but nothing was taken, or even touched. The main room contains various humanoid automatons in various states of assembly, but a secondary room, whose door was also opened contains several automatons, seemingly fully assembled; as the torchlight lands on the farthest one, it stirs awake. Unlike it’s brethren, this one is female presenting, and is draped with a rough cloth serving as a dress. It tells them that her name is Josa, and she really wants to leave this place; they agree, but tell her to stand by, as the facility might be dangerous.

Making their way down the hall, checking the doors for signs of entry, Bastard and Skolvir sneak forward to try and catch the intruder unaware. Unbeknownst to them, a security automaton is activated, and engages Bert and Drex. Bert attempts to fling a fire bolt at the guard, misses, sending the missile like a flare down to the large room where the intruder is now aware of their presence. The team makes quick work of the guard, and surprise no longer on their side, rush to the room, as the screeching noise of metal grating on metal, followed by a loud boom is heard.

Worried that this may well be the door that the gnome told them should never be opened, they see a female dwarf standing in front of the open door, but a second one is still closed shut further down. The opening is massive, thirty feet wide and twenty feet tall. The dwarf turns to them, looks at Bastard and in deep speech says: “Reshka zerki narmarka, droogi?” More baffled than anything, as none of them speak her language, Bastard decides to charge at her, while invoking bells of doom on her. Struck by the mental attack, she lets out a mouthful of expletives, and calls for his head. Two other dwarves suddenly flank her, and grow to the size of ogres.

As the battle engages, a combat automaton is activated, which also attacks the group, splitting their attention in two. With their attention divided, Bastard only has to face one of the giant guards, but failing to find cover sees him struck once , with a nasty injury. Moments later, a second blow brings him to the brink of death. In a heroic impulse, Bert the witch, in her first real battle, dives into the thick of it, putting her life on the line to keep Bastard alive.

Drex calls out “crowd control!” and throws a stink bag at the dwarves, causing one of flee the area, as the female calls out “droogi” again at Bastard, disappearing in a flash of light. Her parting words: “wait until dad hears of this!”

With one giant out of combat, and bastard crawling away for his life, Drex and Skolvir finish off the automaton. Skolvir engages the one giant left in battle, while Drex pursues the fleeing one, followed by Bert. A two-on-one takes place as Drex and Bastard catch up with, and engage the fleeing giant, whom they subdue, with Bastard delivering a theatrical finishing blow.

Skolvir does short work of the last dwarf, as yet another combat automaton activates. That battle is cut short by Bert, who had grabbed the goggles and control rod from Bastard, and returned to successfully deactivate the soldier in the nick of time. The battle now over, the team finish up their mission, activating Rimalt, the automaton that Derelinki had requested they bring back, along with the two cases. With everything that they has seen and encountered, they were fiercely curious about what they’d find behind the locked doors, but Skolvir convinced Bastard that it was wiser to just finish the job, it was more than enough excitement for one day.

Bringing the cases and the two automatons along, they successfully activated the device, and returned to the estate. Recounting their adventure, Derelinki suggests that the dwarves probably had a device similar to his to access the facility, but it didn’t explain why they were there, what they were after, or even how they know about the place at all. He reveal to them that the two cases contain his specialist tools to make automatons and clockwork; he also shows them that Rimalt, the other female presenting sentient automaton, it’s face sporting a pair of lenses like glasses, has a cavity in it’s body constructed using exotic geometry that holds the gnome’s entire library of technical documents and research papers. He will now be able to start making automatons again, and produce clockwork devices, as well as prosthetics.

Unlike her more docile sibling Rimalt, Josa absolutely refuses to stay with Derelinki, giving him an earful for abandoning them, leaving them all alone for all these years. She decides to join the group, because unlike him, they didn’t leave her behind.

Josa decides to make the most of her new found freedom, and take full advantage of her sleepless existence. She joins the Company, where during the day she serves as hostess, while at night, she joins her new friend Alandria in her research lab at the mushroom farm. Lady Aelmerith keeps Derelinki on a  tight leash, occupying him with the design and fitting of prosthetic limbs for the wards of one of her charities, while making plans to secure the contents of the facility against further intrusions.