Thug Muggers in the City 4/23/23
Table Talk:
I spoke with Brooke, and we agreed to a deal for her armor. Since i didn’t have anything prepared last time, i am giving her a slightly higher item at a discount, but in return, she will have negative money (40 Gold) for a while. Her new armor is *drum roll* Glamoured Studded Leather. So she will be able to change its appearance using a command word.
That led us into a discussion about Magic Items, since we are leveling to a point where they will be more common. Several Magic Items have features, actions, or attributes that are activated by a command word. But the rules to command words are a bit unclear. We decided to allow multiple command words for multiple actions/attributes, BUT each one takes time to ‘program’. Basically a character can spend a rest (like attunement) setting up a new command word, and then it can be used freely.
Just a reminder for Ashley that Sorin has Sunlight Sensitivity as part of taking half Drow in his back story. So while we’re up here in daylight, he has disadvantage on Attack Rolls and Perception checks (basically anything with his eyes).
As mentioned last week, i am trying to build notes to make a little Compendium of Nibiru for myself. So, i will be granting bonuses/inspiration for anyone who helps me comb back through all the old summaries to find lore/names/places/prices/etc.
A reminder on Inspiration (and yes, it is transferable):
“If you have inspiration, you can expend it when you make an attack roll, saving throw, or ability check. Spending your inspiration gives you advantage on that roll. Additionally, if you have inspiration, you can reward another player for good roleplaying, clever thinking, or simply doing something exciting in the game. When another player character does something that really contributes to the story in a fun and interesting way, you can give up your inspiration to give that character inspiration.” - Players Handbook, Page 126
Also a reminder on the ‘Help’ action in and out of combat:
“You can lend your aid to another creature in the completion of a task. When you take the Help action, the creature you aid gains advantage on the next ability check it makes to perform the task you are helping with, provided that it makes the check before the start of your next turn. Alternatively, you can aid a friendly creature in attacking a creature within 5 feet of you. You feint, distract the target, or in some other way team up to make your ally’s attack more effective. If your ally attacks the target before your next turn, the first attack roll is made with advantage.” - Players Handbook, Page 192
Zoë: You sanguine about the kind of reception we're up to receive on an Alliance ship, Cap?
Mal: Absolutely. What's "sanguine" mean?
Zoë: "Sanguine." Hopeful. Plus, point of interest, it also means "bloody."
Mal: Well, that pretty much covers all the options, don't it?
—Drew Z. Greenberg, “Firefly: Safe”
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Chapter 3: A Breath of Fresh Ari (cont.)
🎲🗡️🔔✨🌿 Chapter 3: A Breath of Fresh Ari (cont.)
Ari and Rae walk up the alabaster stairs and find the door with the plate announcing ‘The Tile Suite’. Rae marvels at the gilt sconces and, with a wistful sigh, Ari sticks her key in the lock and enters.
Like all the hallways on this side of the Nort Gate Inn, The Tile Suite has fancy shiny white tiled floors and all the furniture is trimmed with pale gold. The runner on the desk, the fabric on the desk chair, the rug, and the comfy arm chairs by the large fireplace, are all the same pale yellow-gold (f5af68) color. The main room is brightly lit by two stained glass windows that overlook the courtyard in front of the inn, but we also see three gas sconces that have tiny flames we can turn up as it gets dark. By the armchairs are some potted ficuses that seem to be well cared for.
The desk is well supplied with writing paper and quills and ink, and next to it is a small bookshelf with two shelves. The top shelf has standard titles like ‘A Heart's Aching Desire’ and ‘A World Without Love’ and ‘On the Edge of the Stars’, with a little plaque reading “If you take a book be sure to leave one behind”. The second shelf plague reads, “Property of the Nort Gate Inn”, and has titles like ‘Tax Policies for Incoming Trade’ and ‘Codes of Conduct for Court: Crown to Guild Formalities’ and ‘A Quick Reference of Market Evaluations: Crops’, as well as ‘Know Your Arena Champions, When to Bet and How: a yearly list and guide to entry for the official organization’.
Rae pokes her head into the first door on the right and sees a small wash stand, a two seater toilet, and tall large circular bath tub. She shuts the door wondering about the two seat toilet (really just a rock with a comfy hole and a drain pipe you slosh a bucket of water into, think public toilets in ancient Greece).
Ari opens the other door on the right, then the other door on the left and finds two identical rooms. Each has a large bed covered in f5af68 bedding, a warrode with a candle on top, and a strong box with gilt edging and a key poking out of the lock.
The whole suite smells like a class far above what Rae has ever been around, and far below what Ari remembers from childhood. Unbidden, the thought comes to Ari, ‘A merchant suite, for tradesmen partners to feel fancy’. Then, based on instinct, she checks under the beds and in the wardrobes. Her instincts were right, tucked away and rolled up there are some worn hay and wool mattresses that can be laid on the floor for either ‘the help’ or whoever doesn’t yell ‘dibs’ fast enough. When she looks around, she even finds one more tucked away in the gap behind the desk, and the thought ‘a few steps below where we would’ve been if we’d traveled here’ rises up in her mind.
They both flop down in the comfy stuffed f5af68 armchairs, and Rae is too preoccupied staring around the room, to notice the sad homesick look on her best friend's face.
Clear on the other side of town, Sorin pulls himself over the roof and ducks down behind the little ledge just like he used to. As he skuttle-walks over by the chimney and hears an all too familiar voice. “So, you came after all.”
He stands up straight now that he’s behind the chimneys and takes in the scene. The secret rooftop stop looks about the same as it always has, the little ‘safe’ space where kids can’t be seen from the street or the other rooftops is worn and dirty compared to the rest of the wide flat top roof. Sorin looks over at the little standing hutch in the middle of the roof and remembers the day they discovered what was inside it.
While Sorin is looking around at the roof and taking in all the nostalgia, Cypress the Rat pokes his nose out of Sorin’s baggy sleeve to size up Matteo. Matteo is standing up from a pile of broken boards and some overstuffed sacks of unprocessed wool and grain. The grain sack has a couple small tears in it, where the rain got in, and now the little seedling sprouts are trying hard to prove that ‘life uh… finds a way’. Cypress smiles inwardly and looks closer at Matteo. The young cleric stands up and pokes the dirty worn cards he was playing with into a small hole in some bricks where he probably found them. He is wearing the robes of a Shadowed Acolite, the familiar white and black angles looking much less fancy, and somewhat dirtier than the priests.
A rat paw sneaks its way out under Sorin’s collar and taps his Sending stone earring before retreating to the back of Sorin’s neck.
Ari and Rae hear Sorin say, “Matteo…” and then cough nervously. They sit in silence listening and they can just make out the distant voice that drifts in and out of the range of the stone. But, they catch most of the conversation as they sit in their chairs and listen.
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Chapter 4: Is This What Betrayal Feels Like
🎲🗡️🔔✨🌿 Chapter 4: Is This What Betrayal Feels Like
Sorin sees the mostly broken arm chairs and the wooden stools that the kids have somehow managed to pull up the rope without being noticed before turning to his big brother. “Matteo…” He pauses, looking at the blankets and pillows and baggies of food. It’s not uncommon for the runaways to get shelter here with the local kids, but it always makes him sad in a way he can’t precisely decipher. He takes a deep breath and focuses on his older brother. “Matteo I-”
“You know,” the older boy interrupts, pacing back and forth, “I had a lot I wanted to say.” He looks out over the edge of the roof. “About how long it’s been and how good it felt when I saw you, and… and so much.” He trails off and then angrily spins around and faces Sorin head on. “And then, last night, just hours before I came here to see you, Do you know what happened!?”
“Um, W-”
“Guess, go ahead and guess!”
“I guess y-”
“We were attacked!” Matteo throws his hands up in the air, and Sorin sees a look of disgust on his face before he turns away. “Our Sanctuary of the Dead, one of the three sacred markers in the church, was attacked.” He looks back at Sorin and folds his arms in front of his chest. “Do you remember what that room is? What it means? Well let me remind you. It is the room we take our dead when they die. It's the place where they can become Shades and Shadows themselves to move through the world and bring balance to everything in life, and then they… But what am I doing, why am I wasting a sermon on you?” Sorin visibly flinches, but Matteo continues, “That room is Sanctified and Holy, it is a place where the dead can return and comfort their living family and NOW-” Matteo’s eyes water and his voice cracks, “.. and now we don’t even know if it’s still…” His voice trails off as he stares at the sky trying to force the tears back inside his eyes.
Sorin tries to talk, to comfort his older brother, who was always there for him. He opens his mouth, but the words are stuck.
After a moment, “So instead of all that stuff I was going to say,” Matteo lowers his head and makes watery eye contact with the younger wizard, “Now I have to ask, what do you know?”
Timidly, Sorin begins, his shoulders slumped as he tries to meet Matteo's stare. “Do you remember when I talked with you a few days ago?”
“Do I remember?!” He half laughs, half scoffs.
“Yeah when I-”
“When you showed up.” He crosses his arms, “In my church.” He uncrossed them, “A church you don’t believe in.” Matteo crosses his arms again, “And asked me about weird stuff, and rats and cults, and told me to be safe.” He uncrosses his arms so they hang loose at his sides. “And then, just days later,” Matteo crosses his arms, “my church gets attacked.” Matteo points at Sorin, “The church you don’t believe in.”
There is a long pause, and Matteo stands there with his arms crossed, expectantly waiting.
Sorin can’t think of anything to say, so he nods and tries the obvious. “ Um, yeah, that talk.”
“Yeah. I remember.”
Cypress rolls a critical on an Insight Check.
Matteo sighs and kind of slumps, then points at a lump in Sorin’s sleeve, “And now, you’ve come here, to this meeting, with a rat.”
Cypress the Rat scuttles down Sorin’s arm and jumps from his sleeve. When he lands, it’s not on four tiny paws, but on two big hairy hobbit feet.
Sorin blurts out, “Wait ,wait, wait, I can explain!”
Cypress glares at Sorin, then straightens their face into calm placidity. They set their staff against the wall, to show they aren’t about to cast anything, and he keeps his hands down at his waist in plain sight so that Matteo doesn’t think he’s about to try any magic trickery. “Hello-” He tries.
Back in The Tile Suite, Ari and Rae look at each other and Ari says, “I guess he’s out of his wild shape then.”
“You can explain?” Matteo scoffs, “Oh, I can’t wait. But first, first, can I tell you what this looks like? To an UNEDUCATED mind like mine I mean. See, to an outsider it looks a bit like this. You snuck your way into a holy day, and talked to me about animals. Then we meet and you have a cleric with an affinity for wild animals. It looks, just a bit like maybe a cleric in a religion that is a lot less popular in the region, found a way to sneak into an established religion, and now, just maybe, is trying to take over from the inside, isallitkindalookslikefromanueductedmindlikemine.” He says, running out of breath at the end of his long winded run-on sentence.
“Sir,” Cypress tries again, keeping his hands down, but noticing Matteo's hands still pointing at them, “We really can explain. Let’s-look um, Let’s have a cup of tea and-” he reaches into his bag.
“Stop!” Matteo says pointing with an ominous finger. “Stop.”
Cypress puts his hands back.
Matteo points at the winged snake that's been floating around Sorin this whole time, “How can I trust you not to poison me, when you show up here with a literal Demon on your shoulder, Sorin!?”
“Oh yeaaaaaaaaaahhhh…” Rae says from her chair with her finger to her ear, “Matteo’s a priest guy, huh, I guess he probably noticed about Akris.”
“Awe, poor little guy,” Ari simpers.
They hear Sorin’s voice again, “Matteo, look please, I respect you so much, and whether you trust me or not, I really do respect your beliefs and your church, the true Church of Shadows.”
Ooooooo… oh that’s good! It’s such a good move that i had to stop at the table and think for a minute, and i gave Ashley a point of inspiration for it.
Matteo is stunned for a second and Cypress pulls out his small travel tea pot and a couple small wooden mugs.
“What… What do you mean?”
Sorin pauses and then explains. “You were right, well, sorta right. There were imposters in your crypts.”
“And that’s why you attacked the crypts?”
“Wait, attacked the crypts!?” Cypress says, surprised, “What do you mean? What exactly happened last night?”
“Pfft, how do I know you don’t already know what happened? I’m not telling you anything. I need to trust you first.”
At this point i broke the play to explain that Matteo is starting to warm up to them, BUT it will take some kind of action to finish this, some roll or spell, or move, some ACTION to forward the narrative and the scene.
“Let me introduce myself formally,” Cypress says and steps forward with a hand on their chest. “I am Cypress Witchhazel, Daisy Lad of the Goddess Sheela. I have no wish to infiltrate any religion… except maybe to learn what Gods bears pray to.”
“Bears?” Ari mouths back in the Nort Gate Inn. Rae shrugs.
“I have no issues with the true Church of Shadows. In fact, I respect and agree with many of your thoughts on balance and the structures of the natural world.”
“True church, TRUE church, you both keep saying that. Why?”
Akris chimes in, in an attempt to break the tension, “Tea issss sssserved.”
“Thank you Akris,” Cypress says and pours some into the cups. As he pours, he explains. “When I first came to Nibiru, I was staying at the Church of Glorious Gods. One morning I came down to pray at the shrine of Sheela there, and I got a vision from the Goddess. When I rose from the vision I overheard two priests there discussing problems with a local cult.” He pauses to look Matteo in the eyes, “A cult that was growing inside the Church of Shadows.”
Matteo slumps back, defeated. He lets himself fall into the broken armchair. As he does, the nails give out and part of the right hand side falls off. Matteo is unphased as he puts his hand up to his temples.
“Would you like some tea, now?” Cypress offers, taking the cup from Akris and holding it out to the fallen acolyte.
“I…. Yes…” but he stops with the cup up to his lips before drinking and says, “but still… just be safe…” He stands up and reaches out a hand. A shade falls across the three of them, like a small cloud covering the sun for a moment as he declares, “Zone of Truth!” Then he sits back down and calmly looks at Akris over Cypress’s shoulder. “Is the tea poison?”
“No.” Sorin and Akris both say together.
“I would never do that to good tea,” Cypress says, sipping their cup.
“I-” Sorin stutters and we all look at him, “I.. I-I did have a crush on Organina!” He covers his mouth with both hands to stop from saying any more.
“HA!” Matteo shouts, jumping out of the chair and splashing his tea, I knew it!”
Back in their room, Ari and Rae laugh so hard they almost fall out of their comfy armchairs.
And with that, the tension is cut, Cypress is smirking, Akris is laughing, Sorin is blushing and Matteo is smiling. We’re all good and fine and safe, we can relax our jaws, unclench our shoulders, and let our tongues hang loose again. That was a tense scene, so now let's take a breath and breathe while Sorin and Cypress explain everything that has happened so far to Matteo.
The sounds coming from the Sending Stone’s fade out as Ari and Rae hear a now-familiar recounting of everything.
“Well if Cypress didn’t refresh the stones so we can hear, then I think they’ve gotta be fine.”
“So,” Rae asks, "what do you want to do while we wait for them?”
“I dunno, I guess I could go out into the courtyard and pick pocket people.”
“Don’t you have new armor you need to attune to and get adjusted?” Rae asks, attempting to derail Ari’s criminal mind.
“Oh yeah.”
And so Ari and Rae spend their short rest with Rae meditating and Ari setting up the glamour on her new studded leather armor.
“So you’re teamed up with this monk, Rae, and…?” Matteo asks.
“Yeah and this girl, Ari, er, woman, er lady Ari.” Sorin goes on with heart eyes. “She's so strong and buff and awesome and-”
“And a Tiefling Rogue.” Cypress says, attempting to shut Sorin down.
“Um… yeah.. She is a tiefling.” Sorin says nervously.
Sorin, Cypress and Akris stare at Matteo, waiting.
“What? Whoa whoa whoa!” Matteo throws his hands up, “Hey come on now, I don’t have an issue with Tieflings! I had an issue with the snake, because he is a lit-er-al arcane Demon! Tieflings are cool! I mean yeah sure, maybe once in the distance their ancestors were chaotic spirits, but we used to be monkeys, so I’m not judging anyone.”
“Okay, cool.”
“In fact,” Matteo continues, wincing against the effects of his own truth spell, “the whole, two things thing, half, demon, half human… it’s kinda hot… If I could ever meet a half Tiefling half Aasimar that would be-” He slaps a hand over his mouth to stop himself from saying more.
Aasimar are the half-angel race in D&D 5e.
Sorin nods understandingly.
Cypress coughs and opens his bag. They show Matteo the Wand of Fear, and the Rat covered priest’s robes, and all the other little tokens and plot pieces they’ve found so far.
He takes the embroidered tabard gently from Cypress’s hands and strokes his fingers over the stitching. “This is…” His breath catches in his throat and he tries again. “When an acolyte… like me… is raised to the priesthood, we… they… sit in silent contemplation for days making this. In a single room, isolated from the world they stitch the entire tabard, covering the plain gray cloth in white and black embroidery so thick you can’t see the gray anymore. The ceremony takes days of prayer and isolation. I’d always hoped that when I…” he trails off again. “But this… for someone’s mind to be so broken to sew…” He hands the cloth back to Cypress and looks away.
After a moment of silence he asks, “I think I'm caught up, so what happened last night?”
“We found a letter, the one there in that Claw-neiform [haha get it, Cuneiform but writing in claw!] script. It mentions them having some sort of meeting or ceremony in your crypts.”
“Originally we were only there to observe,” Sorin says, “But then Ari, the angel that she is, when she thought Cypress was in danger-”
“You were hurt?”
Cypress explains about the entrance as a rat and the fight that followed.
“...And then when we looked around, the leader that had been yelling on the pedestal, the one who almost killed me by the way, had run off through the magic portal.”
“Wait what!?” Matteo almost shouts, “They built a magic portal in our Sanctuary of the Dead!?”
“Not exactly…”
Sorin shows him a rough sketch in his notebook. “They cast a few light spells on a sheet and dug a hole behind it.”
While those two are explaining about the hole and the Sending Statue and the Thug room, Ari is setting up the Glamour on her new Armor. She figures out how to get the surface of it to change in little spots. She experiments by getting it to look exactly like her old worn out armor, down to the last stitched up hole and patch, even where the Gray Ooze just hit her that morning. She sets the command phrase for it to transform as “Tada, look at this!”
“-and then we found the torture room.”
“Torture room!?”
“Yes, there a man strung up on a table and we thought-”
Sorin interrupts, “And without even thinking about it, my sweet unsuspecting Ari went up to them and- Hey what are you doing!?” He looks at Akris.
As Sorin has been talking about ‘Ari the angel’ and ‘my sweet Ari’, Akris has been writing it all down with his tail. He’s taking notes on a scrap of paper he found so he can tell Ari all about it later.
“Don’t you dare tell her any of this!”
While Sorin has a contest of Will with the familiar, Cypress explains about the fight with the gazers.
“-and in the end, that bastard had the gazers destroy him, so we couldn’t question him or anything!” He throws a pebble at the wall , seething. After a few sips of tea, he calms down and nods to Sorin, “show him the necklace.” Then to Matteo, “I’m sorry about this.”
Sorin holds out the golden half-face symbol on its chain to Matteo.
Matteo gasps and covers his mouth, “...That’s..” He slowly reaches out and takes it. After a long silence he explains. “This chain… This symbol... This marks The Guardian of Souls… an Arch Priest… a truly holy…” So wipes away tears, muttering, “a nice man…”
After a moment Matteo tries again, “The Guardian of Unbodied Souls is a Holy Arch Priest. They oversee burial and births. They usher life into and out of the world. It is their job to maintain the fires of the cremated, and pray over them for the entire time of their burning. They check the bodies of the dead and help the decay and…” He falters again. “And he’s been missing for some time. And our community has been suffering.”
The next round of tea is poured and drank in silence.
“We are not sure how to handle this,” Cypress explains, “not sure who to tell, or how to tell them.”
Staring into his empty cup, Matteo replies, “I’m not sure myself.” He stands up and sighs, “But I will find out.”
“Please be careful.”
“I will.” Matteo says and he pulls on his cloak looking up at the darkening evening sky. “Can you meet me tomorrow at noon in the Church of Glorious Gods?”
“Yes, of course we will!” Sorin blurts out.
“Yes, we can.”
“Thank you,” Matteo turns to leave but finds himself in a tight hug from Sorin. He puts one arm around the young wizard, and then departs down the rope.
After packing up the cups, Sorin and Cypress stand in silence staring at the sun as it starts to set.
“That went pretty well I think.”
“That was exhausting! And, draining!”
“Yes, but it went well.”
“I just hope he stays safe.”
“Me too.”
Now that Ari has her armor all set, she and Rae head down to the common area to get some dinner.
They walk down the elegant marble staircase, and Rae notices something she couldn’t see earlier, when the sunlight was coming in the grand windows at the front of the room. The barrier wall on the staircase here is porcelain, and Rae can see shadows flickering against it.The porcelain is so thin and delicate that she can see the shadows cast on the other side by the lamps and the people walking in front of them.
Once down the gold trimmed white stairs, Ari and Rae head towards the public room, and stop. As soon as they cross over the line from the white marble side to the wood side, they notice they are getting some very judgemental looks. It’s like the scene in a cowboy movie when they walk into a saloon and the whole place goes silent and full of judgy stares.
Ari and Rae look around.
“Uuuuhhhhhhhh……”
Rather than confront this social awkwardness, they run out the front door. Very unlike brave cowboy heroes.
The sun sets on Nibiru at the end of the Fifth day of the Fox, and two heroes walk into the courtyard of a familiar and friendly inn. One is short with a big stick, and one is average with a big book. The light from nearby windows illuminate them as they approach and we can see they both show weary eyes. As they step off the path, they both look at an Elf in tattered monk's rags, and a roguish half-demon whose sharp and shiny canines glitter in the lamp light. Awe yeah, that’s some fantasy ass shit right there!
“Why’re you guys out here?”
“Yeah, what’s wrong, are we getting arrested again?” Sorin asks as he pushes his way inside.
“Well see, when we got here, all they had open was a fancy suite, or some bunks in a shared room…” Ari explains as we all walk inside. “We took the suite so we could talk about everything in private…”
Sorin and Cypress notice the odd looks from everyone as they walk toward the public room on the poorer side.
“And now, everyone is looking at us like we don’t belong…” Ari finishes, her voice trailing off in the awkward silence.
“Oh.”
Cypress and Sorin look at eachother and shrug simultaneously. They walk over to a table and sit down. Pointedly ignoring any looks.
And we’ll leave off there. Ari and Rae eventually made it to the table. Cypress generously paid for everyone’s dinner (10 gold for all), and we all enjoyed a meal of Farm Fresh Salads (Sorin, Rae and Cypress), Enchiladas (Ari, Sorin, and Cypress), and Stew (Ari, Rae and Cypress). Then, we all went up to the suite, and laid out for a long rest,with Ari and Cypress taking the bedrooms and Rae and Sorin taking the comfy armchairs.
See you all next time…
… oh but one last thing …
Late in the night while Sorin was meditating and snoring, his snake opened one eye and slithered away in the darkness.
Ari awoke to a soft knocking on her door. She opened it a crack to see a winged snake there. “Ohssss, do I have a sssstory for yousss!”
Ari’s sharp teeth glittered in the dark as she giggle-whispered, “Go tap Rae awake and get her in here too!”
“It was the Movement, and for a while our whole lives were tied up with it. The air of a subculture is a different air; it has words in it, even messages. It is harder to breathe, but it gives purpose to every part of you, every cell. It propels you forward, it works through you, your eyes produce a spotlight wherever they fall—a hot white beam of accusing clarity—and everything you look at is bathed in it.”
—Patricia Lockwood, “Priestdaddy: Abortion Barbie”
Table talk:
We had a hard out this week, so the only table talk was about Hit Dice. Just as a reminder, a PC has Hit Dice per day equal to their level (everyone has 4 right now), and on a short rest, they can use as many as they want as long as it doesn’t exceed the number for the day (ex: 2 on one rest, then 1, then 0, then 1). When they roll, they add their Constitution Modifier to the roll, and receive that much HP.
“For each Hit Die spent in this way, the player rolls the die and adds the character’s Constitution modifier to it. The character regains hit points equal to the total.” - Players Handbook, Page 186
