Summary 5/29/22
Table Talk:
A Warm Welcome to Cousin Courtney, a new spectator to the live game sessions!
As everyone settled in and ate some breakfast pizzas, i went over the basic concept of D&D for her, “basically i make the world around them. They play as their characters, and tell me what they do. We all roll dice to determine the outcome, and i tell them what happens.” We had a round of introductions of both players and characters.
Mechanics:
Prone (players handbook pg 292)
A prone creature’s only movement option is to crawl, unless it stands up and thereby ends the condition. The creature has disadvantage on attack rolls. An attack roll against the creature has advantage if the attacker is within 5 feet of the creature. Otherwise, the attack roll has disadvantage.
Resistance (players handbook pg 197)
If a creature or an object has resistance to a damage type, damage of that type is halved against it. If a creature or an object has vulnerability to a damage type, damage of that type is doubled against it. Resistance and then vulnerability are applied after all other modifiers to damage. For example, a creature has resistance to bludgeoning damage and is hit by an attack that deals 25 bludgeoning damage. The creature is also within a magical aura that reduces all damage by 5. The 25 damage is first reduced by 5 and then halved, so the creature takes 10 damage. Multiple instances of resistance or vulnerability that affect the same damage type count as only one instance. For example, if a creature has resistance to fire damage as well as resistance to all non-magical damage, the damage of a non-magical fire is reduced by half against the creature, not reduced by three-quarters.
“So sensitive are cats’ eyes that they can detect a single photon of light in a completely dark environment. (For reference, in a small, brightly lit room, there are about one hundred billion photons bouncing around at any given moment.)”
–Nathan H. Lents, “Human Errors: A Panorama of Our Glitches, from Pointless Bones to Broken Genes, Chapter 1”
🎲🗡️🔔✨🌿
Chapter 3: How to Make Friends, and Influence People, with Fireballs (cont.)
🎲🗡️🔔✨🌿 Chapter 3: How to Make Friends, and Influence People, with Fireballs (cont.)
We start off with Cypress, no clever introduction about golden syrupy sunrises or anything. We have a lot of catching up to do.
The halfling cleric awakes in a rented room in the attic loft accommodations in The Temple of Glorious Gods.
There are 4 major religions in the City of Nibiru. So, the Temple of Glorious Gods is a large church dedicated to those gods not in these ‘major’ religions. The main floor contains several small altars to various Gods from all over the world. These surround a central theater-like floor with pews bolted to the ground. This floor can be rotated to face any altar for whatever service happens to be taking place at any given time. I’m sure there will be more information to come later.
On waking, Cypress has a strong sense of a dream he can’t quite remember, and an even stronger urge to pray. He heads downstairs to the statue of Chauntea, The Goddess of Life. He presents his offering to her by carefully placing a little ball of moss in the shade of the statue, so that it can grow at her feet. He closes his eyes to the world around him, and opens his internal eyes to religion.
Suddenly, the dream comes rushing back. Images of a half-elf kid-wizard, a tiefling rogue, and an elven monk battling against a Giant Centipede, and then battling again against a mighty Grick!
Cypress comes back to his body, with a strong feeling of urgency and tangled threads of destiny woven all over him. He only closed his eyes long enough to blink yet, he sees that the moss ball has already begun to open and attach to the statue.
Down in the sewers (and technically the evening before Cypress woke up), Sorin, Ari, and Rae are staring at a lock.
It’s a big lock.
It’s a big metal lock.
A Lock with a DC of around 18 to open without a key.
Ari has just finished another attempt to open it when a HOT idea comes up. (you’ll see…)
“I could cast Firebolt on it, and try to melt it!” (Told you so.) Sorin blurts out.
Ari and Rae turn to look at the young wizard. After some discussion on the subject of Thaumaturgy they decide to give it a shot.
Rae shows her unwavering bravery and undying support, by hiding around the next wall.
Sorin casts. And, as the lock glows red we hear a *tick* sound and then a sort of sizzle with the lock… is that good or bad?
Ari kneels down, and sets to work again with her picks. Something feels different this time. And… Almost… Just about… Got it! A 15 on the lockpicking roll passes the locks newly lowered 14 DC. Congratulations little rogue!
The party makes their way down the corridor, and then stands around staring at the glowing purple mushroom on the floor.
Back to Cypress.
As he stands up after doing his daily religion, he overhears some frustrated priests using words like “cult” and “deaths” and “under the crypts” and “we need to do something.” Diedrik graciously follows the DM’s obvious prodding, and Cypress goes over to talk to the priests.
He learns that most of the local churches are growing increasingly concerned about a group forming in -or rather under- the Church of Shadows. Murders, kidnappings, possible sacrifices, theft. And worst of all, someone is impersonating a God! You can do quite a lot of terrible things in life and priests will forgive you, but use magic and puppet theater to trick people into thinking you are an actual God! Well see, now they have some serious problems with you.
With an 18 on a religion check, Cypress actually knows a lot about the Church of Shadows religion; they have temples and churches in lots of small towns he’s been through.
The name may sound ominous, but the practitioners are harmless.
They simply believe in the divinity of literal shadows cast by light. They view shadows and misfortunes as a necessary part of the world in order to balance everything.
After all, you need light to see, and then that light casts a shadow after it illuminates what you saw. So, it only stands to reason that every time a new kettle is made, a jar in some cupboard somewhere in the world must break. If a new bridle is stitched together, it only makes sense that a cart wheel would fall off somewhere a few miles up the road. If an artist paints a beautiful portrait, then surely that explains a vase of flowers falling over in the mayor’s house, the next village up the road. These things are essential for balance in the world.
They believe that shadows are divine agents, like angels, that see to this great cosmic balance. It may seem a little bit backwards, saying a prayer of thanks every time you stub your toe, but on the whole they’ve never been known to hurt anyone.
So what is going on here?
In talking with the priests, Cypress learns more details and that the priests have even been considering hiring someone to investigate by going through the sewers into the crypts under the Church of Shadows.
Cypress asks about their own crypts as a means of entry, but the DM hasn’t expanded the map to meet up with that location yet, so the priests say they’d need to get permission and it would be a whole thing. He’ll have to find another way.
Cypress asks if the local Law has been called in to deal with this, and is told that The Constabulary has no jurisdiction underground. Cypress has no truck with this, none at all. So, like anyone under 3 feet tall confronted with something irritating, he sets off to take care of it himself.
Back in the sewers last night, our heroic champions are gathered around a small mushroom having a lengthy discussion on how many different ways you can say the question “What is it?”
Eventually, Sorin finally just decides to cut it off at the base and put it in his satchel.
When the three turn to continue down the hallway, it veers north and they are confronted with an oddly familiar sight. A mushroom. It looks almost identical to the one Sorin just picked. White skinny base, purply glowing bulbous middle, tapering to a conical top; yup very much the same. Except, this one is over 5 feet tall. They approach and realize that, in fact, the mushroom is 7 feet tall.
They decide to try and sneak around this new fungus.
Ari makes it around but Rae stumbles and and falls Prone against the wall, narrowly being missed by a large dark tentacle emerging from the fungus and lashing out at her.
Ari moves fast, cutting off the second tentacle as it flies out towards her.
Rae maybe has an anger problem. She stays on the floor and kicks at the trunk of the mushroom saying some not-very-polite words.
Ari slashes at the Mushroom again while Sorin makes senpai-noticed-me-eyes at her and helps Rae off the floor.
Rae goes in for the kill, swinging her staff like a woodsman’s ax as he fells a tree... a soft spongy tree… with holes in it… you know, the metaphor gets less impressive the more you think about it.
Back on street-level, Cypress is walking into the constabulary with the ACAB (All Constables Are Buggers) pin on his bag. He walks up to the desk and knocks on the front until a Constable leans over to talk to him.
Their exchange is.. interesting and quite charged with possibility.
The Constable *officially* doesn’t know anything about what is happening underground.
“But unofficially?”
“Well, unofficially maybe we are doing something, but maybe all this unofficial talk would officially would lead to an unofficial arrest”
“Oh no, oh my.”
The Halfling sticks out their hands.
This guard, clearly perplexed by such a willing ‘arrest’ leads Cypress down the stairs to the holding cells and fills out a couple sheets of paperwork signing it off with a green mark, then hands it to Cypress.
“Now when I put you in a cell and lock the door you will be officially arrested. You have an official sentence of zero days and zero hours in the cells to cool off… you slimy bugger, you…”
He coughs, then leans down and whispers. “Unofficially, if you run into any Officials or maybe official looking people in a sort of unofficial way, you might unofficially find it officially beneficial to unofficially give them this official paperwork, officially, you understand?” He winks and slides the paperwork onto the floor.
Standing up, the Constable barks, “Clumsy me, I dropped the official paperwork,” as he kicks it over to Cypress and looks around. “Well I’ll just have to fill out another one, but not before I lock you in a cell… you scoundrel.”
A rogue, a wizard, and a monk all walk into a bar… well a room… well a tunnel… ok not walk IN to, but continue walking ALONG a tunnel.
They notice the tunnels seem to be spiraling in towards something. They also begin to notice the brick work here is falling apart, most of the floor is giving way to dirt and there are no pipes on these walls. As their path spirals in further they start to see a glowing pink-ish-purple B73DBE light. They turn the corner to see——A ROOM WITH A MUUS-SHROOM! Well, specifically, a room with three mushrooms.
While the party stands in the entryway we, the readers, can wander in and look around.
We see the room as it truly is. A dirt floor with small mushrooms poking out all over. Little purple cones along the cracks of the walls and speckling the dirt floor. The floor also has something a bit unusual, three large iron grates. Attached to each grate is a rope, well, something rope-like. They are covered in runes though, and glowing. We can recognize a few runes of power, runes of origin, runes of transference, and a few others. What could it all mean? Behind the eye of the reader, there is commotion in the archway. Let’s turn back to watch.
Ari and Rae are having a heated discussion with Sorin. They are trying to convince him to cast his magic and burn the whole room to a pile of ash.
But, Sorin is a bit scared asking all sorts of cowardly questions like “Where do the ropes go?” and “Will something explode?” and “besides, there’s just mushrooms in there -which are not currently hurting us by the way- can’t we just leave?”. Pathetic.
There’s a long pause from the other two delinquents, then a disappointed sigh.
“Yeah ok, I suppose so. As long as we agree we can always come back here and burn it all down to ashes later.”
And with that the team looks at their wounds, deciding to head back to Bostra to report and rest through the night.
Cypress gets locked into the cell and moments later is hunched over going through a familiar tunnel.
Enter at your own peril! Past the bolted door where impossible things may happen that the world has never seen before!
He shuffles and crawls through a musty hole with grit on his hands and cobwebs in his hair.
Right
Left
Left
Left
Right
Right
Tick
Click
THUNK
“Looks like there’s a trap here, Whaaaaaaaa....”
Below ground it is now the morning of the 28th of Mirtul, just a short time before Cypress will have talked to the constable upstairs (ugh, shifting time tenses like this is hard).
The party of three has a short talk with Bostra as he cooks what looks like either breakfast or maybe machine parts. It smells green and the water around the gears and chunks is boiling into a red-ish blue color over the fire.
Bostra talks to them about morals and how it actually isn’t ok to commit murder. “Yes, even the Thugs you’re after. That’s right, murder is actually bad when you are talking to an officer of the law, huh, imagine that.”
And after getting thoroughly embarrassed, the party of three sets out to find some levers to maybe get some gates open.
At the north corner they decide to clear out the last Swarm of Spiders that they’ve found (so far…. mwahahaha).
Rae (who i am now certain has anger issues), rushes in fast and hate-filled, before Sorin even has a chance to catch everything on fire.
During the fight we all have to take a moment to congratulate our budding young wizard friend for finding his dagger at the bottom of his pack and doing his very first melee attack of the campaign! Golf claps all around.
Cypress crawls through to the hideout, and meets a very surprised Bostra as he eats a very lumpy green-black… something… maybe gears… out of a camp skillet.
Cypress hands him the paperwork and unofficially explains the official… You know what, no, i can’t do another whole thing like that again.
He explains the situation to Bostra calmly and thoroughly.
Bostra explains the situation with our other three ‘criminals’ who got arrested, for the legal equivalent of looking at a child’s balloon as if they might one day maybe consider popping it. And he explains how he will definitely take on a very different, and more authoritative cop tone when the others are around.
Still, he will try to get Cypress any information available on the cult and what’s happening with the Temple of Shadows, so that’s a win.
After a polite agreement to keep everything officially unofficial and play the part of a ‘criminal’ working for The Constabulary, like the others, Cypress heads into the sewers.
After the last Spider is stomped out and Rae finally seems to have calmed down, we can see the first crank. It looks a bit like a ship's wheel sticking sideways out of the wall, or basically a large portcullis crank wheel.
Cypress Witchazel, walks into the sewer mechanical room and is immediately clocked by a feral cat, ROLL INTIA-oh never mind, i rolled a luck die and this one’s friendly.
Cypress is feeding and petting the cats (another one showed up) as he hears shouting to the north, echoing in the tunnels.
“I’ve got this one.”
“I don’t got it! Rae… you’re strong right? Oh god help!”
Cypress also hears the rumbling of iron bars as the gate to the south of him, (the one that barred the path on day one, since Kai hadn’t finished building that area yet and needed to steer the party) begins to rise into the ceiling with a sound of clanking chains.
Ari, Sorin and Rae all come back into this main room so see a halfling cleric calmly petting a cat, and waiting for them.
And just like that our timelines crash back together around mid morning on the 28th of Mirtul, in the sewers underneath the city of Nibiru.
Three unlikely criminal friends, meet someone new.
“Life differs from banking because it has debts which are paid off by running up debts with others.”
-Emiel Regis Rohellec Terzieff-Godefroy –Andrzej Sapkowski, “Baptism of Fire; Chapter 5”
Table talk:
We had a quick rule check, and i had been remembering wrong; Halflings do not have Darkvision.
I had a small announcement that i am investing in a bunch of maps and minis and that i am going to be painting. I will gladly accept any contributions to those costs. However, this is not compulsory in any way. There will not be any sort of dues system or an unexpected cost to play. If anyone wants to contribute that’s great, but mostly i am doing these things because they bring me joy.
During the fiery lock picking there was some confusion on Thaumaturgy. So i will be looking up the full specifics on it for next week’s opening table talk.
