Thug Muggers Under Nibiru 9/15/23
Table Talk:
I’ve decided to give out 18,000 Xp for Ari’s adventure. Stop coughing Sorin. Yes, that’s a lot, in fact it’s what her encounter with the five Ropers would have been if it were a real fight. ‘Why so much?’ Well, myself, i’m glad you asked me that. It’s been a while since i’ve dolled out XP for the daily amount that you get for just generally existing and adventuring. Also it's been a while since i gave out XP for social things. So now, i’m lumping all of these small things together (finding Krubos, solving how to summon him, finding Devin’s marks, group bonding, Ari and Zaanth, etc.) into one big XP bundle under the excuse of calling it Ari’s Adventure XP.
“Kai didn’t have time to prepare a quote.”
—Me “Thug Muggers Under Nibiru 9/15/23"
🧺🧺🛡️🎲🗡️📿✨🌿Interlude: Dinner in the Heart of the Storm
🧺🧺🛡️🎲🗡️📿✨🌿Interlude: Dinner in the Heart of the Storm
Time for some proper descriptions now that i’m not being harassed by nightmare demonlings nipping and trying to skewer me.
The tunnel here, this wide little crack in the rocks, has hooks driven into the stone. Some are turned and hung flat and Ari, still in the after effects of the Potion of Climbing, sees them as obvious footholds to getting up and down the rocky walls. Others of the hooks are unturned up normally and hold sackcloths, baskets or nets. To one side we can see a small sharpener – a grinding wheel mounting with the crank facing out. And at the end of the tunnel, is a rough and simple wood door with some heavy stone bricks just visible between it and the natural cave.
After laughing at Sorin the clown, Gurf’n puts a hand on the flimsy wood of the door and heaves it to one side. The door slides away, and into the rock, and only then can we see that it’s not the flimsy shack door we thought at all, but a thick, stout collection of interlocked and braced wooden beams easily capable of stopping a small stampede.
Inside is a moderately small room in the shape of a circle. Its walls gently curve and slope upwards, halfway between the arch of a domed roof and the straight angle line of a teepee. We spy with our little eyes, something wooden. It’s the two wooden tubs on either side of the door, the first is clean and oil smooth, obviously a tub for bathing. While the other is coated in lines of dark dirt and is surrounded by stiff looking brushes and sharp hooks meant for cleaning out mushroom crops. All around the walls there are flat countertops built out of the round walls. Some have food and kitchen supplies, one has a few books and one has a round wire birdcage with a netting string tied around the bottom making an odd sort of fence. Between this and the clean tub are several jars some of which show the rings of a familiar white powder - slt- around their lids. In the middle of the round room is a dug Irori hearth with moving mats nearby as well as several cushions. The last thing we see on the other side from us, hanging from still more little hooks driven in the wall are two hammocks, one is loose and empty, while the other is plumply full and we can see a set of iron sharp claws dangling out from the edge and two glowing coal eyes deep inside the mound of blankets.
Gurf’n walks in and starts talking in the rocks-smashing-together language we’re learning to recognize as Goblin. After some reassuring gargling, something rolls down from the hammock. Gurf’n’s granny is a small round goblin, like a pale green miniature boulder with knobbly arms and legs haphazardly glued on.
Bostra makes a joke that none of us get and the old lady grins, “Kohk’s up grannies up!” Then she starts to move around the room.
Sorin clears his throat, “This is a lovely uh…” He trails off not saying the word ‘hovel’ so loudly that everyone can hear it in the silence.
Gurf’n looks up at him, “It ain't supposed to be fancy! It's a Kohk damned farm house!”
“Is there somewhere specific you want me to sit?” Ari’s voice is timid and anxious with her exposed emotions still raw after telling her story and baring her heart to the others.
Gurf’n voice is curt, bordering on confused as he waves an absent minded hand over the earthen floor of the room, “Dirt, is dirt.”
Sorin is also a little shy as he approaches the elderly little goblin grandmother, “Is there anything I can do to help with dinner?”
She looks at him blankly, then smiles, “Of course! What food have you brought us to add?”
“Uummm…” Sorin is taken aback, having thought offering to chop a single vegetable would be enough to be praised as a good helper, and he digs in his cloak. The main thing he has with him is a hemp pouch full of rice that he uses to make little meal balls with his rations.
Granny, all round and plump, extends a thin stick-like arm that extends far beyond her as it unfolds, and sticks two long bony fingers in the bang, pulling out a couple grains. She tastes them delicately, then beams, “Ah yes, good and crunchy!” She takes the whole bag and upends it over a riveted iron pot of other ingredients, with Sorin standing there open mouthed and reaching a hand out as if he could take back his week's worth of food – but only getting handed back an empty sack.
Looking around the room, Cypress turns to see tZulèe beginning to meld into the wall. After a quick Nature Check* he realizes that this is probably a sign that the gargoyle is nervous. Also, this is a home of extremely cautious people who already threw a knife at someone when they thought something was going wrong – so it’s maybe not the best idea to let something merge with their walls and learn all about the inner workings and secret cupboards of their little cottage.
“Hey now,” Cypress says, gently grabbing its hand and tugging its body back out of the wall, “we don’t meld into people’s walls without asking, okay?” Then he wraps tZulèe up in a blanket and brings him over to the fire in the irori pit.
*This was actually the last roll with tZulèe the Nymbus needed. Now it is a full familiar and i’ll be reviewing and sending out the full familiar character sheet, just like i did a while back with Akris.
Ari is trying to stay out of the way, but keeps almost bumping into the sleeves high up on the wall. That is to say, they’re high up for the goblins, and right at horn-height for Ari.
Also trying to get out of the way in such a small (for us) house, Sorin takes a seat on the far side of the hearth near the plain wooden trap door in the floor between the two hammocks. Despite its small size (about as big as a chamber pot), and the tersorium in a little jar next to it, he tries to convince himself that he’s just sitting next to a door to a cellar as he gets ready to eat dinner.
Hanging over the fire pit, is a quinconced array of five iron chains with long open links. Many of the links have various cooking tools hooked into them, and Gurf’n reaches up to grab a spreader bar. He unhooks it from where it hangs on one chain and puts it between two others to make a low hanging spit-bar over the fire, adjusting it carefully.
Sitting next to Gurf’n by the edge of the fire with tZulèe in his lap, Cypress notices the gargoyle fidgeting and trying to reach out of the blanket windings. After a minute or two, they realize that the little thing is trying to grab at the ashes in the firepit. “Um, Gurf’n, this may sound odd, but can my pet Gargoyle eat some of the ashes in your cookfire?” (again, i love the weird sentences i get to write for this)
Gurf’n just nods, and grabs a bowl from a stack, then dips a ladle into one of the mounds around the pit, and scoops a pile of ash and lumpy black charcoal bits into the bowl, handing it to Cypress.
Ari finally finds a place to sit, in between one of the hammocks and one of the countertops. It’s a little further back from the others, and her rogue brain likes it because it's a good view of where everyone else will be sitting as they eat. She smiles to herself, and then her smile turns self-conscious, when she sees Rae take a seat right across from her, clearing keeping an eye on her, clearly… staring… at… her… is she even going to blink? Is not blinking a thing the monks she grew up with practiced, oh gods is she - oh good she did blink - phew, still, definitely keeping an eye on her.
With all of us sitting down, the goblin we all just seem content to call ‘Granny’ without ever asking her name, rude, scoops something like a marbled dough into a black pot and passes it to Gurf’n. We get a glimpse of the spreading mix before the goblin closes the hinged lid on the pot and tightens a couple of clamping screws on the outside like an old pressure cooker. The whole thing is long and flat and almost shaped like a fish. Gurf’n reaches down and smoothly slides it into the ashes beneath the mostly buried dogs of the fire in the bed of glowing coals between the rungs holding up the fire.
Next, the younger goblin picks up a long tall jug with a curved, open handle, like an uneven amphora, and slides it over and along the spreader bar to warm over the fire next to the small black hot box and the small near-conical riveted cauldron the Granny slid on a little while ago. After a minute we see some faint milky pink bubbles at the top, threatening to spill out, but staying just on the lip of the jug.
“Cypress,” Bostra says, taking a seat, because I definitely didn’t forget he was there, “As a holy man, would you be willing to bless our meal, and set us off with a prayer?”
Caught off guard, Cypress hesitates, then closes his eyes gracefully, using it as a mask to think on the fly while everyone else settles down.
Ari and Sorin bow their heads awkwardly, Rae holds her open hands on her knees and tilts her head up, the two goblins across from one another interlock their hands and hold them in front of their bellies, and Bostra leans back comfortably and looks at the ceiling, idly playing with his cigar box.
“Blessed Sheela, Green Sister, bring your favor upon this house. May the tended land be fruitful, and those who tend it responsible, and protected in your grace. That these crops grow hardy and true be your will, and the wilds beyond ever untamed. We ask your blessing on this meal, to fill our bellies and our hearts. May your roots grow deep and your leaves touch the sky.”
Gurf’n takes a stack of what look like horn cups and passes them around. He motions everyone to hold them in as if giving a toast over the fire, then tilts the clay jug, letting the liquid bubble out and fill the cups, though some still splashes over the fire, filling the room with a sweet and earthy smell.
Granny passes out dishes with sloped sides halfway between plates and bowls, then on each one she scoops a helping from the cauldron, before tweezing out two small leaf wrapped burrito-things from the hot box to set on the side of each bowl-plate.
The main dish is something like a curry – with vegetable chunks and bold spices. It is powerful and delicious, with a texture like chicken masala and an added crunch like the pasta in spanish rice (the undercooked-almost-raw rice). The leaf wrapped tubes turn out to be small egg rolls with a gooey inside that reminds us of a jelly donut – but gravy flavored – and with popping radish flavored boba balls mixed in.
The mulled wine is -
Brooke: “Ew, what?”
Nymbus: “Mulled* not ‘mold’.”
Brooke: “Ooooooh.”
The mulled wine is… unique. Thick and rich, earthy and fruity, sweet and pulpy, sharp and soothing, savory and creamy, bold and smooth, all at once – as if some insane cook whipped up a batch of bloody marys using red wine as a mixer, then added cream and put the whole thing in a meat smoker.
Cypress is investigating the cups more than the wine. They look so much like the horn cups used in a lot of camps and ale houses, but the curve is much more pronounced, and rather than being round, they form a kind of reuleaux triangle with one side convexed inwards. It’s when he notices the strange teeth-like bumps, that it hits him: these mugs are made from gigantic insects – or possibly arachnids – mandibles.
There is a gap of several minutes of comfortable and polite silence with nothing but the sounds of slurping and wooden spoons on clay dishes in place of conversation.
After emptying his first dish, and ladling out seconds to himself, Sorin, and Cypress, Gurf'n clears his throat with a swallow of wine and asks the obvious question, “Why are you all here?”
“We’re traveling to Eka.” Ari answers before anything can get awkward.
“Ah. What for, in Eka?”
Okay, well now it’s awkward.
All the Thug Muggers look at Bostra.
The gnome smiles and answers in a polite dismissal of the subject, “My friends here are my official escort. I have some diplomatic meetings in the city.”
With a moment of inspiration Sorin asks, “How do we get there?”
Gurf’n just blinks at the wizard, “Go down.”
As Sorin’s pride deflates, Granny adds, “Many paths to city Eka. Slow safe paths, fast dangerous paths.”
Brightening again, Sorin asks, “What’s the fastest path,” then forestalling any suspected comments, “even if it’s dangerous.”
“Find hole. Jump.” Gurf’n says with a sardonic smile. “If not there, then you in wrong hole. Find other hole. Jump again.”
“Have you ever been to Eka?” Rae asks, but with a 3 Persuasion Check she gets overridden by the other talk.
Ari cuts in, over Sorin’s protests to ask, “You mentioned dangers, what should we expect?”
“Some normal things. Bandits. Thugs. Bad roads. Small monsters. Some things… more Underdark. Steep cliffs. False earth. Xorn tunnels. Big monsters.” Gruf’n and his granny answer, tossing examples in a volley back and forth.
Rae tries again, “Have you ever been to Eka?” But she asks just a moment before Sorin asks his own question, and the goblins pointedly choose his question over hers. With a look (13 Perception) at Granny in particular, Rae can see a familiar look on her wrinkled face; not the anxious nervousness of someone hiding a secret, but the tired distant pain that she sees when Ari thinks about her past in Avernus.
While Rae figures this out, Sorin is trying to turn the questions back on our hosts by asking, “So, uh, what goes on around here?”
“Rocks.” Gurf’n says.
“Yes,” Granny adds, “Lots rocks, some dirt, much water.”
“Time.” Gurf’n says draining his cup and pouring another from the jug, tipping some onto the fire. “Time happens. Time been happening forever now.”
Trying to get back to what her brain is labeling ‘useful recon intel’ in front of Bostra, Ari probes again, “You mentioned monsters, what kinds of creatures should we expect?”
The older goblin gives her a hard stare and a wry smile. “You new here, yes? You do not know. We are here, high up, like on mountain, not in Underdark yet. Just touching, just on edge. Like foothills to mountain you used to, but upside down reverse.” Her long arms and knobbly hands seem to dance in the firelight as she talks, gesturing various levels to help explain. “Soon you will see true Underdark, not just near Underdark cave. Steep cliffs. Waterfall of tumbling stone and earth. Lights crush the body, eat the soul.”
There is a thoughtful silence after this long speech, then Gurf’n pipes up, “Also Cave Fishers, good eggs, make tasty egg pulp wine.” he motions to the lopsided amphora over the fire, and everyone who knows what a cave fisher is, tries to forget what he just said.
Sorin chimes in, “So how do we get there, to Eka?”
Gurf’n sighs, “Go down, through underdark.”
“And how do we get to the real Underdark then?”
“Go,” Gurf’n and Granny say together, “Down.”
Leaning towards Rae, Gurf’n mutters, “Your clown is very taxing.”
Rae sighs, “We know.”
After the main dish is gone from the pot and all the plates are licked clean – with Cypress stopping tZulèe from eating its bowl – Gurf’n takes the strange clamped iron pot out of the ashes. He lays it crosswise on the corner of the hearth so it lays flat, and rubs his hands together eagerly. “Granny made special dessert cause company here, very good, very exciting.” Then, waiting for the cast iron to cool off enough to touch, he turns to Cypress and points down at tZulèe, “It want dessert too?”
Cypress hesitates for a fraction of a second, not sure what to expect, but not wanting to offend, then he nods.
The goblin picks up the earthenware bowl with the little teeth marks tZulèe left right as Cypress pulled it away from him earlier, and grabs some tongs. He pinches off several good candy-sized embers from the fire, and drops them in the bowl, handing it back.
tZulèe’s outstretched arms make cooing little grabby hands in stuttery stop motion at the bowl while Cypress thinks through a very speedy Nature Check.
Hot coals and embers are a treat for gargoyles… grown, adult, stone gargoyles. They're somewhere in between coffee, alcohol, and smoking though. Definitely a stimulant; heating up the brain and moving things very quickly, but a bit damaging and not something that should be routine or an everyday practice. And for adolescents (being made of wood), the smoldering coals at likely to over heat them and leave them feeling sick later, as well as stunt their growth – though the adolescent gargoyles probably don’t know this, and just want them because they are delicious and give a sugary buzz.
Moving quickly, Cypress snags the bowl and sets it on his other side, placing his own finished plate on top of it to suffocate the burning coals. He scratches tZulèe soothing, “We need to let them cool first.”
Now we can see that if more like a bowtie a fish with a tail on each end. Gurf’n unclamps the screws and opens the pot. It has a main eye-shaped reservoir (a geometric lens or almond shape of two steep cornered curves) and two triangle spill overs on either side. With a slim wooden knife, the goblin slices the dark and light marbled loaf within into equal strips that give off steam as he passes them out. The cake is crumbly and striped like a cut cinnamon roll or coffee cake. As we bite in, we are overwhelmed by the earthy sweetness. Carrot sugar (boiled carrot peelings refined to a syrup) rolled in a dough made with powdered onion caramel, ginger and cinnamon powder. A true goblin delicacy very pungent and sweet, with lots of vitamins made up almost completely from things that you can find underground (everything but the cinnamon).
We eat for a few minutes in silence, with everyone enjoying the rare gift of sugary sweetness – and tZulèe pouting over its now-cold embers. Soon the cake is gone, and we all lean back feeling our bellies soak it up. We sit here drinking the strange wine and chatting idly as we digest.
“So are there other farmers, like you around?” Rae asks.
“Not likely. Not this far from city.”
This time it's a group Nature Check.
The area here, that is, this specific cave, has a lot of residual magic – magic in an uncombined, unused, elemental state. We saw some of that in the crystal, in the reversed waterfalls, AND in the mushrooms. As we saw, the crops here are irregular and these mushrooms (like many of the shrooms featured in the book “Mycelium Running” by Paul Stamets) are picking up the errant radiation and toxins in the environment. In fact without them, this would be a pretty dangerous place to exist in. But these mushrooms are extremely valuable to Arcanists, Mages, Spellcrafters, and other magic scholars and potion makers because of all the magic they soak up in a semi-stable form. That means that a low yield crop can form a sustainable market niche for Gurf’n and his Granny. But think of it a bit like the people living on the edge ring of the Chernobyl disaster.
There are some people in Belarus and Ukraine who make their living by venturing in and around the outscrusts of the Polesie State Radioecological Reserve and similar regions; gathering exotic samples of plants and animals affected by the nuclear fallout, or acting as knowledgeable guides for scientists and researchers going into the area. Their lives are less than ideal to say the least, and often fraught with health problems, but they are making some kind of living off that blighted landscape.
These goblins are something similar. Existing in a cave on the edge of a wilderness, far from a real town or city, living off an irregular bit of terrain chalked full of risks that are both seen and unseen, doing a job that hardly anyone would readily volunteer for. The dinner has no mushrooms in it and that seems strange at first; and then you think ‘sure they’re sick of them, or they don’t want to cut in on their sales supply’, but then you see the mushroom and the equipment they use to harvest them, and you think ‘they don’t trust the crop to be eaten.’
Thinking about all of this, and their recent chat with a certain two headed salesman, Rae asks if Gurf’n or his granny know Devin.
“Yeees,” Gurf’n smiles, “Good friend. Good broker. Helps sell many most difficult mushroom.”
Sorin covers a small burp with his hand and turns to the goblin. “Do you mind if we set up or bed rolls out by your fields tonight?”
Gurf’n swats the question away, “Pfsh, Bostra already talk. I say you sleep here. In morning, we kick you out.”
Ashton (the 6 year old), poking his head in: “Why is he kicking you out?”
Sarah: “Because no one can stand us for more than an hour at a time.”
Laughter around the table.
Picturing the crop plots in their mind again, something dawns on Cypress. He opens his mouth, then closes it, undersure of exactly how to go about asking without being rude or seeming to pry.
“Out with it. That one has question. Spit out or it grow in stomach, make you explode.” Granny says, pointing a veiny hand at the cleric.
Cypress suppresses a smile just in time when he notices the serious look on Gurf’n’s face and the subtle shake of Bostra’s head (goblins have a lot of explosion based superstitions). “I noticed that in your gray mushroom patch you have a ring… like a fairy circle…?” He trails off letting the implied question dangle in the air.
Gurf’n chomps at the bait, “Yes, you like my work? What you think?”
This time it’s an Arcana Check, and we can see a couple of the books on the other counter including a well thumbed book on fairy lore, old magic myths, and a flimsy “Guide to the Art of Telliporteration” that is either a misspelled scam, or a very old magic print of a spell system. They scratch their chin, “It’s a fairy circle? A real one then?”
“Not yet. Soon.” Gurf’n beams, “This one smart. Figure: fairy teleporting rings appear, bring mushrooms. Reverse transitive equation mean I build mushrooms right, teleportation ring follow.”
“Have you done it before?”
“First try, good fun!”
“Where will it take you?” Rae asks.
Gurf’n points out beyond a wall and down, “Small village outside Eka.”
“Oh,” Sorin chimes in, hopeful for a contact, “who do you have on the other side setting up the other one?”
“Wut?”
“I…”
“Shoot.”
The goblin looks distraught. “Not thought out, argh. Big frustrating. Kostrdas garden hemil a diktrony!”
Sorin reaches out a tentative hand, “We could set up the other side for you, that is, if you show us how?”
After a thoughtful glare, Gurf’n’s face starts to light up again. “Kdlackhm’ ye?. Yes. Good. Less frustrating.”
Okay, so you all have a couple options here from your conversations so far: 1) Mushroom Circle, 2) Maps/directions, 3) City Politics, or 4) Cult Stuff. We’re winding down the dinner, but we’ll have one more detailed conversation and then in a second we’re gonna break apart. Cyprus and Sorin are going to go with Gruf’n to learn what they need to for the mushroom circle. That leaves Ari and Rae to talk with Granny. We’ll also have that one more detailed bit here at the end. So with Cypress and Sorin taking the Mushroom Circle topic, that leaves 2) Maps/Directions, 3) City Politics, or 4) Cult Stuff. The group needs to pick one of those for the big discussion, and then Ari and Rae get to pick one to try and talk with Granny about.
Bostra mentions a tactful question or two to Gurf’n about specific paths and directions, and when the goblin starts gesturing – as if writing in the air – Ari pulls out our maps. The goblin nods and grabs a couple stiff matts, using them to cover a part of the irori hearth and make a small table. He fills in the cave sections that Ari described, finally giving us a sense of where we are (see the party map below). He marks one of the uppy-downy-ladder-pipy-thingys we’ve seen (the one Cypress thought was the one we wanted for the record) as the best way down. “Here is good path. Below is biiiig-pond-little-lake, has well bottom for city Nibiru. Small tunnels on side lead big chamber.” He points to the spot where Ari had been moving towards voices and lost her Sending Stone, where Cypward dragged Rae out on the rocky beach. “Lake and room both have holes down.” He scratches some curves into the bottom of the map, “Or these tunnels have paths, one more foothill fringe level, then Underdark Wild.” He turns the map over and scribbles some vague trails. “Hard to say path in wild, some roads maybe good, others,” he shrugs an expressive goblin shrug, moving his bones like an earthquake, “Xorn eaten maybe.” He makes some lines on the page and draws a tunnel. “All paths down. Eka under-underground. Find biiiig tunnels, go sideways, hear echoes. Follow echos. Find biiiiig hole biiiiig pit – like empty lake, all black – straight down. Find Eka.”
As we separate to do the washing up, Sorin and Cypress go with Gurf’n to look over his books. It turns out that the ones about the telliporteration magic are legit! Leafing through, Sorin recognizes some ritual markings and inner arcane runes that show it to be a real spell book. Cleverly, Gurf’n has managed to find a way to infuse the runes into the soil and feed for the growing mushrooms, turning them into living teleportation marker-stones.
Sorin, since you volunteered to help make the other end of this portal, you have an option, learning all this will give a side mission with its own rewards, and you’ll get some cool stuff from learning about this spell. But. You will have to stay up late and study to do so. Everyone else is going to get some bonuses that i hadn’t announced yet from the meal and the special crystal tea. You will start this side quest and gain some cool magic, but you won’t get the bonus they do starting out tomorrow morning.
Ashley, after hesitating and thinking it over: “Okay, I’ll do it.”
As we separate to do the washing up, Ari and Rae go with the goblin that we’ve all just taken to calling Granny. With a couple whispers and nods, they decide to try and delicately ask her about the City of Ekka and the politics at play there.
“You looked kinda sad when I asked if you’d been to the city.” Rae starts with a tender voice as she kneels to scrub up the dishes in the bathing tub.
“I get it,” Ari says, “I lost my home too.” She gives a brief explanations of her past, skipping the more painful and messy parts, using the excuse of scrubbing dishes to avoid eye contact.
After this, Granny stacks the clean dishes on the counter and slides the cookpot and the hot box into the water. There is a moment of silence, then she says, “All never ask Granny’s name. Either very rude, or over polite.” She holds up a wet claw, forstallling their excuses and apologies. “This one is bi’Feneeh**. Little B and I, apostro, high F then E and N, two more E letter and final H.” She goes back to scrubbing. “Notice we always spell name, and give apastrophic marks in spelling. These marks show one society place. One letter, apost, very high, mark before first let, highest over all.” She lets this sink in, seeing Ari’s court knowledge mark her as a duchess***. “See that Gurf’n has mark one letter from end. One step over peasant, very low. Only up because related to me.” She says with a momentary flash of pride. “But democracy come, now such aportomarks fallen.” She raises a finger, “Still used, mind you me, but not great like my time.” With the cookpot clean she starts on the hotbox. “I there when Eka palace fall. All city made stone pillars. Stalactites. Revolters cut big tip where palace carved. Palace fall to chassam.” She holds out her hand and lets it fall with a splash. “Chop off palace from bottom, flat. Then time. Now new stalactites grow. Grow tiny. Grow slow. Grow many, from big flat, not one big.” She sighs. “Some royal stay, play democracy. Some stay, play citizen, shopkeeper, inn merchant. I leave.” She thinks for a minute and takes out the clean hot box, sliding in the dessert pot before drying her hands. She goes to her hammock and comes back. “This is letter. You take innkeeper. He help you. Inn in stalactite clump where palace fall. He old sort. Still friend.” biFeneeh shows Ari and Rae away. “Go now. Not rude. Granny big thoughts big memory need space to have thinking so big.”
**pronounced like Biff mixed with Tiffany - “bi·fuh·nee” (also a MBMBaM joke name).
***Rank goes ‘Xxxxx = Emperor/ess, ‘xxxxx = King/Queen, X’xxxx = Prince/ess (1st), x’Xxxx = Prince/ess (2nd), x’xxxx = Prince/ess (3rd) [the first and second ‘ positions are reserved for direct royalty, heirs, and family] , xX’xxx = Royal cousin, xx’Xxx = Duke/Dutchess, xx’xxx = Marquis/e, xxX’xx = Vicount/ess, xxx’Xxx = Barron/ess, xxx’xxx = Lord/lady, all the way down to xxxxX’ = low peasant, and xxxxx’ = beggar [there is not always five letters, this is just to represent the end of a name].
And with that Ari and Rae have unlocked some lore, some NPC backstory, a thing to know █████ ██████ ██ ███ ██████, and now have a contact in the city.
As we unfurl out bed rolls and get comfortable – everyone but the college kid wizard up late studying – we see Bostra offer cigars to Granny and Gurf’n as they step out to the little cave yard.
We hear a few things in goblin, common, and gnomish, and even a few moments of laughter.
Slowly as their conversation rocks us back and forth, we drift into a peaceful resting sleep.
Good night little adventurers.
“Yeah, still completely failed to prep for this one.”
–Me “Thug Muggers Under Nibiru 9/15/23”
Table talk:
I’m switching the order of how we actually talked about things, to end on a lighter note.
So… i won’t go into a ton of details about our last discussion here, because it involves some private issues around my mental health – and while i’ve laid a lot of that out already in these blogs (because i think exposure and talking about things is important), i do want to keep something to myself. Basically we are taking a week or maybe two off for me to catch my brain up with everything, and get some DM rest. As a DM it can be extremely rewarding running a campaign of your own making… but… it can also be very taxing, and there is a lot of extra work. Balancing encounters (and rebalancing them whenever the group levels up), describing rooms, foreshadowing without giving away, looking up items, and so on – all told i spend an average of 3.5 hours a week prepping (with some weeks around 12). That stuff is mostly already taken care of, there written down for you, with convenient charts and if-than’s in store-bought campaign books.
We also had a heart to heart about my social anxiety and how having to ‘be the dm’ in everything we do can get taxing (ex: if i’m the only one asking if we’re playing this weekend, then i feel like my messages in the group chat become ‘oh he’s just that-guy asking about the schedule’). And how lots of little things like this lead me to feel very outcast, and separate from the group. So we talked about it for a while and think we’ll find ways to make some of these things a bit easier on me.
We are coming up on a big change in our sessions, something that a lot of long running campaign players will recognize, and i wanted to give the players a chance to think about it. Soon, we will be in The Wilderness OoOoOooOOooOo… Technically (in D&D terms) we’ve been in a dungeon – with breaks in the city – this whole time: everything mapped out, rooms described, encounters pre-planned, ect. But there will be a big shift coming when we move to The Underdark. That will be a WIlderness in between areas. Meaning that different rules and set ups will be at play, “Chapter 8: Adventuring” in the 5e Player’s Handbook will give some general guidelines and rules, especially the last section 'between adventures’ for anyone that wants to look ahead a bit, and of course there's more in the DM guide. There will be a lot of ground to cover and what happens will be determined mostly by randomized tables: farms, other travelers, road bandits, monsters, three days of nothing but crafting poultices from rare herbs, walking, climbing, falling, talking to each other or feuding, all of these and more are on the table. We may have maps for small areas and scenes, plus some fairly generic battle maps for encounters, but it may also be just me closing my eyes and finding new ways of describing rocks.
