Thug Muggers in the City 9/18/22
Table Talk:
I am running very late getting this up this week, so i’m gonna skimp a bit on the table talk.
Everyone leveled up to level 3 and most of the crunchy details can be found HERE. I also gave out the information and stats on Ari’s dagger “Ari's Dagger of Lifesteal is +4 to hit, 1D4+2 damage, if she keeps the dagger in the target, on her next action, she can open the blade and push her hand on the the spikes, this will do 1D4 damage to her and 1D4 damage to the creature and Ari will gain the same HP as the extra damage done.”
Diedrik is now multiclassing.So Cypress’s 3rd level will actually be Druid level 1 – more to come in the actual story.
We discussed multiclass spell slots since now Ari and Cypress will have spells from different sources. The basic question is whether to keep the spell slots separate (more narratively satisfyingly), or to lump them together into a single pool to use (easier game play). The group decided to leave them separate, with the option to cross the divide in an emergency and accept some penalty for it.
Click image for full file
I also forgot to mention last time that Rae found some thieves cant on the ladder she decided not to use. She can’t read it, but does recognize it after spending so much time around Ari.
We hit up a FLGS in Lincoln this weekend, and i picked up a deck that i THOUGHT had spell cards for Monk abilities using Ki points, turns out it had that for Fighters and Barbarians, but not for Monks. So once again thank you TimboJohnson on Etsy for this card layout, as i was able to make up some cards for Sarah. It was a rushed job, since i had already promised them before i knew they didn’t exist, but i hope they work out alright.
Lastly, I let everyone know that i am currently on a med change for my psych pills, so i asked everyone to help keep an eye out and let me know if i start acting more irritated or anything. This is not just to correct the behavior and be more tolerable, but also to help when it comes time to evaluate the meds.
“‘hsssss... You are wasting the Class' time, young man. I will have no more of this ... questinging. Now perhaps you could look in your textbook and tell me what you see there?’
‘That's a typo’
‘INSOLENT FOOL! How dare you question the test book!! The textbook never lies! THE TEXTBOOK NEVER LIES!!!’”
- Ms. Bitters & Squee (Todd Casil) –Jhonen Vasquez “Squee: Another Valuable Lesson”
Once again, we’ll be dividing up our story here to focus on one time-line at a time.
5-A: Zavari The Odorous & Raelle The Smelly
🎲🗡️🔔
5-A: Zavari The Odorous & Raelle The Smelly 🎲🗡️🔔
Ari and Rae sit comfortably in the sunshine enjoying the full belly feel after eating their Churro Special. Rae licks a little bit of cinnamon dust and nacho cheese sauce from her fingers before spreading her arms wide over the back of the bench, stretching in the open sunshine. Ari rolls her neck and feels that good deep feeling of rubbing her horns on the warm stone bricks behind the bench, she sighs contentedly.
Both of you give me a Perception Roll.
Ari and Rae look around and notice they are attracting some mild attention. The street here, not far from the arena, is fairly packed, but everyone seems to be steering clear of them. They notice small kids pointing and questioning their parents, people with hands covering noses, and sidelong looks as people hold flowers up to noses and breathe deeply. Ari and Rae… decide they do not care.
The two heroes slap their knees and stand up with a groan like a geriatric synchronized diving competition in reverse. They nod at each other and silently start scanning the nearby stalls and carts for someone selling health potions. Ari is the first to stop one.
Near the mouth of an alley, in the shade, a man grins and waves at her. He is standing beside a large wheelbarrow covered in fruit and veggies, and flies. At his feet is a backpack, open to display necks of bottles and a wooden blank with a sloppy “Posions, Cheep” written on it in charcoal.
Ari points to the shady grinning man and is about to speak up when Rae grabs the back of her tunic. Rae starts walking to the vendor she spotted on the other side of the street, dragging a confused and stumbling Ari behind her.
The two walk up to a stand made from two boards laid across some large wooden crates. On it are some bits of broken armor, a pile of torn bloody cloth strips, and a neat pyramid stack of red Health Potions with the sign “heal Like The pros!” in front of it. The man behind the planks grins like he’s selling used cars as we approach and launches straight into his rehashed spiel. “That’s right folks, Genuine Arena Artifacts,” he says, pronouncing it all with capital letters and bending ‘genuine’ until it’s forced to rhyme with ‘bovine’. “Get the good luck of actual gladiator armor, get a real bloody rag from the heroes in the ring, drink the same healing potions the pro’s do!”
Rae steps up and grits her teeth, preparing to wage war – her new battlefield is bartering. A tricky, tricky arena where she has lost fight after fight! A battle of wills where she must harden herself against the most crafty of foes! She points to the potions and chooses her words carefully, staring the vendor directly in his soul, “How much?”
“48 Gold pieces,” the man says, his smile faltering under the intensity of her stare.
“Oh! Hey, that’s not bad at all,” Rae says she pulls out coins from a pouch at her waist. Conversational now she adds, “You know, usually we actually pay 50.”
The man opens his mouth as she hands over the coins. He’s about to try to talk her into spending more when her hand gets within a couple feet of his nose. It wrinkles up in an instant and his eyes begin to water like someone cutting onions. His salesman brain recoils and calculates all the money he’s losing with this smell in front of his stand. “Yeah, cool, great, thanks for doing business, here you go.” He says all in one breath and pushes a bottle at Rae.
“What a nice man,” Rae says as they move back into the crowd.
A pouting Ari turns back to her, “I’m still going to check out the one I found.” She walks towards the alley where she saw the man with the wheelbarrow full of graying fruit. Our two heroes cross the street, not noticing how the crowd parts around them with looks of disgust.
Seeing him again, Ari rushes up to the man as he leans against the building in the shade. “Sorry, my friend dragged me away. I need to buy one of your health potions.” She reaches for her bag and his eyes watch her hands, “How much is it?”
“Health, oh yeah, health potions, sure.” The man stares at Ari’s hand as she reaches into her purse, then looks up and grins, his teeth looking like a cemetery after a landslide. “28 Gold I’ve got them on discount right now.”
Ari’s hand slowly backs out of the pouch, holding nothing. “Yeah, let me just take a look at one first.”
The man hesitates and frowns before bending down and grabbing a bottle from the bag. He swirls it and shakes it as he holds it up, “Only the finest…”
Roll an Insight Check for me.
Upon inspection, the swirling starts to slow and separate and even Ari can tell this is just red sawdust in water.
The two leave and make their way to where Rae found Devin’s mark earlier.
The two argue about who has to summon Devin since they both only have Silver and Gold, but no Copper pieces left. It ends with Ari pointing out. “I summoned him last time, it’s your turn to lose a coin.”
Rae sighs and pushes her coin into Devin’s mark. As usual a puff of smoke plumes out, but this time there’s no Devin. Ari and Rae look around in confusion as the smoke just slowly billows up to the sky. When the smoke passes the corner of the rooftop, a lizard head pokes out over the edge… then another. Devin scales down the wall with one arm on either side of him, and his third arm reaching out and pulling him downwards. As he gets to eye level he slows and a grin opens his mouth, first on one side and then slowly moving to the other side until his other head grins, first on one side, then the other. “Well, if it isn’t the Cornsucker fans.” He sneers, “Do you have a present for me already?”
Rae grits her teeth and almost punches forward the hand holding the potion.
“Ah, well thank you,” one head says, as the other’s tongue snakes out and wraps around the bottle. Did you have anything else you needed to buy or sell?”
Ari asks about the price for her Zombie hand and Devin is silent. He blinks first one eye then the other, then the third eye then the fourth. “It takes a day minimum,” he states in a dry annoyed voice, “and that was just this morning.” They stare at each other… “Well then, if there’s nothing else,” Devin’s middle arm makes a sarcastic bow before clinging to the wall. He scurries away again, but sideways this time instead of up. He skitters along the wall, and where it meets the corner of the building next to it he just… keeps going. No claws grip the other wall, no attempt to squeeze in the cracks, he just… crawls right through and into the wall itself – clipping out of the world.
After a moment of stunned silence staring at the wall, Rae turns to Ari, “Oh yeah I forgot I need you to look at something I found.” She leads the confused Ari over to the ladder she found that morning. The one on the side of the collapsed church turned dark market, the one she didn’t take when she wanted to climb to the roof – yeah that one. “I saw some markings and I’m pretty sure they’re the thiefy kind you can read.” She says pointing to some thieves cant scratched into the wall next to the ladder.
Ari traces over them with her finger and then backs away, confused.
“What does it say?”
Ari reads it out for her friend.
“As below in darkness,
So above in the light.”
Ari thinks and looks up the ladder at the rooftop. “Maybe,” she hesitates, “if there’s a dark market down here when it’s night…”
“You think,” Rae finishes for her, “that there’s one on the roof in the day.”
Frowning, Ari says, “Let me climb up and take a look, then if it’s safe you can follow me up.” She grabs the rungs of the letter, and still a bit nervous about it falling over, climbs up to the roof. She pokes her head over the rooftop, then climbs up onto it looking around.
The roof is about half collapsed, but stable. We can make out boards hammered together and iron bands holding beams sturdily in place. Where the roof DID collapse, now it is a solid floor. The floor is hidden from sight, not only from below – but the last remaining bits or roof leave it hard to see from any of the other rooftops around. Tucked in the shade of these bits of broken rooftop are small venders. Aarakocra and some dragonborn vendors stand in these shadows, glancing at Ari over their wares. There is a dragonborn man with cut neck-frills standing behind a row of jars. The jars are full of mysterious liquids, some swirling around, some with skulls or body parts in them, and one with either a monkey’s tail, or a furry snake floating in it. Another man leans back in a chair, his hat over his face and his boots on his table. From the boots, a dark swirling mist covers everything on the table, the vague shapes poking out are unrecognizable. And there is a fat buzzard aarakocra looming over a stack of boxes covered by blankets.
Ari looks around and decides this is exactly the type of place to invite her friend to. She leans over the edge and shouts, “Come on up,” Before getting on her knees to help Rae climb the ladder over the edge.
When the two turn around, the attitude on the roof is now extremely hostile. The Buzzard-man flaps his wings and shiny points of sharp metal glint under his feathers. The dragonborn glares and reaches slowly for a pouch on his belt. A large Aarakocra steps from a nearby shadow. His feathers are a slick black and gray, his one good eye is hard and coal black while the other is covered by a green alligator skin eyepatch. His eagle-like beak is twisted on the bottom with a long scar running across the top. He stands mere inches from Ari and Rae, his very presence about to push them off the ledge.
He looks over the edge of the roof, then back at the two Thug Muggers. In a voice that sounds like the distant rumble of thunder he whispers, “Are you two idiots narcs or something?”
Because, apparently fear requires brain cells, Ari and Rae are fearless. They smile and wave and explain they’re just here to look around and shop. The bird man growls a bit and slowly blends back into the shadows.
The first stand that catches their eye is of course the dragonborn selling bottles of mysterious liquids and goo’s, which makes sense since they were just looking for healing potions. Speaking of healing potions, Rae walks up and asks the man, “Do you have any poison?”
The man grins like a piranha and says, “ Poisons, oh yeah, I got all kinds of poisons. What kind did you need? Untraceable? Deadly? Hypnotic? I have a few that make you catch fire from the inside out. Ooooh or I’ve got one that slowly and painfully reverses the target so that their organs are on the outside. I have some that just make them stupider for a few weeks. What’d ya need?”
An ashen-faced Ari and a pale Rae slowly back away, Rae whispering to Ari, “That was intense, maybe we should go.”
Ari nods but says, “First I wanna see what that dark mist guy is all about.”
The character that inspired this
We approach the table covered in black swirling mist and the man takes his boots off the table, for a brief moment before he sets his hands down in it, the mist lightens and we can almost see the things underneath. When he puts his hands down on the table, the mist swirls faster. We can’t make out his face behind the rice-paddy hat as he asks, “So, my new fine friends, what great search brings you to my little corner?”
With all the tact of an attacking rhino Ari asks, “What’s the deal with the swirling black mist?”
There is a pause, then the man turns to look over his shoulder at the guard tower in the distance on the city wall. “These other fools can lay out all their illegal goods for anyone to see if they want.” He turns back, “but me, I prefer to keep my hidden secrets, hidden and secret.”
“So how do you sell them, how do we buy anything when we can’t see it?”
Ok, mechanic time. This is a magical grab-bag. A player will specify what they want to get, and the character will reach into the mist to pull something out determined by a dice roll. The better the roll, the better the item. So if a player asks for a sword, on a 6 they might get a plain short sword, on a 16 they might get a +1 scimitar. If a player asks for an Arrow of Eternal Fire, a 4 might get an arrow that is on fire and immediately turns to ash, a 12 might get an arrow with Light permanently cast on it.
Asking for a potion, Rae reaches into the mist and feels her arm going surprisingly deep. When she’s all the way up to her elbow she feels a glass bottle and pulls it out. Rae holds up a pyramid glass vessel and inside is a swirling green liquid. It shines and glints in the light. Attached is a tag in an unknown language she knows is draconic, but cannot read.
Next up Ari asks for some ammo for her bow. She gets ready to plunge her hand down, but it stops just an inch into the mist and her fingers clutch the arrows. She pulls them out to see that these arrows have wicked barbs on the pack of their heads. These are +1 damage, but cannot be removed or recollected.
Rae stares at the tag of her new potions, she looks at Ari and points to the dragonborn selling potions, she asks, “Do you think he will translate it for me?”
“You want to ask the big scary dragon man, who sells poisons that light your insides on fire, and that you DIDN’T buy anything from, if he’ll tell you about the potion you bought from someone else?”
“Oh, yeah, I guess maybe not then.”
And with that, the two Thug Muggers climb down the ladder and head off once more for the church of shadows.
Once again as they make their way, Ari and Rae do not seem to notice or care as people step around them and out of their way covering their noses. After passing through a few side streets, we come to the courtyard of the Church of shadows. In the middle of this dirt paved clearing is a large squat octagonal building. Its roof is in the shape of a steep cone and on top is an iron cast symbol. The triangle cut vertically, one half dark iron and one half empty with the sky showing through. There are voices in the air as people mill around the outside of the building waiting for the nightly sermon. The atmosphere is light and friendly as people chat and neighbors catch up.
When Ari and Rae step into the clearing, the voices fall hush. The air chills a little from the gaze of these standers-by as they look on at the Thug Muggers. A few of them shuffle away and make an attempt to breathe elsewhere. Ari and Rae… still in full battle gear, and smelling of the sewers, walk right up to the large swing doors of the church.
There are two people standing in the arch way of the doors greeting people as they come inside. A priest stands in his black and white robes and face paint smiling quietly and greeting his flock. On the other side is a middle-aged blonde woman with gold earrings and rings, she is wearing a pastel cardigan and shaking hands with every single person. When she shakes their hands, both of her hands engulf the hand of the shakee, she makes direct eye contact and says something personal about each person as they walk in, something familiar about their work or families. She is proof of demons.
As we approach, Ari and Rae walk up the middle of the doors and hear the sound of doom. The woman opens her mouth, and like the foretold dawning of the apocalypses says, “Well howdy there folks, now I don’t believe we’ve met before. Now my name is Karen and that fellow there is Mark.” She moves to shake Rae’s hand and hesitates. The smell washes over her and she swallows but gets a wwjd glint in her eye and gives it the old what-the-heck-come-on-in-here-you, gripping Rae’s hand and shaking with genuine affection. When she releases Rae’s hand it comes back cleaner, and hers is still somehow unsullied. Her eyes begin to twitch and tears form as she makes small talk and smiles. Her smile is the effort of martyrs against the smell of the two newcomers.
Out of the corner of her eye, Ari sees the priest looking at them. His eyes are locked on, he doesn’t even blink. The smell doesn’t seem to affect him like the others. But his eyes are narrowed as he stares at the two intruders.
Karen’s nose crinkles as Ari turns back to look at her and she asks, “So um, are you two, uh new to the faith?”
Raelle-the-socially-inept hears the subtle signs of small talk and gentle questioning. She folds under the pressure, “So this is a church right?”
I want to take a second here to talk about the table dynamics at play, for the last 30 minutes of play, with that rooftop market, and now the church, Diedrik has been absolutely losing his mind over how dumb these two are being. Lots of side comments and pointing out mistakes they made all culminating in the line, “Really, you’re trying to be sneaky about this and you’re basically walking up wearing pants with ‘Sewer Slut’ on bedazzled on the ass!”
Ari and Rae are trying to explain that they just want to sit in the back of the church and watch during the next service when the priest has had enough. “Excuse me,” he says and then pulls Karen to the side to whisper in her ear. When he turns back to them, her face is pale and she glances at the Thug Muggers before hurriedly walking off in another direction, trying to wave someone down. “Now then,” the priest says, his steely half-skull gaze turning on the pair, “While today’s service isn’t exactly an especially sacred one, it is one that we feel is best only for church goers and standing members of our community.” He straightens his frock and continues in a voice that is used to summoning large men with larger axes, “We are happy to set a time and place to meet with you and discuss the faith if you are interested in learning, but I do not think now is the time for that. So I would like to ask you to leave for today and stop distracting the congregation so they can focus on more holy thoughts.”
And that’s a great cliff hanger to leave off on for Ari and Rae. Standing in a doorway, barred entry to the one place they needed to go by a priest with his arms crossed and legs spread ready for a fight, and both of them screaming ‘Oh shit, he knows!’ loudly in their heads.
5-B: Cypress in the Woods with a Druid
🎲🌿
5-B: Cypress in the Woods with a Druid 🎲🌿
And now, we move away from that uncomfortable scene in the early evening, to a very pleasant one in the early afternoon.
Cypress stands in the sunlight, feeling the fresh air on his cheeks and wriggling his toes in the sun-warmed grass. Before he even realizes it, a smile is spreading across his face. He walks along the side of the main road and into an area known as Tenton.
Tenton is a gathering of travelers camping out in the eastern field outside the city of Nibiru. It is essentially a small ever-changing village, made entirely of cloth and loose wagon boards. Caravans come and go with wagons of wood or livestock, farmers bring horses laden down with seed to bring to the market, and wanders bring their heavy backpacks looking to meet someone interesting. As soon as one family tears their tent down and heads away from the camp, a party of adventurers takes their spot setting up their own tents and cooking over the same half-dug fire pit. In this way, the travelers' tents are always changing, it grows and shrinks in the seasons, but it never stops. The air is light with a casual ease as people wander from place to place with the vague easy look of those with nowhere important to be just yet. The smell of pleasantly half-burned campfire food lingers in the air. Bards practice songs, and squires scribble out the stories of their last adventure. In short, it is the kind of like a free and open music-festival-y vibe that would have Bostra gritting his teeth until he burns it to the ground as soon as some hippie asked if he wanted to trade his rations for a tie dye shirt.
Cypress meanders through the tents and paths heading towards the tree line in the distance. A few people stop and nod or casually wave to him, but no one stops or harasses our little cleric as he passes by. His thoughts are all joyful reminisces of feasts and festivals back home when everyone would come into the villages and dance under the stars laughing. When these people wave he smiles and lifts two fingers from his walking staff in an old timey two-finger-steering-wheel-wave. He walks on in the joy of a god whose only love is the joy of life itself. And here, Cypress is just one of the people, enjoying life.
Past the tents of the travelers and through the tall prairie grass to the east, Cypress stands a little ways from the tree line. The highway path forward snakes into the woods where the trees have been cut back, but it’s clear that not far off it is just a path in a forest. The woods are not dissimilar from a wind break around a farm. Old thick trunks stand a bit apart from each other in the shade, easy to walk in the spaces between, but hard to see too deep inside. The ground is covered in spots of rotting unkempt branches and small shrubs. Saplings sprout in the spots where the sun shines through and little clusters of mushrooms blown in the dark wrinkles of tree roots.
Forming a plan in his head, Cypress eyes the skyline of trees, deciding what direction to go. To the north he sees the shape of a large willow poking above all the other trees, its thick branches reaching straight towards the sun. To the south he sees a dip in the canopy of leaves, and a faint glow from deep within the trees, hinting at maybe a clearing.
He nods and sets his route towards the big tree in his mind, Cypress tightens his belt and takes the moss jar from its hook there and whispers against the glass making the moss balls inside begin to glow. With a determined look now, Cypress Witchazel steps into the woods.
The forest isn’t really dark, but the hanging moss-lantern glows just enough to show thorns or trails of ants that threaten to bite or cut. The jar sways back and forth just above the ground and begins to glow brighter. Unbidden by Cypress the moss glows brighter and brighter, until it is leaving faint trails of light behind it, like a glowstick in the midnight darkness. Cypress watches it as the magic inside the moss thrums. Soon he sees letters forming inside the light. The letters are from old halfling scripts and not the common tongue. It spells out a simple message:
“Use my Magic,
Defend yourself.”
After he reads it, the light begins to fade, and moments later the moss is dark once more. Cypress hooks the strap back to his belt, cinching it tight and looking around at the shadows in the trees.
Cautiously he carries on into the woods, slower now, and careful to try to step on only the bare earth or grass to make less noise. A small distance further and he begins to hear something unsettling.
Creeping forward now, Cypress turns to see the source of the sound behind a tree. There, next to a broken tree stump is a ball of fur. From this angle it doesn’t look that dissimilar from one of the moss balls, if you just dried it off and dyed it brown. That is, except for the ears. It is making a keening whimpering sound, a sound of pain and of anger.
It’s a bear cub, and Cypress is on full alert, knowing full well that mama bear is sure to be around here somewhere.
After a few moments waiting, Cypress can’t take it anymore, the sounds of pain and worry are getting to him. What if the cub is lost? What if something happened to the mother? What if… all the ideas race around in circles until he decides to move. He cautiously steps out from behind his tree and towards the furry ball of bear cub. His foot falters in the darkness and he stumbles. He doesn’t fall, but he reaches out to catch himself, grabbing a nearby sapling. The tree shakes under his weight and we hear the sound of caw-ing birds flying off. When Cypress looks up, there is a shadow in between the trees in front of him.
Mama bear is back, and mama bear is pissed.
The large bear lets out a roar that sends spittle flying. She lowers her head and Cypress thinks he can see her eyes turn red. She moves, stands up and crashes back to the ground making the saplings shudder. She huffs and begins to run.
We’re in bullet-time now, Cypress has the initiative, but it won’t last long. His brain is overclocking as he thinks of what to do. ‘Use my magic, defend yourself.’
‘All the spells I have are aggressive. I don’t want to hurt her. Aaaah I only wanted to help the cub! She’s charging now, any second now I'll be run over and mauled. Maybe I could take it? Heal myself after?’
‘defend yourself’
‘Oh, but I don't want to hurt her. What can I do? Maybe I can scare her. Sacred flame, yeah, that way it’s bright but won’t burn anything. I’ll aim for just in front of her. I just need a target.’ At the last second he sees a small ant hill on the ground. ‘Sorry little ants, it’s to save a life’
Cypress holds his hand out to the charging bear, and casts Sacred Flame. Only… he doesn’t. As he casts, the magic flows through him and shifts. Something changes, and he feels a new magic now. A different more earthy magic flows through him. There is no bright flash of Sacred Flame, nothing flies out of his hands at all.
The roar of the bear is louder now, almost on top of him, and Cypress hears something underneath the roar. The roar fades and shifts like his magic, and he hears the howling voice of an angry mother screaming “-ET AWAY FROM MY CUB!”
Before his brain can think of anything useful, Cypress bundles into a ball, mirroring the bear cub and says, “I’m sorry! I only wanted to help!” Only it’s not his normal voice that comes out. It is a gravely timid growl edged with fear.
The mama bear stumbles and skids to the right, narrowly missing the halfling and almost knocking over a small tree with a CRACK. An eerie silence falls on the woods and the growling bear asks, “Wait, but you… you can talk?”
That’s right folks, Cypress has just cast, Speak with Animals.
Cypress begins to stand up, straining his muscles to uncurl as slowly as possible. After a moment he says, “I, I guess I can.” The words are new and rough, his throat hurts from the deep tones, and his jaw aches from the unfamiliar movement but the sounds all make perfect sense to his ears.
Have you ever seen a quizzical face on a bear? Cypress Witchazel has. She paces in a circle around the unwinding ball of cub, not taking her eyes off the cleric. She stops. “What did you mean ‘help’?” She asks.
For a minute Cypress thinks he said something wrong, but with a certainty only a holy man can muster, he is sure he said it right. “Your cub,” he explains, “I heard it grousing and was afraid something had happened.” Now that he is paying attention to it, the yowling moans of the cub sound like the scared sobs of a child lost in a mall. He continues, “I waited for you to come, because I didn’t want to scare either of you. When you weren’t here I thought maybe something had happened to you, and I should see to her. To check her for wounds.”
The mother bear snarls, “So that she would be easier prey for you no doubt. A wounded cub is easier.”
Cypress holds up his hands, in an unintentionally human gesture. He says, “No, no, mother bear. I am a healer. If she were hurt, I would fix the wounds and care for her.”
The mother stops snarling and the cub stops crying, the air is still and silent when the mother slowly asks, “You, you can heal the injured?”
Sensing something is wrong, Cypress says, “Yes, I can heal.” After a second to build up some courage he asks, “Is there someone that needs healing?”
There is a long pause as the bear considers this. After years of avoiding people and fearing all their sharp tools she is scared to trust even a little one. But she smells no metal on this one, nor of the stink of blood, or the fine dust of a grindstone. “Yes,” She says, lowering her head, “My second cub is hurt, and I fear for him.” She looks up with eyes that look like they could cry human tears and softly pleads, “If you would help, I will lead you to our den.”
Soon Cypress is in the clearing he saw to the south. There is a small spring only a few feet across and there are some trees knocked over and one large tree trunk covered in tufts of shed fur. There is a large rock next to some of these broken trees, and in its shade lies a second bear cub.
This cub has none of the spring fat of its mother or sister, It is skinny to the point of malnourishment. It makes a sigh-like sound as it hears its family return.
As it looks up Cypress sees the problem. Around its snout there is a ring of thorns, a circle like a miniature wreath muzzles the bear cub. It tries to open its mouth to greet its mother, or ask about the strange person she brought, but it winces as the thorns dig in, and lays its head on the ground.
Cypress resists the urge to run as he sees what is essentially a six-pack-ring of thorns on the poor creature. He comes up to it and strokes the hair on its head. He glances up at the mother then lifts the cub’s head to examine him. The mother growls at the cub to stay still, as Cypress gets a closer look. The ring of thorns is a wicked thing, halfway up the muzzle, it is too barbed to slide off, but not far enough back that the bear can eat. Cypress can make out scratches where they tried to wedge and pull at it, but with no small fingers, it only dug in tighter.
For a moment Cypress regrets not bringing a sharp knife that would simply cut through the thorns, then he thinks of how the bears would react and is glad he didn’t bring a knife. Looking at the thorns he realizes there is no clear way to pull it off. At this point, it’s wedged up so far that if he moves it at all it will dig in somewhere. ‘Use my magic’ He thinks through his spells and remembers. Last night when he healed Rae from her Arrow wound, the healing pushed the arrow out the wound.
Cypress concentrates on the muzzle of the bear, placing his hands gently between the bear's skin and the thorns he casts Cure Wounds. And this time it is a new face he sees, a different, but somehow familiar face floats in front of him, and the magic flows across his fingers. The skin of the bear hardens where the thorns bit in with scar tissue forming in the blink of an eye and forcing the circle of thorns to widen. As it does, Cypress is quick to pull it from the bear, He places it on the ground and checks the wound.
The bear cub yawns for the first time in days, the big stretch turning into sounds of anxious delight. He nuzzles against Cypress with sounds of joy. And a breeze flows through the trees as the whole forest clearly breathes a sigh of relief.
Scratching the cub between the ears, Cypress notices the thorn ring on the ground. It’s smaller now, the size of a small ornament or a necklace charm. He reaches down for it and for a brief second, he sees that almost familiar face inside the circle… and she winks. He picks off the thorn ring and hears a soft voice whisper, “With this I will always be with you Cypress Of The Thorns.” before fading like a breeze in the leaves.
Real quick table talk here. Cypress is now multiclassing. Since Diedrik has been playing a nature-kind cleric with a deity focused on life, I offered him the chance to take his third level as a druid level 1. With that he now has new spells like Speak with Animals, and requires a Druidic Focus to cast them. Well, now he has a druidic focus. Furthermore, I got confused a while back on his goddess, so now he has access to both Gods.
As the Bears nuzzle in the background, joyful to see there they will all be ok, Cypress makes his way to the pool of water from the spring. He sets down his staff and undoes his belt. He takes the small bottle he brought with him and gently submerges it in the water. After a moment it fills with water, and he pulls his hand back, leaving the bottle standing at the bottom of the water. He kneels and hangs his head, His hair covers his eyes and he prays.
Cypress summons to mind all the things in life that are truly precious. The smile on an old friend's face, the first cries of a newborn babe, the circle of life and how everything supports each other, the way the bees dance when they make honey. He rests his open palms on top of the water, flowing just on the service, and he concentrates. The feeling of his magic is something pure and holy as it courses through him. He feels the breeze on his back and it flows through him and into him. He changes the wind itself inside his blood, receiving its magic as a gift to use.
A moment later the bottle at the bottom of the pond begins to float. Slowly it rises up until it is out of the pond, resting on top of the rippling water as sturdy as if it were set on a table. The water in the bottle shines from within as Cypress places the cork back in it and stands to stretch his legs.
Let’s get a Religion roll on that to see how good the holy water is?
Natural 20, bay-bey!
Wow, Awesome! Okay so with that it’s GREAT holy water, if used on undead, it will do double damage, and if you use it when casting Spare the Dying it will give the person 1HP and restore them to consciousness as if they rolled a nat’ 20 on a death save.
And that’s where we leave Cypress for today. The sun is just starting to go down and he is leaning against a rock, with staff kicked away for now, two bear cubs snuggling against him, and his little hands buried deep in their fur for those guuuud deep scritch scratches.
5-C: Sorin Confronts His Inner Demons
🎲✨
5-C: Sorin Confronts His Inner Demons 🎲✨
And now, we go back to the Early afternoon to follow Sorin’s track through the day. Before we get going here, though, some explanation is needed.
I spoke with Ashley about what she wanted for a familiar and devised a fun sort of mini game. So the spell Summon Familiar is going to be slightly altered in this game. When summoning an established familiar it can be done in 30ish minutes (basically outside of action or combat), instead of an hour. However, summoning a new familiar requires 2 hours and goes through this little mini-game-process.
Brief reminder here, Summon Familiar brings a spirit into an animal shaped magical vessel. So, i’ve come up with 6 questions or traits that will determine the type of familiar that is summoned. Using the Powered by the Apocalypse system, the caster will roll 2D6 and add their proficiency modifier. A 1 to 5 is a failure, a 6 to 9 is a mixed or partial success, and a 10 or higher is a complete success.
Sorin sits at a long table with a hard black marble countertop on it. Spread before him are his spell components in neat little mounds, with lines drawn between them. He places the book in front of him on the table and reads through it for the fourth time to make sure he can do it right.
He takes a deep breath.
He closes his eyes. Opens them. Closes them. Faster and faster he blinks until soon it looks like his eyes are closed but he can still see everything around him. With his eyes rapidly moving he lifts his arm, and his arm stays still. He lifts the ESSENCE of his arm, seeing the muscles and veins and bones all shaded in different colors. Sorin is on the ethereal plane.
Roll number one: What Type of spirit are you seeking? (fae, demonic, angelic, astral, etc.)
A demon.
7; a mixed success.
Sorin's ethereal hand reaches into the void and disappears. A hole, a crack between realities forms. On the other side, Sorin feels the hard ridges of horns. He tries hard to calm his excitement as he pushes more energy out, widening the hole and pulling the spirit in.
Roll number two: The rank and power of the spirit summoned. Roll without proficiency as the penalty of the last mixed success. 5; a failure.
Sorin pulls the spirit into the ethereal plane, and the hole between worlds shuts with a soft chuckle. As Sorin stares at the small imp spirit in front of him he thinks, “Huh, I always thought demons would be bigger somehow.”
Roll number three: What personality do you want the familiar to have? (servile, snarky, optimistic, etc.)
I want it to be, like, kind of sassy. Oh and I also really want it to be morally ambiguous so that it’s cool with all the stuff I do.
8; Mixed success.
A snarky voice chuckles in the void and says, “Oh man, this better be legal where you live, if not I’m telling.” (It will be sassy, but also a tattle tale).
Roll number four: What overall type of animal do you want the familiar to be? (bird, reptile, fish, etc.)
I want it to be a snake.
11; complete success.
Sorin’s hands move in the ethereal air. He plucks the material components together, molding them like clay. In the real world in front of him, the piles of material swirl around each other slowly combining and becoming something new. The wings on the imp flutter as he sees the shape Sorin is making. He begins to help and the two together form the body of a snake.
Roll number five: What specific animal do you want the familiar to be?
I want it to be a Poisonous Snake.
7; mixed success.
The demonic spirit begins to combine with the snake, but Sorin’s hands falter, he is distracted and some of the charcoal slips, sticking to the horns of the demon. Sorin works to try and fix it but now the incense smoke trails up and the demon's little wings become solid. The body is cast, and now a Flying Snake is in front of Sorin, but this one has small horns sticking out just behind its eyes.
Roll Number six (last roll): Modifiers. (bonuses and disabilities). 8; mixed success.
The body is finished now, the dust settles. In trying to fix the shape, the body was left a bit damaged (-2 HP). However, Sorin did manage to keep the fangs of the poisonous snake intact (normally a familiar cannot be used in combat, but this one can, attacks will be rolled with Sorin’s spell casting ability modifier, and if it hits, it will do 1 damage).
The Snake coils loosely around Sorin’s arm and gives a soft hiss, then winks at him. Sorin packs his books away, wipes down the table top, and heads out of the lab room.
From the University, Sorin heads across town to the Apothecary. His back is straight and the Flying snake is wrapped around his arm. If he had better clothes, he might look like one of the aristocracy.
Sorin walks into a familiar one of the potion shops that he knows often caters to students. Along one wall are empty used bottles and various ingredients and even an alchemy set on a high shelf gathering dust. The wall across from it is floor to ceiling shelves with potions locked behind little iron bars so that only the staff can get them down.
Sorin walks past all of this, walks straight up to the counter and asks the young clerk there, “So I’m looking for poisons.”
A silence falls over the shop and some of the students buy the door, decide maybe they can shop later, and back out quietly.
In our world, Diedrik jumps off his chair with an “are you kidding me”.
The clerk blinks in a confused daze because something this stupid has never happened on her shift before. She stares at Sorin, taking in his student clothes and bag of books. She smiles weakly and does a kind of half laugh, “Not for a teacher I hope?”
Sorin finally realized he might have done something wrong. He stammers and spits out, “No I, um, okaynoseeI’mwithanadveturinggroupnow.” He takes a deep breath and tries again. “I’m working for the government now, so it’s totally fine.”
The clerk stares in horror at his smile.
After a moment he remembers and pulls out his Sewers of Nibiru badge and puts it on the counter. “See?”
“So you need poison,” she says with extreme slowness like she’s handling a bomb, “For your work in the water treatment center?”
Sorin’s face goes pale.
The clerk cautiously says, “I suppose we could do that…” As Sorin’s hopes rise she continues, “We’d have to get approval from the city and the Sewer Company and the Constabulary first, but I can start the paperwork…”
Diedrik: “yeah idiot.”
Sorin swallows and then winks at the clerk trying a different tact. He pulls out a gold piece and slides it across to her with one finger. “I think maybe,” he winks at her again, like he’s read handsome guys do in books, “we can skip the paperwork this time.”
Diedrik yells and gets up from the table.
The clerk hesitates, then makes up her mind and smiles coyly. “Oh well that changes things.” She takes the coin and says, “Just wait here a second.”
She ducks behind the current and Sorin hears a frantic whispering, he can’t make it all out, but he definitely hears the words “Constabulary” and “NOW”.
Sorin runs.
“I need to stop doing things, in the dumbest possible way. That just seems like a good recipe for success.”
–Griffin Andrew McElory, “Trial by Fieri, Ep. 10: An Ill-Advised Zelda: LTTP Randomized Run”
Table talk:
Technically, Sorin ran and met up with Ari and Rae, but we’ll resolve that next time.
I did give everyone a mild scolding and a reminder to cut down on the back chatter and playing on phones when it’s not their turn. With a party divided and different people being the center of attention, i don’t want anyone to feel like their play, or their story is any less important or cool than the rest of the group’s.
A big thank you to Brooke for helping me edit and get the summary up mere hours before we played this week. Thank you.
