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Thug Muggers Chasing Ari 8/18/24
Cypress sucks on a ghost, Rae won’t stop hitting herself, tZulèe grabs the squid by the tail, Bostra pushes Sorin into a river, and Ari…
Table Talk:
LEVEL 7:
Cypress: (lvl 4 Cleric)
Max HP: 71, New skills: STR now 14 (+2) & CHA now 16 (+3), New Spells: Calm Emotions (3 new lvl 2 Spells Slots)
Sorin:
Max HP: 78, New skills: *crickets*, New Spells: Blight / Water Walk (1 new lvl 4 Spells Slot)
Rae: (lvl 1 Barbarian)
Max HP: 78, New skills: Rage (2 slots) / Unarmored Defense (add Con Modifier to AC)
Ari:
Max HP: 57, New skills: Evasion / Sneak Attack no 4d6, New Spells: Blur (2 new lvl 2 Spells Slots)
Some comments on level 7. First of all, this is clearly the end of the campaign, because 7 is the highest number there is. Second, when the rolled HP increases, i gave the players each half of that increase added to they’re current HP – a middle ground since we weren’t resting and were in action so getting a full HP reset was out of the question, but they did technically level a while ago.
One quick thing to bear in mind about the setting here. The river in this section of cave is two to four feet wide, but fast. In Ari’s adventures, i’ve described them like the desert drainage arroyos i grew up with. Those are dangerous enough that we had special assemblies about them in school and we knew from a young age that less than a foot of water can sweep a strong adult off their feet and carry them away. I do not invite or recommend you watch youtube videos on this, because they are disturbing, but they are informative. Anyways, that is what you should think of splashing in the middle of this cave tunnel, a breached opening where the river stream crosses with this cave leaving the water open to the air with maybe a rough lining of wet stones on the side walls. That's why they take Checks to cross.
The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socio-economic unfairness.
-Captain Samuel Vimes —Terry Pratchett, “Men at Arms”
🛡️🎲📿✨🌿Chapter 21: Separated (cont.)🗡️
🛡️🎲📿✨🌿Chapter 21: Separated (cont.)🗡️
Detch looks at himself in the shiny tinglass mirror and straightens the wig. He casts Disguise Self and the spell flows over him transforming him into the darkly handsome shape of a Bullywog man with hard nine pack abs. He purses his lips seductively winking in the mirror. He practices his croak and a long belchy echo rings out like an opera singer auditioning for the world's best mouthwash gargle. It’s perfect.
He walks past the heavy draped curtains into the dark tunnel. They’re going to just die tonight.
Detch slips past a woman carrying a tall bundle of gear, careful to keep out to the side and out of the way of her bumping into him. Then he puts on a devilish grin and winks at Grexel; the disguised lizard man winks back and nods with a finger to his lips, then holds out a case.
There they are. Detch picks up the straight edge razor with a low evil chuckle, not wanting to be heard.
He moves through the dark, around the corner, getting into position. One more person walks in the blackness in front of him towards the bright burning light beyond the veil. He gets ready, in an aggressive combat stance with his arms outstretched, ready to slice at her neck!
When the woman stops talking he darts quickly into the light, swinging the straight razor wildly and laughing like a croaky demon, slashing at the woman’s neck.
The audience in the theatre gasps as the narrator entones, “Hark he comes now! The demon barber of Flies Street, Swimmey TOAD!”
Down beneath the city.
The door clicks after Zaanth walks out. Everything is silent – for dramatic reasons, because otherwise everyone would be shouting and talking over each other. We can hear the sounds at the end of the tunnel and turn to see the Intellect Devourer, the Rust Monster, and some new abomination with a stick drawing body of a person with a single shining eye and spikes all down its back.
The metal sheet of fog holding us in place creaks and we see patches beginning to rust away and turn back into the mist. Bostra bears his teeth and leans in, ready to attack!
Cypress, from your Insight with Bostra earlier, you get the first action. Make an easy Religion Check for me.
Holding his cracked Holy Symbol in his hand, Cypress hears his own thoughts from an hour before, “And I was supposed to keep everyone safe… keep everyone together. No wonder it’s cracked. I’m failing her.” They feel the pull of his duties as they look at Bostra rolling up his royal sleeves. They hear what he’d said as they left the palace about not fighting alongside the other, “Sure I could get a sword and fight with you, but it’s about his honor.”
Nymbus: “Haha! You know what spell I just learned!?
Cypress raises his hand and a bright light blinks out of his talisman in a flash. The light only lasts for a hair of a half of a shade of a second, but in that instant, everyone is transported. They find themselves in a peaceful meadow that Cypress knows well. Inside their minds, everyone is breathing the easy fresh air of the tall mountain leaves, looking across a valley of grasses gently waving in the breeze feeling the warm summer sun on their faces. In the distance is a humble cottage and a short woman with long plaited hair tending to a garden.
They’re brought back to themselves in no time at all, but the effect of the enchanting meadow stays with them after the echoing light of the Calm Emotion spell fades. Bostra smiles and gives a small grateful nod to the cleric.
The peace is broken with the sound of rending iron sheets torn apart as the Rust Monster’s antenna dissolves the steel around it. The fog-metal is beginning to look like swiss cheese where the spell is fading, but the Monster takes this chance to run over the top of it, dodging the holes, and using it as a bridge over the water, biting at Rae’s leg for 4 damage.
Sorin can feel his legs freeing and is about to make a move away when a thought hits him. He casts Haste on Rae saying something about doubling her attack speed (it's a small room so the movement bonus doesn’t matter, but Ashley is after that CLUTCH double action bonus).
In the corner by the door, the brain of the Intellect Devourer glows and Sorin feels a fog grow inside his skull and crystallize around it. He reaches up but there’s nothing there, just the immutable feeling of pain tearing and eating into his mind as he takes 15 psychic damage.
The Will-o’-Wisp reappears a-
Everyone at the table: “Oh no.”
Sarah: “Dammit, I keep forgetting about that thing.”
Awe dang, it missed.
Everyone at the table: “Good!”
The spiky creature is angry at the little cleric that tried to mess with its mind. It saved the check and was not calmed, so all it knows is that that thing over there tried to do something to its brain. Cypress feels a pulling tug inside himself, seeing the gaze of the malevolent eye of the thing on the other side of the stream. He braces himself and with a panting effort, passes the save.
Rae is finally free as the last of the metal sheet dissipates back into fog around her ankles. She grits her teeth and swings her staff up in a sweeping uppercut at the jaws of the Rust Monster. She lands a critical hit as the last bits of metal under the creature’s carapace give out – turning back to fog – and sending it falling directly into the spikes on the end of Rae’s staff. The force of the blow sends the poor thing tumbling in a back flip for 24 damage, but unfortunately for Rae, it had 25 HP. THe Rust Monster lands on its back spinning like a turtle. Rae misses her punch, her second staff attack and her last punch as it spins on the ground, then frustrated despite the calming effects of Cypress’s spell, she wastes her Ki on a Flurry of Blows… and misses again before finally punching the thing into the river.
At the start of the next round, Cypress sends his body back down the river of evolution. His soul turns at a far distant ancestor and comes back up the lines of flying dinosaurs, to the line of bats, and beyond. Finally the WIld Shape spell takes hold with Cypress-the-Stirge flapping in the air. He zips forward and sticks his follicled proboscis into the ethereal glow of the Will-o’-Wisp, sucking out 6 points of its life – which is really 6 points of Crawling Claw life from before.
Looking around for the source of his pain, Sorin lashes out and unleashes a barrage of Magic Missiles (how have i not used that expression for that spell before!? It’s right there!) at the Intellect Devourer, bloodying it with 12 damage.
The Intellect Devourer in turn is about to attack Sorin’s big supple brain again when the missiles land and knock it off balance letting Sorin save.
Rather than trying to disappear with a Strige still suckered onto it, the Will-o’-Wisp decides just to shock Cypress. 15 damage is enough to knock the little cleric back and it ends his Wild Shape.
After a second failed attempt with its Rotting Gaze, the spikey man creature pisses off Rae by scurrying along the wall – it’s a cave creature, Sarah, it can do things like that, this is its home. It swipes at Cypress for 9 damage, triggering Rae as Sentinel to hit it back for 5.
On her turn now, Rae swings at the Will-o’-Wisp, landing another critical… a critical failure.
Hmm, okay, i’ll give you a choice, you can either just end your turn, or get shocked and keep going.
The shock burns down the staff and into her for 14 damage, but Rae spins and hits it backhanded for 7. Then with Haste still upon her, she swings her staff again for-
Wow, another nat’ 1. Okay, i’ll give you the same choice, shock or end the turn?
This time the shock is only 6 damage and Rae turns the pain into Ki and forces herself to keep going for a Flurry of Blows! The First hit…
…a third crit fail in one turn… i mean now if just feeling like i have to shock you to keep up with the comedy rule of threes…
8 damage from the shock this time, and Rae’s head is spinning as the orbs of the Will-o’-Wisp seem to dance in her blurred vision.
Taking 28 damage.. And on your own turn… i’ve been playing d&d for almost two decades and i’ve never seen it… you took 4 times the damage you dealt… and on your own turn… just wow.
Cypress starts the next round by casting Sacred Flame, but the Spiky creature clawing at him dodges it, dancing back from the holy light. As a bonus action (because i’m sick of just saying ‘spiky thing’) i let Cypress roll a Nature Check, and he learns that this thing with its single large eye and the long shark thorny rocks down its back, is a Nothic.
Sorin casts Blight and just like with Cypress, the Nothic saves, only taking half the damage, but turning its angry single eyed gaze onto the wizard.
The Intellect Devourer, goes for Sorin again, eager and desperate, hungry for that soppy juicy throbbing young pulsating undulant wrinkly big brain. Sorin feels the slimy thoughts of the brain monster by the door, caressing him inside his skull and trying to penetrate his muscly brain and holds the creature’s will at bay – only to have the Will-o’-Wisp zap him.
The Nothic claws at Sorin and misses, then looks into Cypress, peering and digging through his mind. Unable to get its grip on the halflings' thoughts, it lets out a fighting shriek and swipes at him again, cutting their chest for 7 more damage.
Rae… isn’t looking so good, maybe she should heal or som- no… she’s swinging her staff again. Yeah i’m not surprised you missed, you look like your’re about to fall over. Okay, yes, i see you can still punch, and that’s a solid 7 damage, but i’m worried about you. Just sit down okay?
Against all common sense, Rae uses her second Haste attack to swing at the Will-o’-Wisp and… gets another nat’ 1.
Hmm, okay, i’ll give you a choice, you can either just end your turn, or get shocked and-
Sarah, pouting: “I’m ending my turn. Shut up.”
Cypress starts the fourth round by swinging his Mushroom Mace… at the air just in front of the dodging Nothic.
Sorin casts another barrage of Magic Missiles at his brainy nemesis in the corner, then looks around. “Where is the Will-o’-Wisp? Did anyone see it disappear? Akris! Keep an eye out for it!”
Akris zips to the nearest corner by the sewer door and hovers, rotating like a security camera, but his Blindsight only reaches ten feet out and he can’t see the WIll-o’-wisp tucked in the back corner.
Tired of fighting Sorin’s will for its juicy snack, the Intellect Devourer turns to Rae, a brain it can sense is a little… let’s call it, easier to open.
Suddenly, the monk reaches up to her head. She can feel it, the icepick there in her brain. The cold hard spike of pain, but hollow like a needle draining…. some… thing…
With 0 Hp, Rae slumps forward.
There is a splash down by the river.
Rae is nowhere to be seen
The Nothic tries the same trick on Sorin, reaching into his brain to creep and pry and poke at his secret thoughts. However, the wizard's elf blood carries a small enzyme which helped his ancestors' ears grow long and sexy; by coincidence, this enzyme also fractions a small section of radiant waves used in most Charming spells – causing them to be fuzzy and unuseable. The prying thoughts of the Nothic are blocked by Sorin’s ancient blood and it screams in impitent frustration and fury.
Rae, make a Death Save for me.
Sarah, shyly: “16?”
Great, make an Athletics Check, just to see something.
Sarah, confused: “8?”
Awe, dang, you almost found a place Ari would have recognized.
Cypress starts the last round of combat – spoilers! Jeez, i didn’t know how it was going to turn out, Kai. Relax Kai, it’ll still surprise you.
Cypress starts the last round of combat once again with a swing-and-a-miss of the old Mushroom bat.
Sorin decides to go for his own turn at the mound, and pitches a fastball Firebolt.
The pitch is perfect.
The spell is a crit.
The burning embers of Sorin’s magic are flying through the air!
The Nothic swings!
A Miss!
OH MY GOD!
The pitch is an HBP!
It’s through the Nothic’s eye!
He’s on fire!
It’s burning the Nothic’s brain!
Call in the mascots!
Call in the medics!
The refs surely can’t – oh my god the Nothic swung, the refs are motioning…
Wait…
It’s…
Is it?
IT’S GOOD!
It’s a clean hit and the Nothic is down!
He’s down and out folks!
In the dust, over the line, down the river dead as disc–
Erm… Sorry about that… where were we?
Um… let’s see, smmr smmr sfflr… oh yeah, the Will-o’-Wisp came back and Akris Tail Whipped it for four, then…
The insatiable curse of the Intellect Devourer is hunger, and it craves more, more, more! It reaches out its thoughts for Sorin’s brain but fails to find purchase in his mind (Sorin saves).
While Rae fails her next Death Save somewhere under the water, Cypress re-casts Wild Shape. After some discussion his body turns into that of a Squid and he wriggles into the water.
tZulèe has developed a pretty understandable fear of abandonment. After all, the last time it was left alone, it died. Then it was brought back to life, only to be almost left alone again in a room that was about to collapse underground on top of it. On top of that, whenever its new master and growing friend disappears (especially without warning), they always come back bleeding and near death.
In a very quick stop-motion jerk, tZulèe’s hand whips out and grabs onto the manus of the long feeding tentacle of Cypress-the-Squid as they get pulled under by the fast flowing current of the rushing water.
With a wet, ‘plorp’ tZulèe goes under, clutching onto its Squid master.
“Oh no! Not again!” Bostra jumps up and grabs Sorin by the scruff of loose skin at the back of his neck. “Come on wizard boy, we’re not breaking the party a fifth time!”
At the last second as the royal cop plunges him into the water, Sorin’s flailing hand grabs onto Akris and with a hissing, yowl and then a gurgle, the snake is also pulled under.
It's just Bostra now and he holds his bag to his chest and tightens his cloak. He looks around and with no one watching he shrugs and tosses something over the rocks toward the Brain monster. Then with his hood up and his watertight robe snug, he jumps into the river.
The Will-O’-Wisp hovers over the coin Bostra threw, and the Intellect Devourer nudges it with one all too human toe. The coin looks like money, but with a stylized set of M’s on it.
Underwater, rushing away with the current, Bostra smiles and lets out a tiny laughing bubble when he sees the bright blue-white light blink behind them.
After the last act, Detch stands behind the curtain one last time.
To the sound of thundering applause, he steps out and lets go of the spell.
The audience cheers as they see his face. Of course they’d known it was him all along, but letting himself be seen… he feels vulnerable and exhausted, with tears in his eyes he blows out kisses to the crowd, as some fans throw flowers. He sees a flash of metal in the wings.
He turns.
He gasps.
The audience goes silent in shocked horror as his blood spills out. Red running gussets of blood fountain out from him in spurting waves as his shocked eyes reflect the dancing lights of the stage…
“Grexel, our magnificent stage master!” he shouts, rising up and waving the lizard man onto the apron. The audience is confused but hopeful, turning to laughter and jokingly affronted jeers as they see the mechanism in Grexel’s hand and on Detch’s chest. “As you all know – or know now – and by Selune’s grace, I hope no one brought the kiddies to this one,” a chorus of chuckles in the crowd, “Swimmey Toad is a bloody and gruesome play, and without Grexel’s cunning work, we never could have pulled it off! Thank you all for coming!” He gives a grand overacted wink, “And, be safe going home tonight, the streets… are full of killers lurking in the shadows!” He lunges with the shiny prop in his hands and the lights go out.
“I have nothing against nobles,” Mat said, straightening his coat. “I just don’t fancy being one myself.”
“Why is that, then?”
Mat sat for a moment. Why was it? Finally, he looked down at his foot, then replaced his boot. “It’s boots.”
“Boots?” Setalle looked confused.
“Boots,” Mat said with a nod, tying his laces. “It’s all about the boots.”
“But—”
“You see,” Mat said, pulling the laces tight, “a lot of men don’t have to worry much about what boots to wear. They’re the poorest of folks. If you ask one of them ‘What boots are you going to wear today, Mop?’ their answer is easy. ‘Well, Mat. I only have one pair, so I guess I’m gonna wear that pair.’”
Mat hesitated. “Or, I guess they wouldn’t say that to you, Setalle, since you’re not me and all. They wouldn’t call you Mat, you understand.”
“I understand,” she said, sounding amused.
“Anyway, for people that have a little coin, the question of which boots to wear is harder. You see, average men, men like me….” He eyed her.
“And I’m an average man, mind you.”
“Of course you are.”
“Bloody right I am,” Mat said, finishing with his laces and sitting up. “An average man might have three pairs of boots. Your third best pair of boots, those are the boots you wear when you’re working at something unpleasant. They might rub after a few paces, and they might have a few holes, but they’re good enough to keep your footing. You don’t mind mucking them up in the fields or the barn.”
“All right,” Setalle said.
“Then you have your second best pair of boots,” Mat said. “Those are your day-to-day boots. You wear those if you are going over to dinner at the neighbors’. Or, in my case, you wear those if you’re going to battle. They’re nice boots, give you good footing, and you don’t mind being seen in them or anything.”
“And your best pair of boots?” Setalle asked. “You wear those to social events, like a ball or dining with a local dignitary?”
“Balls? Dignitaries? Bloody ashes, woman. I thought you were an innkeeper.”
Setalle blushed faintly.
“We’re not going to any balls,” Mat said. “But if we had to, I suspect we’d wear our second best pair of boots. If they’re good enough for visitingold lady Hembrew next door, then they’re bloody well good enough for stepping on the toes of any woman fool enough to dance with us.”
“Then what are the best boots for?”
“Walking,” Mat said. “Any farmer knows the value of good boots when you go walking a distance.”
Setalle looked thoughtful. “All right. But what does this have to do with being a nobleman?”
“Everything,” Mat said. “Don’t you see? If you’re an average fellow, you know exactly when to use your boots. A man can keep track of three pairs of boots. Life is simple when you have three pairs of boots. But noblemen…Talmanes claims he has forty different pairs of boots at home. Forty pairs, can you imagine that?”
She smiled in amusement.
“Forty pairs,” Mat repeated, shaking his head. “Forty bloody pairs. And, they aren’t all the same kind of boots either. There is a pair for each outfit, and a dozen pairs in different styles that will match any number of half your outfits. You have boots for kings, boots for high lords, and boots for normal people. You have boots for winter and boots for summer, boots for rainy days and boots for dry days. You have bloody shoes that you wear only when you’re walking to the bathing chamber. Lopin used to complain that I didn’t have a pair to wear to the privy at night!”
“I see…. So you’re using boots as a metaphor for the onus of responsibility and decision placed upon the aristocracy as they assume leadership of complex political and social positions.”
“Metaphor for….” Mat scowled. “Bloody ashes, woman. This isn’t a metaphor for anything! It’s just boots.”
Setalle shook her head. “You’re an unconventionally wise man, Matrim Cauthon.”
“I try my best,” he noted, reaching for the pitcher of mulled cider. “To be unconventional, I mean.” He poured a cup and lifted it in her direction. She accepted graciously and drank, then stood. “I will leave you to your own amusements, then, Master Cauthon. But if you have made any progress on that gateway for me….”
“Elayne said she would have one for you soon. In a day or two. Once
I’m back from the errand I have to run with Thom and Noal, I’ll see it done.”
She nodded in understanding. If he did not return from that “errand,” she would see to Olver. She turned to leave. Mat waited until she was gone before taking a slurp of the cider straight from the pitcher. He had been doing that all evening, but he figured she would probably rather not know.
-Matrim Cauthon & Setalle A'non —Robert Jordan/Brandon Sanderson, “Wheel of Time Book 13: Towers of Midnight”
Table talk:
The quotes this week were brought on by a conversation I had recently with Brooke when talking about having to buy new shoes, and she mentioned these quotes that i’d brought up years ago. So if you’re wondering how they’re relevant, they’re not.
“After some discussion his body turns into that of a Squid”, Nymbus had looked through the list of animals that he uses for WildShape and found Octopus, partially because of some joking about a goldfish trying to pull an unconscious Rae out of the water. He prefaced that with a very honest, “The thing is, the requirement is that I have to have seen it before – and I can’t think of a reason why Cypress would have seen an Octopus.” So i made the decision to let him be a Squid as a compromise. My reasoning is that Squids are pretty common around fishing regions and it makes sense to me that Cypress’s wanderings would have taken him to some coastal, or bay, or river delta areas. However, Octopus are usually in deeper areas and around islands. It’s entirely possible that Cypress has seen Octopuses, but more likely on a dinner plate after it was pulled up from a deep fishing trap. And that won’t work for turning into the creature and understanding how it moves, as I said at the time, “just because you’ve eaten fried venison, doesn’t mean you know what elk do with their antlers.” So going forward we'll be using the Octopus stat block, but switching the Dex and Str since he’ll be able to maneuver better in the current, but have a harder time pulling someone out of the water.
Last, Sarah asked about the monk Ki action Wholeness of Body with Haste. Could she heal herself twice? The answer is yes, it would just cost double the Ki points. I am basically going to be treating this like Master Yi’s meditation in League of Legends. So it can happen whenever, as long as she has room to do it.
