#campaign: merano

[maydaymadier]

Top Ten Evil DM Moments >:)

#my post #tal plays dnd #campaign: merano

[liquid-fire-hazard]

Hey bestie time to get up new dnd nightmare sequence just dropped

#merano: Hugo #merano dnd #dnd character #dnd oc #dnd fire genasi #oop he be dreaming #I Like to think he talked to Calypso about it #maybe. probably. possibly. m a y b e. #Merano Campaign

[unicyclehippo]

Hi Ollie! I started watching CR during lockdown (started with campaign 2 cause I’m easily overwhelmed) and I’m now on episode 57. Of course, now, I want to start playing dnd. But it’s a bit daunting (see above about being overwhelmed). I’m queer and would like to play like it. Do you have any advice on how to start? Finding a game, creating a character and stuff. Thank you for your time!

hmmm. first of all, love the very quotable “im queer and would like to play it” that’s very valid

i’m afraid i might not have much in the way of advice for you, mate. i myself got to playing because a high school friend of mine plays & he offered to run a game for me. all of us went to high school together, which the exception of one who is friend of one of us. well, all of us now but at the time. anyway, the other option if u don’t know anyone who plays is to literally google dnd games in your area ! I played a very fun game of adventurer’s league at my local library—it wasn’t for me, it’s not as choice oriented as I would like, but it’s definitely an option & was very fun!

as for creating a character, you can do absolutely anything you want ! my first character was a high elven ranger named terehim (nickname ham), nonbinary, who grew up in the feywild & left to search for their sister who went missing/was probably dead after the undead attack on their village. they were also a cartographer, most of the characters i make are cartographers as i enjoy the thought of it very much. my second character (RIP ham) was merano king, a buff hot half-orc bard with amnesia (i think it’s fun to do in dnd campaigns, you have to trust your DM but it can be very fun)

i am the DM now but currently in my party i have: a gnome wizard in a world in which arcane magic (ie not divine magic like clerics or paladins) is illegal; a fallen aasimar rogue assassin who is wavering between the path they’re on & good at (murder time) & making steps toward redemption; & a goat-centaur bard who until very recently didn’t know she had magic & is on a quest to see if the curse on her tribe can be broken

if you would like to talk about making characters i would love to do that, it’s one of my favourite parts of dnd. if not, my advice is to pick a race you find incredibly cool & then pick your class based on what that character might be good at. then, for personality, i like to think about four things: 1) what do they want/need?,2) what are they afraid of?, 3) what is one thing that affected them in the past?, 4) how far are they willing to go to get what they want?

so, let me make up a character really quickly to show you what i mean. first—race. i have never played a dragonborn before so i am gonna go dragonborn. they have +2 to strength & +1 to charisma so im going to make them a Fighter. what do they want? this is going to determine their choices for me while i play—for example, if i decide that they’re looking for a cure for a magical curse that has struck their home, when they encounter someone with magic, they might not want to attack them immediately, instead looking for answers about this magical curse. if they want freedom, adventure, a chance to prove themself as brave and powerful, i might make them wide-eyed and innocent or i could make them very prideful and prone to snapping at anyone that would doubt them. for this example, im going to go with the last option because i think it’s fun—a dragonborn fighter from a small edge-of-nowhere village who is very proud and wants to see the world, wants to make something of themself.

question two—what are they afraid of? well, they could be afraid of people finding out that they’re from this small village, especially if they’re pretending to be a minor noble or someone vaguely important. or they could be afraid of something else, a real monster, perhaps the reason they took up a weapon in the first place. perhaps they’ve never swung a sword before—a demon horde ransacked their village and instead of fighting they hid. perhaps that is why they are so prideful—to cover the deep shame that when push came to shove, they didn’t fight. perhaps they are afraid of dying, or the dark, or enclosed spaces. i think for this character, someone so prideful & controlled, they would be terrified of being mentally charmed or controlled. of having their physical or mental boundaries encroached upon.

question three—what is one thing that affected them in the past? well now im thinking about them being charmed or, better yet, someone they love being charmed. perhaps a parent or sibling was cursed or charmed to attack and they had to defend themself or someone else. i love that im sticking with that one

question four—how far are they willing to go to get what they want? this character is selfish & prideful. perhaps they start their game with the concrete goal of becoming very wealthy or becoming a knight sworn to a prestigious noble or the monarch. however i think that their pride is an extension of a very rigid moral code—they refuse to take charity, refuse to kill an innocent to get money, refuse to engage in a fight that isn’t honourable (ie ambushing someone, not giving them the chance to surrender or retreat, that sort of thing). i wouldn’t be surprised if over time their starting goals became less important & less materialistic wealth became far more necessary ie wanting to go home to their small village because the world is very scary and they are very gay & tired

anyway, i know that was a Lot & i don’t know if it was useful but i hope it was. have fun! hope you find a game!

#long post #sorry #dnd tag

[maydaymadier]

TALOS AND ITS GEOGRAPHY

[ID: two maps, a topographical map with 3 continents and 4 oceans, a large octopus-themed compass rose in the center.  The same map, this time with geopolitical boundaries colored in instead of the topography]

The world itself finally has a name!  I’m only going to go over the broad strokes and update this post in reblogs to keep everything geography-related in the same place.

CONTINENTS:

Merano

Corran-Ciocan

Bulaklák

OCEANS:

Medrano

Crystana

Nisalor

Rikaluk

THE WORLD

The center point where the Medrano and Crystana oceans is impassable, any ship that tries to go straight across from Merano’s east coast to Corran-Ciocan’s west coast will never be seen again, all sea travel has to circumvent the center of these two oceans.

Bulaklák is named as such because its series of islands are described as a ‘blooming flower’, the volcano to its west is the only remaining volcano that originally ‘shattered’ the landmass into the individual islands.

In the Medrano Ocean between the Merano mainland and The Embers there is a planar rift to the Elemental Plane of Air.

While there is some fey activity in the northeastern parts of Merano, most fey activity occurs in Corran-Ciocan, where in some parts of the countryside, residents of the Prime Material and Feywild see little to no border between them.  The otherworldly and dreamlike pervade the continent.

#my post #tal plays dnd #campaign: merano #merano: geography

[maydaymadier]

Character Profiles pt.4

Prof. Marasmius Elcarim (he/him)

Class/Subclass: Life Cleric

Race: Half-elf

Physical Description: Professor Marasmius Elcarim is a wizened old half-elf, taller than Delphie but a head shorter than Hugo.  He’s dressed in a long purple wizard robe decorated with silvery-white stars and a matching hat.  If you think you’ve ever seen him wearing anything else, that would be a lie because he only has the one outfit in different shades of purple.  His face is mostly obscured by his glasses and his long white beard, even the moustache is long enough that he can braid the ends to a substantial length.  Instead of wielding a wand or a staff he has a warhammer strapped to his back.

Backstory (brief): Professor Marasmius Elcarim is an accomplished abjuration wizard, one of the better-known professors at the Akonerry Academy of the Arcane in fact.  He’s lived a long life and has an even longer reputation as a scholar behind him.  However, in his old age, he’s decided to try something new.  He’s decided that he’s going to become a cleric and see where it takes him.  (Note, mechanically, he only has the cleric levels)

#my post #tal plays dnd #campaign: merano #merano: marasmius #dnd homebrew #homebrew campaign #half-elf #cleric #not mentioned here is the silly old man voice and the sheer comedic timing of this man

[maydaymadier]

Playing in an all-artist dnd game is just: Uh Oh!  The DM made art of this NPC!  Can’t wait to see if they’re “Kills us” important or “Blorbo” important!

#my post #dnd #tal plays dnd #campaign: merano #thinking abt how i whipped out art of the Storm Warden right as the fight was starting

[maydaymadier]

I need to DM I need it, I'm so ready, I wanna run this silly little game

#my post #tal plays dnd #campaign: merano #posts that should make erick nervous

[maydaymadier]

The Saboteur and The Cornucopia (session 1)

Welcome to our first recap of a Merano campaign session!  All character names are in bold, spells are in italics.  Party members are tagged “merano: [character name]”.  Locations visited (cities, specific establishments) are tagged “location: [NAME]”.  All posts for this campaign are tagged “campaign: merano”.

INTRODUCTION: Along the east coast of the continent of Merano, is The Akonerry Academy of the Arcane outside of the port city of Kerras is home to a magical fountain called The Cornucopia, which constantly pours Goodberry juice.  This fountain means no one in the area needs to go hungry.  However first thing this morning, the team working maintenance on it reported that it was broken.  In the meantime, the normally open campus has been closed.  All evidence points to sabotage.  The head groundskeeper has hired on the three of you to track down the saboteur.

prepare yourself, my notes got long

The three of them meet up at The Cornucopia, a bronze fountain of a sleepy-faced shepherd with a cornucopia slung at his hip.  Delphie (she/her) is a student at the school and was hand-picked from the student body.  Calypso (they/them) is formerly a pirate, currently on Fantasy Parole and is here doing mandated community service.  Hugo (he/him) just saw a help wanted sign.

A big fluffy white dog (Nimbus) comes trotting up to them and brings them to the head groundskeeper's office, Sabine Zhang.  Nimbus is wearing a collar with a Sending stone on it that Sabine is using as a walkie talkie.  Leading them up through the library to the offices on the top floors, she barks once to get her to open the door.  It is a well-used if sparse space.

Sabine gives them all the run down.  Including that only 6 people know how to get into the Cornucopia proper/are allowed to work on it, the passwords change frequently, and all 6 of them have been cleared.  According to the team that’s working on it this year, there is no evidence of forced entry of any kind.  There is no evidence of any entry.  She also suggests that the two main weak points where someone would've gotten in are the flying platform looking over the cliffs used for practicing flying spells and the barred-off openings of the underground tunnels that lead out to the cliffs below left over from the school’s construction.

The party arranges to go talk w the Cornucopia team, Nimbus collects them and they meet back up at the fountain.  Hugo suggests it could be octopi (long story, some stuff happened in a one-shot).

Meet the team back at the fountain, Mayday the half-elf and Misty the felis (both wizards) and Avril the half-elf (artificer),  Avril handles the mechanical workings of the machine, Misty and Mayday work on the enchantments.  Each year three students (usually one from each section of the school but there's no bard this year) are selected under a highly competitive process to be put on the team that gets to work on the Cornucopia.

The team explains that they reported it was broken the moment they came to check on it this morning.  They didn't see anyone/anything suspicious at the time.  Explain that the control room for it is underground in the tunnels.  And the three of them agree to guide them through.

Take an exterior entrance down into the tunnels on the artificing campus.  There's a little goofing off where they check inside a janitor's closet and find a bottle of ~Fantasy Windex~ (magical-strength degreaser).

While on their way, Hugo takes his helmet off to see better in the low light (nat20 on perception), notices wet footprints and goes charging in.  There's a BAMF sound and combat is triggered as two merrow appear.  During combat, Calypso whiffs an attack on one of them but notices one of the merrow say something to the other in Primordial ("The bastard ran off!").  Delphie notices the dregs of Misty Escape mist with a Detect Magic.

Once combat ends, the team comes running back out of where they'd been hiding in the janitor's closet.  Mayday coming to the conclusion that it was a distraction, slams both hands onto the wall to activate the sigils and open the hidden door that leads to the Cornucopia room.  They stay behind to hold the door open.  Misty and Avril, once you get to the door proper, they flank either side of the door to activate the sigils and hold it open for you.

Taking in the room, the magic makes your hairs stand on end, but everything feels dead.  Mechanisms lie still, sigils and runes have had the magic choked out of them.  Hugo can recognize the bard influence on this design, it uses infusions of Bardic Inspiration as fail-safes.

Avril and Misty had been peering around the doorway to keep an eye on them.  But they both take their hands off the sigils when they duck out of the way of a knife that comes out of nowhere at them, the doors close, the party is locked inside.

The saboteur is revealed.  A roguish figure with flat black eyes and half-water hair in leather armor, ready for a fight.  Triggers initiative.

At first, seeing the enemy teleport this seems to be a daunting task.  Calypso enters their rage, revealing a horrifying undead sea monster transformation and unleashing a blood-curdling scream.  A clutch use of upcasted Magic Missile speeds this along.  Everyone whales on him before he can even get a chance to get away.

Hugo offers up a fishing net from his inventory to tie him up with.  Calypso wraps him up in it.  Avril and Misty open the doors again.  Keep going, Mayday and Avril are going to stay behind to take care of this while Misty runs ahead/leads the way to take the party back to Sabine.  She guides them up through a less-traveled, ‘back way’ path through the abjuration tower to get to her office.

Reach Sabine's office, come in and just sort of...plop the unconscious rogue on the ground.  Seeing as there aren’t enough chairs for everybody they all sit on the floor huddled around, petting Nimbus while they explain what happened and with Misty backing them up.  Calypso mentions that the guy is teleporting, the wizards in the room suggest anti-magic.  Sabine pulls out a 'rolodex' of sending stones and calls the dept head of abjuration, Syd to come help.  Makes another 'call' to someone in the city.  Soon after, Syd and 5 city guard come to take the unconscious rouge elsewhere.

She thanks the three of them (plus Misty) and the hired three get paid 100gp each.  They all decide to leave campus and wind down for the night in town.  Go to a tavern called The Late Hag down by the docks, it’s a bit of a dive but nothing all that sketchy.  Have some 'getting to know you' chat between the three of them.  Delphie casually mentions that she’s blind when the others comment on how cool her eyes are.  Hugo and Calypso are taken aback but she explains that while her light-vision is terrible and she’s by all means, blind, she can use divination magic to see magical signatures.  However if something is not magical she cannot see it at all.  The subject of Calypso’s transformation comes up, though they don’t provide many details, just that it’s something they can do.

Finally having a moment to breathe, Delphie puts it together that Calypso is on Fantasy Parole and has a Fantasy Ankle Monitor.  She’d seen some flickers of abjuration magic on their wrist but considering the circumstances she hadn’t had a chance to think about it.  But now, when things have calmed down, she can see the glimmer of the adamantine bracelet poking out of their sleeve.  She makes excuses to try and leave, hiding in the bathroom, Hugo gives her the out when he goes to check on her.

Calypso and Hugo hang out for the rest of the night getting tipsy, they invite him to spend the night when he realizes that he hadn’t made any plans for lodging before coming to Kerras.  Delphie goes home to spend the night at her family's house.  Her parents are surprised but happy to see her.  The night is raucous but with the comfort of normality.

#my post #tal plays dnd #campaign: merano #dnd 5e homebrew #dnd 5e campaign #merano: calypso #merano: hugo #merano: delphie #location: kerras #location: Akonerry Academy of the Arcane #location: The Late Hag

[maydaymadier]

my homebrew party comp

Delphi Screech) owlin, divination wizard

A student at Akonerry Academy of the Arcane who’s studying divination and has up to this point lived a small, cozy little life in the port town of Kerras.  While she is blind, she’s learned how to use divination to ‘see’ magical auras and uses that to get around

Hugo Austral) fire genasi bard (college of the ocean’s call) 

His memory before age 9 is weak at best, but that was when pirates attacked the ship him and his parents were traveling on.  In the aftermath, he washed up on The Embers and was taken in by the locals.  He wears a full old-timey diving suit out of an abundance of caution to keep from burning anything.  (Subclass is a homebrew I found)

Calypso Okyanari) knell, barbarian(beast) 

Grew up on and was part of the crew of the pirate ship Hecare’s Fury, lost an arm during their first raid and was banned from participating in raids again until proving themself by killing an attacking sea monster a few years later.  Although they are currently on parole after someone ratted out their ship’s upcoming raid.  The sentencing for piracy is usually harsher, but their cellmate was the funniest little shit of a lawyer known to man.  (Knell is a homebrew option I made)

Marasmius Elcarim) half-elf life cleric

A very old wizard who has spent the majority of his career as a wizardry professor at Akonerry in the abjuration department.  Though he’s recently decided to pick up a new career in adventuring, following the goddess Orsum as a cleric

#my post #tal plays dnd #campaign: merano #i'm really excited abt this campaign so im prob gonna post abt it every so often #if anyone's curious abt knells or more specific worldbuilding/lore im an open book

[maydaymadier]

Thrice Cards are a method of divination from the theocracy of Sfânt. A deck has twenty total cards. In reading, a diviner can pull three cards at a time, until there are no more sets of three available. Even-numbered cards are destinations, meant to reflect where you are in the present. Odd-numbered cards are landmarks, meant to show forks in the road, of where the future is leading. The orientation of the cards when pulled also determines meaning, a reversed/upside-down card has an inverted meaning from the upright card.

#my post #my art #tal plays dnd #campaign: merano #worldbuilding #i wanted to get all of these done as quickly as possible #so i decided on doing this minimalist/lineless style with only 3 colors to just get the compositions down #homebrew campaign #dnd homebrew #finally finished these!!! #very excited!!!

[maydaymadier]

Character Profiles pt.3

Delphie Screech (she/her)

Class/Subclass: Divination Wizard

Race: Owlin

Physical Description: Delphie is small, standing at just barely 4’10”.  She’s a fluffy grey screech owlin, her starry blind eyes emphasized by the thick-lensed round glasses perched on her beak.  She wears an amulet of Orsum and Hecare depicted as a two-faced goddess.  Dressed simply in a hooded wizard robe clasped shut with a crescent moon charm, over her school uniform in shades of purple.

Backstory (brief): Delphie was born and raised in the port city of Kerras by her parents Athen and Apolla.  She was a lively, imaginative child with an interest in the strange and magical who would regale her parents with her visions of strange creatures and worlds.  Her mother encouraged her to follow her passions but it was her father who steered her in the slightly more practical direction of attending the nearby Akonerry Academy of the Arcane.  Though her visions took a dark turn after an untimely tragedy.  She’s hoping that specializing in divination will give her some greater insight or control over these glimpses of future darkness.  It’s unclear if it has, but at least her efforts have gotten her to being the valedictorian.

#my post #tal plays dnd #campaign: merano #owlin #wizard #homebrew campaign #merano: delphie

[maydaymadier]

Character Profiles pt.2

Hugo Austral (he/they)

Class/Subclass: College of the Ocean’s Call Bard (homebrew)

Race: Fire genasi

Physical Description: Not standing as tall as their friend but impressive in his own right, Hugo can most often be found wearing an old-timey full-body diving suit, with smoke steadily pouring out of the helmet.  Underneath, you can see that he is a red-headed fire genasi, with onyx-black skin, fiery freckles across the bridge of his nose, and a massive magma crack on the left side of his head.  He has a dashing little beard and moustache and his hair pulled back into a bubble ponytail that reaches all the way to his waist.  His dark red leather armor has a vague gladiatorial element to its design.

  Backstory (brief): Hugo washed up on the shores of The Embers at 9 years old with a massive crack in his head.  He was taken in by the inhabitants of the island, everyone pitching in to take care of him and keep him safe, even if he had a habit of accidentally setting things on fire.  Of the few people living on The Embers, most of them were either air or water genasi so he stood out but no one took issue with it.  Though, there was an incident when he was about 11 where he went swimming with some of the other kids and was so happy and excited he started heating up, and some of the other kids started to pass out from heat exhaustion.  Which made Hugo freak out which only made the problem worse.  Luckily, there were adults nearby on the beach who could help and no one died but Hugo was a scared little kid and ran when one of the parents chewed him out about it.  As he was running, he ran into an air genasi woman, Agatha Mistral who wasn’t very parental but sympathetic to his situation and let him come with her.  When the townspeople came to try and find the missing Hugo, they were relieved to find out he was safe with Agatha but decided it might be best if he stayed with her.  From that point, he started living with her, doing chores, learned a few instruments from her.  At 14 he decided to go back to the main island.  As a precaution, Agatha offered him his first diving suit.  People were happy to see him safe and well even if it was awkward.  From that point on, he started taking boats into Abalone on the mainland to take on odd jobs while still living with Agatha back on the Embers but moved out at 16 to one of the even smaller islands and built a small house for himself, he doesn’t mind being the only sentient thing on the island.  Still working in Abalone, sometimes generic odd jobs, sometimes bard gigs, he lives a pretty simple life by himself, travelling where it so happens to take him.

#my post #tal plays dnd #campaign: merano #merano: hugo #homebrew campaign #bard #fire genasi

[maydaymadier]

Character Profiles pt.1

Calypso Okyanari (they/them)

Class/Subclass: Path of the Beast Barbarian

Race: Knell (homebrew)

Physical Description: Tall, broad, and built like a brick shithouse, Calypso towers over most people they know.  Their thick, curly hair, the seafoam-colored ends drifting past their shoulders, is pushed back out of their face with a headband that’s fighting for its life.  At a glance, they make your hairs stand on end, the air around them is clammy and they have the pallor of something long-dead.  Dressed light for life and work on the ocean but a heavy reddish overcoat helps conceal an adamantine bracelet on one wrist, and the lacquered wood of a prosthetic arm.

Backstory (spoiler-free version): Raised on the pirate ship Hecare’s Fury by their father Connie and the rest of the crew.  They were well-cared for an protected, learning everything they could possibly need to know about life at sea.  As a child, they mostly took care of the animals on board and bunkered down below-decks with them during raids.  Though when they were 14 they begged to join in their first raid.  It went badly.  They lost their right arm.  Connie found someone who could make them a prosthetic, she threw in an enchantment as a freebie, but she died after finishing it but before she could explain how it worked to anyone.  From that point they were banned from raiding.  But slaying a sea monster that threatened to sink the ship when they were 17 put them back in the running as a formidable fighter among the crew.  As they got older, they had a few whirlwind romances whenever Hecare’s Fury had to dock for repairs.  The most recent being Olive, who hasn’t talked to them since they told her that Hecare’s Fury was planning on attacking Ayvali for an easy score to get the funds the ship needed for desperately needed repairs.  Calypso was part of a decoy team on a smaller sailboat, but someone sold them out, the decoy was captured, giving H.F. just enough time to get away.  They were transferred to Kerras to stand trial for piracy and by some stroke of luck, their cellmate was a lawyer who was able to get them off on just parole on a technicality.  They have to wear an adamantine bracelet on their remaining arm that is used to track their whereabouts, they can’t leave the country.  But in the meantime, they’re stuck in the city of Kerras.

#my post #tal plays dnd #campaign: merano #merano: calypso #homebrew campaign #dnd 5e #barbarian

[maydaymadier]

The distance between us, it sharpens me like a knife WIP Thread [ID: Three people drawn in the Twelfth Night promo photo pose, an elven woman in a loose white dress with brown skin and long, curly dark hair is holding a sword in her right hand in front of a man with solid green eyes and long, pinkish hair that turns into vines in a fancy black and gold jacket partway open. He looks overwhelmed as he's kissed by her. Behind him, at his shoulder, an elven man with shaggy brown hair in a loose white shirt is leaning in against him and catches the blade of her sword. The light is a warm, golden tone, and dappled like they're standing under a tree.]

#my art #digital art #tal plays dnd #campaign: merano #npc: cesare #artists on tumblr #described art #image described

[maydaymadier]

I'm finally drawing some blorbos in that one Twelfth Night photo, some things are gonna get tweaked before/during the lineart but I have the sketch down

#my post #my art #tal plays dnd #campaign: merano #my players can probably recognize the one in the middle #we'll see if they ever learn who the other two are >:)

[maydaymadier]

The Gods and The Rivers (session 2)

Welcome to recap of session 2 of my Merano campaign.  Session 1 can be found here.  Same as last time,  all character names are in bold, spells are in italics.  Party members are tagged “merano: [character name]”.  Locations visited (cities, specific establishments) are tagged “location: [NAME]”.  All posts for this campaign are tagged “campaign: merano”.

Introduction:

Last time, our three heroes met.  Hugo, the bard; Calypso, the barbarian; and Delphie the wizard.  The three are recruited into finding the saboteur of a goodberry fountain at the Akonerry Academy of the Arcane, that feeds the entire region.  Meeting with the groundskeeper and the student team tasked with its maintenance, they navigate the tunnels underneath the school.  First fighting off two merrows left behind as a distraction.  The actual saboteur is found in the mechanism room and the party successfully fights and captures him before he can do any more damage or get away.  They double back and turn him over to the groundskeeper.  Who in turn, hands him over to the city guard.  The three then take the night for themselves.

The Next Morning:

Opening on the early morning in Kerras, the fresh morning sea-air blowing up off the ocean, the city is just starting to wake up, and a large fluffy white dog knows where she’s going.  Nimbus comes to the front door of the Screech family house, sits, and barks once.  Apolla Screech answers the door and isn’t sure what to make of it when a disembodied voice comes from the dog at her front step and asks for Delphie but she seems to know the dog and follows along without any questions.  Stranger things have probably happened since she picked up wizardry.

Sabine’s voice coming through the collar catches her up.  The rogue has woken up and is in the city jail but is refusing to talk to anyone, except the people who captured him.  He’s willing to blab but, principally, he considers it cheating for anyone who didn’t go to the effort of actually capturing him to interrogate him.  She’ll see them when they get back to the jail.

They collect Delphie and Calypso, catch them both up, and make their way back into the city to the jail.  It’s early and Sabine is clearly annoyed but if it gets any useful information she’ll put up with it.  All the nearby cells have been emptied, so the rogue is out of earshot of any other prisoners.  There’s a cleric standing guard outside of the cell helping to maintain an anti-magic field to keep him from teleporting away.  He’s an insanely old half-elf, scrawny with a bulbous nose, the longest beard ever, purple wizard robes, and a big old’ warhammer.  Delphie recognizes him as Marasmius Elcarim.

However, the anti-magic field is giving Delphie vision problems.

The rogue has had his armor, weaponry, and any other items confiscated.  He’s standing in the middle of his cell, arms crossed, back to the bars.  He sneers at Sabine and shoos her out.  But Marasmius gets to stay because there’s no way they’re dropping the anti-magic field.

He immediately opens up, willing and ready to blab.  When asked his name, he gives it, his name is Nariav.  Why did he do it?  Easy.  He was hired to.  Well who hired him to do it?  The Virastis, that noble family up in Feolinn.  Okay but why would they want to sabotage The Cornucopia?  He was one of many people hired to cause distractions up and down the coast so no one will pay attention to whatever it is they’re planning.  What are they planning?  Okay, let’s calm down a bit, he was a random hired hand, they didn’t reveal their entire master plan to him.  Still, why are you telling us all this?  Seems risky.  He’s been caught, he’s already a dead man walking, the Virastis are going to kill him no matter what he does at this point.

But, well, why did you agree to take the job?  Yeah, your were hired, but, what were they paying you with?  …They were going to turn him back into a god.  At this point Nariav shuts down and it’s not like the party believes that particular yarn.  Though Marasmius hears this and tries to speak to him in Celestial.  However, Nariav is downright insulted by this and replies in a different language that nobody recognizes and sounds like birdsong.  But as a last attempt for his death to actually hurt the people who sent him to slaughter, he’s going to try and fuck them over.

The only thing left he has to give them is to ask the guards for his medallion.  It marks him as an agent of the Virastis.  Maybe they can get some use out of it.

It comes up in conversation that ‘oh hey, is The Cornucopia fixed?’, Marasmius reassures the group that it’s been resolved.  With that, they decide to go meet back with Sabine and call Syd back in to keep up the anti-magic field.

The four of them go back to find Sabine and fill her in on what Nariav told them, including asking for his medallion.  She goes back to get his confiscated items from the guards and comes back with what he must have been talking about.  The conversation moves out of earshot into a sideroom.  What she pulls out for them to see is a piece of dark scrap leather with what can only be described as a light green enamel pin with gold lining.  It could be the Virasti family crest but if so it’s considerably simplified.  Marasmius casts a quick Detect Magic on it and finds the scraps of leftover purple divination magic on it, the guess is that it’s from a Scrying spell and that it must have been either cloaking itself or dispelling a cloaking.

Everyone puts their heads together on what to do next.  It wouldn’t be too hard to get to Feolinn, they are currently in a port city and there are four different rivers that connect up to Feolinn.  So by sea it is.  Sabine says that the Academy will secretly endorse your efforts as thanks for your help and that she’ll be sending updates as things happen.  Delphie wants to help though she does bring up the fact that she’s currently a student and can’t miss class.  Sabine points to Marasmius and asks ‘Hey, Mirasmius, do you need a TA?’/ ‘Yeah!’/ (Pointing at Delphie) ‘Well, you’ve got one!’  So Marasmius gives Delphie his first wizard hat and robe, they’re tattered but with love.

Before leaving town, the group decides to stock up at Fantasy Cabela’s down by the docks.  Calypso covers the essentials and Hugo buys fudge.  Delphie manages to find an Alchemist’s Kit and decides to go for it.

Now, as a former ‘sailor’ Calypso takes the lead to find someone headed up to Feolinn.  It doesn’t take long before they find The Dapper, a river boat that’s made port in Kerras to pick up a shipment.  Dante Rose, the first mate, knows Calypso!  They were drinking buddies for a little bit years ago.  Dante says he’ll talk to the captain and see if they can tag along.  He disappears for a few minutes, but comes back with Captain Monpress in tow, who is willing to let them join them as they sail to Feolinn under the conditions that they stay out of the way and feed themselves.

The Dapper is a modestly-sized river boat with a hold, a flat deck with a low railing to make some spots for oars/poles, and only one sail.  The party decides to just find some space below decks and keep out of everyone’s way.  Not much happens that first day once they’ve set out, sailing Northeast along the coast to Therane so they can take the Starfire River up to Feolinn.  So belowdecks, they decide to make ramen on Hugo’s head for dinner, just sort of balancing a pot on top of the diving suit helmet and letting him heat up.  After nightfall, when the crew is taking a break, Dante pokes his head down to invite them all to join them for a drinking game.  Marasmius puzzles over the offer and asks the group if any of them are of drinking age. (They all are.)

The crew is palling around circled up together on the deck having a good time and explain that the game is Gnome’s Knack.  There are four different drinks, each worth a different amount of points, the winner is either first to 10 points or last team standing, whichever happens first.  The Dapper’s crew offers up Dante and Luka (the ship’s cartographer) for their team.  The party nominates Calypso and Marasmius. 

Everyone’s having a rough go of it tonight.  The Dapper isn’t doing very good but the party is doing worse.  It takes five rounds of everyone choking down their liquor, the previous drinks making trying to get anything else down even harder.  Though the party loses definitively when Marasmius, thoroughly wrecked by his previous attempts tries to get one last drink down, throws it back up and passes out.  The Dapper wins by default but it’s not like anyone’s having a good time about it.

Calypso and Hugo help carry Marasmius back down into the hold and get him comfy.  Delphie uses her Alchemist’s Kit to make him something to settle his stomach and help with the hangover.  The group decides now is as good a time as any to get some sleep.

The following morning, The Dapper hits Therane, situated on the delta of the Starfire River.  Therane is mostly known for its floating bazaar though most locals and any well-travelled sailors will tell you that the bazaar is too touristy and not worth sticking around too long.  Though as they’re trying to leave the city, the ship gets held up at a customs checkpoint, much to Capt. Monpress’ annoyance, he runs a tight ship and goes to great lengths that everything is above board.  He doesn’t like the implication that he’s doing anything illegal but eventually they manage to get through.  Marasmius tries acting casually to figure out what that was about.  Capt. Monpress fumes about how apparently Therane is clamping down on a recent uptick in falsified manifests, people trying to sneak things inland.

Skipping ahead, it takes another day to reach The Dapper’s first proper stop before reaching Feolinn, the city of Dire, about a third of the way up the river.  Dire is nestled at the point where the Starfire and Sapling Rivers meet and deal mostly in wood and lumber coming downstream from the Causatum Forest at the other end of the Sapling.  Though it’s most striking feature is the meteor floating over it, with a tower built on top  The crew needs the day to work on unloading cargo and their own general business.  The party can go explore the city but they have to be back by the end of the day or they’re leaving without them.

The party disembarks and decides to go find some breakfast, making note of what’s around for them to check out as they go, and stop at a cozy little diner called The Old Tree.  The place is run and operated by a pretty centaur man in a cozy sweater who takes everyone’s orders but gets stumped when Marasmius requests falseberry jam for his pancakes.  But he checks to see if they have it anyway.

The party decides to hammer out places they want to visit.  Of the parts of the city they saw on the walk here, there’s some sort of visitor’s center, a temple to Orsum and another one to Hecare in the exact opposite direction, as well as the floating tower on the meteor.  The plan is to go to the visitor’s center first, then the temples, and if they can figure out how to get them all up there, they’ll go to the tower. 

Marasmius gives everyone a piece of saltwater taffy before they head out to explore.

#my post #tal plays dnd #campaign: merano #dnd 5e homebrew #homebrew campaign #merano: calypso #merano: hugo #merano: delphie #merano: marasmius #location: kerras #location: the dapper #location: therane #location: dire #i've been dragging my feet on writing my recaps rip