Mayaheine or Erythnul, who got there first?

After finally fulfilling his dream prophecy Fortu hoped for a dreamless rest. He'd moved the body of the slaver Moody and disposed of it under a thin layer of sand, the blood-stained sand where he'd slit Moody's throat a stark reminder. He returned to his bedroll to catch a few hours rest before his turn on guard.

Standing in the glaring light of the multiple suns Fortu squinted, he was sure he could see two figures approaching. He made to call his friends but the words caught in his mouth, the figures approaching were his parents - although it was impossible for him to know this as he could not remember the faces of his mother or father - but he was sure these were the two that raised him. As they moved closer they both raised their hands beckoning to him. Trying to take a step forward he stumbled as the sand beneath him seemed to soften and swirl, glancing down he saw that he was standing on the same spot he'd killed Moody. The sand was blood red and swirling around and over his feet. He again tried to take a step forward but the sand was pulling him down, he stumbled to his knees.

The male figure was dressed in armour, the emblem 'a blood red drop' as he moved towards Fortu his face changed, an angry mixture of man/ ogre/ bugbear the only things that went unchanged were his eyes. They looked just like the 'eyes' Fortu had just found - fear emanating like a solid wave. His gauntlet covered  hand reaching out to Fortu.

As the sand slid up his thighs to his waist Fortu looked at the female, tall and golden haired also clad in armour, the emblem a downward pointing sword. On her back a bastard sword much like Fortu's own. Her face radiating the love and protection only a mother can show. Her gauntlet covered hand reaching out to Fortu.

 Fortu surged to wrench himself free from the pulling sand but instead found himself slipping chest deep. Panic clutched him as he realised that he could not free himself from the bubbling and seething sand, he reached up to the oncoming pair. They both hastened towards the quickly submerging Fortu.

The blood filled sand covered his chin and poured into his silently screaming mouth, thrusting his hand up he strained towards the pair. He believed himself lost as the sand covered his face and eyes, the sound of Moody's last pleas in his ears. Lost in darkness, alone, defeated then amazingly the rush of hope as his hand is taken in a firm grip and he is pulled upwards. As the sand falls away from his face and eyes he awakens, spitting metallic tasting sand from his mouth.

He sits up and looks around, although nothing seems to have changed to those within the tent everything has changed with how he sees them.

The Three Stooges

Hanging back by themselves, Barbella stares at Henshaw with a look of sneering incomprehension.

"Why do you keep giving your gold back to the adventurers? It's not as if they’d even care about a few missing coins or gems here and there."

Henshaw gazes over to the deceptively blubbery looking Doberman for a moment, who’s happily still gnawing on one of the ambush bug’s giant segmented legs.

"Do you still not understand? The coins and gems you value so much are worth little compared to the simplest potion, let alone that magical glowing sickle you just talked your way into owning. That single item alone; it's worth thousands!"

The swarthy Barbella smirks.

"Sweet, but takin’ our rightful share of the magic don't mean we can't have our cut of the gold as well."

Still watching Doberman, Henshaw smiles as he sees his fat friend wrinkle his bulbous nose and pull a momentary expression of disgust at the flavour before renewing his chewing regardless.

"Well, I suppose, in this strange new world, I'd rather know that they're watching my back as much as they think I'm watching out for theirs."

A (Liga) Bur in their Shoe

Kneeling on the cold flagstones, heads huddled together in the darkness, the two figures share their frustration.

"Why are they still pursuing you?"

"I don't know. I barely knew them, They were just lowly adventurers I'd initially hired to kill a troublesome Druid."

"Well, how is it that they've managed to chase you through three different worlds?!"

"It's the little Dark Star. The Orc-raised Halfling. His tracking skills are, frankly, astonishing!"

"So, if we can disincentivise him, the others can't follow?"

"The others are annoyingly tenacious but they wouldn't know where to go without him."

"Well relax then, even in my weakened state, I know what to do. Summon my faithful mare for me. Even after all this time, she'll have remained within earshot."

"As you wish Mother."

Treasure from a Pre-Trod Path

While sitting cross-legged on the carpeted floor of the marquee, Rifkin examines the treasure they’d just combed through the chitinous gore and sand to find. It seems that these dimly intelligent, insectoid, pounce-predators were using the bones and loot as bait in their traps but without any true understanding of its actual worth.

The erudite Arowe had translated the Gnomish Knight; Grimcrack’s diary and it was obvious that they were ostensibly on the same mission but, going by the dates... nearly a century apart!

Something was wrong here. If this was the mythical tower that the middle-aged Sir Briefadel was searching for and, if you believe what the Wizard Moody had claimed, it was established here about a hundred years ago. Fifty-years before the treacherous nobleman was even born!

Placing the remnants of the tattered diary to one side, Rifkin quickly separates the obvious magical items from the more mundane ones and trusts the surprisingly numerate Henshaw to fairly divvy up the gold and gems.

Magic

Small Lance +3 (Keen) (Liga Bur)

Small Longsword +1

Small Heavy Shield +1

Small Full Plate +1

Lenses of Doom (Fortu)

Ring of Jumping +5 (Arowe)

Harp of Charming (Rifkin)

Elixir of Truth

Elixir of Fire Breath

Potion of Good Hope

Potion of Cure Serious Wounds

Potion of Remove Blindness

Scroll of Holy Sword (unusable by anyone)

Scroll of Cure Serious Wounds (Liga Bur)

Scroll of Remove Curse (Rifkin)

Scroll of Heat Metal (unusable by anyone)

Small damp leather purse containing 5 x Moist Marbles

Flask of Acid x 2 (one used)

Diary of Grimcrack Thin-Needle (Arowe)

Maps of Calcienta / Fissa / The Givrad Void

Chain shirt barding for Medium Quadruped +1 (Mir Hundur)

Liga Bur may also want to claim the Small +1 Heavy Shield as he can use the Magic Lance one-handed while riding Mir Hundur. No-one else could use the small long-sword or small full-plate either.

Anyone want to claim the potions or shall Rifkin just stick them in his knapsack?

Gold and Gems

Arowe: + 42gp / 6 gems (worth 25gp each)

Fortu: + 42gp / 6 gems (worth 25gp each)

Liga Bur: + 42gp / 6 gems (worth 25gp each)

Rifkin: + 21gp / 3 gems (worth 25gp each)

Henshaw: + 14gp / 2 gems (worth 25gp each)

Barbella: + 14gp / 2 gems (worth 25gp each)

Doberman: + 14gp / 2 gems (worth 25gp each)


Extras

The half-dozen Ankheg eggs found by Barbella had a total value of 600gp (if sold in Valdez) but (a now slightly green) Doberman ate all of them.

Henshaw, as before with Fortu, hands his entire share to Rifkin. Plus the 5gp he still had remaining.

“I’m still down a bit but I never forget a debt.”

The Demi-elf smiles but can’t help hearing the unintended threat behind the promise.

Finally, Barbella sidles over to Fortu, borrowed magical, glowing silver sickle in hand...

"Henshaw said I should return this to ya, but I woz finking, since the light it sheds is useful to me and no-one else ain't using it, could it be my share of the loot? It only seems fair, since the Halfling got that swirly magic lance, the Elf took the magic ring, the Half-Elf got the harp and you got them magic lenses. Henshaw, Doberman and me didn’t get nothing!"

The gangly Henshaw and Extremely stout Doberman wander over to support their double-negative using friend and Henshaw adds his voice too.

“That’s true. We should get our share. The Gnome-sized stuff and the scrolls are no use to us but if Barbella's getting that silver sickle, can I have the other magic dagger that's going begging?”

Henshaw requests the +1 Cold-iron Dagger.

Doberman doesn’t seem to care either way though.


Current individual gold and gem status:

Fortu: Gold: 1,005gp + 6 gems (worth 25gp each)

Arowe: Gold: 1,205gp + 6 gems (worth 25gp each)

Liga Bur: Gold: 930gp + 6 gems (worth 25gp each)

Rifkin: Gold: 341gp + 7 gems (worth 25gp each)

Henshaw: Gold: 0gp (Still owes Rifkin 31gp)

Barbella: Gold: 373gp + 2 gems (worth 25gp each)

Doberman: Gold: 370gp + 2 gems (worth 25gp each)

Game Dates

Hi chaps,

How do these work fod the next game?

Sat 4th / Sun 5th Nov?
Sat 8th / Sun 18th Nov

Sat 2th / Sun 26th Nov

Sat 2nd / Sun 3rd Dec

In each case, I'm assuming my evening / your morning. I can probably play later / longer on the Saturdays. 

Let me know if you also want me to look further ahead into Dec.

Cheers 👍

The Tragic Tale of Grimcrack Thin-Needle

Diary entries: (All written in the Gnomish script.)

Inside front cover: Diary of Grimcrack of the Thin-needles of Mount Snaufang.

Day 2: Since learning of my beloved father; Baron Gewgore Thin-needle’s original and vehement objections to the council's agreement to build this prison, I've resolved that it's my duty as a knight and his son to undo this vile preservation of evil.

Day 4: An ageless creature such as that can not be safely imprisoned forever. This demon should not be preserved but executed at the first opportunity.

Day 18: I've discovered the hidden location of the banished tower. I have doubled my commitment to destroy the shameful work of my people and dispatch the hell-spawn creature held captive there. 

Day 21: Finally, with the knowledge I have garnered, I have embarked on my mission. I hope my Father will understand why I have borrowed his magical Lance and forgive me. I fear I shall need its legendary tip before I am done with this quest.

Day 36: With the aid of my God Gaerdal Ironhand, I’ve found a path through the dimensions and am closer now than I’ve ever been to completing my quest.

Day 47: I’ve been practicing the magical harp and hopefully, I’ve grown skilful enough to overcome the first and most powerful barrier. My otherworldly nature should take care of the rest.

Day 63: The desert trek has proven more hazardous than I had expected but the powers blessed to me by my God have enabled my stout War-boar and myself to endure the constant heat and quench our continuous thirst.

Day 65: Perhaps just a day or two from our objective and I’ve discovered a sheltering Rocky outcrop. Pepper and I will make camp here and replenish our water supplies before our last charge toward the tower.

Drawings: 

There is also the torn scraps of a short musical arrangement.

Carpe DM!

Thought of the fantastic header above and considered myself a true genius. Sadly, after checking online, I found that this joke had been made by so many people, so many times before, you could even buy it on a mug or a T-shirt. Instead, I transformed my adventure binder into a Mimic and stuck it on the cover.

David pointed out to me the other day, that we've been playing this online campaign for over three years now.

Three years?!

Hopefully you're all still enjoying our irregular on-line campaign though. I'm still getting a great deal of joy and distraction out of it, but ultimately your enjoyment is paramount.

I think you're having fun but I'm self-aware enough to realise that I'm far from the perfect DM. Despite trying to create challenging combats, in which death is (almost) always a possibility, I know that I tend to lean into 'comedic' rather than 'method' roleplay.

This 'comedy' gameplay though 'might' be being enhanced by my in-between-sessions silly posts. And I know that I've posted up a lot of these over the last few months.

Since the beginning, my plan was always to try to post something each Saturday between games to keep the momentum going and the interest up. You guys posting your character's thoughts or views of things though, really helps me with the story. Interaction is everything!

I like my own posts but I LOVE yours!

David's and Assif’s recent posts were great! Raw emotional responses to the current predicament, tactical reactions to an imminent threat and philosophical musings regarding the purpose of self, gods, luck and destiny. Nice.

 
I suppose though, the real question is; are you enjoying these stories, animations, puppet shows and silly clips? Obviously, I get a lot of pleasure out of making/writing them but they're meant to make you laugh, as well as function as clues of things to come and reminders of what has happened previously.

I guess I tend to think in terms of a movie rather than a book, with cut scenes and flashbacks. I'm not a massive opponent of Meta-gaming and I've no problem with you having an inkling of what's happening behind the curtain.

You're responses have been often muted though and a post with zero responses is always a little disappointing. If you're not enjoying them, they're concerning you, or even worse, you're not bothering to read them, please let me know and I'll stop.

Most of the story development and hints given in these posts could be given in game but that would drastically slow down our actual sessions and push combats further apart. Sessions that are short enough as they are without more of my terrible accents and clumsy attempts at actual role-playing.

That said, I'm happy to try. I actually enjoy my terrible/comedy attempts at accents. Doing exuberant Whackeem; the 'French/Arabic' salesman of Magical artefacts (Jazz hands) was a laugh!

Hopefully though, you're 'eyebrow raising' is meant in fun and I understand how busy you all are. Do me a favour though and throw me a response now and then. they really help motivate me and let me know I'm not just wasting my time.

Finally, I find organising the schedule stressful and would prefer not to do it. Scott, I'm handing this responsibility completely back to you as you're the busiest of us. If we play, when we play is up to you.

Thanks and see you all on Saturday.