Gaming Notes and Thoughts
Oct. 6th, 2022 09:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xochiquetzl is 100% correct. The D&D Beyond App is TOTALLY the bomb. I tried out for the first time at last night's session. I loved that the app subtracted damage from my hit points for me, has a way to refresh things after short and long rests, etc. I still might not be calculating my rage attacks correctly, but that's me, not the app. For the most part, the app did most of my math for me, too, so that probably speeded up the game. (My dyslexia makes simple math sometimes daunting, and I tend to really choke at first grade level addition and subtraction when I'm under pressure. OMG I hated having to make change at the library; every time I was utterly terrified and panicked.)
The game itself went very well. You could tell everyone enjoyed it a lot because afterward we all sat around in a kind of dazed satisfaction, not speaking just smiling into the middle distance. The adrenaline rush of imagined combat had faded into a kind of role-play afterglow. If we hadn't gone into overtime, I would've joined those that go out to a bar afterwards even though I'm still masking in public AND I don't drink.
That's how much fun I had.
Oh, and I ended up bringing the peanut butter cookies. We are starting a refresh of the kitchen (pictures to follow in the next entry) and so I'd spent the day painting instead of baking. I showed off the D&D official cookbook and everyone seemed amenable to me working my way through the deserts in the book, so I'll be trying out the Elf bread for next session.
For those who are enjoying my silly, in-character write ups of the actual adventure, here's my High Elf's most recent letter home:
October 5
The Sewers of Brekenforth, Kingdom of Shira
My dearest sister, Ave,
It happened again. That thing that possesses me overwhelmed my mind. A strangled roar swelled in my ear. I suddenly saw nothing but red, the color of blood, until I could taste its bitter iron at the back of my throat. I saw nothing but red until blood was spilled and this uncanny lust was sated.
We’d followed a trail spotted by the monk, Gregor, and the massive man from Isk, Papa Bernard, into the sewers of this town. Not far in, we came across a pile of ravaged bodies, slashed by sword and pierced by arrow. Our mystical, handsome friend, Xavala, is quite young for a human, it seems, and had no stomach for the sight of such carnage. From the looks of the tools on the corpses, we surmised these were people in charge of maintaining the passageways of the sewer. We barely had time to inspect them before we were besieged by animated skeletons. Yes, if you can believe it, Ave, bones with no connective tissues, moving of their own accord!
It was then that it happened. The… rage that overwhelms me. I have, in fact, almost no memory of the fight. I may have been wounded? I’m truly uncertain. I barely felt it, if I was.
When the fighting stopped I was able to return to my senses, though I had a lot of unspent fury which I expended by kicking in whatever doors stood in our way. Only once was that truly unwise, and I have some singed hair and some minor injuries to show for my rashness.
The series of tunnels turned into a collection of rooms and, as we fought our way through each, I began to learn the skill set of those I travel with. It seems the happy-go-lucky farmer, Bellamy Finnegan, is a crack shot with the crossbow and has, what seems to me, near magical levels of skill at opening locks. Papa Bernard, the square of a man covered in furs and who welds the thighbone of a giant as a weapon, has an amazing way with animals and at one point tamed several mastiffs right before our eyes! Xavala, the oddly attractive priestly sort, who normally seems most adept at spouting nonsense about his goddess Avandra, twice healed our monk from grievous bodily harm. We had to leave our cleric, Theophnia, behind at the city hall’s archives, and, at a guess, her presence was sorely missed as she seems to be the one of The Caravan who most has her wits about her, and likely would have kept us from bumbling headlong into traps.
Ah, yes, and then there’s… the new person.
It seems we, The Caravan, are aptly named as we have picked up another in our train. This new addition is a blue-skinned Triton woman who seems able to conjure ghastly spectral tentacles from the deep to battle our foes. I suspect she may be a warlock, a type of magic practitioner that I had thought was banned in these parts since the disastrous Pact War. She mentioned something about evading the blockade by swimming under the boats, so her stake in that conflict is as yet unknown to us. She’s a rather curious one--very merry and cheerful with a penchant for note-taking. She seems somewhat unfamiliar with certain Common phrases such as when Bellamy noted that we had “picked up a tail,” she seemed to be uncertain what that meant.
To be fair to her, I, myself, am unclear as to what Papa Bernard means exactly when he speaks of hunting and eating “squirrel.” I had assumed he meant the small tree rodents that are quite plentiful and familiar in The Beech Wood, but his are decidedly larger… or, perhaps, the word some kind of Isk colloquial term for human flesh, as at one point he referred to the bodies we found in the sewers as "squirrel."
At any rate. We followed the trail all the way to a hidden room in which there lie far more than just the singular missing painting. It seems the fey folk had collected many shiny things. There was a chest of treasures, several other objects d’art, and such like. A pixie that we captured confessed that he followed the directions of his Mistress, a hag who apparated the moment we clapped eyes on her. This group of fey, under her direction, had been mapping out the sewers. Their maps were quite detailed, but written in Slyvian, a language, as you know my dear sister, I speak but can not read.
We are now on route to return the painting to its owner and collect our paltry finder’s fee.
I must confess that The Caravan has surprised me. When the fighting was all over, they were unwilling to keep one of the pixies we captured as hostage. I would have marched the troublesome fey directly to the Captain of the Watch, but it seems I have fallen in with a kind-hearted troupe. They healed the injured and told them to flee. Why the pixies simply won’t return to their mistress, I’m uncertain, but perhaps they will heed the monk’s advice and choose this moment to defect from whatever cause has brought them together. With the fickle fey, it’s just as possible they will, as won’t.
The rest of the Caravan also seemed as yet unwilling to make any kind of report to the authorities about details of this event despite the fact that we are all well aware that part of the reason we’re stuck in this seaport town is because there is some trouble brewing with the “Elves” from the north and creatures of the feywild. Surely, something among these treasures is the very item this town and its invaders have been seeking, but none of us are able to detect magic. So, we will have to discover the truth the old-fashioned way: by being surprised by it.
In other news, it seems that Xavala, The Chosen One, has some kind of suite at the Sloshy Boot and I’m hopeful, now that blood has been spilled between us, that I can impose upon him and his adjutant to allow me to sleep on his floor. As you are well aware Ave, I am not terribly skilled in survival in the wild. Sleeping in the rough does not suit me. The clothes I left home in are nothing more than tatters at this point.
But, we shall see what the rest of the day brings. We have yet to hear what Lord Hikushi has to say once his painting is returned.
I hope you are well and at least pretending to be obedient to the family. Since I seem as yet unable to control this wild and uncanny temper, there is no hope for my return, as yet. Mother will look to you to take on the role of heir apparent to our devious and twisty political family. I suspect it suits you as well as it suited me, which is to say, not at all. I swear to you that I will continue to wrestle this demon within me and, if there is any hope of controlling the beast, I promise to return and shield you from that burdensome yoke of our family’s destiny.
Yours with much affection and fondness,
Idyril
