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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Joshua Randall" data-source="post: 951958" data-attributes="member: 7737">A Response to (contact)'s QueriesThis update has a lot of background musings that don't directly advance the story. I promise to compensate by writing a real update later today.Counter-yoinking is always appropriate.Dellarocca the Wizard is a combination of two NPCs from two of my favorite modules of all time. First there was Old Elmo, the imprisoned mage in (AD&D 1e) module U3, The Final Enemy. He had been captured by the sahaugin (the ciquali in this story), tortured, and had lost most of his mind. I always thought it was completely unfair that the PCs couldn't rescue poor Elmo, so I decided that he would be not only rescue-able, but an active participant in their assault on the fortress. Except that he would have an alternate agenda (vicious revenge and destruction) that was not compatible with the PCs' stealthy mission.The second inspiration for Dellarocca was the archmage Desatysso from the (AD&D 2e) Return to the Tomb of Horrors super-module. In that module, the PCs discover Desatysso's journal and follow his trail toward Acererak the Demilich. Unfortunately, this won't have much impact if the PCs have never heard of Desatysso, or met him. So I decided that Desatysso would become Dellarocca, and that he would be introduced in my campaign right from the start. That way, when the PCs eventually discover my version of Acererak, they will be following up on the researches of one of the campaign's primary NPCs, someone who they have known and adventured with for a long while.My only regret with the Dellaroccas is that I didn't give them more fantastical names.  *sigh*As for my theft of Heydricus, the idea is that he had been a former member of the Company of the Red Kestrel. But any time you put two Cha 17+ men in the same room, sparks will fly, especially when one of them has a sister. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f644.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":rolleyes:" title="Roll eyes    :rolleyes:"  data-smilie="11"data-shortname=":rolleyes:" /> Hence the rift between Dellarocca and Heydricus.Officially there are two PCs, Brogun and Kell (who will show up again later). However, only Brogun's player is dedicated enough to stick with the game through thick and (mostly) thin.As for the D&D-ism problem, I tried to solve it at the start of the campaign by forcing the PCs to become members of the adventuring company. This gave them an explicit reason to be together, despite their disparate backgrounds, and had the side benefit of allowing me to order them around on behalf of the Kestrel's leader.I find it hard to write in the second person singular, yet I can spew out traditional third person preterite with ease. Maybe I'll give it a shot, though.</blockquote>

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