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<blockquote data-quote="Echolocation" data-source="post: 8260992" data-attributes="member: 7011911"><p><strong>Session 54</strong></p><p><em>Courtesy of Ella's player</em></p><p></p><p>A fancy feast… interrupting fey… telepathic minotaurs… and secret meetings were the setting for our latest foray into constable-hood.</p><p></p><p>Oddly enough, neither the king nor Principal Minister Lee seemed to notice Brakken pounding on the insides of our heads as well as the meeting room door. This probably shouldn’t be surprising, since telepathy is something a wise king and his advisors would likely want to guard against…but fortunately for us Danor’s royal family clearly had no such wards in place, as Brakken informed us he’d picked up some rather interesting thoughts from them after Asrabey’s abrupt entrance into the peace feast.</p><p></p><p>Sovereign Han Jierre was apparently very concerned with our pending trip to the Bleak Gate - enough to send a messenger there warning the Obscurati of our impending arrival. Meanwhile Lya Jierre seemed rather more concerned with her uncle’s response to the situation than our own activities. Curious…</p><p></p><p>A rapid search of Hotel Aurum by Minister Lee’s lackeys found Han’s messenger for us while we kitted up for a Bleak Gate invasion. Brakken telepathically shared his memories of B Team’s experiences with us while we prepared, and then we rushed downstairs to interrogate Han’s messenger: a nervous-looking human man sandwiched between two guards.</p><p></p><p>His initial protestations that he was simply going for a walk withered under Lisandra’s Detect Thoughts spell, and the man quickly spilled the beans upon learning of this terrifying Risuri hoodoo magic. ‘The beans’ proved to be not very tasty. He was simply meant to take a letter and walk along the Stanfield Canal. The letter had some familiar-looking sigils on it but no signs of the magic required to transport it to the Bleak Gate. Perhaps the canal bridges <em>themselves </em>contain the enchantment?</p><p></p><p>We didn’t really have time to speculate on it, as the unfortunate messenger was bundled off by guards and we were bundled into a carriage with the king and principal minister. ...Have I mentioned how much I hate being trapped in confined spaces with important people?</p><p></p><p>The king wasn’t going to make it an easy ride either, as he immediately began quizzing us on who the team leader was. Angharad and John looked at Ella, and Ella looked at Lisandra, and Lisandra decided that she really didn’t like the direction John and Angharad were looking and stuck up her hand as tribute. The king was… understandably concerned by this conflicted interaction and asked us to justify our reasoning.</p><p></p><p>Alright everyone, please share your work with the class... </p><p></p><p>Lisandra tactfully alluded to Ella’s recent family issues and prior insanity and general all-round <em><strong>year of trauma</strong></em> without <em>actually </em>saying any of that, and John and Angharad subsided and went along with it - although not without a concerned look from the kineticist. Ella, for her part, was just <em>very glad</em> to have avoided this responsibility. Lisandra, for her part, quickly became <em>very concerned</em> about this responsibility: as the king impressed upon us that this was the most important mission of our lives and as the de facto leader Lisandra would be responsible for commanding the thirty-odd military coming with us.</p><p></p><p>...I thought we were constables, not army commanders?</p><p></p><p>Fortunately Delft Dad was there to reassure us as the carriages dumped us at the ritual site and the king made a <em>big ole speech</em> about just how very important we all were and how we’d lead this extra-planar expedition to victory.</p><p></p><p>[SPOILER="The King's Speech"]</p><p>Everyone, gather well within the confines of the powered rust that circles the bonfire. The Principal Minister has handed each of you a small bag of charms. When you travel to the Bleak Gate, you will be trapped there until sunrise. After sunrise, if you wish to return, tear open the charm bag. Be warned, it is said the sun barely pierces the land of the dead. Moreso, open the charms with caution. For when you do so, you will return to the equivalent position in our world. If that position would be a solid object, the physical trauma sustained to your bodies would be lethal. Ensure you return by sunset, by eighteen hours, for if you do not, you will be trapped in the Gate forever.</p><p></p><p>These are not risks without reward! No doubt you have heard the rumours, of shadows stalking the alleyways, of silent killers, of swift kidnappers. These monsters are real. There are traitors to our land shrouded by darkness. So desperate to hide their crimes that they operate in the land of the dead. But loyal soldiers, I do not send you alone. Instead, I send you with four of the finest Royal Homeland Constables. For a year, this unit has defended Risur from both within and beyond. You are to report to Constable Lisandra, treat their words as if it was my own. With these constables, you will cleanse this city of enemies, you will create a safer Risur, and you will make history!</p><p></p><p>The King’s concluding words coincide with the sound of his sword being unsheathed. Despite the darkness of the grove, the King’s blade glistens with the reflection of an absent moon. The king slowly slices the air vertically before him, and before you, a slither of darkness replicates the blade’s trajectory. Meanwhile, the Principal Minster clasps an orb of gold, and some of the powdered rust begins to slowly levitate. The slither of darkness begins to sporadically flutter in width. But to Lisandra, the flutters seem systematic, as if a mouth whispering, beckoning the words “enter, souls”. Suddenly, this mouth expands into a portal to unending darkness. You hear Bazza shout</p><p>“MOVE OUT!!” </p><p>[/SPOILER]</p><p></p><p>Ha ha ha, yeah… that’s us: Obscurati-foiling extraplanar expeditioners extraordinaire! Who definitely didn’t come back from our last such mission minus three limbs and laden with trauma. We got this. Team leader Lisandra has got this.</p><p></p><p>(We’re all gonna dieeeee.)</p><p></p><p>On the upside: if we fail, Cauldron Hill will probably explode or turn into some kind of horrifying witchoil tentacle monstrosity or something and kill everyone, so there won’t be anyone left to mourn us.</p><p></p><p>Upside… right?</p><p></p><p>In the midst of all this stress Delft made a point of reminding us what our goals were: capturing Obscurati higher-ups, uncovering information on their operation, and finding firm evidence linking Lya Jierre to this (hopefully) nefarious organisation so the king can get out of his impending nuptials.</p><p></p><p><em>Pretty sure there are easier ways to cancel a wedding, dude…</em></p><p></p><p>Thus reminded of our purpose - and surrounded by Grappa, Asrabey, Bazza, and two dozen military soldiers - we were bundled through a portal to the Bleak Gate before we could change our minds.</p><p></p><p>[SPOILER="Bazza"]</p><p>Bazza was a specialist who worked under Dale, protecting Cauldron Hill, but has since been promoted since his introduction in Session 0. He is quite reserved outside work, in part because he has not fully mourned the loss of his comrade, Dazza, who served on the Coaltongue as security in its maiden voyage.</p><p>[/SPOILER]</p><p></p><p>The other side was… dark. Creating a light we also discovered it to be bleak: covered in dead trees and shadows. That part at least was unsurprising. Shining like a giant beacon for everything that might possibly want to harm us, we set off toward the Bleak Gate version of Cauldron Hill - with Ella in the lead. The gnome tiefling proved to be a… somewhat ineffective scout: finding the entrance to the enemy stronghold while simultaneously being found herself.</p><p></p><p>Combat ensued, with Ella turning invisible (my, imagine how useful that could have been one minute earlier) and everyone else rushing to her rescue. Creepy-eyed humans with force-guns, shadowy figures made of ribbons, and terrifying Bleak Gate creatures in collars fought fiercely but eventually fell - taking two of our soldiers with them.</p><p></p><p>The one enemy left alive - a female mercenary with zero fucks to give about her job - gave us all the information she had. As per usual, it seemed we’d arrived just a little too late: whatever operation had been underway here was finished and the facility was being packed up. She hadn’t even seen their inglorious leader, Tin-tickler, lately. Ah well… at least there were still 40 odd guards and 100 engineers to take out our impotent fury on. As well as, you know… all the people deeper in the facility where our lady guard friend had never been…</p><p></p><p>An easy task for our force of 28 people and 1 geased construct! </p><p></p><p>Thus, with hope in our hearts, we entered the Obscurati hideaway: proceeding down the <strong><em><u>Tunnel of Empty Tedium to the Double Doors of Possible Doom Except We Don’t Really Know Because Our Guide Is A Gods-damned Geased Construct Who Can’t Tell Us Anything Specific And Has To Talk In naughty word Circles All The Time.</u></em></strong></p><p></p><p>...Needless to say, we opened the doors.</p><p></p><p>The room beyond was… boring. Except for the hidden doors in each wall and the eyeball staring at us from the ceiling. But other than that? Very boring. John - originally from a circus - knew just how to liven the place up though: shooting the viewing lens on the ceiling and sending a veritable flood of guards our way.</p><p></p><p>Parties are always better with friends, right?</p><p></p><p>And thus here we find ourselves: deep underground in another plane of existence with up to 40 guards determined to send our souls to the Bleak Gate properly and then forward us all to the Plane of Nem like some kind of express extraplanar soul delivery service. Or possibly just trap us all here in witchoil and burn us into non-existence… Who knows?</p><p></p><p>I hope if we do get turned into witchoil then Captain Dale finds us and feeds us cocoa… That’s the kind of afterlife I could live with…except not, because we’d be dead. But you know what I mean.</p><p></p><p></p><p><em>Anyway</em>.</p><p></p><p>Will Team B.A.D get out of this one alive? Will we find out why Asrabey’s wife abandoned him to live in a dismal grey-scale world on the other side of existence? And will John ever find this so-called Tertri Lashkov and get a cool-ass force-gun of his own? Find out this week: on <strong>Zeitgeist</strong>!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Echolocation, post: 8260992, member: 7011911"] [B]Session 54[/B] [I]Courtesy of Ella's player[/I] A fancy feast… interrupting fey… telepathic minotaurs… and secret meetings were the setting for our latest foray into constable-hood. Oddly enough, neither the king nor Principal Minister Lee seemed to notice Brakken pounding on the insides of our heads as well as the meeting room door. This probably shouldn’t be surprising, since telepathy is something a wise king and his advisors would likely want to guard against…but fortunately for us Danor’s royal family clearly had no such wards in place, as Brakken informed us he’d picked up some rather interesting thoughts from them after Asrabey’s abrupt entrance into the peace feast. Sovereign Han Jierre was apparently very concerned with our pending trip to the Bleak Gate - enough to send a messenger there warning the Obscurati of our impending arrival. Meanwhile Lya Jierre seemed rather more concerned with her uncle’s response to the situation than our own activities. Curious… A rapid search of Hotel Aurum by Minister Lee’s lackeys found Han’s messenger for us while we kitted up for a Bleak Gate invasion. Brakken telepathically shared his memories of B Team’s experiences with us while we prepared, and then we rushed downstairs to interrogate Han’s messenger: a nervous-looking human man sandwiched between two guards. His initial protestations that he was simply going for a walk withered under Lisandra’s Detect Thoughts spell, and the man quickly spilled the beans upon learning of this terrifying Risuri hoodoo magic. ‘The beans’ proved to be not very tasty. He was simply meant to take a letter and walk along the Stanfield Canal. The letter had some familiar-looking sigils on it but no signs of the magic required to transport it to the Bleak Gate. Perhaps the canal bridges [I]themselves [/I]contain the enchantment? We didn’t really have time to speculate on it, as the unfortunate messenger was bundled off by guards and we were bundled into a carriage with the king and principal minister. ...Have I mentioned how much I hate being trapped in confined spaces with important people? The king wasn’t going to make it an easy ride either, as he immediately began quizzing us on who the team leader was. Angharad and John looked at Ella, and Ella looked at Lisandra, and Lisandra decided that she really didn’t like the direction John and Angharad were looking and stuck up her hand as tribute. The king was… understandably concerned by this conflicted interaction and asked us to justify our reasoning. Alright everyone, please share your work with the class... Lisandra tactfully alluded to Ella’s recent family issues and prior insanity and general all-round [I][B]year of trauma[/B][/I] without [I]actually [/I]saying any of that, and John and Angharad subsided and went along with it - although not without a concerned look from the kineticist. Ella, for her part, was just [I]very glad[/I] to have avoided this responsibility. Lisandra, for her part, quickly became [I]very concerned[/I] about this responsibility: as the king impressed upon us that this was the most important mission of our lives and as the de facto leader Lisandra would be responsible for commanding the thirty-odd military coming with us. ...I thought we were constables, not army commanders? Fortunately Delft Dad was there to reassure us as the carriages dumped us at the ritual site and the king made a [I]big ole speech[/I] about just how very important we all were and how we’d lead this extra-planar expedition to victory. [SPOILER="The King's Speech"] Everyone, gather well within the confines of the powered rust that circles the bonfire. The Principal Minister has handed each of you a small bag of charms. When you travel to the Bleak Gate, you will be trapped there until sunrise. After sunrise, if you wish to return, tear open the charm bag. Be warned, it is said the sun barely pierces the land of the dead. Moreso, open the charms with caution. For when you do so, you will return to the equivalent position in our world. If that position would be a solid object, the physical trauma sustained to your bodies would be lethal. Ensure you return by sunset, by eighteen hours, for if you do not, you will be trapped in the Gate forever. These are not risks without reward! No doubt you have heard the rumours, of shadows stalking the alleyways, of silent killers, of swift kidnappers. These monsters are real. There are traitors to our land shrouded by darkness. So desperate to hide their crimes that they operate in the land of the dead. But loyal soldiers, I do not send you alone. Instead, I send you with four of the finest Royal Homeland Constables. For a year, this unit has defended Risur from both within and beyond. You are to report to Constable Lisandra, treat their words as if it was my own. With these constables, you will cleanse this city of enemies, you will create a safer Risur, and you will make history! The King’s concluding words coincide with the sound of his sword being unsheathed. Despite the darkness of the grove, the King’s blade glistens with the reflection of an absent moon. The king slowly slices the air vertically before him, and before you, a slither of darkness replicates the blade’s trajectory. Meanwhile, the Principal Minster clasps an orb of gold, and some of the powdered rust begins to slowly levitate. The slither of darkness begins to sporadically flutter in width. But to Lisandra, the flutters seem systematic, as if a mouth whispering, beckoning the words “enter, souls”. Suddenly, this mouth expands into a portal to unending darkness. You hear Bazza shout “MOVE OUT!!” [/SPOILER] Ha ha ha, yeah… that’s us: Obscurati-foiling extraplanar expeditioners extraordinaire! Who definitely didn’t come back from our last such mission minus three limbs and laden with trauma. We got this. Team leader Lisandra has got this. (We’re all gonna dieeeee.) On the upside: if we fail, Cauldron Hill will probably explode or turn into some kind of horrifying witchoil tentacle monstrosity or something and kill everyone, so there won’t be anyone left to mourn us. Upside… right? In the midst of all this stress Delft made a point of reminding us what our goals were: capturing Obscurati higher-ups, uncovering information on their operation, and finding firm evidence linking Lya Jierre to this (hopefully) nefarious organisation so the king can get out of his impending nuptials. [I]Pretty sure there are easier ways to cancel a wedding, dude…[/I] Thus reminded of our purpose - and surrounded by Grappa, Asrabey, Bazza, and two dozen military soldiers - we were bundled through a portal to the Bleak Gate before we could change our minds. [SPOILER="Bazza"] Bazza was a specialist who worked under Dale, protecting Cauldron Hill, but has since been promoted since his introduction in Session 0. He is quite reserved outside work, in part because he has not fully mourned the loss of his comrade, Dazza, who served on the Coaltongue as security in its maiden voyage. [/SPOILER] The other side was… dark. Creating a light we also discovered it to be bleak: covered in dead trees and shadows. That part at least was unsurprising. Shining like a giant beacon for everything that might possibly want to harm us, we set off toward the Bleak Gate version of Cauldron Hill - with Ella in the lead. The gnome tiefling proved to be a… somewhat ineffective scout: finding the entrance to the enemy stronghold while simultaneously being found herself. Combat ensued, with Ella turning invisible (my, imagine how useful that could have been one minute earlier) and everyone else rushing to her rescue. Creepy-eyed humans with force-guns, shadowy figures made of ribbons, and terrifying Bleak Gate creatures in collars fought fiercely but eventually fell - taking two of our soldiers with them. The one enemy left alive - a female mercenary with zero fucks to give about her job - gave us all the information she had. As per usual, it seemed we’d arrived just a little too late: whatever operation had been underway here was finished and the facility was being packed up. She hadn’t even seen their inglorious leader, Tin-tickler, lately. Ah well… at least there were still 40 odd guards and 100 engineers to take out our impotent fury on. As well as, you know… all the people deeper in the facility where our lady guard friend had never been… An easy task for our force of 28 people and 1 geased construct! Thus, with hope in our hearts, we entered the Obscurati hideaway: proceeding down the [B][I][U]Tunnel of Empty Tedium to the Double Doors of Possible Doom Except We Don’t Really Know Because Our Guide Is A Gods-damned Geased Construct Who Can’t Tell Us Anything Specific And Has To Talk In naughty word Circles All The Time.[/U][/I][/B] ...Needless to say, we opened the doors. The room beyond was… boring. Except for the hidden doors in each wall and the eyeball staring at us from the ceiling. But other than that? Very boring. John - originally from a circus - knew just how to liven the place up though: shooting the viewing lens on the ceiling and sending a veritable flood of guards our way. Parties are always better with friends, right? And thus here we find ourselves: deep underground in another plane of existence with up to 40 guards determined to send our souls to the Bleak Gate properly and then forward us all to the Plane of Nem like some kind of express extraplanar soul delivery service. Or possibly just trap us all here in witchoil and burn us into non-existence… Who knows? I hope if we do get turned into witchoil then Captain Dale finds us and feeds us cocoa… That’s the kind of afterlife I could live with…except not, because we’d be dead. But you know what I mean. [I]Anyway[/I]. Will Team B.A.D get out of this one alive? Will we find out why Asrabey’s wife abandoned him to live in a dismal grey-scale world on the other side of existence? And will John ever find this so-called Tertri Lashkov and get a cool-ass force-gun of his own? Find out this week: on [B]Zeitgeist[/B]! [/QUOTE]
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