Blackmoor: Running Blog Pt. 1 – Journey to the Purple Towns

Intro

Blackmoor started as a setting of Dave Arneson and the first setting of Dungeons & Dragons. It had a lot of wargame influence and a pulpy mix of science-fiction and medieval fantasy elements. As much as I enjoy both genres individually, I think modern culture has really segregated them into two, separate things as opposed to keeping the sisters together. Thinking of early Marvel comics, Jack Vance’s A Dying Earth, and Star Wars, these two genres have a deep history of being intertwined that I believe a lot of people find unpalatable now, but I think makes for a unique and compelling setting.

I’ll be DMing a modern “Blackmoor” game that emphasizes the blending of both science and magic, with my own spicing of wild magic, politics, and magic systems. I won’t chronical everything, but this blog is dedicated to my thoughts, world, tactics, and miscellany regarding the campaign. Enjoy.

Blog 1: 1/7/2024 – Session .5

I’ve been working on this campaign tirelessly over the last few months and have created several documents outlining the optional rules, character options, and setting. Some of those things I can share, others I cannot until all is over.

The party starts in Dantredun, the capital of Blackmoor. They are being hired by a a retired knight, Sir Damon the Toter, to help escort a lumber shipment to the Duchy of the Coast’s capital, a collection of old settlements called the Purple Towns.

Damon is an old dwarven knight and one of the more storied men in the kingdom who not only earned his rank of knight in the war against Thonia, the First Empire, but grew up in a time before Thonia existed as one the first state in the known area. While Damon is a living relic of a world before nations and before his beloved kingdom, he is still old and a bit crotchety.

The Dredge, a Thieves Guild for lack of a better term, and “mob” for a more accurate but more anachronistic one, is both a boon and a bane to Blackmoor. In the revolutionary era between Blackmoor and Thonia, The Dredge formed trying to profit off of the chaos of war. They were highly organized, and had plenty of mercenaries for their forces originating from both sides chasing coin. After Blackmoor broke away from Thonia, its new southern neighbor, the young, disorganized, and weak kingdom had no choice but to go for the formidable Dredge for help. Seeing an opportunity for long-term mutualism, the Dredge played nice with the monarchy, and that paid off.

Today the Dredge not only helps in vital resource farming in the Duchy of the Glades, it also acts as a secondary police force to escort traders on the long domestic roads, axillary military forces, and squashes out (other) crime. Yet, they still act as highway man (a duplicitous existent between their own agents and escorts exist), they still smuggle, will still intimidate, and will still heist from those views as enemies of Blackmoor and those no longer protected by the crown’s influence in the fluctuating borderlands.

The Dredge has upped the price of their escort services, and their agents flood the winter roads. Damon, stubborn as he is old, is sick of the price hikes and would rather take his chance against the highwaymen than hire them.

In a big public display, Sir Damon put out a public writ willing to hire a reasonably priced crew to join him on his shipping journeys and is willing to give ambitious youngsters a chance to prove themselves.

Before our first session, each player has had a meeting with Sir Damon to interview for the job. In the end, Damon hired a group of six to aid him.

• Perzyk a warforged artificer from the far northwest Gyrdorion tribe, brother of Rhaegar.
• Rhaegar a hobgoblin sorcerer from the Gyrdorion tribe, brother of Perzyk.
• Moarte a warforged fighter from the Duchy of the Lakes
• Uro a dragonborn fighter from the Duchy of the Lakes
• Chaiomhin a warforged fighter from Dantredun
• Baccaro a half-elf cleric from Dantredun

Blog 2: 1/10/2024 – Session 1

The party started their first session in the Warehouse of Sir Damon with a noon role call. Damon spoke to them and reminded them while they work for him, he represents him, his standard, and the Kingdom of Blackmoor. The roll call I think was a pretty well themed and refreshing way to do character introductions as people stepped forward, described their character, and were given a chance to say a one-liner to Sir Damon to better characterize themself. Damon then assigned the team positions so that way people could be paired up for the first leg of the journey. I purposely separated the brothers, Rhaegar and Perzyk to incentivize some more get-to-know you type roleplay between a few of the players .

Damon told them that he was going to make a quick stop at a friends before leaving the city citing “We always have time for friends.”

The party went down the street and waved to Sir Damon and his new hires as they went to an old, high end neighborhood of Dantredun where a bunch of the royal court lives. The group pulled up to Lalard the Royal Botanist’s mansion.

In the entry way, I flavored the chord to ring the bell as an enchanted on that plays a melody with a choral background, additionally at the front I had a mechanism with a globe surrounded by a dozen ivory keys. The globe would cast prestidigitation on the creature who touched it, cleaned them of any muck, and also made them smell of a different type of flower; the keys changed what scent the flower was. No one experimented with athey keys so everyone smelled of lilies.

Inside they met Lalard, the Royal Botanist. Botany is one of the most serious sciences in Blackmoor and the position of Royal Botanist is highly esteemed. Queen Aslymar, the first Queen of Blackmoor, was a renowned botanist who helped as a strategic and logistical mind during the war, focused mostly on creating supercrops that could last the Blackmoorians during the winter. Further, she was the first botanist to create a new plant using the Tanks (an apparatus used to channel alchemy, conjuration, and wild magic).

Chaiomhin, Baccaro, and Perzyk were all extremely excited to make his acquaintance: Perzyk, as a fellow botanist had obvious ties to the Blackmoorian GOAT, and Chaiomhin also has inclinations toward the natural world and an interest in the nobility , where Baccaro seemed more excited just to see a well educated man with a considerable name influence in the flesh. Moarte stuck around, flipping through a worn book in the corner, not spoken unless spoken to.

Meanwhile, the Uro, Perzyk, and Rhaegar roamed the mansion at Lalards offering. They were told the only place not to go is the guest wing. They found a replica of the Petrified Garden, a public work in the center of Dantredun that commemorates the royal garden on the day of Queen Aslymar’s death. They then went to the green house where they found a splendid reserve of plant life. Thousands of plants came together for a verdant ensemble of life.

Perzyk did a few nature checks to identify some plants and in doing so, unveiled a new game mechanic: The Church of Blackmoor has five Saints as their religious figures, the Church has five Bishops, and Blackmoor is separated into five main territories: the Duchy of the Coast, Duchy of the Glade, Duchy of the Lakes, Duchy of the March, and the territory of Dantredun. Each Bishop represents on of the founding Saints of the Blackmoorian Church and each region has one Bishop in it. Depending on which Bishop is placed in a region by the ruling monarch (who can also switch positions of the Bishops somewhat on a whim), that region will get the Bishop’s corresponding Saint’s blessing, a mechanical boon available to all in the region, both PCs and NPCs. Bishop Stimmeran is currently stationed in Dantredun and represents St. Paxon, the Saint of Alchemist and Nobles. St. Paxon’s Boon is all Nature and Arcana skill checks are rolled with a +2 bonus in this region. The party will discover more boons as they travel throughout Blackmoor and to new territories.

The party reconvened together around Damon and Lalard. Lalard mentioned some new and exciting things in the field of Botany, namely a few people trying to create symbiotic plants that can work as armor or weapons for their wielders, he hinted his own personal research had him studying an ew field: portaling magic but didn’t elaborate much on the subject.

After this the party said well and got on the road. The first day of travel was quiet but was punctuated by an interesting camp scene.

Sir Damon held the caravan and ordered them to break for camp. He pitched a quaint tent that opened to a larger interior that he bought from a budding scholar at the University named Mordenkainen. Damon had a bed and told the others their spots were first come first serve. Rhaegar got to a spot first, and Uro came in later after being ordered to gather some kindling. Uro tried nudging Rhaegar’s stuff out of the way.

“I want that spot,” Uro said.

“Okay, well my stuff is already laid out; you can have it tomorrow.”

“I want the spot.”

“I know, and you can have it tomorrow….”

“I don’t think you understand what I’m saying,” Uro growled.

Sir Damon looked on the scene quietly.

“Are we going to have a problem?” Rhaegar said, bowing up to the dragonborn.

The two exchanged a few more words before parting and also before coming to blows.

The group ate dinner and Damon asked a few prompting questions about the party and their origins. Baccaro explained he’s from Dantredun and a recent University graduate. Damon commented during the dinner that the crew of warforged were really saving his bottom line, and also wondered if Chaiomhin and Moarte had much time with the Cosero (the isolationist Dwarven architects and banishers of the Warforged from their home in the Northern Mountains). He then pointed out that Perzyk is unlike them. While Perzyk is definitely warforged, he looks roughly akin to a hobgoblin, where as the Cosero Warforged have a more distinct look garbed in geometric clothing, gray exterior and more human faces. Perzyk mostly dodge the questions until offered a strand of Encoded Thought (Guild Master’s Guide to Ravnica) by Chaiomhin. Perzyk didn’t recognize the strand or the cantrip innate to all Cosero Warforged, marking him not only as physically different, but of completely different origin to Moarte and Chaiomhin.

After dinner, the group settled down for the night. Moarte and Chaiomhin sat in silence outside, while Perzyk made sure nothing went awry inside.

In the middle of the night, Uro woke to a small, sharp blade to his throat. Hovering over him, unblinking eyes stared at him. Perzyk pushed the knife ca bit harder into the dragonborn’s throat.

“If you ever touch or threaten my brother again, I’ll kill you,” Perzyk promised.

The red warforged backed away, and stared vigilantly at Uro for the rest of the night.

At dawn they broke camp and headed onward. They traveled unimpeded, moving through the frosty sludge of late winter roads until they stopped briefly at a crossroads to check for directions.

As they stopped, ambushers lurked from behind tree and rock cover an assailed them.

This encounter was the first of the campaign, and in my head was hopefully going to do a few things:

• Allow people to showcase their character’s fighting style and better characterize the PCs
• Show the role each player will have in combat
• Set up a deeper plot
• Give characters a solid goal (other than winning the fight) and emphasize team work

The encounter design was as follows: a few spell-slinging zealots surrounded the caravan from flanks and cover set up by the environment. These were grunts with 5HP/14 AC/ and +4 to hit with a Ray of Frost. Their goal was to ideally hit a target multiple times in a turn to carve down a party member’s move speed. The Zealot Leader (50 HP/ AC 16/ +6 to hit) was a conjurer who summoned a volatile, wild magic gelatinous ooze. While the ooze is slow, if near a slowed or stubborn target, it can engulf them. The snow and ice away from the path was difficult terrain outside a few boulders as well making the road a tight squeeze considering the wagons and people cluttering it.

I’m pretty proud of the bones of the encounter, but I think it was a really tough first encounter. It’s always precarious balancing first encounters in a campaign because you don’t know how good or bad the party is at fighting stuff or if there are any synergies. This is exacerbated by the fact we have 6 PCs and Sir Damon, a fifth level Warlord Fighter homebrew. I wanted Damon to be an asset but not steal the show as a higher level PC, especially in combat, this plays well into him being an old Knight. He takes command of the battlefield, directs people, and supports, letting the PCs be in the spotlight as opposed to him (in other words, me).

I’d recommend making there less grunts if you have less people and/ or you have a less experienced group of players, as 1d8 can be a lot early and it was made even worse by a particular Boon, for which, stay tuned.

The zealots rolled awfully on stealth trying to sneak up on the party (1 and a 6) Initiative started and Perzyk whom was guarding the flank went first. He lashed the first one with a Thorn Whip which displayed a new Boon since they were now in the Duchy of the March to the players : St. Irel’s Boon. St. Irel is the Saint of Wild Magic and her blessing confers +2 to all spell damage in this region.

With the added damage of the Boon, Perzyk slashes and kills the first zealot as they charged their spell. in a different region with less volatility, the same spell would have failed to slay.

Each side fired volleys back and forth. Baccaro charged into several enemies and ate two rays instantly in retaliation for his foolhardiness. Leader Zealot summoned the ooze, and the fight was officially on. After culling some of the ranged zealots, the big bois (Moarte and Uro rushed the Leader and his small entourage of protectors who both took lethal blows. After this, the Leader used his only third level slot to cast hold person. Both failed, and the encounter took an interesting turn. The leader pressed the attack, seemingly focused on Damon, while the unstable, bubbling ooze which was adjacent to Moarte easily engulfed the large warforged on its turn.

The party dogpiled the Leader in an attempt to make him lose concentration and eventually succeeded. As the leader fell, the remaining zealots lofted alchemical accelerant into the Wild Magic Ooze. At this point I told the players, almost all of whom were within close range along with their wagon and cargo, that they had one turn to move away from the ooze, and on its next turn, it will explode violently in a 30 foot radius. This changed the fight goal from “Win the Fight” to “We need to get us and everything we have out of the blast zone.”

Rhaegar acted first. Because he couldn’t turn the cart around he instead succeeded a animal handling check to urge the already spooked horses onward. They rushed over the road, forcing Damon to the ground (failed dex save +2d6 damage), and nearly flattened Uro who laid flat beneath the cart and dodge the pounding hooves (save, unheld from the Leader due to Leader’s failed concentration save and subsequent death from Chaiomhin).

Damon was now within melee range of the cube (trying to help Moarte get out), prone, and has only a 20 foot move speed due to being an old dwarf. The fight has a new damsel in distress. The goal of the fight is now multiple things: win, escape, and save Sir Damon.

Uro rushed out the far side of the radius toward the zealots. in hot pursuit of the assailants. Moarte used their action to escape the ooze and spent double move picking up Sir Damon and moving him to a position where he could escape with a dash on his turn, sacrificing himself and accepting martyrdom.

Perzyk tried repositioning the cube with a thorn whip to some success, while also picking up a journal from the Leader’s body. Baccaro was last to escape before the ooze’s turn, picked up the Leader’s arcane joinery casting implement, and watched the explosion unfold.

The cube destabilized blasting into a forceful shock of acid. The explosion did 5d6 (+2 due to it being a wild magic construct and it being In St. Irel’s sphere of influence). Moarte had a little bit less than max hp, kept healthy by Damon’s temporary HP. To instakill, (negative hp value max) I needed to deal about 20 damage on 5d6+2. Basically a conflip.

I rolled, and Moarte failed their dex save putting him firmly up to fate. The cube erupted dealing just 15 points of damage. Moarte was down and dying, but not dead, and there was a new damsel.

The rest of the group was out of range to help their friend due to their movement, but with a concerted effort, they got Moarte healing just before his second round of death saving throws. We ended soon after with the party licking their wounds before heading back on the road.

Overall, it was a great first session and an amazing fight. I enjoyed my own mechanics, but even more so the players’ teamwork and the variety of goals they had to accomplish. They also found another journal from a zealot that looked like scientific notes on Hollowmancy.

Seeds have been sewed for things to come.

Blog 3: 1/14/2024 Character Progression System

I decided on a character progression system and am deciding to use “Prestige XP.” You can read about that and my selection process here as I weighed and measured several options (some popular like milestone, others not as much)

Blog 4: 1/17/2024 Session 2

The session started with the heroes licking their wounds and recovering from their encounter with a group they learned to be named Emerian’s Few. The party looked through journals to gather some information about the group and also studied a casting implement used to conjure the wild magic ooze from Session 1.

When preparing for their downtime, I took a new approach as a DM. I listed off each piece of information they could find and gave it a corresponding DC to help prevent on-the-fly information dumps that rewarded subpar roles or ones that were almost good enough. I also added sections of information based on who did the researching. For example, one of the items, if looked at by a University member (like Baccaro), he would’ve gleaned some additional information that the others wouldn’t have, even if he rolled worse. This gave a bit more structure to their research and is something I was a pretty big fan of tightening up.

They learned the casting implement was a Arcane Joinery focus, a broken vase mended back together using magically imbued adhesives and etched in runic sigils. This one had exclusively conjuration, evocation, and transmutation runes, as well as ochre-based adhesive, a conduit for conjuration magics, particularly useful to artificers.

After the downtime, they made way back on the road for a few hours before stopping at odds with a small group of Dredge agents who blocked the road. Sir Damon gathered Uro, Caoimhin, and Moarte to match, but ordered them to stay cool and just wait out the four others: an elf, a dwarf, and two warforged.

“Welcome, Sir Damon and company. It is well to see your banner in our lands,” the elven man said. His red locks billowed on the late winter breeze.

The four party members stood still and silent.

“Sir Knight,” the elf continued, “we’ve awaited your arrival some time. Your standard is quite renown, as is your reputation—as are your words.”

The Dredge members stepped closer, now only but 10 feet away. The good guys held their ground and their tongues. One of the warforged cocked his head at Caoimhin and whispered lightly to the other warforged.

“On behalf of the Dredge, may your travels be safe. There are dangers yet still on the road; we see them all the time,” the Dredge edged closer. “Though Blackmoor is large, its tradeways are a small world. I’m sure we’ll meet again.”

The elf spat at Damon, glazing the Knight’s shoe with his saliva, and finally the Dredge members stepped aside, and Damon ordered his men back to their post .

On their way past, the Dredge gave cocky looks, and as Caoimhin took up the rear, he was handed a small ribbon: an Encoded Thought.

As they kept on the roadway, they went through a slightly more hilly region, marking the edge of Dantredun territory, passing icy farmland, snow-topped steadings, and occasional keeps and castles marking lordships. Between the land of Northollow and Jasperwood the cart looked on to a valley where strange heaps marked the road.

As they neared, they realized a cadaverific sight. Blood, gore, and sinew stained the icy rural road. Six bodies, clad in white and blue–same as the Emerians–lay lifeless. Beyond dead.

Rhaegar investigated the first body. Its head was caved in, but there was no exit wound of a projectile. Part of the skull was missing, as if dissolved or disintegrated from the inside, leaving only brain and skin. The body also had an extreme laceration which cut from the clavicle and through the victim’s top two ribs.

As they studied the scene, Perzyk traced a thin blood trail to behind a nearby boulder. Caoimhin followed in his wake. Before they turned the corner, the Perzyk casted Invisibility on himself. The two warforged found a woman resting up against the rock, nursing a wound. She wore a black cowl, her gray hair draped down her shoulders, and a retrousse nose punctuated her angular facial features. As Caoimhin came into view she flashed an emerald sword at the archer.

“Hi. My name is Caoimhin,” he said in a slow cadence, “What is your name.”

“Names are much more powerful than you care to realize,” the woman responded

“I’m just seeing if you’re all right. Will you tell me your name?”

“No.”

Perzyk, spoke up an questioned her about the crime scene on the other side of the boulder. The woman admitted to felling the Emerians but also said they got aggressive first, accusing her of being a heretic or a spy. She told the party members that the Emerian’s thought she was one of them because she had been barred from the University and was sympathetic to their cause, and in reality she just wanted people to travel with on the road.

The two asked why she was traveling in which she responded “I’m trying to find myself. Just haven’t found the right opportunity to. I usually travel the Duchy of the Coast but decided to test my luck here.”

After this, the woman basically told the two to fuck off.

Caoimhin returned to the group, relaying the news of the woman and the scene to the others. Baccaro thought they should offer her a spot in the caravan, but Caoimhin cautioned against saying she’d put them out of a job. Damon agreed with the archer’s judgment but not necessarily for the same reasons.

As Uro moved the bodies out of the way. PErzyk checked to see if the woman was dying.

“Do you plan to just die and rot away out here?”

“I will not die out here,” she said confidently, “but I’m sure I’ll see you again.”

The group departed, leaving the women by the boulder.

On their way to Delmont, their last stop of the day, they ran across a caribou stampede. I really just through this in for a bit of flavor and to break up some of the roleplay scenes with a bit of action and a new challenge. I made the challenge be a first to three successes or failures skill challenge (DC 14). Once someone used a skill, no one else could use that same skill to make a check. In hindsight I wish I made it a first to four successes or failures, so that way everyone in the party of 6 players was guaranteed to go. This will likely be my standard going forward.

The group succeeded and went well on their way to Delmont where they stayed in the Merry Mote Inn, a decent establishment with a large stable for the horses, and a forever stew in the middle of the tavern.

Rhaegar coaxed Damon, Uro, and Baccaro into a game of liars dice, which Damon handedly won. After, Damon retired, and the party exchanged stories, and Uro pressed Perzyk about his relation to Rhaegar. Perzyk clamped up. Uro mentioned he understood a found family, but to be actual brothers seemed… weird. The conversation didn’t go much further.

Someone asked Caoimhin what he was given by the Dredge warforged, in which he described a grueling execution and flaying of the party, encoded within the magical whisp.

The party goofed around a bit more, Perzyk literally pulled the chair out from under Uro, and then they all went to rest.

Moarte stayed outside for the night with the cart, hellbent on earning his pay and fulfilling his end of the bargain. Uro also did but only because he had a few too many. As Moarte sat vigilant, he noticed a man in the middle of the night walk near with a brand, his red locks matching the torch’s fire.

In the morning, they set out at the first rays of sun and away from Delmont. Damon warned they needed to go through Loor’s Valley, a worrisome chokepoint in their path.

As they approached the valley, the crew grew more vigilant, on edge and aware of ambush. The large, craggy hills surrounded the, and as they reached the part of no return, the trail ahead was blocked by fallen timbers and a group of Dredge highwaymen.

On a ridge above the road, a ginger haired elf appeared.

“I knew we’d meet again, Sir Damon. Now, time to decide if you’d like to pay our toll with gold or blood.”

“I’m not paying anything,” Damon barked.

The party nodded in agreeance.

“Then blood it shall be.”

The combat was set up with a lot of verticality and cover. On one side of the road there was a 20 foot wall where the Elf Bandit Captain and a handful of archers stood, while on the ground there was a final archer behind the timbers hiding. In front, there were some grunts (melee minions with short swords) and one Heavy (the warforged from earlier who gave Caiomhin the Encoded Thought) with 17 AC and a 1d12 damage die. The conceit of the encounter was to focus on cover, angles, and verticality, while also acting as a bit of an anti-party dynamic. The party also has some ranged lads, a mix of melees, and both Damon and the Bandit Captain were warlords, allowing others to make attacks or move at their command.

Some of the grunts were outfitted with a blue potion of some sort.

Melee ensued and Rhaegar crit the Heavy with a Chaos Bolt , immediately knocking him to below half hp. Damon joined the fray with an action surge and got everyone into combat but also rushed into melee with one of the grunts after felling an archer with a Dwarven Thrower.

The party did extremely well, hitting nearly every attack. I don’t think their ACs were bad, they were just rolling extremely hot. I could’ve added more units, but in a different world, the fight could’ve gone much worse for the party.

In the second round, the grunt nearest Damon splashed him in the face with the blue potion, forcing the old dwarf to make a dex save. He failed, and the potion splashed Damon in his eyes, and immediately incapacitated him. The one next to Uro made for a similar play, but the dragonborn barbarian slew his assailant before he could be subjected to the same fate.

Moarte retaliated against Damon’s afflicter, lopping off an arm and scraping his side with an up-and-down hack. He stood over Damon and Uro came over to help, rolling acritical success to help ease Damon’s weakened state.

The others chased down the rest of the Dredge and slayed them on the ridge, pilfering their bodies. As people returned to the cart, Perzyk cut a hand off of the captain and stored it in his pouch. The others moved the timber, and under meek direction from Damon read the travel log which suggested to stop at the Barony of Fellagrove if things went to hell in this leg of the journey.

The party ended the session with Fellagrove Hold in view, and their leader weakened beyond his usual elderly impairments

Blog 5: 1/24/2023 Session 3

The party picked up right where they left off and headed to the gates of Fellagrove Hold, flying the standard of Sir Damon on the wagon. After the hour or so of travel, Damon was in bad sorts.

The group updated the guards on the situation and were let into the castle. Fellagrove Hold sits on a large mound with massive walls surrounding it, exacerbated by the hill’s formidable summit. In the sprawling courtyard, a silvery dome hosting an exotic display of plants stood two-hundred-feet tall, giving an inverted snow globe feel. In the middle of the garden a towering stalk, about one-hundred-fifty feet tall crowned the scene.

Moarte heaved Sir Damon from the wagon. The group passed the domed garden, and entered through the grand entrance hall where they met Rezanna, a half-elven women of considerable height, short hair, and a strange cube in hand. On her robes, a clasped locket marked her as a Knight Errant, but more specifically she is Baron Cadaneus’s court wizard.

She cocked the party a strange look.

“Sir Damon is badly hurt and in need of healing, please,” the party told her.

Rezanna looked at the knight and noticed him and his fragile state. She ordered them to go to the infirmary in the east wing while she fetched Lady Dira, the court healer, botanist, and alchemist.

Moarte toted Damon to the empty hospital room, and soon after Dira, a short long-haired half-elven woman, and a handful of helpers entered to give immediate care to the enfeebled knight.

To help her better aid Damon, she peppered the group with questions as to how Damon was afflicted, what they knew about his symptoms, etc. The party gave spotty answers, in which Dira ordered them to go to her office to consult some encyclopedias and properly diagnose Damon with their knowledge while she takes direct care of him.

Baccaro, Chaoimhin, and Perzyk went to the office, where inside they found a cozy study and a well organized library along with several plants and floral motifs.

They investigated the study and found a few books on poisons, diseases, arcane diseases, and other afflictions. After some successful rolls, they deduced that the vial harbored some type of magic disease, and the real challenge ensued as they opened the book to a sprawling dichotomous key:

My players were expecting just a skill challenge similar to the Caribou encounter from last week, with maybe a bit more depth. Instead, I decided that for skill challenges, I really want to test the players and not just the Player characters.

This dichotomous key/flowchart synthesized for the players what their characters were looking at and trying to figure out. It was a lot of work, as each of the 15 afflictions listed has a path and some type of cure. This really forced my hand to world build and flesh out some unique recipes, but also reinforced one of the main themes of Blackmoor: science.

I was pretty happy that there were some close contenders with what afflicted Damon, especially since all the characters who were now studying the key, while studious, were not present when Damon was first hit with the vial contents.

I purposely didn’t include any physical descriptions of these arcane diseases. From a continuity perspective, different producers could make different colored alchemy mixes by employing different techniques, but in reality, I think that fact would’ve been the main focus of their study and been an obvious hint.

Nearcollus was the distractor variable, mostly because Damon was hit in the eyes by Starnight (the real answer) causing him to be momentarily blinded, and at first it did its job. The three studiers split to find ingredients and Dira of their analysis.

Perzyk hurried to the garden, while Baccaro and Chaoimhin doublechecked their diagnosis. Uncertain, the two went to the infirmary to consult Dira and the party.

At the hospital, the two pitched their idea that Nearcollus was what afflicted Damon. They asked Dira to check Damon’s muscles, and though old, the knight was still strapping and didn’t have a wizened, skeletal physique like the reference book suggested.

Uro and Moarte were able to recount Damon’s first symptoms now (dizziness and sporadic breathing), and the group finally landed on the correct answer: Starnight.

The party went to work gathering ingredients. Dira told Uro and Baccaro to find Rezanna who could help them find Redsalt by looking at some tax documents, Caoimhin tracked down Perzyk in the garden, and the rest of the team went to track down ingredients in the castle.

Rhaegar and Moarte stormed into the castle kitchen where they looked for a vanilla bean and some vinegar. There, they met a lizardman chef named Kesper who was reluctant to give up the Baron’s final vanilla bean. Moarte convinced the haughty cook to fork over the ingredient, commenting on bad kitchen management and how there’s a Knight Banneret in need of saving.

Rhaegar, annoyed at the scene with Kesper asked another cook for the vinegar, and the two quickly returned to the infirmary.

Uro and Baccaro raced upstairs to find Rezanna who was reportedly talking to Baron Cadaneus. The passed a weak-willed steward who Uro intimidated to spill the beans to the wizard and Baron’s location.

They passed a few meeting rooms and interrupted a talk between Rezanna and Cadaneus. The Baron is a middle-aged elf with darker skin similar to Damon’s, short hair, slim build, and broad shoulders. Cadaneus was obviously a bit shaken, and clearly just learned of Damon’s state.

The two asked for the Baron’s pardon, and asked Rezanna how they could access the records. With Baron Cadaneus’s blessing, Rezanna left to aid the two party members, and Cadaneus left to check on his old friend.

Rezanna led the two to her study and Baccaro found that Lord Horus supplied redsalt which could be found on the north of town in a storehouse and the two made way to retrieve it.

Lastly, Perzyk and Caoimhin tried entering the dome to the garden but were stopped at its perimeter. Perzyk put his metal hand to the glassy facade and was met with a gel-like feeling followed by a wall hard as stone. The two flagged down a gardener working in the dome and asked him how to get in.

The man limped forward and said, “you have to bring something to plant in the garden before you enter.”

Perzyk took out a piece of steeloak bark he sawed from one of Lalard’s trees and Caoimhin offered an Encoded Thought tied around an arrow staff. The two entered and Perzyk fed the bark to the soil, while the archer buried the Encoded Thought and arrow shaft in the ground.

Perzyk told Caoimhin to gather a mix of flowers for the tonic and went to gather the towerstalk bulb on his own.

The towerstalk is an extremely intensive but extremely large plant grown over the course of several decades. Shaped like an asparagus, the summit is dotted with pink bulbs roughly the size and weight of a bowling ball. Its stalk has small fissures of r handholds and occasional giant thorns which make resting possible for anyone brave (or dumb) enough to climb it.

This was a best of five DC 17 Strength (Athletics) check to climb the large, twenty-foot-diameter trunk, and the +0 strength mod Perzyk wasn’t up to the task at all. True to form, he thought smarter, not harder, and called over Caoimhin, the sharpshooter to attempt and knock it off the top of the plant.

Caoimhin succeeded with a 21 and Perzyk cast Featherfall on the technically living berry, though now i admit that while alive its not really a creature, just part of one.

With all the ingredients gathered, the gang regrouped in the infirmary where a ward had cleared a place with herbalism, alchemy, and healers supplies, and allowed for Perzyk the botanist to get to work making the antidote for Damon. Baron Cadaneus kneeled next to his friend, hand on Damon’s shoulder, praying he would not die in his home.

Perzyk worked well and with some help from Moarte’s flawless vanilla bean grinding skills and inspiration from his brother, produced the elixir.

Dira approved and administered the potion, and Damon eased and began to recover.

Cadaneus thanked the party for their help to save his friend and offered them, as guests, to spend the night and next few days in the Hold while Damon recovers.

Caoimhin recalled the name Baron Cadaneus and remembered that in his heyday, the Elf was a renown archer nicknamed Bane of the Plateaus for his slaying of several formidable beasts back when the March was just northern frontier land. He was also the first outsider that the mysterious and aloof Cosero dwarves ever invited to receive hospitality.

The rest of the party split off to bide their time with some downtime activities.

Moarte looked wistfully out a window, until Baccaro and Uro found him while trying to get a game of cards together. Moarte told them about the journal he often could be found reading had a new entry and a new sigil, and that it belonged to the last man he killed in his past occupation as an executioner. The new writing told Moarte that in the darkness of a double new moon, the two could have a seance and meet face-to-face once again.

Baccaro looked at the sigil work and was blown away by its genius. Clearly whoever made it knew what they were doing.

The group ended the night tending to various things and making merry

Originally I intended for this session to be almost purely RP and for Sir Damon to be cured off-screen by Dira, but this idea came to me on Friday night of last week to help in the diagnosis and put together the elixir while Dira basically kept him good enough to be helped. It worked well story-wise, and the players really enjoyed the puzzle/ challenge of the dichotomous key being intermingled with these skill challenges. Additionally they really liked the world building, the science, and the perceived depth of the world.

Next week will likely be heavier on RP if I had to guess, but it was nice this session didn’t take away from the RP. If anything it gave them more to interact with for the future.

Blog 6: 2/1/2024 Session 4

The party picked up after a night’s rest in Fellagrove Hold as guests of Baron Cadaneus.

In the morning they went their separate ways around the castle.

Moarte, Baccaro, and Rhaegar went to study in the fortress’s various libraries and studies. Perzyk went to study and gather materials from the garden, and Uro went into town to help people and do good deeds.

Rhaegar wanted to find any arcane links to the moon Wode, in light of Moarte’s promised seance from the end of the previous session due for the double new moon on the 8th and 9th of Inmar. Baccaro wanted to find if they had any books on Hollowmancy–specifically logs of inputs to hollowmancy alchemical experiments.

They decided the best place to look would be Rezanna’s office. On the way there, Baccaro recalled her untrusting, private nature, and the two decided to offer their skills or time to do any chores that she needed as tribute for letting them use her study.

When they got to the study, they found Rezanna poring over a book, quill in hand, clearly vexed. They asked if they could use her study’s resources. At first she seemed defensive and reluctant, but at their offer, she relaxed and told them they could study as long as she was there.

Baccaro came up empty in his studies which were light on Hollowmancy and even lighter on logs of what the alchemical inputs were, a commonality that pained him in academia. Rhaegar however found the following information about Wode.

• Wode orbits Surat (the planet that the campaign takes place on–home), and has a lunar forest on its surface
• It is believed to be “positively charged” and balances out its sister, Silmar, a cloudy maroon and purple moon
• It is believed (optimistically) by some Blackmoorian scientists and arcane practitioners that Wode has more plant life variety than Blackmoor and if harvested could further Blackmoorian alchemy, botany, and magic

Meanwhile Moarte went to a diplomatic archive to look for any information about the Duchy of the Lakes and their high-level prisoners. He found a lengthy table with a cube at the had of it with a number of switches and nobs and a map of Blackmoor on its surface. As he figeted wih the nobs, the map’s inking rearranged to zoom in, zoom out, color the Duchies’ borders and even highlight different biomes in the kingdom. His research came up short.

I like putting small tools like this in front of the players. I think the mix of magic an science is definitely palatable, but later the game it could also be a potential resource for the players depending what trouble they find themselves in. Who knows it could be useful.

Perzyk went to the garden in search for plants where he quickly found Dira collecting flowers with some sheers. She told him that Baron Cadaneus said they can have their pick of the litter and they have access to the garden as honored guests. She also added she was quite impressed with how Perzyk worked under pressure to save Sir Damon.

Perzyk thanked her and asked if she had any plants which could be used as vessels to hold large quantities of stuff and if they had any hardwood trees.

“I’ve actually been working on a present for you on behalf of Baron Cadaneus that may make travel and lugging stuff around a bit easier. As for the hardwood we have Beettrees, which aren’t nearly as hardy as steeloak or ironwood but is still fairly strong.”

Perzyk helped Dira collect items for her gift and also harvested a sweeping variety of materials.

While all of this happened in the morning toward noon, Uro woke from a drunken rest around 3 o’clock.

He waltzed out the castle looking for people to help around town. At the end of the main street and down an off shooting boulevard, he saw an old gnome woman carrying a stack of supplies, struggling with a key to unlock a front door.

Uro was quick to help the lady with her things. The house had two stories and a tall door about 8 feet tall with a handle at the Dragonborn’s knee.

The two entered and the bottom floor opened up to an open space. In the middle was a brazier that burned a maroon fire and to the side sat a stone bath. The pool was 10 feet long and five feet wide. It glistened in the low, red light. As they neared it, four perfume bottles automatically sprtized the air with a vanilla scent that caused sharp pinch on Uro’s tongue as if it had been pricked by a fork.

“What kind of shop or servics do you provide here?” Uro asked. He looked around and noticed several bowls neatly organized. Some with bird bones, others with different types of salts. “Are you a uh… witch or something?”

“Some might call me that!” the woman responded. “I like to think of myself as more of a spiritual guide or allow people to access visions.”

“Hrm… I see. Well I’m interested in your services.”

“Wonderful! Since you helped me out I feel it would be wrong to charge you, but I can’t do anything right now; I’m much too tired. I’m about to go upstairs and fall asleep.”

“I see. Then I’ll be back tomorrow. By the way what is your name?”

“Lyella,” she said simply and bid him farewell.

When they reconvened, Baron Cadaneus asked for his guests to join him for dinner in the hall. They sat close to the Baron and exchanged information about their day. The Baron’s court also dined with them just further down the table. The seat right to the Baron was empty, for his wife Kareena, a gaunt slim elf with skin deep brown like her husband’s, who played a harp on the stage at the front of the hall. The music was elysian and filled grand hall.

While she strummed, the Baron asked a bit about how the adventurers met, how they knew each other, and commended them on working so well together to save his friend. After fielding a few answers–namely Uro outing Perzyk and Rhaegar as brothers–talk slowed until Uro asked a question.

“So sir, uh, Baron Cadaneus, do you have any cool like war stories or anything like that you could share with us?”

Baron Cadaneus thought for only a second.

“Well I do have a tale–one that Sir Damon is in actually,” the baron said. “He was there when I earned the kenning Bane of the Plateau.

“This was over 150 years ago, before Blackmoor was truly a kingdom. In the south, Blackmoorian’s battled Thonians for a southern border, meanwhile here in the North we had to forge one as well. Much of the Duchy of the March was carved out in those early campaigns. At the time there were giants, fickle tribes, and untamed plains much more dangerous than we see them now. There were no castles on every hill, nor towns in every dell.

In the far northeast where the March now Meets the Coast, there are plateaus, and there used to be the Dragons that called those lands home–one in every cave and cliff crevice. There are still some there now but never in such numbers before the Behir of the Plateaus laid scourge to the entire region.” (You can find Behir in the Monster Manual p. 25)

“In a parlay with a few tribes that found the region home, and needed the lands for its resources, and some of the few, weaker remaining dragons, we thought if we could kill the Behir, we could help Blackmoor establish rule in the area and gain some credit with the people and the dragons.

“We marched through canyon ravines miles long and cross cliff faces a few feet wide til we could find in the heart of the plateaus the mighty Behir’s lair. Thirty-two of us trekked for days until deep in the heart of a crag we found it.”

“What is a Behir?” Uro interjected.

“It’s a long salamander like creature, with legs like a centipede, talons like steel, and a form so big and strong that its primary way of killing dragons was strangling them to death. And this was the nastiest of ’em all.

“We sneaked deep into its lair. I’d never seen one being so big in my life. As we funneled in we attacked it with all we could. When the melee started blood quickly stained the cavern ground. Our numbers shrunk as the Behir of the Plateaus claimed more victims–claimed my friends. Some people say I was lucky to survive, but if any one of us were to survive it should’ve been me since I was one of the few archers in the group.

“With every arrow I launched, it shot me a look of notice– a look of hate. It crushed through our ranks. The monster leaped overhead and climbed down the cavern wall until it clutched me in its hand.

“I thought I’d be joining my brothers and sisters in a fate. I was scared. I saw every Green God, and swear I saw more than those along the way, all in just a second. I thought I was a goner, until Damon, so courageous, hit the Behir with one of the mightiest smacks I had ever seen. It must’ve hit it in just the right spot. It went limp for a moment, and I scurried to my feet in retreat.

“It was pissed at Damon. And that Dwarf ran, I’ve never seen a faster dwarf–hell I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anyone run as fast as Damon did away from that damn beast.”

The baron laughed. It filled the hall like the harp.

“Damon evaded the Behir for the remaining of us to gather our resolve and make for one last assault. As it swiped down and crushed a few more of us underfoot, a let go one faithful arrow. The screech it let out could be heard from Thonia. I was credited with slaying the beast, but after it fell. Those of us who remained stabbed it over and over again, half in catharsis, another half just to assure the damn thing was dead.

“That’s the day Sir Damon saved my life, that’s the da I became The Bane of the Plateaus, and the day I lost too many friends.”

“How many of you survived?” Baccaro asked.

The Baron held up 4 fingers.

“Of the 32 of us that entered, only four of us lived to see other days.”

“Well where are they now?” Baccaro asked. “If you’re Baron of Fellagrove and Sir Damon is a Knight Banneret for the King, what came of he other two?”

Baron Cadaneus, already in a clear mix of emotions from his most iconic tale, grew a bit more solemn.

“They died,” the Baron said simply.

“Did they ever become Knight Errants or Knight Bannerets?”

“Sadly not. There were many other campaigns in the North. Many other dangers. Lyrus and Vacina were there names. Though they lived the Behir, they didn’t live much longer in what would become the March before they could be honored.”

At this point, Kareena stopped playing the harp but looping music still filled the halls. The Baronness joined her partner and held his hand.

This was a really important scene to help color Baron Cadaneus and Sir Damon’s relationship. For the perceptive player (which there were) they realized that Sir Damon was not only one of his friends, not only one who saved his life, but also the last member of that group of 32 who entered the Plateaus, other than himself. To Baron Cadaneus, Damon represents every friend he knew who didn’t survive those early wars all those years ago, and to have him die in his Hold would’ve been an unbearable weight.

After the Baron’s tale, the party finished up dinner. Perzyk borrowed some lockpicks from his brother, and everyone went to their quarters to retire.

In the middle of the night Perzyk went to Uro’s room. The Dragonborn wasn’t there, still on a drunken binge. The warforged waited and sat alone in the room until the warrior returned.

When Uro stepped in he was almost too drunk to be surprised by Perzyk.

“What’d’ya want?” UUro asked. ” Am I in the wrong room?”

“No,” Perzyk replied. A strange silence passed. “You seem offly keen on Rhaegar’s and my relation, so I came here to offer some answers.”

Peryk described that the body he was currently in, one with a mix of metal and organic matter, was not his original body, and that he had actually died. By a mircale of magic and science by his mentor, they were able to save him in this vessel.

Uro nodded in understanding and apologized for being a bully their first night. Perzyk accepted, and commended Uro for being a brave and courageous warrior. By the time Perzyk uttered his last words, Uro was back into a drunken sleep.

In the late morning, Uro gathered the gang to go visit Lyella. Moarte and Rhaegar stopped their sparring and Baccaro had just visited Sir Damon in the infirmary making sure he was okay and recovering well.

They set out to the two-storied abode, and quickly found Lyella making preparations for Uro. Surprised, she welcomed his friends as well.

Lyella described this process as more of sending people on a journey and whatever that journey is she cant control. Whoever goes on the journey is in a boat, her techniques are just the push-off point.

Perzyk wondered if he would be able to participate since he couldn’t dream. Lyella assured he would be able to, expressing that Warfgorged typically have better and stronger experiences than others for some reason or another.

Uro volunteered to go first. Lyella asked him to strip naked and gave him a small cube to eat which will help the vanillathorn spritzes better activate in his body. Uro climbed into the tub which was filled with salt causing him to float. The perfume bottles filled the air with the vanillathorn. His tongue pricked and a sharp sensation, similar to skin scratching past a thorn, sliced down his pank until it grew duller and duller and he entered a trance.

The others watched in for several minutes before a cloud manifested over Uro and portrayed his vision.

I asked the players to each describe what vision they had. This exercise is reallly nice because as opposed to me prepping everyone’s preordained vision, they get to create in the moment and have their own take on the situation. Further, the players can show something that their character may not be able to or not want to. Everyone followed the same ritual and described their visions:

• Uro: Found himself alone in a dark field running toward a bright, far-off light in a moonless night
• Moarte: A shifting hazy cloud surrounds visions of a courtyard filled with people around an execution block. After a swift decapitation, black, inky shadows shift into an apparition of the executed man
• Rhaegar: Visions of a moon with purple clouds wisping in front of it
• Perzyk: There’s a lunar eclipse of Silmar in the sky and trees surrounding them with blood leaking out their bark. Shortness of breath fills the air, and above him, standing directly over him is Rhaegar.
• Baccaro: fluttering images with Baccaro at the center with him in armor and knightly regalia, then wearing Literati robes, wearing a crown similar to a baron or Duke, and standing victorious

We wrapped up the session after everyone had taken there turn. Sir Damon still rests, and we’ll likely pick up back at Fellagrove Hold.

Blog 7: 2/7/2024 Session 5

All but Uro, who guiltily didn’t have enough coin to pay for his friends’ rituals and instead opted to advertise Lyella’s shop, returned to Fellagrove Hold after the party’s treatment at Lyella’s.

When they got there, the keep was quiet in anticipation for a celebratory tomorrow–anticipation of Sir Damon being of decent enough health to join his old friend and new employees.

Perzyk stopped by to visit Damon whose only request of the hobgoblin was to get him his pipe so he can smoke. Rhaegar was up to the task and retrieved it as well as some extra tobacco in Guest Chamber of Honor, which he clandestinely and invisibly entered. While there he found an abstract painting about three-feet-tall and eight-feet-wide full of brushstrokes and texture that made it difficult to look at but simultaneous pulled ones gaze from one side of the painting to the other. For the signature, Rhaegar could only understand “Layan.”

Rhaegar returned to Damon later that night with the pipe, and Perzyk worked on his own botany project and help Dira with the court’s gift to the party.

The next day, a tired and exhausted Dira presented their project: a Pumpkin of Holding. Inside were the normal sinews threaded with astralworm silk that coalesced in a middle sphere–the home of the pocket dimension. The exterior was covered in special wax and resin to prevent rotting.

This is one of Perzyk’s artificer infusions. I didn’t really want just give him a bag of holding. Together we tossed around the ideas of a magical pitcher plant or a strange extradimensional cucumber/corncob combo but the Pumpkin of Holding was simple, cool, cute, and had a distinct brand to it.

The party was thankful for the gift and met up for an early supper.

At supper Sir Damon was celebrated as the guest of honor. The adventurers asked for a tale from the knight’s early days, Rhaegar wondered specifically if he had any with his tribespeople, Gyrdorions, which Damon had expressed fondness.

“Shortly after the war with Thonia,” Damon started, “We were at war with the Cosero. We needed help from the tribespeople of the North to help. Many didn’t like and still don’t admire the Cosero–and the Cosero pretty much hate everybody. The tribes were pivotal in any success, and one think I learned on my time in the Borderlands was every single tribe had its own strange, mystic technique or magic –different from all others. The Gyrdorions were no different; it felt like every last one of ’em could turn invisible.

“One day in the harsh winter, I was with a group with Ma– Duke Manuut Crieswick and we had a squadron of Gyrdorions with us. That whole winter the Cosero were riding these giant frost salamanders that could see through snow and blizzard. We were far out in the North Hills, past even where our border stands now and we were ordered to hold a hill that had some strategic advantages and we knew would be the target of some Cosero cavalry.

“Sure as hell, the Cosero advanced through a ripping blizzard. Duke Crieswick ordered the Hollows to the front, those with mundane weapons behind, and sent the Gyrdorions on a hillside flank. I thought the Duke was a mad man, and I thought it was a fool’s mission to hold the hill, but I kept my post.

“As the Cosero and the salamanders leaped into range, the Gyrdorion flank hit. Cosero were dead before they knew it. One got stabbed in his heart, pushed from his mount, and slid 50 feet down the hil, marked by a trail of deep crimson blood. The Gyrdorion are powerful people, well-disciplined, and good allies.”

“Strange people those are” Baron Cadaneus interjected, “not the Gyrdorion, rather the dwarves (Cosero).”

Damon shot his friend an amused glance at the joke.

The Cosero are a group of dwarves who occupy the Northern Mountains. They are vicious, isolationists who want little to do with other people of the North. They are temperamental and their borders are subterranean and unclear. They are a constant push factor for the Northern Tribes and consistently have a shaky relationship with Blackmoor. They are also the creators of the Warforged and about thirty years ago forced the Warforged diaspora from the Northern Mountains. These are not the same stock of dwarves that Damon hails from, rather he comes from the South where Thonia now stands.

“Haven’t you met the Cosero?” Perzyk asked, recallin tale of the Baron’s legend.

“Aye,” the Baron replied, “I was the first Blackmoorian they ever allowed to visit their society.”

“Would you tell us that tale?”

The Baron obliged and recounted a story of him as a scout in the Mountains. He always hated the job but the people he traveled with, Damon included, always thought him the best. In the high ranges, Cadaneus heard a grumble like thunder, but the North Mountain summer was without clouds. As he journeyed the rumbling turned to roars as he looked directly over a scene of mountain giants tossing boulders down a cliff at a group of Cosero–one of them was badly hurt and being dragged over stone and rock by the others. One of the Cosero dwarves pointed up at him, and in an instance Cadaneus heard an alien voice speaking a dialect of dwarvish hewas unfamiliar with. “Please, help us,” the voice said. My bow was already drawn, and with three quick arrows to the giants’ necks they were finished. The giants plunged down the mountainside toward the Cosero. The shooting wasn’t much impressive with them being so close, and not knowing I existed, but the Cosero were appreciative I saved them. They retaliated on the giants’ corpses: one cosero turned the body to dust and its body turned to white flakes like the dusting of snow off a mountain top, and another summoned fire from its forehead and burned on of them down to its bones. One of their stronghold entrances was close and they offered me to visit, and who was I to say no after I just watched one disintegrate a giant body?

“The people I met were strange. They lived in huge caverns under the mountain, unknowable–unmapable they seemed and every single one of them had a different trick or ability they could use. Some could grow plants not possible to farm that far north, others created fire, others light, and they seemed to like me. I only stayed for a few hours, but for some reason I may be the only Blackmoorian they actually like.”

This talk of strange powers prompted Uro to wonder if Rezanna would know anything about latent magic abilities in people. He explained to the court wizard how sometimes when he bleeds steam is released from the wound. Rezanna asked him a few questions about its origin and some symptoms, and Uro described that it was ties a lot to his emotions and hadn’t been happening forever–it started happening when he began traveling with his adopted daughter, a persona with powerful wild magic abilities. Rezanna said it was possible it spread to him.

At this point, Rhaegar asked, “What is a persona?”

“They’re humanoids made in Tanks,” Rezanna said simply. “They’re grown in the University of Blackmoor and are often bought or commissioned by the wealthy as servants.”

“Many find there way into prostitution,” Moarte added. “And they’re often used in harems.”

“Are they popular in the March?” Baccaro asked. “Or only in Dantredun?”

“They’re definitely more popular in Dantredun,” Rezanna answered, “but many of the nobility own them all across Blackmoor. There’s a chance you’ve met one and didn’t even know.”

“You don’t own someone,” Uro snarled under his breath.

Dinner went on, as did the night before people retired.

The next day, the party and Sir Damon departed from Fellagrove and traveled two full days unperturbed on the road Northeast.

On the third day, passing over an undulating landscape of hills, the distant Plateaus punctured the sky. The highlands towered over the nearby hills and spires of rock soared to heavenly summits. And in front of them, cluttering the road was a sprawling city of tents, stalls, and carts.

“Damn it,” Sir Damon grumbled. “I was hoping to dodge these folks.

As they approached, Baccaro asked, “What is this?”

“It’s the Yelir Spring Market,” Damon replied. ” I was hoping to miss it because there will be a stifled road and plenty of people on it, but it seems my sickness had stifled us to where that’s not an option. Be careful of dealing with these folk.”

Yelir are a tribe of Kalishtar who are known for their strange magic, wears, and intriguing medicinal practices mostly unknown or unavailable to the masses. Mostly they are known for their Dream Thieves- shamans known to be able to cure people with rare psychic afflictions.

I set this up as a “Goblin Market.” It has roots in literature as a poem (by Christina Rossetti), but is also moderately popular in roleplaying games as a fey-like market where everything is for sale but the costs are usually intangible. If you search it up, a good few reddit posts may be able to tell you a bit more than me.

The first two figures they met were a shoe shiner and a shoe dirtier, one offered to clean their shoes while the other threatened to dirtier their shoes if they didn’t pay. Between Damon’s warning and this obvious threat, the party immediately disliked most the Yelir and every single merchant at the market.

Baccaro told the shoe dirtier to piss off and shoved him away when the man started gathering muck to throw on Baccaro’s feet.

The next merchant to follow them was Al-Kazim the Luck Trader.

Rhaegar was hellbent on buttering this guy up only for him to fall flat on his face. He wanted to waste as much as this guy’s time as possible, but all that fell apart when Al-Kazim made Perzyk an offer of gaining Instant luck (nat 20 on the PCs next check) in exchange for What He’s Thinking Right Now. Al-Kazim wisped a vial out of thin air, while Perzyk imagined ripping the merchant limb from limb, leaving him bloody and dazed. Uro also bought some Instant Luck for What He’s Thinking Right Now and traded a similar thought.

Uro immediately checked to see if this man was a devil, but instead he was confident it was just indeed a strange tribal person.

The group was ready to shake Al-Kazim, but Rhaegar was again hellbent on keeping him occupied and wasting his time until the luck merchant described his big ticket items: Really Extra Good Luck and Really Really Extra Good Luck.

“These aren’t something you can just trade in a Dream or What You’re Thinking Right Now,” Al-Kazim said. “You’d have to pay in something heftier.”

“Like what?” Rhaegar asked.

“Disdain, future luck, a friend.”

“What is disdain?”

“You’ll gain the ire of some random person in the world. They could never show up, but they could be a someone extremely powerful you must rely on. All depends.”

Rhaegar was now extremely interested, and the only person who was buttered up was him. Rhaegar traded some Future Luck and Disdain for Really Extra Good Luck (one time use can decide the number on any d20 roll).

After Al-Kazim left, a new merchant stepped in, a self proclaimed scholar by the name of Lazim.

He approached Perzyk and Baccaro first but Rhaegar, now completely bought in to the market joined later. The party made the following trades with Lazim:

• Perzyk bought Something Maybe Useful in exchange for Instant Luck and a Rumor
• Baccaro bought Something Maybe Useful and a Friend for a Tale and a Big Lie respectively.
• Rhaegar bought a Silver Dragon’s tooth for 2 levels of spells.

Something Maybe Useful appears as a weather-beaten book. When one opens the book, the pages feel like sand and letters are often jumbled and unreadable. But sometimes, the words are extremely useful.

As they traveled at a snails pace through the market, the group eventually reached close to the end where a salesman proclaimed, “Souls and Personas all for sale here!”

Uro was immediately outraged and left his post at the flank of the formation and went inside the tent-one of the largest in the whole market.

Inside was couple of tables with glass boxed lined in black energy. Each box carried small coins or vials with ethereal wisps.. On the far side of the tent, two persona were chained to a large boulder. One was a small women with eyebrows which extended like whiskers from her face and the other was short brawny man.

Uro marched up to the salesman, the obvious owner of the tent.

“You can’t fucking sell people,” he shouted.

“Oh, I’m not selling them, I’m trading them,” the salesman said. “Would you like to make an offer?”

“Fuck you,” Uro said.

He marched farther into the tent. At this point, Moarte handed Rhaegar the reins and went in to support but also deter Uro.

Uro cleaved over and over again at the chains with his glaive but to no avail, even causing the crowd and workers in the tent to laugh at the futility.

The Dragonborn went back to the the salesman.

“You can’t fucking do this,” Uro said. “These are people.”

“Oh, I can. And I do.”

At this, Uro lunged at the man with his weapon but sliced through the illusory figure. Irate, he continued his rampage through the shop slashing at a table leg that caused the tables to buckle but for the glass boxes to hover.

Moarte entered the tent.

“Give me the persona,” Uro demanded. Moarte stood behind him.

“What will you offer?”

“I’m not here to barter. Let them go now.”

“Sir you are in no position to make those demands. Now You can either leave, or you can buy.”

“Fuck you. How much for them?”

“For one? Oh, I don’t know. If you could trade a soul for a soul, that would be extremely doable.”

“No.”

“How about a Year’s Worth of Luck?” the salesman offered.

“For both.”

“Oh, heavens no, for one, obviously.”

“Make it both,” Uro said.

“No. No, I don’t think I will. A years worth of luck for each is enough for you to get what you want and get out of my shop.”

“I’ll give a Year’s Worth of Luck as well,” Moarte interjected.

“Ah, splendid!” the salesman exclaimed. “It is done.”

At once, the bond from the persona liquified, and walked over to their redeemers.

“What’s your name?” Uro said.

“Lorellus,” the salesman said with a slight bow.

With a scoff, Uro, Moarte, and the personas left the tent, and that’s pretty much where we left off other than the crew possibly plotting revenge on the Persona Slaver.

I was overall really happy with the Market. I think if I were to run it again, I wouldn’t have made the shoe dirtier be a part of it as it almost sewed too much disdain early, but I was able to intrigue my players enough to eventually trust some of the vendors, but it made it a much sweeter payoff for the persona scene.

I also think that Goblin Markets would be best used at the start of a session followed by some sort of combat or skill challenge that way players don’t forget about something like Instant Luck.

Next session I think will be strongly player led as they’re sort of in charge of either heading onward peacefully or a night raid on the market.

Blog 8: 2/14/2024 Session 6

After the recap of last session, I asked Uro and Moarte to roll a d20 to start the session. Uro rolled a 13, Moarte rolled a 5; these are their unlucky numbers. After trading in a year’s worth of good luck for the freedom of the personas Tepella and Makrett. Each timee they roll his number it will be treated as a critical fail similar (and in addition) to a natural 1. I think I may retcon this ruling, because I instantly had a better idea to make them roll a d10 an add the number to ’10’ treating a ‘0’/’10’ as an actual 0. The fact that Moarte’s unlucky number was already pretty unlucky feels less consequential than Uro’s roll. There is also the option of making the number rolled more severe than normal natural 1. Jury is still out on how I want to play it.

The group headed out of the market and Damon stopped to take in the open air, happy to embrace some elbow room. He warned the crew to check their pockets and make sure they had everything accounted for–often places are rife with thieves even if it is the Yelir market.

With everything accounted for, the gang went on, set to travel. Damon took some convinving to let the personas to travel with them but shortly caved and the group went on their way. Not too much later they came across two men and their baby walking toward them on the road–Fazil, Fawaaz, and Fozzy.

Fazil waved them down and told them he was a time merchant. Fazil had the following to sell:

• Lost Time – if the last turn you took you took no action, bonus action, or reaction, you can expend Lost Time and use Action Surge just as the fighter ability.
• Borrowed Time – If you fail a death saving throw, you can turn it into a success
• Time and Time Again -On your turn you can duplicate your last turn without expending any resources. All outcomes are the same and can not be negated
• Time Stop – Cast Time Stop once
• Time to take Advantage – Gives advantage on all attacks, saves, and checks for one round. This cannot be offset by disadvantage
• Slowed Time – Cast Haste
• Rumors
• No Time To Die – turn any death saving throw into a nat 20

Here were some prices:

• Your Last Sunrise
• A Memory (causes debuff dependng on memory shared)
• (Fighter Only) Found Time – in combat next time you spend an action surge, you instead do nothing
• Wagered Time – Next successful death save you roll turns into a failure, regardless if a nat 20 is rolled
• A Step Closer to Death – Start with one death saving throw failure the next time you roll death saves
• Imminent Fate – Start all death saving throws with two failures

Only Baccaro entertained the merchant, who bought Time and Time Again

One issue with these merchants of time, luck, and abstract knowledge is that I think it is hard to ride the fine line between whimsy, mysticism, and fantasy while communicating mechanical or narrative boons or ramifications. I think that ones that I (read: my NPCs) could better define or give examples as to how or why they are useful piqued more interest from the players. This also worked the same for what they were willing to give up. What You’re Thinking Right Now is pretty easy to imagine or roleplay even if it is abstract. Something like “a memory,” is a bit harder to describe and too ambiguous.

Packaging also played a big part in as well, I imagine. for example, Something Maybe Useful being in the shape of a book as opposed to some blank tablet or an ambiguously shaped tool gave it an understood use and boon–this is supposed to bestow knowledge, and this was backed up by Lazim’s story about how many scholars have used Something Maybe Useful to have breakthroughs in their research.

With that being said, I think having solid, one- or two-sentence descriptions or examples as to what a Goblin Market product can do can be pretty vital to its reception by the players.

After being unable to convince anyone else to but his wares, Fazil finally asked if they could tag along with the group. They explained that a few hours up the road, a group held one of the only bridges to the Coast and turned them away cause they had no coin. Meanwhile, their alternatives were either the North, which was plagued by aggravated Cosero causing several tribespeople to flee or scatter, or the South into marshland which they were scared of going into with their child.

Perzyk demanded tribute if the Yelir merchants wanted to travel with them. The group offered some Lost Time as payment, and after convincing a skeptical Sir Damon, Perzyk accepted the offer.

The group finally made camp about an hour later and Damon directed the Warforged to keep tabs on the camp’s guests. Uro came in from collecting wood with bleeding knuckles and large tree branch that the others helped cut up. After preparing some dinner Damon asked his troupe what they bought from the market, and then went and talked to Moarte.

“‘ts cold out here,” Damon said to Moarte. Damon took a long draw from his pipe. “Are you staying warm?”

“I suppose so,” Moarte said. “I don’t really feel warmth or cold.”

“Bah, lucky. Took cold for the start of Inmar here in the March. No matter how many campaigns or shipments I do here in the North, my old bones never get used to it. Where I grew up the summers were warm, the winters mild, and none of this damn snow.”

“And where is that?”

“South,” Damon said simply. “Far south of here in what is now southern Thonia… but it wasn’t always that way.”

“I’ve never been. What was it like?”

“When I lived there? Growing up? Well it wasn’t a peaceful place–there were still clashing chiefdoms and warbands, but nothing like the force of the Empire or Blackmoor. Hell, we didn’t even have a word for an Empire. Our lot were whipped into shape quickly and annexed to Thonia. I became Thonian, but it was never home–first chance to go to a territory, to go to Blackmoor, I took it. Blackmoor reminded me of what Thonia was not–it dealt with the tribes, didn’t try to run over them. I saw a bit more of the old ways in its people… and, well, now, Blackmoor looks a lot different….

The two looked onto the cold hilly landscape.

“Moarte,” Damon said to the warforged, “you have a high affinity for these persona, why?”

“They remind me of myself; they remind me of the warforged,” he answered.

“How so? I apologize, I’m not terribly well educated on the subject for either of ’em. I have some friends who own them, but all I know is the University cranks them out and people have ’em in their houses or choirs.”

“We were both created for a purpose–for servitude. We were born with consciousness but not freedom.”

“Ah, I see, I see why you share kinship then….When I was a younger man, I wouldn’t have been able to imagine stuff like this, but I understand.”

Damon took another hit from his pipe and went inside.

Moarte followed inside and talked to Uro.

“Say, you mentioned this adopted daughter of yours a few days ago? What’s her name?”

“Deet,” Uro answered simply.

“Was she taken from you? Were you keeping her safe?

“Actually, it was kind of the opposite…” Uro said with a gruff trailing voice. “I, uh couldn’t keep her safe. Now, she’s with some lord.”

“Do you know who this lord is?” Moarte asked. “Where his fief is, maybe?”

“It’s somewhere in the Duchy of the Lakes. I don’t know. It’s a big place.”

Uro’s evasive words displeased Moarte, but he didn’t pry much further.

The night passed and the party stayed their post. Nothing went bump in the night.

When they awoke, they went fast on the road and Rhaegar and Perzyk asked Fazil and Fawaaz what to expect up ahead. They described Dredge agents blocking the road and asking for coin.

They relayed the info to Sir Damon and devised a scouting plan as they neared the bridge. Rhaegar and Perzyk turned invisible and went up the road once they were about 20 minutes out from the bridge that spanned across the Plateau Tributary.

At the road, they saw about 10 Dredge members blocking the road in the early morning. They returned to the carts and devised a plan to sneak up on the Dredge, Keep the personas and the Kalashtars safe, and hopefully parlay with the highwaymen, not wanting to risk violence with so many innocents in the group.

Rhaegar and Perzyk returned and set up a flank next to two heavies on the bridge while Damon approached. Damon was not in full regalia, still weakened by his recovery.

The two heavies, backed by a captain and seven archers demanded toll from the group. The captain noticed Sir Damon’s banner and signed the offer to the Heavy.

“Two-hundred gold,” the Heavy demanded.

“Let’s be reasonable, c’mon now,” Damon pleaded.

“Two-hundred.”

“Listen I’m not paying your damn toll at 200 gp–that’s ridiculous.”

“Then don’t cross.”

“We must cross; we have business in the Purple Towns.”

“Then you will pay two-hundred gold, now.”

“We aren’t payin’ two-hundred gold, now start being reasonable or we’ll have some problems,”

“If you won’t pay in gold, then you will pay in blood,” barked the Heavy.

Combat ensued. The two Gyrdorions snuck from the flank while Uro and Baccaro piled on. Chaomhin corralled the personas, Tepella and Makrett, as well as Fazil, Fawaaz, and Fozzy out of harm’s way.

This was supposed to be one of the last real fights in the North against the Dredge, mostly without Sir Damon as a real boon to the party. He did his normal warlord stuff, but wasn’t taking any hits as he mostly stayed in the back and directed the party.

Perzyk pulled the captain into the freezing tributary under the bridge while Uro blitzed across, pressuring the archers with his might, but not before Perzyk and Rhaegar fell by some sharpshooting.

The fight ended with a few party members going down, getting back up, and the party victorious on the day, punctuated by duel breath weapons from Uro which enveloped the ranks of archer in lethal poison.

The group searched the bodies and found a sum of gold from the Heavies at the front from other tollpayers as well as a note written in code.

“The wind sounds downward and the Rat warns of bad cheese for the brood. Seek direction. Still summers may be in our future.“

Uro, as a former Dredge member deciphered the message letting the group know a reliable source (a rat, being an animal with four legs) warned of bad news for the Dredge. Wait for direction, we may have to be more lowky soon.

Damon had aversions to actually physically moving the bodies of the slain, but some of the PCs moved the Dredge from the roadways and bid Fazil, Fawaaz, and Fozzy farewell.

Afterward, the road was quiet, as they traveled they ended up just outside the Purple Towns in the town of Braisenwood, where they collected XP and are now level three.

Next session, they will have completed their first shipment and have a chance to explore the Purple Towns.

Blog 9: 2/22/2024 – Session 7

The party started with their night in Braisenwood and were sharing drinks at the Flat Inned Flagstone. As they were talking, a new group of three came into the tavern, two half elves (one with a staff and robes, the other with black eyeballs and two dice with deep pips bored into the sides, and a very wide warforged.

Uro invited them to the table for a drink because they looked more weird than the PCs. Eridna, the robed wizard with a brambly staff, took point in the conversation and explained that they were on their way out of town from the Purple Towns and when pressed they said they were heading toward the Yelir market in trade for rumors, some luck, and Something Maybe Usefuls.

The party asked about why they were buying that stuff and the group explained they were adventurers by the name of Wraithwatch, and the Yelir Market was a big supply run for them during the year. Eridna explained that the rumors last years paid dividends, as one had led them to a big cache of gold and uncut gems with the payout of 1200 GP.

After a bit more talking they asked about the group’s origin. Eridna explained that she was a graduate from Grimrock Prep in Blackmoor, Rovick, the warforged, hailed from Hrotdel Clan in the North before they merged with the Wooret Warband, and the other half elf woman with deep black eyes, Dunna, claimed to be a cleric who worshipped a personal pantheon of Zini (Goddess of Alternate Fates, Chance, and Fortune) and Mugrott (God of Plague).

Uro and Baccaro were curious as to what there was to be done in the Purple Towns. Rovick explained that there was a place with fighting pits ran by the Dredge called the Boulges (“Bowl”-“Guhs”) that had daily amateur and professional pugilist bouts and tournaments on the weekend.

Rhaegar asked about Dunna’s dice and she explained they were her casting implement for her spells. She described how she could scry and had extrasensory perception despite her disease causing her to be blind (fun fact: she is also deaf, but the players don’t know that. Basically, her sense of touch is so good she can basically feel the words from in the air.

Uro tried to give her a book for her to scry on Deetra with, but Dunna explained it would be difficult to do so with clarity. A body part like blood, hair, a tooth, or a finger would work best. She tried finding the owner of the book, or someone who touched it but she could only get a directional sense and distance pointing toward the Duchy of the Lakes.

Rhaegar, keening in on this conversation produced the dragon tooth that he bought from the Yelir market. Dunna said this should be very useful and after finishing her scry, her eyes changed and Rhaegar could see what she saw in the spellscape: an icy cavern with icicles and ice spires that reached from floor to ceiling as well as the long snout of a draconic being.

Not long after this Wraithwatch went to bed and the PCs soon followed.

Among with other things these guys were reassurance of the purchases at the Yelir market, a hint that rumors are going to be important and can make the squad a lot of money in the future, and could give a bit of direction as to where to go in the Purple Towns.

In the morning the group packed up the cart and readied for the Purple Towns.

Perzyk approached Sir Damon and told him that he had been working on an invention that can help defend their payload. Damon was interested and asked to see it, so Rhaegar called forth his defender, Ramlis:

Ramlis is a “Steel” Defender made of wood, organic matter, metal, and a half-elven hand. It is shaped like a goblin.

Damon, along with everyone else in the party was extremely weirded out by this Frankenstein’s Monster. But after fielding some questions, Damon permitted Ramlis to stay in the group since he could help them in their overall goal.

Not long after departing, the group entered the Purple Towns:

The Purple Towns is a low-lying town crowned by a large lighthouse that overwatches the city like a sentinel. Stone buildings with tall domes huddle together, the domes are splashed with vibrant colors and hues. Some are themed others abstract. As you get into town, frescoes are painted on almost every wall. People sell paint and plaster on the side of roads along with heavy brushes, knives and painting spatulas. People routinely graffiti around town. News stories are plastered on the side of buildings, writs written in alleyways and on tavern facades.

The first stop was to the Carpenter’s Guild Hall where the party would finish their delivery and get their pay. They offloaded the lumber and Damon asked them whether they wanted to continue on in the next leg of the journey, or if they would like to go their separate ways. All were in favor of continuing with the Knight to the Duchy of the Glades.

After they got their pay, the group split ways. Uro, Moarte , and Baccaro went to the Boulges with Tepella and Makrett to get them some new identities and to see The Pits. Rhaegar went to the outskirts of the city in search for teleportation circles, and Perzyk went to do weird shit (probably).

Once there, the three went to The Lists to possibly oin a boxing amateur fight and get some information about the Boulges. There, they were met with a bookie who helped Baccaro join a fight and the others to join tomorrow’s tournament, then and directed them to Crow in the “Official Business” area of the Boulges.

Moarte and Baccaro made themselves scarce so there wasn’t too many people in the personas’ entourage. When they got to the Official Business area, Uro asked for Crow and was directed to a kenku with a huge tome in front of him.

Uro paid for a few identification documents and encouraged the persona to choose their own names. Tepella renamed herself to Merrick and Makrett renamed themselves to Brauman. Once Crow had coin in claw (basically all Uro had earned from his job with Sir Damon), he gave the Personas their new identities.

An hour or so later, the group was prepping for Baccaro’s fight. Baccaro (a.k.a “The Black Rose”) faced up against Torrel the Terrible, a slender shifter.

The fight was the first to three round wins and this one was an absolute brawl. Each round was a close call, but Baccaro came up on top, with help from Uro and (less so) Moarte in his corner. As the fight raged on, more and more spectators (and bettors) piled around to see, ending with a crowd of about 130 people.

I used the same fighting rules from Kobold Press. I’m a really big fan of these rules because it has good pacing and incentivizes a narrative focus and fun skill challenge for multiple players in the game.

After the won fight, Baccaro claimed a hefty prize of 25 gold pieces and was told by the emcee he had the amateur fight of the day. Moarte asked around and got some recommendations for bars to go to and taverns to stay at: The Broken Window Inn, Bort’s, and Seaman’s Wet Dream. They chose Bort’s.

During this time, Rhaegar had come up short looking for teleportation circles outside of the Purple Town’s walls but did find a nice secluded area to visit later. He used Locate Object to try to find the teleportation circles which use an array of expensive gems, dyes, and chalks and eventually was led to the Dyer’s Confraternity Building. While there he asked if the confraternity had a teleportation circle that he could record for the Fellagrove court. At first, the confraternity member balked, but soon passed him off to a higherup to hear Rhaegar out. After some convincing and seeing some possibly fortunate economics to the situation, the confraternity board member allowed Rhaegar to copy down the sigil sequence under some supervision. Rhaegar went to Bort’s and got Moarte to help with the sigil sequence who “took a picture” with Encode Thoughts while Rhaegar did a great job copying down the sigil despite having little practice in calligraphy.

At Bort’s, a nice, large tavern with a system of hooks on metal rails that brought drinks and food to tables, the characters decided to try to eavesdrop and talk with some of the patrons to find some rumors (Huzzah! Success!). Here’s what they found:

• The Archer of the Coast killed a knight
• The North Quarry is still closed
• the King’s court is in Dissaray and is set to make an announcement on the 9th of Inmar (two days from now).

After a night and a bit of carousing (especially form the victorious Baccaro who spent some time at Seaman’s Wet Dream) the party awoke on the 8th. The day of a tournament and the night of a double new moon.

At the amateur tournament, both Moarte and Uro were placed into a heavyweight, 16-man bracket.

Moarte was first up and he fought a Goliath known as the “Indomitable.”

The Goliath, a real power fighter, took the first round convincingly. In between bells, Moarte and his corner went to work and Uro and Baccaro saw weaknesses in the Goliath’s form. Baccaro pointed out that the Indomitable only ever used his left hand to block, seldom moving his right except for to punch, and Uro noticed that the opponent dropped his back foot whenever he made for a punch–a strong tell.

In the next round, Moarte, going by the stage name “Death,” patiently waited for the the Indomitable to drop his back foot, weaved under the telegraphed punch abd landed a single knockout blow against his opponent. A tooth fell from the goliath’s jaw and Perzyk swiftly went to pick it up.

On the other side of the bracket, Uro faced-off against a wiry kalashtar who went by “Nightwalker.”

The Kalashtar went up two rounds quickly, posing both a cerebral and physical foe. Before the third round, the crew got desperate. They figured the cunning kalashtar was going to play it safe in the third round, and that Uro needed to play to his strengths. “You’re not a smart fighter, you’re a dumb fighter!” in the words of Baccaro.

Uro won the round with a flurry of chaotic movements and waiting out the next bell.

In between rounds, Perzyk offered help by making Uro’s pants wreak, causing both fighters to make con saving throws or roll their checks with disadvantage. Uro failed, struck by his unlucky number, while the Kalashtar steeled their resolve. The Kalashtar clocked Uro with a huge combo and the Dragonborn fell in the first round.

Moarte’s second fight was against a huge dwarf who was built like a giant fist. In an earlier fight they had seen the dwarf wear down his human opponent with tenacious defense, the ability to take big hits, and the dolling out of mostly body shots.

Moarte in the firts round, standing two head and shoulders taller than the dwarf socked the Dwarf and kneed him hard in the face. The crowd groaned, winced, and yelped, but the dwarf stayed standing somehow.

When he got back to his ocrner, Uro told him to ust keep going on the offensive, “don’t worry about your face, he can’t even reach up there.”

As soon as the next round started, Moarte reared back andstruck down with the force of god, winning the match in abrupt style.

In the next fight, Moarte faced against a dextrous shifter, not Torrel the Terrible, with fast hands, agile feet, and bouncy legs.

In the first round, the shifter ran circles around Moarte. Moarte tried to defend but couldn’t suffer the blow-after-blow barrage from the opponent, falling via knockout in the first round.

After a few hours the gang split up for the double new moon.

Uro and Perzyk joined Moarte in his chamber. Moarte set up his journal on the window sill and in the vacant night air. After a few minutes, the pages of the book turned and turned as if being paged through by an invisible reader before stopping on a deep black sigil.

Runes and symbols peeled off the page and floated before them. they pieced together, broke apart, and the recombined before they formed a circle. A mote of darkness appeared in the center and it grew until it hit the perimeter. The black runes and portal flashed a ghastly green, and a matching specter emerged from the portal–a man with slicked back hair, lightly padded clothes and a neck bisected by precise cut.

“Feels weird to be walkin’ ’round again,” the specter said. It locked eyes with Moarte who saw the same eyes of the last man he executed. “Long time no see. The Black Duke, at your service. “

Moarte kneeled.

“You killed the Black Duke?” Uro exclaimed. He drew his glaive to Moarte’s neck.

“Yes,” Moarte said unflinching, “and he’s haunted me ever since. He was captured by my old employer, a noble in the Lakes.”

“Sir Wenat,” Perzyk murmured.

Both Uro and Moarte turned and looked at Perzyk in surprise.

“How do you know Sir Wenat?” Uro asked.

“We heard from a town crier on our way to meet Sir Damon that he had captured and executed the Black Duke.”

“When did this happen?”

“On the 20 somethingth of Ril,” Moarte answered. “It was my ob to execute, and I did so mindlessly.”

Moarte turned to the The Black Duke.

“You freed me from my bondage; I no longer want to live a life of mindless servitude. I want to free others from that existence.”

“Well it seems like you freed yourself,” the Black Duke remarked. “Making my head roll just might have been the catalyst, but you redeemed yourself. this want is inward, not from me. I’m glad someone could at least pick up my mantle.”

“How did you die?” Uro asked. “Or, i guess, what were you doing at Sir Wenat’s?”

“Sir Wenat is known for his large harem of Persona,” the Black Duke described. “In the past we had stuck to changing just one persona’s fate at a time. I wanted to do something ambitous and free masses. I tried setting up a jailbreak, but I was caught in the process before I could actually cause some chaos and allow for any of them to escape. I was caught and tortured briefly, but Sir Wenat, as always, was antsy to get his fame and had me executed.”

“Who is we?” Moarte asked.

“We are called the Black Trail. we’re a loose network of people trying to break personas from their bonds.”

“Is there a way we can find more of you?”

“Yes, there is, but you have to be careful about it because The Fetch have people watching everywhere. They’re agents of the University and our greatest threat. Don’t go ’round asking for Black Trail members or they’ll have you locked up in short time. That being said, we have friends in high places: The Black Duke and The Black King. The Black Duke, I know works in the University of Blackmoor, and The Black King is the one who made me this book.”

“Do you know their names?” Uro asked.

“We only went by our codenames in case we were drugged with truth serums or subjected to one of truths.”

“Is there a way we can show that we’re part of the Trail?” Moarte asked.

“Tell them what you know in entirety and show them this book,” but only do so if you’re absolutely sure. If you need me again, I can appear every double new moon, and in this form I’m moe accessible. In the meantime, Moarte, I will give you this.”

The Black Duke reached back into the portal and retrieved a black sigil and placed it Moarte’s golden pauldron.

“Through this I believe you can summon me more readily for small bouts of time, and I can be of service to you even beyond the grave. Until we meet again.”

“I will do well by you, Black Duke.”

This was a really cool way for Moarte to earn his Echo Knight subclass.

Rhaegar and Baccaro split up and went to the secluded spot at the outskirts of the Purple Towns. Rhaegar had spent most of the day meticulously prepping a complex sigil into the dirt and wanted Baccaro to be there and assist (after Perzyk declined).

After planning all day, with the night reaching its midpoint, Rhaegar waited impatiently. He took his sword, Seeker, and grasped its thorn-ridden handle and poured blood out onto the symbols. He explained to Baccaro that so many people, especially out in the wilds draw energy from Wode–positive energy, and after a lot of study and building his affinity with Silmar, he figured with the proper sigil sequence, he could pull the negative energy from Silmar and achieve a similar effect.

Baccaro offered to lend a literal helping hand by clutching Seeker and dripping his own blood into sigils. Rhaegar soon reclaimed his weapon, and pointed it toward the symbol. He channeled necrotic energy into ground and in a moment, tendrils of smoky purple, brown, and maroon enveloped his blade. They coalesced in the middle into a ball of dark energy before towering upward into a column.

This was me and a player’s first crack at spellcraft. Spellcraft used to be an actual skill in the game (a long with literally dozens of others) back in second edition, and I feel like it is a little bit of a lost art, ironically. Today you can find homebrewed spells with one search and one click, but there is a somewhat forgotten tradition of player characters making spells in game. I like the idea of this discovery and I like the idea of this type of roleplay. Even if it was just a reskinning of moonbeam and a change of damage type, this was a really neat scene that showed growth, objective, lore, and the magic of the world.

Rhaegar moved the necrotic moonbeam back and forth with great focus, and when complete, clearly drained of blood and lifeforce, Rhaegar rejoiced with Baccaro. The two returned to Bort’s for the night late.

When they returned, Perzyk and Ramlis awaited the drained Rhaegar and tired Baccaro in Rhaegar’s room.

This was definitely the end of Act 1 and beginning of Act 2. I’ll be Archiving this blog page here and starting up a new Blackmoor Blog Page so this one doesn’t get exceedingly lengthy.