Tabletop Fun

[Nunavut Pants]

After many more games of Terraforming Mars, including a few where I was NOT LAST, I managed another win!

My Corp had the special power of getting 2 money when playing an Event card, which isn't that much. But it started with a bunch of steel resources, which is much better. I don't remember what the other option was, but I liked that one even less.

I started by concentrating on Terraform Rating, with a few cards increasing it directly and others increasing temperature or oceans, or planting Forest tiles. Several of those cards were Event cards, which gave me a little bit of money. Nice, but not an immense benefit as I said. I even managed to collect enough plant resources to play a couple of Forest tiles, even though I never had any plant production. (Well, I did get one very near the end, but another player stole it before it produced anything for me!)

I played a few cards with VPs on them and a couple of cards that gave me discounts on some purchases. I finally was able to play a card that gave me VPs for microbe resources on it, which let me use a card I had played very early to add extra to it. Between its own action and the other card, that was a nice 1 VP every generation.

I had also played "Search for Life" early on, which gives you one chance every generation to get 3 VP. Odds are not great, and you can only get it once in a game, but it did come through for me near the end.

I never got an Achievements, and I only tied for first place in a Milestone because another player funded it. And due in large part to the VPs that were directly on cards that I played, I managed a one-point win! 63 - 62 - 50 - 47 It was definitely not a high-scoring game!

[Jay 2K Winger]

D&D AL--

Played in a Tier 3 (player levels 11-16) game, closing up a mini-campaign (which I only played the last two sessions of) where the BBEG was a demon lord called the Heir of Orcus. The campaign dealt with her efforts to gather the power necessary to depose her father, the demon lord of undeath Orcus, including by trying to get hold of a spell capable of killing gods. We prevented that, but this last session opened with our party meeting with some of our allies (a holy order of knights) in the back room of a wrecked-ship-turned-bar, only for the top half of the bar to suddenly explode-- as no less than three dragons attack it. The sole surviving knight was able to load one of the ship's cannons and blast one of the dragons in the face, and my character-- Jito the Kensei Monk-- was able to get over to them and help fire the cannon again to destroy that dragon. David was playing Ser George the Bush Knight, who could now grow to huge size (two magnitudes larger than a standard character) and could therefore really tank things. The dragons were just part of a huge swarm of dragons unleashed on the city of Baldur's Gate by the Heir of Orcus, who being half-dragon had command over them.

After dealing with the dragons, we had to get to the Abyss, because one of our other allies (an incubus who had infiltrated the Cult of Orcus) was in danger and had information on the location of a magical grimoire that could capture demons. The incubus's sister (a succubus) plane shifted us to the Abyss, where we confronted the cultists that had captured the incubus on a bridge over the Abyss. We immediately recognized a strategy of knocking them from the bridge, but couldn't just use that technique because we didn't know which cultist had the grimoire we needed. At one point, Jito got telekinetically thrown off the bridge, and David asked if he needed to get me back. I assured him I had a plan. And on my turn, I used my once-a-day casting of Misty Step to teleport back to the bridge, immediately stunned the cultist who'd thrown me, and laid into him with a flurry of monk strikes.

We got the book and got back to the material plane, where the Heir of Orcus was in the midst of a brutal fight with her archnemesis angel, but we had some divine intervention give us the benefit of a short rest before going into the battle against the Heir, letting us heal up, and letting our wizard attune to the grimoire-- which besides letting him capture fiends, also allowed him to deal max damage against fiends with his spells. The Heir faced us in a brutal fight where she took on the form of a gargantuan dracolich. Ser George's huge barbarian form helped here, and Jito ended up burning a few rounds finding and unearthing the angel who'd been slammed into some rubble, and using a healing item on the wizard who got downed by the Heir's fire breath. But then the wizard's player turned to me and said, "Would you like to be a T-rex?" I agreed, and he polymorphed me into a T-rex, letting us have a 2-v-1 kaiju fight, while one of the other martials in the party (a monk/fighter multiclass) literally climbed onto the Heir's back and tied himself to her vertebrae so he couldn't be shaken off.

The T-rex did some work, but the dracolich was able to do enough damage to deplete the form's health, then flew 60 feet up in the air, where she could still rain destruction on us, but the wizard just polymorphed Jito into a roc so I could fly up and keep wailing on the Heir, who we did finally manage to bring low enough in health to capture into the book.

Felt appropriately epic for a high-level adventure.

[Jay 2K Winger]

Curse of Strahd '26--

Phil the DM has been commenting on a particular encounter he's been planning for a while, and finally pulled the trigger on it.

We were returning to Vallaki after rescuing the vineyard, and as we approached the crossroads for Argynvostholt, we saw smoke coming from the remains of a wagon-- specifically Ezmerelda's wagon. She'd evidently set it to explode when she got attacked by werewolves (we found their corpses), but as we were investigating, we suddenly found ourselves attacked by an undead knight in corroded silver armor. Phil posted a picture in our Discord of him, which we were all impressed by, a distinct appearance with an eyepatch. Kim was also commenting on the picture, then stopped, looking at it, and then started freaking out.

I very quickly worked out what was going on. Kim had revealed in an earlier session that her character Potentia's father, Eldrin, had been a warrior, and learned that he'd been a member of the Order of Silver Dragon, Argynvost. And Kim has done art of most of our characters, and she confirmed that she'd done a little picture of Eldrin and sent it to Phil privately, just a bit of flavor. And Phil had edited the pic (possibly using AI - not going to comment on generative AI art here) to give us the pic he posted in our chat. Kim had not been expecting Phil to use that artwork "against her" like this, and it got her slightly stressed out as her character was now being attacked by her father.

Eldrin was opposed to Strahd in all things, and targeted those close to Strahd, which in our case meant our druid Willow (as the reincarnation of his beloved Tatyana) and anyone else he saw as "helping" Strahd. Potentia tried to talk him down, but Eldrin wouldn't even recognize that she was his daughter. We defeated him, but as he fell, the body that was left behind was that of a portly Vistani man with a beard. That's when Phil revealed that Eldrin was a revenant, an undead spirit consumed with vengeance. Revenants can possess their dead body to pursue their revenge, and if their body is destroyed, they can possess another corpse and it will gradually take on the revenant's appearance. Additionally, revenants can place a curse on someone, and after doing so, will always know the distance to and direction of the one they cursed, even on another plane of existence.

So we now have an undying undead knight targeting our party, and he's the father of our paladin.

We also ended up getting more info on our main quest. Breaking the Dark One's Curse on Barovia we knew involved cleansing the three fanes-- wellsprings of natural power. We were generally told where the fanes were, and later worked out that there were three crystals called "seeds" that are connected to the fanes. We've found one of them, and we just learned from Madam Eva that one of the seeds was taken by Strahd and is probably in Castle Ravenloft. (My rogue, Trig, suggested we look into finding a secret way into the castle-- "All rich aristocrats' houses have secret entrances"-- but Potentia asked if that was necessary. Trig's response, "Do you really wanna just go up and knock on the Devil's front door?") But Madam Eva also revealed that we would need to get the three sisters tied to the fanes involved, so they could perform the necessary rituals. One of those sisters was Eva herself, the other the absentee Jenny (whereabouts unknown), and the third was Morgantha, a hag with a coven in the Old Bonegrinder mill. Eva warned that Morgantha would not willingly help, and we might need to kill her, then capture her soul in a special iron flask.

And then when we got to Vallaki, we found out the wine shipment got intercepted by the burgomeister, instead of getting to the inn like we'd thought. Ezmerelda was at the inn, angry-drunk and taking out her frustrations by throwing knives at the wall, getting cheered on by the happy-drunk Wachter Brothers, and there was also Father Lucien, sad-drunk and having a crisis of faith over the theft of the Bones of St Andral. We sort of split up to deal with drunk allies, while Willow conferred with her familiar Fuzzy about what had been learned inside the burgomeister's manor. She found no evidence of the magic mirror that Lady Fiona had warned us about, only that the burgomeister's wife spent most of her day sitting around knitting. (Willow: "That's kinda weird." Trig: "We're in a land as f**ked up as this, full of vampires and werewolves and undead wotsits, but that's what's weird to you!?") Trig spent some time trying to get Lucien out of his funk, realizing he had a tall order ahead of him with Lucien believing "there is no god," and thinking himself a failure. When Lucien claimed that Burgomeister Vargas had done more to protect the village than him, Trig denied that, claiming instead that Vargas was more interested in protecting himself and lining his pockets than anything else, pointing out that he'd only taken the bones after learning there was a protective charm on them. Potentia, meanwhile, got Ez to at least calm down a bit and agree to accompany the party in the hopes of running into Van Richten again.

Then Izek Strazni and the guards showed up to arrest Urwin the innkeeper (for "discontent") and Ez (for casting magic), which the party objected to. Trig tried to talk down Izek, but between a failed roll on my part and antagonizing by the Wachters (who called him "Izzy" out of disrespect), things got violent. But the party was able to clear out most of his guards, and Izek took off running, and now we're gonna have to storm the manor and take advantage of the disarray....

[Jay 2K Winger]

Curse of Strahd '26--

We've now liberated the winery from the evil druids that were besieging it and trying to poison the wine, rescued the Martikovs, and defeated the evil awakened tree Wintersplinter. Granted, the last part happened with the assistance of Strahd himself, who showed up during the fight-- which included more druids, evil barbarians, and a lot more blights-- and basically kited the spellcasters, used a freaking lair action to lock down all the blights with a mist-entanglement, and so let the party go ham on Wintersplinter without too much distraction.

Except he's also disappointed with us "not making our mark" on Barovia fast enough, I guess? Never mind we've only been in Barovia for canonically less than a month.

I also expressed my OOC dislike of some others at the table calling him "Daddy Strahd," repeatedly reminding them, "No, no. It's 'Devil Strahd.' Stop it. You cannot fix him!"


Dragonlance--

We have our new 5th player, Patrick, who is playing another wizard. His character, Thalenis Silversight, is a Qualinesti elf and a White-Robed wizard (i.e., Good-aligned), a Magister and Conclave member. Magisters are apparently the Orders of High Sorcery's renegade-hunters. Any spellcaster that begins wielding magic above a certain level without joining the Orders is branded a "renegade wizard" and is hunted down.

Thalenis showed up with news about our next plot angle. It turns out that one of the reasons for the Metallic Dragons' delay in joining the war effort was because they were busy fighting off a siege of their own, as the combined forces of the evil Dragon Armies were assaulting the island the Metallics were recolonizing, and now had numerous renegade wizards in their forces. More troubling in addition were the presence of five Knights of the Tears, who were basically wizards that wore heavy plate armor. Not something that normally happens (mechanically, wizard PCs cannot wear heavy armor and be able to cast magic) and a significant game changer. Thalenis helped drive the Knights of the Tears away and killed many of the renegades present at Dragon Island, but now needed assistance hunting down the Knights of the Tears.

Through some brief research we did via divination magic and some communing with the gods, we determined that the Knights of the Tears were actually a very old evil knightly order, now brought back in direct response to our party's efforts. When we infiltrated Neraka (the evil capital of evil) and detonated Jesse's Pocket Nuke, we removed the Empire's ability to create Draconians, who had comprised the bulk of their spellcasters. (Draconians, the DM revealed, used spell-like abilities, not actual spells, hence why Justinius's efforts to Counterspell them never worked, as that spell is specifically designed to counter spells, not abilities.) The Knights of the Tears were now training up new wizards (the renegades) and their very existence violated the edicts of the Orders of High Sorcery (which ban the wearing of armor), hence why a Magister like Thalenis had been dispatched.

While the players are all-in on a new character at the table, the PCs were a little leery of wizards. Justinius's moral failings (his tendency to keep secrets and make ethically-questionable decisions) had broken a lot of the party's trust, and we'd canonically only bid Justinius farewell a week before. While we were at least more certain that Thalenis would be less dubious than Justinius by virtue of his White-Robed nature, it would take time and action from him to smooth things over.

But it appears we're likely going up against the White Dragon Army next, and possibly the Great White Wyrm dragon as well.

[Nunavut Pants]

My final day of hosting games day at our condo's clubhouse has come and gone. Spent the time playing "Just One". Fun as always!

Several more Terraforming Mars games down, one victory.

This game had two Milestones that rewarded plant production and number of forests, and one Award for animals and microbes. So I selected the corporation that allowed me to accumulate microbes and turn two microbes in for a plant production. One of my Prelude cards let me place a forest, and the other raised my plant production on its own. In the first Generation, I also played a card that allowed me to put two microbes on any other card--which I was able to combine with my Corporation card to raise plant production a number of times! That helped me to claim both of the plant-based Milestones in later terms, which is a whopping ten VP!

I later drew and played Ecological Zone, which basically gave me 1/2 VP for every plant, animal, or microbe card I played. Wound up with six VP from that!

Among other points I scored were a number for raising the heat levels of the planet, through things like asteroid impacts and some from more microbes, plus four for Birds. I used a couple of other cards than just Birds itself to add those VPs, as I only had that in the last generation or two. One of my opponents funded the "microbes and animals" Award, and I was second in that. I couldn't get out in front in any of the other Award categories, so I didn't fund any of them myself.

I found myself in the lead with only one or two more terraforming steps to be done in order to end the game, so I took those steps and ended it.

The game lasted 8 Generations, and I came in first. 68 points, to 64, to 59, to 56.

[Jay 2K Winger]

D&D Adventurers League--

Finally managed to get in on an AL game, part 3 of a Tier 2 (PC levels 5-10) adventure series. Dave, who is one of the DMs, was a player this week, playing another one of his silly (but deadly) PCs*, this one being "Sir George the Bush Knight." Described as looking like a walking bush plant with two holes for eyes, George was mechanically a thri-kreen (space bug-man from the Spelljammer splat) path of the giant barbarian, so George could go from being a on-the-short-side little walking bush into a giant plant-creature when entering his Rage.

I quickly dubbed him "George the Walking Jungle," and this got a brief snippet of the "George of the Jungle" theme sung at the table, but when he entered his Rage for the first time by leaping out off a ledge to land on a cultist demagogue after turning giant, I called out toward the other cultists, "Watch out for that tree!"


* ETA: Dave is also the guy who created a minmaxed character called Jaunty, a deadly multiclass PC who wore a harlequin outfit. And who was the result of the following exchange:
(party fighting through a demon-besieged city)
(comes across frightened refugees)
Jaunty: (covered in demon blood) Hi!
My PC: (pulling him back) Let's not greet them with the death jester--
Jaunty: (waving) Don't worry, it's not my blood!
My PC: THAT'S NOT BETTER!
DM: (to Dave) Make an Intimidation check. And since Jay is helping, you can do it with advantage.
Me: I wasn't--! Y'know what, I'll throw a Guidance on there, cuz it's funny.

[Jay 2K Winger]

Curse of Strahd '26--

Well, Queen Julieton turned out to be a lot trickier to deal with than initially assumed. She won't stop possessing Ireena unless she has a suitable alternative, which is problematic. There was a half-serious suggestion of arranging a beauty pageant to find a suitable replacement, which prompted Phil the DM to quip, "Only if the Burgomeister's involved!" (As Burgomeister Vargas Vallakovich has been very T**mp-coded, this prompted some serious laughter from me and Mark, the older players at the table.) And then while we were trying to work out how to deal with our various quest threads, Strahd himself showed up out of nowhere, there in the inn's main room, while the innkeeper's wife and children just went into some kind of trance state. Strahd more or less tasked the party with getting Vargas out of power as he disapproved with how the man was running Vallaki. Then he started more or less flirting with Julieton and asked to take her on a brief walk so they could speak together. None of us were okay with that idea-- Potentia the Paladin especially. She pointed out that Julieton was possessing Ireena, and they could not get Ireena's consent. But this didn't ultimately work, as Strahd took her out for that walk anyway, though he did swear to return her unharmed, and did so.

And when we went to meet with Vargas (on an unrelated matter, and largely just so we could try to scout the interior of the burgomeister's manor), Julieton proved a bit manipulative, managing to dupe Vargas into sending "her servants" (the non-human members of the party) to meet with his so as "to be taught how to better serve" and to have Trig (my character) depart with Izek Strazni so the two could speak privately. Vargas seemed very flattered by Julieton's attention, and has us suspicious of what she's scheming.

Trig's talk with Izek had him confirming to Izek that they're brothers, explaining that he (Trig) had assumed Izek dead in the same fire that killed their parents, and had only just found out a week previous that he was still alive. "If I'd known you were still alive, I'd have come back years ago." Izek seemed mollified by that, but as he'd been adopted by Vargas, he'd absorbed a lot of Vargas's vile viewpoints, in particular his racism toward anyone non-human. He wanted Trig to join up with him and they could run "the ravens" out of the inn, revealing that Urwin, Danika, and their children at Vallki's inn were wereravens and therefore "unnatural." Trig promised nothing, but it was an additional wrinkle to his own personal questline concerning Izek.

As for our unrelated matter to meet with Vargas, we reckoned that getting in his good graces would allow us to get easier access to his manor. We settled on acquiring property in the village, and fronted ourselves as representatives of Queen Julieton-- passing off our earlier introduction as "Lady Ireena" was traveling incognito and needing to see how well he ran the village before committing to anything. Vargas accepted that much, and while there was a "recent vacancy" in town (the death of Henrik the coffin-maker) he would only sell to us if we did something for him. And he wanted the inn. It was a money-maker in town, and he wanted it, and the family who ran it out on the streets. As we had reasons of our own to visit the winery, we more or less agreed to his terms, though we have no intention of giving him anything.

We also learned that Rictavio is not who he says he is. Shrewd questioning by Potentia drew out his real name-- Rudolf van Richten, as in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft. He had been drawn to Barovia while hunting a vampire (not Strahd, though one of his minions) to avenge the death of his son. We agreed to keep his identity to ourselves, and learned that his erstwhile apprentice may have come to Barovia as well, a woman named Ezmerelda d'Avenir. When the party prepared to set out for the winery, Rictavio went east to try to find Madam Eva. We took Julieton with us, because while her skill in combat was unknown, we didn't want her out of our sight, when she'd proven subtly manipulative and Of Interest to Strahd.

We stopped off at an old tower on the way to the winery, a decrepit thing barely holding together, and learned it was an old wizard's tower that had an Antimagic Field inside and just outside it. While we didn't much care for the idea of staying in a place about ready to collapse, the antimagic field was useful, since it might that Strahd couldn't just teleport himself inside. Oliver also discovered that the piss-wine curse he got off one of the Vistani didn't work inside the tower, so he happily drank any wine someone could give him. But while we were there, Ezmerelda ("Ez") showed up, pursued by werewolves. The werewolves demanded she come out, and demanded we turn her over, but they weren't able to find a way in without triggering the tower's defenses (which threatened to shake the tower apart) or getting shot by one of our bows, so they departed. Ez was grateful for the help, and decided to head east to find Van Richten when we mentioned where he'd gone.

After that, we approached the winery, where a number of mobile plant-like blights shambled out of the vineyard toward us. Nothing too strenuous, and we've still got to clear out the evil druids attempting to poison the wine vats.

Dragonlance--

Sylphara slotted into the party easily enough, but she almost immediately got us into a political quagmire. She noticed many of her people, the Kagonesti, among the other elven contingents in the WSF camp, but wearing pendants that signified them as being part of "House Servitor." This is a Silvanesti elven house, whose people are the servants of other houses. But Kagonesti can't be born into a Silvanesti house. She tried to talk to some of the Kagonesti, only to get noticed by some Silvanesti officers, who muttered about "another wild one...needing re-education in the light of E'li." (E'li being the elven name for the god Paladine.) Well, she heard that, snapped back about it, and one of the officers got in her face and asked her, "What are you going to do about it, you filthy little mudblood?" And Sylphara bitch-slapped him for it.

The officer immediately called for the guards, but she just Misty Stepped back to our tent. And that's when we found out that the guy she'd slapped was Col. Windstrider, one of the two regents for the Silvanesti Princess (still considered "too young" to ascend the throne after her father's death), and under military law, the colonel was within his rights to demand justice, which would entail cutting her hand off at the very least. Sylphara revealed that in her time (she had been displaced 149 years into her future after we rescued her, having no way to get her back to her own time), she had been a defender of her people against this sort of thing, the sort of supremacist thinking that the city-dwelling elves needed to teach civilization to the "wildlings," and had destroyed many "re-education camps."

We managed to get to Lord Gunther, head of the WSF's overall forces, first, and while we were convinced the Kagonesti were not serving of their own free will, this wouldn't be sufficient until and unless we could prove it. We had at best 5 days to find it before the court martial would begin.

We managed to finagle a way into talking to Princess Alhana without either of her regents present (describing it as a social call-- despite Runa's blundering inability to stop talking, since every time she tried to interject with a comment, it made it worse), and to hear her say it, the Kagonesti had been refugees same as the Qualinesti and Silvanesti elves after the Great Green Wyrm Cyan Bloodbane had spread the Nightmare out from Silvanest, poisoning the land, twisting it against its inhabitants and raising the undead. And as refugees, the Kagonesti had agreed to serve as repayment. We remained dubious, but she agreed to send two of her own personal servitors to attend us in our tent. And when we got to do so, assuring the servitors of discretion, they revealed that the "city elves" (Qualinesti and Silvanesti both) had been hunting their people down, forcing them into "the School" and teaching them that every elf has their place in the way of E'li, and that "the forest is not a place" according to these teachings. This was all bullshit, of course, and it was effectively slavery. Those Kagonesti that passed through the School were kept in line by being told that the city elves were "keeping their children safe" for them. They did let us know that there were resistance fighters, being led by someone called Lioness.

We checked in with our allies in the Qualinesti, the children of the king, Laurana and Gilthanas, who were horrified to hear about this. They had heard of Kagonesti being given shelter as refugees, but the School was not something they knew of and did not like it. Between this, Alhana's innocence, and the flat support of Lord Gunther and the dwarf king Hornfel, we knew we had allies to hand, and we rode out for the forests where the elves had been displaced by the Nightmare.

We quickly came across a Qualinesti hunting party that had been stalking a group of Kagonesti, and so we dispatched them, but the Kagonesti had just been bait for the Qualinesti-- a trap laid by Lioness, who took us to her grove camp. Turns out Lioness had been one of the Kagonesti that Sylphara had liberated from a re-education camp shortly before her ill-fated time-travel mission, and now she was a powerful warrior in her own right-- being 6'2" (a giant in Kagonesti terms, when they're usually in the 4-5' range) and wielding a greatsword taller than she was. She helped us scout out the School and told us there was a supply caravan en route the following evening, which she would attack as a distraction to let us infiltrate the School and find the documentation we needed to "expose the rot" so we could cut it out, "root and stem."

Infiltrating the School's compound involved going in through the sewers again, but we managed to get into the compound and then the School proper without getting spotted. And we found the proof we needed-- official documents bearing the seal of the Silvanesti regents and the Qualinesti king, proving the rot went all the way up. Getting out almost went poorly, we got spotted running back to the sewers, but we got out before they could attack us, then rode balls-out back to the WSF camp, covered in sewer muck, to deliver the documents to Lord Gunther.

When Laurana and Gilthanas found out their father was involved, they were furious, and furious further at the regent that came with Alhana to Gunther's tent, almost coming to blows. But Alhana, when she read the documents and realized what the regents had been doing in her name, she ordered the regent with her arrested. Laurana and Gilthanas's father later "took the honorable way out" and Gilthanas ascended the throne in his place. The next day, we rode back into the forest at the head of a few regiments, met up with Lioness, and marched up to the School, where Col. Windstrider was thrown off the battlements by his own soldiers when they surrendered. The Kagonesti prisoners were freed and the School was burned to the ground. Everyone who was complicit in the enslavement of the Kagonesti were cast out of elven society, branded as "dark elves" (not drow - drow don't exist in the Dragonlance setting), shunned and exiled. Sylphara didn't think this was enough, but accepted that justice was done-- her people were free, which was the important thing.

And then, better news-- the metallic dragons were joining the fight on the side of the WSF! My cleric Gavin's wife, Gwyneth, delivered this news personally. While the dragonlances themselves weren't ready yet, the WSF needed to train up dragonriders to wield them, and our party would be responsible for some of that training, so we needed to be trained up, ourselves. This entailed bonding with dragon mounts. (Gwyneth: "You don't get a choice." Gavin: "As if I'd bond with any other dragon but you!") So the party were introduced to their respective new mounts-- Evrouin to the gold dragon Firestar (who otherwise took the form of a gold-armored dwarf), Runa to the copper dragon Starwing (otherwise a Silvanesti elf in copper robes), and Sylphara to the copper dragon Fleetwing (otherwise a Kagonesti elf man with copper skin)-- and then taken up on an "familiarization flight." And after that, some drinking was done among everyone but Gwyneth and Gavin, who wondered if the world was ready for the introduction of dragon drinking culture to the already volatile mix of dwarf and barbarian drinking cultures.

This did lead to a fun little bit the next morning, as the DM describes the hangovers everyone else is having, and as soon as he finishes, I describe a cheerful Gavin coming into the tent with a bright and too loud, "Good morning, everyone!" (He brought coffee to keep them from trying to kill him.) And there followed the bonding ritual, in which the party got a sensation of what it was like to be a dragon and how they flew, moved, and cast magic, with the dragons in kind getting a sense of what each party member could do in combat situations and similar.

We're now at Level 15 and will be getting our signature items' last Tier 3 upgrade, which should be fun. And Chris, our new player, may have a 5th player ready to join, too.

[Nunavut Pants]

[ .... Fistandantilus ....

Please, please, PLEASE tell me this guy's coat of arms has a closed hand with deer horns coming out of it... PLEASE!!!

[Jay 2K Winger]

Dragonlance--

We returned to our campaign, now having to account for the loss of two PCs. The rest of the Misfits were very aware that both Justinius and Catt had been caught-- the latter shot out of the sky by multiple arrows-- and when Runa used her Clairvoyance ability to listen in on the enemy command tent, she overheard Fistandantilus denying the cleric Denubis when he asked to heal Catt, but did allow funerary rites to be done, and asked for the red-robed wizard to be left for him.

We snuck around to where the rebel army buried its dead and found the fresh mound of earth with Catt's hoopak stuck in it. My cleric, Gavin, did cast Raise Dead-- because, ICly, we all considered it worth it-- and everyone spoke their piece to see if we could convince Catt's soul to return. We got an ethereal Catt appearing, but she said that she didn't think she should come back, implying there were adventures she was going to be undertaking on the other side, taking her hoopak and bidding us farewell.

What came next for us was having to re-focus and lock in on finishing our mission to steal the Blood Stone artifact from Fistandantilus. To recap, Fistandantilus-- the most powerful evil wizard in all of history, at the height of his mortal power-- was attempting to open a portal to the Abyss, so as to confront Takhisis (evil dragon goddess, known as Tiamat in other D&D planes) and kill her to usurp her place. As this was happening some 350 years before the 'present day' in our campaign, he was destined to fail, and the explosion that transpired killed his physical body, but the Blood Stone allowed his spirit to remain in an in-between place, and he survived by siphoning life/magic from other wizards. He tended to do this by appearing to aspirant wizards during their Tests of High Sorcery, offering the power to pass their Test in exchange for that life force. Justinius's apprentice Tasha was of Irda descent-- a race of 'high ogres' with natural magical power-- and needed to pass her Test so she can learn the higher-level magic needed to prevent herself from going insane, but taking her Test would expose her to Fistandantilus-- and he would not be able to resist just draining her dry, potentially becoming powerful enough to return to physical life. The Orders of High Sorcery had sent our party back to the year 1 AC to try to neutralize the Blood Stone, but we'd also been briefed that we were just the latest in many attempts at this mission. (We were somewhere in the vicinity of Attempt #1148.)

We scouted out the tower of Zhaman, which fortunately went without much fuss. Runa used her Clairvoyance again to scout the tower itself and we once again found an alternative entry than the main gate, which was once again through the sewer. Or rather, the servant entrance next to the sewer-- and even then, the sewer was remarkably clean. The passageway was dusty as well, and we rather worked out that Fistandantilus was just using the tower as a place to conduct his ritual, teleporting in and out to do his prep and whatnot, while resting and eating back in the military camp.

We explored the dungeon beneath the tower, mostly so we could recover Justinius's body, since Runa's Clairvoyance had located it in one of the cells. The rest of the cells had the bodies of people we found out had been part of previous attempts at getting the Blood Stone. The cells in the dungeons didn't have doors, but arcane wards which only allowed an evil wizard or a good cleric to pass through, and the bodies inside were held in a sort of stasis field (DM Bob explicitly compared it to the forcefield that Obi-Wan was held in by Count Dooku in Attack of the Clones) and were... well, they'd been tortured and their life-force sucked away. Gavin, the only one in the party who could pass through the wards on the cells, used a ten-foot pole to gently push the bodies out of the stasis field, and they all essentially disintegrated as they did. Gavin saw this as a mercy.

One of the cells, however, held an elven ranger, who hadn't been tortured to the same extent or had her life force drained. Gavin dispelled the stasis and then healed her up. This was our newest PC, Sylphara, played by Chris. She was a Kagonesti elf (wood elf) from roughly 150 years prior to the 'present day', and had been part of the previous attempt at killing Fistandantilus. The rest of her party was all dead, tortured/drained, and she joined us in our mission. She was a little disdainful of humans (everyone left in the party was human) and couldn't really wrap her head around the timelines, though accepted that she was only going to get to come back to the 'present day' and not her own. We rested up in a disused storage cellar in the tower while making plans, since we had another day or so before we absolutely needed to make our move.

And the plan went off without a hitch. Evrouin cast Silence on his armor, charging in to grapple Fistandantilus-- thus negating the two main components of his magic (verbal and somatic)-- while Gavin cast Hold Person on Denubis (to prevent him from dispelling the silence), allowing Runa to rush in and grab the Blood Stone from around Fistan's neck. Sylphara ran in with our "time-turner" device, we all linked up, released Fistan and returned to our own time, just as Raistlin Majere-- Fistan's usurper-- turned up.

We arrived back in 349 AC at the Weyreth Tower. We turned the Blood Stone over to the wizards, who promised to either find a way to destroy it or seal it away forever, and confirmed that Fistandantilus was dead. Raistlin, however, had now become 'Master of Both Past & Present', which would allow him to access the Palanthas Tower of High Sorcery, and potentially attempt the same thing that Fistan had been doing. (i.e., usurp a god) That, however, was now for the wizards to deal with, and they would do so, presumably without us.

We wrapped up with the Misfits (plus Sylphara) returning to the Whitestone Forces military camp, to resume what will undoubtedly become known as the Fourth Dragon War.

We're still planning to recruit a fifth player, which might end up being my roommate Richard, he's still making up his mind.

[Jay 2K Winger]

No context from last night's D&D AL session--

Please, please, don't call your cleric/wizard multiclass a "clizard."

[Jay 2K Winger]

Curse of Strahd '26--

So after the rained-out Festival of the Burning Sun, the party got pulled into a meeting with one of the local nobility. The Wachter Brothers-- whom the DM had characterized like a couple of Jersey Shore yahoos, prone to carousing at the local inn and being obnoxious-- approached us after the festival and asked if we could meet with their mother, and made a point of noting Rictavio with us saying they wanted no trouble with him. So we went off to meet with Lady Fiona Wachter, who explained that she wanted our help deposing Vargas Vallakovich as the burgomeister, alleging that his wife had a magic mirror which she used to spy on people and also assassinate them, that his son was a wizard who had put some curse or spell on her daughter to make her behave like a cat (to the point she was 'non-verbal' and only spoke in meowing sounds), on top of the thugs he employed as enforcers. (i.e. Izek Strazni and the town guard) We said we'd need to think about it, as we had other matters to address first.

That done, we headed out for the Werewolf Den, with Rictavio accompanying us in his wagon. We spotted a couple of guards watching the mouth of the cave from a ridge, and snuck up to try to see if we could resolve things without a fight. Unfortunately, Trig (me) rolled a Nat-1 on his Persuasion check, so we entered combat. And like an idiot, I rushed into melee with two werewolves and got downed almost immediately, and again later in the fight. Fortunately, we were able to deal with the rest of them, and Rictavio revealed he'd loaded his wagon with explosives and basically let it roll downhill into the cave and blow up the entrance, taking out a bunch of weres that came out of the cave when the guards blew the horn. And then he just marched into the cave by himself while we dealt with the few weres that were left outside.

Inside the cave, we found the altar to Mother Night, as well as a lone woman (an untransformed werewolf) who immediately surrendered. But there were also a bunch of kids in cages. We tied up the woman, who claimed to be the mate of the former alpha of the werewolf pack (her mate Emil had been overthrown but not killed by a werewolf called Kirill), and freed the kids, looted the treasure in front of the altar (pissing off the woman) and then poured some spring water into footprints in the mud before drinking it. This got a few of us the Poisoned condition when we failed our CON checks-- the whole rigamarole was because we'd heard that drinking water from a werewolf's footprint would cure the lycanthropy curse-- including most of the children when we had them do the same, since we couldn't be sure if they'd been afflicted with the curse either.

Then we schlepped the whole troupe of kids back to Vallaki, taking them to Milo the gravedigger, asking him and his mother to look after them until we could arrange to transport the kids back to Krezk (since we found out later they were from Krezk). Also, we had found the Tome of Strahd in the treasure we'd looted, and it detailed how Strahd had conquered the land of Barovia in the name of his father, the jealousy he'd felt when the woman he loved (Tatyana) chose to marry his brother Sergei instead, how he'd corrupted the Fanes (druid-hags) in order to attain immortality, and how he'd been cursed with vampirism after killing his brother.

Plidwick the evil animate doll popped up and told Mort that someone had been looking for him. And it transpires that Ireena has now been possessed by this someone-- one Queen Juliaton for short (her full name/title is "Her Royal Excellency, Emperor-Queen Shawing Burlassus Juliaton, Mostbestus of Lemueruxe and Korrokoorlund, Faurust of Allland, Queen Jewel of Appleye")-- and she was quite upset with Mort for not having yet laid her to rest! The rest of the party was brought up to speed on all this, adding further wrinkles to our issues, as we'll have to find a way to help out Juliaton so she'll stop possessing Ireena.

So there's a lot of quests for us to explore.

[Nunavut Pants]

After several more losses, I won Terraforming Mars again!

Among the Milestones that were available were for having 20 heat resources and for having four plant/animal/microbe tags on your cards. My two "prelude" cards gave me four heat production and two bonus heat, plus I had three more heat production and a few more bonus heat from my starting cards, which I was able to play because those were relatively cheap. My corporation's special power was when I increase production of a resource, I get one of those resources. So I had a ton of heat very quickly! I claimed the heat one on the second generation, then turned the resources into temperature increases which gain you Terraform Rating (which is both VP and income). I wound up also playing four cards with plant tags, and claimed the Milestone for that as well!

I also had played a card that let me change five heat resources into four steel resources, and another one that let me turn one steel resource into five money. Very convenient for someone making a ton of heat per generation!

Near the end of the game, I deferred using my plant resources to create forest tiles on Mars, because I didn't want my opponents to place a city to get points from my forests. (You get VPs for every forest tile next to one of your city tiles, even if you don't own the forest tile!) I was lucky enough to draw a card that built a city which was also a card I could use my steel resources on (each steel is worth 2 money when buying cards with a "building" tag on them), so I dropped that down and then made a whole bunch of forests around that city!

I also funded the Award that gave VPs for having the most green cards, which I did. I thought about trying to fund the one that gave VPs for the most tiles with open spaces next to them, but I didn't have enough money to do it. At least I was able to play the Predators card and use it to take animal resources away from an opponent.

Happily, I didn't need the other Award. I pulled off the victory, 66 to 60 to 56 to 56.

We are just finishing another game now, and I am very definitely in last place there. That's despite getting full points for two Awards. (No Milestones, though, and not enough other points.)

[Jay 2K Winger]

Dragonlance update--

So, we may be continuing the campaign? Eric doesn't really want to end it on a cliffhanger, so we may do one or two final sessions to wrap it up, and/or bring in new players for that purpose before moving to a new campaign. Time will tell, we have a few weeks before we'll all be able to meet for things.

Curse of Strahd '26--

So the Party got sort of arrested for suspicion of murdering Henrik the coffin-maker (not technically our fault) and Bluto the fisherman (is our fault, or at least Trig's fault) and were dragged before the burgomeister for it. The town guard were led by Izek Strazni, who is Trig's long lost baby brother, a giant of a man with a malformed arm. Phil the DM played Burgomeister Vargas Vallakovich very Drumph-coded, which we all noticed immediately and even Phil was having trouble keeping a straight face at times. Much like the politician in question, Vargas was quick to lay the blame on outsiders, but we were allowed to accompany Izek and the guards to the coffin-maker's shop to find evidence to prove our innocence.

Which is when we ended up fighting a bunch of vampire spawn. A few of the guards were killed, and a few of the Party went down before getting back up-- but Phil added tension to the combat by not letting players roll their own death saves, he would roll them himself, but would not reveal the result... except for when Willow the druid's death save came up a Nat-20, meaning she came back to consciousness with 1 HP. We managed to take out all the spawn, with Trig landing the last blow on the last spawn with a bog-standard roll, but I rolled max damage (6+6+8+3) and was given leave to narrate how I dealt the last blow. I describe him as flourishing his rapier (his casting True Strike for radiant damage) and the blade catching the light through one of the windows so it looked like it shone before skewering the last spawn through the back of the head.

Izek took the spawns' presence as proof that we weren't responsible for Henrik's murder, and had earlier admitted that no one particularly cared about the fisherman's death. We were free to go, though Vargas was clearly frustrated he no longer had an easy scapegoat for the trouble, while at the same time claiming credit for sending us to deal with said trouble. Izek and Trig sort of chatted briefly, but neither one wanted to be the first to broach the subject of "are you my brother?" so the issue never got addressed.

Potentia, meanwhile, finally got a chance to look at the wreckage in her room and everything and came to the uncomfortable realization that she had become a werewolf somehow. Willow the druid tried to reassure her-- her druidic beliefs held that werewolves were just another part of the natural cycle-- and they tried to make sure that Potentia wouldn't pose a threat to Ireena.

Oliver got his new Trig-doll delivered from Blinsky the toymaker and left it in Trig's room as a surprise. Trig, needless to say, was weirded the eff out to find a doll in his exact likeness, and then dragged Oliver to Blinsky's for answers. Mort got there first to try to convince Blinsky to lie about making the doll, but Blinsky was a terrible liar and Trig saw through the lie-- and was even more creeped out to discover that Blinsky had made multiple dolls in his likeness. ("I'm not wrong in saying this, but this is f**king weird.") Blinsky still wouldn't tell who had commissioned them, and eventually got annoyed by the questioning and ordered everyone out.

When everyone turned in for the night, Trig managed to avoid eating another dream pie to feed his addiction, but Potentia and Willow were interrupted early in the night by this older "average-aged" gentleman that we'd seen in the inn, and who had clocked Potentia coming downstairs covered in mud and blood. This was Rictavio, a monster hunter, and he outright said that Potentia had been afflicted with lycanthropy. He discussed the few methods of curing it-- either getting it removed by a holy man, or praying at the altar of Mother Night in the werewolves' den while doing a ritual-- and offered some sturdy rope with which to tie up Potentia at night, and some wolfsbane to burn before going to bed. (a la burning sage) And while talking, we all at the table realized that the wolves we'd fought in the first session, just after arriving in Barovia, hadn't been ordinary wolves. There had been CON saves involved, but nobody except the DM had been keeping track of who had failed their CON saves. Uh oh.

So we all bunked down... and in the morning Trig woke up in the forest, in front of a deer carcass, covered in blood. He was able to make his way back to the town, but the rest of the Party woke up to find the door to Trig's room knocked off its hinges, ditto the inn's door. Potentia found Rictavio limping back to the inn, not happy that "There are two of you!?" Trig got back, cleaned up, and was caught up on what was going on, when he realized that what might have stopped him changing in the night was the dream pies. "Those pies we bought from the old woman at the windmill." Rictavio was aghast that we'd been eating the pies, "You shouldn't eat the creations of hags."

We all eventually decided that-- while hags were a problem that needed dealing with-- our priority should be to either locate the werewolves' den (which may also contain knowledge we need to defeat Strahd) or get to Krezk and meet the Abbot, the only holy man powerful enough to remove curses.

Phil is doing a great job so far throwing a number of different threads for us to pull on, and I'm here for it.

[Jay 2K Winger]

Dragonlance--

Well... this is a sad update. We had our last session, and it looks like it will be our last session.

Jesse has previously expressed some dissatisfaction with the campaign, pretty much since the Pocket Nuke situation. DM Bob had made it clear he wasn't going to allow Justinius to craft another Pocket Nuke, and also put the kibosh on how certain spells were going to work (this part is pretty much enforcing RAW on the wording of the spells), but there were some other things that came along which I could tell Jesse was struggling with. Some of it I could sympathize with, like Bob playing hostile NPCs as being just as capable as Justinius and able to keep up with or negate any of his spells, and Jesse was trying to brute force or spam a way through a situation. Bob was trying to, without saying so, get Jesse to think more creatively with his character's capabilities and find a different way through a situation. And Jesse was getting frustrated with it.

I can sympathize with that. Bob is generally putting our party in repeatedly high-stakes, high-risk scenarios it seems like constantly, and even I sometimes struggle to find a good way to make a way through a situation, and to have Jesse's actual efforts to find creative solutions get kiboshed before even trying has to be frustrating.

After this week's session, which after some initial exploration and such led to the party needing to scout a military camp to gather some intel on the time period we'd traveled back to, we sent Catt in with her new Cloak of Flight and an Invisibility spell to try to scout it out. She found the main command tent, and tried to sneak inside, almost got found out, but managed to slip past the guards-- but her initial failed roll meant the guards had been alerted, as had the people inside the tent-- which included Fistandantilus. The evil wizard was able to detect her presence, and while she resisted his attempt to paralyze her and cut her way free of the tent, she got shot out of the sky by arrows when she attempted to fly away. And when Justinius tried to teleport/dimension-door his way to Catt and get her out of there, Fistandantilus was able to keep up with or counter nearly all of his spells. And both of them were captured as we closed out the session.

Jesse admitted afterward as we were leaving that he was going to be leaving the campaign, and posted in our Discord about it later. He just didn't feel like the campaign was for him any longer, the style just didn't work for him, and had no ill will toward anyone at the table. Mike (who runs the Discord) said he'd try to find another player, but then Camilla said she didn't feel comfortable playing with a new player after this long, and then admitted that she had been considering dropping out from the campaign herself-- but for health reasons (she has missed a few sessions due to health issues) and Jesse's departure sort of hastened it. So now we're out her as well, and Camilla likewise noted she'd loved playing with us for the three-plus years we'd been going, noting it was a miracle we'd met so consistently all that time.

I'm with Camilla that introducing a new player into the dynamic is very iffy, even more so when you're 40+ sessions into a campaign. It would be one thing if it were still early in it, or just starting a campaign.

But yeah... thus ends the campaign of the Misfits in the Dragonlance setting. Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

[Jay 2K Winger]

Dragonlance--

In the aftermath of the liberation of Vingaard, we briefly had to strategize about garrisoning the fortresses we'd captured, but we got some reinforcements from the WSF to help with that. But before we could plan the march to link up our powerbases and press on to liberate the rest of the continent, there was a problem.

All of the aftermath stuff took about a month in-game time, and then the Wizard Conclave reached out to Justinius. His apprentice Tasha was so naturally gifted that she was now on the verge of needing to take her Test of High Sorcery, so the Orders could begin teaching her higher-order magic. (Basically Tasha had gone from Level 1 to Level 6 in a very short time period.) The problem was that the Conclave was aware of Fistandantilus, the ancient evil wizard that had intervened in Justinius's own Test and given him the means by which to pass it. That was far from the first time that Fistandantilus had done this, and the concern was that he would appear to Tasha in her Test, and rather than make an offer to give her Power in exchange for some of her life force/magic potential (like he'd done with Justinius), he would just outright take all of her magical power, and her Irda heritage meant she has a lot of it. Fistandantilus could potentially absorb so much power that he could return from the half-life state he currently subsisted in.

We got some backstory on Fistandantilus here. He was one of the first wizards of the Orders of High Sorcery, from well before the First Dragon War, when he'd been chosen as the pupil of one of the gods of magic. He'd been there, shaped history -- he'd created the Dragon Orbs, the Towers of High Sorcery, and after turning evil, had been responsible for orchestrating the Cataclysm. He'd turned to evil after beseeching the gods for immortality so he could continue his pursuit of knowledge, been rejected, and ended up being given an artifact called the Blood Stone by the evil goddess Takhisis. With the Blood Stone he could steal the life force/magic power of others to sustain his own life. Thus he'd become an ancient evil that survived the Cataclysm and had even started a plot to supplant Takhisis herself, to steal her power and become a god in his own right, but his ritual had failed at a place called Zhaman, which had exploded and reduced the surrounding region into the Plains of Dust.

Fistandantilus had even survived this, but he existed in a sort of in-between state, outside the material plane, and used his power to reach out to people he thought he could manipulate into giving him what he needed to sustain himself, but was always angling to restore himself to full power. The Conclave had been trying ever since Zhaman to find a way to stop him, as a previous Master of High Sorcery had devised a method of time travel, hoping to go back to interfere in his ritual and destroy the Blood Stone, but thus far it had always failed for a variety of reasons. Another complication was the presence of Raistlin Majere, a quasi-mentor of Fistandantilus and very powerful wizard in his own right. Raistlin sought to usurp Fistandantilus's position and hijack the ritual to become a god himself. And if he did this, it would fulfill the condition of a curse on a sealed Tower of High Sorcery, as he would become a "Master of Past and Present" and potentially open a portal to the Abyss.

The Conclave needed to deal with Fistandantilus so that he wouldn't be able to interfere in Tasha's Test of High Sorcery, and destroying the Blood Stone would neutralize his threat. Its existence was tied to his, so he needed to be destroyed before the Stone could be destroyed. Raistlin also needed to be neutralized before unleashing actual hell on the world. The Conclave was prepared to give the party the means to go back in time and find a means of clearing problems up so Tasha can take her Test.

If we failed, the Conclave would have to kill Tasha-- if she cannot take her Test, the risk of her power driving her mad meant she could become a majorly powerful rogue element they would be obligated to destroy.

So of course we agreed to take the mission. All we need to do now is defeat the most powerful evil wizard in all of history at the height of his mortal power, deal with his would-be usurper, and destroy or depower a magical artifact made by a divine being. And somehow don't disrupt the causality of history and cause a temporal paradox, which could cause a chain reaction that would unravel the very fabric of the spacetime continuum and destroy the universe!

Granted that's a worst-case scenario.

Curse of Strahd '26--

So Strahd himself turned up in our tent in the Vistani camp, drawn by the presence of Tatyana's soul in Willow. After the initial jump-scare of his arrival, he was polite and apparently forthright in explaining he wanted to be free of the curse. He was bored of his perpetual existence and being trapped in Barovia, wanting to be free to move on-- even if it meant death, so long as his soul was allowed to go on to whatever awaited. (Though he would prefer not dying.) He even offered some assistance in cleansing the fanes, admitted his fault in bringing down the curse, while claiming it was to defend Tatyana. When called out on killing his brother before his wedding day to Tatyana, Strahd just claimed that his brother had betrayed him.

None of us trusted him, of course, but cautiously agreed that so far our goals aligned. No promises. Strahd accepted this and left.

Mort unrolled this big rug he'd gotten from the Vistani as payment for saving Arabella. Turned out the magic he'd detected inside it came from this animated puppet inside, Piddlewick II ("Plidwick") who immediately imprinted on Mort and called him "Mommy!" ("Grandmommy" really, Mort is very old.) Mort agreed to let Plidwick come along with them, and after learning that Plidwick was really good at stabbing people, instructed him that "You can't stab someone without asking them first."

We entered Vallaki and took Ireena to the church, only to find out it was no longer hallowed ground-- the bones of St Andral had been stolen from the crypt. Asking one of the church mice (via Speak with Animals), we found out the teenaged gravedigger Milivoj ("Milo") had done it, we accidentally spooked him into running home, but we just followed him and questioned him in the door of his house and found out he'd been paid to do it by the local coffin-maker, Henrik.

But while three of us had been doing that, Oliver and Mort had been distracted by Blinsky Toys, a toymaker's shop. ("Is no fun, is no Blinsky!") Blinsky was fascinated by Plidwick and wanted to examine him. Mort claimed to have made Plidwick "by accident." Blinsky ended up getting stabbed in the hand by Plidwick, who did at least ask first, but then just immediately stabbed without waiting for proper consent. They also noted that Blinsky's workshop in the back of the store was full of dolls made in the likeness of Trig. These were commissioned works, but Blinsky wouldn't say who had asked for them. Oliver ended up asking for one to be made himself, so they could surprise Trig later.

This was something that, at the table, made me just start grinning, because I am aware of why as I'm familiar with the Curse of Strahd book-as-written. As written, Izek Strazny is actually Ireena's biological brother-- she was adopted by the burgomeister of Barovia Town as a very young girl, while Izek was left orphaned in Vallaki. He misses his sister and basically threatens Blinsky into making dolls in her likeness-- based on visions he receives. But since that element of the backstory has apparently been removed in DM Phil's version, and Izek's lost sibling is Trig Cove, he's commissioning the dolls in Trig's likeness instead.

Again, I love this variance to it all.

We went on to go interrogate Henrik the coffin-maker. Plidwick got to stab him to get him to talk, and we learned Henrik had been ordered by a nobleman named Vasili von Holtz to steal the bones of St Andral. There were also possible vampires sleeping in the coffins upstairs. We managed to sneak in and get the bones out without triggering a fight, and took the bones back to the church. But none of us noticed that Plidwick hadn't come back with us. When we did, it was almost sundown, and Trig pointed out it would be a bad idea going back into Henrik's shop (where we assumed Plidwick was) at nighttime when there were vampires inside. So we went to the inn.

In the morning, Trig's crow familiar was dead, Plidwick had returned to Mort, now wearing a mouse-skin cloak adorned with black feathers, and Potentia woke up to find herself covered in blood, clothing torn, with blood and mud under her fingernails.

And at breakfast, the innkeeper warned us to be cautious-- a murdered body had been found down by the lake, and Henrik had been found dead as well.