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champagnereverie · 5 years

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Mile High Lullaby, Episode 1: Loveland Ski Area

We meet our intrepid heroes for this campaign at 11,000 feet, on a sparkling winter day at Loveland Ski Area. While all are there for different reasons, love of adventure is hardly one of them...most are reluctant visitors, and the peak’s rugged beauty is less of a draw than the warm fire place and activities happening at the Lodge.

We meet Alvin Redding, paladin, devoted son, Juggalo, scion of the vaunted Redding family and heir to the Red Rocks Environmental Development corporation (RRED). He is here with his best friend, former Juggalo/sell-out/RRED Head of PR, Danny McGee, and Alvin’s beloved mother, RRED CEO Elizabeth Redding (a Gucci devotee even in the face of single digit temperatures). Ever the good son, Alvin channels his fire genasi power to conjure flames and warm his mother, strange looks be damned. Elizabeth and Danny are slightly more concerned about the looks.

We meet Io Morrow, blue-haired air genasi astronomer, as distant as her objects of study. A druid with a connection to the cosmos as strong as any other’s connection to the land, she feels the pull of the stars and a simmering disdain for the light pollution that robs Denver and surrounds of their sky. She is here holding an educational lock-in for teens about light pollution activism with her fellow professor Evelyn Schneider. Evelyn prefers to be called Cassiopeia. Io refuses.

We meet Cedy Doun, a longstrider shifter of unicorn heritage that gives him unmistakable features that turn the heads of even cosmopolitan Denverites: the powerful haunches and hooves of a palomino horse and the upper body of a man, with a horn in his forehead that serves as the equine wizard’s built-in wand. Highly intelligent, educated, and wise, Cedy also possesses the high-strung nature of his ancestor...and a nasty narcolepsy curse placed on him by a witch he knows only as Naproxen.

We meet Lute, a drow farmer who is having a very, very hard time with all the sun shining off the snowy peaks, the ensuing snow blindness likely not what her coworkers intended when they sent the workaholic farm hand to the mountains for a rest. She is a simple woman, a bit of a bumpkin, but also a stout warrior and an absolute genius with mechanics. Lute feels out of place on the mountain, surrounded by the wealthy at play, thrill seekers, activists, and the occasional wandering curiosity, but at least she’s given a proper jacket before the sun sets on the mountain.

Io and Evelyn capture the attention of their fellows, preaching the ecological impact of light pollution on the environment, animals, and even people. They’re watched closely by pair of humanoid Denver police in the while and gold uniforms worn by all members of the theocracy. The astronomers’ diatribe turns critical of the gold-plated rooftops of Denver, mandated to honor the Sun Goddess Amatis, and they are interrupted by a Department of Wildlife ranger, who clandestinely alerts them to the authorities about to put an end to their lecture.

The ranger, a young woman with a bobbed haircut, heavy black eyeliner and a chip on her shoulder, seems to be familiar with two members of ski patrol: a stunning woman with long wavy black hair and mischief all over her face introduces herself as May, and gets Lute a coat so the poor drow doesn’t freeze. A tall, muscular man with a waist-length braid introduces himself as Chris and warns the newbies not to take the peak lightly.

As the day turns into evening and the final lifts are coming in for the day, the valley is rocked by the sound of an explosion, and an avalanche crashes down the slopes. The last occupied lift chair is buried under a mass of snow, threatening to suffocate or crush the family of three trapped beneath it.

On the bunny slopes east of the lift, a ski class is slammed down the slope by the avalanche onto the village pavement. To the horror of the instructor, two of the children from the class didn’t make it to the bottom.

Our heroes realize that under so much snow, the victims likely have 3 minutes or less before they suffocate. The countdown begins.

Alvin and Lute leap into action to save the lost students, following the baying guidance of Chris’ two basset hound assistants, Tybalt and Mercutio, who he rushes up the mountain in a sled pulled by a snowmobile. Faced with powdery snow that can’t hold their weight, Alvin uses his natural fire to make a solid icy crust for himself and Lute to run on, and they use their considerable strength to dig out 8-year-old Alex and his 9-year-old sister Rocio. Alvin wraps the boy in his coat and makes a tiny bro for life. When Lute pulls Rocio from the snow, she recognizes the girl likely has a collapsed lung, and sends her down the hill with May on the snowmobile to get her to treatment from the Emergency Clerics as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, Io announces to all present that she’s detected the smell of gunpowder, and a massive brown wolf digs furiously at the spot where the last lift chair is buried. Io, driven more by curiosity perhaps than by any innate heroism, follows the wolf and helps dig...using her magic, she detects not just the family of three under the snow, but a fourth figure as well. Cedy, possessing hooves and a skiddish nature, considers fleeing until a small child on tiny skis bumps into him while trying to scramble up the slope. Learning that the child’s mom, dad, and sister are the ones trapped under the fallen chair, Cedy straps skis to his hooves, scoops up the child on his back and carries the little boy up the mountain.

Their charges safely delivered to the keeping of Ski Patrol, Alvin steals Chris’ snowmobile and Lute wisely rolls her way down the slow to the fallen lift. Realizing that one of the 4 shapes under the snow is somehow rising, the wolf shoulders the small child out of the way, and Cedy pulls the kid away from the hole. Io grabs a fascinating crystal as it rises to the surface, only to lose her hold on it when the wolf clamps its massive jaws down on her wrist. Alvin and Lute immediately start digging, knowing the clock is ticking for the buried family.

As the crystal falls, the first hand is uncovered from the snow...a man. The wolf grabs the unconscious man by the coat and starts dragging him down the hill. The fallen crystal snaps into a living being of ice and malice, and attacks our heroes with savage claws and frigid breath that’s so cold it burns. Alvin shrugs off the attacks of the creature, instead focusing on digging out a second figure...a little girl. The boy in Cedy’s care takes his sister down the mountain, and the wizard turns his considerable brain to the task of identifying the creature and its weaknesses...an ice mephit, impervious to cold but vulnerable to force or fire. Lute’s skill with a pitchfork becomes incredibly handy against the brittle creature, and Io hurls fists full of stars at the ice imp to melt its defenses.

Alvin pulls an unconscious woman from the snow and gives her the very shirt off his back, his hair flaming with righteous anger and generating as much body heat as he can for the frozen mother. Slashed, frozen and battered, our heroes defeat the mephit and take a moment to lick their wounds. Chris appears, snowshoe-clad and riding the back of May’s snowmobile. Fortunately, as far as dudes go he is about as chill as they come, and he’s here to take the mother back to base camp, not to raise the issue of the stolen snowmobile. His hounds no longer bay urgently, but instead offer tail wags of a job well done. May checks on the party and gives her congratulations and very charming wink or two before returning to her ski patrol duties.

The large wolf appears again and, in a flurry of fur and magic, transforms back into the shape of the bob-haired Wildlife ranger, who at last introduces herself as Chipeta. With a an entirely inconvenienced groan, she casts a healing spell that fully restores the entire party as effortlessly as rolling her eyes, which she does - a lot. After a brief conversation with someone that our heroes can neither see nor hear, Chipeta tells them that they’re expected.

The party follows the wolf druid up the slopes to an impossible cave that could neither exist nor be hidden if it did, but here we are. “Grandmother wants to see you,” Chipeta tells them, and, much chagrined, adds by way of directions through the magical labyrinth of caves, “Over the river and through the woods, to Grandmother’s house you go. The horse knows the way to carry the sleigh.”

The party is thusly left to navigate the cave, which is warm and smells like autumn, with the sound of running water guiding them to a subterranean river. They ford the warm water and emerge into a forest, or at least the essence of a forest, as the scent of pine and feeling of soft fir needles on their skin doesn’t seem to have any source that our company can detect.

They come at last to three separate paths, and, remembering Chipeta’s unenthusiastic rendition of the song, everyone looks to Cedy to see if, in fact, the horse knows the way. Suddenly aware of something strange in his pocket, Cedy realizes that something has been pickpocketed onto him - a stone, with three indentations but only one that passes all the way through. Matching the stone to the orientation of the cave, Cedy guides the party through a doorway to a large den occupied by a massive, sprawling tree covered in autumn leaves and occupied by a mammoth coyote wearing a beaded headress.

Grandmother Coyote welcomes the heroes with a smile that has entirely too many teeth and thanks them for helping her children. Chipeta, May, and Chris, it turns out, are all members of the Mouache tribe, who have been charged with keeping the Nameless trapped under the Continental Divide for as long as the people have inhabited these mountains.

Grandmother then poses a classic riddle to the company: “When you walk the mountain, you come to two paths. One leads to the Sacred Valley, another leads you astray and you wander forever. Two golden reflections of the same woman appear at the head of each trail. One always tells the truth, and one always lies. What should you ask to determine who is who?”

Thanks to Cedy’s powers of logic, they answer the riddle to Grandmother’s satisfaction, who then poses another...a riddle that does not yet have an answer, but that they must seek the answer to, instead. “Now what do you do if both reflections are liars? What do you do if neither knows the way to the Sacred Valley, and they lie to keep everyone at the base of the mountain, under her?” Charging our heroes to find the answer to this unanswered riddle and to help her children keep the Nameless contained, Grandmother Coyote offers them a gift, if they can find it, and they sense that they have taken enough of the ancient predator’s time.

On the way out of the cave, our heroes catch sight of something in the summery river. Alvin fishes it out and finds beaver skin with strange pictoglyphs shaved into it. As they ask themselves what the skin might be, the glyphs come to life and sketch out the shape of the slope, and show a safe path down the mountainside and back to the village. Reunited with Chipeta at the entrance, our heroes make their way down the mountain, guided by the beaver skin map.

As they pass, the smell of gunpowder hangs in the air.

#dnd #dungeons and dragons #urban fantasy #mile high lullaby #modern dnd #game recap #because my memory isn't good enough to keep all this straight

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pigeon-princess · 4 years

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I'm would literally die to know what happened 💜

To explain what happened with Tybalt I have to give a bit of context so I hope this doesn’t end up too incredibly long ahaha!!

Tybalt and Evris

Tybalt and the rest of his adventuring party were replying to a distress call from a wealthy manor owned by the Ithiar family. When we arrived we saw the whole place was wrecked, the dead bodies of servants, guards and wolf-like creatures were scattered throughout the house.

Scanning the hallways we found a portrait gallery displaying paintings of members of the family. Tybalt’s eye particularly caught on the oldest son, a handsome young drow man with short dark hair. Being a romantic and an idiot, Tybalt joked to the party about a heroic rescue and how the young drow would fall head over heels in love with him.

After some intense combat with the jackals, we heard a gut wrenching scream from upstairs. On the top landing we stumbled on the freshly dead body of the very same drow, now a bloody mess on the floor with his throat ripped out. Unable to revive him, the rest of the party sprung into action to kill the jackals and save the drow’s younger sister, who through a face full of tears, told us her brother's name was Evris. AS I PLAYER I ALMOst Broke down at that point. TYBALT just shut down, going through the rest of the manor feeling useless, selfish and guilty. At one point, Tybalt decided to gently pick up Evris’s body and carry him back to his bed, closing his eyes and saying that he was sorry he wasn’t able to save him.

With the help of Sabia the younger sister, we traced the source of the Jackals to a dungeon in the mountains only to be shocked when Sabia sprung a trap on us in the throne room, turning back into her true form as a half woman, half lion monstrosity.

At the height of battle, the doors to the throne room slammed open and in stormed the young, handsome drow, clothes disheveled and bloody but very much alive. The whole table started screaming, I absolutely jumped to my feet. He helped us defeat the Lamia, and told us that he wasn’t sure how he was alive, and that he had been resurrected through some kind of contract with a god.

Throughout the last session, Tybalt’s muscle memory as a bodyguard really kicked in and he was very protective over Evris, especially since he was facing the dead bodies of his family and to be honest, I think Tybalt (AND myself) was just in shock that he was still alive. The whole party was very concerned for his mental well being, and Evris was definitely starting to get frustrated at how much we were trying to baby him.

Before the party left the manor for the morning, Tybalt got very close and took Evis gently by the chin, just casually inspecting his face. He then pulled away cheekily saying “Just checking to make sure you’re still alive.” and walked off down the stairs, leaving Evris standing dumbstruck in the foyer.

During the events of the day, talking to the captain of the guard, discussing a plan of action to help Evris find the rest of his family and an afternoon at the spa, Tybalt told the party that he was adopted by the Montague family and that he was the bodyguard for their son Romeo. Rolling a natural 20 on insight, Evris could sense that there was something bitter sweet about the way Tybalt talked about Romeo, especially when he mentioned that Romeo recently got married.

We returned to the Idlehammer tavern for a rowdy evening and as the party was going to bed, Tybalt cornered Evris in the hallway, once again taking his chin gently, he inspected his face saying “Hmm Good to know you’re still alive. Goodnight.” (totally meaning for it to be flirty and a bit cheeky) but when he turned to leave Evris grabbed his arm. When Tybalt turned back he was not expecting to see Evris was looking at him very seriously, with an edge of confusion and frustration. He very firmly stated that that he definitely wasn’t undead (WHICH Tybalt had no intention of implying), and that he’s sick and tired of people treating him like he can’t handle himself, Tybalt was quite taken aback to say the least. Evris then berated him and asked him why he was acting so strangely around him and after stammering out some excuse about wanting to protect him, THE FINAL KICK In the gut was that Evris straight up told Tybalt, “I don’t know what your history was with Romeo but I don’t need to be protected and stop treating me like I’m him!”

That sent Tybalt’s head absolutely spinning, having to take a step back to breathe and realising that Evris was completely right and that he had been seeing Evris as Romeo. The memories of his first love, the one person he would give everything for, the person who he watched fall madly in love with another, knocked him into a stunned silence.

Leaving Tybalt with that, Evris said a solemn goodnight and returned to his room. I told the DM that Tybalt was not going back to his room, and instead was going to go out of the tavern and ask people where the nearest brothel was. The entire party at the table was losing their minds and none of us could believe how quickly things had escalated. With the memories of Romeo spinning in his mind, Tybalt reverted back to the only coping mechanism that he had, which was throwing himself into the arms of strangers.

AND THAT was how we left the last session!!??? AAA? There’s so much I had to leave out about the party and all the little in between moments throughout the last few sessions but that’s the general story of what happened with Tybalt. I’m living for the angst and I’m very determined to draw some of these events out in comics or illustrations when I have the time!

#dnd #Tybalt #Evris #Dungeons and Dragons #d&d #IM STILL EMOTIONAL #dnd story #EVRIS WAS RIGHT AND HE SHOULD SAY IT #THE DRAMA THE ROMANCE #Anonymous

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pigeon-princess · 4 years

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!!! Did you play any more of the Tybalt campaign? What happened, how are things between him and Evris rn??? If you wouldn't mind sharing that is... I've somehow gotten very invested in the love life of your green boy ^^'

YES!! We’ve played two more sessions and OH my god wow a LOT has happened!! I’ll try and summarise but I know this is going to be a big info dump!! And just in case (tw: sexual assault) due to some of the events in the last session.

Tybalt and Evris continued: Princes and Prejudice

So what we know about Evris is that his mother Elrynn, who is a drow woman, married a halfling bard named Yir. Despite Yir’s family’s disapproval, the two were passionately in love and had two children and although Evris was a child from Elrynn’s previous marriage he was loved and raised just the same. Elrynn’s past was also never discussed in the family home.

We heard from Evris that a few weeks prior, a noble-looking drow man he had never seen before arrived at their home, talked with his mother, handed her an amulet and left. This same amulet was the one that the Lamia was looking for and the reason why Evris’s family was attacked so we decided our best lead was to track down this mysterious drow. Our wizard Merlin overheard that the mysterious visitor's name was Andras and that he was from Ered Wethrin, the neighbouring country.

In order to cross the border we had to make our way over a mountain range known as The Trespassers. The trip across the mountains was rough to say the least, after narrowly missing some giant spiders, we ended up falling unconscious due to some sort of toxic gas and woke up, naked, tied to a log and being roasted over a fire pit by some hill giants. After a WILD combat and two dead hill giants later, we decided to camp out in the caves for the night.

Evris pulled Tybalt aside for a talk and Tybalt apologised for his behaviour the last time they spoke. Evris said that although he was not sorry for what he said, he’s sorry that he didn’t know the effect that it would have on Tybalt.

The situation with Evris’s not sleeping (he was taking points of exhaustion) was also brought up and Evris admitted that he was scared that if he fell asleep he wouldn't wake up again or that he would see this entity that brought him back to life and that scared him. He doesn’t know what it means to be a cleric and everything was just too much, with his family dead, missing or turned to stone. When he started tearing up, Tybalt pulled him into a hug which startled him, but he accepted it before pulling back quickly.

Later on in the evening while on watch with our monk Yarou, Evris confessed a very traumatic event from his backstory, about how he was once in love with a boy called Fenton, and how one day Fenton and a group of his friends sexually assaulted him. The whole table listened in shocked silence, aND I WAS HAVING A FIT that myself as a player knew this but Tybalt did not, and how I had been constantly getting in Evris’s personal space. Yarou also told Evris that it seemed like Tybalt was interested in him (I WAS LIKE AAA YAROU!!??) and was probably harmless but if he did anything to hurt Evris, Yarou would stop him. But Evris assured him that he was well aware and familiar with Tybalt's type (the overly flirty playboy) and could handle himself (OUGH MY HEART,,, I promise he’s not using you Evris).

During our watch, we were ambushed by the Knights of the Radiance, the military power of Ered Wethrin. We were knocked out by poison darts and we all woke up in a cell, chained to the wall while the guards were interrogating Evris in the next cell over, asking him about a smuggling group.

After we saw one of the guards was attempting to sexually assault Evris our whole party went into an angry frenzy. Tybalt almost broke the bars down trying to get out of the cell, only managing to bend them heavily while our rogue managed to pick the lock to the door. We had a bit of a scuffle, tackling the guards until Evris announced that he was the son of Elrynn and he demanded to speak with Andras, the guards immediately froze. BUT hearing the name Elrynn they suddenly agreed?? and took us through a teleportation circle to the capital city A'latariel.

All feeling very apprehensive, we were led into A CASTLE?! Where we met with Andras who turned out to be both a prince of Ered Wethrin and Evris’s birth father?!?! So it looks like Elrynn was married to the prince!! And ran away with her halfling bard lover!!! So Evris is technically a prince??? And in line for the throne?? It was all a lot for us to take in, especially for Evris, so we stayed in a very expensive inn, ordered a huge amount of food and alcohol and put it on daddy Andras’s tab. We had a very lively conversation about how many nuns it would take to defeat 1 stone giant, and Evris being the giant expert drunkenly calculated that perhaps 1000 arcane nuns would be an adequate number.

In the meantime since we’ve been in Ered Wethrin none of us trust Prince Andras and we’re learning more about the real truth behind that amulet, we’ve also just learnt of an underground resistance group that we’re trying to get in contact with. Tybalt has been helping Evris attempt to send messages to his missing family members through sending spells. Because of this, they ended up having a heart to heart conversation while sharing a room in the inn, bonding over the shared prejudice they’ve faced for being a drow and a half orc in places where they are looked down upon unfavourably. Evris shared his personal backstory trauma relating to his sexual assault and Tybalt actually shared his as well for the first time in his life (The other players did not hear this either, but if people would like to hear Tybalt’s backstory I can to put the details in a separate under the cut post!)

In the next session I have been putting together a plan to surprise Evris with a “Lady and the Tramp” style outdoor dinner date by the ocean, with the help our our party and our new half orc friends being the butlers. Despite Evris’s previous assumptions about Tybalt, after their talk I’m hoping that he’ll think of this dinner as a sincere romantic gesture but if not I hope it's at least an entertaining distraction for him considering all the stress he’s been going through.

And that's a very brief description of what's happened since last time!! This romance is so slow-burn but I’m enjoying every minute of it. I definitely focused this recount around Evris and Tybalt but a lot has happened with the other players in the party as well! I hope you enjoyed the update and if people have any further questions I’m more than happy to answer!

#dnd #d&d #dungeons and dragons #dnd stories #tw:sexual assault #Tybalt #Evris #d&d story #dnd story #SO MUCH DRAMA #long post #Anonymous

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