Gordian Nought

D&D 5e - The Lost Lands

Ysgard.

The peculiarity of the inviolability of the residence of Valmjr struck the cleric, as the shadows were ineffective at breaching its inner sanctum. The adorned shields incorporated mandalas, unrecognizable at first, but suggestive of the blessed purity of steel and faith. Was this a shrine impenetrable where an oracle would return? Or was this the site where the altar of championed sacrifices would be mounted on the wall? The nave issued a remembrance of Candlekeep, with its hallowed vestibules and consecrated books, ordered neatly like a tabernacle, dedicated to knowledge. An iconostasis of a myriad of visions rife with tomes that the former elf curdled in the back of her cerebrum.

The gloomy tendrils that provided additional false life became fainter around Wick’s armor, once fully submerged beneath the roof of the Hall. Strange. The bucolic sheepishness afforded a taint of wonderment of such a refuge. An annex dedicated to maimed couriers to the cause, hosting a bearer of an axe, a friend of their minuscule guide, begged more questions. If such a fortified rampart dwelled among them, where were the other diviners, sentinels, and defendants? The walled juggernaut was too good to be true. Or rather too polar for the necrotic minions of Darkness to envelop?

A church dedicated to the thereafter.

The warlock waddled towards the deranged wizard, leaning over slightly so that the gnome could easily eavesdrop.

“Holy places are no longer a sanctuary for death.” She paused making sure her vibrato was clear and her diction easy to follow.

“And death seems no longer a sanctuary from anything. But this place is different. Tell us, Birbin and Valmjr, what is this temple?”

D&D 5e - Hoard of the Dragon Queen

The ursine companion flapped softly onto the fur of its master's haughty shoulder. The meek wings folding inward, the evolutionary involution of a species removed and above the physical restraints of this earth.

Seven. At least.

This confidential knowledge would likely be no surprise to the divine aspirant of golden eyes. Additionally, the half-orc provided insight to this traveler’s dilemma, by suggesting a circumventing route. His talons again etched the soil, now writing in Common.

Traps ahead. No time for rest. We must go. They are waiting.

The chinless monstrosity soon obeyed the information distributed by the dark avian. His large grizzly cheeks were quivering in a meticulous fashion, masticating the risks and staving off the hunger such a corpus demanded. The path between Kyra and Parum opened, away from the treacherous snare ahead, lurking and lingering behind the ridges of strewn rocks. Reflecting upon his tainted pirate past, the bear ambled past the Hin, towering with enormous arms and legs. The tide of deception was mounting and the time was to swim to a shore of safety.

Torus posited a stance as he glanced over his back past Judgment, waiting for the others to follow suit. The force of his awkward posture seemed fetched, as the druid could not saunter such a pose for long.

He released the glance, bequeathing his hope some would take the offer of a ride without a saddle.

Alas, the inky bird remained by his ear, whispering the pangs of glory and sin.

DnD 5e - Beginner's Game

Only dunces dash into dragon’s dens.

Unless said hoarder was away on other matters of business or vacation. The reassurance that most of his troupe had tasted the ambiance past the entrance and breathed words, tipped the scales in favor of a greater reward over a meager risk. The foretold couple already hazarded the mentioned bubbling lochs and meres within the large cavity that jutted just beneath reality’s surface. Lairs assumed masters, and its breadth suggested a menacing immensity from the safe vantage of the hugging fog. Peril was taunting Bah’im, chancing danger and jeopardy before the flock his very eyes had kidnapped, as one by one, his fellow travelers were herded into that burping warren.

Curiosity maimed more and killed less.

Such prying led to Faustian pacts to sate the thirst of the unknown, where old seasoned men are willing to shed an eye and drink from the poisoned well of Mímisbrunnr. Discretion rationed the sanity of the trickster’s psyche from the nagging inquisitiveness of novelty’s cupid, uncovering murderous intent which oft married to the loving embrace of a Fatima. Becoming a pillar of salt or even opening a box of Pandoran plagues cemented the legendary folly of these endeavors, warning others of the pitfalls. Yet, prompted by an Evanesstra and Band, the dragonborn and its Angela desired to unleash the Anselmos and Vatheks of this unnecessarily fretful world, with little resources to compensate the maze hosting curios which required further investigation.

Soon, his outstretched arm became riddled with a verdant and inky mass, with fangs and a rattle opposed as the reptilian coil writhed the extremity of the marching wood elf.

“Stand back, everyone.” He mentioned mostly to the agricultural knights of childhood nightmares, as he waved his hissing familiar back and forth, approaching the entrance to the earthen fissure. “This snake can possess your soul… Ack!”

With that, the serpent locked gazes with the bladesinger, issuing a stiff march into the cave. Once inside, Marcus’ former star-crossed lover would scout the effervescing premises through the blindsight of his slithering companion, Mammon.

But first, he wanted to send a boisterous message.

So…

The one-eyed bandit stared. At all of the farmers. And whispered.

“Go home, before it’s too late.”

Mechanics

Bah’im will summon his Familiar and wrapped around his arm. With Performance of 8 (Passive Performance of 14) and Deception of 22 (Expertise), he will act as If he is being possessed, attempting to simultaneously surprise them from the fog.

He will end by whispering aloud via Minor Illusion in a demonic voice, originating between all of them, the last statement.

Afterwards, he plans to send his snake ahead, 100 feet, before peering through its senses.

D&D 5e - High Seas and Tall Tales

Instant jealousy rent the clown from the aquatic congo line, as Adrevz embraced the tentacled abomination. An adder’s tongue soon flowered behind the pearly gates of her clenched maw, ready to bloom a green-eyed monster from a yellow rosebud in hopes of smothering this new Desdemona. Envy graced the geisha’s mind as the merfolk druid inquired of her mentor’s happenings. Why? For attention? Should she don another coat of many colors, gifted by the very crown she inherited, only to be sold again into slavery by her newly adopted brethren? No. Her insane covetousness breached the ranks of Medea, Kitelys, and Dieanira, dripping with murderous hemlock. Though, the constant shenanigans likely was the rationale behind Nemiea’s departure. To which, the fool was concomitantly forlorn.

Her façade’s mask kept such an emotional pandemonium from poisoning the surrounding waters. No ripples creased her still face.

If only there existed a proverbial cliff, the prankster could launch her body from. Away from this troupe of satyrs. Yet, she needed them, and, oddly, specifically him. The Beholder always remained peculiarly a paradoxical object of desire and source of disdain. The many eyed pirate thwarted many progressions of her chaotic machinations, but righteously so. The expected and exceptional opposition provoked the jester, in turn, to be bolder and even more extravagant. Just to be noticed. Over and over.

And now there were two of ‘em. Hooray!

The silvery buffoon reeled closer to the duo, as her eyes twinkled in the deep ocean.

“Name’s Koan. Please to meet ya. Do tag along. It will be a blast! I guarantee it.”

5e D&D - Mines of Phandelver

Brim Gehenna

The battle ended on softer notes, as the eyes of a Gehenna broached through the foliage, a devilish transformation.

His lack of thrill, of prurience, of astonishment, of any sort of distinct interest, began to arouse a more severe distrust of Hymn, as the shapeshifter’s felicitous pretense of maculate origins spawned Ardiane. A Potemkin bard bred of crocodile tears, standing as an Archimago, full of mawworms and newspeak over the panting rogue. Was she both a Goneril and Regan, falsely professing love in efforts to inherit a king’s trust, leering over an eventual inheritance? Or, better yet, a vicar of Bray, hiding as a sanctimonious hypocrite? A pharisaical step-son disguising animosity as philanthropy, in order to seduce her, or was it, his next victim. The sorcerer felt utterly incapable of playing the part of ignorance properly, any longer.

He was afraid to try.

Certainty accompanied ready-made suspicions now, viewing her previous politeness as a deviant and aberrant phenomenon. And yet how else could he now receive him? Or was it her? Not heartily! Impossible due to the psychological betrayal. His only objective, to stave his mind from further inquiries, was to watch a little longer.

Brim knew Hymn. Didn’t he?

Another provoked, point-blank question. From its novelty and its surreptitious nature, punctilious courtesy prompted the manner best calculated to restrain the lanky, smelly man. There stood the apathetic taciturnity of a beautiful Cleopatra, now empathic to a mortal betwixt her. The danger of his confidence in the Tiefling, now turned half-elf, infringed through his facial defenses, fetching a flattering reality, bluntly. His frown, audible to only pregnant nerves, alarmed to contract unnaturally, to such a writhing avidya.

A direct lie. For moral reasons.

The struggle of identity savored a similar occupation with the composer of stone’s history. The burly, wet mage hurriedly brushed past the safety of the leaves, conjuring slowly, meticulous graves for the goblins, crypts of gravels suitable to bury those without names, and now, futures. After sealing the earth once more over their collective corpus, strangely enough, the giantkin no longer was disconcerted by the mysterious similitude of the young musician’s oblique approach.

She evidently cared for Kiki. And that was enough for the goliath.

"I leckon we thould move befo’ mo angly gobwinth thow up.”

Mechanics

Brim uses Mold Earth to dig graves for gobbos.

D&D 5e - Hoard of the Dragon Queen

Sounds good. I also would like to avoid a scuffle. For now.

D&D 5e - Hoard of the Dragon Queen

Seven or more VS. Five of us. Go another route? Or fight?

D&D 5e - The Lost Lands

The corpse of a woman slid down the building expeditiously, hugging close to the monster slayer’s hisses into the stillness that plagued once again the town under the couth heaven. She supposed the ranger’s assumption of another ally warranted the attached greeting and introduction, eavesdropping the authentic extended name, devoid of any deceit. Though the mask begged a different quarrel; its dim pale oval beckoned more questions than answers, to which Thea often ignored, in seeking its absent obstruction to the man behind the guise.

The shadows of faint life flickered about the ornate half-plate of the reborn sage, barely contrasting the light-haired head, atop the swiveling neck surveying the Hela wielding friend of Birbin. Even then, one could only barely decipher the horrid, frost-bound sensations when nearing the bewitched librarian, boiling from the at-will necromantic facsimile. It gripped her tighter like a vise as she gleaned the words.

The Kingdom of Light.

The sickly clutch fastening around her chest and waist, a moment of vain exclamations, to the inky bondage without a safe word. Her nimble boots climbed and closed the distance to the newly added warrior. She hung to the left of Theodore, ghastly, silvery, and fishlike. The pitched scales remained a muted and augmented constitution, but toyed with the surrounding air, like an Olympian performing laps, swimming round and round, providing an atmosphere of joyless strength. She realized it was not inconceivable that this vessel could capsize into the deeps of such power. However, such a price may be warranted, and Wick believed this angelic body could bear such a burdensome stigma.

The warlock cleared her throat, prompting a troubled incertitude. The distressed interruption fileted the dual quarries offered to Valmjr, scrutinizing his abandonment of the absent-minded gnome wizard.

“The sun can warm your skin or blister your hide, light your path or blind you. It is a fickle friend, but a far worse enemy, kept in plain sight, checked for silence but never taxed for speech.”

D&D 5e - Hoard of the Dragon Queen

Will do. Judgment will have to return to peck on the ground to explain the campsite's number as it is out of range for Torus to employ the full benefits of the familiar.

@Hekazu

D&D 5e - Hoard of the Dragon Queen

The side of the ursine brute rose its front left claws as it halted the troupe, breaking the outlook of the opaque belt of the horizon before their ensuing trek.

The druid saw something, but required the eyes of clouds to enumerate his suspicions.

The ashen familiar, registering the signal of the paw, flashed phosphorescent feathers full of dark flight, issuing into the naked sky above. Judgment's wings flickered into the heavens, the sleeping blue which wrapped the earth with its breathy maw. The fowl would have to gather intel, alone, as it elusively severed the range with its master’s mystical visual connection.

The bear, with a lively grunt, turned and revealed its stratagem upon the compressed soil, audibly drawing the scheme afore the company. Talons revealed two etch marks on parallel sides representing a pair, flanking either direction of the enemy's pavilion, depicted as a circle. The square in the middle materialized as the paw beat the transcendent thorax and again pointed at the quadrangular polygon, suggesting self, buried in the symbol of the rectangle. Its long legs, supporting the broad furry back, reflexively fidgeted into a more comfortable position, intermittently, while crouching, immersed in the devices of drawing arrows. The bear up the middle, while each duo verging the lateral skirts of the elliptical campsite.

The dirty ruse was complete.

The sailor only lingered for the avian’s return.