Gordian Nought

D&D 5e - The Lost Lands

"Exactly, Theodore." She felt appeased by the chorus of the Templar, his angelic voice resounding in her skull.

The diviner lowered the rod, managing just in time, to glean Haemar and Thea in discussion, whilst Birbin's unseen servant accompanied her very own with tasks of tidying the shrine. The muffled voice of the wizard bluntly appeared persistent since the paladin, based on her contorted visage, required a significant amount of persuasion.

Wick walked closer.

Her eyes and ears were attempting to decipher and discern the subtle insight of a possible mutinous accord. Did her tirade rift a dissection amongst her allies? Her companions. Not everyone was prepared to risk life and limb for such lost lands. Not even the Face of this world.

"Speak up, friend." The staff began to glimmer as its bottom danced upon the vines, discarded and disentangled from yester battle. "No need to dread in waking the dead. Please parley with us your whispers so that others may wager on your apparent gamble."

The cleric yearned that her suspicions were not warranted, but validation was mandatory, if such a trek was to be ventured. Numbers would garner favor, over time, in their quest, and the more, the sprightlier. She massaged the texts awaiting a reassuring retort, that all was well amidst the wardens of Light.

Mechanics

Wick casts Shillelagh as she nears Thea, Haemar, and Birbin. She awaits their response or any other intervening rebuttal.

@The Harbinger of Ferocity@Hekazu@Cu Chulainn@JBRam2002

D&D 5e - High Seas and Tall Tales

All appeared quiet on the western front, as the duo waltzed in, fully absorbing the adjacent barren nook.

With the draconic mystic nowhere to be discovered, only the crew of the S.S. Lady Slipper was left, seemingly amassed near another cranny riddled with stalagmites. The final stages of an apparent interrogation transpired as Jill revealed the medallion, given by Bledig, to an unseen person of interest, swaying its pendulous weight with purpose and pride. A reply rippled its rebuttal, clear and cold as fear and gold, to their captain.

“Looks like we're on the same team.”

Soon, thereafter, three thunderous crows of blows upon stone betrayed their positions. The jester sensed the excitement of likely another playmate entering the mix, but quickly was intercepted by a rivaling sight of metallic sentries, trotting in unison to an invisible drummer. The blue geisha raised her hand in effort to garner attention. Yet, Koan was easily ignored, similar to the tale of that annoying boy that cried Theullai. Nippily, an additional upper extremity ascended in accord, but no one gave it mind nor acted as if anything was out of the ordinary, belonging and blending into the walls, like a Fuzzy-Wuzzy marching straight out from the tainted pages of a forgotten Kipling ballad.

“Um. Then, who are they? Are they our opponents?”

She continued to point and jab to gather awareness to the show-worthy jeopardy soon to befall them. The flaunting glaives glimmering off the chrome suggested danger and endangerment. No matter if the cobalt contortionist was unheeded; this was a moment to demonstrate her worth once more. Serendipity smiled upon Sauron's giggling smurfette, allowing her to harvest yet another crimson badge of courage, assuming blood could be spilt.

At any rate, there wasn’t any time to waste or fun to lose.

The cerulean comic spun and spun, like an Olympic whirling dervish, eventually tossing a bright pink lob, landing upon and flushing a single line of the couplet of automatons.

“I got one, Noriam! Time to reel’em in!”

While still revolving as a cyclonic rotary, a tornadic pair of rays, curved, fast and whelmed with Eldritch energy, sank into the pocket of the now rosy machine. The cemented smirk on the fool’s visage, began to decrescendo as her umpire eyes, despite landing her pitched strikes, reaped their persistent staccato pace.

Still towards them and their makeshift base.

“Guys, um, they're up to bat.” She exclaimed, near Cynthia, as she took nearby cover behind their friendly neighborhood azure tiger.

Mechanics

Koan's Action: Faerie Fire on one of the Monsters. Wild Mage Surge triggers granting Disadvantage to Spell Saves the next minute to enemies. Two rays of Eldritch Blast is Quickened on the Automaton that is engulfed in pink Faerie Fire, dealing a mere 12 damage. She finishes her movement next to Cynthia.

Koan has 10/43 HP.

3/4 First level spell slots.
0/3 Second Level Spell Slots left.
3/3 Third level Spell Slots.

0/2 First Level Warlock Spell Slots.

3/4 Sorcerer Spell Points

@JBRam2002

D&D 5e - The Lost Lands

Variations of reality. A multiverse. The enigma that bore before them all. It was finally as clear as Lyranth’s last sunset.

“Obliged to and by your wisdom.”

Witnessing the prompt exodus of the Green Man, the former elvish sage, after restoring the jewel of the Seeker of Knowledge to her staff, stepped and stooped forth to haphazardly aid the ministry of cleanliness, round about the reliquary. Her lips parted to address those within earshot, with hearts of Urd and Mimir, unencumbered by the limbo of the paladin’s neutrality.

“In the known antiquity of the Great Wheel, rarely have any contracted the responsibility of securing the Planes’ sovereignty in such an epoch of supreme jeopardy.”

Wick continued upon her quiet quest of sanitation to the shrine, alongside the bard, while bellowing the interpretative subpoena.

“Their existence and ours are suffering, diseased by imbalance. Let us not shrink from this charge, but welcome it.”

Quickly, the not yet abated unseen servant heralding the snowy familiar marched into the relay, swiftly helping and tidying the vicinity as their summoner stopped to ponder. Of the three tomes shackled to her plated armor, her fingers began to flesh out the pages of Shujaat’s diary, striving to strike the chord of a forgotten memory, concurrently glancing at the pious Templar. Massaging the ancient papyrus bound to the discarded volume gratified the piqued curiosity of the ancient librarian, quelling slightly the automaticity for her unquenched thirst of arcana. The lingering tendrils of dusk, falsely stemming from the adopted and bolstered panoply of fabrication, mistily traced the dorsum of her ghastly hand as it turned amongst and betwixt entries, both dated oddly into the future and past, without a mentioned place to grant context. His recalcitrant writing purposely alternated within a myriad of languages, almost always in the same stanza or paragraph, to ward off the prying pupils of the uneducated.

“None of us would exchange this mead of gods with any other generation. The energy. The faith. The devotion, which wells from giants, we bring to this endeavor will illuminate our path and all who tread the infinite staircase spiraling before us. The glow from that Fire can truly illuminate the deepest Abyss and consume the brightest of Heavens. If nothing is neglected, we must ride the storm of war, outlive the menace of unprovoked tyranny, and branch out from the World Ash, if compulsory, for years.”

Her eyes stole an abrupt gaze from her Beloved.

“If necessary, alone.”

She returned to scrutinize the memoires of her master, barking plainly as if she was by herself, rehearsing a soliloquy.

“The resolve. The will. The need. To link together in this cause to defend lands lost to this plague. Many have fallen into the grip of Darkness, yet not all have succumb to the odious apparatus of shadows, for the wardens of Light will not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, until, in good time, the dawn of the New, with all its power and might, trots forward to the rescue and the liberation of the Old.”

Closing the covers and simultaneously raising her wooden fang into the daft air, heralding the illustrious gem above her, she explained further.

“With this anchor rooted in this realm, death will never stop to rest. And neither shall we.”

Mechanics

Wick begins to clean alongside Cesar, but then realizes that she still possesses dominance over her neglected unseen servant who can continue with said tasks. She thumbs through Shujaat’s diary, trying to seek inspiration from its digest.

She rolls an Arcana of 18, and reads from the text, preaching its contents like a gospel.

She concludes that Ysgard is one of many planes. The gem of Shujaat is a mystical anchor lest they get lost in the current of visiting other Planes. Since death holds no sway here in Ysgard, this would be a perfect haven for all, in case defeat renders upon them abruptly.

@Cu Chulainn@JBRam2002@The Harbinger of Ferocity@Hekazu

Ragnarov Fleet controlled space - Trespassers will be shot!

Happy Christmas! Still invested. Apologies for the tardiness.

D&D 5e - Hoard of the Dragon Queen

Joyeux Noel, everyone!

D&D 5e - High Seas and Tall Tales

Merry Christmas, everyone!

D&D 5e - The Lost Lands

The monster slayer’s words, like angelic librettos reincarnating in reverberaton, cornered the paladin with their Celestial troparion.

“The Light provides, preserves and perseveres!"

Those gathered here were forerunners of another coming, a glorious Elisha which received grace from a chariot of fire, galloping into the heavens. If not to dispel the leprous darkness, the chorus of healing from which the luminosities poured forth upon them, like a Pentecost, would all be manifested in vain. They were chosen by tongues of flame to proclaim the beckoned kontakion of radiance, to which each praised and witnessed.

Her Beloved inferred this same absolved purpose, unwavering and unadultered.

“To balance the overwhelming forces of Darkness."

As wardens of illumination in this realm, all were summoned to imprison the dusk that engulfed the dawn of this world. Yet, what part did the prodigy play in this unstable theater of equilibrium? Perhaps, the Green Man could be persuaded to participate as their convoy to flush the fleshy student out. Quickly, the diviner publicly sought words of guidance, to entice the verdant knight, the apparent tragic lead of this absurd comedy of symmetry.

“If the knots of order are loosened, a mountain of chaos will tumble. Life’s ship is best manned with a crew, worthy of sailing against the winds of entropy but ready to halt to cast progress’ anchor. We need you and your namesake’s influence, as this domain does ours. To find a pupil of our lost teacher.”

She paused, as she realized her request was likely falling on deaf ears. Her hands then separated Shujaat’s gem from her staff.

“Ruron. Accompany us on our quest. For he is the missing puzzle, to the piece we already possess.”

@JBRam2002@The Harbinger of Ferocity@Hekazu@Cu Chulainn

Mechanics

Wick will cast Guidance on herself. She will then try to persuade the Green Man to accompany them on their trek, but shall roll a critical fail + an additional 8, for a resounding total of 9 for Persuasion.

D&D 5e - High Seas and Tall Tales

"No amount of healing can cure stupidity."

At the captain’s terminating dénouement, the navy clown lifted her foolish chin in the coddling arms of her savior, her lashes swung wide, without supranuclear palsy, to savor the fickle figs in place of his crying eyes. The azure buffoon entwined her serpentine arm about his neck, whispering and hissing silence from the branded Oedipus, as it coiled around his cervical vertebrae. All the somber cliques of this aquatic Hell breathed perishing ashes for tears, as seeds of scarlet dripped from the couplets of their pared pairs of lips, announcing the propitiation of Samson and his Delilah, fleeting and fleeing in the current that juxtaposed the inferno of their smothered animosity, conveniently just as Jill turned further inward.

“Thank you.”

The hidden centaur in her mental Elysium, endowed with a crib of infantile rage, burped up an appreciating embryo of courtesy, as the cobalt contortionist wormed her other arm behind the small of the warlock’s immense back, tempting the pits of Venus to cradle the dragooned zenith above his swarming hips. The molten magnanimity chortled out wordlessly, scoffing at the snakes that grappled her angel’s chiseled physique. The wingless shoulders as open as a dragon lying mendaciously to those after its hoard. Moments spared one vise after another, clinching ever tighter embraces. The offered blood pooled between them, evidence of their tortuous smooch, Herculean in herding and hiding them from the discussions held further past the tigress. The jester’s talons cared not, soon barbing another caress above and below his heaving thoracic cavity, as her flexible legs, draped themselves again in crimson, partly masking her cerulean kissed skin, novel to the twosome and never fraudulent to the insanity betwixt her core.

A murmured rumor eventually filled the ears of Noriam, softly, awaiting the verdict of such hinting gossip.

“Lead the way, my love.”

@JBRam2002@The Grey Dust

D&D 5e - The Lost Lands

The shadow erected against the fierce pallor, frigid and frosty but softly crunching in its flaky wake, while the other outstretched hand, not bearing the familiar scythe with a skeletal vise, offered a gentle deed of familiarity. The helical squalls twirled and coiled round about the old scholar, who gazed curiously upon the kind gesture of her contractual patron, a suggestion to elevate her in status and to join ranks amongst the dead. The Archfey’s presence and books were undeniable, though the sickly countenance bore a crown of ambiguity, like a nigh decipherable sign fettered in the amalgamated symbols of Infernal and Elvish, couth but incomprehensible. Then, words soon jaunted into the glacial air, torrid with the celestial weight of buoyancy and resilience of her Beloved, breaking the enchanting trance that graced the semblance of her prior existence.

“I can use magic.”

Eyes blinked. The Aasimar gleaned that her feet were already beneath her shrugging knees, somehow standing amidst the incorporeal silhouettes of saints, which quickly disappeared as if beckoned by the bell which tolled for the resurgence of Ysgard. Her hands scraped past two new abraded tomes, shackled in secrecy and in dusk. They were paged gifts of her sickled master, prompting forgetful remembrance of the prodigy which plagued the battle before the neutral Guardian. Ruron, the pupil of Shujaat, vanished as promptly as his appearance, but the undermining rationale heralded a confusion as vexing as the peculiar volumes that tethered each thigh, separating its girded utility by their polar locales.

Katia showered the cleric’s concentration with a glittering phantasmagoria, interrupting her internal fathoms and phantoms that inundated her thoughts. It seemed that not only the reborn sage was bestowed with mystical endowments, but the Tabaxi and the others publicized an enriched armament in tier and character.

However, not for the Light. Or for Darkness. But to strike balance.

Her murky arms, tightened by the waspy tendrils of false life, hugged the monk, releasing only to glance across the breadth of her shoulder at the monster slayer and longing sailor.

“The weight of our convictions must now equilibrate with the gravity of weathered harmony, whether we be impious prey or righteous predator.”

@Cu Chulainn, @The Harbinger of Ferocity, @Hekazu, @JBRam2002

Mechanics

Under the guise of unconsciousness, Wick grasps Theodore's hand, presuming that it is of her patron's. Once fully awakened, she will return the embrace of Katia with her own, standing and addressing Theodor and Cesar.

In regards to her Level up, she will switch the invocation of Agonizing Blast for the Book of Ancient Secrets and gain: Comprehend Languages and Detect Magic, at will. She will also obtain Pact of the Tome for 3rd level Pact Boon with the following cantrips: Word of Radiance, Shillelagh, and Produce Flame. Finally, for her second level spell, she will gain Invisibility alongside two second level spell slots.

D&D 5e - Hoard of the Dragon Queen

The lifeless carcasses arranged its dissembled parts, naked and forlorn on bloodied tables, in the oppressive whiteness of the mangled eyes of their understudies, the cruel sobriety of the operating theater, where the applause of endless torments still seemed to tremble. The midday sun covered them, and awakened the death-spots on foreheads, a bright bile would spurt out occasionally from a desecrated belly reminding all of the tremulous gallbladder within the crevices of a savaged liver. The man alongside Orchid stenciled flesh like a giant shimmering calyx, arms likes scarlet petals strewn over their altars of death.

Splendid red and blue colors grew along the butcher’s loins, and in the heat the pirate stomached the wound against nature, furnished for man’s convenience and style. The lesion under his brows spiraled and slowly split into a furrow against the terrible odors of makeshift pathologists.

Ovaries. Spleen. Pancreas. Intestines. Ligaments fruitlessly tethering all internal anatomies.

These were all carved with delicacy, dissecting with dueling forceps and butterfly blades. The half-orc and his new found companion squatted over the limp game, their sclera beady with noses like crooked vultures’ beaks forever screaming for flesh. As they continued their ghastly handiwork, looking like fearsome torturers, with coagulated blood streaming over their tainted hands, the sailor adorned with his own minotaur hide remained careful with the discarded organs.

He scurried back and forth, ever deeper into the fray of the burning Gehenna conjured outside the tent. Each skinned corpse plopped upon burning coal only for his dragon fang to return him to the duo, like cooks disemboweling the next proverbial goose. The entrails wound around their arms, greenish-yellow snakes, with the rare excrement dripped onto their protective coats. The veteran tanner would occasionally puncture the bladder away from the potential leather; the cold urine spouting from the vesicular insides like buttery wine, bearing the sharp, biting stench of sworn ammonia.

But the dead animals slept, patiently allowing themselves to be rent, torn from hair and fascia, as busy flies likes carrion swallows circled amidst and high above the allegorical giants destroying the massacred monsters.

This way and that.

They slumbered, all the while, the druid’s mind evolved into a numb drum, beating with the tedium of the labor.

@Hekazu@The Harbinger of Ferocity@Irredeemable@Lucius Cypher@Ryonara