Gordian Nought

D&D 5e - High Seas and Tall Tales

The brawl beckoned her.

In the buffoon’s humming sight whirled a rhapsody of tentacles and blades, all professional temptresses tormenting her lover and Jill’s acquaintances. Ersatz, from curling pin-ups on the more than damp cavern walls to the ragged stalagmites in these unmined quarries, breathed of crude improvision. The crew of the S.S. Lady Slipper, unbeknownst to the lesser blue bard, had already made their fortunes, while she and Noriam had made.

Out.

Now, it was her time, frigid with the stunning beauty of pain and the heat of battle, spouting and repeating a phrase with a click of her heels.

“Like Rilauven. There’s no place like Rilauven. There’s no…”

To prove her worth.

She skated like a dwarven wraith fit of elvish ancestry, stiff-necked, but dressed in slippery ice, redolent with frustration, vanity, and doom. Like a waning cigar in the night, her feet quickly slithered up to the Templar, waving her rapier like a relay runner’s baton.

“Hey, chrome dome!!! Wanna hear a joke?” Not waiting for a gauged response, the frosty clown continued. “Why was the Werebat scared to fly outside?”

She reflexively paced away, back to the enemy, only to allow a natural and dramatic pause to the jest, but the yarn was ruined by an interrupting blow. Luckily, the Agathysian armor intercepted without much an ado.

However, a quick pivot and an about-face soon revealed that her punch line had no recipient, as her eyes haphazardly gazed at the Templar prone and unconscious.

“What the???" The whimsical rogue stomped her feet out of frustration. "No fair.”

Like a restless bee, glazed nostalgic, searching for the to and fro, Koan became suddenly relieved in realizing the Kraken, seemingly listening to her.

“Phew. So, and you Touchy-Feely, what do you think?”

The cerulean geisha again waited, but her audience didn’t even waver a consideration, perhaps paralyzed by the fear of ruining the pun. No longer patient, the rapier rumbled with a booming verve.

“Sheesh!”

As the comic felt cheated with the tough crowd, she swiped gingerly, but missed out of sheer angsty weariness. The next scored with the blade skewering deep into the baby titan.

“Cuz every cloud has a silver lining. Come on, people.”

Mechanics

In order.

Bonus Action: Activate Boots of Speed. (While you wear these boots, you can use a bonus action and click the boots’ heels together. If you do, the boots double your walking speed, and any creature that makes an opportunity attack against you has disadvantage on the attack roll. If you click your heels together again, you end the effect.)

Move in and out of reach of the Templar, to trigger an attack of opportunity for Armor of Agathys, dealing 15 Cold Damage, and KO’ing the Templar.

Main Action: Koan will Twin (via her last Sorc Spell Point) Booming Blade, missing (despite Advantage) with the first but criting with the second.

It deals 2d8 (Piercing) + 2d8 (Thunder) + 2d6 (Sneak Attack). Total of 30.

Standing next to Kraken, oblivious of its glorious might.

43/43 HP.
4/15 Temp HP.

AC 18.

3/4 First level spell slots left.
0/3 Second level spell slots left.
1/3 Third level spell slots left.

0/2 First Level Warlock spell slots left.

0/4 Sorcerer Spell Points left.

@JBRam2002

D&D 5e - Hoard of the Dragon Queen

With the sliver of a shudder, the one, buried in the minotaur hide, awakened.

"For many turned leaves, he struggled against the eldritch bonds but remained obliged, thanks to his tormentor…"

The druid's eyes convalesced with a fiery pause, attempting to burn away the residue of an inner homunculus, savory of a solstice, both battered and bated. The furry brows enthusiastically engaged the playful inquiry of the half-orc, sincerely suffocating and obfuscating a cryptic monologue as the riddled spine melted into a much betrothed respite.

“Saldrinar, a mewling meat wizard from the South. Each day, another infernal sigil would be triggered, fastening him to a brief moment of agonizing lucidity before the mind would lapse back into that timeless sleep. I suspect that one can not continue to storm a castle always knowing that their time is nigh. However, this mouth will try to implore, in this brief interlude, a manifest to my last thought, as like runes upon the scales of my corpse.”

Torus began to gawk exquisitely past the barbarian, hoping he would hear the juxtaposed words of Westgate's first ruler, Kisonraathiisar, as the soliloquy trekked, with a staff of its own, the mountainous distance towards the enthused Davis and his Hin audience.

“While her two-legged ants swarmed across her kingdom and slaughtered the tribes of troubled dragonkin that she had carefully nurtured into stewards of this demesne, I see Null’s dull claws inexorably crushing the future that she had hoped to create. For millennia, their kind had once labored to build kingdoms that might survive the King-Killer’s baleful eye. But just as I sit upon the cusp of escaping a parallel curse, his plans were laid low by a scion of those arrogant Netherese fools. The sorceress cared not for the work of the ages; she greedily sought only to steal what he could not build and claim what was not his to own.”

“Ironic.” The pirate’s voice was not a boisterous whisper, but plain all the same. “Like these zealots of Tiamat.”

“In the desperate hope that another of Asgorath’s children might not chance upon his remains and seek what I have already found. Listen, I now reveal the key to a different hoard.”

Annoyed by the muddy shackles, the murmurs flattered simplicity as the one sided diatribe droned on.

“The hills of the lost gods were never what they seem. Each of the seven rings of standing stones dates back to the last days of the reign of dragons, when the elder wyrms sought to reverse what the elves had wrought. Bahamut’s ancestors tried to focus the Weave into a weapon of unparalleled might that could shatter the Drifting Stars into clouds of rubble in the heavens above. But they scored only a glancing blow on the moon that circles our world, leaving only a string of tears and an inland sea to mark their failure.”

The filthy yokes tethering the hands of the impetuous sailor began to crumble, like sand.

“Now reason is once again undone by their rage, and all which has been wrought crumbles slowly into dust, sifting freedom.”

Mechanics

Liberated under the guise of depression, you-know-who is using the failed tale of Kisonraathiisar, as a twisted allegory for both humans and herself.

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

D&D 5e - Hoard of the Dragon Queen

Finally able to get on. Posting very soon.

D&D 5e - High Seas and Tall Tales

The insane clown, entertained by the fray of metal and the pickle of pendulous tentacles, swam while pointing with lone index fingers and cocked thumbs, another quartet of Eldritch Blasts at the adorable Kraken, wreaking havoc on their mergirl guide. The first two measly missles rifled against the squishy thorax, while the second duo whiffed, due to the recoil from her dominant arm, exaggerated, of course, by the buffoon's bouncy dramatics.

"Aw, shucks. Missed!!! Darn it!" Her elbow swept before her like a guillotine, as if slighting an overdue decapitation.

Her soborific somber was quickly quelled by witness one of the Gearforged slain, promoting another novel notion.

"Ooh, I always wanted to be a knight."

She began to march in place, wading and staring at her mate in shadowy armor. Abruptly, plates of patchy ice began to adorn the shivering cyanotic jester, protecting her with frosty palisades recursively cascading like evergreen leaves returning to a blueberry bush in a forced autumn, all in preparation of piercing the pandemonium, with and for a playful peripetia.

Mechanics

Move 30 feet down for Line of Sight of Baby Kraken.

1. Koan's Bonus Action: Two rays of Eldritch Blast is implored for 2 damage.

2. Koan's Main Action: She will cast Armor of Agathys as a 3rd level spell for 15 temp HP.

Wild Magic Surge Roll (DC 6) for 3rd level Armor of Agathys passes with a 9.

26/43 HP.
15/15 Temp HP.

AC 18.

3/4 First level spell slots left.
0/3 Second level spell slots left.
1/3 Third level spell slots left.
0/2 First Level Warlock spell slots left.
1/4 Sorcerer Spell Points left.

D&D 5e - Hoard of the Dragon Queen

The elder pirate sat, suffused with a slight sadness, staring at his soiled palms. He unwittingly abetted the half-orc, in providing food and clothing to the enemy, by sacrificing the very Nature, he had sworn to protect. With his legs crossed in enmity, he poured his hands into the nearby mud, molding the earth around his hands into shackled mittens.

Once encased circumferentially to the wrists, the druid wistfully wore the apparent tragedy as ball bearing cuffs, preventing him from furthering the cause of more slaughter.

Torus watched eagerly only to eventually close his eyes, listening to the interchange between Parum and the acolyte. His hope dwindled with the occasional wind, snuffing out a sporadic word between the two.

Mechanics

Torus will sit, in pity, listening to Parum, while gathering his strength. If enough time allows a short rest, he will pursue that.

@Hekazu@Ryonara

D&D 5e - The Lost Lands

Hearkening to her Katia’s call, the cleric motioned with her girded arm to the point of their previous entry, beckoning all to venture to the upper hall, away from this crypt, where once a recent short respite was entertained. She gestured, and at once, the floating familiar carried by the busy invisible servant, ceased its activities, sufficient that cleanliness had met its match, in godliness. The reliquary itself a haven and heaven for warriors past and glorified. Yet, the warlock, after allowing her unseen underlying to lead the way, dappled with the blanche hawk, broke lips to address her comrades.

“Even blind moles, fossorial in nature, lay traps for worms, dire for a meal. We have freckled this subterranean shrine enough. I fear that our former friend, that infiltrating prodigy has planted himself near, spying on our burrows and warrens, and mocking us as he fled.”

She conjured the illusory map, polishing it once again, to grant her bearings. Her eyes searched into the comrades’ souls, who finally desired to safeguard this realm.

Thea. Haemar. Birbin.

He could see Cesar’s fingers waver, as she dismissed the minor illusion, the pirate's furrowed brows faltering on whether to stay or venture.

“For all of you who chose to remain. Lightspeed! May dawn guide you and this domain into rest and peace once more. If you encounter Ruron again, regard him as a cautious confederate. Be weary as he has not truly declared where he lies in this war.”

Wick's boots and gemmed staff commenced their trek, following the bobbing bird, to the eventual ascension.

“Let us depart from this tomb; we must exhume the anchor.”

She hoped that not only the Templar and her Beloved, but that the bard would shadow her and the others.

"For the brightness of the Planes."

Mechanics

Wick motions everyone to follow her unseen servant and the familiar on its shoulder, back and upstairs to the Hall. Before she does so, she conjures a minor illusion of the whereabouts and addresses the split party, before departing. Her aim, now, is to find the anchor for Shujaat's gem remnant.

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

D&D 5e - Hoard of the Dragon Queen

The marching off of the half-orc necessitated a festering eye from Torus, as Brannor soon came into view. The arms of the green barbarian swang intentionally as if directing the one man choir in preparation of a rehearsed dirge. The exchange of their spoils and labor signified a likely melodious arrangement and exchange of the very instruments to compose the eventual opus of their escape with the monk and paladin.

Back and forth from the tent and the garbage islet, piling the discarded organs and useless skins.

It was a monumental testament to his historic dedication against the nature he had promised and became accustomed to, when stranded on that island, before Xaron, that spiteful pirate entered his existence. Her mother, a much wanted Waterdhavian psionic Bard, while unknowingly ten weeks with child, Suri Tiram, once discovered as a spy of the Kraken Society, quickly earned the expectant wrath of two councils of the Amnian government. The silently orchestrated bounty was issued by dual competing bureaucratic Houses, that of Selemchant and Nashivaar, to either extract or destroy her previously publicized musical concerti of psychopathic cryptography, complex social magical experiments that subconsciously inflicted mass hysteria in Daranthur’s Hall and Waukeen’s Promenade, ceasing trade for one month, critically paralyzing the commerce of Athkatla. These crafty fractal ballads, wormed their self-replicating patterns, via auditory intrusion, into a person’s synapses, literally establishing a revolutionary serenade that greedy neurons must recursively dance to, all the while spiritually evoking a graveyard spiral of anger, hatred, and disgust within the rat race and status-quo of the slums and docks. Her propaganda dedicated itself as her ciliary obsession, to mathematically and mentally sway the proletariat to a civil upheaval via verbally broadcasted multivariate symphonies. Once authentically exposed, Suri’s intervening capture and exhaustive interrogation resulted in an eventual brain-dead body kept pregnant with a half-elf fetus until term, only to allow the powers at be to mentally reap and rape unhindered any and every rebellious diapason from her desecrated soul.

Her sole birthed offspring, Xaron, was reared chiefly under the Cowled Wizards, in the arcane arts, fissured by the natural talent of a psionic and poetic heritage, crescendoed by her love of all-mighty gold. Cultivated in the ranks, beneath Jann Lane, her malicious appetite and equally poised hatred of the City of Splendors consumed the already decimated cognizance of her mother’s eccrine legacy, as she aspired into adulthood. A shouldered distrust and a ravenously taxed heart, buried in a film of ruby sin and ice, isolated her as a shattered jewel, unable to be polished nor shine within the confines of the City of Coin. Ruminations, rumors, and a remnant of prestige forced her onto the Trackless Sea and along the Sword Coast, upon many vessels, marauding principally Waterdeep ships, pillaging, torturing and slaughtering, seeking to bask in the infamy of reflective appellations from the Council of Five, whenever she returned home.

Yet, not all shared the bated enthusiasm of the daughter of a traitor.

After a miscalculation and bad weather, the Iron Flute marooned at Port Nyranzaru, only to be betrayed and exiled into the jungle of Chult, attempting to seek refuge at Beluarian. Soon enough, mindful scavengers, namely brain flukes, unearthed the lost troop in their immersions, eventually resulting in her trusted crew becoming glorified incubators of opportunistic corrosion and putrefaction. Witnessing the rot and corpses slowly surrounding their camp, with her own mental faculties collapsing around her, Xaron sought intellectual sanctuary by impressing upon a young wild Mezro druid, Torus, the totality of her psyche. A partially successful Mind Seed of the parasite-ridden psionic, one week later, erupted a new older, but partly amnesic man, full of the horror and memories of her recurrent twisted ego.

Through five decades of masochistic pedagogy, the novel duplicate, through the help of these friends, engendered a Vesuvian vision to exist as a pure antithesis to her previous id’s villainous ancestry, now mingling amongst the fateful servants to the largest adversary, the realm would likely ever face.

This righteous legitimate suffering now drove Torus.

Rather Torag.

Slightly off kilter.

Even his very identity hidden, for half a century prior, bred a new race of Jungian penance to the current gospel of sacrificing wildlife to the altar of subterfuge; a remorseful ministry, wandering from Greenest to enemy encampment, finally anchored by the peace, granted by Chauntea with Xaron, to fill his psychological gaps. Yet, would this goddess who granted him amnesty of his fugue, discredit this spiritual salve based on the necessary pain of the few, to save the many.

He stood, leaning on his fang while watching the interaction of Parum and the acolyte Davis, waiting to needle reconciliation with Orchid, Parum and Kyra, ever fearful that his deranged and demented past of his previously adopted voracious perspective would not be betrayed by his acts of slaughter upon the animals to whom he ingratiated.

Effects

Torus is fearfully gripped with the sudden realization that he is assisting in killing animals, in whom Chauntea's dominion reigns. He hopes her previous blessing through Kyra's tutor will not falter, while they pursue this ruse, compromising in efforts to free Leosin and Brannor.

@Hekazu@Ryonara

D&D 5e - High Seas and Tall Tales

Lady luck seemingly didn’t discriminate, between the sinners and the saints as the cerulean joker darted back into vantage, from another angle, preparing to hurl two further spikes of Eldritch energy at the same rosy construct. Her movements curved furiously and fell with expired exhalation, between the Beholder and her Noriam, as she circumvented the left flank of the tigress. Unknowingly aware of the druidic attempts of imparted metamorphosis, a fish swam past the big blue cat's extended paw, halting with wide juxtaposed eyes, while Koan splashed by, ignorant of the polymmorphing fiasco.

Cynthia had declared a kraken was fast approaching, all in the face of being surrounded.

"Oh shit! Hold on, girl! We got you!"

Soon, paradoxical pulses of paralysis oozed away from the clown towards the templar, in efforts and aspirations, to hopefully immobilize the gears of war.

Mechanics

Adrevz drops Concentration on Polymorph once the fishie is free.

Wild Magic Surge effect from previous roll (22): Enemies gain Disadvantage against your next spell which has a saving throw, within the next minute.

She moves to end her movement between Dyn and Noriam, to perform both BA and then Action, before returning behind Adrevz, but maintaing 60 feet of range.

1. Koan's Bonus Action:
Two rays of Eldritch Blast is Quickened (Sorcerer Point used) on the Automaton that is engulfed in pink Faerie Fire, dealing another 7 damage.

2. Koan's Main Action:
She will cast Hold Person as a 3rd level spell, forcing Wisdom Saving Throws from both Templars. They are unfortunately not Humanoid and the spell will fizzle.

Wild Magic Surge Roll (DC 4) for 3rd level Hold Person passes with a 14.

Koan has 26/43 HP.

3/4 First level spell slots left.
0/3 Second level spell slots left.
2/3 Third level spell slots left.

0/2 First Level Warlock spell slots left.
2/4 Sorcerer Spell Points left.

@JBRam2002

D&D 5e - Hoard of the Dragon Queen

Nice. Will post something by the morry.

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