The Grey Dust

The Crystal Keys (A Forgotten Realms roleplay)

Wait, so this is a diceless tabletop Roleplay?

reality altering mages then?

The Crystal Keys (A Forgotten Realms roleplay)

@Mind of Madness

Character Creation Rules/multiclass/feats/boons and Starting Level?

I will be using Dice Cloud for my character creation if that's alright with you.

The Crystal Keys (A Forgotten Realms roleplay)

Epic Level adventures?
Larger than life characters?
Where do I sign up?

And more importantly, what edition are we playing in?

🦄 Duplicity - D&D Style Fantasy Rp Adventure (Completed)

Thomas Richard Harrison

Location: Tower, Floor 2.5 to Ground Floor Stairwell
Interacting with: Satilla, Keystone

And as we wind on down the road
Our shadows taller than our souls
There walks a lady we all know
Who shines white light and wants to show
How everything still turns to gold!

And now on to Led Zeppelin. As it appeared the healer had either failed her missive to take care of Sana's injuries, left the other woman for dead, or considered her beyond saving. Either way, social dynamics were not the forte of Star-phase Thomas, who thought himself had every right to traverse the narrow pass at his own pace as the world came literally and literally crumbling down around him. Although certainly it was not by choice that he only made it half-way down the floor, running for his life was beneath such a distant academic, but alas he had not yet recharged the star energies within him to whisk him away into the safety of the stars. To blink out of this damned tower and away to the safety of his brethren, the dark stars which whisper to him words of tempting power. Request for their lost brother to shed his mortal vessel and rejoin their cabal in the depths of space, to rid himself of these parasitic worms. Did the foolish girl not see that this stairwell permitted only one being to pass? And it was not his intent to be blockaded by the dwarf who had rushed on ahead with those stubby legs, nor would he expect that flatus-filled-food-fighter to be an obstacle he could not shove past. " Obviously!" Said in the most sardonic matter-of-fact ways snooty high-brow arrogance could. Satilla was just another fool in the calculating eyes of Star-Phase Thomas. Of which Sun-Phase may have to amend later on, even if the woodland witch did ruin the boy's grin.

Perhaps it was the pestering annoyance of her ignorance, or rather the lighter nature of the boy's current form, but after Satilla had made her remarks and bade the sorcerer to move on, Thomas found himself quite capable of blitzing through the stairs despite their unsteady nature. It was as if he was floating, each step barely touched by his feet as he hauled his next-to-bare-naked ass down not just one flight of stairs but twice-fold. Yes, it was almost like flying, rather than falling with style, but the star-attuned mage breezed through the steps as if the tower wasn't quite about to fall atop them at any time. The boy had nearly crashed into Keystone as he turned the corner, if it were not for the gap just enough for the lithe Thomas to squeeze through and bypass the pugilist's beefy balancing body. Keystone himself may have felt the boy's form brush along his side during his attempts to regain his footing by bracing himself against a wall. Without as much as a pardon or excuse me, Thomas slid past the leaning man at the final step and managed to escape the true enemy of every scholastic wizard: Stairs.

There was a wolf dragging a body along in a pathetic attempt to drag the dead Kyra out from a falling tower. The dog was perhaps figuratively screwing the pooch at this point, it was not like they could not retrieve its deceased owner from the ruins of the tower later. It was not like a rotting ton of brick could kill what was already quite dead. And Thomas had no time to study the contents of the necromancer's library to resurrect her...

The 1st Magical Incursion [Reboot] [Accepting]

Not a tear was shed. They all knew the cost, and now perhaps their infantile leader did too. And all this for what? Power? Power in the hands of a child who knew nothing. All of this was just a game to him perhaps, some petty squabble to be played with the lives of others like pawns. Surely they had their worth, and the bugger had just traded a loyal knight to give himself something to ease his own insecurities. Rufus could have given Aloyisus an earful, should have even as rightfully so, but words wouldn't get past the boy's thick skull anyways. It was all wasted on a man who saw only his own stupidity as genius. The old man could only hope whatever was gained was worth it. Nevertheless, Rufus had resigned himself to the company of these practically prepubescent teenagers and their eternal need for drama and attention. It was a necessary evil to court these hormonal punks that were organized into a loose society of lost boys and girls. They were all probably sleeping with each other at this point like his accursed students. And if it ever came a time for anyone one of them to lay naked before Rufus...

He was almost finished. Although time had little meaning to one who controlled it, the Irishman took pride in the personal nature of the work. An intermezzo at the bar the evening prior, something to wet his whistle after working the long hours. Three hours invested into the painstakingly slow process of cutting, curing and tanning the hide. The first hour spent harvesting the skin, the incisions made with a surgical scalpel into the warm flesh. Once the rigor passed, the limp body was far easier for him to manipulate upon the table. The layer of fascia and fat just beneath peeled away by the fine edge, as gloved hands reached deep to separate out the tissue. The head and extremities were difficult, but this wasn't the first time Rufus had completely skinned someone, planning his cuts to section off the pieces to be sewn back together later. It was a shame the boy died, but at least now his ink would be immortalized. The tattooed skin of Tybalt's corpse, set to be stretched out between the frames in pieces, stretched out to soak in the solution and then time-accelerated to be treated for tanning. But it was worth it, wasn't it? For three hours out of it he had preserved the dead boy's artwork against the ravages of time. And this was merely the beginning of the process Rufus undertook to destroy the body as a safeguard against anyone who would seek to use the dead boy's body beyond death.

The complete process of turning a corpse into immortalized art took two days, once the skin was removed and the muscles sheered, the dis-articulation of the ribs and long bones at the joints. Indeed he was a professor of biology, capable of teaching students a wide field of topics learned through his decades of living, but more so the life experiences he had were invaluable to the skills he gained. Any trade he could learn back in his early days, back in Ireland before the famine and wars, before the wretched trouble, he dipped his hand into. Tannery, metalwork, the sawmill, anything to keep himself fed as being a magi did very little these days. Even in the emerald isle, full of fey enchantment, guild membership forbade the use of magic to prosper. Officially at least, the families than ran the show were still dabbling their grimy little claws on wealth accumulated over the years of having used magic to their gain. But for the rest of the lot of yah, no, it was forbidden. So what could a descendant of a long line of celtic druids do to in hard times? Take up a trade, reflected in the old ways he went about processing the rest of Tybalt. A butcher proper, who worked to hack off the meat from the bones, cleaving tendons from flesh as the bloodless body lay to the whirring of the bone saw through the lad's skull.

The organ harvest, returned to the scalpel to take it all, detaching the viscera with his elbows deep in the the skinless effigy, the wax injections to fill the hollow organs after the cuts made to empty everything and the tailor-esque stitches made to repair the incisions into the tissue. Yes, Circe was a murdering psychopath, but Rufus was a different sort of crazy. For what sort of man takes a dead boy's body across state lines to a old Connecticut farm owned under one of the aliases of Hank Morgane? With all the lives he led, perhaps one could begin to question if Rufus was even his name, and not just an moniker he had adopted as another character of his to be lived out and strutted upon the stage. And yet, he had returned the morning to his work having successfully rigged his explosives the evening prior. An act of terror small, but enough to arouse suspicion. It was about sending a message wasn't it? Not a bloody invitation a la that crazy girl.

The molten bronze had cooled, melting all the organic tissue trapped between the layers of the mould and wax, the biological components had been erased. And now all that remained was to send the boy's bones through thousands of years of mineralization until it petrified. Then Rufus could being the final process of this bizarre embalming, the reassembly of all the stone pieces with the bronze, stitching of the leather over framework, the pouring of sawdust to fill the missing meat, and the insertion of the glass eyes. And if Rufus was left alone for the rest of the day, he could make it back to their little base and present the group with his latest masterpiece: Tybalt.

And if he had the good fortune of stopping by another bar for another carbomb? That would be grand.

🦄 Duplicity - D&D Style Fantasy Rp Adventure (Completed)

Thomas Richard Harrison

Location: Tower, Floor 2.8 to 2.5
Interacting with: RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!

Woah, we're half way there,
Woah, livin' on a prayer!

Indeed at this point the situation was practically a Bon Jovi song. There was little time for Thomas to collect samples, not with how fast the structure was imploding beneath their feet. Even a scholar as academic as Star-phase Thomas understood the need for self-preservation in such a dire situation. Research and knowledge was useless to the dead, and as such the boy brushed himself off as he rose back from his long fall. The brute before him had leaps and bounds ahead of him having taken whatever foe with him into the sole passage out of this death trap. And perhaps true to her job, the healer that stupid sun and moon phase personalities enjoyed the company of had yet to move into the stairwell. Perhaps Satilla was intent on tending to Sana, who by the looks of things had just dispatched a snake which would have made a beautiful specimen to stuff had she not butchered it by hacking it to death. The wriggling coils with the last of its life just slipping away as the corpse writhed, although its killer was left with a biting kiss. The shapeshifter took Thomas's sagely advice wisely it seems and took wing, good that was one less body to get around in this mad dash of escape the room. Although Thomas would not mind solving an escape room to prove his intellectual superiority, this was not the sort of timed trial the sorcerer desired to partake in.

Fortunately this was the phase for Thomas to be in for feats of fleet fleeing. The untethered nature of the stars made his body lighter, floatier in a sense that gravitational forces seem to be dulled around his person. The ease of rising from the wall, as gracefully as it would appear to the fluid motions of the mage abandoning his other personality's secret or perhaps not so secret crush to descend the stairway after the armored dwarf. There was no dashing chivalry to the frigid star-struck spawn, for if the dwarf had not the armor and heft of most of his kin, surely Thomas would have barged the lesser being aside. However given Thomas' weakened state, he was in no health to quarrel with Nor who was ahead of him, and only managed half-way down the flight of stairs before requiring those ahead to advance.

D&D 5e - Titan Hunters

The cold will not settle well for these old bones.

The single line of uttered with a sigh spoke volumes of Kethan's age. Nevertheless, the old cleric found himself pressed on, the duties of one called by his goddess compelled him to devote his faith here. It seems Sir Lakeltia's order would rise to assist with the undead in lieu of their team, holding back the horde for now as these living legends had to contend with draconian giants and giant dragons. Unfortunately most of their crew had all but dissolved, either required to deal with the possibility of the Orc's return or having slipped away somehow. Fortunately their resident druid was able to create a tree portal using her connection to the natural world, one that Kethan would like to aspire too had he the time to spend hours in the woods without his grand library, but it came at the cost of her presence in the field. Regardless, it seemed Lady Mavros, Sir Lakeltia, the Alchemist and the Fool would need some form of spellcasting services for utility and healing no less. Surely now the paladin of Tyr would need to drop the hammer harder, Ada had her bow, and the alchemist her mad science. Whatever the Talon'd could do was fretfully minimal no doubt, perhaps if they needed someone to stab them in the back. Kethan took it upon himself to keep a wary eye on this rascal and ensure the relative safety of his companions. As long as he could keep up with the youth.

Not even dragonfire could warm them.

---

"In such bitter cold a man has but one desire: trading his useless gold for a warming fire."

A general quip regarding the temperature, the climes were not agreeable at all, the nip in the air certainly did more than shake a chill beneath the robes he wore. Had he presage of coming to the mountains, he would have stopped for winter clothes, alas such was not the case in the precious moment of time. Not only were they on the clock of armageddon, but surely the heroic feast they had at dinner was not to be wasted on idle shopping. While true the adversaries were the giants and dragons, perhaps the weather itself would turn against them. If they needed room for the night however, Kethan could conjure up a devoted temple of Ioun as required, as long as no one needed critical healing or resurrections, such acts took quite a bit of effort and the elder had yet to take his midday nap to replenish his energy. But at the age of seventy six, who could blame a human for reaching his limits so early in the day? Naps after all were good for productivity. But there was no rest for the devout, having quite literally marched into a tree to appear a great distance away, Kethan had already mounted himself atop Zaphkiel to take to the skies per the paladin's suggestion. Both faithful had their spirited companions after all, celestials who served alongside them in the schemes of the gods.

From the sky above the settlement, from the master librarian could see all, and from this vantage point he could see the chaos of the structures. The lack of a decent architect, the lack of planning in housing and urban development, the general natural development of the sprawl was clearly evident of either an old city created from a hodgepodge of whatever was erected at the time, or a brutish governor who was as thoughtless as they were impulsive. Regardless what few passers visible from the all-seeing eye of one so used to spotting out a single volume of lore within rows upon rows of seemingly endless shelves found the pattern in the cacophony. Two buildings appeared to be the main attractions with gathered folks, not quite on the same street, but within proximity of each other: a stone's throw perhaps. One perhaps was an inn, with a few humanoids with tasks in hand, and the other perhaps the Guild they were directed to which featured a pair of hulking goliaths and six goblins seeming to settle some dispute. A general gentleman's dispute judging by the lack of hostility in stance and posture, to which position as he was, Kethan and Zaphkiel had yet to be seen by the goblins and their low stature nor the goliaths who lacked eyes on the back of their heads.

"I may have found the location of the Guild." Kethan notified the rest of the team, hushed into the earpiece giving the approximate location of where he was landing, hopefully the rest of the gang could follow his instructions through the rambling maze of the city. "Have no alarm, I am no heaven sent divine agent, but do we require arbitration from this old cleric? Or shall the quarrel be dropped solely upon my arrival?"

Did the they expect an religious inquisition?

mechanics

Kethan aerial perception check: 1d20 + 18 = 13 + 18 = 31
Kethan insight check: 1d20 + 12 = 20 + 12 = 32

🦄 Duplicity - D&D Style Fantasy Rp Adventure (Completed)

Thomas Richard Harrison

Location: Tower, Floor 2.8? It's starting to give.
Interacting with: The Champions? Keystone.

One keystone removes another. Without the Necromancer, the magic of the tower faded, sinking faster than the tower into oblivion as the structure began to reveal its true self. The illusion of stability was taken under as the foundations crumbled, the skeleton of the tower baring its bones with every precocious step. The unsteady ground upon which they all thread, a deathtrap waiting to break with one ill-fated footing. Aloft the tower of the mage, placed so high upon this point there was little to do but fall down, or else, ascend higher in the hopes that the tower will sink floor by floor rather than topple over completely. Curse these idiots and their rash vengeance! Did they not understand what secrets could have been gleaned? What greater powers the now-dead man could have shared? All it would take was the proper discourse and Thomas would have acquired even greater knowledge than he had within the company of these imbeciles! Arcana that would propel him past the earthly bounds and into the very stars, all dashed away with the blatant tossing of a bear.

"You Fools! We could have studied all the samples from our victory had we subdued our magical adversary rather than reduce him to a coat of entrails and a bisected corpse!" Yes, the haughtiness of the star-phased sorcerer, the unbearable version of Thomas returns, although perhaps the rest of the team would likely enjoy throwing a bear at the current incarnation of Thomas to see how he fares. Disappointingly, Satilla had done her role to restore Thomas enjoy enough with her potion to have the boy find his inner self ready to ridicule all lesser beings than it. This cosmic roulette of Sun, Moon, and Star ever so volatile. Perhaps he had explained it? Or maybe he failed to mention the nature of his mystic nature and they found him suddenly being quite the arse-baring-arse that suddenly seemed to overtake the boyish persona that they knew a few moments ago. Nothing an hour of deep meditation could not resolve, but obviously the tower wouldn't last the long, and Thomas would rather dissect each corpse to study and harvest materials than to spend it returning to that lesser phase of moronic sun or bashful moon. Alas to learn the three phases and the three faces of Thomas, perhaps another time as for now they had to deal with the rebuking tongue spoken from one chipped incisor.

"Fly you Fools! These lesser summons should not survive the implosion of this structure!" And yet however high and mighty the star-phase student fancied himself, perhaps in his hurry to leave the collapsing moment of their heroic efforts, Thomas forgot the basic principles described in the paragraphs above. Taking his bottomless strides with the airs of an educated academic, the sorcerer was certain barely hanging by a thread of which the discarded potion still held in hand after having bashed his tooth. He would need to speak to their careless healer regarding the manner of her administration. The first few feet were fine in scholarly stroll taking his best to appear to defy the instability of the floor beneath him, but Thomas wasn't quite at his best as just a few paces from the stairwell, Thomas buckled to his knees.

Could such a fall from heaven humble the brightest star?

The 1st Magical Incursion [Reboot] [Accepting]

11:47 PM, August 2nd, 158 East 23rd Street, New York.

"Sweet Mary Mother of Jesus... Christ... God Protect Us All, there's a fucking psychopath on out there."

Graphic images were seen, countless bodies pulled out under white sheets, a tally of the ever rising number. One report was not enough, three sites attacked, but dozens of networks seemed to cover the story. First the train, and now this, what was the world coming to? Madness it seemed with the authorities baffled on who would do such heinous acts. What sick, twisted individual would butcher people like that? Mutilated bodies, shredded beyond recognition, disemboweled with dried blood oozed out from every remaining orifice identifiable as the remains of a mouth or ear whatever hole that ought to align with the anatomical approximation. There would be no witnesses to come testify, and no family members would be allowed to see the sorry state of the last memory of the dead who were adequately identified by dental records and surviving prints. And what ever could possess someone to leave the only solid piece of evidence behind with such terrible market branding? The game makers were quick to release a public statement, expressing concern and more so severing any affiliations the company had over these horrible acts of depravity. Yet the damage was done, it was over, and within 24 hours, the media was exploding with whatever the "DS Killer" topic was about. Of which certainly on some forums there would be some would be hoodlums who would claim to be the dark artist behind the chilling act, but certainly none could provide the evidence. Young kids who wanted to dabble in the gory glorious infamy, punks who wanted to prove their dangerous edge, even the occasional actual demented deviant who got off to this sort of stuff. What times to be alive, what times to die.

Whatever the case may be, whatever that demon girl decided to do, yes it had her signature of mindless maniacal mayhem to it, Rufus took little care. She wanted to make it into a farce, a competition of who could stir up the masses more, and for what? Let the child have her carnage and slaughter, there was something more tactical Rufus had in mind. Sitting down to his dusty dark pint with a side of whatever passes for potato skins around here, the Timekeeper looked within the regular limits of age for such a rowdy crowd. Somewhere in his late thirties or so, enough to pass without requiring to be carded, and certainly intimidating enough with his appearance to unnerve the bartender from thinking twice, let alone anyone else sober enough to stay away from the man with a scar across his eye. The two screens were blaring out the latest updates on the investigations that shook the city. A church, a club, and a diner, most of the public places were on high alert, with blue and brass swarming out looking for clues like teenage detectives and their stupid bloodhound. Sure the lass was messy, but she was keen enough on not leaving a trial of blood right back to base, hopefully. What Rufus did however was far less flamboyant and mysterious, sticking to his guns and what lifetimes of conflict prepared him for. On Third and Twenty Third, a stone's throw way from where he was this morning to collect some old personal effects he had left there as his time serving in the american forces during the great war.

He once was Captain Herb G. Wells, or "George" as the Americans tended to call him on the fact they never felt right pronouncing their damned H's. Correcting them became tedious enough, but the nickname stuck to the character's grave. Rufus certainly looked the part however back in the day, dressed in uniform with that wicked scar across his face. They wondered, but all those who knew the false story behind the mark were dead now, the respectable men he had worked with during the so-called 'War to end all Wars' would be rolling in their graves in knowing that a scant decade later the world would be once again at war. But that, as Rufus learned, was the nature of the human race, war was the one language that they all spoke, and one principle they all understood. It mattered not their family ties as King, Kaiser and Tsar fought. It mattered not nationalities: Serbian, Italian, french and Ottoman came to the fray. It mattered not vast distances: America, China and Siam came to partake as well dragged by the global pull of strategic alliances. It was the greatest ability of mankind to unite against a common foe, and that was what Rufus was placing his bets on. It was only matter of time before The Guild would be forced out to make a reveal, a public announcement of the existence of magic in the world and the danger the humans were in from rogue magi. Of course centuries ago humans burned witches and wizards alive for being ousted, and with a little luck and clever manipulation Rufus could aim the human fear and hatred directly at The Guild. Let all magi be suspect, let The Guild tremble at the wolf they have been protecting.

"Looks like it, what kind of sicko does that sorta stuff and sleeps at night?"

The discussion around the counter seemed to revolve around Cerce's murdering spree, sober and drunkards alike watching in horror as reporters scrambled picking up news of whatever investigation was leading underway, advisories about safe practices, looking out of suspicious characters, reporting to the local authorities and the numbers running across the screen. All the resources and time spent dissecting apart three random sites for the trinity of means, motive, and murderer. All the perfect distraction for Rufus to do his part in their dark orchestra, and to finish the job, a glass or two of Guinness. Watching the clock on the bottom of the screen as the time came closer and closer to the midnight hour. In and out, the old ways from the old days, a way to cause trouble, the Troubles. A random target, unknown and faceless, with not a single care who or what would be destroyed. Somewhere in the city, a bomb was rigged to explode tonight filled with ancient explosives from another era, if the car belonged to someone and would be driven, or if it would just stay there sitting in the lot or structure or street mattered not. A message needed to be sent, it would be small, almost meaningless compared to the recent crimes and usual problems the city had, but for Rufus it was a symbolic act to mark just the beginning. The beginning of the old spark returning in him as his tankard ran close to dry. And evidently as the seconds ticked away towards midnight... A new spark started within the vehicle.

"Aye, terrible little bastard I'm sure, Lass, give me a shot of Jameson to cap off the night." And all he needed now was a shot of cream. But Rufus already made himself a proper car bomb earlier this morning, and this was just the pièce d'occasion he would drink as the hour, minute, and second hand aligned themselves.

00:00:00
Boom.

🦄 Duplicity - D&D Style Fantasy Rp Adventure (Completed)

Thomas Richard Harrison

Location: Floor 3, Tower of the Big Baddie.
Interacting with: Everyone within 5 foot radius of Thomas: (FA, FB, FDW, TZ, CLB & Keystone & Nor)

Thinking back, this probably was not one of the brightest ideas out Thomas had. Of course he had plenty of pretty bad ideas in the past, but most of the time the universe worked its way to keep him mostly safe, that or Master Wolfgang came in to clean up the mess. Such were the benefits of being a sorcerer's apprentice, however right now Thomas was on his own. Proving his worth not to the old master who he had thought would scry him and see his growth, but perhaps more to himself. Did he not take down a few enemies with his magics? Did he not demonstrate a good control of his spells? He was a decent spellslinger now, more than capable of making it mostly on his own to boldly go in with whatever gambit he had and hoped for the best. Although, maybe it was the slightly concerning bloodloss that made Thomas woozy, or perhaps the fact that he had reached his critical phase break, but Thomas seemed to be a bit paler than usual. His complexion drained of the light wheat into a more candle wax white, this probably wasn't the best indication of Thomas' immediate health at first glance, the color in the boy fading away rapidly as the fiercely feeding frenzied furry fiendish ferret drowned in a pool of blood it had to swallow or whatever it was doing to avoid being bloated by the latent space powers. The boy was losing consciousness fast, all it would take was about a liter of bloodloss more or less to make someone feel rather faint as Thomas was. His knees seemed to be shaking growing feeble as the struggle to remain useful to the team burned on.

"Flare..." Thomas weakly uttered. The command word was invoked. The prepared spell surged through at last, engulfing the pallid magician in a swathe of fire. A pyre burst out of his body, as if he spontaneously combusted into a burning wicker man. The flames danced their way around, solar spots as they erupted in their lashing tongues singing the praises of the sun. The light of the radiant sun itself cloaking Thomas in the fateful fire. His teammates had their warning, as much as Thomas could say despite the dreadful feeling of exsanguination. His shift to Moon Phase was also not helping his constitution loss as by the end of it he would lose another point of constitution which he desperately needed to stay afloat. If this spell didn't purge the weasel off then, Thomas was pretty much doomed wasn't he? Nevertheless he had committed to this terrible plan and how it was time he reaped the benefits.

With a pulse of an exploding nova, the harbinger of scorching death, a wave of fiery destruction emerged from the sorcerer-en-flambe. The dispersion of cosmic power a single blast of far-realm flames radiating through an expanding circle of forced inferno. Everything with a five foot radius of Thomas' location would find themselves facing the power of the sun, all the while Thomas felt the chill in the air grip him, shaking as his knees and teeth chattered. The soft gasps that escaped, his joints flexing in as his muscles tried to shiver for the warmth which left him. And even though the pallor of Moon Phase ought to disappear as Thomas moved on to Star Phase, still the bloodloss was far too much to compensate, and the cold and distant personality which dominate Thomas now was truly cold and growing distant...

Space Wizard Needs Food Badly.